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diff --git a/2604-h/2604-h.htm b/2604-h/2604-h.htm index 8d2d1e2..3365545 100644 --- a/2604-h/2604-h.htm +++ b/2604-h/2604-h.htm @@ -26,7 +26,9 @@ </style> </head> <body> + <div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 2604 ***</div> + <h1> THE LONGEST JOURNEY </h1> @@ -13298,7 +13300,9 @@ the music) who gave the right intonation to that a man of his sort might do. He bent down reverently and saluted the child; to whom he had given the name of their mother. </p> + <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 2604 ***</div> + </body> </html> diff --git a/old/ljrny10.txt b/old/ljrny10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d6c800 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ljrny10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12162 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext The Longest Journey, by E. M. Forster + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.* +In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins. + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Title: The Longest Journey + +Author: E. M. Forster + +April, 2001 [Etext #2604] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext The Longest Journey, by E. M. 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Forster + + + + +PART I CAMBRIDGE + +I + +"The cow is there," said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it +out over the carpet. No one spoke. He waited till the end of the +match fell off. Then he said again, "She is there, the cow. +There, now." + +"You have not proved it," said a voice. + +"I have proved it to myself." + +"I have proved to myself that she isn't," said the voice. +"The cow is not there." Ansell frowned and lit another match. + +"She's there for me," he declared. "I don't care whether she's +there for you or not. Whether I'm in Cambridge or Iceland or +dead, the cow will be there." + +It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects. +Do they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or +have they a real existence of their own? It is all very +interesting, but at the same time it is difficult. Hence the cow. +She seemed to make things easier. She was so familiar, so solid, +that surely the truths that she illustrated would in time become +familiar and solid also. Is the cow there or not? This was better +than deciding between objectivity and subjectivity. So at +Oxford, just at the same time, one was asking, "What do our +rooms look like in the vac.?" + +"Look here, Ansell. I'm there--in the meadow--the cow's +there. You're there--the cow's there. Do you agree so far?" +"Well?" + +"Well, if you go, the cow stops; but if I go, the cow goes. +Then what will happen if you stop and I go?" + +Several voices cried out that this was quibbling. + +"I know it is," said the speaker brightly, and silence +descended again, while they tried honestly to think the +matter out. + +Rickie, on whose carpet the matches were being dropped, did not +like to join in the discussion. It was too difficult +for him. He could not even quibble. If he spoke, he should +simply make himself a fool. He preferred to listen, and to +watch the tobacco-smoke stealing out past the window-seat +into the tranquil October air. He could see the court too, +and the college cat teasing the college tortoise, and the +kitchen-men with supper-trays upon their heads. Hot food +for one--that must be for the geographical don, who never +came in for Hall; cold food for three, apparently at +half-a-crown a head, for some one he did not know; hot +food, a la carte--obviously for the ladies haunting the next +staircase; cold food for two, at two shillings--going to +Ansell's rooms for himself and Ansell, and as it passed under +the lamp he saw that it was meringues again. Then the +bedmakers began to arrive, chatting to each other pleasantly, +and he could hear Ansell's bedmaker say, "Oh dang!" when she +found she had to lay Ansell's tablecloth; for there was not a +breath stirring. The great elms were motionless, and seemed still +in the glory of midsummer, for the darkness hid the yellow +blotches on their leaves, and their outlines were still rounded +against the tender sky. Those elms were Dryads--so Rickie +believed or pretended, and the line between the two is subtler +than we admit. At all events they were lady trees, and had for +generations fooled the college statutes by their residence +in the haunts of youth. + +But what about the cow? He returned to her with a start, for this +would never do. He also would try to think the matter out. Was +she there or not? The cow. There or not. He strained his eyes +into the night. + +Either way it was attractive. If she was there, other cows were +there too. The darkness of Europe was dotted with them, and in +the far East their flanks were shining in the rising sun. Great +herds of them stood browsing in pastures where no man came nor +need ever come, or plashed knee-deep by the brink of impassable +rivers. And this, moreover, was the view of Ansell. Yet +Tilliard's view had a good deal in it. One might do worse than +follow Tilliard, and suppose the cow not to be there unless +oneself was there to see her. A cowless world, then, stretched +round him on every side. Yet he had only to peep into a field, +and, click! it would at once become radiant with bovine life. + +Suddenly he realized that this, again, would never do. As +usual, he had missed the whole point, and was overlaying +philosophy with gross and senseless details. For if the cow +was not there, the world and the fields were not there either. +And what would Ansell care about sunlit flanks or impassable +streams? Rickie rebuked his own groveling soul, and turned his +eyes away from the night, which had led him to such absurd +conclusions. + +The fire was dancing, and the shadow of Ansell, who stood close +up to it, seemed to dominate the little room. He was still +talking, or rather jerking, and he was still lighting matches and +dropping their ends upon the carpet. Now and then he would make a +motion with his feet as if he were running quickly backward +upstairs, and would tread on the edge of the fender, so that the +fire-irons went flying and the buttered-bun dishes crashed +against each other in the hearth. The other philosophers were +crouched in odd shapes on the sofa and table and chairs, and one, +who was a little bored, had crawled to the piano and was timidly +trying the Prelude to Rhinegold with his knee upon the soft +pedal. The air was heavy with good tobacco-smoke and the pleasant +warmth of tea, and as Rickie became more sleepy the events of the +day seemed to float one by one before his acquiescent eyes. In +the morning he had read Theocritus, whom he believed to be the +greatest of Greek poets; he had lunched with a merry don and had +tasted Zwieback biscuits; then he had walked with people he +liked, and had walked just long enough; and now his room was full +of other people whom he liked, and when they left he would go and +have supper with Ansell, whom he liked as well as any one. A year +ago he had known none of these joys. He had crept cold and +friendless and ignorant out of a great public school, preparing +for a silent and solitary journey, and praying as a highest +favour that he might be left alone. Cambridge had not answered +his prayer. She had taken and soothed him, and warmed him, and +had laughed at him a little, saying that he must not be so tragic +yet awhile, for his boyhood had been but a dusty corridor that +led to the spacious halls of youth. In one year he had made many +friends and learnt much, and he might learn even more if he could +but concentrate his attention on that cow. + +The fire had died down, and in the gloom the man by the piano +ventured to ask what would happen if an objective cow had a +subjective calf. Ansell gave an angry sigh, and at that moment +there was a tap on the door. + +"Come in!" said Rickie. + +The door opened. A tall young woman stood framed in the light +that fell from the passage. + +"Ladies!" whispered every-one in great agitation. + +"Yes?" he said nervously, limping towards the door (he was rather +lame). "Yes? Please come in. Can I be any good--" + +"Wicked boy!" exclaimed the young lady, advancing a gloved finger +into the room. "Wicked, wicked boy!" + +He clasped his head with his hands. + +"Agnes! Oh how perfectly awful!" + +"Wicked, intolerable boy!" She turned on the electric light. The +philosophers were revealed with unpleasing suddenness. "My +goodness, a tea-party! Oh really, Rickie, you are too bad! I say +again: wicked, abominable, intolerable boy! I'll have you +horsewhipped. If you please"--she turned to the symposium, which +had now risen to its feet "If you please, he asks me and my +brother for the week-end. We accept. At the station, no Rickie. +We drive to where his old lodgings were--Trumpery Road or some +such name--and he's left them. I'm furious, and before I can stop +my brother, he's paid off the cab and there we are stranded. I've +walked--walked for miles. Pray can you tell me what is to be done +with Rickie?" + +"He must indeed be horsewhipped," said Tilliard pleasantly. Then +he made a bolt for the door. + +"Tilliard--do stop--let me introduce Miss Pembroke--don't all +go!" For his friends were flying from his visitor like mists +before the sun. "Oh, Agnes, I am so sorry; I've nothing to say. I +simply forgot you were coming, and everything about you." + +"Thank you, thank you! And how soon will you remember to ask +where Herbert is?" + +"Where is he, then?" + +"I shall not tell you." + +"But didn't he walk with you?" + +"I shall not tell, Rickie. It's part of your punishment. You are +not really sorry yet. I shall punish you again later." + +She was quite right. Rickie was not as much upset as he ought to +have been. He was sorry that he had forgotten, and that he had +caused his visitors inconvenience. But he did not feel profoundly +degraded, as a young man should who has acted discourteously to a +young lady. Had he acted discourteously to his bedmaker or his +gyp, he would have minded just as much, which was not polite of +him. + +"First, I'll go and get food. Do sit down and rest. Oh, let me +introduce--" + +Ansell was now the sole remnant of the discussion party. He still +stood on the hearthrug with a burnt match in his hand. Miss +Pembroke's arrival had never disturbed him. + +"Let me introduce Mr. Ansell--Miss Pembroke." + +There came an awful moment--a moment when he almost regretted +that he had a clever friend. Ansell remained absolutely +motionless, moving neither hand nor head. Such behaviour is so +unknown that Miss Pembroke did not realize what had happened, and +kept her own hand stretched out longer than is maidenly. + +"Coming to supper?" asked Ansell in low, grave tones. + +"I don't think so," said Rickie helplessly. + +Ansell departed without another word. + +"Don't mind us," said Miss Pembroke pleasantly. "Why shouldn't +you keep your engagement with your friend? Herbert's finding +lodgings,--that's why he's not here,--and they're sure to be able +to give us some dinner. What jolly rooms you've got!" + +"Oh no--not a bit. I say, I am sorry. I am sorry. I am most +awfully sorry." + +"What about?" + +"Ansell" Then he burst forth. "Ansell isn't a gentleman. His +father's a draper. His uncles are farmers. He's here because he's +so clever--just on account of his brains. Now, sit down. He isn't +a gentleman at all." And he hurried off to order some dinner. + +"What a snob the boy is getting!" thought Agnes, a good deal +mollified. It never struck her that those could be the words of +affection--that Rickie would never have spoken them about a +person whom he disliked. Nor did it strike her that Ansell's +humble birth scarcely explained the quality of his rudeness. She +was willing to find life full of trivialities. Six months ago and +she might have minded; but now--she cared not what men might do +unto her, for she had her own splendid lover, who could have +knocked all these unhealthy undergraduates into a cocked-hat. She +dared not tell Gerald a word of what had happened: he might have +come up from wherever he was and half killed Ansell. And she +determined not to tell her brother either, for her nature was +kindly, and it pleased her to pass things over. + +She took off her gloves, and then she took off her ear-rings and +began to admire them. These ear-rings were a freak of hers--her +only freak. She had always wanted some, and the day Gerald asked +her to marry him she went to a shop and had her ears pierced. In +some wonderful way she knew that it was right. And he had given +her the rings--little gold knobs, copied, the jeweller told them, +from something prehistoric and he had kissed the spots of blood +on her handkerchief. Herbert, as usual, had been shocked. + +"I can't help it," she cried, springing up. "I'm not like other +girls." She began to pace about Rickie's room, for she hated to +keep quiet. There was nothing much to see in it. The pictures +were not attractive, nor did they attract her--school groups, +Watts' "Sir Percival," a dog running after a rabbit, a man +running after a maid, a cheap brown Madonna in a cheap green +frame--in short, a collection where one mediocrity was generally +cancelled by another. Over the door there hung a long photograph +of a city with waterways, which Agnes, who had never been to +Venice, took to be Venice, but which people who had been to +Stockholm knew to be Stockholm. Rickie's mother, looking rather +sweet, was standing on the mantelpiece. Some more pictures had +just arrived from the framers and were leaning with their faces +to the wall, but she did not bother to turn them round. On the +table were dirty teacups, a flat chocolate cake, and Omar +Khayyam, with an Oswego biscuit between his pages. Also a vase +filled with the crimson leaves of autumn. This made her smile. + +Then she saw her host's shoes: he had left them lying on the +sofa. Rickie was slightly deformed, and so the shoes were not the +same size, and one of them had a thick heel to help him towards +an even walk. "Ugh!" she exclaimed, and removed them gingerly to +the bedroom. There she saw other shoes and boots and pumps, a +whole row of them, all deformed. "Ugh! Poor boy! It is too bad. +Why shouldn't he be like other people? This hereditary business +is too awful." She shut the door with a sigh. Then she recalled +the perfect form of Gerald, his athletic walk, the poise of his +shoulders, his arms stretched forward to receive her. Gradually +she was comforted. + +"I beg your pardon, miss, but might I ask how many to lay?" It +was the bedmaker, Mrs. Aberdeen. + +"Three, I think," said Agnes, smiling pleasantly. "Mr. Elliot'll +be back in a minute. He has gone to order dinner. + +"Thank you, miss." + +"Plenty of teacups to wash up!" + +"But teacups is easy washing, particularly Mr. Elliot's." + +"Why are his so easy?" + +"Because no nasty corners in them to hold the dirt. Mr. +Anderson--he's below-has crinkly noctagons, and one wouldn't +believe the difference. It was I bought these for Mr. Elliot. His +one thought is to save one trouble. I never seed such a +thoughtful gentleman. The world, I say, will be the better for +him." She took the teacups into the gyp room, and then returned +with the tablecloth, and added, "if he's spared." + +"I'm afraid he isn't strong," said Agnes. + +"Oh, miss, his nose! I don't know what he'd say if he knew I +mentioned his nose, but really I must speak to someone, and he +has neither father nor mother. His nose! It poured twice with +blood in the Long." + +"Yes?" + +"It's a thing that ought to be known. I assure you, that little +room!... And in any case, Mr. Elliot's a gentleman that can ill +afford to lose it. Luckily his friends were up; and I always say +they're more like brothers than anything else." + +"Nice for him. He has no real brothers." + +"Oh, Mr. Hornblower, he is a merry gentleman, and Mr. Tilliard +too! And Mr. Elliot himself likes his romp at times. Why, it's +the merriest staircase in the buildings! Last night the bedmaker +from W said to me,'What are you doing to my gentlemen? Here's Mr. +Ansell come back 'ot with his collar flopping.' I said, 'And a +good thing.' Some bedders keep their gentlemen just so; but +surely, miss, the world being what it is, the longer one is able +to laugh in it the better." + +Bedmakers have to be comic and dishonest. It is expected of them. +In a picture of university life it is their only function. So +when we meet one who has the face of a lady, and feelings of +which a lady might be proud, we pass her by. + +"Yes?" said Miss Pembroke, and then their talk was stopped by the +arrival of her brother. + +"It is too bad!" he exclaimed. "It is really too bad." + +"Now, Bertie boy, Bertie boy! I'll have no peevishness." + +"I am not peevish, Agnes, but I have a full right to be. Pray, +why did he not meet us? Why did he not provide rooms? And pray, +why did you leave me to do all the settling? All the lodgings I +knew are full, and our bedrooms look into a mews. I cannot help +it. And then--look here! It really is too bad." He held up his +foot like a wounded dog. It was dripping with water. + +"Oho! This explains the peevishness. Off with it at once. It'll +be another of your colds." + +"I really think I had better." He sat down by the fire and +daintily unlaced his boot. "I notice a great change in university +tone. I can never remember swaggering three abreast along the +pavement and charging inoffensive visitors into a gutter when I +was an undergraduate. One of the men, too, wore an Eton tie. But +the others, I should say, came from very queer schools, if they +came from any schools at all." + +Mr. Pembroke was nearly twenty years older than his sister, and +had never been as handsome. But he was not at all the person to +knock into a gutter, for though not in orders, he had the air of +being on the verge of them, and his features, as well as his +clothes, had the clerical cut. In his presence conversation +became pure and colourless and full of understatements, and--just +as if he was a real clergyman--neither men nor boys ever forgot +that he was there. He had observed this, and it pleased him very +much. His conscience permitted him to enter the Church whenever +his profession, which was the scholastic, should demand it. + +"No gutter in the world's as wet as this," said Agnes, who had +peeled off her brother's sock, and was now toasting it at the +embers on a pair of tongs. + +"Surely you know the running water by the edge of the Trumpington +road? It's turned on occasionally to clear away the refuse--a +most primitive idea. When I was up we had a joke about it, and +called it the 'Pem.'" + +"How complimentary!" + +"You foolish girl,--not after me, of course. We called it the +'Pem' because it is close to Pembroke College. I remember--" He +smiled a little, and twiddled his toes. Then he remembered the +bedmaker, and said, "My sock is now dry. My sock, please." + +"Your sock is sopping. No, you don't!" She twitched the tongs +away from him. Mrs. Aberdeen, without speaking, fetched a pair of +Rickie's socks and a pair of Rickie's shoes. + +"Thank you; ah, thank you. I am sure Mr. Elliot would allow it." + +Then he said in French to his sister, "Has there been the +slightest sign of Frederick?" + +"Now, do call him Rickie, and talk English. I found him here. He +had forgotten about us, and was very sorry. Now he's gone to get +some dinner, and I can't think why he isn't back." + +Mrs. Aberdeen left them. + +"He wants pulling up sharply. There is nothing original in +absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the +lower classes have no nous. However can I wear such +deformities?" For he had been madly trying to cram a right-hand +foot into a left-hand shoe. + +"Don't!" said Agnes hastily. "Don't touch the poor fellow's +things." The sight of the smart, stubby patent leather made her +almost feel faint. She had known Rickie for many years, but it +seemed so dreadful and so different now that he was a man. It was +her first great contact with the abnormal, and unknown fibres of +her being rose in revolt against it. She frowned when she heard +his uneven tread upon the stairs. + +"Agnes--before he arrives--you ought never to have left me and +gone to his rooms alone. A most elementary transgression. Imagine +the unpleasantness if you had found him with friends. If Gerald--" + +Rickie by now had got into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost +his head, and when his turn came--he had had to wait--he had +yielded his place to those behind, saying that he didn't matter. +And he had wasted more precious time buying bananas, though he +knew that the Pembrokes were not partial to fruit. Amid much +tardy and chaotic hospitality the meal got under way. All the +spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. Aberdeen's virtues were +not practical. The fish seemed never to have been alive, the meat +had no kick, and the cork of the college claret slid forth silently, +as if ashamed of the contents. Agnes was particularly pleasant. But +her brother could not recover himself. He still remembered their +desolate arrival, and he could feel the waters of the Pem eating +into his instep. + +"Rickie," cried the lady, "are you aware that you haven't +congratulated me on my engagement?" + +Rickie laughed nervously, and said, "Why no! No more I have." + +"Say something pretty, then." + +"I hope you'll be very happy," he mumbled. "But I don't know +anything about marriage." + +"Oh, you awful boy! Herbert, isn't he just the same? But you do +know something about Gerald, so don't be so chilly and cautious. +I've just realized, looking at those groups, that you must have +been at school together. Did you come much across him?" + +"Very little," he answered, and sounded shy. He got up hastily, +and began to muddle with the coffee. + +"But he was in the same house. Surely that's a house group?" + +"He was a prefect." He made his coffee on the simple system. One +had a brown pot, into which the boiling stuff was poured. Just +before serving one put in a drop of cold water, and the idea was +that the grounds fell to the bottom. + +"Wasn't he a kind of athletic marvel? Couldn't he knock any boy +or master down?" + +"Yes." + +"If he had wanted to," said Mr. Pembroke, who had not spoken for +some time. + +"If he had wanted to," echoed Rickie. "I do hope, Agnes, you'll +be most awfully happy. I don't know anything about the army, but +I should think it must be most awfully interesting." + +Mr. Pembroke laughed faintly. + +"Yes, Rickie. The army is a most interesting profession,--the +profession of Wellington and Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most +interesting profession, as you observe. A profession that may +mean death--death, rather than dishonour." + +"That's nice," said Rickie, speaking to himself. "Any profession +may mean dishonour, but one isn't allowed to die instead. The +army's different. If a soldier makes a mess, it's thought rather +decent of him, isn't it, if he blows out his brains? In the other +professions it somehow seems cowardly." + +"I am not competent to pronounce," said Mr. Pembroke, who was not +accustomed to have his schoolroom satire commented on. "I merely +know that the army is the finest profession in the world. Which +reminds me, Rickie--have you been thinking about yours?" + +"No." + +"Not at all?" + +"No." + +"Now, Herbert, don't bother him. Have another meringue." + +"But, Rickie, my dear boy, you're twenty. It's time you thought. +The Tripos is the beginning of life, not the end. In less than +two years you will have got your B.A. What are you going to do +with it?" + +"I don't know." + +"You're M.A., aren't you?" asked Agnes; but her brother +proceeded-- + +"I have seen so many promising, brilliant lives wrecked simply on +account of this--not settling soon enough. My dear boy, you must +think. Consult your tastes if possible--but think. You have not a +moment to lose. The Bar, like your father?" + +"Oh, I wouldn't like that at all." + +"I don't mention the Church." + +"Oh, Rickie, do be a clergyman!" said Miss Pembroke. "You'd be +simply killing in a wide-awake." + +He looked at his guests hopelessly. Their kindness and competence +overwhelmed him. "I wish I could talk to them as I talk to +myself," he thought. "I'm not such an ass when I talk to myself. +I don't believe, for instance, that quite all I thought about the +cow was rot." Aloud he said, "I've sometimes wondered about +writing." + +"Writing?" said Mr. Pembroke, with the tone of one who gives +everything its trial. "Well, what about writing? What kind of +writing?" + +"I rather like,"--he suppressed something in his throat,--"I +rather like trying to write little stories." + +"Why, I made sure it was poetry!" said Agnes. "You're just the +boy for poetry." + +"I had no idea you wrote. Would you let me see something? Then I +could judge." + +The author shook his head. "I don't show it to any one. It isn't +anything. I just try because it amuses me." + +"What is it about?" + +"Silly nonsense." + +"Are you ever going to show it to any one?" + +"I don't think so." + +Mr. Pembroke did not reply, firstly, because the meringue he was +eating was, after all, Rickie's; secondly, because it was gluey +and stuck his jaws together. Agnes observed that the writing was +really a very good idea: there was Rickie's aunt,--she could push +him. + +"Aunt Emily never pushes any one; she says they always rebound +and crush her." + +"I only had the pleasure of seeing your aunt once. I should have +thought her a quite uncrushable person. But she would be sure to +help you." + +"I couldn't show her anything. She'd think them even sillier than +they are." + +"Always running yourself down! There speaks the artist!" + +"I'm not modest," he said anxiously. "I just know they're bad." + +Mr. Pembroke's teeth were clear of meringue, and he could refrain +no longer. "My dear Rickie, your father and mother are dead, and +you often say your aunt takes no interest in you. Therefore your +life depends on yourself. Think it over carefully, but settle, +and having once settled, stick. If you think that this writing is +practicable, and that you could make your living by it--that you +could, if needs be, support a wife--then by all means write. But +you must work. Work and drudge. Begin at the bottom of the ladder +and work upwards." + +Rickie's head drooped. Any metaphor silenced him. He never +thought of replying that art is not a ladder--with a curate, as +it were, on the first rung, a rector on the second, and a bishop, +still nearer heaven, at the top. He never retorted that the +artist is not a bricklayer at all, but a horseman, whose business +it is to catch Pegasus at once, not to practise for him by +mounting tamer colts. This is hard, hot, and generally ungraceful +work, but it is not drudgery. For drudgery is not art, and cannot +lead to it. + +"Of course I don't really think about writing," he said, as he +poured the cold water into the coffee. "Even if my things ever +were decent, I don't think the magazines would take them, and the +magazines are one's only chance. I read somewhere, too, that +Marie Corelli's about the only person who makes a thing out of +literature. I'm certain it wouldn't pay me." + +"I never mentioned the word 'pay,'" said Mr. Pembroke uneasily. + +"You must not consider money. There are ideals too." + +"I have no ideals." + +Rickie!" she exclaimed. "Horrible boy!" + +"No, Agnes, I have no ideals." Then he got very red, for it was a +phrase he had caught from Ansell, and he could not remember what +came next. + +"The person who has no ideals," she exclaimed, "is to be pitied." + +"I think so too," said Mr. Pembroke, sipping his coffee. "Life +without an ideal would be like the sky without the sun." + +Rickie looked towards the night, wherein there now twinkled +innumerable stars--gods and heroes, virgins and brides, to whom +the Greeks have given their names. + +"Life without an ideal--" repeated Mr. Pembroke, and then +stopped, for his mouth was full of coffee grounds. The same +affliction had overtaken Agnes. After a little jocose laughter +they departed to their lodgings, and Rickie, having seen them as +far as the porter's lodge, hurried, singing as he went, to +Ansell's room, burst open the door, and said, "Look here! +Whatever do you mean by it?" + +"By what?" Ansell was sitting alone with a piece of paper in +front of him. On it was a diagram--a circle inside a square, +inside which was again a square. + +"By being so rude. You're no gentleman, and I told her so." He +slammed him on the head with a sofa cushion. "I'm certain one +ought to be polite, even to people who aren't saved." ("Not +saved" was a phrase they applied just then to those whom they did +not like or intimately know.) "And I believe she is saved. I +never knew any one so always good-tempered and kind. She's been +kind to me ever since I knew her. I wish you'd heard her trying +to stop her brother: you'd have certainly come round. Not but +what he was only being nice as well. But she is really nice. And +I thought she came into the room so beautifully. Do you know--oh, +of course, you despise music--but Anderson was playing Wagner, +and he'd just got to the part where they sing + + 'Rheingold! + 'Rheingold! + +and the sun strikes into the waters, and the music, which up to +then has so often been in E flat--" + +"Goes into D sharp. I have not understood a single word, partly +because you talk as if your mouth was full of plums, partly +because I don't know whom you're talking about." +"Miss Pembroke--whom you saw." + +"I saw no one." + +"Who came in?" + +"No one came in." + +"You're an ass!" shrieked Rickie. "She came in. You saw her come +in. She and her brother have been to dinner." + +"You only think so. They were not really there." + +"But they stop till Monday." + +"You only think that they are stopping." + +"But--oh, look here, shut up! The girl like an empress--" + +"I saw no empress, nor any girl, nor have you seen them." + +"Ansell, don't rag." + +"Elliot, I never rag, and you know it. She was not really there." + +There was a moment's silence. Then Rickie exclaimed, "I've got +you. You say--or was it Tilliard?--no, YOU say that the cow's +there. Well--there these people are, then. Got you. Yah!" + +"Did it never strike you that phenomena may be of two kinds: ONE, +those which have a real existence, such as the cow; TWO, those +which are the subjective product of a diseased imagination, and +which, to our destruction, we invest with the semblance of +reality? If this never struck you, let it strike you now." + +Rickie spoke again, but received no answer. He paced a little up +and down the sombre roam. Then he sat on the edge of the table +and watched his clever friend draw within the square a circle, +and within the circle a square, and inside that another circle, +and inside that another square. + +"Whv will you do that?" + +No answer. + +"Are they real?" + +"The inside one is--the one in the middle of everything, that +there's never room enough to draw." + + + +II + +A little this side of Madingley, to the left of the road, there +is a secluded dell, paved with grass and planted with fir-trees. +It could not have been worth a visit twenty years ago, for then +it was only a scar of chalk, and it is not worth a visit at the +present day, for the trees have grown too thick and choked it. +But when Rickie was up, it chanced to be the brief season of its +romance, a season as brief for a chalk-pit as a man--its divine +interval between the bareness of boyhood and the stuffiness of +age. Rickie had discovered it in his second term, when the +January snows had melted and left fiords and lagoons of clearest +water between the inequalities of the floor. The place looked as +big as Switzerland or Norway--as indeed for the moment it was-- +and he came upon it at a time when his life too was beginning to +expand. Accordingly the dell became for him a kind of church--a +church where indeed you could do anything you liked, but where +anything you did would be transfigured. Like the ancient Greeks, +he could even laugh at his holy place and leave it no less holy. +He chatted gaily about it, and about the pleasant thoughts with +which it inspired him; he took his friends there; he even took +people whom he did not like. "Procul este, profani!" exclaimed +a delighted aesthete on being introduced to it. But this was +never to be the attitude of Rickie. He did not love the vulgar +herd, but he knew that his own vulgarity would be greater if he +forbade it ingress, and that it was not by preciosity that he +would attain to the intimate spirit of the dell. Indeed, if he +had agreed with the aesthete, he would possibly not have +introduced him. If the dell was to bear any inscription, he would +have liked it to be "This way to Heaven," painted on a sign-post +by the high-road, and he did not realize till later years that +the number of visitors would not thereby have sensibly increased. + +On the blessed Monday that the Pembrokes left, he walked out here +with three friends. It was a day when the sky seemed enormous. +One cloud, as large as a continent, was voyaging near the sun, +whilst other clouds seemed anchored to the horizon, too lazy or +too happy to move. The sky itself was of the palest blue, paling +to white where it approached the earth; and the earth, brown, +wet, and odorous, was engaged beneath it on its yearly duty of +decay. Rickie was open to the complexities of autumn; he felt +extremely tiny--extremely tiny and extremely important; and +perhaps the combination is as fair as any that exists. He hoped +that all his life he would never be peevish or unkind. + +"Elliot is in a dangerous state," said Ansell. They had reached +the dell, and had stood for some time in silence, each leaning +against a tree. It was too wet to sit down. + +"How's that?" asked Rickie, who had not known he was in any state +at all. He shut up Keats, whom he thought he had been reading, +and slipped him back into his coat-pocket. Scarcely ever was he +without a book. + +"He's trying to like people." + +"Then he's done for," said Widdrington. "He's dead." + +"He's trying to like Hornblower." + +The others gave shrill agonized cries. + +"He wants to bind the college together. He wants to link us to +the beefy set." + +"I do like Hornblower," he protested. "I don't try." + +"And Hornblower tries to like you." + +"That part doesn't matter." + +"But he does try to like you. He tries not to despise you. It is +altogether a most public-spirited affair." + +"Tilliard started them," said Widdrington. "Tilliard thinks it +such a pity the college should be split into sets." + +"Oh, Tilliard!" said Ansell, with much irritation. "But what can +you expect from a person who's eternally beautiful? The other +night we had been discussing a long time, and suddenly the light +was turned on. Every one else looked a sight, as they ought. But +there was Tilliard, sitting neatly on a little chair, like an +undersized god, with not a curl crooked. I should say he will get +into the Foreign Office." + +"Why are most of us so ugly?" laughed Rickie. + +"It's merely a sign of our salvation--merely another sign that +the college is split." + +"The college isn't split," cried Rickie, who got excited on this +subject with unfailing regularity. "The college is, and has been, +and always will be, one. What you call the beefy set aren't a set +at all. They're just the rowing people, and naturally they +chiefly see each other; but they're always nice to me or to any +one. Of course, they think us rather asses, but it's quite in a +pleasant way." + +"That's my whole objection," said Ansell. "What right have they +to think us asses in a pleasant way? Why don't they hate us? What +right has Hornblower to smack me on the back when I've been rude +to him?" + +"Well, what right have you to be rude to him?" + +"Because I hate him. You think it is so splendid to hate no one. +I tell you it is a crime. You want to love every one equally, and +that's worse than impossible it's wrong. When you denounce sets, +you're really trying to destroy friendship." + +"I maintain," said Rickie--it was a verb he clung to, in the hope +that it would lend stability to what followed--"I maintain that +one can like many more people than one supposes." + +"And I maintain that you hate many more people than you pretend." + +"I hate no one," he exclaimed with extraordinary vehemence, and +the dell re-echoed that it hated no one. + +"We are obliged to believe you," said Widdrington, smiling a +little "but we are sorry about it." + +"Not even your father?" asked Ansell. + +Rickie was silent. + +"Not even your father?" + +The cloud above extended a great promontory across the sun. It +only lay there for a moment, yet that was enough to summon the +lurking coldness from the earth. + +"Does he hate his father?" said Widdrington, who had not known. +"Oh, good!" + +"But his father's dead. He will say it doesn't count." + + "Still, it's something. Do you hate yours?" + +Ansell did not reply. Rickie said: "I say, I wonder whether one +ought to talk like this?" + +"About hating dead people?" + +"Yes--" + +"Did you hate your mother?" asked Widdrington. + +Rickie turned crimson. + +"I don't see Hornblower's such a rotter," remarked the other man, +whose name was James. + +"James, you are diplomatic," said Ansell. "You are trying to tide +over an awkward moment. You can go." + +Widdrington was crimson too. In his wish to be sprightly he had +used words without thinking of their meanings. Suddenly he +realized that "father" and "mother" really meant father and +mother--people whom he had himself at home. He was very +uncomfortable, and thought Rickie had been rather queer. He too +tried to revert to Hornblower, but Ansell would not let him. The +sun came out, and struck on the white ramparts of the dell. +Rickie looked straight at it. Then he said abruptly-- + +"I think I want to talk." + +"I think you do," replied Ansell. + +"Shouldn't I be rather a fool if I went through Cambridge without +talking? It's said never to come so easy again. All the people +are dead too. I can't see why I shouldn't tell you most things +about my birth and parentage and education." + +"Talk away. If you bore us, we have books." + +With this invitation Rickie began to relate his history. The +reader who has no book will be obliged to listen to it. + +Some people spend their lives in a suburb, and not for any urgent +reason. This had been the fate of Rickie. He had opened his eyes +to filmy heavens, and taken his first walk on asphalt. He had +seen civilization as a row of semi-detached villas, and society +as a state in which men do not know the men who live next door. +He had himself become part of the grey monotony that surrounds +all cities. There was no necessity for this--it was only rather +convenient to his father. + +Mr. Elliot was a barrister. In appearance he resembled his son, +being weakly and lame, with hollow little cheeks, a broad white +band of forehead, and stiff impoverished hair. His voice, which +he did not transmit, was very suave, with a fine command of +cynical intonation. By altering it ever so little he could make +people wince, especially if they were simple or poor. Nor did he +transmit his eyes. Their peculiar flatness, as if the soul looked +through dirty window-panes, the unkindness of them, the +cowardice, the fear in them, were to trouble the world no longer. + +He married a girl whose voice was beautiful. There was no caress +in it yet all who heard it were soothed, as though the world held +some unexpected blessing. She called to her dogs one night over +invisible waters, and he, a tourist up on the bridge, thought +"that is extraordinarily adequate." In time he discovered that +her figure, face, and thoughts were adequate also, and as she was +not impossible socially, he married her. "I have taken a plunge," +he told his family. The family, hostile at first, had not a word +to say when the woman was introduced to them; and his sister +declared that the plunge had been taken from the opposite bank. + +Things only went right for a little time. Though beautiful +without and within, Mrs. Elliot had not the gift of making her +home beautiful; and one day, when she bought a carpet for the +dining-room that clashed, he laughed gently, said he "really +couldn't," and departed. Departure is perhaps too strong a word. +In Mrs. Elliot's mouth it became, "My husband has to sleep more +in town." He often came down to see them, nearly always +unexpectedly, and occasionally they went to see him. "Father's +house," as Rickie called it, only had three rooms, but these were +full of books and pictures and flowers; and the flowers, instead +of being squashed down into the vases as they were in mummy's +house, rose gracefully from frames of lead which lay coiled at +the bottom, as doubtless the sea serpent has to lie, coiled at +the bottom of the sea. Once he was let to lift a frame out--only +once, for he dropped some water on a creton. "I think he's +going to have taste," said Mr. Elliot languidly. "It is quite +possible," his wife replied. She had not taken off her hat and +gloves, nor even pulled up her veil. Mr. Elliot laughed, and soon +afterwards another lady came in, and they--went away. + +"Why does father always laugh?" asked Rickie in the evening when +he and his mother were sitting in the nursery. + +"It is a way of your father's." + +"Why does he always laugh at me? Am I so funny?" Then after a +pause, "You have no sense of humour, have you, mummy?" + +Mrs. Elliot, who was raising a thread of cotton to her lips, held +it suspended in amazement. + +"You told him so this afternoon. But I have seen you laugh." He +nodded wisely. "I have seen you laugh ever so often. One day you +were laughing alone all down in the sweet peas." + +"Was I?" + +"Yes. Were you laughing at me?" + +"I was not thinking about you. Cotton, please--a reel of No. 50 +white from my chest of drawers. Left hand drawer. Now which is +your left hand?" + +"The side my pocket is." + +"And if you had no pocket?" + +"The side my bad foot is." + +"I meant you to say, 'the side my heart is,' " said Mrs. Elliot, +holding up the duster between them. "Most of us--I mean all of +us--can feel on one side a little watch, that never stops +ticking. So even if you had no bad foot you would still know +which is the left. No. 50 white, please. No; I'll get it myself." +For she had remembered that the dark passage frightened him. + +These were the outlines. Rickie filled them in with the slowness +and the accuracy of a child. He was never told anything, but he +discovered for himself that his father and mother did not love +each other, and that his mother was lovable. He discovered that +Mr. Elliot had dubbed him Rickie because he was rickety, that he +took pleasure in alluding to his son's deformity, and was sorry +that it was not more serious than his own. Mr. Elliot had not one +scrap of genius. He gathered the pictures and the books and the +flower-supports mechanically, not in any impulse of love. He +passed for a cultured man because he knew how to select, and he +passed for an unconventional man because he did not select quite +like other people. In reality he never did or said or thought one +single thing that had the slightest beauty or value. And in time +Rickie discovered this as well. + +The boy grew up in great loneliness. He worshipped his mother, +and she was fond of him. But she was dignified and reticent, and +pathos, like tattle, was disgusting to her. She was afraid of +intimacy, in case it led to confidences and tears, and so all her +life she held her son at a little distance. Her kindness and +unselfishness knew no limits, but if he tried to be dramatic and +thank her, she told him not to be a little goose. And so the only +person he came to know at all was himself. He would play +Halma against himself. He would conduct solitary conversations, +in which one part of him asked and another part answered. It was +an exciting game, and concluded with the formula: "Good-bye. +Thank you. I am glad to have met you. I hope before long we shall +enjoy another chat." And then perhaps he would sob for +loneliness, for he would see real people--real brothers, real +friends--doing in warm life the things he had pretended. "Shall I +ever have a friend?" he demanded at the age of twelve. "I don't +see how. They walk too fast. And a brother I shall never have." + +("No loss," interrupted Widdrington. + +"But I shall never have one, and so I quite want one, even now.") + +When he was thirteen Mr. Elliot entered on his illness. The +pretty rooms in town would not do for an invalid, and so he came +back to his home. One of the first consequences was that Rickie +was sent to a public school. Mrs. Elliot did what she could, but +she had no hold whatever over her husband. + +"He worries me," he declared. "He's a joke of which I have got +tired." + +"Would it be possible to send him to a private tutor's?" + +"No," said Mr. Elliot, who had all the money. "Coddling." + +"I agree that boys ought to rough it; but when a boy is lame and +very delicate, he roughs it sufficiently if he leaves home. +Rickie can't play games. He doesn't make friends. He isn't +brilliant. Thinking it over, I feel that as it's like this, we +can't ever hope to give him the ordinary education. Perhaps you +could think it over too." No. + +"I am sure that things are best for him as they are. The +day-school knocks quite as many corners off him as he can stand. +He hates it, but it is good for him. A public school will not be +good for him. It is too rough. Instead of getting manly and hard, +he will--" + +"My head, please." + +Rickie departed in a state of bewildered misery, which was +scarcely ever to grow clearer. + +Each holiday he found his father more irritable, and a little +weaker. Mrs. Elliot was quickly growing old. She had to manage +the servants, to hush the neighbouring children, to answer the +correspondence, to paper and re-paper the rooms--and all for the +sake of a man whom she did not like, and who did not conceal his +dislike for her. One day she found Rickie tearful, and said +rather crossly, "Well, what is it this time?" + +He replied, "Oh, mummy, I've seen your wrinkles your grey hair-- +I'm unhappy." + +Sudden tenderness overcame her, and she cried, "My darling, what +does it matter? Whatever does it matter now?" + +He had never known her so emotional. Yet even better did he +remember another incident. Hearing high voices from his father's +room, he went upstairs in the hope that the sound of his tread +might stop them. Mrs. Elliot burst open the door, and seeing him, +exclaimed, "My dear! If you please, he's hit me." She tried to +laugh it off, but a few hours later he saw the bruise which the +stick of the invalid had raised upon his mother's hand. + +God alone knows how far we are in the grip of our bodies. He +alone can judge how far the cruelty of Mr. Elliot was the outcome +of extenuating circumstances. But Mrs. Elliot could accurately +judge of its extent. + +At last he died. Rickie was now fifteen, and got off a whole +week's school for the funeral. His mother was rather strange. She +was much happier, she looked younger, and her mourning was as +unobtrusive as convention permitted. All this he had expected. +But she seemed to be watching him, and to be extremely anxious +for his opinion on any, subject--more especially on his father. +Why? At last he saw that she was trying to establish confidence +between them. But confidence cannot be established in a moment. +They were both shy. The habit of years was upon them, and they +alluded to the death of Mr. Elliot as an irreparable loss. + +"Now that your father has gone, things will be very different." + +"Shall we be poorer, mother?" No. + +"Oh!" + +"But naturally things will be very different." + +"Yes, naturally." + +"For instance, your poor father liked being near London, but I +almost think we might move. Would you like that?" + +"Of course, mummy." He looked down at the ground. He was not +accustomed to being consulted, and it bewildered him. + +"Perhaps you might like quite a different life better?" + +He giggled. + +"It's a little difficult for me," said Mrs. Elliot, pacing +vigorously up and down the room, and more and more did her black +dress seem a mockery. "In some ways you ought to be consulted: +nearly all the money is left to you, as you must hear some time +or other. But in other ways you're only a boy. What am I to do?" + +"I don't know," he replied, appearing more helpless and unhelpful +than he really was. + +"For instance, would you like me to arrange things exactly as I +like?" + +"Oh do!" he exclaimed, thinking this a most brilliant suggestion. + +"The very nicest thing of all." And he added, in his +half-pedantic, half-pleasing way, "I shall be as wax in your +hands, mamma." + +She smiled. "Very well, darling. You shall be." And she pressed +him lovingly, as though she would mould him into something +beautiful. + +For the next few days great preparations were in the air. She +went to see his father's sister, the gifted and vivacious Aunt +Emily. They were to live in the country--somewhere right in the +country, with grass and trees up to the door, and birds singing +everywhere, and a tutor. For he was not to go back to school. +Unbelievable! He was never to go back to school, and the head- +master had written saying that he regretted the step, but that +possibly it was a wise one. + +It was raw weather, and Mrs. Elliot watched over him with +ceaseless tenderness. It seemed as if she could not do too much +to shield him and to draw him nearer to her. + +"Put on your greatcoat, dearest," she said to him. + +"I don't think I want it," answered Rickie, remembering that he +was now fifteen. + +"The wind is bitter. You ought to put it on." + +"But it's so heavy." + +"Do put it on, dear." + +He was not very often irritable or rude, but he answered, "Oh, I +shan't catch cold. I do wish you wouldn't keep on bothering." +He did not catch cold, but while he was out his mother died. She +only survived her husband eleven days, a coincidence which was +recorded on their tombstone. + +Such, in substance, was the story which Rickie told his friends +as they stood together in the shelter of the dell. The green bank +at the entrance hid the road and the world, and now, as in +spring, they could see nothing but snow-white ramparts and the +evergreen foliage of the firs. Only from time to time would a +beech leaf flutter in from the woods above, to comment on the +waning year, and the warmth and radiance of the sun would vanish +behind a passing cloud. + +About the greatcoat he did not tell them, for he could not have +spoken of it without tears. + + + +III + +Mr. Ansell, a provincial draper of moderate prosperity, ought by +rights to have been classed not with the cow, but with those +phenomena that are not really there. But his son, with pardonable +illogicality, excepted him. He never suspected that his father +might be the subjective product of a diseased imagination. From +his earliest years he had taken him for granted, as a most +undeniable and lovable fact. To be born one thing and grow up +another--Ansell had accomplished this without weakening one of +the ties that bound him to his home. The rooms above the shop +still seemed as comfortable, the garden behind it as gracious, as +they had seemed fifteen years before, when he would sit behind +Miss Appleblossom's central throne, and she, like some +allegorical figure, would send the change and receipted bills +spinning away from her in little boxwood balls. At first the +young man had attributed these happy relations to his own tact. +But in time he perceived that the tact was all on the side of his +father. Mr. Ansell was not merely a man of some education; he had +what no education can bring--the power of detecting what is +important. Like many fathers, he had spared no expense over his +boy,--he had borrowed money to start him at a rapacious and +fashionable private school; he had sent him to tutors; he had +sent him to Cambridge. But he knew that all this was not the +important thing. The important thing was freedom. The boy must +use his education as he chose, and if he paid his father back it +would certainly not be in his own coin. So when Stewart said, "At +Cambridge, can I read for the Moral Science Tripos?" Mr. Ansell +had only replied, "This philosophy--do you say that it lies +behind everything?" + +"Yes, I think so. It tries to discover what is good and true." + +"Then, my boy, you had better read as much of it as you can." + +And a year later: "I'd like to take up this philosophy seriously, +but I don't feel justified." + +"Why not?" + +"Because it brings in no return. I think I'm a great philosopher, +but then all philosophers think that, though they don't dare to +say so. But, however great I am. I shan't earn money. Perhaps I +shan't ever be able to keep myself. I shan't even get a good +social position. You've only to say one word, and I'll work for +the Civil Service. I'm good enough to get in high." + +Mr. Ansell liked money and social position. But he knew that +there is a more important thing, and replied, "You must take up +this philosophy seriously, I think." + +"Another thing--there are the girls." + +"There is enough money now to get Mary and Maud as good husbands +as they deserve." And Mary and Maud took the same view. +It was in this plebeian household that Rickie spent part of the +Christmas vacation. His own home, such as it was, was with the +Silts, needy cousins of his father's, and combined to a peculiar +degree the restrictions of hospitality with the discomforts of a +boarding-house. Such pleasure as he had outside Cambridge was in +the homes of his friends, and it was a particular joy and honour +to visit Ansell, who, though as free from social snobbishness as +most of us will ever manage to be, was rather careful when he +drove up to the facade of his shop. + +"I like our new lettering," he said thoughtfully. The words +"Stewart Ansell" were repeated again and again along the High +Street--curly gold letters that seemed to float in tanks of +glazed chocolate. + +"Rather!" said Rickie. But he wondered whether one of the bonds +that kept the Ansell family united might not be their complete +absence of taste--a surer bond by far than the identity of it. +And he wondered this again when he sat at tea opposite a long row +of crayons--Stewart as a baby, Stewart as a small boy with large +feet, Stewart as a larger boy with smaller feet, Mary reading a +book whose leaves were as thick as eiderdowns. And yet again did +he wonder it when he woke with a gasp in the night to find a harp +in luminous paint throbbing and glowering at him from the +adjacent wall. "Watch and pray" was written on the harp, and +until Rickie hung a towel over it the exhortation was partially +successful. + +It was a very happy visit. Miss Appleblosssom--who now acted as +housekeeper--had met him before, during her never-forgotten +expedition to Cambridge, and her admiration of University life +was as shrill and as genuine now as it had been then. The girls +at first were a little aggressive, for on his arrival he had been +tired, and Maud had taken it for haughtiness, and said he was +looking down on them. But this passed. They did not fall in love +with him, nor he with them, but a morning was spent very +pleasantly in snow-balling in the back garden. Ansell was rather +different to what he was in Cambridge, but to Rickie not less +attractive. And there was a curious charm in the hum of the shop, +which swelled into a roar if one opened the partition door on a +market-day. + +"Listen to your money!" said Rickie. "I wish I could hear mine. I +wish my money was alive." + +"I don't understand." + +"Mine's dead money. It's come to me through about six dead +people--silently." + +"Getting a little smaller and a little more respectable each +time, on account of the death-duties." + +"It needed to get respectable." + +"Why? Did your people, too, once keep a shop?" + +"Oh, not as bad as that! They only swindled. About a hundred +years ago an Elliot did something shady and founded the fortunes +of our house." + +"I never knew any one so relentless to his ancestors. You make up +for your soapiness towards the living." + +"You'd be relentless if you'd heard the Silts, as I have, talk +about 'a fortune, small perhaps, but unsoiled by trade!' Of +course Aunt Emily is rather different. Oh, goodness me! I've +forgotten my aunt. She lives not so far. I shall have to call on +her." + +Accordingly he wrote to Mrs. Failing, and said he should like to +pay his respects. He told her about the Ansells, and so worded +the letter that she might reasonably have sent an invitation to +his friend. + +She replied that she was looking forward to their tete-a-tete. + +"You mustn't go round by the trains," said Mr. Ansell. "It means +changing at Salisbury. By the road it's no great way. Stewart +shall drive you over Salisbury Plain, and fetch you too." + +"There's too much snow," said Ansell. + +"Then the girls shall take you in their sledge." + +"That I will," said Maud, who was not unwilling to see the inside +of Cadover. But Rickie went round by the trains. + +"We have all missed you," said Ansell, when he returned. "There +is a general feeling that you are no nuisance, and had better +stop till the end of the vac." + +This he could not do. He was bound for Christmas to the Silts-- +"as a REAL guest," Mrs. Silt had written, underlining the word +"real" twice. And after Christmas he must go to the Pembrokes. + +"These are no reasons. The only real reason for doing a thing is +because you want to do it. I think the talk about 'engagements' +is cant." + +"I think perhaps it is," said Rickie. But he went. Never had the +turkey been so athletic, or the plum-pudding tied into its cloth +so tightly. Yet he knew that both these symbols of hilarity had +cost money, and it went to his heart when Mr. Silt said in a +hungry voice, "Have you thought at all of what you want to be? +No? Well, why should you? You have no need to be anything." And +at dessert: "I wonder who Cadover goes to? I expect money will +follow money. It always does." It was with a guilty feeling of +relief that he left for the Pembrokes'. + +The Pembrokes lived in an adjacent suburb, or rather +"sububurb,"--the tract called Sawston, celebrated for its +public school. Their style of life, however, was not particularly +suburban. Their house was small and its name was Shelthorpe, but +it had an air about it which suggested a certain amount of money +and a certain amount of taste. There were decent water-colours in +the drawing-room. Madonnas of acknowledged merit hung upon the +stairs. A replica of the Hermes of Praxiteles--of course only the +bust--stood in the hall with a real palm behind it. Agnes, in her +slap-dash way, was a good housekeeper, and kept the pretty things +well dusted. It was she who insisted on the strip of brown +holland that led diagonally from the front door to the door of +Herbert's study: boys' grubby feet should not go treading on her +Indian square. It was she who always cleaned the picture-frames +and washed the bust and the leaves of the palm. In short, if a +house could speak--and sometimes it does speak more clearly than +the people who live in it--the house of the Pembrokes would have +said, "I am not quite like other houses, yet I am perfectly +comfortable. I contain works of art and a microscope and books. +But I do not live for any of these things or suffer them to +disarrange me. I live for myself and for the greater houses that +shall come after me. Yet in me neither the cry of money nor the +cry for money shall ever be heard." + +Mr. Pembroke was at the station. He did better as a host than as +a guest, and welcomed the young man with real friendliness. + +"We were all coming, but Gerald has strained his ankle slightly, +and wants to keep quiet, as he is playing next week in a match. +And, needless to say, that explains the absence of my sister." + +"Gerald Dawes?" + +"Yes; he's with us. I'm so glad you'll meet again." + +"So am I," said Rickie with extreme awkwardness. "Does he +remember me?" + +"Vividly." + +Vivid also was Rickie's remembrance of him. + +"A splendid fellow," asserted Mr. Pembroke. + +"I hope that Agnes is well." + +"Thank you, yes; she is well. And I think you're looking more +like other people yourself." + +"I've been having a very good time with a friend." + +"Indeed. That's right. Who was that?" + +Rickie had a young man's reticence. He generally spoke of "a +friend," "a person I know," "a place I was at." When the book of +life is opening, our readings are secret, and we are unwilling to +give chapter and verse. Mr. Pembroke, who was half way through +the volume, and had skipped or forgotten the earlier pages, could +not understand Rickie's hesitation, nor why with such awkwardness +he should pronounce the harmless dissyllable "Ansell." + +"Ansell? Wasn't that the pleasant fellow who asked us to lunch?" + +"No. That was Anderson, who keeps below. You didn't see Ansell. +The ones who came to breakfast were Tilliard and Hornblower." + +"Of course. And since then you have been with the Silts. How are +they?" + +"Very well, thank you. They want to be remembered to you." + +The Pembrokes had formerly lived near the Elliots, and had shown +great kindness to Rickie when his parents died. They were thus +rather in the position of family friends. + +"Please remember us when you write." He added, almost roguishly, +"The Silts are kindness itself. All the same, it must be just a +little--dull, we thought, and we thought that you might like a +change. And of course we are delighted to have you besides. That +goes without saying." + +"It's very good of you," said Rickie, who had accepted the +invitation because he felt he ought to. + +"Not a bit. And you mustn't expect us to be otherwise than quiet +on the holidays. There is a library of a sort, as you know, and +you will find Gerald a splendid fellow." + +"Will they be married soon?" + +"Oh no!" whispered Mr. Pembroke, shutting his eyes, as if Rickie +had made some terrible faux pas. "It will be a very long +engagement. He must make his way first. I have seen such endless +misery result from people marrying before they have made their +way." + +"Yes. That is so," said Rickie despondently, thinking of the +Silts. + +"It's a sad unpalatable truth," said Mr. Pembroke, thinking that +the despondency might be personal, "but one must accept it. My +sister and Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted it, though +naturally it has been a little pill." + +Their cab lurched round the corner as he spoke, and the two +patients came in sight. Agnes was leaning over the creosoted +garden-gate, and behind her there stood a young man who had the +figure of a Greek athlete and the face of an English one. He was +fair and cleanshaven, and his colourless hair was cut rather +short. The sun was in his eyes, and they, like his mouth, seemed +scarcely more than slits in his healthy skin. Just where he began +to be beautiful the clothes started. Round his neck went an +up-and-down collar and a mauve-and-gold tie, and the rest of his +limbs were hidden by a grey lounge suit, carefully creased in the +right places. + +"Lovely! Lovely!" cried Agnes, banging on the gate, "Your train +must have been to the minute." + +"Hullo!" said the athlete, and vomited with the greeting a cloud +of tobacco-smoke. It must have been imprisoned in his mouth some +time, for no pipe was visible. + +"Hullo!" returned Rickie, laughing violently. They shook hands. + +"Where are you going, Rickie?" asked Agnes. "You aren't grubby. +Why don't you stop? Gerald, get the large wicker-chair. Herbert +has letters, but we can sit here till lunch. It's like spring." + +The garden of Shelthorpe was nearly all in front an unusual and +pleasant arrangement. The front gate and the servants' entrance +were both at the side, and in the remaining space the gardener +had contrived a little lawn where one could sit concealed from +the road by a fence, from the neighbour by a fence, from the +house by a tree, and from the path by a bush. + +"This is the lovers' bower," observed Agnes, sitting down on the +bench. Rickie stood by her till the chair arrived. + +"Are you smoking before lunch?" asked Mr. Dawes. + +"No, thank you. I hardly ever smoke." + +"No vices. Aren't you at Cambridge now?" + +"Yes." + +"What's your college?" + +Rickie told him. + +"Do you know Carruthers?" + +"Rather!" + +"I mean A. P. Carruthers, who got his socker blue." + +"Rather! He's secretary to the college musical society." + +"A. P. Carruthers?" + +"Yes." + +Mr. Dawes seemed offended. He tapped on his teeth, and remarked +that the weather bad no business to be so warm in winter. +"But it was fiendish before Christmas," said Agnes. + +He frowned, and asked, "Do you know a man called Gerrish?" + +"No." + +"Ah." + +"Do you know James?" + +"Never heard of him." + +"He's my year too. He got a blue for hockey his second term." + +"I know nothing about the 'Varsity." + +Rickie winced at the abbreviation "'Varsity." It was at that time +the proper thing to speak of "the University." + +"I haven't the time," pursued Mr. Dawes. + +"No, no," said Rickie politely. + +"I had the chance of being an Undergrad, myself, and, by Jove, +I'm thankful I didn't!" + +"Why?" asked Agnes, for there was a pause. + +"Puts you back in your profession. Men who go there first, before +the Army, start hopelessly behind. The same with the Stock +Exchange or Painting. I know men in both, and they've never +caught up the time they lost in the 'Varsity--unless, of course, +you turn parson." + +"I love Cambridge," said she. "All those glorious buildings, and +every one so happy and running in and out of each other's rooms +all day long." + +"That might make an Undergrad happy, but I beg leave to state it +wouldn't me. I haven't four years to throw away for the sake of +being called a 'Varsity man and hobnobbing with Lords." + +Rickie was prepared to find his old schoolfellow ungrammatical +and bumptious, but he was not prepared to find him peevish. +Athletes, he believed, were simple, straightforward people, cruel +and brutal if you like, but never petty. They knocked you down +and hurt you, and then went on their way rejoicing. For this, +Rickie thought, there is something to be said: he had escaped the +sin of despising the physically strong--a sin against which the +physically weak must guard. But here was Dawes returning again +and again to the subject of the University, full of transparent +jealousy and petty spite, nagging, nagging, nagging, like a +maiden lady who has not been invited to a tea-party. Rickie +wondered whether, after all, Ansell and the extremists might not +be right, and bodily beauty and strength be signs of the soul's +damnation. + +He glanced at Agnes. She was writing down some orderings for the +tradespeople on a piece of paper. Her handsome face was intent on +the work. The bench on which she and Gerald were sitting had no +back, but she sat as straight as a dart. He, though strong enough +to sit straight, did not take the trouble. + +"Why don't they talk to each other?" thought Rickie. + +"Gerald, give this paper to the cook." + +"I can give it to the other slavey, can't I?" + +"She'd be dressing." + +"Well, there's Herbert." + +"He's busy. Oh, you know where the kitchen is. Take it to the +cook." + +He disappeared slowly behind the tree. + +"What do you think of him?" she immediately asked. He murmured +civilly. + +"Has he changed since he was a schoolboy?" + +"In a way." + +"Do tell me all about him. Why won't you?" + +She might have seen a flash of horror pass over Rickie's face. +The horror disappeared, for, thank God, he was now a man, whom +civilization protects. But he and Gerald had met, as it were, +behind the scenes, before our decorous drama opens, and there the +elder boy had done things to him--absurd things, not worth +chronicling separately. An apple-pie bed is nothing; pinches, +kicks, boxed ears, twisted arms, pulled hair, ghosts at night, +inky books, befouled photographs, amount to very little by +themselves. But let them be united and continuous, and you have a +hell that no grown-up devil can devise. Between Rickie and Gerald +there lay a shadow that darkens life more often than we suppose. +The bully and his victim never quite forget their first +relations. They meet in clubs and country houses, and clap one +another on the back; but in both the memory is green of a more +strenuous day, when they were boys together. + +He tried to say, "He was the right kind of boy, and I was the +wrong kind." But Cambridge would not let him smooth the situation +over by self-belittlement. If he had been the wrong kind of boy, +Gerald had been a worse kind. He murmured, "We are different, +very," and Miss Pembroke, perhaps suspecting something, asked no +more. But she kept to the subject of Mr. Dawes, humorously +depreciating her lover and discussing him without reverence. +Rickie laughed, but felt uncomfortable. When people were engaged, +he felt that they should be outside criticism. Yet here he was +criticizing. He could not help it. He was dragged in. + +"I hope his ankle is better." + +"Never was bad. He's always fussing over something." + +"He plays next week in a match, I think Herbert says." + +"I dare say he does." + +"Shall we be going?" + +"Pray go if you like. I shall stop at home. I've had enough of +cold feet." + +It was all very colourless and odd. + +Gerald returned, saying, "I can't stand your cook. What's she +want to ask me questions for? I can't stand talking to servants. +I say, 'If I speak to you, well and good'--and it's another thing +besides if she were pretty." + +"Well, I hope our ugly cook will have lunch ready in a minute," +said Agnes. "We're frightfully unpunctual this morning, and I +daren't say anything, because it was the same yesterday, and if I +complain again they might leave. Poor Rickie must be starved." + +"Why, the Silts gave me all these sandwiches and I've never eaten +them. They always stuff one." + +"And you thought you'd better, eh?" said Mr. Dawes, "in case you +weren't stuffed here." + +Miss Pembroke, who house-kept somewhat economically, looked +annoyed. + +The voice of Mr. Pembroke was now heard calling from the house, +"Frederick! Frederick! My dear boy, pardon me. It was an +important letter about the Church Defence, otherwise--. Come in +and see your room." + +He was glad to quit the little lawn. He had learnt too much +there. It was dreadful: they did not love each other. +More dreadful even than the case of his father and mother, for +they, until they married, had got on pretty well. But this man +was already rude and brutal and cold: he was still the school +bully who twisted up the arms of little boys, and ran pins into +them at chapel, and struck them in the stomach when they were +swinging on the horizontal bar. Poor Agnes; why ever had she done +it? Ought not somebody to interfere? + +He had forgotten his sandwiches, and went back to get them. + +Gerald and Agnes were locked in each other's arms. + +He only looked for a moment, but the sight burnt into his brain. +The man's grip was the stronger. He had drawn the woman on to his +knee, was pressing her, with all his strength, against him. +Already her hands slipped off him, and she whispered, "Don't you +hurt--" Her face had no expression. It stared at the intruder +and never saw him. Then her lover kissed it, and immediately it +shone with mysterious beauty, like some star. + +Rickie limped away without the sandwiches, crimson and afraid. He +thought, "Do such things actually happen?" and he seemed to be +looking down coloured valleys. Brighter they glowed, till gods of +pure flame were born in them, and then he was looking at +pinnacles of virgin snow. While Mr. Pembroke talked, the riot of +fair images increased. + +They invaded his being and lit lamps at unsuspected shrines. +Their orchestra commenced in that suburban house, where he had to +stand aside for the maid to carry in the luncheon. Music flowed +past him like a river. He stood at the springs of creation and +heard the primeval monotony. Then an obscure instrument gave out +a little phrase. + +The river continued unheeding. The phrase was repeated and a +listener might know it was a fragment of the Tune of tunes. +Nobler instruments accepted it, the clarionet protected, the +brass encouraged, and it rose to the surface to the whisper of +violins. In full unison was Love born, flame of the flame, +flushing the dark river beneath him and the virgin snows above. +His wings were infinite, his youth eternal; the sun was a jewel +on his finger as he passed it in benediction over the world. +Creation, no longer monotonous, acclaimed him, in widening +melody, in brighter radiances. Was Love a column of fire? Was he +a torrent of song? Was he greater than either--the touch of a man +on a woman? + +It was the merest accident that Rickie had not been disgusted. +But this he could not know. + +Mr. Pembroke, when he called the two dawdlers into lunch, was +aware of a hand on his arm and a voice that murmured, "Don't-- +they may be happy." + +He stared, and struck the gong. To its music they approached, +priest and high priestess. + +"Rickie, can I give these sandwiches to the boot boy?" said the +one. "He would love them." + +"The gong! Be quick! The gong!" + +"Are you smoking before lunch?" said the other. + +But they had got into heaven, and nothing could get them out of +it. Others might think them surly or prosaic. He knew. He could +remember every word they spoke. He would treasure every motion, +every glance of either, and so in time to come, when the gates of +heaven had shut, some faint radiance, some echo of wisdom might +remain with him outside. + +As a matter of fact, he saw them very little during his visit. He +checked himself because he was unworthy. What right had he to +pry, even in the spirit, upon their bliss? It was no crime to +have seen them on the lawn. It would be a crime to go to it +again. He tried to keep himself and his thoughts away, not +because he was ascetic, but because they would not like it if +they knew. This behaviour of his suited them admirably. And when +any gracious little thing occurred to them--any little thing that +his sympathy had contrived and allowed--they put it down to +chance or to each other. + +So the lovers fall into the background. They are part of the +distant sunrise, and only the mountains speak to them. Rickie +talks to Mr. Pembroke, amidst the unlit valleys of our +over-habitable world. + + + +IV + +Sawston School had been founded by a tradesman in the seventeenth +century. It was then a tiny grammar-school in a tiny town, and +the City Company who governed it had to drive half a day through +the woods and heath on the occasion of their annual visit. In the +twentieth century they still drove, but only from the railway +station; and found themselves not in a tiny town, nor yet in a +large one, but amongst innumerable residences, detached and +semi-detached, which had gathered round the school. For the +intentions of the founder had been altered, or at all events +amplified, instead of educating the "poore of my home," he now +educated the upper classes of England. The change had taken place +not so very far back. Till the nineteenth century the +grammar-school was still composed of day scholars from the +neighbourhood. Then two things happened. Firstly, the school's +property rose in value, and it became rich. Secondly, for no +obvious reason, it suddenly emitted a quantity of bishops. The +bishops, like the stars from a Roman candle, were all colours, +and flew in all directions, some high, some low, some to distant +colonies, one into the Church of Rome. But many a father traced +their course in the papers; many a mother wondered whether her +son, if properly ignited, might not burn as bright; many a family +moved to the place where living and education were so cheap, +where day-boys were not looked down upon, and where the orthodox +and the up-to-date were said to be combined. The school doubled +its numbers. It built new class-rooms, laboratories and a +gymnasium. It dropped the prefix "Grammar." It coaxed the sons of +the local tradesmen into a new foundation, the "Commercial +School," built a couple of miles away. And it started +boarding-houses. It had not the gracious antiquity of Eton or +Winchester, nor, on the other hand, had it a conscious policy +like Lancing, Wellington, and other purely modern foundations. +Where tradition served, it clung to them. Where new departures +seemed desirable, they were made. It aimed at producing the +average Englishman, and, to a very great extent, it succeeded. + +Here Mr. Pembroke passed his happy and industrious life. His +technical position was that of master to a form low down on the +Modern Side. But his work lay elsewhere. He organized. If no +organization existed, he would create one. If one did exist, he +would modify it. "An organization," he would say, "is after all +not an end in itself. It must contribute to a movement." When one +good custom seemed likely to corrupt the school, he was ready +with another; he believed that without innumerable customs there +was no safety, either for boys or men. + +Perhaps he is right, and always will be right. Perhaps each of us +would go to ruin if for one short hour we acted as we thought +fit, and attempted the service of perfect freedom. The school +caps, with their elaborate symbolism, were his; his the +many-tinted bathing-drawers, that showed how far a boy could +swim; +his the hierarchy of jerseys and blazers. It was he who +instituted Bounds, and call, and the two sorts of exercise-paper, +and the three sorts of caning, and "The Sawtonian," a bi-terminal +magazine. His plump finger was in every pie. The dome of his +skull, mild but impressive, shone at every master's meeting. He +was generally acknowledged to be the coming man. + +His last achievement had been the organization of the day-boys. +They had been left too much to themselves, and were weak in +esprit de corps; they were apt to regard home, not school, as the +most important thing in their lives. Moreover, they got out of +their parents' hands; they did their preparation any time and +some times anyhow. They shirked games, they were out at all +hours, they ate what they should not, they smoked, they bicycled +on the asphalt. Now all was over. Like boarders, they were to be +in at 7:15 P.M., and were not allowed out after unless with a +written order from their parent or guardian; they, too, must work +at fixed hours in the evening, and before breakfast next morning +from 7 to 8. Games were compulsory. They must not go to parties +in term time. They must keep to bounds. Of course the reform was +not complete. It was impossible to control the dieting, though, +on a printed circular, day-parents were implored to provide +simple food. And it is also believed that some mothers disobeyed +the rule about preparation, and allowed their sons to do all the +work over-night and have a longer sleep in the morning. But the +gulf between day-boys and boarders was considerably lessened, and +grew still narrower when the day-boys too were organized into a +House with house-master and colours of their own. "Through the +House," said Mr. Pembroke, "one learns patriotism for the school, +just as through the school one learns patriotism for the country. +Our only course, therefore, is to organize the day-boys into a +House." The headmaster agreed, as he often did, and the new +community was formed. Mr. Pembroke, to avoid the tongues of +malice, had refused the post of house-master for himself, saying +to Mr. Jackson, who taught the sixth, "You keep too much in the +background. Here is a chance for you." But this was a failure. +Mr. Jackson, a scholar and a student, neither felt nor conveyed +any enthusiasm, and when confronted with his House, would say, +"Well, I don't know what we're all here for. Now I should think +you'd better go home to your mothers." He returned to his +background, and next term Mr. Pembroke was to take his place. + +Such were the themes on which Mr. Pembroke discoursed to Rickie's +civil ear. He showed him the school, and the library, and the +subterranean hall where the day-boys might leave their coats and +caps, and where, on festal occasions, they supped. He showed him +Mr. Jackson's pretty house, and whispered, "Were it not for his +brilliant intellect, it would be a case of Ouickmarch!" He showed +him the racquet-court, happily completed, and the chapel, +unhappily still in need of funds. Rickie was impressed, but then +he was impressed by everything. Of course a House of day-boys +seemed a little shadowy after Agnes and Gerald, but he imparted +some reality even to that. + +"The racquet-court," said Mr. Pembroke, "is most gratifying. We +never expected to manage it this year. But before the Easter +holidays every boy received a subscription card, and was given to +understand that he must collect thirty shillings. You will +scarcely believe me, but they nearly all responded. Next term +there was a dinner in the great school, and all who had +collected, not thirty shillings, but as much as a pound, were +invited to it--for naturally one was not precise for a few +shillings, the response being the really valuable thing. +Practically the whole school had to come." + +"They must enjoy the court tremendously." + +"Ah, it isn't used very much. Racquets, as I daresay you know, is +rather an expensive game. Only the wealthier boys play--and I'm +sorry to say that it is not of our wealthier boys that we are +always the proudest. But the point is that no public school can +be called first-class until it has one. They are building them +right and left." + +"And now you must finish the chapel?" + +"Now we must complete the chapel." He paused reverently, and +said, "And here is a fragment of the original building." +Rickie at once had a rush of sympathy. He, too, looked with +reverence at the morsel of Jacobean brickwork, ruddy and +beautiful amidst the machine-squared stones of the modern apse. +The two men, who had so little in common, were thrilled with +patriotism. They rejoiced that their country was great, noble, +and old. + +"Thank God I'm English," said Rickie suddenly. + +"Thank Him indeed," said Mr. Pembroke, laying a hand on his back. + +"We've been nearly as great as the Greeks, I do believe. Greater, +I'm sure, than the Italians, though they did get closer to +beauty. Greater than the French, though we do take all their +ideas. I can't help thinking that England is immense. English +literature certainly." + +Mr. Pembroke removed his hand. He found such patriotism somewhat +craven. Genuine patriotism comes only from the heart. It knows no +parleying with reason. English ladies will declare abroad that +there are no fogs in London, and Mr. Pembroke, though he would +not go to this, was only restrained by the certainty of being +found out. On this occasion he remarked that the Greeks lacked +spiritual insight, and had a low conception of woman. + +"As to women--oh! there they were dreadful," said Rickie, leaning +his hand on the chapel. "I realize that more and more. But as to +spiritual insight, I don't quite like to say; and I find Plato +too difficult, but I know men who don't, and I fancy they +mightn't agree with you." + +"Far be it from me to disparage Plato. And for philosophy as a +whole I have the greatest respect. But it is the crown of a man's +education, not the foundation. Myself, I read it with the utmost +profit, but I have known endless trouble result from boys who +attempt it too soon, before they were set." + +"But if those boys had died first," cried Rickie with sudden +vehemence, "without knowing what there is to know--" + +"Or isn't to know!" said Mr. Pembroke sarcastically. + +"Or what there isn't to know. Exactly. That's it." + +"My dear Rickie, what do you mean? If an old friend may be frank, +you are talking great rubbish." And, with a few well-worn +formulae, he propped up the young man's orthodoxy. The props were +unnecessary. Rickie had his own equilibrium. Neither the +Revivalism that assails a boy at about the age of fifteen, nor +the scepticism that meets him five years later, could sway him +from his allegiance to the church into which he had been born. +But his equilibrium was personal, and the secret of it useless to +others. He desired that each man should find his own. + +"What does philosophy do?" the propper continued. "Does it make +a man happier in life? Does it make him die more peacefully? I +fancy that in the long-run Herbert Spencer will get no further +than the rest of us. Ah, Rickie! I wish you could move among the +school boys, and see their healthy contempt for all they cannot +touch!" Here he was going too far, and had to add, "Their +spiritual capacities, of course, are another matter." Then he +remembered the Greeks, and said, "Which proves my original +statement." + +Submissive signs, as of one propped, appeared in Rickie's face. +Mr. Pembroke then questioned him about the men who found Plato +not difficult. But here he kept silence, patting the school +chapel gently, and presently the conversation turned to topics +with which they were both more competent to deal. + +"Does Agnes take much interest in the school?" + +"Not as much as she did. It is the result of her engagement. If +our naughty soldier had not carried her off, she might have made +an ideal schoolmaster's wife. I often chaff him about it, for he +a little despises the intellectual professions. Natural, +perfectly natural. How can a man who faces death feel as we do +towards mensa or tupto?" + +"Perfectly true. Absolutely true." + +Mr. Pembroke remarked to himself that Frederick was improving. + +"If a man shoots straight and hits straight and speaks straight, +if his heart is in the right place, if he has the instincts of a +Christian and a gentleman--then I, at all events, ask no better +husband for my sister." + +"How could you get a better?" he cried. "Do you remember the +thing in 'The Clouds'?" And he quoted, as well as he could, from +the invitation of the Dikaios Logos, the description of the +young Athenian, perfect in body, placid in mind, who neglects his +work at the Bar and trains all day among the woods and meadows, +with a garland on his head and a friend to set the pace; the +scent of new leaves is upon them; they rejoice in the freshness +of spring; over their heads the plane-tree whispers to the elm, +perhaps the most glorious invitation to the brainless life that +has ever been given. + +"Yes, yes," said Mr. Pembroke, who did not want a brother-in-law +out of Aristophanes. Nor had he got one, for Mr. Dawes would not +have bothered over the garland or noticed the spring, and would +have complained that the friend ran too slowly or too fast. + +"And as for her--!" But he could think of no classical parallel +for Agnes. She slipped between examples. A kindly Medea, a +Cleopatra with a sense of duty--these suggested her a little. She +was not born in Greece, but came overseas to it--a dark, +intelligent princess. With all her splendour, there were hints of +splendour still hidden--hints of an older, richer, and more +mysterious land. He smiled at the idea of her being "not there." +Ansell, clever as he was, had made a bad blunder. She had more +reality than any other woman in the world. + +Mr. Pembroke looked pleased at this boyish enthusiasm. He was +fond of his sister, though he knew her to be full of faults. +"Yes, I envy her," he said. "She has found a worthy helpmeet for +life's journey, I do believe. And though they chafe at the long +engagement, it is a blessing in disguise. They learn to know each +other thoroughly before contracting more intimate ties." + +Rickie did not assent. The length of the engagement seemed to him +unspeakably cruel. Here were two people who loved each other, and +they could not marry for years because they had no beastly money. +Not all Herbert's pious skill could make this out a blessing. It +was bad enough being "so rich" at the Silts; here he was more +ashamed of it than ever. In a few weeks he would come of age and +his money be his own. What a pity things were so crookedly +arranged. He did not want money, or at all events he did not want +so much. + +"Suppose," he meditated, for he became much worried over this,-- +"suppose I had a hundred pounds a year less than I shall have. +Well, I should still have enough. I don't want anything but food, +lodging, clothes, and now and then a railway fare. I haven't any +tastes. I don't collect anything or play games. Books are nice to +have, but after all there is Mudie's, or if it comes to that, the +Free Library. Oh, my profession! I forgot I shall have a +profession. Well, that will leave me with more to spare than +ever." And he supposed away till he lost touch with the world and +with what it permits, and committed an unpardonable sin. + +It happened towards the end of his visit--another airless day of +that mild January. Mr. Dawes was playing against a scratch team +of cads, and had to go down to the ground in the morning to +settle something. Rickie proposed to come too. + +Hitherto he had been no nuisance. "You will be frightfully +bored," said Agnes, observing the cloud on her lover's face. "And +Gerald walks like a maniac." + +"I had a little thought of the Museum this morning," said Mr. +Pembroke. "It is very strong in flint arrow-heads." + +"Ah, that's your line, Rickie. I do envy you and Herbert the way +you enjoy the past." + +"I almost think I'll go with Dawes, if he'll have me. I can walk +quite fast just to the ground and back. Arrowheads are wonderful, +but I don't really enjoy them yet, though I hope I shall in +time." + +Mr. Pembroke was offended, but Rickie held firm. + +In a quarter of an hour he was back at the house alone, nearly +crying. + +"Oh, did the wretch go too fast?" called Miss Pembroke from her +bedroom window. + +"I went too fast for him." He spoke quite sharply, and before he +had time to say he was sorry and didn't mean exactly that, the +window had shut. + +"They've quarrelled," she thought. "Whatever about?" + +She soon heard. Gerald returned in a cold stormy temper. Rickie +had offered him money. + +"My dear fellow don't be so cross. The child's mad." + +"If it was, I'd forgive that. But I can't stand unhealthiness." + +"Now, Gerald, that's where I hate you. You don't know what it is +to pity the weak." + +"Woman's job. So you wish I'd taken a hundred pounds a year from +him. Did you ever hear such blasted cheek? Marry us--he, you, and +me--a hundred pounds down and as much annual--he, of course, to +pry into all we did, and we to kowtow and eat dirt-pie to him. If +that's Mr. Rickety Elliot's idea of a soldier and an Englishman, +it isn't mine, and I wish I'd had a horse-whip." + +She was roaring with laughter. "You're babies, a pair of you, and +you're the worst. Why couldn't you let the little silly down +gently? There he was puffing and sniffing under my window, and I +thought he'd insulted you. Why didn't you accept?" + +"Accept?" he thundered. + +"It would have taken the nonsense out of him for ever. Why, he +was only talking out of a book." + +"More fool he." + +"Well, don't be angry with a fool. He means no harm. He muddles +all day with poetry and old dead people, and then tries to bring +it into life. It's too funny for words." + +Gerald repeated that he could not stand unhealthiness. + +"I don't call that exactly unhealthy." + +"I do. And why he could give the money's worse." + +"What do you mean?" + +He became shy. "I hadn't meant to tell you. It's not quite for a +lady." For, like most men who are rather animal, he was +intellectually a prude. "He says he can't ever marry, owing to +his foot. It wouldn't be fair to posterity. His grandfather was +crocked, his father too, and he's as bad. He thinks that it's +hereditary, and may get worse next generation. He's discussed it +all over with other Undergrads. A bright lot they must be. He +daren't risk having any children. Hence the hundred quid." + +She stopped laughing. "Oh, little beast, if he said all that!" + +He was encouraged to proceed. Hitherto he had not talked about +their school days. Now he told her everything,--the +"barley-sugar," as he called it, the pins in chapel, and how one +afternoon he had tied him head-downward on to a tree trunk and +then ran away--of course only for a moment. + +For this she scolded him well. But she had a thrill of joy when +she thought of the weak boy in the clutches of the strong one. + + + +V + +Gerald died that afternoon. He was broken up in the football +match. Rickie and Mr. Pembroke were on the ground when the +accident took place. It was no good torturing him by a drive to +the hospital, and he was merely carried to the little pavilion +and laid upon the floor. A doctor came, and so did a clergyman, +but it seemed better to leave him for the last few minutes with +Agnes, who had ridden down on her bicycle. + +It was a strange lamentable interview. The girl was so accustomed +to health, that for a time she could not understand. It must be a +joke that he chose to lie there in the dust, with a rug over him +and his knees bent up towards his chin. His arms were as she knew +them, and their admirable muscles showed clear and clean beneath +the jersey. The face, too, though a little flushed, was +uninjured: it must be some curious joke. + +"Gerald, what have you been doing?" + +He replied, "I can't see you. It's too dark." + +"Oh, I'll soon alter that," she said in her old brisk way. She +opened the pavilion door. The people who were standing by it +moved aside. She saw a deserted meadow, steaming and grey, and +beyond it slateroofed cottages, row beside row, climbing a +shapeless hill. Towards London the sky was yellow. "There. That's +better." She sat down by him again, and drew his hand into her +own. "Now we are all right, aren't we?" + +"Where are you?" + +This time she could not reply. + +"What is it? Where am I going?" + +"Wasn't the rector here?" said she after a silence. + +"He explained heaven, and thinks that I--but--I couldn't tell a +parson; but I don't seem to have any use for any of the things +there." + +"We are Christians," said Agnes shyly. "Dear love, we don't talk +about these things, but we believe them. I think that you will +get well and be as strong again as ever; but, in any case, there +is a spiritual life, and we know that some day you and I--" + +"I shan't do as a spirit," he interrupted, sighing pitifully. "I +want you as I am, and it cannot be managed. The rector had to say +so. I want--I don't want to talk. I can't see you. Shut that +door." + +She obeyed, and crept into his arms. Only this time her grasp was +the stronger. Her heart beat louder and louder as the sound of +his grew more faint. He was crying like a little frightened +child, and her lips were wet with his tears. "Bear it bravely," +she told him. + +"I can't," he whispered. "It isn't to be done. I can't see you," +and passed from her trembling with open eyes. + +She rode home on her bicycle, leaving the others to follow. Some +ladies who did not know what had happened bowed and smiled as she +passed, and she returned their salute. + +"Oh, miss, is it true?" cried the cook, her face streaming with +tears. + +Agnes nodded. Presumably it was true. Letters had just arrived: +one was for Gerald from his mother. Life, which had given them no +warning, seemed to make no comment now. The incident was outside +nature, and would surely pass away like a dream. She felt +slightly irritable, and the grief of the servants annoyed her. + +They sobbed. "Ah, look at his marks! Ah, little he thought-- +little he thought!" In the brown holland strip by the front door +a heavy football boot had left its impress. They had not liked +Gerald, but he was a man, they were women, he had died. Their +mistress ordered them to leave her. + +For many minutes she sat at the foot of the stairs, rubbing her +eyes. An obscure spiritual crisis was going on. + +Should she weep like the servants? Or should she bear up and +trust in the consoler Time? Was the death of a man so terrible +after all? As she invited herself to apathy there were steps on +the gravel, and Rickie Elliot burst in. He was splashed with mud, +his breath was gone, and his hair fell wildly over his meagre +face. She thought, "These are the people who are left alive!" +>From the bottom of her soul she hated him. + +"I came to see what you're doing," he cried. + +"Resting." + +He knelt beside her, and she said, "Would you please go away?" + +"Yes, dear Agnes, of course; but I must see first that you mind." +Her breath caught. Her eves moved to the treads, going outwards, +so firmly, so irretrievably. + +He panted, "It's the worst thing that can ever happen to you in +all your life, and you've got to mind it you've got to mind it. +They'll come saying, 'Bear up trust to time.' No, no; they're +wrong. Mind it." + +Through all her misery she knew that this boy was greater than +they supposed. He rose to his feet, and with intense conviction +cried: "But I know--I understand. It's your death as well as his. +He's gone, Agnes, and his arms will never hold you again. In +God's name, mind such a thing, and don't sit fencing with your +soul. Don't stop being great; that's the one crime he'll never +forgive you." + +She faltered, "Who--who forgives?" + +"Gerald." + +At the sound of his name she slid forward, and all her dishonesty +left her. She acknowledged that life's meaning had vanished. +Bending down, she kissed the footprint. "How can he forgive me?" +she sobbed. "Where has he gone to? You could never dream such an +awful thing. He couldn't see me though I opened the door--wide-- +plenty of light; and then he could not remember the things that +should comfort him. He wasn't a--he wasn't ever a great reader, +and he couldn't remember the things. The rector tried, and he +couldn't--I came, and I couldn't--" She could not speak for +tears. Rickie did not check her. He let her accuse herself, and +fate, and Herbert, who had postponed their marriage. She might +have been a wife six months; but Herbert had spoken of +self-control and of all life before them. He let her kiss the +footprints till their marks gave way to the marks of her lips. +She moaned. "He is gone--where is he?" and then he replied quite +quietly, "He is in heaven." + +She begged him not to comfort her; she could not bear it. + +"I did not come to comfort you. I came to see that you mind. He +is in heaven, Agnes. The greatest thing is over." + +Her hatred was lulled. She murmured, "Dear Rickie!" and held up +her hand to him. Through her tears his meagre face showed as a +seraph's who spoke the truth and forbade her to juggle with her +soul. "Dear Rickie--but for the rest of my life what am I to do?" + +"Anything--if you remember that the greatest thing is over." + +"I don't know you," she said tremulously. "You have grown up in a +moment. You never talked to us, and yet you understand it all. +Tell me again--I can only trust you--where he is." + +"He is in heaven." + +"You are sure?" + +It puzzled her that Rickie, who could scarcely tell you the time +without a saving clause, should be so certain about immortality. + + + +VI + +He did not stop for the funeral. Mr. Pembroke thought that he had +a bad effect on Agnes, and prevented her from acquiescing in the +tragedy as rapidly as she might have done. As he expressed it, +"one must not court sorrow," and he hinted to the young man that +they desired to be alone. + +Rickie went back to the Silts. + +He was only there a few days. As soon as term opened he returned +to Cambridge, for which he longed passionately. The journey +thither was now familiar to him, and he took pleasure in each +landmark. The fair valley of Tewin Water, the cutting into +Hitchin where the train traverses the chalk, Baldock Church, +Royston with its promise of downs, were nothing in themselves, +but dear as stages in the pilgrimage towards the abode of peace. +On the platform he met friends. They had all had pleasant +vacations: it was a happy world. The atmosphere alters. + +Cambridge, according to her custom, welcomed her sons with open +drains. Pettycury was up, so was Trinity Street, and +navvies peeped out of King's Parade. Here it was gas, there +electric light, but everywhere something, and always a smell. It +was also the day that the wheels fell off the station tram, and +Rickie, who was naturally inside, was among the passengers who +"sustained no injury but a shock, and had as hearty a laugh over +the mishap afterwards as any one." + +Tilliard fled into a hansom, cursing himself for having tried to +do the thing cheaply. Hornblower also swept past yelling +derisively, with his luggage neatly piled above his head. "Let's +get out and walk," muttered Ansell. But Rickie was succouring a +distressed female--Mrs. Aberdeen. + +"Oh, Mrs. Aberdeen, I never saw you: I am so glad to see you--I +am so very glad." Mrs. Aberdeen was cold. She did not like being +spoken to outside the college, and was also distrait about her +basket. Hitherto no genteel eye had even seen inside it, but in +the collision its little calico veil fell off, and there vas +revealed--nothing. The basket was empty, and never would hold +anything illegal. All the same she was distrait, and "We shall +meet later, sir, I dessy," was all the greeting Rickie got from +her. + +"Now what kind of a life has Mrs. Aberdeen?" he exclaimed, as he +and Ansell pursued the Station Road. "Here these bedders come and +make us comfortable. We owe an enormous amount to them, their +wages are absurd, and we know nothing about them. Off they go to +Barnwell, and then their lives are hidden. I just know that Mrs. +Aberdeen has a husband, but that's all. She never will talk about +him. Now I do so want to fill in her life. I see one-half of it. +What's the other half? She may have a real jolly house, in good +taste, with a little garden and books, and pictures. Or, again, +she mayn't. But in any case one ought to know. I know she'd +dislike it, but she oughtn't to dislike. After all, bedders are +to blame for the present lamentable state of things, just as much +as gentlefolk. She ought to want me to come. She ought to +introduce me to her husband." + +They had reached the corner of Hills Road. Ansell spoke for the +first time. He said, "Ugh!" + +"Drains?" + +"Yes. A spiritual cesspool." + +Rickie laughed. + +"I expected it from your letter." + +"The one you never answered?" + +"I answer none of your letters. You are quite hopeless by now. +You can go to the bad. But I refuse to accompany you. I refuse to +believe that every human being is a moving wonder of supreme +interest and tragedy and beauty--which was what the letter in +question amounted to. You'll find plenty who will believe it. +It's a very popular view among people who are too idle to think; +it saves them the trouble of detecting the beautiful from the +ugly, the interesting from the dull, the tragic from the +melodramatic. You had just come from Sawston, and were apparently +carried away by the fact that Miss Pembroke had the usual amount +of arms and legs." + +Rickie was silent. He had told his friend how he felt, but not +what had happened. Ansell could discuss love and death admirably, +but somehow he would not understand lovers or a dying man, and in +the letter there had been scant allusion to these concrete facts. +Would Cambridge understand them either? He watched some dons who +were peeping into an excavation, and throwing up their hands with +humorous gestures of despair. These men would lecture next week +on Catiline's conspiracy, on Luther, on Evolution, on Catullus. +They dealt with so much and they had experienced so little. Was +it possible he would ever come to think Cambridge narrow? In his +short life Rickie had known two sudden deaths, and that is enough +to disarrange any placid outlook on the world. He knew once for +all that we are all of us bubbles on an extremely rough sea. Into +this sea humanity has built, as it were, some little +breakwaters--scientific knowledge, civilized restraint--so that +the bubbles do not break so frequentlv or so soon. But the sea +has not altered, and it was only a chance that he, Ansell, +Tilliard, and Mrs. Aberdeen had not all been killed in the tram. + +They waited for the other tram by the Roman Catholic Church, +whose florid bulk was already receding into twilight. It is the +first big building that the incoming visitor sees. "Oh, here come +the colleges!" cries the Protestant parent, and then learns that +it was built by a Papist who made a fortune out of movable eyes +for dolls. "Built out of doll's eyes to contain idols"--that, at +all events, is the legend and the joke. It watches over the +apostate city, taller by many a yard than anything within, and +asserting, however wildly, that here is eternity, stability, and +bubbles unbreakable upon a windless sea. + +A costly hymn tune announced five o'clock, and in the distance +the more lovable note of St. Mary's could be heard, speaking from +the heart of the town. Then the tram arrived--the slow stuffy +tram that plies every twenty minutes between the unknown and the +marketplace--and took them past the desecrated grounds of Downing, +past Addenbrookes Hospital, girt like a Venetian palace with a +mantling canal, past the Fitz William, towering upon immense +substructions like any Roman temple, right up to the gates of +one's own college, which looked like nothing else in the world. +The porters were glad to see them, but wished it had been a +hansom. "Our luggage," explained Rickie, "comes in the hotel +omnibus, if you would kindly pay a shilling for mine." Ansell +turned aside to some large lighted windows, the abode of a +hospitable don, and from other windows there floated familiar +voices and the familiar mistakes in a Beethoven sonata. The +college, though small, was civilized, and proud of its +civilization. It was not sufficient glory to be a Blue there, nor +an additional glory to get drunk. Many a maiden lady who had read +that Cambridge men were sad dogs, was surprised and perhaps a +little disappointed at the reasonable life which greeted her. +Miss Appleblossom in particular had had a tremendous shock. The +sight of young fellows making tea and drinking water had made her +wonder whether this was Cambridge College at all. "It is so," she +exclaimed afterwards. "It is just as I say; and what's more, I +wouldn't have it otherwise; Stewart says it's as easy as easy to +get into the swim, and not at all expensive." The direction of +the swim was determined a little by the genius of the place--for +places have a genius, though the less we talk about it the +better--and a good deal by the tutors and resident fellows, who +treated with rare dexterity the products that came up yearly from +the public schools. They taught the perky boy that he was not +everything, and the limp boy that he might be something. They +even welcomed those boys who were neither limp nor perky, but +odd--those boys who had never been at a public school at all, and +such do not find a welcome everywhere. And they did everything +with ease--one might almost say with nonchalance, so that the +boys noticed nothing, and received education, often for the first +time in their lives. + +But Rickie turned to none of these friends, for just then he +loved his rooms better than any person. They were all he really +possessed in the world, the only place he could call his own. +Over the door was his name, and through the paint, like a grey +ghost, he could still read the name of his predecessor. With a +sigh of joy he entered the perishable home that was his for a +couple of years. There was a beautiful fire, and the kettle +boiled at once. He made tea on the hearth-rug and ate the +biscuits which Mrs. Aberdeen had brought for him up from +Anderson's. "Gentlemen," she said, "must learn to give and take." +He sighed again and again, like one who had escaped from danger. +With his head on the fender and all his limbs relaxed, he felt +almost as safe as he felt once when his mother killed a ghost in +the passage by carrying him through it in her arms. There was no +ghost now; he was frightened at reality; he was frightened at the +splendours and horrors of the world. + +A letter from Miss Pembroke was on the table. He did not hurry to +open it, for she, and all that she did, was overwhelming. She +wrote like the Sibyl; her sorrowful face moved over the stars and +shattered their harmonies; last night he saw her with the eyes of +Blake, a virgin widow, tall, veiled, consecrated, with her hands +stretched out against an everlasting wind. Whv should she write? +Her letters were not for the likes of him, nor to be read in +rooms like his. + +"We are not leaving Sawston," she wrote. "I saw how selfish it +was of me to risk spoiling Herbert's career. I shall get used to +any place. Now that he is gone, nothing of that sort can matter. +Every one has been most kind, but you have comforted me most, +though you did not mean to. I cannot think how you did it, or +understood so much. I still think of you as a little boy with a +lame leg,--I know you will let me say this,--and yet when it came +to the point you knew more than people who have been all their +lives with sorrow and death." + +Rickie burnt this letter, which he ought not to have done, for it +was one of the few tributes Miss Pembroke ever paid to +imagination. But he felt that it did not belong to him: words so +sincere should be for Gerald alone. The smoke rushed up the +chimney, and he indulged in a vision. He saw it reach the outer +air and beat against the low ceiling of clouds. The clouds were +too strong for it; but in them was one chink, revealing one star, +and through this the smoke escaped into the light of stars +innumerable. Then--but then the vision failed, and the voice of +science whispered that all smoke remains on earth in the form of +smuts, and is troublesome to Mrs. Aberdeen. + +"I am jolly unpractical," he mused. "And what is the point of it +when real things are so wonderful? Who wants visions in a world +that has Agnes and Gerald?" He turned on the electric light and +pulled open the table-drawer. There, among spoons and corks and +string, he found a fragment of a little story that he had tried +to write last term. It was called "The Bay of the Fifteen +Islets," and the action took place on St. John's Eve off the +coast of Sicily. A party of tourists land on one of the islands. +Suddenly the boatmen become uneasy, and say that the island is +not generally there. It is an extra one, and they had better have +tea on one of the ordinaries. "Pooh, volcanic!" says the leading +tourist, and the ladies say how interesting. The island begins to +rock, and so do the minds of its visitors. They start and quarrel +and jabber. Fingers burst up through the sand-black fingers of +sea devils. The island tilts. The tourists go mad. But just +before the catastrophe one man, integer vitce scelerisque +purus, sees the truth. Here are no devils. Other muscles, other +minds, are pulling the island to its subterranean home. Through +the advancing wall of waters he sees no grisly faces, no ghastly +medieval limbs, but--But what nonsense! When real things are so +wonderful, what is the point of pretending? + +And so Rickie deflected his enthusiasms. Hitherto they had played +on gods and heroes, on the infinite and the impossible, on virtue +and beauty and strength. Now, with a steadier radiance, they +transfigured a man who was dead and a woman who was still alive. + + + +VII + +Love, say orderly people, can be fallen into by two methods: (1) +through the desires, (2) through the imagination. And if the +orderly people are English, they add that (1) is the inferior +method, and characteristic of the South. It is inferior. Yet +those who pursue it at all events know what they want; they are +not puzzling to themselves or ludicrous to others; they do not +take the wings of the morning and fly into the uttermost parts of +the sea before walking to the registry office; they cannot breed +a tragedy quite like Rickie's. + +He is, of course, absurdly young--not twenty-one and he will be +engaged to be married at twenty-three. He has no knowledge of the +world; for example, he thinks that if you do not want money you +can give it to friends who do. He believes in humanity because he +knows a dozen decent people. He believes in women because he has +loved his mother. And his friends are as young and as ignorant as +himself. They are full of the wine of life. But they have not +tasted the cup--let us call it the teacup--of experience, which +has made men of Mr. Pembroke's type what they are. Oh, that +teacup! To be taken at prayers, at friendship, at love, till we +are quite sane, efficient, quite experienced, and quite useless +to God or man. We must drink it, or we shall die. But we need not +drink it always. Here is our problem and our salvation. There +comes a moment--God knows when--at which we can say, "I will +experience no longer. I will create. I will be an experience." +But to do this we must be both acute and heroic. For it is not +easy, after accepting six cups of tea, to throw the seventh in +the face of the hostess. And to Rickie this moment has not, as +yet, been offered. + +Ansell, at the end of his third year, got a first in the Moral +Science Tripos. Being a scholar, he kept his rooms in college, +and at once began to work for a Fellowship. Rickie got a +creditable second in the Classical Tripos, Part I., and retired +to sallow lodgings in Mill bane, carrying with him the degree of +B.A. and a small exhibition, which was quite as much as he +deserved. For Part II. he read Greek Archaeology, and got a +second. All this means that Ansell was much cleverer than Rickie. +As for the cow, she was still going strong, though turning a +little academic as the years passed over her. + +"We are bound to get narrow," sighed Rickie. He and his friend +were lying in a meadow during their last summer term. In his +incurable love for flowers he had plaited two garlands of +buttercups and cow-parsley, and Ansell's lean Jewish face was +framed in one of them. "Cambridge is wonderful, but--but it's so +tiny. You have no idea--at least, I think you have no idea--how +the great world looks down on it." + +"I read the letters in the papers." + +"It's a bad look-out." + +"How?" + +"Cambridge has lost touch with the times." + +"Was she ever intended to touch them?" + +"She satisfies," said Rickie mysteriously, "neither the +professions, nor the public schools, nor the great thinking mass +of men and women. There is a general feeling that her day is +over, and naturally one feels pretty sick." + +"Do you still write short stories?" + +"Because your English has gone to the devil. You think and talk +in Journalese. Define a great thinking mass." + +Rickie sat up and adjusted his floral crown. + +"Estimate the worth of a general feeling." + +Silence. + +"And thirdly, where is the great world?" + +"Oh that--!" + +"Yes. That," exclaimed Ansell, rising from his couch in violent +excitement. "Where is it? How do you set about finding it? How +long does it take to get there? What does it think? What does it +do? What does it want? Oblige me with specimens of its art and +literature." Silence. "Till you do, my opinions will be as +follows: There is no great world at all, only a little earth, for +ever isolated from the rest of the little solar system. The earth +is full of tiny societies, and Cambridge is one of them. All the +societies are narrow, but some are good and some are bad--just as +one house is beautiful inside and another ugly. Observe the +metaphor of the houses: I am coming back to it. The good +societies say, `I tell you to do this because I am Cambridge.' +The bad ones say, `I tell you to do that because I am the great +world, not because I am 'Peckham,' or `Billingsgate,' or `Park +Lane,' but `because I am the great world.' They lie. And fools +like you listen to them, and believe that they are a thing which +does not exist and never has existed, and confuse 'great,' which +has no meaning whatever, with 'good,' which means salvation. Look +at this great wreath: it'll be dead tomorrow. Look at that good +flower: it'll come up again next year. Now for the other +metaphor. To compare the world to Cambridge is like comparing the +outsides of houses with the inside of a house. No intellectual +effort is needed, no moral result is attained. You only have to +say, 'Oh, what a difference!' and then come indoors again and +exhibit your broadened mind." + +"I never shall come indoors again," said Rickie. "That's the +whole point." And his voice began to quiver. "It's well enough +for those who'll get a Fellowship, but in a few weeks I shall go +down. In a few years it'll be as if I've never been up. It +matters very much to me what the world is like. I can't answer +your questions about it; and that's no loss to you, but so much +the worse for me. And then you've got a house--not a metaphorical +one, but a house with father and sisters. I haven't, and never +shall have. There'll never again be a home for me like Cambridge. +I shall only look at the outside of homes. According to your +metaphor, I shall live in the street, and it matters very much to +me what I find there." + +"You'll live in another house right enough," said Ansell, rather +uneasily. "Only take care you pick out a decent one. I can't +think why you flop about so helplessly, like a bit of seaweed. In +four years you've taken as much root as any one." + +"Where?" + +"I should say you've been fortunate in your friends." + +"Oh--that!" But he was not cynical--or cynical in a very tender +way. He was thinking of the irony of friendship--so strong it is, +and so fragile. We fly together, like straws in an eddy, to part +in the open stream. Nature has no use for us: she has cut her +stuff differently. Dutiful sons, loving husbands, responsible +fathers these are what she wants, and if we are friends it must +be in our spare time. Abram and Sarai were sorrowful, yet their +seed became as sand of the sea, and distracts the politics of +Europe at this moment. But a few verses of poetry is all that +survives of David and Jonathan. + +"I wish we were labelled," said Rickie. He wished that all the +confidence and mutual knowledge that is born in such a place as +Cambridge could be organized. People went down into the world +saying, "We know and like each other; we shan't forget." But they +did forget, for man is so made that he cannot remember long +without a symbol; he wished there was a society, a kind of +friendship office, where the marriage of true minds could be +registered. + +"Why labels?" + +"To know each other again." + +"I have taught you pessimism splendidly." He looked at his watch. + +"What time?" + +"Not twelve." + +Rickie got up. + +"Why go?" He stretched out his hand and caught hold of Rickie's +ankle. + +"I've got that Miss Pembroke to lunch--that girl whom you say +never's there." + +"Then why go? All this week you have pretended Miss Pembroke +awaited you. Wednesday--Miss Pembroke to lunch. Thursday--Miss +Pembroke to tea. Now again--and you didn't even invite her." + +"To Cambridge, no. But the Hall man they're stopping with has so +many engagements that she and her friend can often come to me, +I'm glad to say. I don't think I ever told you much, but over two +years ago the man she was going to marry was killed at football. +She nearly died of grief. This visit to Cambridge is almost the +first amusement she has felt up to taking. Oh, they go back +tomorrow! Give me breakfast tomorrow." + +"All right." + +"But I shall see you this evening. I shall be round at your paper +on Schopenhauer. Lemme go." + +"Don't go," he said idly. "It's much better for you to talk to +me." + +"Lemme go, Stewart." + +"It's amusing that you're so feeble. You--simply--can't--get-- +away. +I wish I wanted to bully you." + +Rickie laughed, and suddenly over balanced into the grass. +Ansell, with unusual playfulness, held him prisoner. They lay +there for few minutes, talking and ragging aimlessly. Then Rickie +seized his opportunity and jerked away. + +"Go, go!" yawned the other. But he was a little vexed, for he was +a young man with great capacity for pleasure, and it pleased him +that morning to be with his friend. The thought of two ladies +waiting lunch did not deter him; stupid women, why shouldn't they +wait? Why should they interfere with their betters? With his ear +on the ground he listened to Rickie's departing steps, and +thought, "He wastes a lot of time keeping engagements. Why will +he be pleasant to fools?" And then he thought, "Why has he turned +so unhappy? It isn't as it he's a philosopher, or tries to solve +the riddle of existence. And he's got money of his own: "Thus +thinking, he fell asleep. + +Meanwhile Rickie hurried away from him, and slackened and +stopped, and hurried again. He was due at the Union in ten +minutes, but he could not bring himself there. He dared not meet +Miss Pembroke: he loved her. + +The devil must have planned it. They had started so gloriously; +she had been a goddess both in joy and sorrow. She was a goddess +still. But he had dethroned the god whom once he had glorified +equally. Slowly, slowly, the image of Gerald had faded. That was +the first step. Rickie had thought, "No matter. He will be bright +again. Just now all the radiance chances to be in her." And on +her he had fixed his eyes. He thought of her awake. He +entertained her willingly in dreams. He found her in poetry and +music and in the sunset. She made him kind and strong. She made +him clever. Through her he kept Cambridge in its proper place, +and lived as a citizen of the great world. But one night he +dreamt that she lay in his arms. This displeased him. He +determined to think a little about Gerald instead. Then the +fabric collapsed. + +It was hard on Rickie thus to meet the devil. He did not deserve +it, for he was comparatively civilized, and knew that there was +nothing shameful in love. But to love this woman! If only it had +been any one else! Love in return--that he could expect from no +one, being too ugly and too unattractive. But the love he offered +would not then have been vile. The insult to Miss Pembroke, who +was consecrated, and whom he had consecrated, who could still see +Gerald, and always would see him, shining on his everlasting +throne this was the crime from the devil, the crime that no +penance would ever purge. She knew nothing. She never would know. +But the crime was registered in heaven. + +He had been tempted to confide in Ansell. But to what purpose? He +would say, "I love Miss Pembroke." and Stewart would reply, "You +ass." And then. "I'm never going to tell her." "You ass," again. +After all, it was not a practical question; Agnes would never +hear of his fall. If his friend had been, as he expressed it, +"labelled"; if he had been a father, or still better a brother, +one might tell him of the discreditable passion. But why irritate +him for no reason? Thinking "I am always angling for sympathy; I +must stop myself," he hurried onward to the Union. + +He found his guests half way up the stairs, reading the +advertisements of coaches for the Long Vacation. He heard Mrs. +Lewin say, "I wonder what he'll end by doing." A little +overacting his part, he apologized nonchalantly for his lateness. + +"It's always the same," cried Agnes. "Last time he forgot I was +coming altogether." She wore a flowered muslin--something +indescribably liquid and cool. It reminded him a little of those +swift piercing streams, neither blue nor green, that gush out of +the dolomites. Her face was clear and brown, like the face of a +mountaineer; her hair was so plentiful that it seemed banked up +above it; and her little toque, though it answered the note of +the dress, was almost ludicrous, poised on so much natural glory. +When she moved, the sunlight flashed on her ear-rings. + +He led them up to the luncheon-room. By now he was conscious of +his limitations as a host, and never attempted to entertain +ladies in his lodgings. Moreover, the Union seemed less intimate. +It had a faint flavour of a London club; it marked the +undergraduate's nearest approach to the great world. Amid its +waiters and serviettes one felt impersonal, and able to conceal +the private emotions. Rickie felt that if Miss Pembroke knew one +thing about him, she knew everything. During this visit he took +her to no place that he greatly loved. + +"Sit down, ladies. Fall to. I'm sorry. I was out towards Coton +with a dreadful friend." + +Mrs. Lewin pushed up her veil. She was a typical May-term +chaperon, always pleasant, always hungry, and always tired. Year +after year she came up to Cambridge in a tight silk dress, and +year after year she nearly died of it. Her feet hurt, her limbs +were cramped in a canoe, black spots danced before her eyes from +eating too much mayonnaise. But still she came, if not as a +mother as an aunt, if not as an aunt as a friend. Still she +ascended the roof of King's, still she counted the balls of +Clare, still she was on the point of grasping the organization of +the May races. "And who is your friend?" she asked. + +"His name is Ansell." + +"Well, now, did I see him two years ago--as a bedmaker in +something they did at the Foot Lights? Oh, how I roared." + +"You didn't see Mr. Ansell at the Foot Lights," said Agnes, +smiling. + +"How do you know?" asked Rickie. + +"He'd scarcely be so frivolous." + +"Do you remember seeing him?" + +"For a moment." + +What a memory she had! And how splendidly during that moment she +had behaved! + +"Isn't he marvellously clever?" + +"I believe so." + +"Oh, give me clever people!" cried Mrs. Lewin. "They are kindness +itself at the Hall, but I assure you I am depressed at times. One +cannot talk bump-rowing for ever." + +"I never hear about him, Rickie; but isn't he really your +greatest friend?" + +"I don't go in for greatest friends." + +"Do you mean you like us all equally?" + +"All differently, those of you I like." + +"Ah, you've caught it!" cried Mrs. Lewin. "Mr. Elliot gave it you +there well." + +Agnes laughed, and, her elbows on the table, regarded them both +through her fingers--a habit of hers. Then she said, "Can't we +see the great Mr. Ansell?" + +"Oh, let's. Or would he frighten me?" + +"He would frighten you," said Rickie. "He's a trifle weird." + +"My good Rickie, if you knew the deathly dullness of Sawston-- +every one saying the proper thing at the proper time, I so +proper, Herbert so proper! Why, weirdness is the one thing I long +for! Do arrange something." + +"I'm afraid there's no opportunity. Ansell goes some vast bicycle +ride this afternoon; this evening you're tied up at the Hall; and +tomorrow you go." + +"But there's breakfast tomorrow," said Agnes. "Look here, Rickie, +bring Mr. Ansell to breakfast with us at Buoys." + +Mrs. Lewin seconded the invitation. + +"Bad luck again," said Rickie boldly; "I'm already fixed up for +breakfast. I'll tell him of your very kind intention." + +"Let's have him alone," murmured Agnes. + +"My dear girl, I should die through the floor! Oh, it'll be all +right about breakfast. I rather think we shall get asked this +evening by that shy man who has the pretty rooms in Trinity." + +"Oh, very well. Where is it you breakfast, Rickie?" + +He faltered. "To Ansell's, it is--" It seemed as if he was making +some great admission. So self-conscious was he, that he thought +the two women exchanged glances. Had Agnes already explored that +part of him that did not belong to her? Would another chance step +reveal the part that did? He asked them abruptly what they would +like to do after lunch. + +"Anything," said Mrs. Lewin,--"anything in the world." + +A walk? A boat? Ely? A drive? Some objection was raised to each. +"To tell the truth," she said at last, "I do feel a wee bit +tired, and what occurs to me is this. You and Agnes shall leave +me here and have no more bother. I shall be perfectly happy +snoozling in one of these delightful drawing-room chairs. Do +what you like, and then pick me up after it." + +"Alas, it's against regulations," said Rickie. "The Union won't +trust lady visitors on its premises alone." + +"But who's to know I'm alone? With a lot of men in the +drawing-room, how's each to know that I'm not with the others?" + +"That would shock Rickie," said Agnes, laughing. "He's +frightfully high-principled." + +"No, I'm not," said Rickie, thinking of his recent shiftiness +over breakfast. + +"Then come for a walk with me. I want exercise. Some connection +of ours was once rector of Madingley. I shall walk out and see +the church." + +Mrs. Lewin was accordingly left in the Union. + +"This is jolly!" Agnes exclaimed as she strode along the somewhat +depressing road that leads out of Cambridge past the observatory. +"Do I go too fast?" + +"No, thank you. I get stronger every year. If it wasn't for the +look of the thing, I should be quite happy." + +"But you don't care for the look of the thing. It's only ignorant +people who do that, surely." + +"Perhaps. I care. I like people who are well-made and beautiful. +They are of some use in the world. I understand why they are +there. I cannot understand why the ugly and crippled are there, +however healthy they may feel inside. Don't you know how Turner +spoils his pictures by introducing a man like a bolster in the +foreground? Well, in actual life every landscape is spoilt by men +of worse shapes still." + +"You sound like a bolster with the stuffing out." They laughed. +She always blew his cobwebs away like this, with a puff of +humorous mountain air. Just now the associations he attached to +her were various--she reminded him of a heroine of Meredith's-- +but a heroine at the end of the book. All had been written about +her. She had played her mighty part, and knew that it was over. +He and he alone was not content, and wrote for her daily a +trivial and impossible sequel. + +Last time they had talked about Gerald. But that was some six +months ago, when things felt easier. Today Gerald was the +faintest blur. Fortunately the conversation turned to Mr. +Pembroke and to education. Did women lose a lot by not knowing +Greek? "A heap," said Rickie, roughly. But modern languages? Thus +they got to Germany, which he had visited last Easter with +Ansell; and thence to the German Emperor, and what a to-do he +made; and from him to our own king (still Prince of Wales), who +had lived while an undergraduate at Madingley Hall. Here it was. +And all the time he thought, "It is hard on her. She has no right +to be walking with me. She would be ill with disgust if she knew. +It is hard on her to be loved." + +They looked at the Hall, and went inside the pretty little +church. Some Arundel prints hung upon the pillars, and Agnes +expressed the opinion that pictures inside a place of worship +were a pity. Rickie did not agree with this. He said again that +nothing beautiful was ever to be regretted. + +"You're cracked on beauty," she whispered--they were still inside +the church. "Do hurry up and write something." + +"Something beautiful?" + +"I believe you can. I'm going to lecture you seriously all the +way home. Take care that you don't waste your life." + +They continued the conversation outside. "But I've got to hate my +own writing. I believe that most people come to that stage--not +so early though. What I write is too silly. It can't happen. For +instance, a stupid vulgar man is engaged to a lovely young lady. +He wants her to live in the towns, but she only cares for woods. +She shocks him this way and that, but gradually he tames her, and +makes her nearly as dull as he is. One day she has a last +explosion--over the snobby wedding presents--and flies out of the +drawing-room window, shouting, 'Freedom and truth!' Near the +house is a little dell full of fir-trees, and she runs into it. +He comes there the next moment. But she's gone." + +"Awfully exciting. Where?" + +"Oh Lord, she's a Dryad!" cried Rickie, in great disgust. "She's +turned into a tree." + +"Rickie, it's very good indeed. The kind of thing has something in +it. Of course you get it all through Greek and Latin. How upset +the man must be when he sees the girl turn." + +"He doesn't see her. He never guesses. Such a man could never see +a Dryad." + +"So you describe how she turns just before he comes up?" + +"No. Indeed I don't ever say that she does turn. I don't use the +word 'Dryad' once." + +"I think you ought to put that part plainly. Otherwise, with such +an original story, people might miss the point. Have you had any +luck with it?" + +"Magazines? I haven't tried. I know what the stuff's worth. You +see, a year or two ago I had a great idea of getting into touch +with Nature, just as the Greeks were in touch; and seeing England +so beautiful, I used to pretend that her trees and coppices and +summer fields of parsley were alive. It's funny enough now, but +it wasn't funny then, for I got in such a state that I believed, +actually believed, that Fauns lived in a certain double hedgerow +near the Cog Magogs, and one evening I walked a mile sooner +than go through it alone." + +"Good gracious!" She laid her hand on his shoulder. + +He moved to the other side of the road. "It's all right now. I've +changed those follies for others. But while I had them I began to +write, and even now I keep on writing, though I know better. I've +got quite a pile of little stories, all harping on this +ridiculous idea of getting into touch with Nature." + +"I wish you weren't so modest. It's simply splendid as an idea. +Though--but tell me about the Dryad who was engaged to be +married. What was she like?" + +"I can show you the dell in which the young person disappeared. +We pass it on the right in a moment." + +"It does seem a pity that you don't make something of your +talents. It seems such a waste to write little stories and never +publish them. You must have enough for a book. Life is so full in +our days that short stories are the very thing; they get read by +people who'd never tackle a novel. For example, at our Dorcas we +tried to read out a long affair by Henry James--Herbert saw it +recommended in 'The Times.' There was no doubt it was very good, +but one simply couldn't remember from one week to another what +had happened. So now our aim is to get something that just lasts +the hour. I take you seriously, Rickie, and that is why I am so +offensive. You are too modest. People who think they can do +nothing so often do nothing. I want you to plunge." + +It thrilled him like a trumpet-blast. She took him seriously. +Could he but thank her for her divine affability! But the words +would stick in his throat, or worse still would bring other words +along with them. His breath came quickly, for he seldom spoke of +his writing, and no one, not even Ansell, had advised him to +plunge. + +"But do you really think that I could take up literature?" + +"Why not? You can try. Even if you fail, you can try. Of course +we think you tremendously clever; and I met one of your dons at +tea, and he said that your degree was not in the least a proof of +your abilities: he said that you knocked up and got flurried in +examinations. Oh!"--her cheek flushed,--"I wish I was a man. The +whole world lies before them. They can do anything. They aren't +cooped up with servants and tea parties and twaddle. But where's +this dell where the Dryad disappeared?" + +"We've passed it." He had meant to pass it. It was too beautiful. +All he had read, all he had hoped for, all he had loved, seemed +to quiver in its enchanted air. It was perilous. He dared not +enter it with such a woman. + +"How long ago?" She turned back. "I don't want to miss the dell. +Here it must be," she added after a few moments, and sprang up +the green bank that hid the entrance from the road. "Oh, what a +jolly place!" + +"Go right in if you want to see it," said Rickie, and did not +offer to go with her. She stood for a moment looking at the view, +for a few steps will increase a view in Cambridgeshire. The wind +blew her dress against her. Then, like a cataract again, she +vanished pure and cool into the dell. + +The young man thought of her feelings no longer. His heart +throbbed louder and louder, and seemed to shake him to pieces. +"Rickie!" + +She was calling from the dell. For an answer he sat down where he +was, on the dust-bespattered margin. She could call as loud as +she liked. The devil had done much, but he should not take him to +her. + +"Rickie!"--and it came with the tones of an angel. He drove his +fingers into his ears, and invoked the name of Gerald. But there +was no sign, neither angry motion in the air nor hint of January +mist. June--fields of June, sky of June, songs of June. Grass of +June beneath him, grass of June over the tragedy he had deemed +immortal. A bird called out of the dell: "Rickie!" + +A bird flew into the dell. + +"Did you take me for the Dryad?" she asked. She was sitting down +with his head on her lap. He had laid it there for a moment +before he went out to die, and she had not let him take it away. + +"I prayed you might not be a woman," he whispered. + +"Darling, I am very much a woman. I do not vanish into groves and +trees. I thought you would never come." + +"Did you expect--?" + +"I hoped. I called hoping." + +Inside the dell it was neither June nor January. The chalk walls +barred out the seasons, and the fir-trees did not seem to feel +their passage. Only from time to time the odours of summer +slipped in from the wood above, to comment on the waxing year. +She bent down to touch him with her lips. + +He started, and cried passionately, "Never forget that your +greatest thing is over. I have forgotten: I am too weak. You +shall never forget. What I said to you then is greater than what +I say to you now. What he gave you then is greater than anything +you will get from me." + +She was frightened. Again she had the sense of something +abnormal. Then she said, "What is all this nonsense?" and folded +him in her arms. + + + +VIII + +Ansell stood looking at his breakfast-table, which was laid for +four instead of two. His bedmaker, equally peevish, explained how +it had happened. Last night, at one in the morning, the porter +had been awoke with a note for the kitchens, and in that note Mr. +Elliot said that all these things were to be sent to Mr. +Ansell's. + +"The fools have sent the original order as well. Here's the +lemon-sole for two. I can't move for food." + +"The note being ambigerous, the Kitchens judged best to send it +all." She spoke of the kitchens in a half-respectful, +half-pitying way, much as one speaks of Parliament. + +"Who's to pay for it?" He peeped into the new dishes. Kidneys +entombed in an omelette, hot roast chicken in watery gravy, a +glazed but pallid pie. + +"And who's to wash it up?" said the bedmaker to her help outside. + +Ansell had disputed late last night concerning Schopenhauer, and +was a little cross and tired. He bounced over to Tilliard, who +kept opposite. Tilliard was eating gooseberry jam. + +"Did Elliot ask you to breakfast with me?" + +"No," said Tilliard mildly. + +"Well, you'd better come, and bring every one you know." + +So Tilliard came, bearing himself a little formally, for he was +not very intimate with his neighbour. Out of the window they +called to Widdrington. But he laid his hand on his stomach, thus +indicating it was too late. + +"Who's to pay for it?" repeated Ansell, as a man appeared from +the Buttery carrying coffee on a bright tin tray. + +"College coffee! How nice!" remarked Tilliard, who was cutting +the pie. "But before term ends you must come and try my new +machine. My sister gave it me. There is a bulb at the top, and as +the water boils--" + +"He might have counter-ordered the lemon-sole. That's Rickie all +over. Violently economical, and then loses his head, and all the +things go bad." + +"Give them to the bedder while they're hot." This was done. She +accepted them dispassionately, with the air of one who lives +without nourishment. Tilliard continued to describe his sister's +coffee machine. + +"What's that?" They could hear panting and rustling on the +stairs. + +"It sounds like a lady," said Tilliard fearfully. He slipped the +piece of pie back. It fell into position like a brick. + +"Is it here? Am I right? Is it here?" The door opened and in came +Mrs. Lewin. "Oh horrors! I've made a mistake." + +"That's all right," said Ansell awkwardly. + +"I wanted Mr. Elliot. Where are they?" + +"We expect Mr. Elliot every-moment," said Tilliard. + +"Don't tell me I'm right," cried Mrs. Lewin, "and that you're the +terrifying Mr. Ansell." And, with obvious relief, she wrung +Tilliard warmly by the hand. + +"I'm Ansell," said Ansell, looking very uncouth and grim. + +"How stupid of me not to know it," she gasped, and would have +gone on to I know not what, but the door opened again. It was +Rickie. + +"Here's Miss Pembroke," he said. "I am going to marry her." + +There was a profound silence. + +"We oughtn't to have done things like this," said Agnes, turning +to Mrs. Lewin. "We have no right to take Mr. Ansell by surprise. +It is Rickie's fault. He was that obstinate. He would bring us. +He ought to be horsewhipped." + +"He ought, indeed," said Tilliard pleasantly, and bolted. Not +till he gained his room did he realize that he had been less apt +than usual. As for Ansell, the first thing he said was, "Why +didn't you counter-order the lemon-sole?" + +In such a situation Mrs. Lewin was of priceless value. She led +the way to the table, observing, "I quite agree with Miss +Pembroke. I loathe surprises. Never shall I forget my horror when +the knife-boy painted the dove's cage with the dove inside. He +did it as a surprise. Poor Parsival nearly died. His feathers +were bright green!" + +"Well, give me the lemon-soles," said Rickie. "I like them." + +"The bedder's got them." + +"Well, there you are! What's there to be annoyed about?" + +"And while the cage was drying we put him among the bantams. They +had been the greatest allies. But I suppose they took him for a +parrot or a hawk, or something that bantams hate for while his +cage was drying they picked out his feathers, and PICKED and +PICKED out his feathers, till he was perfectly bald. 'Hugo, +look,' said I. 'This is the end of Parsival. Let me have no more +surprises.' He burst into tears." + +Thus did Mrs. Lewin create an atmosphere. At first it seemed +unreal, but gradually they got used to it, and breathed scarcely +anything else throughout the meal. In such an atmosphere +everything seemed of small and equal value, and the engagement of +Rickie and Agnes like the feathers of Parsival, fluttered lightly +to the ground. Ansell was generally silent. He was no match for +these two quite clever women. Only once was there a hitch. + +They had been talking gaily enough about the betrothal when +Ansell suddenly interrupted with, "When is the marriage?" + +"Mr. Ansell," said Agnes, blushing, "I wish you hadn't asked +that. That part's dreadful. Not for years, as far as we can see." + +But Rickie had not seen as far. He had not talked to her of this +at all. Last night they had spoken only of love. He exclaimed, +"Oh, Agnes-don't!" Mrs. Lewin laughed roguishly. + +"Why this delay?" asked Ansell. + +Agnes looked at Rickie, who replied, "I must get money, worse +luck." + +"I thought you'd got money." + +He hesitated, and then said, "I must get my foot on the ladder, +then." + +Ansell began with, "On which ladder?" but Mrs. Lewin, using the +privilege of her sex, exclaimed, "Not another word. If there's a +thing I abominate, it is plans. My head goes whirling at once." +What she really abominated was questions, and she saw that Ansell +was turning serious. To appease him, she put on her clever manner +and asked him about Germany. How had it impressed him? Were we so +totally unfitted to repel invasion? Was not German scholarship +overestimated? He replied discourteously, but he did reply; and +if she could have stopped him thinking, her triumph would have +been complete. + +When they rose to go, Agnes held Ansell's hand for a moment in +her own. + +"Good-bye," she said. "It was very unconventional of us to come +as we did, but I don't think any of us are conventional people." + +He only replied, "Good-bye." The ladies started off. Rickie +lingered behind to whisper, "I would have it so. I would have you +begin square together. I can't talk yet--I've loved her for +years--can't think what she's done it for. I'm going to write +short stories. I shall start this afternoon. She declares there +may be something in me." + +As soon as he had left, Tilliard burst in, white with agitation, +and crying, "Did you see my awful faux pas--about the horsewhip? +What shall I do? I must call on Elliot. Or had I better write?" + +"Miss Pembroke will not mind," said Ansell gravely. "She is +unconventional." He knelt in an arm-chair and hid his face in the +back. + +"It was like a bomb," said Tilliard. + +"It was meant to be." + +"I do feel a fool. What must she think?" + +"Never mind, Tilliard. You've not been as big a fool as myself. +At all events, you told her he must be horsewhipped." + +Tilliard hummed a little tune. He hated anything nasty, and there +was nastiness in Ansell. "What did you tell her?" he asked. + +"Nothing." + +"What do you think of it?" + +"I think: Damn those women." + +"Ah, yes. One hates one's friends to get engaged. It makes one +feel so old: I think that is one of the reasons. The brother just +above me has lately married, and my sister was quite sick about +it, though the thing was suitable in every way." + +"Damn THESE women, then," said Ansell, bouncing round in the +chair. "Damn these particular women." + +"They looked and spoke like ladies." + +"Exactly. Their diplomacy was ladylike. Their lies were ladylike. +They've caught Elliot in a most ladylike way. I saw it all during +the one moment we were natural. Generally we were clattering +after the married one, whom--like a fool--I took for a fool. But +for one moment we were natural, and during that moment Miss +Pembroke told a lie, and made Rickie believe it was the truth." + +"What did she say?" + +"She said `we see' instead of 'I see.'" + +Tilliard burst into laughter. This jaundiced young philosopher, +with his kinky view of life, was too much for him. + +"She said 'we see,'" repeated Ansell, "instead of 'I see,' and +she made him believe that it was the truth. She caught him and +makes him believe that he caught her. She came to see me and +makes him think that it is his idea. That is what I mean when I +say that she is a lady." + +"You are too subtle for me. My dull eyes could only see two happy +people." + +"I never said they weren't happy." + +"Then, my dear Ansell, why are you so cut up? It's beastly when a +friend marries,--and I grant he's rather young,--but I should say +it's the best thing for him. A decent woman--and you have proved +not one thing against her--a decent woman will keep him up to the +mark and stop him getting slack. She'll make him responsible and +manly, for much as I like Rickie, I always find him a little +effeminate. And, really,"--his voice grew sharper, for he was +irritated by Ansell's conceit, "and, really, you talk as if you +were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil visit to your +rooms, and you see nothing but dark plots and challenges to war." + +"War!" cried Ansell, crashing his fists together. "It's war, +then!" + +"Oh, what a lot of tommy-rot," said Tilliard. "Can't a man and +woman get engaged? My dear boy--excuse me talking like this--what +on earth is it to do with us?" + +"We're his friends, and I hope we always shall be, but we shan't +keep his friendship by fighting. We're bound to fall into the +background. Wife first, friends some way after. You may resent +the order, but it is ordained by nature." + +"The point is, not what's ordained by nature or any other fool, +but what's right." + +"You are hopelessly unpractical," said Tilliard, turning away. +"And let me remind you that you've already given away your case +by acknowledging that they're happy." + +"She is happy because she has conquered; he is happy because he +has at last hung all the world's beauty on to a single peg. He +was always trying to do it. He used to call the peg humanity. +Will either of these happinesses last? His can't. Hers only for a +time. I fight this woman not only because she fights me, but +because I foresee the most appalling catastrophe. She wants +Rickie, partly to replace another man whom she lost two years +ago, partly to make something out of him. He is to write. In time +she will get sick of this. He won't get famous. She will only see +how thin he is and how lame. She will long for a jollier husband, +and I don't blame her. And, having made him thoroughly miserable +and degraded, she will bolt--if she can do it like a lady." + +Such were the opinions of Stewart Ansell. + + + +IX + +Seven letters written in June:-- + + +Cambridge + +Dear Rickie, + +I would rather write, and you can guess what kind of letter this +is when I say it is a fair copy: I have been making rough drafts +all the morning. When I talk I get angry, and also at times try +to be clever--two reasons why I fail to get attention paid to me. +This is a letter of the prudent sort. If it makes you break off +the engagement, its work is done. You are not a person who ought +to marry at all. You are unfitted in body: that we once +discussed. You are also unfitted in soul: you want and you need +to like many people, and a man of that sort ought not to marry. +"You never were attached to that great sect" who can like one +person only, and if you try to enter it you will find +destruction. I have read in books and I cannot afford to despise +books, they are all that I have to go by--that men and women +desire different things. Man wants to love mankind; woman wants +to love one man. When she has him her work is over. She is the +emissary of Nature, and Nature's bidding has been fulfilled. But +man does not care a damn for Nature--or at least only a very +little damn. He cares for a hundred things besides, and the more +civilized he is the more he will care for these other hundred +things, and demand not only--a wife and children, but also +friends, and work, and spiritual freedom. + +I believe you to be extraordinarily civilized.--Yours ever, + +S.A. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, +Sawston + +Dear Ansell, + +But I'm in love--a detail you've forgotten. I can't listen to +English Essays. The wretched Agnes may be an "emissary of +Nature," but I only grinned when I read it. I may be +extraordinarily civilized, but I don't feel so; I'm in love, and +I've found a woman to love me, and I mean to have the hundred +other things as well. She wants me to have them--friends and +work, and spiritual freedom, and everything. You and your books +miss this, because your books are too sedate. Read poetry--not +only Shelley. Understand Beatrice, and Clara Middleton, and +Brunhilde in the first scene of Gotterdammerung. Understand +Goethe when he says "the eternal feminine leads us on," and don't +write another English Essay.--Yours ever affectionately, + +R.E + + +Cambridge + +Dear Rickie: + +What am I to say? "Understand Xanthippe, and Mrs. Bennet, and +Elsa in the question scene of Lohengrin"? "Understand Euripides +when he says the eternal feminine leads us a pretty dance"? I +shall say nothing of the sort. The allusions in this English +Essay shall not be literary. My personal objections to Miss +Pembroke are as follows:-- +(1) She is not serious. +(2) She is not truthful. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road +Sawston + +My Dear Stewart, + +You couldn't know. I didn't know for a moment. But this letter of +yours is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me +yet--more wonderful (I don't exaggerate) than the moment when +Agnes promised to marry me. I always knew you liked me, but I +never knew how much until this letter. Up to now I think we have +been too much like the strong heroes in books who feel so much +and say so little, and feel all the more for saying so little. +Now that's over and we shall never be that kind of an ass again. +We've hit--by accident--upon something permanent. You've written +to me, "I hate the woman who will be your wife," and I write +back, "Hate her. Can't I love you both?" She will never come +between us, Stewart (She wouldn't wish to, but that's by the +way), because our friendship has now passed beyond intervention. +No third person could break it. We couldn't ourselves, I fancy. +We may quarrel and argue till one of us dies, but the thing is +registered. I only wish, dear man, you could be happier. For me, +it's as if a light was suddenly held behind the world. + +R.E. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, +Sawston + +Dear Mrs. Lewin,-- + +The time goes flying, but I am getting to learn my wonderful boy. +We speak a great deal about his work. He has just finished a +curious thing called "Nemi"--about a Roman ship that is actually +sunk in some lake. I cannot think how he describes the things, +when he has never seen them. If, as I hope, he goes to Italy next +year, he should turn out something really good. Meanwhile we are +hunting for a publisher. Herbert believes that a collection of +short stories is hard to get published. It is, after all, better +to write one long one. + +But you must not think we only talk books. What we say on other +topics cannot so easily be repeated! Oh, Mrs Lewin, he is a dear, +and dearer than ever now that we have him at Sawston. Herbert, in +a quiet way, has been making inquiries about those Cambridge +friends of his. Nothing against them, but they seem to be +terribly eccentric. None of them are good at games, and they +spend all their spare time thinking and discussing. They discuss +what one knows and what one never will know and what one had much +better not know. Herbert says it is because they have not got +enough to do.--Ever your grateful and affectionate friend, + +Agnes Pembroke + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road +Sawston + +Dear Mr. Silt,-- + +Thank you for the congratulations, which I have handed over to +the delighted Rickie. + +(The congratulations were really addressed to Agnes--a social +blunder which Mr. Pembroke deftly corrects.) + +I am sorry that the rumor reached you that I was not pleased. +Anything pleases me that promises my sister's happiness, and I +have known your cousin nearly as long as you have. It will be a +very long engagement, for he must make his way first. The dear +boy is not nearly as wealthy as he supposed; having no tastes, +and hardly any expenses, he used to talk as if he were a +millionaire. He must at least double his income before he can +dream of more intimate ties. This has been a bitter pill, but I +am glad to say that they have accepted it bravely. + +Hoping that you and Mrs. Silt will profit by your week at +Margate.-I remain, yours very sincerely, + +Herbert Pembroke + + +Cadover, Wilts. + +Dear {Miss Pembroke, + {Agnes- + +I hear that you are going to marry my nephew. I have no idea what +he is like, and wonder whether you would bring him that I may +find out. Isn't September rather a nice month? You might have to +go to Stone Henge, but with that exception would be left +unmolested. I do hope you will manage the visit. We met once at +Mrs. Lewin's, and I have a very clear recollection of you.-- +Believe me, yours sincerely, + +Emily Failing + + + +X + +The rain tilted a little from the south-west. For the most part +it fell from a grey cloud silently, but now and then the tilt +increased, and a kind of sigh passed over the country as the +drops lashed the walls, trees, shepherds, and other motionless +objects that stood in their slanting career. At times the cloud +would descend and visibly embrace the earth, to which it had only +sent messages; and the earth itself would bring forth clouds +--clouds of a whiter breed--which formed in shallow valleys and +followed the courses of the streams. It seemed the beginning of +life. Again God said, "Shall we divide the waters from the land +or not? Was not the firmament labour and glory sufficient?" At +all events it was the beginning of life pastoral, behind which +imagination cannot travel. + +Yet complicated people were getting wet--not only the shepherds. +For instance, the piano-tuner was sopping. So was the vicar's +wife. So were the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his +Battleston car. Gallantry, charity, and art pursued their various +missions, perspiring and muddy, while out on the slopes beyond +them stood the eternal man and the eternal dog, guarding eternal +sheep until the world is vegetarian. + +Inside an arbour--which faced east, and thus avoided the bad +weather--there sat a complicated person who was dry. She looked +at the drenched world with a pleased expression, and would smile +when a cloud would lay down on the village, or when the rain +sighed louder than usual against her solid shelter. Ink, +paperclips, and foolscap paper were on the table before her, and +she could also reach an umbrella, a waterproof, a walking-stick, +and an electric bell. Her age was between elderly and old, and +her forehead was wrinkled with an expression of slight but +perpetual pain. But the lines round her mouth indicated that she +had laughed a great deal during her life, just as the clean tight +skin round her eyes perhaps indicated that she had not often +cried. She was dressed in brown silk. A brown silk shawl lay most +becomingly over her beautiful hair. + +After long thought she wrote on the paper in front of her, "The +subject of this memoir first saw the light at Wolverhampton on +May the 14th, 1842." She laid down her pen and said "Ugh!" A +robin hopped in and she welcomed him. A sparrow followed and she +stamped her foot. She watched some thick white water which was +sliding like a snake down the gutter of the gravel path. It had +just appeared. It must have escaped from a hollow in the chalk up +behind. The earth could absorb no longer. The lady did not think +of all this, for she hated questions of whence and wherefore, and +the ways of the earth ("our dull stepmother") bored her +unspeakably. But the water, just the snake of water, was +amusing, and she flung her golosh at it to dam it up. Then she +wrote feverishly, "The subject of this memoir first saw the light +in the middle of the night. It was twenty to eleven. His pa was a +parson, but he was not his pa's son, and never went to heaven." +There was the sound of a train, and presently white smoke +appeared, rising laboriously through the heavy air. It distracted +her, and for about a quarter of an hour she sat perfectly still, +doing nothing. At last she pushed the spoilt paper aside, took +afresh piece, and was beginning to write, "On May the 14th, +1842," when there was a crunch on the gravel, and a furious voice +said, "I am sorry for Flea Thompson." + +"I daresay I am sorry for him too," said the lady; her voice was +languid and pleasant. "Who is he?" + +"Flea's a liar, and the next time we meet he'll be a football." +Off slipped a sodden ulster. He hung it up angrily upon a peg: +the arbour provided several. + +"But who is he, and why has he that disastrous name?" + +"Flea? Fleance. All the Thompsons are named out of Shakespeare. +He grazes the Rings." + +"Ah, I see. A pet lamb." + +"Lamb! Shepherd!" + +"One of my Shepherds?" + +"The last time I go with his sheep. But not the last tune he sees +me. I am sorry for him. He dodged me today," + +"Do you mean to say"--she became animated--"that you have been +out in the wet keeping the sheep of Flea Thompson?" + +"I had to." He blew on his fingers and took off his cap. Water +trickled over his unshaven cheeks. His hair was so wet that it +seemed worked upon his scalp in bronze. + +"Get away, bad dog!" screamed the lady, for he had given himself +a shake and spattered her dress with water. He was a powerful boy +of twenty, admirably muscular, but rather too broad for his +height. People called him "Podge" until they were dissuaded. Then +they called him "Stephen" or "Mr. Wonham." Then he said, "You can +call me Podge if you like." + +"As for Flea--!" he began tempestuously. He sat down by her, and +with much heavy breathing told the story,--"Flea has a girl at +Wintersbridge, and I had to go with his sheep while he went to +see her. Two hours. We agreed. Half an hour to go, an hour to +kiss his girl, and half an hour back--and he had my bike. Four +hours! Four hours and seven minutes I was on the Rings, with a +fool of a dog, and sheep doing all they knew to get the turnips." + +"My farm is a mystery to me," said the lady, stroking her +fingers. + +"Some day you must really take me to see it. It must be like a +Gilbert and Sullivan opera, with a chorus of agitated employers. +How is it that I have escaped? Why have I never been summoned to +milk the cows, or flay the pigs, or drive the young bullocks to +the pasture?" + +He looked at her with astonishingly blue eyes--the only dry +things he had about him. He could not see into her: she would +have puzzled an older and clever man. He may have seen round her. + +"A thing of beauty you are not. But I sometimes think you are a +joy for ever." + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"Oh, you understand right enough," she exclaimed irritably, and +then smiled, for he was conceited, and did not like being told +that he was not a thing of beauty. "Large and steady feet," she +continued, "have this disadvantage--you can knock down a man, but +you will never knock down a woman." + +"I don't know what you mean. I'm not likely--" + +"Oh, never mind--never, never mind. I was being funny. I repent. +Tell me about the sheep. Why did you go with them?" + +"I did tell you. I had to." + +"But why?" + +"He had to see his girl." + +"But why?" + +His eyes shot past her again. It was so obvious that the man had +to see his girl. For two hours though--not for four hours seven +minutes. + +"Did you have any lunch?" + +"I don't hold with regular meals." + +"Did you have a book?" + +"I don't hold with books in the open. None of the older men +read." + +"Did you commune with yourself, or don't you hold with that?" + +"Oh Lord, don't ask me!" + +"You distress me. You rob the Pastoral of its lingering romance. +Is there no poetry and no thought in England? Is there no one, in +all these downs, who warbles with eager thought the Doric lay?" + +"Chaps sing to themselves at times, if you mean that." + +"I dream of Arcady. I open my eyes. Wiltshire. Of Amaryllis: Flea +Thompson's girl. Of the pensive shepherd, twitching his mantle +blue: you in an ulster. Aren't you sorry for me?" + +"May I put in a pipe?" + +"By all means put a pipe in. In return, tell me of what you were +thinking for the four hours and the seven minutes." + +He laughed shyly. "You do ask a man such questions." + +"Did you simply waste the time?" + +"I suppose so." + +"I thought that Colonel Robert Ingersoll says you must be +strenuous." + +At the sound of this name he whisked open a little cupboard, and +declaring, "I haven't a moment to spare," took out of it a pile +of "Clarion" and other reprints, adorned as to their covers with +bald or bearded apostles of humanity. Selecting a bald one, he +began at once to read, occasionally exclaiming, "That's got +them," "That's knocked Genesis," with similar ejaculations of an +aspiring mind. She glanced at the pile. Reran, minus the style. +Darwin, minus the modesty. A comic edition of the book of Job, by +"Excelsior," Pittsburgh, Pa. "The Beginning of Life," with +diagrams. "Angel or Ape?" by Mrs. Julia P. Chunk. She was amused, +and wondered idly what was passing within his narrow but not +uninteresting brain. Did he suppose that he was going to "find +out"? She had tried once herself, but had since subsided into a +sprightly orthodoxy. Why didn't he read poetry, instead of +wasting his time between books like these and country like that? + +The cloud parted, and the increase of light made her look up. +Over the valley she saw a grave sullen down, and on its flanks a +little brown smudge--her sheep, together with her shepherd, +Fleance Thompson, returned to his duties at last. A trickle of +water came through the arbour roof. She shrieked in dismay. + +"That's all right," said her companion, moving her chair, but +still keeping his place in his book. + +She dried up the spot on the manuscript. Then she wrote: "Anthony +Eustace Failing, the subject of this memoir, was born at +Wolverhampton." But she wrote no more. She was fidgety. Another +drop fell from the roof. Likewise an earwig. She wished she had +not been so playful in flinging her golosh into the path. The boy +who was overthrowing religion breathed somewhat heavily as he did +so. Another earwig. She touched the electric bell. + +"I'm going in," she observed. "It's far too wet." Again the cloud +parted and caused her to add, "Weren't you rather kind to Flea?" +But he was deep in the book. He read like a poor person, with +lips apart and a finger that followed the print. At times he +scratched his ear, or ran his tongue along a straggling blonde +moustache. His face had after all a certain beauty: at all events +the colouring was regal--a steady crimson from throat to +forehead: the sun and the winds had worked on him daily ever +since he was born. "The face of a strong man," thought the lady. +"Let him thank his stars he isn't a silent strong man, or I'd +turn him into the gutter." Suddenly it struck her that he was +like an Irish terrier. He worried infinity as if it was a bone. +Gnashing his teeth, he tried to carry the eternal subtleties by +violence. As a man he often bored her, for he was always saying +and doing the same things. But as a philosopher he really was a +joy for ever, an inexhaustible buffoon. Taking up her pen, she +began to caricature him. She drew a rabbit-warren where rabbits +were at play in four dimensions. Before she had introduced the +principal figure, she was interrupted by the footman. He had come +up from the house to answer the bell. On seeing her he uttered a +respectful cry. + +"Madam! Are you here? I am very sorry. I looked for you +everywhere. Mr. Elliot and Miss Pembroke arrived nearly an hour +ago." + +"Oh dear, oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Failing. "Take these papers. +Where's the umbrella? Mr. Stephen will hold it over me. You hurry +back and apologize. Are they happy?" + +"Miss Pembroke inquired after you, madam." + +"Have they had tea?" + +"Yes, madam." + +"Leighton!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I believe you knew she was here all the time. You didn't want to +wet your pretty skin." + +"You must not call me 'she' to the servants," said Mrs. Failing +as they walked away, she limping with a stick, he holding a great +umbrella over her. "I will not have it." Then more pleasantly, +"And don't tell him he lies. We all lie. I knew quite well they +were coming by the four-six train. I saw it pass." + +"That reminds me. Another child run over at the Roman crossing. +Whish--bang--dead." + +"Oh my foot! Oh my foot, my foot!" said Mrs. Failing, and paused +to take breath. + +"Bad?" he asked callously. + +Leighton, with bowed head, passed them with the manuscript and +disappeared among the laurels. The twinge of pain, which had been +slight, passed away, and they proceeded, descending a green +airless corridor which opened into the gravel drive. + +"Isn't it odd," said Mrs. Failing, "that the Greeks should be +enthusiastic about laurels--that Apollo should pursue any one who +could possibly turn into such a frightful plant? What do you make +of Rickie?" + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"Shall I lend you his story to read?" + +He made no reply. + +"Don't you think, Stephen, that a person in your precarious +position ought to be civil to my relatives?" + +"Sorry, Mrs. Failing. I meant to be civil. I only hadn't-- +anything to say." + +She a laughed. "Are you a dear boy? I sometimes wonder; or are +you a brute?" + +Again he had nothing to say. Then she laughed more mischievously, +and said-- + +"How can you be either, when you are a philosopher? Would you +mind telling me--I am so anxious to learn--what happens to people +when they die?" + +"Don't ask ME." He knew by bitter experience that she was making +fun of him. + +"Oh, but I do ask you. Those paper books of yours are so +up-to-date. For instance, what has happened to the child you say +was killed on the line?" + +The rain increased. The drops pattered hard on the leaves, and +outside the corridor men and women were struggling, however +stupidly, with the facts of life. Inside it they wrangled. She +teased the boy, and laughed at his theories, and proved that no +man can be an agnostic who has a sense of humour. Suddenly she +stopped, not through any skill of his, but because she had +remembered some words of Bacon: "The true atheist is he whose +hands are cauterized by holy things." She thought of her distant +youth. The world was not so humorous then, but it had been more +important. For a moment she respected her companion, and +determined to vex him no more. + +They left the shelter of the laurels, crossed the broad drive, +and were inside the house at last. She had got quite wet, for the +weather would not let her play the simple life with impunity. As +for him, he seemed a piece of the wet. + +"Look here," she cried, as he hurried up to his attic, "don't +shave!" + +He was delighted with the permission. + +"I have an idea that Miss Pembroke is of the type that pretends +to be unconventional and really isn't. I want to see how she +takes it. Don't shave." + +In the drawing-room she could hear the guests conversing in the +subdued tones of those who have not been welcomed. Having changed +her dress and glanced at the poems of Milton, she went to them, +with uplifted hands of apology and horror. + +"But I must have tea," she announced, when they had assured her +that they understood. "Otherwise I shall start by being cross. +Agnes, stop me. Give me tea." + +Agnes, looking pleased, moved to the table and served her +hostess. Rickie followed with a pagoda of sandwiches and little +cakes. + +"I feel twenty-seven years younger. Rickie, you are so like your +father. I feel it is twenty-seven years ago, and that he is +bringing your mother to see me for the first time. It is +curious--almost terrible--to see history repeating itself." + +The remark was not tactful. + +"I remember that visit well," she continued thoughtfully, "I +suppose it was a wonderful visit, though we none of us knew it at +the time. We all fell in love with your mother. I wish she would +have fallen in love with us. She couldn't bear me, could she?" + +"I never heard her say so, Aunt Emily." + +"No; she wouldn't. I am sure your father said so, though. My dear +boy, don't look so shocked. Your father and I hated each other. +He said so, I said so, I say so; say so too. Then we shall start +fair.--Just a cocoanut cake.--Agnes, don't you agree that it's +always best to speak out?" + +"Oh, rather, Mrs. Failing. But I'm shockingly straightforward." + +"So am I," said the lady. "I like to get down to the bedrock.-- +Hullo! Slippers? Slippers in the drawingroom?" + +A young man had come in silently. Agnes observed with a feeling +of regret that he had not shaved. Rickie, after a moment's +hesitation, remembered who it was, and shook hands with him. +You've grown since I saw you last." + +He showed his teeth amiably. + +"How long was that?" asked Mrs. Failing. + +"Three years, wasn't it? Came over from the Ansells--friends." + +"How disgraceful, Rickie! Why don't you come and see me oftener?" + +He could not retort that she never asked him. + +"Agnes will make you come. Oh, let me introduce Mr. Wonham--Miss +Pembroke." + +"I am deputy hostess," said Agnes. "May I give you some tea?" + +"Thank you, but I have had a little beer." + +"It is one of the shepherds," said Mrs. Failing, in low tones. + +Agnes smiled rather wildly. Mrs. Lewin had warned her that +Cadover was an extraordinary place, and that one must never be +astonished at anything. A shepherd in the drawing-room! No harm. +Still one ought to know whether it was a shepherd or not. At all +events he was in gentleman's clothing. She was anxious not to +start with a blunder, and therefore did not talk to the young +fellow, but tried to gather what he was from the demeanour of +Rickie. + +"I am sure, Mrs. Failing, that you need not talk of 'making' +people come to Cadover. There will be no difficulty, I should +say." + +"Thank you, my dear. Do you know who once said those exact words +to me?" + +"Who?" + +"Rickie's mother." + +"Did she really?" + +"My sister-in-law was a dear. You will have heard Rickie's +praises, but now you must hear mine. I never knew a woman who was +so unselfish and yet had such capacities for life." + +"Does one generally exclude the other?" asked Rickie. + +"Unselfish people, as a rule, are deathly dull. They have no +colour. They think of other people because it is easier. They +give money because they are too stupid or too idle to spend +it properly on themselves. That was the beauty of your mother-- +she gave away, but she also spent on herself, or tried to." + +The light faded out of the drawing-room, in spite of it being +September and only half-past six. From her low chair Agnes could +see the trees by the drive, black against a blackening sky. That +drive was half a mile long, and she was praising its gravelled +surface when Rickie called in a voice of alarm, "I say, when did +our train arrive?" + +"Four-six." + +"I said so." + +"It arrived at four-six on the time-table," said Mr. Wonham. "I +want to know when it got to the station?" + +"I tell you again it was punctual. I tell you I looked at my +watch. I can do no more." + +Agnes was amazed. Was Rickie mad? A minute ago and they were +boring each other over dogs. What had happened? + +"Now, now! Quarrelling already?" asked Mrs. Failing. + +The footman, bringing a lamp, lit up two angry faces. + +"He says--" + +"He says--" + +"He says we ran over a child." + +"So you did. You ran over a child in the village at four-seven by +my watch. Your train was late. You couldn't have got to the +station till four-ten." + +"I don't believe it. We had passed the village by four-seven. +Agnes, hadn't we passed the village? It must have been an express +that ran over the child." + +"Now is it likely"--he appealed to the practical world --"is it +likely that the company would run a stopping train and then an +express three minutes after it?" + +"A child--" said Rickie. "I can't believe that the train killed a +child." He thought of their journey. They were alone in the +carriage. As the train slackened speed he had caught her +for a moment in his arms. The rain beat on the windows, but they +were in heaven. + +"You've got to believe it," said the other, and proceeded to "rub +it in." His healthy, irritable face drew close to Rickie's. "Two +children were kicking and screaming on the Roman crossing. Your +train, being late, came down on them. One of them was pulled off +the line, but the other was caught. How will you get out of +that?" + +"And how will you get out of it?" cried Mrs. Failing, turning the +tables on him. "Where's the child now? What has happened to its +soul? You must know, Agnes, that this young gentleman is a +philosopher." + +"Oh, drop all that," said Mr. Wonham, suddenly collapsing. + +"Drop it? Where? On my nice carpet?" + +"I hate philosophy," remarked Agnes, trying to turn the subject, +for she saw that it made Rickie unhappy. + +"So do I. But I daren't say so before Stephen. He despises us +women." + +"No, I don't," said the victim, swaying to and fro on the +window-sill, whither he had retreated. + +"Yes, he does. He won't even trouble to answer us. Stephen! +Podge! Answer me. What has happened to the child's soul?" + +He flung open the window and leant from them into the dusk. They +heard him mutter something about a bridge. + +"What did I tell you? He won't answer my question." + +The delightful moment was approaching when the boy would lose his +temper: she knew it by a certain tremor in his heels. + +"There wants a bridge," he exploded. "A bridge instead of all +this rotten talk and the level-crossing. It wouldn't break you to +build a two-arch bridge. Then the child's soul, as you call it-- +well, nothing would have happened to the child at all." + +A gust of night air entered, accompanied by rain. The flowers in +the vases rustled, and the flame of the lamp shot up and smoked +the glass. Slightly irritated, she ordered him to close the +window. + + + +XI + +Cadover was not a large house. But it is the largest house with +which this story has dealings, and must always be thought of with +respect. It was built about the year 1800, and favoured the +architecture of ancient Rome--chiefly by means of five lank +pilasters, which stretched from the top of it to the bottom. +Between the pilasters was the glass front door, to the right of +them the drawing room windows, to the left of them the windows of +the dining-room, above them a triangular area, which the +better-class servants knew as a "pendiment," and which had in its +middle a small round hole, according to the usage of Palladio. +The classical note was also sustained by eight grey steps which +led from the building down into the drive, and by an attempt at a +formal garden on the adjoining lawn. The lawn ended in a Ha-ha +("Ha! ha! who shall regard it?"), and thence the bare land sloped +down into the village. The main garden (walled) was to the left +as one faced the house, while to the right was that laurel +avenue, leading up to Mrs. Failing's arbour. + +It was a comfortable but not very attractive place, and, to a +certain type of mind, its situation was not attractive either. +>From the distance it showed as a grey box, huddled against +evergreens. There was no mystery about it. You saw it for miles. +Its hill had none of the beetling romance of Devonshire, none of +the subtle contours that prelude a cottage in Kent, but +profferred its burden crudely, on a huge bare palm. "There's +Cadover," visitors would say. "How small it still looks. We shall +be late for lunch." And the view from the windows, though +extensive, would not have been accepted by the Royal Academy. A +valley, containing a stream, a road, a railway; over the valley +fields of barley and wurzel, divided by no pretty hedges, and +passing into a great and formless down--this was the outlook, +desolate at all times, and almost terrifying beneath a cloudy +sky. The down was called "Cadbury Range" ("Cocoa Squares" if you +were young and funny), because high upon it--one cannot say "on +the top," there being scarcely any tops in Wiltshire--because +high upon it there stood a double circle of entrenchments. A bank +of grass enclosed a ring of turnips, which enclosed a second bank +of grass, which enclosed more turnips, and in the middle of the +pattern grew one small tree. British? Roman? Saxon? Danish? The +competent reader will decide. The Thompson family knew it to be +far older than the Franco-German war. It was the property of +Government. It was full of gold and dead soldiers who had fought +with the soldiers on Castle Rings and been beaten. The road to +Londinium, having forded the stream and crossed the valley road +and the railway, passed up by these entrenchments. The road to +London lay half a mile to the right of them. + +To complete this survey one must mention the church and the farm, +both of which lay over the stream in Cadford. Between them they +ruled the village, one claiming the souls of the labourers, the +other their bodies. If a man desired other religion or other +employment he must leave. The church lay up by the railway, the +farm was down by the water meadows. The vicar, a gentle +charitable man scarcely realized his power, and never tried +to abuse it. Mr. Wilbraham, the agent, was of another mould. He +knew his place, and kept others to theirs: all society seemed +spread before him like a map. The line between the county and the +local, the line between the labourer and the artisan--he knew +them all, and strengthened them with no uncertain touch. +Everything with him was graduated--carefully graduated civility +towards his superior, towards his inferiors carefully graduated +incivility. So--for he was a thoughtful person--so alone, +declared he, could things be kept together. + +Perhaps the Comic Muse, to whom so much is now attributed, had +caused his estate to be left to Mr. Failing. Mr. Failing was the +author of some brilliant books on socialism,--that was why his +wife married him--and for twenty-five years he reigned up at +Cadover and tried to put his theories into practice. He believed +that things could be kept together by accenting the similarities, +not the differences of men. "We are all much more alike than we +confess," was one of his favourite speeches. As a speech it +sounded very well, and his wife had applauded; but when it +resulted in hard work, evenings in the reading-rooms, +mixed-parties, and long unobtrusive talks with dull people, she +got bored. In her piquant way she declared that she was not going +to love her husband, and succeeded. He took it quietly, but his +brilliancy decreased. His health grew worse, and he knew that +when he died there was no one to carry on his work. He felt, +besides, that he had done very little. Toil as he would, he had +not a practical mind, and could never dispense with Mr. +Wilbraham. For all his tact, he would often stretch out the hand +of brotherhood too soon, or withhold it when it would have been +accepted. Most people misunderstood him, or only understood him +when he was dead. In after years his reign became a golden age; +but he counted a few disciples in his life-time, a few young +labourers and tenant farmers, who swore tempestuously that he was +not really a fool. This, he told himself, was as much as he +deserved. + +Cadover was inherited by his widow. She tried to sell it; she +tried to let it; but she asked too much, and as it was neither a +pretty place nor fertile, it was left on her hands. With many a +groan she settled down to banishment. Wiltshire people, she +declared, were the stupidest in England. She told them so to +their faces, which made them no brighter. And their county was +worthy of them: no distinction in it--no style--simply land. + +But her wrath passed, or remained only as a graceful fretfulness. +She made the house comfortable, and abandoned the farm to Mr. +Wilbraham. With a good deal of care she selected a small circle +of acquaintances, and had them to stop in the summer months. In +the winter she would go to town and frequent the salons of the +literary. As her lameness increased she moved about less, and at +the time of her nephew's visit seldom left the place that had +been forced upon her as a home. Just now she was busy. A +prominent politician had quoted her husband. The young generation +asked, "Who is this Mr. Failing?" and the publishers wrote, "Now +is the time." She was collecting some essays and penning an +introductory memoir. + +Rickie admired his aunt, but did not care for her. She reminded +him too much of his father. She had the same affliction, the same +heartlessness, the same habit of taking life with a laugh--as if +life is a pill! He also felt that she had neglected him. He would +not have asked much: as for "prospects," they never entered his +head, but she was his only near relative, and a little kindness +and hospitality during the lonely years would have made +incalculable difference. Now that he was happier and could bring +her Agnes, she had asked him to stop at once. The sun as it rose +next morning spoke to him of a new life. He too had a purpose and +a value in the world at last. Leaning out of the window, he gazed +at the earth washed clean and heard through the pure air the +distant noises of the farm. + +But that day nothing was to remain divine but the weather. His +aunt, for reasons of her own, decreed that he should go for a +ride with the Wonham boy. They were to look at Old Sarum, proceed +thence to Salisbury, lunch there, see the sights, call on a +certain canon for tea, and return to Cadover in the evening. The +arrangement suited no one. He did not want to ride, but to be +with Agnes; nor did Agnes want to be parted from him, nor Stephen +to go with him. But the clearer the wishes of her guests became, +the more determined was Mrs. Failing to disregard them. She +smoothed away every difficulty, she converted every objection +into a reason, and she ordered the horses for half-past nine. + +"It is a bore," he grumbled as he sat in their little private +sitting-room, breaking his finger-nails upon the coachman's +gaiters. "I can't ride. I shall fall off. We should have been so +happy here. It's just like Aunt Emily. Can't you imagine her +saying afterwards, 'Lovers are absurd. I made a point of keeping +them apart,' and then everybody laughing." + +With a pretty foretaste of the future, Agnes knelt before him and +did the gaiters up. "Who is this Mr. Wonham, by the bye?" + +"I don't know. Some connection of Mr. Failing's, I think." + +"Does he live here?" + +"He used to be at school or something. He seems to have grown +into a tiresome person." + +"I suppose that Mrs. Failing has adopted him." + +"I suppose so. I believe that she has been quite kind. I do hope +she'll be kind to you this morning. I hate leaving you with her." + +"Why, you say she likes me." + +"Yes, but that wouldn't prevent--you see she doesn't mind what +she says or what she repeats if it amuses her. If she thought it +really funny, for instance, to break off our engagement, she'd +try." + +"Dear boy, what a frightful remark! But it would be funnier for +us to see her trying. Whatever could she do?" + +He kissed the hands that were still busy with the fastenings. +"Nothing. I can't see one thing. We simply lie open to each +other, you and I. There isn't one new corner in either of us that +she could reveal. It's only that I always have in this house the +most awful feeling of insecurity." + +"Why?" + +"If any one says or does a foolish thing it's always here. All +the family breezes have started here. It's a kind of focus for +aimed and aimless scandal. You know, when my father and mother +had their special quarrel, my aunt was mixed up in it,--I never +knew how or how much--but you may be sure she didn't calm things +down, unless she found things more entertaining calm." + +"Rickie! Rickie!" cried the lady from the garden, "Your +riding-master's impatient." + +"We really oughtn't to talk of her like this here," whispered +Agnes. "It's a horrible habit." + +"The habit of the country, Agnes. Ugh, this gossip!" Suddenly he +flung his arms over her. "Dear--dear--let's beware of I don't +know what--of nothing at all perhaps." + +"Oh, buck up!" yelled the irritable Stephen. "Which am I to +shorten--left stirrup or right?" + +"Left!" shouted Agnes. + +"How many holes?" + +They hurried down. On the way she said: "I'm glad of the warning. +Now I'm prepared. Your aunt will get nothing out of me." + +Her betrothed tried to mount with the wrong foot according to his +invariable custom. She also had to pick up his whip. At last they +started, the boy showing off pretty consistently, and she was +left alone with her hostess. + +"Dido is quiet as a lamb," said Mrs. Failing, "and Stephen is a +good fielder. What a blessing it is to have cleared out the men. +What shall you and I do this heavenly morning?" + +"I'm game for anything." + +"Have you quite unpacked?" + +"Yes." + +"Any letters to write?" No. + +"Then let's go to my arbour. No, we won't. It gets the morning +sun, and it'll be too hot today." Already she regretted clearing +out the men. On such a morning she would have liked to drive, but +her third animal had gone lame. She feared, too, that Miss +Pembroke was going to bore her. However, they did go to the +arbour. In languid tones she pointed out the various objects of +interest. + +"There's the Cad, which goes into the something, which goes into +the Avon. Cadbury Rings opposite, Cadchurch to the extreme left: +you can't see it. You were there last night. It is famous for the +drunken parson and the railway-station. Then Cad Dauntsey. Then +Cadford, that side of the stream, connected with Cadover, this. +Observe the fertility of the Wiltshire mind." + +"A terrible lot of Cads," said Agnes brightly. + +Mrs. Failing divided her guests into those who made this joke and +those who did not. The latter class was very small. + +"The vicar of Cadford--not the nice drunkard--declares the name +is really 'Chadford,' and he worried on till I put up a window to +St. Chad in our church. His Cambridge wife pronounces it +'Hyadford.' I could smack them both. How do you like Podge? Ah! +you jump; I meant you to. How do you like Podge Wonham?" + +"Very nice," said Agnes, laughing. + +"Nice! He is a hero." + +There was a long interval of silence. Each lady looked, without +much interest, at the view. Mrs. Failing's attitude towards +Nature was severely aesthetic--an attitude more sterile than the +severely practical. She applied the test of beauty to shadow and +odour and sound; they never filled her with reverence or +excitement; she never knew them as a resistless trinity that may +intoxicate the worshipper with joy. If she liked a ploughed +field, it was only as a spot of colour--not also as a hint of the +endless strength of the earth. And today she could approve of one +cloud, but object to its fellow. As for Miss Pembroke, she was +not approving or objecting at all. "A hero?" she queried, when +the interval had passed. Her voice was indifferent, as if she had +been thinking of other things. + +"A hero? Yes. Didn't you notice how heroic he was?" + +"I don't think I did." + +"Not at dinner? Ah, Agnes, always look out for heroism at dinner. +It is their great time. They live up to the stiffness of their +shirt fronts. Do you mean to say that you never noticed how he +set down Rickie?" + +"Oh, that about poetry!" said Agnes, laughing. "Rickie would not +mind it for a moment. But why do you single out that as heroic?" + +"To snub people! to set them down! to be rude to them! to make +them feel small! Surely that's the lifework of a hero?" + +"I shouldn't have said that. And as a matter of fact Mr. Wonham +was wrong over the poetry. I made Rickie look it up afterwards." + +"But of course. A hero always is wrong." + +"To me," she persisted, rather gently, "a hero has always been a +strong wonderful being, who champions--" + +"Ah, wait till you are the dragon! I have been a dragon most of +my life, I think. A dragon that wants nothing but a peaceful +cave. Then in comes the strong, wonderful, delightful being, and +gains a princess by piercing my hide. No, seriously, my dear +Agnes, the chief characteristics of a hero are infinite disregard +for the feelings of others, plus general inability to understand +them." + +"But surely Mr. Wonham--" + +"Yes; aren't we being unkind to the poor boy. Ought we to go on +talking?" + +Agnes waited, remembering the warnings of Rickie, and thinking +that anything she said might perhaps be repeated. + +"Though even if he was here he wouldn't understand what we are +saying." + +"Wouldn't understand?" + +Mrs. Failing gave the least flicker of an eye towards her +companion. "Did you take him for clever?" + +"I don't think I took him for anything." She smiled. "I have been +thinking of other things, and another boy." + +"But do think for a moment of Stephen. I will describe how he +spent yesterday. He rose at eight. From eight to eleven he sang. +The song was called, 'Father's boots will soon fit Willie.' He +stopped once to say to the footman, 'She'll never finish her +book. She idles: 'She' being I. At eleven he went out, and stood +in the rain till four, but had the luck to see a child run over +at the level-crossing. By half-past four he had knocked the +bottom out of Christianity." + +Agnes looked bewildered. + +"Aren't you impressed? I was. I told him that he was on no +account to unsettle the vicar. Open that cupboard, one of those +sixpenny books tells Podge that he's made of hard little black +things, another that he's made of brown things, larger and +squashy. There seems a discrepancy, but anything is better for a +thoughtful youth than to be made in the Garden of Eden. Let us +eliminate the poetic, at whatever cost to the probable." When for +a moment she spoke more gravely. "Here he is at twenty, with +nothing to hold on by. I don't know what's to be done. I suppose +it's my fault. But I've never had any bother over the Church of +England; have you?" + +"Of course I go with my Church," said Miss Pembroke, who hated +this style of conversation. "I don't know, I'm sure. I think you +should consult a man." + +"Would Rickie help me?" + +"Rickie would do anything he can." And Mrs. Failing noted the +half official way in which she vouched for her lover. "But of +course Rickie is a little--complicated. I doubt whether Mr. +Wonham would understand him. He wants--doesn't he?--some one +who's a little more assertive and more accustomed to boys. Some +one more like my brother." + +"Agnes!" she seized her by the arm. "Do you suppose that Mr. +Pembroke would undertake my Podge?" + +She shook her head. "His time is so filled up. He gets a +boarding-house next term. Besides--after all I don't know what +Herbert would do." + +"Morality. He would teach him morality. The Thirty-Nine Articles +may come of themselves, but if you have no morals you come to +grief. Morality is all I demand from Mr. Herbert Pembroke. He +shall be excused the use of the globes. You know, of course, that +Stephen's expelled from a public school? He stole." + +The school was not a public one, and the expulsion, or rather +request for removal, had taken place when Stephen was fourteen. A +violent spasm of dishonesty--such as often heralds the approach +of manhood--had overcome him. He stole everything, especially +what was difficult to steal, and hid the plunder beneath a loose +plank in the passage. He was betrayed by the inclusion of a ham. +This was the crisis of his career. His benefactress was just then +rather bored with him. He had stopped being a pretty boy, and she +rather doubted whether she would see him through. But she was so +raged with the letters of the schoolmaster, and so delighted with +those of the criminal, that she had him back and gave him a +prize. + +"No," said Agnes, "I didn't know. I should be happy to speak to +Herbert, but, as I said, his time will be very full. But I know +he has friends who make a speciality of weakly or--or unusual +boys." + +"My dear, I've tried it. Stephen kicked the weakly boys and +robbed apples with the unusual ones. He was expelled again." + +Agnes began to find Mrs. Failing rather tiresome. Wherever you +trod on her, she seemed to slip away from beneath your feet. +Agnes liked to know where she was and where other people were as +well. She said: "My brother thinks a great deal of home life. I +daresay he'd think that Mr. Wonham is best where he is--with you. +You have been so kind to him. You"--she paused--"have been to him +both father and mother." + +"I'm too hot," was Mrs. Failing's reply. It seemed that Miss +Pembroke had at last touched a topic on which she was reticent. +She rang the electric bell,--it was only to tell the footman to +take the reprints to Mr. Wonham's room,--and then murmuring +something about work, proceeded herself to the house. + +"Mrs. Failing--" said Agnes, who had not expected such a speedy +end to their chat. + +"Call me Aunt Emily. My dear?" + +"Aunt Emily, what did you think of that story Rickie sent you?" + +"It is bad," said Mrs. Failing. "But. But. But." Then she +escaped, having told the truth, and yet leaving a pleasurable +impression behind her. + + + +XII + +The excursion to Salisbury was but a poor business--in fact, +Rickie never got there. They were not out of the drive before Mr. +Wonham began doing acrobatics. He showed Rickie how very quickly +he could turn round in his saddle and sit with his face to +Aeneas's tail. "I see," said Rickie coldly, and became almost +cross when they arrived in this condition at the gate behind the +house, for he had to open it, and was afraid of falling. As +usual, he anchored just beyond the fastenings, and then had to +turn Dido, who seemed as long as a battleship. To his relief a +man came forward, and murmuring, "Worst gate in the parish," +pushed it wide and held it respectfully. "Thank you," cried +Rickie; "many thanks." But Stephen, who was riding into the world +back first, said majestically, "No, no; it doesn't count. You +needn't think it does. You make it worse by touching your hat. +Four hours and seven minutes! You'll see me again." The man +answered nothing. + +"Eh, but I'll hurt him," he chanted, as he swung into position. +"That was Flea. Eh, but he's forgotten my fists; eh, but I'll +hurt him." + +"Why?" ventured Rickie. Last night, over cigarettes, he had been +bored to death by the story of Flea. The boy had a little +reminded him of Gerald--the Gerald of history, not the Gerald of +romance. He was more genial, but there was the same brutality, +the same peevish insistence on the pound of flesh. + +"Hurt him till he learns." + +"Learns what?" + +"Learns, of course," retorted Stephen. Neither of them was very +civil. They did not dislike each other, but they each wanted to +be somewhere else--exactly the situation that Mrs. Failing had +expected. + +"He behaved badly," said Rickie, "because he is poorer than we +are, and more ignorant. Less money has been spent on teaching him +to behave." + +"Well, I'll teach him for nothing." + +"Perhaps his fists are stronger than yours!" + +"They aren't. I looked." + +After this conversation flagged. Rickie glanced back at Cadover, +and thought of the insipid day that lay before him. Generally he +was attracted by fresh people, and Stephen was almost fresh: they +had been to him symbols of the unknown, and all that they did was +interesting. But now he cared for the unknown no longer. He knew. + +Mr. Wilbraham passed them in his dog-cart, and lifted his hat to +his employer's nephew. Stephen he ignored: he could not find him +on the map. + +"Good morning," said Rickie. "What a lovely morning!" + +"I say," called the other, "another child dead!" Mr. Wilbraham, +who had seemed inclined to chat, whipped up his horse and left +them. + +"There goes an out and outer," said Stephen; and then, as if +introducing an entirely new subject-- "Don't you think Flea +Thompson treated me disgracefully?" + +"I suppose he did. But I'm scarcely the person to sympathize." +The allusion fell flat, and he had to explain it. "I should have +done the same myself,--promised to be away two hours, and stopped +four." + +"Stopped-oh--oh, I understand. You being in love, you mean?" + +He smiled and nodded. + +"Oh, I've no objection to Flea loving. He says he can't help it. +But as long as my fists are stronger, he's got to keep it in +line." + +"In line?" + +"A man like that, when he's got a girl, thinks the rest can go to +the devil. He goes cutting his work and breaking his word. +Wilbraham ought to sack him. I promise you when I've a girl I'll +keep her in line, and if she turns nasty, I'll get another." + +Rickie smiled and said no more. But he was sorry that any one +should start life with such a creed--all the more sorry because +the creed caricatured his own. He too believed that life should +be in a line--a line of enormous length, full of countless +interests and countless figures, all well beloved. But woman was +not to be "kept" to this line. Rather did she advance it +continually, like some triumphant general, making each unit still +more interesting, still more lovable, than it had been before. He +loved Agnes, not only for herself, but because she was lighting +up the human world. But he could scarcely explain this to an +inexperienced animal, nor did he make the attempt. + +For a long time they proceeded in silence. The hill behind +Cadover was in harvest, and the horses moved regretfully between +the sheaves. Stephen had picked a grass leaf, and was blowing +catcalls upon it. He blew very well, and this morning all his +soul went into the wail. For he was ill. He was tortured with the +feeling that he could not get away and do--do something, instead +of being civil to this anaemic prig. Four hours in the rain was +better than this: he had not wanted to fidget in the rain. But +now the air was like wine, and the stubble was smelling of wet, +and over his head white clouds trundled more slowly and more +seldom through broadening tracts of blue. There never had been +such a morning, and he shut up his eyes and called to it. And +whenever he called, Rickie shut up his eyes and winced. + +At last the blade broke. "We don't go quick, do we" he remarked, +and looked on the weedy track for another. + +"I wish you wouldn't let me keep you. If you were alone you would +be galloping or something of that sort." + +"I was told I must go your pace," he said mournfully. "And you +promised Miss Pembroke not to hurry," + +"Well, I'll disobey." But he could not rise above a gentle trot, +and even that nearly jerked him out of the saddle. + +"Sit like this," said Stephen. "Can't you see like this?" Rickie +lurched forward, and broke his thumb nail on the horse's neck. It +bled a little, and had to be bound up. + +"Thank you--awfully kind--no tighter, please--I'm simply spoiling +your day." + +"I can't think how a man can help riding. You've only to leave it +to the horse so!--so!--just as you leave it to water in +swimming." + +Rickie left it to Dido, who stopped immediately. + +"I said LEAVE it." His voice rose irritably. "I didn't say 'die.' +Of course she stops if you die. First you sit her as if you're +Sandow exercising, and then you sit like a corpse. Can't you tell +her you're alive? That's all she wants." + +In trying to convey the information, Rickie dropped his whip. +Stephen picked it up and rammed it into the belt of his own +Norfolk jacket. He was scarcely a fashionable horseman. He was +not even graceful. But he rode as a living man, though Rickie was +too much bored to notice it. Not a muscle in him was idle, not a +muscle working hard. When he returned from the gallop his limbs +were still unsatisfied and his manners still irritable. He did +not know that he was ill: he knew nothing about himself at all. + +"Like a howdah in the Zoo," he grumbled. "Mother Failing will buy +elephants." And he proceeded to criticize his benefactress. +Rickie, keenly alive to bad taste, tried to stop him, and gained +instead a criticism of religion. Stephen overthrew the Mosaic +cosmogony. He pointed out the discrepancies in the Gospels. He +levelled his wit against the most beautiful spire in the world, +now rising against the southern sky. Between whiles he went for a +gallop. After a time Rickie stopped listening, and simply went +his way. For Dido was a perfect mount, and as indifferent to the +motions of Aeneas as if she was strolling in the Elysian fields. +He had had a bad night, and the strong air made him sleepy. The +wind blew from the Plain. Cadover and its valley had disappeared, +and though they had not climbed much and could not see far, there +was a sense of infinite space. The fields were enormous, like +fields on the Continent, and the brilliant sun showed up their +colours well. The green of the turnips, the gold of the harvest, +and the brown of the newly turned clods, were each contrasted +with morsels of grey down. But the general effect was pale, or +rather silvery, for Wiltshire is not a county of heavy tints. +Beneath these colours lurked the unconquerable chalk, and +wherever the soil was poor it emerged. The grassy track, so gay +with scabious and bedstraw, was snow-white at the bottom of its +ruts. A dazzling amphitheatre gleamed in the flank of a distant +hill, cut for some Olympian audience. And here and there, +whatever the surface crop, the earth broke into little +embankments, little ditches, little mounds: there had been no +lack of drama to solace the gods. + +In Cadover, the perilous house, Agnes had already parted from +Mrs. Failing. His thoughts returned to her. Was she, the soul of +truth, in safety? Was her purity vexed by the lies and +selfishness? Would she elude the caprice which had, he vaguely +knew, caused suffering before? Ah, the frailty of joy! Ah, the +myriads of longings that pass without fruition, and the turf +grows over them! Better men, women as noble--they had died up +here and their dust had been mingled, but only their dust. These +are morbid thoughts, but who dare contradict them? There is much +good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. +We are children, playing or quarreling on the line, and some of +us have Rickie's temperament, or his experiences, and admit it. + +So be mused, that anxious little speck, and all the land seemed +to comment on his fears and on his love. + +Their path lay upward, over a great bald skull, half grass, half +stubble. It seemed each moment there would be a splendid view. +The view never came, for none of the inclines were sharp enough, +and they moved over the skull for many minutes, scarcely shifting +a landmark or altering the blue fringe of the distance. The spire +of Salisbury did alter, but very slightly, rising and falling +like the mercury in a thermometer. At the most it would be half +hidden; at the least the tip would show behind the swelling +barrier of earth. They passed two elder-trees--a great event. The +bare patch, said Stephen, was owing to the gallows. Rickie +nodded. He had lost all sense of incident. In this great +solitude--more solitary than any Alpine range--he and Agnes were +floating alone and for ever, between the shapeless earth and the +shapeless clouds. An immense silence seemed to move towards them. +A lark stopped singing, and they were glad of it. They were +approaching the Throne of God. The silence touched them; the +earth and all danger dissolved, but ere they quite vanished +Rickie heard himself saying, "Is it exactly what we intended?" + +"Yes," said a man's voice; "it's the old plan." They were in +another valley. Its sides were thick with trees. Down it ran +another stream and another road: it, too, sheltered a string of +villages. But all was richer, larger, and more beautiful--the +valley of the Avon below Amesbury. + +"I've been asleep!" said Rickie, in awestruck tones. + +"Never!" said the other facetiously. "Pleasant dreams?" + +"Perhaps--I'm really tired of apologizing to you. How long have +you been holding me on?" + +"All in the day's work." He gave him back the reins. + +"Where's that round hill?" + +"Gone where the good niggers go. I want a drink." + +This is Nature's joke in Wiltshire--her one joke. You toil on +windy slopes, and feel very primeval. You are miles from your +fellows, and lo! a little valley full of elms and cottages. +Before Rickie had waked up to it, they had stopped by a thatched +public-house, and Stephen was yelling like a maniac for beer. + +There was no occasion to yell. He was not very thirsty, and they +were quite ready to serve him. Nor need he have drunk in the +saddle, with the air of a warrior who carries important +dispatches and has not the time to dismount. A real soldier, +bound on a similar errand, rode up to the inn, and Stephen feared +that he would yell louder, and was hostile. But they made friends +and treated each other, and slanged the proprietor and ragged the +pretty girls; while Rickie, as each wave of vulgarity burst over +him, sunk his head lower and lower, and wished that the earth +would swallow him up. He was only used to Cambridge, and to a +very small corner of that. He and his friends there believed in +free speech. But they spoke freely about generalities. They were +scientific and philosophic. They would have shrunk from the +empirical freedom that results from a little beer. + +That was what annoyed him as he rode down the new valley with two +chattering companions. He was more skilled than they were in the +principles of human existence, but he was not so indecently +familiar with the examples. A sordid village scandal--such as +Stephen described as a huge joke--sprang from certain defects in +human nature, with which he was theoretically acquainted. But the +example! He blushed at it like a maiden lady, in spite of its +having a parallel in a beautiful idyll of Theocritus. Was +experience going to be such a splendid thing after all? Were the +outside of houses so very beautiful? + +"That's spicy!" the soldier was saying. "Got any more like that?" + +"I'se got a pome," said Stephen, and drew a piece of paper from +his pocket. The valley had broadened. Old Sarum rose before them, +ugly and majestic. + +"Write this yourself?" he asked, chuckling. + +"Rather," said Stephen, lowering his head and kissing Aeneas +between the ears. + +"But who's old Em'ly?" Rickie winced and frowned. + +"Now you're asking. + +"Old Em'ly she limps, +And as--" + +"I am so tired," said Rickie. Why should he stand it any longer? + +He would go home to the woman he loved. "Do you mind if I give up +Salisbury?" + +"But we've seen nothing!" cried Stephen. + +"I shouldn't enjoy anything, I am so absurdly tired." + +"Left turn, then--all in the day's work." He bit at his moustache +angrily. + +"Good gracious me, man!--of course I'm going back alone. I'm not +going to spoil your day. How could you think it of me?" + +Stephen gave a loud sigh of relief. "If you do want to go home, +here's your whip. Don't fall off. Say to her you wanted it, or +there might be ructions." + +"Certainly. Thank you for your kind care of me." + +"'Old Em'ly she limps, +And as--'" + +Soon he was out of earshot. Soon they were lost to view. Soon +they were out of his thoughts. He forgot the coarseness and the +drinking and the ingratitude. A few months ago he would not have +forgotten so quickly, and he might also have detected something +else. But a lover is dogmatic. To him the world shall be + +beautiful and pure. When it is not, he ignores it. + +"He's not tired," said Stephen to the soldier; "he wants his +girl." And they winked at each other, and cracked jokes over the +eternal comedy of love. They asked each other if they'd let a +girl spoil a morning's ride. They both exhibited a profound +cynicism. Stephen, who was quite without ballast, described the +household at Cadover: he should say that Rickie would find Miss +Pembroke kissing the footman. + +"I say the footman's kissing old Em'ly." + +"Jolly day," said Stephen. His voice was suddenly constrained. He +was not sure whether he liked the soldier after all, nor whether +he had been wise in showing him his compositions. + +"'Old Em'ly she limps, +And as--'" + +"All right, Thomas. That'll do." + +"Old Em'ly--'" + +"I wish you'd dry up, like a good fellow. This is the lady's +horse, you know, hang it, after all." + +"In-deed!" + +"Don't you see--when a fellow's on a horse, he can't let another +fellow--kind of--don't you know?" + +The man did know. "There's sense in that." he said approvingly. +Peace was restored, and they would have reached Salisbury if they +had not had some more beer. It unloosed the soldier's fancies, +and again he spoke of old Em'ly, and recited the poem, with +Aristophanic variations. + +"Jolly day," repeated Stephen, with a straightening of the +eyebrows and a quick glance at the other's body. He then warned +him against the variations. In consequence he was accused of +being a member of the Y.M.C.A. His blood boiled at this. He +refuted the charge, and became great friends with the soldier, +for the third time. + +"Any objection to 'Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton'?" + +"Rather not." + +The soldier sang "Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackkleton." It is really a +work for two voices, most of the sauciness disappearing when +taken as a solo. Nor is Mrs. Tackleton's name Em'lv. + +"I call it a jolly rotten song," said Stephen crossly. "I won't +stand being got at." + +"P'r'aps y'like therold song. Lishen. + +"'Of all the gulls that arsshmart, +There's none line pretty--Em'ly; +For she's the darling of merart'" + +"Now, that's wrong." He rode up close to the singer. + +"Shright." + +"'Tisn't." + +"It's as my mother taught me." + +"I don't care." + +"I'll not alter from mother's way." + +Stephen was baffled. Then he said, "How does your mother make it +rhyme?" + +"Wot?" + +"Squat. You're an ass, and I'm not. Poems want rhymes. 'Alley' +comes next line." + +He said "alley" was--welcome to come if it liked. + +"It can't. You want Sally. Sally--alley. Em'ly-alley doesn't do." + +"Emily-femily!" cried the soldier, with an inspiration that was +not his when sober. "My mother taught me femily. + +"'For she's the darling of merart, +And she lives in my femily.'" + +"Well, you'd best be careful, Thomas, and your mother too." + +"Your mother's no better than she should be," said Thomas +vaguely. + +"Do you think I haven't heard that before?" retorted the boy. +The other concluded he might now say anything. So he might--the +name of old Emily excepted. Stephen cared little about his +benefactress's honour, but a great deal about his own. He had +made Mrs. Failing into a test. For the moment he would die for +her, as a knight would die for a glove. He is not to be +distinguished from a hero. + +Old Sarum was passed. They approached the most beautiful spire in +the world. "Lord! another of these large churches!" said the +soldier. Unfriendly to Gothic, he lifted both hands to his nose, +and declared that old Em'ly was buried there. He lay in the mud. +His horse trotted back towards Amesbury, Stephen had twisted him +out of the saddle. + +"I've done him!" he yelled, though no one was there to hear. He +rose up in his stirrups and shouted with joy. He flung his arms +round Aeneas's neck. The elderly horse understood, capered, and +bolted. It was a centaur that dashed into Salisbury and scattered +the people. In the stable he would not dismount. "I've done him!" +he yelled to the ostlers--apathetic men. Stretching upwards, he +clung to a beam. Aeneas moved on and he was left hanging. Greatly +did he incommode them by his exercises. He pulled up, he circled, +he kicked the other customers. At last he fell to the earth, +deliciously fatigued. His body worried him no longer. + +He went, like the baby he was, to buy a white linen hat. There +were soldiers about, and he thought it would disguise him. Then +he had a little lunch to steady the beer. This day had turned out +admirably. All the money that should have fed Rickie he could +spend on himself. Instead of toiling over the Cathedral and +seeing the stuffed penguins, he could stop the whole thing in the +cattle market. There he met and made some friends. He watched the +cheap-jacks, and saw how necessary it was to have a confident +manner. He spoke confidently himself about lambs, and people +listened. He spoke confidently about pigs, and they roared with +laughter. He must learn more about pigs. He witnessed a +performance--not too namby-pamby--of Punch and Judy. "Hullo, +Podge!" cried a naughty little girl. He tried to catch her, and +failed. She was one of the Cadford children. For Salisbury on +market day, though it is not picturesque, is certainly +representative, and you read the names of half the Wiltshire +villages upon the carriers' carts. He found, in Penny Farthing +Street, the cart from Wintersbridge. It would not start for +several hours, but the passengers always used it as a club, and +sat in it every now and then during the day. No less than three +ladies were these now, staring at the shafts. One of them was +Flea Thompson's girl. He asked her, quite politely, why her lover +had broken faith with him in the rain. She was silent. He warned +her of approaching vengeance. She was still silent, but another +woman hoped that a gentleman would not be hard on a poor person. +Something in this annoyed him; it wasn't a question of gentility +and poverty--it was a question of two men. He determined to go +back by Cadbury Rings where the shepherd would now be. + +He did. But this part must be treated lightly. He rode up to the +culprit with the air of a Saint George, spoke a few stern words +from the saddle, tethered his steed to a hurdle, and took off his +coat. "Are you ready?" he asked. + +"Yes, sir," said Flea, and flung him on his back. + +"That's not fair," he protested. + +The other did not reply, but flung him on his head. + +"How on earth did you learn that?" + +"By trying often," said Flea. + +Stephen sat on the ground, picking mud out of his forehead. "I +meant it to be fists," he said gloomily. + +"I know, sir." + +"It's jolly smart though, and--and I beg your pardon all round." +It cost him a great deal to say this, but he was sure that it was +the right thing to say. He must acknowledge the better man. +Whereas most people, if they provoke a fight and are flung, say, +"You cannot rob me of my moral victory." + +There was nothing further to be done. He mounted again, not +exactly depressed, but feeling that this delightful world is +extraordinarily unreliable. He had never expected to fling the +soldier, or to be flung by Flea. "One nips or is nipped," he +thought, "and never knows beforehand. I should not be surprised +if many people had more in them than I suppose, while others +were just the other way round. I haven't seen that sort of thing +in Ingersoll, but it's quite important." Then his thoughts turned +to a curious incident of long ago, when he had been "nipped"--as +a little boy. He was trespassing in those woods, when he met in a +narrow glade a flock of sheep. They had neither dog nor shepherd, +and advanced towards him silently. He was accustomed to sheep, +but had never happened to meet them in a wood before, and +disliked it. He retired, slowly at first, then fast; and the +flock, in a dense mass, pressed after him. His terror increased. +He turned and screamed at their long white faces; and still they +came on, all stuck together, like some horrible jell--. If once +he got into them! Bellowing and screeching, he rushed into the +undergrowth, tore himself all over, and reached home in +convulsions. Mr. Failing, his only grown-up friend, was +sympathetic, but quite stupid. "Pan ovium custos," he +sympathetic, as he pulled out the thorns. "Why not?" "Pan ovium +custos." Stephen learnt the meaning of the phrase at school, "A +pan of eggs for custard." He still remembered how the other boys +looked as he peeped at them between his legs, awaiting the +descending cane. + +So he returned, full of pleasant disconnected thoughts. He had +had a rare good time. He liked every one--even that poor little +Elliot--and yet no one mattered. They were all out. On the +landing he saw the housemaid. He felt skittish and irresistible. +Should he slip his arm round her waist? Perhaps better not; she +might box his ears. And he wanted to smoke on the roof before +dinner. So he only said, "Please will you stop the boy blacking +my brown boots," and she with downcast eyes, answered, "Yes, sir; +I will indeed." + +His room was in the pediment. Classical architecture, like all +things in this world that attempt serenity, is bound to have its +lapses into the undignified, and Cadover lapsed hopelessly when +it came to Stephen's room. It gave him one round window, to see +through which he must lie upon his stomach, one trapdoor opening +upon the leads, three iron girders, three beams, six buttresses, +no circling, unless you count the walls, no walls unless you +count the ceiling and in its embarrassment presented him with the +gurgly cistern that supplied the bath water. Here he lived, +absolutely happy, and unaware that Mrs. Failing had poked him up +here on purpose, to prevent him from growing too bumptious. Here +he worked and sang and practised on the ocharoon. Here, in the +crannies, he had constructed shelves and cupboards and useless +little drawers. He had only one picture--the Demeter of Cnidos-- +and she hung straight from the roof like a joint of meat. Once +she was in the drawing-room; but Mrs. Failing had got tired of +her, and decreed her removal and this degradation. Now she faced +the sunrise; and when the moon rose its light also fell on her, +and trembled, like light upon the sea. For she was never still, +and if the draught increased she would twist on her string, and +would sway and tap upon the rafters until Stephen woke up and +said what he thought of her. "Want your nose?" he would murmur. +"Don't you wish you may get it" Then he drew the clothes over his +ears, while above him, in the wind and the darkness, the goddess +continued her motions. + +Today, as he entered, he trod on the pile of sixpenny reprints. +Leighton had brought them up. He looked at the portraits in their +covers, and began to think that these people were not everything. +What a fate, to look like Colonel Ingersoll, or to marry Mrs. +Julia P. Chunk! The Demeter turned towards him as he bathed, and +in the cold water he sang-- + +"They aren't beautiful, they aren't modest; +I'd just as soon follow an old stone goddess," + +and sprang upward through the skylight on to the roof. Years ago, +when a nurse was washing him, he had slipped from her soapy hands +and got up here. She implored him to remember that he was a +little gentleman; but he forgot the fact--if it was a fact--and +not even the butler could get him down. Mr. Failing, who was +sitting alone in the garden too ill to read, heard a shout, "Am I +an acroterium?" He looked up and saw a naked child poised on the +summit of Cadover. "Yes," he replied; "but they are +unfashionable. Go in," and the vision had remained with him as +something peculiarly gracious. He felt that nonsense and beauty +have close connections,--closer connections than Art will allow,- +-and that both would remain when his own heaviness and his own +ugliness had perished. Mrs. Failing found in his remains a +sentence that puzzled her. "I see the respectable mansion. I see +the smug fortress of culture. The doors are shut. The windows are +shut. But on the roof the children go dancing for ever." + +Stephen was a child no longer. He never stood on the pediment +now, except for a bet. He never, or scarcely ever, poured water +down the chimneys. When he caught the cat, he seldom dropped her +into the housekeeper's bedroom. But still, when the weather was +fair, he liked to come up after bathing, and get dry in the sun. +Today he brought with him a towel, a pipe of tobacco, and +Rickie's story. He must get it done some time, and he was tired +of the six-penny reprints. The sloping gable was warm, and he lay +back on it with closed eyes, gasping for pleasure. Starlings +criticized him, snots fell on his clean body, and over him a +little cloud was tinged with the colours of evening. "Good! +good!" he whispered. "Good, oh good!" and opened the manuscript +reluctantly. + +What a production! Who was this girl? Where did she go to? Why so +much talk about trees? "I take it he wrote it when feeling bad," +he murmured, and let it fall into the gutter. It fell face +downwards, and on the back he saw a neat little resume in Miss +Pembroke's handwriting, intended for such as him. "Allegory. Man += modern civilization (in bad sense). Girl = getting into touch +with Nature." + +In touch with Nature! The girl was a tree! He lit his pipe and +gazed at the radiant earth. The foreground was hidden, but there +was the village with its elms, and the Roman Road, and Cadbury +Rings. There, too, were those woods, and little beech copses, +crowning a waste of down. Not to mention the air, or the sun, or +water. Good, oh good! + +In touch with Nature! What cant would the books think of next? +His eyes closed. He was sleepy. Good, oh good! Sighing into his +pipe, he fell asleep. + + + + +XIII + +Glad as Agnes was when her lover returned for lunch, she was at +the same time rather dismayed: she knew that Mrs. Failing would +not like her plans altered. And her dismay was justified. Their +hostess was a little stiff, and asked whether Stephen had been +obnoxious. + +"Indeed he hasn't. He spent the whole time looking after me." + +"From which I conclude he was more obnoxious than usual." +Rickie praised him diligently. But his candid nature showed +everything through. His aunt soon saw that they had not got on. +She had expected this--almost planned it. Nevertheless she +resented it, and her resentment was to fall on him. + +The storm gathered slowly, and many other things went to swell +it. Weakly people, if they are not careful, hate one another, and +when the weakness is hereditary the temptation increases. Elliots +had never got on among themselves. They talked of "The Family," +but they always turned outwards to the health and beauty that lie +so promiscuously about the world. Rickie's father had turned, for +a time at all events, to his mother. Rickie himself was turning +to Agnes. And Mrs. Failing now was irritable, and unfair to the +nephew who was lame like her horrible brother and like herself. +She thought him invertebrate and conventional. She was envious of +his happiness. She did not trouble to understand his art. She +longed to shatter him, but knowing as she did that the human +thunderbolt often rebounds and strikes the wielder, she held her +hand. + +Agnes watched the approaching clouds. Rickie had warned her; now +she began to warn him. As the visit wore away she urged him to be +pleasant to his aunt, and so convert it into a success. + +He replied, "Why need it be a success?"--a reply in the manner of +Ansell. + +She laughed. "Oh, that's so like you men--all theory! What about +your great theory of hating no one? As soon as it comes in +useful you drop it." + +"I don't hate Aunt Emily. Honestly. But certainly I don't want to +be near her or think about her. Don't you think there are two +great things in life that we ought to aim at--truth and kindness? +Let's have both if we can, but let's be sure of having one or the +other. My aunt gives up both for the sake of being funny." + +"And Stephen Wonham," pursued Agnes. "There's another person you +hate--or don't think about, if you prefer it put like that." + +"The truth is, I'm changing. I'm beginning to see that the world +has many people in it who don't matter. I had time for them once. +Not now." There was only one gate to the kingdom of heaven now. + +Agnes surprised him by saying, "But the Wonham boy is evidently a +part of your aunt's life. She laughs at him, but she is fond of +him." + +"What's that to do with it?" + +"You ought to be pleasant to him on account of it." + +"Why on earth?" + +She flushed a little. "I'm old-fashioned. One ought to consider +one's hostess, and fall in with her life. After we leave it's +another thing. But while we take her hospitality I think it's our +duty." + +Her good sense triumphed. Henceforth he tried to fall in with +Aunt Emily's life. Aunt Emily watched him trying. The storm +broke, as storms sometimes do, on Sunday. + +Sunday church was a function at Cadover, though a strange one. +The pompous landau rolled up to the house at a quarter to eleven. +Then Mrs. Failing said, "Why am I being hurried?" and after an +interval descended the steps in her ordinary clothes. She +regarded the church as a sort of sitting-room, and refused even +to wear a bonnet there. The village was shocked, but at the same +time a little proud; it would point out the carriage to strangers +and gossip about the pale smiling lady who sat in it, always +alone, always late, her hair always draped in an expensive shawl. + +This Sunday, though late as usual, she was not alone. Miss +Pembroke, en grande toilette, sat by her side. Rickie, looking +plain and devout, perched opposite. And Stephen actually came +too, murmuring that it would be the Benedicite, which he had +never minded. There was also the Litany, which drove him into the +air again, much to Mrs. Failing's delight. She enjoyed this sort +of thing. It amused her when her Protege left the pew, looking +bored, athletic, and dishevelled, and groping most obviously for +his pipe. She liked to keep a thoroughbred pagan to shock people. +"He's gone to worship Nature," she whispered. Rickie did not look +up. "Don't you think he's charming?" He made no reply. + +"Charming," whispered Agnes over his head. + +During the sermon she analysed her guests. Miss Pembroke-- +undistinguished, unimaginative, tolerable. Rickie--intolerable. +"And how pedantic!" she mused. "He smells of the University +library. If he was stupid in the right way he would be a don." +She looked round the tiny church; at the whitewashed pillars, the +humble pavement, the window full of magenta saints. There was the +vicar's wife. And Mrs. Wilbraham's bonnet. Ugh! The rest of the +congregation were poor women, with flat, hopeless faces--she saw +them Sunday after Sunday, but did not know their names-- +diversified with a few reluctant plough-boys, and the vile little +school children row upon row. "Ugh! what a hole," thought Mrs. +Failing, whose Christianity was the type best described as +"cathedral." "What a hole for a cultured woman! I don't think it +has blunted my sensations, though; I still see its squalor as +clearly as ever. And my nephew pretends he is worshipping. Pah! +the hypocrite." Above her the vicar spoke of the danger of +hurrying from one dissipation to another. She treasured his +words, and continued: "I cannot stand smugness. It is the one, +the unpardonable sin. Fresh air! The fresh air that has made +Stephen Wonham fresh and companionable and strong. Even if it +kills, I will let in the fresh air." + +Thus reasoned Mrs. Failing, in the facile vein of Ibsenism. She +imagined herself to be a cold-eyed Scandinavian heroine. Really +she was an English old lady, who did not mind giving other people +a chill provided it was not infectious. + +Agnes, on the way back, noted that her hostess was a little +snappish. But one is so hungry after morning service, and either +so hot or so cold, that he would be a saint indeed who becomes a +saint at once. Mrs. Failing, after asserting vindictively that it +was impossible to make a living out of literature, was +courteously left alone. Roast-beef and moselle might yet work +miracles, and Agnes still hoped for the introductions--the +introductions to certain editors and publishers--on which her +whole diplomacy was bent. Rickie would not push himself. It was +his besetting sin. Well for him that he would have a wife, and a +loving wife, who knew the value of enterprise. + +Unfortunately lunch was a quarter of an hour late, and during +that quarter of an hour the aunt and the nephew quarrelled. She +had been inveighing against the morning service, and he quietly +and deliberately replied, "If organized religion is anything--and +it is something to me--it will not be wrecked by a harmonium and +a dull sermon." + +Mrs. Failing frowned. "I envy you. It is a great thing to have no +sense of beauty." + +"I think I have a sense of beauty, which leads me astray if I am +not careful." + +"But this is a great relief to me. I thought the present day +young man was an agnostic! Isn't agnosticism all the thing at +Cambridge?" + +"Nothing is the 'thing' at Cambridge. If a few men are agnostic +there, it is for some grave reason, not because they are +irritated with the way the parson says his vowels." + +Agnes intervened. "Well, I side with Aunt Emily. I believe in +ritual." + +"Don't, my dear, side with me. He will only say you have no sense +of religion either." + +"Excuse me," said Rickie, perhaps he too was a little hungry,--"I +never suggested such a thing. I never would suggest such a thing. +Why cannot you understand my position? I almost feel it is that +you won't." + +"I try to understand your position night and day dear--what you +mean, what you like, why you came to Cadover, and why you stop +here when my presence is so obviously unpleasing to you." + +"Luncheon is served," said Leighton, but he said it too late. +They discussed the beef and the moselle in silence. The air was +heavy and ominous. Even the Wonham boy was affected by it, +shivered at times, choked once, and hastened anew into the sun. +He could not understand clever people. + +Agnes, in a brief anxious interview, advised the culprit to take +a solitary walk. She would stop near Aunt Emily, and pave the way +for an apology. + +"Don't worry too much. It doesn't really matter." + +"I suppose not, dear. But it seems a pity, considering we are so +near the end of our visit." + +"Rudeness and Grossness matter, and I've shown both, and already +I'm sorry, and I hope she'll let me apologize. But from the +selfish point of view it doesn't matter a straw. She's no more to +us than the Wonham boy or the boot boy." + +"Which way will you walk?" + +"I think to that entrenchment. Look at it." They were sitting on +the steps. He stretched out his hand to Cadsbury Rings, and then +let it rest for a moment on her shoulder. "You're changing me," +he said gently. "God bless you for it." + +He enjoyed his walk. Cadford was a charming village and for a +time he hung over the bridge by the mill. So clear was the stream +that it seemed not water at all, but some invisible quintessence +in which the happy minnows and the weeds were vibrating. And he +paused again at the Roman crossing, and thought for a moment +of the unknown child. The line curved suddenly: certainly it was +dangerous. Then he lifted his eyes to the down. The entrenchment +showed like the rim of a saucer, and over its narrow line peeped +the summit of the central tree. It looked interesting. He hurried +forward, with the wind behind him. + +The Rings were curious rather than impressive. Neither embankment +was over twelve feet high, and the grass on them had not the +exquisite green of Old Sarum, but was grey and wiry. But Nature +(if she arranges anything) had arranged that from them, at all +events, there should be a view. The whole system of the country +lay spread before Rickie, and he gained an idea of it that he +never got in his elaborate ride. He saw how all the water +converges at Salisbury; how Salisbury lies in a shallow basin, +just at the change of the soil. He saw to the north the Plain, +and the stream of the Cad flowing down from it, with a tributary +that broke out suddenly, as the chalk streams do: one village had +clustered round the source and clothed itself with trees. He saw +Old Sarum, and hints of the Avon valley, and the land above Stone +Henge. And behind him he saw the great wood beginning +unobtrusively, as if the down too needed shaving; and into it the +road to London slipped, covering the bushes with white dust. +Chalk made the dust white, chalk made the water clear, chalk made +the clean rolling outlines of the land, and favoured the grass +and the distant coronals of trees. Here is the heart of our +island: the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South Downs radiate +hence. The fibres of England unite in Wiltshire, and did we +condescend to worship her, here we should erect our national +shrine. + +People at that time were trying to think imperially, Rickie +wondered how they did it, for he could not imagine a place larger +than England. And other people talked of Italy, the spiritual +fatherland of us all. Perhaps Italy would prove marvellous. But +at present he conceived it as something exotic, to be admired and +reverenced, but not to be loved like these unostentatious fields. +He drew out a book, it was natural for him to read when he was +happy, and to read out loud,--and for a little time his voice +disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book was +Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he had cherished greatly +two years before, and marked as "very good." + +"I never was attached to that great sect +Whose doctrine is that each one should select +Out of the world a mistress or a friend, +And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend +To cold oblivion,--though it is the code +Of modern morals, and the beaten road +Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread +Who travel to their home among the dead +By the broad highway of the world,--and so +With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous foe, +The dreariest and the longest journey go." + +It was "very good"--fine poetry, and, in a sense, true. Yet he +was surprised that he had ever selected it so vehemently. This +afternoon it seemed a little inhuman. Half a mile off two lovers +were keeping company where all the villagers could see them. They +cared for no one else; they felt only the pressure of each other, +and so progressed, silent and oblivious, across the land. He felt +them to be nearer the truth than Shelley. Even if they suffered +or quarrelled, they would have been nearer the truth. He wondered +whether they were Henry Adams and Jessica Thompson, both of this +parish, whose banns had been asked for the second time in the +church this morning. Why could he not marry on fifteen shillings +a-week? And be looked at them with respect, and wished that he +was not a cumbersome gentleman. + +Presently he saw something less pleasant--his aunt's pony +carriage. It had crossed the railway, and was advancing up the +Roman road along by the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, +but someone waved to him. It was Agnes. She waved continually, as +much as to say, "Wait for us." Mrs. Failing herself raised the +whip in a nonchalant way. Stephen Wonham was following on foot, +some way behind. He put the Shelley back into his pocket and +waited for them. When the carriage stopped by some hurdles he +went down from the embankment and helped them to dismount. He +felt rather nervous. + +His aunt gave him one of her disquieting smiles, but said +pleasantly enough, "Aren't the Rings a little immense? Agnes and +I came here because we wanted an antidote to the morning +service." + +"Pang!" said the church bell suddenly; "pang! pang!" It sounded +petty and ludicrous. They all laughed. Rickie blushed, and Agnes, +with a glance that said "apologize," darted away to the +entrenchment, as though unable to restrain her curiosity. + +"The pony won't move," said Mrs. Failing. "Leave him for Stephen +to tie up. Will you walk me to the tree in the middle? Booh! I'm +tired. Give me your arm--unless you're tired as well." + +"No. I came out partly in the hope of helping you." + +"How sweet of you." She contrasted his blatant unselfishness +with the hardness of Stephen. Stephen never came out to help you. +But if you got hold of him he was some good. He didn't wobble and +bend at the critical moment. Her fancy compared Rickie to the +cracked church bell sending forth its message of "Pang! pang!" to +the countryside, and Stephen to the young pagans who were said to +lie under this field guarding their pagan gold. + +"This place is full of ghosties, "she remarked; "have you seen +any yet?" + +"I've kept on the outer rim so far." + +"Let's go to the tree in the centre." + +"Here's the path." The bank of grass where he had sat was broken +by a gap, through which chariots had entered, and farm carts +entered now. The track, following the ancient track, led straight +through turnips to a similar gap in the second circle, and thence +continued, through more turnips, to the central tree. + +"Pang!" said the bell, as they paused at the entrance. + +"You needn't unharness," shouted Mrs. Failing, for Stephen was +approaching the carriage. + +"Yes, I will," he retorted. + +"You will, will you?" she murmured with a smile. "I wish your +brother wasn't quite so uppish. Let's get on. Doesn't that church +distract you?" + +"It's so faint here," said Rickie. And it sounded fainter inside, +though the earthwork was neither thick nor tall; and the view, +though not hidden, was greatly diminished. He was reminded for a +minute of that chalk pit near Madingley, whose ramparts excluded +the familiar world. Agnes was here, as she had once been there. +She stood on the farther barrier, waiting to receive them when +they had traversed the heart of the camp. + +"Admire my mangel-wurzels," said Mrs. Failing. "They are said +to grow so splendidly on account of the dead soldiers. Isn't it a +sweet thought? Need I say it is your brother's?" + +"Wonham's?" he suggested. It was the second time that she had +made the little slip. She nodded, and he asked her what kind of +ghosties haunted this curious field. + +"The D.," was her prompt reply. "He leans against the tree in the +middle, especially on Sunday afternoons and all the worshippers +rise through the turnips and dance round him." + +"Oh, these were decent people," he replied, looking downwards-- +"soldiers and shepherds. They have no ghosts. They worshipped +Mars or Pan-Erda perhaps; not the devil." + +"Pang!" went the church, and was silent, for the afternoon +service had begun. They entered the second entrenchment, which +was in height, breadth, and composition, similar to the first, +and excluded still more of the view. His aunt continued friendly. +Agnes stood watching them. + +"Soldiers may seem decent in the past," she continued, "but wait +till they turn into Tommies from Bulford Camp, who rob the +chickens." + +"I don't mind Bulford Camp," said Rickie, looking, though in +vain, for signs of its snowy tents. "The men there are the sons +of the men here, and have come back to the old country. War's +horrible, yet one loves all continuity. And no one could mind a +shepherd." + +"Indeed! What about your brother--a shepherd if ever there was? +Look how he bores you! Don't be so sentimental." + +"But--oh, you mean--" + +"Your brother Stephen." + +He glanced at her nervously. He had never known her so queer +before. Perhaps it was some literary allusion that he had not +caught; but her face did not at that moment suggest literature. +In the differential tones that one uses to an old and infirm +person he said "Stephen Wonham isn't my brother, Aunt Emily." + +"My dear, you're that precise. One can't say 'half-brother' every +time." + +They approached the central tree. + +"How you do puzzle me," he said, dropping her arm and beginning +to laugh. "How could I have a half-brother?" + +She made no answer. + +Then a horror leapt straight at him, and he beat it back and +said, "I will not be frightened." The tree in the centre +revolved, the tree disappeared, and he saw a room--the room where +his father had lived in town. "Gently," he told himself, +"gently." Still laughing, he said, "I, with a brother-younger +it's not possible." The horror leapt again, and he exclaimed, +"It's a foul lie!" + +"My dear, my dear!" + +"It's a foul lie! He wasn't--I won't stand--" + +"My dear, before you say several noble things, remember that it's +worse for him than for you--worse for your brother, for your +half-brother, for your younger brother." + +But he heard her no longer. He was gazing at the past, which he +had praised so recently, which gaped ever wider, like an +unhallowed grave. Turn where he would, it encircled him. It took +visible form: it was this double entrenchment of the Rings. His +mouth went cold, and he knew that he was going to faint among the +dead. He started running, missed the exit, stumbled on the inner +barrier, fell into darkness-- + +"Get his head down," said a voice. "Get the blood back into him. +That's all he wants. Leave him to me. Elliot!"--the blood was +returning--"Elliot, wake up!" + +He woke up. The earth he had dreaded lay close to his eyes, and +seemed beautiful. He saw the structure of the clods. A tiny +beetle swung on the grass blade. On his own neck a human +hand pressed, guiding the blood back to his brain. + +There broke from him a cry, not of horror but of acceptance. For +one short moment he understood. "Stephen--" he began, and then he +heard his own name called: "Rickie! Rickie!" Agnes hurried from +her post on the margin, and, as if understanding also, caught him +to her breast. + +Stephen offered to help them further, but finding that he made +things worse, he stepped aside to let them pass and then +sauntered inwards. The whole field, with concentric circles, was +visible, and the broad leaves of the turnips rustled in the +gathering wind. Miss Pembroke and Elliot were moving towards the +Cadover entrance. Mrs. Failing stood watching in her turn on the +opposite bank. He was not an inquisitive boy; but as he leant +against the tree he wondered what it was all about, and whether +he would ever know. + + + +XIV + +On the way back--at that very level-crossing where he had paused +on his upward route--Rickie stopped suddenly and told the girl +why he had fainted. Hitherto she had asked him in vain. His tone +had gone from him, and he told her harshly and brutally, so that +she started away with a horrified cry. Then his manner altered, +and he exclaimed: "Will you mind? Are you going to mind?" + +"Of course I mind," she whispered. She turned from him, and saw +up on the sky-line two figures that seemed to be of enormous +size. + +"They're watching us. They stand on the edge watching us. This +country's so open--you--you can't they watch us wherever we go. +Of course you mind." + +They heard the rumble of the train, and she pulled herself +together. "Come, dearest, we shall be run over next. We're saying +things that have no sense." But on the way back he repeated: +"They can still see us. They can see every inch of this road. +They watch us for ever." And when they arrived at the steps +there, sure enough, were still the two figures gazing from the +outer circle of the Rings. + +She made him go to his room at once: he was almost hysterical. +Leighton brought out some tea for her, and she sat drinking it on +the little terrace. Of course she minded. + +Again she was menaced by the abnormal. All had seemed so fair and +so simple, so in accordance with her ideas; and then, like a +corpse, this horror rose up to the surface. She saw the two +figures descend and pause while one of them harnessed the pony; +she saw them drive downward, and knew that before long she must +face them and the world. She glanced at her engagement ring. + +When the carriage drove up Mrs. Failing dismounted, but did not +speak. It was Stephen who inquired after Rickie. She, scarcely +knowing the sound of her own voice, replied that he was a little +tired. + +"Go and put up the pony," said Mrs. Failing rather sharply. + +"Agnes, give me some tea." + +"It is rather strong," said Agnes as the carriage drove off and +left them alone. Then she noticed that Mrs. Failing herself was +agitated. Her lips were trembling, and she saw the boy depart +with manifest relief. + +"Do you know," she said hurriedly, as if talking against time-- +"Do you know what upset Rickie?" + +"I do indeed know." + +"Has he told any one else?" + +"I believe not." + +"Agnes--have I been a fool?" + +"You have been very unkind," said the girl, and her eyes filled +with tears. + +For a moment Mrs. Failing was annoyed. "Unkind? I do not see that +at all. I believe in looking facts in the face. Rickie must know +his ghosts some time. Why not this afternoon?" + +She rose with quiet dignity, but her tears came faster. "That is +not so. You told him to hurt him. I cannot think what you did it +for. I suppose because he was rude to you after church. It is a +mean, cowardly revenge. + +"What--what if it's a lie?" + +"Then, Mrs. Failing, it is sickening of you. There is no other +word. Sickening. I am sorry--a nobody like myself--to speak like +this. How COULD you, oh, how could you demean yourself? Why, not +even a poor person--Her indignation was fine and genuine. But her +tears fell no longer. Nothing menaced her if they were not really +brothers. + +"It is not a lie, my clear; sit down. I will swear so much +solemnly. It is not a lie, but--" + +Agnes waited. + +"--we can call it a lie if we choose." + +"I am not so childish. You have said it, and we must all suffer. +You have had your fun: I conclude you did it for fun. You cannot +go back. He--" She pointed towards the stables, and could not +finish her sentence. + +"I have not been a fool twice." + +Agnes did not understand. + +"My dense lady, can't you follow? I have not told Stephen one +single word, neither before nor now." + +There was a long silence. + +Indeed, Mrs. Failing was in an awkward position. + +Rickie had irritated her, and, in her desire to shock him, she +had imperilled her own peace. She had felt so unconventional upon +the hillside, when she loosed the horror against him; but now it +was darting at her as well. Suppose the scandal came out. +Stephen, who was absolutely without delicacy, would tell it to +the people as soon as tell them the time. His paganism would be +too assertive; it might even be in bad taste. After all, she had +a prominent position in the neighbourhood; she was talked about, +respected, looked up to. After all, she was growing old. And +therefore, though she had no true regard for Rickie, nor for +Agnes, nor for Stephen, nor for Stephen's parents, in whose +tragedy she had assisted, yet she did feel that if the scandal +revived it would disturb the harmony of Cadover, and therefore +tried to retrace her steps. It is easy to say shocking things: it +is so different to be connected with anything shocking. Life and +death were not involved, but comfort and discomfort were. + +The silence was broken by the sound of feet on the gravel. Agnes +said hastily, "Is that really true--that he knows nothing?" + +"You, Rickie, and I are the only people alive that know. He +realizes what he is--with a precision that is sometimes alarming. +Who he is, he doesn't know and doesn't care. I suppose he would +know when I'm dead. There are papers." + +"Aunt Emily, before he comes, may I say to you I'm sorry I was so +rude?" + +Mrs. Failing had not disliked her courage. "My dear, you may. +We're all off our hinges this Sunday. Sit down by me again." + +Agnes obeyed, and they awaited the arrival of Stephen. They were +clever enough to understand each other. The thing must be hushed +up. The matron must repair the consequences of her petulance. The +girl must hide the stain in her future husband's family. Why not? +Who was injured? What does a grown-up man want with a grown +brother? Rickie upstairs, how grateful he would be to them for +saving him. + +"Stephen!" + +"Yes." + +"I'm tired of you. Go and bathe in the sea." + +"All right." + +And the whole thing was settled. She liked no fuss, and so did +he. He sat down on the step to tighten his bootlaces. Then he +would be ready. Mrs. Failing laid two or three sovereigns on the +step above him. Agnes tried to make conversation, and said, with +averted eyes, that the sea was a long way off. + +"The sea's downhill. That's all I know about it." He swept up the +money with a word of pleasure: he was kept like a baby in such +things. Then he started off, but slowly, for he meant to walk +till the morning. + +"He will be gone days," said Mrs. Failing. "The comedy is +finished. Let us come in." + +She went to her room. The storm that she had raised had shattered +her. Yet, because it was stilled for a moment, she resumed her +old emancipated manner, and spoke of it as a comedy. + +As for Miss Pembroke, she pretended to be emancipated no longer. +People like "Stephen Wonham" were social thunderbolts, to be +shunned at all costs, or at almost all costs. Her joy was now +unfeigned, and she hurried upstairs to impart it to Rickie. + +"I don't think we are rewarded if we do right, but we +are punished if we lie. It's the fashion to laugh at poetic +justice, but I do believe in half of it. Cast bitter bread upon +the waters, and after many days it really will come back to you." +These were the words of Mr. Failing. They were also the opinions +of Stewart Ansell, another unpractical person. Rickie was trying +to write to him when she entered with the good news. + +"Dear, we're saved! He doesn't know, and he never is to know. I +can't tell you how glad I am. All the time we saw them standing +together up there, she wasn't telling him at all. She was keeping +him out of the way, in case you let it out. Oh, I like her! She +may be unwise, but she is nice, really. She said, 'I've been a +fool but I haven't been a fool twice.' You must forgive her, +Rickie. I've forgiven her, and she me; for at first I was so +angry with her. Oh, my darling boy, I am so glad!" + +He was shivering all over, and could not reply. At last he said, +"Why hasn't she told him?" + +"Because she has come to her senses." + +"But she can't behave to people like that. She must tell him." + +"Because he must be told such a real thing." + +"Such a real thing?" the girl echoed, screwing up her forehead. +"But--but you don't mean you're glad about it?" + +His head bowed over the letter. "My God--no! But it's a real +thing. She must tell him. I nearly told him myself--up there-- +when he made me look at the ground, but you happened to prevent +me." + +How Providence had watched over them! + +"She won't tell him. I know that much." + +"Then, Agnes, darling"--he drew her to the table "we must talk +together a little. If she won't, then we ought to." + +"WE tell him?" cried the girl, white with horror. "Tell him now, +when everything has been comfortably arranged?" + +"You see, darling"--he took hold of her hand--"what one must do +is to think the thing out and settle what's right, I'm still all +trembling and stupid. I see it mixed up with other things. I want +you to help me. It seems to me that here and there in life we +meet with a person or incident that is symbolical. It's +nothing in itself, yet for the moment it stands for some eternal +principle. We accept it, at whatever costs, and we have accepted +life. But if we are frightened and reject it, the moment, so to +speak, passes; the symbol is never offered again. Is this +nonsense? Once before a symbol was offered to me--I shall not +tell you how; but I did accept it, and cherished it through much +anxiety and repulsion, and in the end I am rewarded. There will +be no reward this time. I think, from such a man--the son of such +a man. But I want to do what is right." + +"Because doing right is its own reward," said Agnes anxiously. + +"I do not think that. I have seen few examples of it. Doing right +is simply doing right." + +"I think that all you say is wonderfully clever; but since you +ask me, it IS nonsense, dear Rickie, absolutely." + +"Thank you," he said humbly, and began to stroke her hand. "But +all my disgust; my indignation with my father, my love for--" He +broke off; he could not bear to mention the name of his mother. +"I was trying to say, I oughtn't to follow these impulses too +much. There are others things. Truth. Our duty to acknowledge +each man accurately, however vile he is. And apart from ideals" +(here she had won the battle), "and leaving ideals aside, I +couldn't meet him and keep silent. It isn't in me. I should blurt +it out." + +"But you won't meet him!" she cried. "It's all been arranged. +We've sent him to the sea. Isn't it splendid? He's gone. My own +boy won't be fantastic, will he?" Then she fought the fantasy on +its own ground. "And, bye the bye, what you call the 'symbolic +moment' is over. You had it up by the Rings. You tried to tell +him, I interrupted you. It's not your fault. You did all you +could." + +She thought this excellent logic, and was surprised that he +looked so gloomy. "So he's gone to the sea. For the present that +does settle it. Has Aunt Emily talked about him yet?" + +"No. Ask her tomorrow if you wish to know. Ask her kindly. It +would be so dreadful if you did not part friends, and--" + +"What's that?" + +It was Stephen calling up from the drive. He had come back. Agnes +threw out her hand in despair. + +"Elliot!" the voice called. + +They were facing each other, silent and motionless. Then Rickie +advanced to the window. The girl darted in front of him. He +thought he had never seen her so beautiful. She was stopping his +advance quite frankly, with widespread arms. + +"Elliot!" + +He moved forward--into what? He pretended to himself he would +rather see his brother before he answered; that it was easier to +acknowledge him thus. But at the back of his soul he knew that +the woman had conquered, and that he was moving forward to +acknowledge her. "If he calls me again--" he thought. + +"Elliot!" + +"Well, if he calls me once again, I will answer him, vile as he +is." + +He did not call again. + +Stephen had really come back for some tobacco, but as he passed +under the windows he thought of the poor fellow who had been +"nipped" (nothing serious, said Mrs. Failing), and determined to +shout good-bye to him. And once or twice, as he followed the +river into the darkness, he wondered what it was like to be so +weak,--not to ride, not to swim, not to care for anything but +books and a girl. + +They embraced passionately. The danger had brought them very near +to each other. They both needed a home to confront the menacing +tumultuous world. And what weary years of work, of waiting, lay +between them and that home! Still holding her fast, he said, "I +was writing to Ansell when you came in." + +"Do you owe him a letter?" + +"No." He paused. "I was writing to tell him about this. He would +help us. He always picks out the important point." + +"Darling, I don't like to say anything, and I know that Mr. +Ansell would keep a secret, but haven't we picked out the +important point for ourselves?" + +He released her and tore the letter up. + + + + +XV + +The sense of purity is a puzzling and at times a fearful thing. +It seems so noble, and it starts as one with morality. But it is +a dangerous guide, and can lead us away not only from what is +gracious, but also from what is good. Agnes, in this tangle, had +followed it blindly, partly because she was a woman, and it meant +more to her than it can ever mean to a man; partly because, +though dangerous, it is also obvious, and makes no demand upon +the intellect. She could not feel that Stephen had full human +rights. He was illicit, abnormal, worse than a man diseased. And +Rickie remembering whose son he was, gradually adopted her +opinion. He, too, came to be glad that his brother had passed +from him untried, that the symbolic moment had been rejected. +Stephen was the fruit of sin; therefore he was sinful, He, too, +became a sexual snob. + +And now he must hear the unsavoury details. That evening they sat +in the walled garden. Agues, according to arrangement, left him +alone with his aunt. He asked her, and was not answered. + +"You are shocked," she said in a hard, mocking voice, "It is very +nice of you to be shocked, and I do not wish to grieve you +further. We will not allude to it again. Let us all go on just as +we are. The comedy is finished." + +He could not tolerate this. His nerves were shattered, and all +that was good in him revolted as well. To the horror of Agnes, +who was within earshot, he replied, "You used to puzzle me, Aunt +Emily, but I understand you at last. You have forgotten what +other people are like. Continual selfishness leads to that. I am +sure of it. I see now how you look at the world. 'Nice of me to +be shocked!' I want to go tomorrow, if I may." + +"Certainly, dear. The morning trains are the best." And so the +disastrous visit ended. + +As he walked back to the house he met a certain poor woman, whose +child Stephen had rescued at the level-crossing, and who had +decided, after some delay, that she must thank the kind gentleman +in person. "He has got some brute courage," thought Rickie, "and +it was decent of him not to boast about it." But he had labelled +the boy as "Bad," and it was convenient to revert to his good +qualities as seldom as possible. He preferred to brood over his +coarseness, his caddish ingratitude, his irreligion. Out of these +he constructed a repulsive figure, forgetting how slovenly his +own perceptions had been during the past week, how dogmatic and +intolerant his attitude to all that was not Love. + +During the packing he was obliged to go up to the attic to find +the Dryad manuscript which had never been returned. Leighton came +too, and for about half an hour they hunted in the flickering +light of a candle. It was a strange, ghostly place, and Rickie +was quite startled when a picture swung towards him, and he saw +the Demeter of Cnidus, shimmering and grey. Leighton suggested +the roof. Mr. Stephen sometimes left things on the roof. So they +climbed out of the skylight--the night was perfectly still--and +continued the search among the gables. Enormous stars hung +overhead, and the roof was bounded by chasms, impenetrable and +black. "It doesn't matter," said Rickie, suddenly convinced of +the futility of all that he did. "Oh, let us look properly," said +Leighton, a kindly, pliable man, who had tried to shirk coming, +but who was genuinely sympathetic now that he had come. They were +rewarded: the manuscript lay in a gutter, charred and smudged. + +The rest of the year was spent by Rickie partly in bed,--he had a +curious breakdown,--partly in the attempt to get his little +stories published. He had written eight or nine, and hoped they +would make up a book, and that the book might be called "Pan +Pipes." He was very energetic over this; he liked to work, for +some imperceptible bloom had passed from the world, and he no +longer found such acute pleasure in people. Mrs. Failing's old +publishers, to whom the book was submitted, replied that, greatly +as they found themselves interested, they did not see their way +to making an offer at present. They were very polite, and singled +out for special praise "Andante Pastorale," which Rickie had +thought too sentimental, but which Agnes had persuaded him to +include. The stories were sent to another publisher, who +considered them for six weeks, and then returned them. A fragment +of red cotton, Placed by Agnes between the leaves, had not +shifted its position. + +"Can't you try something longer, Rickie?" she said; +"I believe we're on the wrong track. Try an out--and--out +love-story." + +"My notion just now," he replied, "is to leave the passions on +the fringe." She nodded, and tapped for the waiter: they had met +in a London restaurant. "I can't soar; I can only indicate. +That's where the musicians have the pull, for music has wings, +and when she says 'Tristan' and he says 'Isolde,' you are on the +heights at once. What do people mean when they call love music +artificial?" + +"I know what they mean, though I can't exactly explain. Or +couldn't you make your stories more obvious? I don't see any harm +in that. Uncle Willie floundered hopelessly. He doesn't read +much, and he got muddled. I had to explain, and then he was +delighted. Of course, to write down to the public would be quite +another thing and horrible. You have certain ideas, and you must +express them. But couldn't you express them more clearly?" + +"You see--" He got no further than "you see." + +"The soul and the body. The soul's what matters," said Agnes, and +tapped for the waiter again. He looked at her admiringly, but +felt that she was not a perfect critic. Perhaps she was too +perfect to be a critic. Actual life might seem to her so real +that she could not detect the union of shadow and adamant that +men call poetry. He would even go further and acknowledge that +she was not as clever as himself--and he was stupid enough! She +did not like discussing anything or reading solid books, and she +was a little angry with such women as did. It pleased him to make +these concessions, for they touched nothing in her that he +valued. He looked round the restaurant, which was in Soho and +decided that she was incomparable. + +"At half-past two I call on the editor of the 'Holborn.' He's got +a stray story to look at, and he's written about it." + +"Oh, Rickie! Rickie! Why didn't you put on a boiled shirt!" + +He laughed, and teased her. "'The soul's what matters. We +literary people don't care about dress." + +"Well, you ought to care. And I believe you do. Can't you +change?" + +"Too far." He had rooms in South Kensington. "And I've forgot my +card-case. There's for you!" + +She shook her head. "Naughty, naughty boy! Whatever will you do?" + +"Send in my name, or ask for a bit of paper and write it. Hullo! +that's Tilliard!" + +Tilliard blushed, partly on account of the faux pas he had made +last June, partly on account of the restaurant. He explained how +he came to be pigging in Soho: it was so frightfully convenient +and so frightfully cheap. + +"Just why Rickie brings me," said Miss Pembroke. + +"And I suppose you're here to study life?" said Tilliard, sitting +down. + +"I don't know," said Rickie, gazing round at the waiters and the +guests. + +"Doesn't one want to see a good deal of life for writing? There's +life of a sort in Soho,--Un peu de faisan, s'il vows plait." + +Agnes also grabbed at the waiter, and paid. She always did the +paying, Rickie muddled with his purse. + +"I'm cramming," pursued Tilliard, "and so naturally I come into +contact with very little at present. But later on I hope to see +things." He blushed a little, for he was talking for Rickie's +edification. "It is most frightfully important not to get a +narrow or academic outlook, don't you think? A person like +Ansell, who goes from Cambridge, home--home, Cambridge--it must +tell on him in time." + +"But Mr. Ansell is a philosopher." + +"A very kinky one," said Tilliard abruptly. "Not my idea of a +philosopher. How goes his dissertation?" + +"He never answers my letters," replied Rickie. "He never would. +I've heard nothing since June." + +"It's a pity he sends in this year. There are so many good people +in. He'd have afar better chance if he waited." + +"So I said, but he wouldn't wait. He's so keen about this +particular subject." + +"What is it?" asked Agnes. + +"About things being real, wasn't it, Tilliard?" + +"That's near enough." + +"Well, good luck to him!" said the girl. "And good luck to you, +Mr. Tilliard! Later on, I hope, we'll meet again." + +They parted. Tilliard liked her, though he did not feel that she +was quite in his couche sociale. His sister, for instance, +would never have been lured into a Soho restaurant--except for +the experience of the thing. Tilliard's couche sociale permitted +experiences. Provided his heart did not go out to the poor and +the unorthodox, he might stare at them as much as he liked. It +was seeing life. + +Agnes put her lover safely into an omnibus at Cambridge Circus. +She shouted after him that his tie was rising over his collar, +but he did not hear her. For a moment she felt depressed, and +pictured quite accurately the effect that his appearance would +have on the editor. The editor was a tall neat man of forty, slow +of speech, slow of soul, and extraordinarily kind. He and Rickie +sat over a fire, with an enormous table behind them whereon stood +many books waiting to be reviewed. + +"I'm sorry," he said, and paused. + +Rickie smiled feebly. + +"Your story does not convince." He tapped it. "I have read it +with very great pleasure. It convinces in parts, but it does not +convince as a whole; and stories, don't you think, ought to +convince as a whole?" + +"They ought indeed," said Rickie, and plunged into +self-depreciation. But the editor checked him. + +"No--no. Please don't talk like that. I can't bear to hear any +one talk against imagination. There are countless openings for +imagination,--for the mysterious, for the supernatural, for all +the things you are trying to do, and which, I hope, you will +succeed in doing. I'm not OBJECTING to imagination; on the +contrary, I'd advise you to cultivate it, to accent it. Write a +really good ghost story and we'd take it at once. Or"--he +suggested it as an alternative to imagination--"or you might get +inside life. It's worth doing." + +"Life?" echoed Rickie anxiously. + +He looked round the pleasant room, as if life might be fluttering +there like an imprisoned bird. Then he looked at the editor: +perhaps he was sitting inside life at this very moment. +"See life, Mr. Elliot, and then send us another story." He held +out his hand. "I am sorry I have to say 'No, thank you'; it's so +much nicer to say, 'Yes, please.'" He laid his hand on the young +man's sleeve, and added, "Well, the interview's not been so +alarming after all, has it?" + +"I don't think that either of us is a very alarming person," was +not Rickie's reply. It was what he thought out afterwards in the +omnibus. His reply was "Ow," delivered with a slight giggle. + +As he rumbled westward, his face was drawn, and his eyes moved +quickly to the right and left, as if he would discover something +in the squalid fashionable streets some bird on the wing, some +radiant archway, the face of some god beneath a beaver hat. He +loved, he was loved, he had seen death and other things; but the +heart of all things was hidden. There was a password and he could +not learn it, nor could the kind editor of the "Holborn" teach +him. He sighed, and then sighed more piteously. For had he not +known the password once--known it and forgotten it already? +But at this point his fortunes become intimately connected with +those of Mr. Pembroke. + + + + +PART 2 SAWSTON + + + + +XVI + +In three years Mr. Pembroke had done much to solidify the +day-boys at Sawston School. If they were not solid, they were at +all events curdling, and his activities might reasonably turn +elsewhere. He had served the school for many years, and it was +really time he should be entrusted with a boarding-house. The +headmaster, an impulsive man who darted about like a minnow and +gave his mother a great deal of trouble, agreed with him, and +also agreed with Mrs. Jackson when she said that Mr. Jackson had +served the school for many years and that it was really time he +should be entrusted with a boarding-house. Consequently, when +Dunwood House fell vacant the headmaster found himself in rather +a difficult position. + +Dunwood House was the largest and most lucrative of the +boarding-houses. It stood almost opposite the school buildings. +Originally it had been a villa residence--a red-brick villa, +covered with creepers and crowned with terracotta dragons. Mr. +Annison, founder of its glory, had lived here, and had had one or +two boys to live with him. Times changed. The fame of the bishops +blazed brighter, the school increased, the one or two boys became +a dozen, and an addition was made to Dunwood House that more than +doubled its size. A huge new building, replete with every +convenience, was stuck on to its right flank. Dormitories, +cubicles, studies, a preparation-room, a dining-room, parquet +floors, hot-air pipes--no expense was spared, and the twelve boys +roamed over it like princes. Baize doors communicated on every +floor with Mr. Annison's part, and he, an anxious gentleman, +would stroll backwards and forwards, a little depressed at the +hygienic splendours, and conscious of some vanished intimacy. +Somehow he had known his boys better when they had all muddled +together as one family, and algebras lay strewn upon the drawing +room chairs. As the house filled, his interest in it decreased. +When he retired--which he did the same summer that Rickie left +Cambridge--it had already passed the summit of excellence and was +beginning to decline. Its numbers were still satisfactory, and +for a little time it would subsist on its past reputation. But +that mysterious asset the tone had lowered, and it was therefore +of great importance that Mr. Annison's successor should be a +first-class man. Mr. Coates, who came next in seniority, was +passed over, and rightly. The choice lay between Mr. Pembroke and +Mr. Jackson, the one an organizer, the other a humanist. Mr. +Jackson was master of the Sixth, and--with the exception of the +headmaster, who was too busy to impart knowledge--the only +first-class intellect in the school. But he could not or rather +would not, keep order. He told his form that if it chose to +listen to him it would learn; if it didn't, it wouldn't. One half +listened. The other half made paper frogs, and bored holes in the +raised map of Italy with their penknives. When the penknives +gritted he punished them with undue severity, and then forgot to +make them show the punishments up. Yet out of this chaos two +facts emerged. Half the boys got scholarships at the University, +and some of them--including several of the paper-frog sort-- +remained friends with him throughout their lives. Moreover, he +was rich, and had a competent wife. His claim to Dunwood House +was stronger than one would have supposed. + +The qualifications of Mr. Pembroke have already been indicated. +They prevailed--but under conditions. If things went wrong, he +must promise to resign. + +"In the first place," said the headmaster, "you are doing so +splendidly with the day-boys. Your attitude towards the parents +is magnificent. I--don't know how to replace you there. Whereas, +of course, the parents of a boarder--" + +"Of course," said Mr. Pembroke. + +The parent of a boarder, who only had to remove his son if he was +discontented with the school, was naturally in a more independent +position than the parent who had brought all his goods and +chattels to Sawston, and was renting a house there. + +"Now the parents of boarders--this is my second point-- +practically demand that the house-master should have a wife." + +"A most unreasonable demand," said Mr. Pembroke. + +"To my mind also a bright motherly matron is quite sufficient. +But that is what they demand. And that is why--do you see?--we +HAVE to regard your appointment as experimental. Possibly Miss +Pembroke will be able to help you. Or I don't know whether if +ever--" He left the sentence unfinished. Two days later Mr. +Pembroke proposed to Mrs. Orr. + +He had always intended to marry when he could afford it; and once +he had been in love, violently in love, but had laid the passion +aside, and told it to wait till a more convenient season. This +was, of course, the proper thing to do, and prudence should have +been rewarded. But when, after the lapse of fifteen years, he +went, as it were, to his spiritual larder and took down Love from +the top shelf to offer him to Mrs. Orr, he was rather dismayed. +Something had happened. Perhaps the god had flown; perhaps he had +been eaten by the rats. At all events, he was not there. + +Mr. Pembroke was conscientious and romantic, and knew that +marriage without love is intolerable. On the other hand, he could +not admit that love had vanished from him. To admit this, would +argue that he had deteriorated. + +Whereas he knew for a fact that he had improved, year by year. +Each year be grew more moral, more efficient, more learned, more +genial. So how could he fail to be more loving? He did not speak +to himself as follows, because he never spoke to himself; but the +following notions moved in the recesses of his mind: "It is not +the fire of youth. But I am not sure that I approve of the fire +of youth. Look at my sister! Once she has suffered, twice she has +been most imprudent, and put me to great inconvenience besides, +for if she was stopping with me she would have done the +housekeeping. I rather suspect that it is a nobler, riper emotion +that I am laying at the feet of Mrs. Orr." It never took him long +to get muddled, or to reverse cause and effect. In a short time +he believed that he had been pining for years, and only waiting +for this good fortune to ask the lady to share it with him. + +Mrs. Orr was quiet, clever, kindly, capable, and amusing and they +were old acquaintances. Altogether it was not surprising that he +should ask her to be his wife, nor very surprising that she +should refuse. But she refused with a violence that alarmed them +both. He left her house declaring that he had been insulted, and +she, as soon as he left, passed from disgust into tears. + +He was much annoyed. There was a certain Miss Herriton who, +though far inferior to Mrs. Orr, would have done instead of her. +But now it was impossible. He could not go offering himself about +Sawston. Having engaged a matron who had the reputation for being +bright and motherly, he moved into Dunwood House and opened the +Michaelmas term. Everything went wrong. The cook left; the boys +had a disease called roseola; Agnes, who was still drunk with her +engagement, was of no assistance, but kept flying up to London to +push Rickie's fortunes; and, to crown everything, the matron was +too bright and not motherly enough: she neglected the little boys +and was overattentive to the big ones. She left abruptly, and the +voice of Mrs. Jackson arose, prophesying disaster. + +Should he avert it by taking orders? Parents do not demand that a +house-master should be a clergyman, yet it reassures them when he +is. And he would have to take orders some time, if he hoped for a +school of his own. His religious convictions were ready to hand, +but he spent several uncomfortable days hunting up his religious +enthusiasms. It was not unlike his attempt to marry Mrs. Orr. But +his piety was more genuine, and this time he never came to the +point. His sense of decency forbade him hurrying into a Church +that he reverenced. Moreover, he thought of another solution: +Agnes must marry Rickie in the Christmas holidays, and they must +come, both of them, to Sawston, she as housekeeper, he as +assistant-master. The girl was a good worker when once she was +settled down; and as for Rickie, he could easily be fitted in +somewhere in the school. He was not a good classic, but good +enough to take the Lower Fifth. He was no athlete, but boys might +profitably note that he was a perfect gentleman all the same. He +had no experience, but he would gain it. He had no decision, but +he could simulate it. "Above all," thought Mr. Pembroke, "it will +be something regular for him to do." Of course this was not +"above all." Dunwood House held that position. But Mr. Pembroke +soon came to think that it was, and believed that he was planning +for Rickie, just as he had believed he was pining for Mrs. Orr. + +Agnes, when she got back from the lunch in Soho, was told of the +plan. She refused to give any opinion until she had seen her +lover. A telegram was sent to him, and next morning he arrived. +He was very susceptible to the weather, and perhaps it was +unfortunate that the morning was foggy. His train had been +stopped outside Sawston Station, and there he had sat for half an +hour, listening to the unreal noises that came from the line, and +watching the shadowy figures that worked there. The gas was +alight in the great drawing-room, and in its depressing rays he +and Agnes greeted each other, and discussed the most momentous +question of their lives. They wanted to be married: there was no +doubt of that. They wanted it, both of them, dreadfully. But +should they marry on these terms? + +"I'd never thought of such a thing, you see. When the scholastic +agencies sent me circulars after the Tripos, I tore them up at +once." + +"There are the holidays," said Agnes. "You would have three +months in the year to yourself, and you could do your writing +then." + +"But who'll read what I've written?" and he told her about the +editor of the "Holborn." + +She became extremely grave. At the bottom of her heart she had +always mistrusted the little stories, and now people who knew +agreed with her. How could Rickie, or any one, make a living by +pretending that Greek gods were alive, or that young ladies could +vanish into trees? A sparkling society tale, full of verve and +pathos, would have been another thing, and the editor might have +been convinced by it. + +"But what does he mean?" Rickie was saying. "What does he mean by +life?" + +"I know what he means, but I can't exactly explain. You ought to +see life, Rickie. I think he's right there. And Mr. Tilliard was +right when he said one oughtn't to be academic." + +He stood in the twilight that fell from the window, she in the +twilight of the gas. "I wonder what Ansell would say," he +murmured. + +"Oh, poor Mr. Ansell!" + +He was somewhat surprised. Why was Ansell poor? It was the first +time the epithet had been applied to him. + +"But to change the conversation," said Agnes. + +"If we did marry, we might get to Italy at Easter and escape this +horrible fog." + +"Yes. Perhaps there--" Perhaps life would be there. He thought of +Renan, who declares that on the Acropolis at Athens beauty and +wisdom do exist, really exist, as external powers. He did not +aspire to beauty or wisdom, but he prayed to be delivered from +the shadow of unreality that had begun to darken the world. For +it was as if some power had pronounced against him--as if, by +some heedless action, he had offended an Olympian god. Like many +another, he wondered whether the god might be appeased by work-- +hard uncongenial work. Perhaps he had not worked hard enough, or +had enjoyed his work too much, and for that reason the shadow was +falling. + +"--And above all, a schoolmaster has wonderful opportunities for +doing good; one mustn't forget that." + +To do good! For what other reason are we here? Let us give up our +refined sensations, and our comforts, and our art, if thereby we +can make other people happier and better. The woman he loved had +urged him to do good! With a vehemence that surprised her, he +exclaimed, "I'll do it." + +"Think it over," she cautioned, though she was greatly pleased. + +"No; I think over things too much." + +The room grew brighter. A boy's laughter floated in, and it +seemed to him that people were as important and vivid as they had +been six months before. Then he was at Cambridge, idling in the +parsley meadows, and weaving perishable garlands out of flowers. +Now he was at Sawston, preparing to work a beneficent machine. +No man works for nothing, and Rickie trusted that to him also +benefits might accrue; that his wound might heal as he laboured, +and his eyes recapture the Holy Grail. + + + +XVII + +In practical matters Mr. Pembroke was often a generous man. He +offered Rickie a good salary, and insisted on paying Agnes as +well. And as he housed them for nothing, and as Rickie would also +have a salary from the school, the money question disappeared--if +not forever, at all events for the present. + +"I can work you in," he said. "Leave all that to me, and in a few +days you shall hear from the headmaster. + +He shall create a vacancy. And once in, we stand or fall +together. I am resolved on that." + +Rickie did not like the idea of being "worked in," but he was +determined to raise no difficulties. It is so easy to be refined +and high-minded when we have nothing to do. But the active, +useful man cannot be equally particular. Rickie's programme +involved a change in values as well as a change of occupation. + +"Adopt a frankly intellectual attitude," Mr. Pembroke continued. +"I do not advise you at present even to profess any interest in +athletics or organization. When the headmaster writes, he will +probably ask whether you are an all-round man. Boldly say no. A +bold 'no' is at times the best. Take your stand upon classics and +general culture." + +Classics! A second in the Tripos. General culture. A smattering +of English Literature, and less than a smattering of French. + +"That is how we begin. Then we get you a little post--say that of +librarian. And so on, until you are indispensable." + +Rickie laughed; the headmaster wrote, the reply was satisfactory, +and in due course the new life began. + +Sawston was already familiar to him. But he knew it as an +amateur, and under an official gaze it grouped itself afresh. The +school, a bland Gothic building, now showed as a fortress of +learning, whose outworks were the boarding-houses. Those +straggling roads were full of the houses of the parents of the +day-boys. These shops were in bounds, those out. How often had he +passed Dunwood House! He had once confused it with its rival, +Cedar View. Now he was to live there--perhaps for many years. On +the left of the entrance a large saffron drawing-room, full of +cosy corners and dumpy chairs: here the parents would be +received. On the right of the entrance a study, which he shared +with Herbert: here the boys would be caned--he hoped not often. +In the hall a framed certificate praising the drains, the bust of +Hermes, and a carved teak monkey holding out a salver. Some of +the furniture had come from Shelthorpe, some had been bought from +Mr. Annison, some of it was new. But throughout he recognized a +certain decision of arrangement. Nothing in the house was +accidental, or there merely for its own sake. He contrasted it +with his room at Cambridge, which had been a jumble of things +that he loved dearly and of things that he did not love at all. +Now these also had come to Dunwood House, and had been +distributed where each was seemly--Sir Percival to the +drawing-room, the photograph of Stockholm to the passage, his +chair, his inkpot, and the portrait of his mother to the study. +And then he contrasted it with the Ansells' house, to which their +resolute ill-taste had given unity. He was extremely sensitive to +the inside of a house, holding it an organism that expressed the +thoughts, conscious and subconscious, of its inmates. He was +equally sensitive to places. He would compare Cambridge with +Sawston, and either with a third type of existence, to which, for +want of a better name, he gave the name of "Wiltshire." + +It must not be thought that he is going to waste his time. These +contrasts and comparisons never took him long, and he never +indulged in them until the serious business of the day was over. +And, as time passed, he never indulged in them at all. +The school returned at the end of January, before he had been +settled in a week. His health had improved, but not greatly, and +he was nervous at the prospect of confronting the assembled +house. All day long cabs had been driving up, full of boys in +bowler hats too big for them; and Agnes had been superintending +the numbering of the said hats, and the placing of them in +cupboards, since they would not be wanted till the end of the +term. Each boy had, or should have had, a bag, so that he need +not unpack his box till the morrow, One boy had only a +brown-paper parcel, tied with hairy string, and Rickie heard the +firm pleasant voice say, "But you'll bring a bag next term," and +the submissive, "Yes, Mrs. Elliot," of the reply. In the passage +he ran against the head boy, who was alarmingly like an +undergraduate. They looked at each other suspiciously, and +parted. Two minutes later he ran into another boy, and then into +another, and began to wonder whether they were doing it on +purpose, and if so, whether he ought to mind. As the day wore on, +the noises grew louder-trampings of feet, breakdowns, jolly +little squawks--and the cubicles were assigned, and the bags +unpacked, and the bathing arrangements posted up, and Herbert +kept on saying, "All this is informal--all this is informal. We +shall meet the house at eight fifteen." + +And so, at eight ten, Rickie put on his cap and gown,--hitherto +symbols of pupilage, now to be symbols of dignity,--the very cap +and gown that Widdrington had so recently hung upon the college +fountain. Herbert, similarly attired, was waiting for him in +their private dining-room, where also sat Agnes, ravenously +devouring scrambled eggs. "But you'll wear your hoods," she +cried. Herbert considered, and them said she was quite right. He +fetched his white silk, Rickie the fragment of rabbit's wool that +marks the degree of B.A. Thus attired, they proceeded through the +baize door. They were a little late, and the boys, who were +marshalled in the preparation room, were getting uproarious. One, +forgetting how far his voice carried, shouted, "Cave! Here comes +the Whelk." And another young devil yelled, "The Whelk's brought +a pet with him!" + +"You mustn't mind," said Herbert kindly. "We masters make a point +of never minding nicknames--unless, of course, they are applied +openly, in which case a thousand lines is not too much." Rickie +assented, and they entered the preparation room just as the +prefects had established order. + +Here Herbert took his seat on a high-legged chair, while Rickie, +like a queen-consort, sat near him on a chair with somewhat +shorter legs. Each chair had a desk attached to it, and Herbert +flung up the lid of his, and then looked round the preparation +room with a quick frown, as if the contents had surprised him. So +impressed was Rickie that he peeped sideways, but could only see +a little blotting-paper in the desk. Then he noticed that the +boys were impressed too. Their chatter ceased. They attended. + +The room was almost full. The prefects, instead of lolling +disdainfully in the back row, were ranged like councillors +beneath the central throne. This was an innovation of Mr. +Pembroke's. Carruthers, the head boy, sat in the middle, with his +arm round Lloyd. It was Lloyd who had made the matron too bright: +he nearly lost his colours in consequence. These two were grown +up. Beside them sat Tewson, a saintly child in the spectacles, +who had risen to this height by reason of his immense learning. +He, like the others, was a school prefect. The house prefects, an +inferior brand, were beyond, and behind came the +indistinguishable many. The faces all looked alike as yet--except +the face of one boy, who was inclined to cry. + +"School," said Mr. Pembroke, slowly closing the lid of the desk, +--"school is the world in miniature." Then he paused, as a man +well may who has made such a remark. It is not, however, the +intention of this work to quote an opening address. Rickie, at +all events, refused to be critical: Herbert's experience was far +greater than his, and he must take his tone from him. Nor +could any one criticize the exhortations to be patriotic, +athletic, learned, and religious, that flowed like a four-part +fugue from Mr. Pembroke's mouth. He was a practised speaker--that +is to say, he held his audience's attention. He told them that +this term, the second of his reign, was THE term for Dunwood +House; that it behooved every boy to labour during it for his +house's honour, and, through the house, for the honour of the +school. Taking a wider range, he spoke of England, or rather of +Great Britain, and of her continental foes. Portraits of +empire-builders hung on the wall, and he pointed to them. He +quoted imperial poets. He showed how patriotism had broadened +since the days of Shakespeare, who, for all his genius, +could only write of his country as-- + +"This fortress built by nature for herself +Against infection and the hand of war, +This hazy breed of men, this little world, +This precious stone set in the silver sea." + +And it seemed that only a short ladder lay between the +preparation room and the Anglo-Saxon hegemony of the globe. Then +he paused, and in the silence came "sob, sob, sob," from a little +boy, who was regretting a villa in Guildford and his mother's +half acre of garden. + +The proceeding terminated with the broader patriotism of the +school anthem, recently composed by the organist. Words and tune +were still a matter for taste, and it was Mr. Pembroke (and he +only because he had the music) who gave the right intonation to + +"Perish each laggard! Let it not be said +That Sawston such within her walls hath bred." + +"Come, come," he said pleasantly, as they ended with harmonies in +the style of Richard Strauss. "This will never do. We must +grapple with the anthem this term--you're as tuneful as--as +day-boys!" + +Hearty laughter, and then the whole house filed past them and +shook hands. + +"But how did it impress you?" Herbert asked, as soon as they were +back in their own part. Agnes had provided them with a tray of +food: the meals were still anyhow, and she had to fly at once to +see after the boys. + +"I liked the look of them." + +"I meant rather, how did the house impress you as a house?" + +"I don't think I thought," said Rickie rather nervously. "It is +not easy to catch the spirit of a thing at once. I only saw a +roomful of boys." + +"My dear Rickie, don't be so diffident. You are perfectly right. +You only did see a roomful of boys. As yet there's nothing else +to see. The house, like the school, lacks tradition. Look at +Winchester. Look at the traditional rivalry between Eton and +Harrow. Tradition is of incalculable importance, if a school is +to have any status. Why should Sawston be without?" + +"Yes. Tradition is of incalculable value. And I envy those +schools that have a natural connection with the past. Of course +Sawston has a past, though not of the kind that you quite want. +The sons of poor tradesmen went to it at first. So wouldn't its +traditions be more likely to linger in the Commercial School?" he +concluded nervously. + +"You have a great deal to learn--a very great deal. Listen to me. +Why has Sawston no traditions?" His round, rather foolish, face +assumed the expression of a conspirator. Bending over the mutton, +he whispered, "I can tell you why. Owing to the day-boys. How can +traditions flourish in such soil? Picture the day-boy's life--at +home for meals, at home for preparation, at home for sleep, +running home with every fancied wrong. There are day-boys in your +class, and, mark my words, they will give you ten times as much +trouble as the boarders, late, slovenly, stopping away at the +slightest pretext. And then the letters from the parents! 'Why +has my boy not been moved this term?' 'Why has my boy been moved +this term?' 'I am a dissenter, and do not wish my boy to +subscribe to the school mission.' 'Can you let my boy off early +to water the garden?' Remember that I have been a day-boy +house-master, and tried to infuse some esprit de corps into them. +It is practically impossible. They come as units, and units they +remain. Worse. They infect the boarders. Their pestilential, +critical, discontented attitude is spreading over the school. If +I had my own way--" + +He stopped somewhat abruptly. + +"Was that why you laughed at their singing?" + +"Not at all. Not at all. It is not my habit to set one section of +the school against the other." + +After a little they went the rounds. The boys were in bed now. +"Good-night!" called Herbert, standing in the corridor of the +cubicles, and from behind each of the green curtains came the +sound of a voice replying, "Good-night, sir!" "Good-night," he +observed into each dormitory. + +Then he went to the switch in the passage and plunged the whole +house into darkness. Rickie lingered behind him, strangely +impressed. In the morning those boys had been scattered over +England, leading their own lives. Now, for three months, they +must change everything--see new faces, accept new ideals. They, +like himself, must enter a beneficent machine, and learn the +value of esprit de corps. Good luck attend them--good luck and a +happy release. For his heart would have them not in these +cubicles and dormitories, but each in his own dear home, amongst +faces and things that he knew. + +Next morning, after chapel, he made the acquaintance of his +class. Towards that he felt very differently. Esprit de corps was +not expected of it. It was simply two dozen boys who were +gathered together for the purpose of learning Latin. His duties +and difficulties would not lie here. He was not required to +provide it with an atmosphere. The scheme of work was already +mapped out, and he started gaily upon familiar words-- + +"Pan, ovium custos, tua si tibi Maenala curae +Adsis, O Tegaee, favens." + +"Do you think that beautiful?" he asked, and received the honest +answer, "No, sir; I don't think I do." He met Herbert in high +spirits in the quadrangle during the interval. But Herbert +thought his enthusiasm rather amateurish, and cautioned him. + +"You must take care they don't get out of hand. I approve of a +lively teacher, but discipline must be established first." + +"I felt myself a learner, not a teacher. If I'm wrong over a +point, or don't know, I mean to tell them at once." +Herbert shook his head. + +"It's different if I was really a scholar. But I can't pose as +one, can I? I know much more than the boys, but I know very +little. Surely the honest thing is to be myself to them. Let them +accept or refuse me as that. That's the only attitude we shall +any of us profit by in the end." + +Mr. Pembroke was silent. Then he observed, "There is, as you say, +a higher attitude and a lower attitude. Yet here, as so often, +cannot we find a golden mean between them?" + +"What's that?" said a dreamy voice. They turned and saw a tall, +spectacled man, who greeted the newcomer kindly, and took hold of +his arm. "What's that about the golden mean?" + +"Mr. Jackson--Mr. Elliot: Mr. Elliot--Mr. Jackson," said Herbert, +who did not seem quite pleased. "Rickie, have you a moment to +spare me?" + +But the humanist spoke to the young man about the golden mean and +the pinchbeck mean, adding, "You know the Greeks aren't broad church +clergymen. They really aren't, in spite of much conflicting +evidence. Boys will regard Sophocles as a kind of enlightened +bishop, and something tells me that they are wrong." + +"Mr. Jackson is a classical enthusiast," said Herbert. "He makes +the past live. I want to talk to you about the humdrum present." + +"And I am warning him against the humdrum past. "That's another +point, Mr. Elliot. Impress on your class that many Greeks and +most Romans were frightfully stupid, and if they disbelieve you, +read Ctesiphon with them, or Valerius Flaccus. Whatever is +that noise?" + +"It comes from your class-room, I think," snapped the other +master. + +"So it does. Ah, yes. I expect they are putting your little +Tewson into the waste-paper basket." + +"I always lock my class-room in the interval--" + +"Yes?" + +"--and carry the key in my pocket." + +"Ah. But, Mr. Elliot, I am a cousin of Widdrington's. He wrote to +me about you. I am so glad. Will you, first of all, come to +supper next Sunday?" + +"I am afraid," put in Herbert, "that we poor housemasters must +deny ourselves festivities in term time." + +"But mayn't he come once, just once?" + +"May, my dear Jackson! My brother-in-law is not a baby. He +decides for himself." + +Rickie naturally refused. As soon as they were out of hearing, +Herbert said, "This is a little unfortunate. Who is Mr. +Widdrington?" + +"I knew him at Cambridge." + +"Let me explain how we stand," he continued, after a pause. + +"Jackson is the worst of the reactionaries here, while I--why +should I conceal it?--have thrown in my lot with the party of +progress. You will see how we suffer from him at the masters' +meetings. He has no talent for organization, and yet he is always +inflicting his ideas on others. It was like his impertinence to +dictate to you what authors you should read, and meanwhile the +sixth-form room like a bear-garden, and a school prefect being +put into the waste-paper basket. My good Rickie, there's nothing +to smile at. How is the school to go on with a man like that? It +would be a case of 'quick march,' if it was not for his brilliant +intellect. That's why I say it's a little unfortunate. You will +have very little in common, you and he." + +Rickie did not answer. He was very fond of Widdrington, who was a +quaint, sensitive person. And he could not help being attracted +by Mr. Jackson, whose welcome contrasted pleasantly with the +official breeziness of his other colleagues. He wondered, too, +whether it is so very reactionary to contemplate the antique. + +"It is true that I vote Conservative," pursued Mr. Pembroke, +apparently confronting some objector. "But why? Because the +Conservatives, rather than the Liberals, stand for progress. One +must not be misled by catch-words." + +"Didn't you want to ask me something?" + +"Ah, yes. You found a boy in your form called Varden?" + +"Varden? Yes; there is." + +"Drop on him heavily. He has broken the statutes of the school. +He is attending as a day-boy. The statutes provide that a boy +must reside with his parents or guardians. He does neither. It +must be stopped. You must tell the headmaster." + +"Where does the boy live?" + +"At a certain Mrs. Orr's, who has no connection with the school +of any kind. It must be stopped. He must either enter a +boarding-house or go." + +"But why should I tell?" said Rickie. He remembered the boy, an +unattractive person with protruding ears, "It is the business of +his house-master." + +"House-master--exactly. Here we come back again. Who is now the +day-boys' house-master? Jackson once again--as if anything was +Jackson's business! I handed the house back last term in a most +flourishing condition. It has already gone to rack and ruin for +the second time. To return to Varden. I have unearthed a put-up +job. Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Orr are friends. Do you see? It all +works round." + +"I see. It does--or might." + +"The headmaster will never sanction it when it's put to him +plainly." + +"But why should I put it?" said Rickie, twisting the ribbons of +his gown round his fingers. + +"Because you're the boy's form-master." + +"Is that a reason?" + +"Of course it is." + +"I only wondered whether--" He did not like to say that he +wondered whether he need do it his first morning. + +"By some means or other you must find out--of course you know +already, but you must find out from the boy. I know--I have it! +Where's his health certificate?" + +"He had forgotten it." + +"Just like them. Well, when he brings it, it will be signed by +Mrs. Orr, and you must look at it and say, 'Orr--Orr--Mrs. +Orr?' or something to that effect, and then the whole thing will +come naturally out." + +The bell rang, and they went in for the hour of school that +concluded the morning. Varden brought his health certificate--a +pompous document asserting that he had not suffered from roseola +or kindred ailments in the holidays--and for a long time Rickie +sat with it before him, spread open upon his desk. He did not +quite like the job. It suggested intrigue, and he had come to +Sawston not to intrigue but to labour. Doubtless Herbert was +right, and Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Orr were wrong. But why could +they not have it out among themselves? Then he thought, "I am a +coward, and that's why I'm raising these objections," called the +boy up to him, and it did all come out naturally, more or less. +Hitherto Varden had lived with his mother; but she had left +Sawston at Christmas, and now he would live with Mrs. Orr. "Mr. +Jackson, sir, said it would be all right." + +"Yes, yes," said Rickie; "quite so." He remembered Herbert's +dictum: "Masters must present a united front. If they do not--the +deluge." He sent the boy back to his seat, and after school took +the compromising health certificate to the headmaster. The +headmaster was at that time easily excited by a breach of the +constitution. "Parents or guardians," he reputed--"parents or +guardians," and flew with those words on his lips to Mr. Jackson. +To say that Rickie was a cat's-paw is to put it too strongly. +Herbert was strictly honourable, and never pushed him into an +illegal or really dangerous position; but there is no doubt that +on this and on many other occasions he had to do things that he +would not otherwise have done. There was always some diplomatic +corner that had to be turned, always something that he had to say +or not to say. As the term wore on he lost his independence-- +almost without knowing it. He had much to learn about boys, and +he learnt not by direct observation--for which he believed he was +unfitted--but by sedulous imitation of the more experienced +masters. Originally he had intended to be friends with his +pupils, and Mr. Pembroke commended the intention highly; but you +cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself +away in the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, +for "personal intercourse," substituted the safer "personal +influence," and gave his junior hints on the setting of kindly +traps, in which the boy does give himself away and reveals his +shy delicate thoughts, while the master, intact, commends or +corrects them. Originally Rickie had meant to help boys in the +anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at Cambridge +he had numbered this among life's duties. But here is a subject +in which we must inevitably speak as one human being to another, +not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for +this reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a +few formulae. Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie's +line, so he abandoned these subjects altogether and confined +himself to working hard at what was easy. In the house he did as +Herbert did, and referred all doubtful subjects to him. In his +form, oddly enough, he became a martinet. It is so much simpler +to be severe. He grasped the school regulations, and insisted on +prompt obedience to them. He adopted the doctrine of collective +responsibility. When one boy was late, he punished the whole +form. "I can't help it," he would say, as if he was a power of +nature. As a teacher he was rather dull. He curbed his own +enthusiasms, finding that they distracted his attention, and that +while he throbbed to the music of Virgil the boys in the back row +were getting unruly. But on the whole he liked his form work: he +knew why he was there, and Herbert did not overshadow him so +completely. + +What was amiss with Herbert? He had known that something was +amiss, and had entered into partnership with open eyes. The man +was kind and unselfish; more than that he was truly charitable, +and it was a real pleasure to him to give--pleasure to others. +Certainly he might talk too much about it afterwards; but it was +the doing, not the talking, that he really valued, and +benefactors of this sort are not too common. He was, moreover, +diligent and conscientious: his heart was in his work, and his +adherence to the Church of England no mere matter of form. He was +capable of affection: he was usually courteous and tolerant. Then +what was amiss? Why, in spite of all these qualities, should +Rickie feel that there was something wrong with him--nay, that he +was wrong as a whole, and that if the Spirit of Humanity should +ever hold a judgment he would assuredly be classed among the +goats? The answer at first sight appeared a graceless one--it was +that Herbert was stupid. Not stupid in the ordinary sense--he had +a business-like brain, and acquired knowledge easily--but stupid +in the important sense: his whole life was coloured by a contempt +of the intellect. That he had a tolerable intellect of his own +was not the point: it is in what we value, not in what we have, +that the test of us resides. Now, Rickie's intellect was not +remarkable. He came to his worthier results rather by imagination +and instinct than by logic. An argument confused him, and he +could with difficulty follow it even on paper. But he saw in this +no reason for satisfaction, and tried to make such use of his +brain as he could, just as a weak athlete might lovingly exercise +his body. Like a weak athlete, too, he loved to watch the +exploits, or rather the efforts, of others--their efforts not so +much to acquire knowledge as to dispel a little of the darkness +by which we and all our acquisitions are surrounded. Cambridge +had taught him this, and he knew, if for no other reason, that +his time there had not been in vain. And Herbert's contempt for +such efforts revolted him. He saw that for all his fine talk +about a spiritual life he had but one test for things--success: +success for the body in this life or for the soul in the life to +come. And for this reason Humanity, and perhaps such other +tribunals as there may be, would assuredly reject him. + + + +XVIII + +Meanwhile he was a husband. Perhaps his union should have been +emphasized before. The crown of life had been attained, the vague +yearnings, the misread impulses, had found accomplishment at +last. Never again must he feel lonely, or as one who stands out +of the broad highway of the world and fears, like poor Shelley, +to undertake the longest journey. So he reasoned, and at first +took the accomplishment for granted. But as the term passed he +knew that behind the yearning there remained a yearning, behind +the drawn veil a veil that he could not draw. His wedding had +been no mighty landmark: he would often wonder whether such and +such a speech or incident came after it or before. Since that +meeting in the Soho restaurant there had been so much to do-- +clothes to buy, presents to thank for, a brief visit to a +Training College, a honeymoon as brief. In such a bustle, what +spiritual union could take place? Surely the dust would settle +soon: in Italy, at Easter, he might perceive the infinities of +love. But love had shown him its infinities already. Neither by +marriage nor by any other device can men insure themselves a +vision; and Rickie's had been granted him three years before, +when he had seen his wife and a dead man clasped in each other's +arms. She was never to be so real to him again. + +She ran about the house looking handsomer than ever. Her cheerful +voice gave orders to the servants. As he sat in the study +correcting compositions, she would dart in and give him a kiss. +"Dear girl--" he would murmur, with a glance at the rings on her +hand. The tone of their marriage life was soon set. It was to be +a frank good-fellowship, and before long he found it difficult to +speak in a deeper key. + +One evening he made the effort. There had been more beauty than +was usual at Sawston. The air was pure and quiet. Tomorrow the +fog might be here, but today one said, "It is like the country." +Arm in arm they strolled in the side-garden, stopping at times to +notice the crocuses, or to wonder when the daffodils would +flower. Suddenly he tightened his pressure, and said, "Darling, +why don't you still wear ear-rings?" + +"Ear-rings?" She laughed. "My taste has improved, perhaps." + +So after all they never mentioned Gerald's name. But he hoped it +was still dear to her. He did not want her to forget the greatest +moment in her life. His love desired not ownership but +confidence, and to a love so pure it does not seem terrible to +come second. + +He valued emotion--not for itself, but because it is the only +final path to intimacy. She, ever robust and practical, always +discouraged him. She was not cold; she would willingly embrace +him. But she hated being upset, and would laugh or thrust him off +when his voice grew serious. In this she reminded him of his +mother. But his mother--he had never concealed it from himself-- +had glories to which his wife would never attain: glories that +had unfolded against a life of horror--a life even more horrible +than he had guessed. He thought of her often during these earlier +months. Did she bless his union, so different to her own? Did she +love his wife? He tried to speak of her to Agnes, but again she +was reluctant. And perhaps it was this aversion to acknowledge +the dead, whose images alone have immortality, that made her own +image somewhat transient, so that when he left her no mystic +influence remained, and only by an effort could he realize that +God had united them forever. + +They conversed and differed healthily upon other topics. A rifle +corps was to be formed: she hoped that the boys would have proper +uniforms, instead of shooting in their old clothes, as Mr. +Jackson had suggested. There was Tewson; could nothing be done +about him? He would slink away from the other prefects and go +with boys of his own age. There was Lloyd: he would not learn the +school anthem, saying that it hurt his throat. And above all +there was Varden, who, to Rickie's bewilderment, was now a member +of Dunwood House. + +"He had to go somewhere," said Agnes. "Lucky for his mother that +we had a vacancy." + +"Yes--but when I meet Mrs. Orr--I can't help feeling ashamed." + +"Oh, Mrs. Orr! Who cares for her? Her teeth are drawn. If she +chooses to insinuate that we planned it, let her. Hers was rank +dishonesty. She attempted to set up a boarding-house." + +Mrs. Orr, who was quite rich, had attempted no such thing. She +had taken the boy out of charity, and without a thought of being +unconstitutional. But in had come this officious "Limpet" and +upset the headmaster, and she was scolded, and Mrs. Varden was +scolded, and Mr. Jackson was scolded, and the boy was scolded and +placed with Mr. Pembroke, whom she revered less than any man in +the world. Naturally enough, she considered it a further attempt +of the authorities to snub the day-boys, for whose advantage the +school had been founded. She and Mrs. Jackson discussed the +subject at their tea-parties, and the latter lady was sure that +no good, no good of any kind, would come to Dunwood House from +such ill-gotten plunder. + +"We say, 'Let them talk,'" persisted Rickie, "but I never did +like letting people talk. We are right and they are wrong, but I +wish the thing could have been done more quietly. The headmaster +does get so excited. He has given a gang of foolish people their +opportunity. I don't like being branded as the day-boy's foe, +when I think how much I would have given to be a day-boy myself. +My father found me a nuisance, and put me through the mill, and I +can never forget it particularly the evenings." + +"There's very little bullying here," said Agnes. + +"There was very little bullying at my school. There +was simply the atmosphere of unkindness, which no discipline can +dispel. It's not what people do to you, but what they mean, that +hurts." + +"I don't understand." + +"Physical pain doesn't hurt--at least not what I call hurt--if a +man hits you by accident or play. But just a little tap, when you +know it comes from hatred, is too terrible. Boys do hate each +other: I remember it, and see it again. They can make strong +isolated friendships, but of general good-fellowship they haven't +a notion." + +"All I know is there's very little bullying here." + +"You see, the notion of good-fellowship develops late: you can +just see its beginning here among the prefects: up at Cambridge +it flourishes amazingly. That's why I pity people who don't go up +to Cambridge: not because a University is smart, but because +those are the magic years, and--with luck--you see up there what +you couldn't see before and mayn't ever see again. + +"Aren't these the magic years?" the lady demanded. + +He laughed and hit at her. "I'm getting somewhat involved. But +hear me, O Agnes, for I am practical. I approve of our public +schools. Long may they, flourish. But I do not approve of the +boarding-house system. It isn't an inevitable adjunct--" + +"Good gracious me!" she shrieked. "Have you gone mad?" + +"Silence, madam. Don't betray me to Herbert, or I'll give us the +sack. But seriously, what is the good of, throwing boys so much +together? Isn't it building their lives on a wrong basis? They +don't understand each other. I wish they did, but they don't. +They don't realize that human beings are simply marvellous. +When they do, the whole of life changes, and you get the true +thing. But don't pretend you've got it before you have. +Patriotism and esprit de corps are all very well, but masters a +little forget that they must grow from sentiment. They cannot +create one. Cannot-cannot--cannot. I never cared a straw for +England until I cared for Englishmen, and boys can't love the +school when they hate each other. Ladies and gentlemen, I will +now conclude my address. And most of it is copied out of Mr. +Ansell." + +The truth is, he was suddenly ashamed. He had been carried away +on the flood of his old emotions. Cambridge and all that it meant +had stood before him passionately clear, and beside it stood his +mother and the sweet family life which nurses up a boy until he +can salute his equals. He was ashamed, for he remembered his new +resolution--to work without criticizing, to throw himself +vigorously into the machine, not to mind if he was pinched now +and then by the elaborate wheels. + +"Mr. Ansell!" cried his wife, laughing somewhat shrilly. "Aha! +Now I understand. It's just the kind of thing poor Mr. Ansell +would say. Well, I'm brutal. I believe it does Varden good to +have his ears pulled now and then, and I don't care whether they +pull them in play or not. Boys ought to rough it, or they never +grow up into men, and your mother would have agreed with me. Oh +yes; and you're all wrong about patriotism. It can, can, create a +sentiment." + +She was unusually precise, and had followed his thoughts with an +attention that was also unusual. He wondered whether she was not +right, and regretted that she proceeded to say, "My dear boy, you +mustn't talk these heresies inside Dunwood House! You sound just +like one of that reactionary Jackson set, who want to fling the +school back a hundred years and have nothing but day-boys all +dressed anyhow." + +"The Jackson set have their points." + +"You'd better join it." + +"The Dunwood House set has its points." For Rickie suffered from +the Primal Curse, which is not--as the Authorized Version +suggests--the knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of +good-and-evil. + +"Then stick to the Dunwood House set." + +"I do, and shall." Again he was ashamed. Why would he see the +other side of things? He rebuked his soul, not unsuccessfully, +and then they returned to the subject of Varden. + +"I'm certain he suffers," said he, for she would do nothing but +laugh. "Each boy who passes pulls his ears--very funny, no doubt; +but every day they stick out more and get redder, and this +afternoon, when he didn't know he was being watched, he was +holding his head and moaning. I hate the look about his eyes." + +"I hate the whole boy. Nasty weedy thing." + +"Well, I'm a nasty weedy thing, if it comes to that." + +"No, you aren't," she cried, kissing him. But he led her back to +the subject. Could nothing be suggested? He drew up some new +rules--alterations in the times of going to bed, and so on--the +effect of which would be to provide fewer opportunities for the +pulling of Varden's ears. The rules were submitted to Herbert, +who sympathized with weakliness more than did his sister, and +gave them his careful consideration. But unfortunately they +collided with other rules, and on a closer examination he found +that they also ran contrary to the fundamentals on which the +government of Dunwood House was based. So nothing was done. Agnes +was rather pleased, and took to teasing her husband about Varden. +At last he asked her to stop. He felt uneasy about the boy-- +almost superstitious. His first morning's work had brought sixty +pounds a year to their hotel. + + + +XIX + +They did not get to Italy at Easter. Herbert had the offer of +some private pupils, and needed Rickie's help. It seemed +unreasonable to leave England when money was to be made in it, so +they went to Ilfracombe instead. They spent three weeks among the +natural advantages and unnatural disadvantages of that resort. It +was out of the season, and they encamped in a huge hotel, which +took them at a reduction. By a disastrous chance the Jacksons +were down there too, and a good deal of constrained civility had +to pass between the two families. Constrained it was not in Mr. +Jackson's case. At all times he was ready to talk, and as long as +they kept off the school it was pleasant enough. But he was very +indiscreet, and feminine tact had often to intervene. "Go away, +dear ladies," he would then observe. "You think you see life +because you see the chasms in it. Yet all the chasms are full of +female skeletons." The ladies smiled anxiously. To Rickie he was +friendly and even intimate. They had long talks on the deserted +Capstone, while their wives sat reading in the Winter Garden and +Mr. Pembroke kept an eye upon the tutored youths. "Once I had +tutored youths," said Mr. Jackson, "but I lost them all by +letting them paddle with my nieces. It is so impossible to +remember what is proper." And sooner or later their talk +gravitated towards his central passion--the Fragments of +Sophocles. Some day ("never," said Herbert) he would edit them. +At present they were merely in his blood. With the zeal of a +scholar and the imagination of a poet he reconstructed lost +dramas--Niobe, Phaedra, Philoctetes against Troy, whose names, +but for an accident, would have thrilled the world. "Is it worth +it?" he cried. "Had we better be planting potatoes?" And then: +"We had; but this is the second best." + +Agnes did not approve of these colloquies. Mr. Jackson was not a +buffoon, but he behaved like one, which is what matters; and from +the Winter Garden she could see people laughing at him, and at +her husband, who got excited too. She hinted once or twice, but +no notice was taken, and at last she said rather sharply, "Now, +you're not to, Rickie. I won't have it." + +"He's a type that suits me. He knows people I know, or would like +to have known. He was a friend of Tony Failing's. It is so hard +to realize that a man connected with one was great. Uncle Tony +seems to have been. He loved poetry and music and pictures, and +everything tempted him to live in a kind of cultured paradise, +with the door shut upon squalor. But to have more decent people +in the world--he sacrificed everything to that. He would have +'smashed the whole beauty-shop' if it would help him. I really +couldn't go as far as that. I don't think one need go as far-- +pictures might have to be smashed, but not music or poetry; +surely they help--and Jackson doesn't think so either." + +"Well, I won't have it, and that's enough." She laughed, for her +voice had a little been that of the professional scold. "You see +we must hang together. He's in the reactionary camp." + +"He doesn't know it. He doesn't know that he is in any camp at +all." + +"His wife is, which comes to the same." + +"Still, it's the holidays--" He and Mr. Jackson had drifted apart +in the term, chiefly owing to the affair of Varden. "We were to +have the holidays to ourselves, you know." And following some +line of thought, he continued, "He cheers one up. He does believe +in poetry. Smart, sentimental books do seem absolutely absurd to +him, and gods and fairies far nearer to reality. He tries to + +express all modern life in the terms of Greek mythology, because +the Greeks looked very straight at things, and Demeter or +Aphrodite are thinner veils than 'The survival of the fittest', +or 'A marriage has been arranged,' and other draperies of modern +journalese." + +"And do you know what that means?" + +"It means that poetry, not prose, lies at the core." + +"No. I can tell you what it means--balder-dash." + +His mouth fell. She was sweeping away the cobwebs with a +vengeance. "I hope you're wrong," he replied, "for those are the +lines on which I've been writing, however badly, for the last two +years." + +"But you write stories, not poems." + +He looked at his watch. "Lessons again. One never has a moment's +peace." + +"Poor Rickie. You shall have a real holiday in the summer." And +she called after him to say, "Remember, dear, about Mr. Jackson. +Don't go talking so much to him." + +Rather arbitrary. Her tone had been a little arbitrary of late. +But what did it matter? Mr. Jackson was not a friend, and he must +risk the chance of offending Widdrington. After the lesson he +wrote to Ansell, whom he had not seen since June, asking him to +come down to Ilfracombe, if only for a day. On reading the letter +over, its tone displeased him. It was quite pathetic: it sounded +like a cry from prison. "I can't send him such nonsense," he +thought, and wrote again. But phrase it as he would the letter +always suggested that he was unhappy. "What's wrong?" he +wondered. "I could write anything I wanted to him once." So he +scrawled "Come!" on a post-card. But even this seemed too +serious. The post-card followed the letters, and Agnes found them +all in the waste-paper basket. + +Then she said, "I've been thinking--oughtn't you to ask Mr. +Ansell over? A breath of sea air would do the poor thing good." + +There was no difficulty now. He wrote at once, "My dear Stewart, +We both so much wish you could come over." But the invitation was +refused. A little uneasy he wrote again, using the dialect of +their past intimacy. The effect of this letter was not pathetic +but jaunty, and he felt a keen regret as soon as it slipped into +the box. It was a relief to receive no reply. + +He brooded a good deal over this painful yet intangible episode. +Was the pain all of his own creating? or had it been produced by +something external? And he got the answer that brooding always +gives--it was both. He was morbid, and had been so since his +visit to Cadover--quicker to register discomfort than joy. But, +none the less, Ansell was definitely brutal, and Agnes definitely +jealous. Brutality he could understand, alien as it was to +himself. Jealousy, equally alien, was a harder matter. Let +husband and wife be as sun and moon, or as moon and sun. Shall +they therefore not give greeting to the stars? He was willing to +grant that the love that inspired her might be higher than his +own. Yet did it not exclude them both from much that is gracious? +That dream of his when he rode on the Wiltshire expanses--a +curious dream: the lark silent, the earth dissolving. And he +awoke from it into a valley full of men. + +She was jealous in many ways--sometimes in an open humorous +fashion, sometimes more subtly, never content till "we" had +extended our patronage, and, if possible, our pity. She began to +patronize and pity Ansell, and most sincerely trusted that he +would get his fellowship. Otherwise what was the poor fellow to +do? Ridiculous as it may seem, she was even jealous of Nature. +One day her husband escaped from Ilfracombe to Morthoe, and came +back ecstatic over its fangs of slate, piercing an oily sea. +"Sounds like an hippopotamus," she said peevishly. And when they +returned to Sawston through the Virgilian counties, she disliked +him looking out of the windows, for all the world as if Nature +was some dangerous woman. + +He resumed his duties with a feeling that he had never left +them. Again he confronted the assembled house. This term was +again the term; school still the world in miniature. The music of +the four-part fugue entered into him more deeply, and he began to +hum its little phrases. The same routine, the same diplomacies, +the same old sense of only half knowing boys or men--he returned +to it all: and all that changed was the cloud of unreality, which +ever brooded a little more densely than before. He spoke to his +wife about this, he spoke to her about everything, and she was +alarmed, and wanted him to see a doctor. But he explained that it +was nothing of any practical importance, nothing that interfered +with his work or his appetite, nothing more than a feeling that +the cow was not really there. She laughed, and "how is the cow +today?" soon passed into a domestic joke. + + + +XX + +Ansell was in his favourite haunt--the reading-room of the British Museum. +In that book-encircled space he always could find peace. He loved +to see the volumes rising tier above tier into the misty dome. He loved +the chairs that glide so noiselessly, and the radiating desks, and the central +area, where the catalogue shelves curve, round the superintendent's throne. +There he knew that his life was not ignoble. It was worth while to grow old +and dusty seeking for truth though truth is unattainable, restating questions +that have been stated at the beginning of the world. Failure would await him, +but not disillusionment. It was worth while reading books, and writing a book +or two which few would read, and no one, perhaps, endorse. He was not a hero, +and he knew it. His father and sister, by their steady goodness, had +made this life possible. But, all the same, it was not the life +of a spoilt child. + +In the next chair to him sat Widdrington, engaged in his +historical research. His desk was edged with enormous volumes, +and every few moments an assistant brought him more. They rose +like a wall against Ansell. Towards the end of the morning a gap +was made, and through it they held the following conversation. + +"I've been stopping with my cousin at Sawston." + +"M'm." + +"It was quite exciting. The air rang with battle. About +two-thirds of the masters have lost their heads, and are trying +to produce a gimcrack copy of Eton. Last term, you know, with a +great deal of puffing and blowing, they fixed the numbers of the +school. This term they want to create a new boarding-house." + +"They are very welcome." + +"But the more boarding-houses they create, the less room they +leave for day-boys. The local mothers are frantic, and so is my +queer cousin. I never knew him so excited over sub-Hellenic +things. There was an indignation meeting at his house. He is +supposed to look after the day-boys' interests, but no one +thought he would--least of all the people who gave him the post. +The speeches were most eloquent. They argued that the school was +founded for day-boys, and that it's intolerable to handicap them. +One poor lady cried, 'Here's my Harold in the school, and my +Toddie coming on. As likely as not I shall be told there is no +vacancy for him. Then what am I to do? If I go, what's to become +of Harold; and if I stop, what's to become of Toddie?' I must say +I was touched. Family life is more real than national life--at +least I've ordered all these books to prove it is--and I fancy +that the bust of Euripides agreed with me, and was sorry for the +hot-faced mothers. Jackson will do what he can. He didn't quite +like to state the naked truth-which is, that boardinghouses pay. +He explained it to me afterwards: they are the only, future open +to a stupid master. It's easy enough to be a beak when you're +young and athletic, and can offer the latest University +smattering. The difficulty is to keep your place when you get old +and stiff, and younger smatterers are pushing up behind you. +Crawl into a boarding-house and you're safe. A master's life is +frightfully tragic. Jackson's fairly right himself, because he +has got a first-class intellect. But I met a poor brute who was +hired as an athlete. He has missed his shot at a boarding-house, +and there's nothing in the world for him to do but to trundle +down the hill." + +Ansell yawned. + +"I saw Rickie too. Once I dined there." + +Another yawn. + +"My cousin thinks Mrs. Elliot one of the most horrible women he +has ever seen. He calls her 'Medusa in Arcady.' She's so +pleasant, too. But certainly it was a very stony meal." + +"What kind of stoniness" + +"No one stopped talking for a moment." + +"That's the real kind," said Ansell moodily. "The only kind." + +"Well, I," he continued, "am inclined to compare her to an +electric light. Click! she's on. Click! she's off. No waste. No +flicker." + +"I wish she'd fuse." + +"She'll never fuse--unless anything was to happen at the main." + +"What do you mean by the main?" said Ansell, who always pursued a +metaphor relentlessly. + +Widdrington did not know what he meant, and suggested that Ansell +should visit Sawston to see whether one could know. + +"It is no good me going. I should not find Mrs. Elliot: she has +no real existence." + +"Rickie has." + +"I very much doubt it. I had two letters from Ilfracombe last +April, and I very much doubt that the man who wrote them can +exist." Bending downwards he began to adorn the manuscript of his +dissertation with a square, and inside that a circle, and inside +that another square. It was his second dissertation: the first +had failed. + +"I think he exists: he is so unhappy." + +Ansell nodded. "How did you know he was unhappy?" + +"Because he was always talking." After a pause he added, "What +clever young men we are!" + +"Aren't we? I expect we shall get asked in marriage soon. I say, +Widdrington, shall we--?" + +"Accept? Of course. It is not young manly to say no." + +"I meant shall we ever do a more tremendous thing,--fuse Mrs. +Elliot." + +"No," said Widdrington promptly. "We shall never do that in all +our lives." He added, "I think you might go down to Sawston, +though." + +"I have already refused or ignored three invitations." + + "So I gathered." + +"What's the good of it?" said Ansell through his teeth. "1 will +not put up with little things. I would rather be rude than to +listen to twaddle from a man I've known. + +"You might go down to Sawston, just for a night, to see him." + +"I saw him last month--at least, so Tilliard informs me. He says +that we all three lunched together, that Rickie paid, and that +the conversation was most interesting." + +"Well, I contend that he does exist, and that if you go--oh, I +can't be clever any longer. You really must go, man. I'm certain +he's miserable and lonely. Dunwood House reeks of commerce and +snobbery and all the things he hated most. He doesn't do +anything. He doesn't make any friends. He is so odd, too. In this +day-boy row that has just started he's gone for my cousin. Would +you believe it? Quite spitefully. It made quite a difficulty when +I wanted to dine. It isn't like him either the sentiments or the +behaviour. I'm sure he's not himself. Pembroke used to look after +the day-boys, and so he can't very well take the lead against +them, and perhaps Rickie's doing his dirty work--and has overdone +it, as decent people generally do. He's even altering to talk to. +Yet he's not been married a year. Pembroke and that wife simply +run him. I don't see why they should, and no more do you; and +that's why I want you to go to Sawston, if only for one night." + +Ansell shook his head, and looked up at the dome as other men +look at the sky. In it the great arc lamps sputtered and flared, +for the month was again November. Then he lowered his eyes from +the cold violet radiance to the books. + +"No, Widdrington; no. We don't go to see people because they are +happy or unhappy. We go when we can talk to them. I cannot talk +to Rickie, therefore I will not waste my time at Sawston." + +"I think you're right," said Widdrington softly. "But we are +bloodless brutes. I wonder whether-If we were different +people--something might be done to save him. That is the curse of +being a little intellectual. You and our sort have always seen +too clearly. We stand aside--and meanwhile he turns into stone. +Two philosophic youths repining in the British Museum! What have +we done? What shall we ever do? Just drift and criticize, while +people who know what they want snatch it away from us and laugh." + +"Perhaps you are that sort. I'm not. When the moment comes I +shall hit out like any ploughboy. Don't believe those lies about +intellectual people. They're only written to soothe the majority. +Do you suppose, with the world as it is, that it's an easy matter +to keep quiet? Do you suppose that I didn't want to rescue him +from that ghastly woman? Action! Nothing's easier than action; as +fools testify. But I want to act rightly." + +"The superintendent is looking at us. I must get back to my +work." + +"You think this all nonsense," said Ansell, detaining him. +"Please remember that if I do act, you are bound to help me." + +Widdrington looked a little grave. He was no anarchist. A few +plaintive cries against Mrs. Elliot were all that he prepared to +emit. + +"There's no mystery," continued Ansell. "I haven't the shadow of +a plan in my head. I know not only Rickie but the whole of his +history: you remember the day near Madingley. Nothing in either +helps me: I'm just watching." + +"But what for?" + +"For the Spirit of Life." + +Widdrington was surprised. It was a phrase unknown to their +philosophy. They had trespassed into poetry. + +"You can't fight Medusa with anything else. If you ask me what +the Spirit of Life is, or to what it is attached, I can't tell +you. I only tell you, watch for it. Myself I've found it in +books. Some people find it out of doors or in each other. Never +mind. It's the same spirit, and I trust myself to know it +anywhere, and to use it rightly." + +But at this point the superintendent sent a message. + +Widdrington then suggested a stroll in the galleries. It was +foggy: they needed fresh air. He loved and admired his friend, +but today he could not grasp him. The world as Ansell saw it +seemed such a fantastic place, governed by brand-new laws. What +more could one do than to see Rickie as often as possible, to +invite his confidence, to offer him spiritual support? And Mrs. +Elliot--what power could "fuse" a respectable woman? + +Ansell consented to the stroll, but, as usual, only breathed +depression. The comfort of books deserted him among those marble +goddesses and gods. The eye of an artist finds pleasure in +texture and poise, but he could only think of the vanished +incense and deserted temples beside an unfurrowed sea. + +"Let us go," he said. "I do not like carved stones." + +"You are too particular," said Widdrington. "You are always +expecting to meet living people. One never does. I am content +with the Parthenon frieze." And he moved along a few yards of it, +while Ansell followed, conscious only of its pathos. + +"There's Tilliard," he observed. "Shall we kill him?" + +"Please," said Widdrington, and as he spoke Tilliard joined them. +He brought them news. That morning he had heard from Rickie: Mrs. +Elliot was expecting a child. + +"A child?" said Ansell, suddenly bewildered. + +"Oh, I forgot," interposed Widdrington. "My cousin did tell me." + +"You forgot! Well, after all, I forgot that it might be, We are +indeed young men." He leant against the pedestal of Ilissus and +remembered their talk about the Spirit of Life. In his ignorance +of what a child means he wondered whether the opportunity he +sought lay here. + +"I am very glad," said Tilliard, not without intention. "A child +will draw them even closer together. I like to see young people +wrapped up in their child." + +"I suppose I must be getting back to my dissertation," said +Ansell. He left the Parthenon to pass by the monuments of our +more reticent beliefs--the temple of the Ephesian Artemis, the +statue of the Cnidian Demeter. Honest, he knew that here were +powers he could not cope with, nor, as yet, understand. + + +XXI + +The mists that had gathered round Rickie seemed to be breaking. +He had found light neither in work for which he was unfitted nor +in a woman who had ceased to respect him, and whom he was ceasing +to love. Though he called himself fickle and took all the blame +of their marriage on his own shoulders, there remained in Agnes +certain terrible faults of heart and head, and no self-reproach +would diminish them. The glamour of wedlock had faded; indeed, he +saw now that it had faded even before wedlock, and that during +the final months he had shut his eyes and pretended it was still +there. But now the mists were breaking. + +That November the supreme event approached. He saw it with +Nature's eyes. It dawned on him, as on Ansell, that personal +love and marriage only cover one side of the shield, and that on +the other is graven the epic of birth. In the midst of lessons he +would grow dreamy, as one who spies a new symbol for the +universe, a fresh circle within the square. Within the square +shall be a circle, within the circle another square, until the +visual eye is baffled. Here is meaning of a kind. His mother had +forgotten herself in him. He would forget himself in his son. + +He was at his duties when the news arrived--taking preparation. +Boys are marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the +brutes; perhaps they will attain to a woman's tenderness. Though +they despised Rickie, and had suffered under Agnes's meanness, +their one thought this term was to be gentle and to give no +trouble. + +"Rickie--one moment--" + +His face grew ashen. He followed Herbert into the passage, +closing the door of the preparation room behind him. "Oh, is she +safe?" he whispered. + +"Yes, yes," said Herbert; but there sounded in his answer a +sombre hostile note. + +"Our boy?" + +"Girl--a girl, dear Rickie; a little daughter. She--she is in many +ways a healthy child. She will live--oh yes." A flash of horror +passed over his face. He hurried into the preparation room, +lifted the lid of his desk, glanced mechanically at the boys, and +came out again. + +Mrs. Lewin appeared through the door that led into their own part +of the house. + +"Both going on well!" she cried; but her voice also was grave, +exasperated. + +"What is it?" he gasped. "It's something you daren't tell me." + +"Only this--stuttered Herbert. "You mustn't mind when you see-- +she's lame." + +Mrs. Lewin disappeared. "Lame! but not as lame as I am?" + +"Oh, my dear boy, worse. Don't--oh, be a man in this. Come away +from the preparation room. Remember she'll live--in many ways +healthy--only just this one defect." + +The horror of that week never passed away from him. To the end of +his life he remembered the excuses--the consolations that the +child would live; suffered very little, if at all; would walk +with crutches; would certainly live. God was more merciful. A +window was opened too wide on a draughty day--after a short, +painless illness his daughter died. But the lesson he had learnt +so glibly at Cambridge should be heeded now; no child should ever +be born to him again. + + + +XXII + +That same term there took place at Dunwood House another event. +With their private tragedy it seemed to have no connection; but +in time Rickie perceived it as a bitter comment. Its developments +were unforeseen and lasting. It was perhaps the most terrible +thing he had to bear. + +Varden had now been a boarder for ten months. His health had +broken in the previous term,--partly, it is to be feared, as the +result of the indifferent food--and during the summer holidays he +was attacked by a series of agonizing earaches. His mother, a +feeble person, wished to keep him at home, but Herbert dissuaded +her. Soon after the death of the child there arose at Dunwood +House one of those waves of hostility of which no boy knows the +origin nor any master can calculate the course. Varden had never +been popular--there was no reason why he should be--but he had +never been seriously bullied hitherto. One evening nearly the +whole house set on him. The prefects absented themselves, the +bigger boys stood round and the lesser boys, to whom power was +delegated, flung him down, and rubbed his face under the desks, +and wrenched at his ears. The noise penetrated the baize doors, +and Herbert swept through and punished the whole house, including +Varden, whom it would not do to leave out. The poor man was +horrified. He approved of a little healthy roughness, but this +was pure brutalization. What had come over his boys? Were they +not gentlemen's sons? He would not admit that if you herd to- +gether human beings before they can understand each other the +great god Pan is angry, and will in the end evade your +regulations and drive them mad. That night the victim was +screaming with pain, and the doctor next day spoke of an +operation. The suspense lasted a whole week. Comment was made in +the local papers, and the reputation not only of the house but of +the school was imperilled. "If only I had known," repeated +Herbert--"if only I had known I would have arranged it all +differently. He should have had a cubicle." The boy did not die, +but he left Sawston, never to return. + +The day before his departure Rickie sat with him some time, and +tried to talk in a way that was not pedantic. In his own sorrow, +which he could share with no one, least of all with his wife, he +was still alive to the sorrows of others. He still fought against +apathy, though he was losing the battle. + +"Don't lose heart," he told him. "The world isn't all going to be +like this. There are temptations and trials, of course, but +nothing at all of the kind you have had here." + +"But school is the world in miniature, is it not, sir?" asked the +boy, hoping to please one master by echoing what had been told +him by another. He was always on the lookout for sympathy--: it +was one of the things that had contributed to his downfall. + +"I never noticed that myself. I was unhappy at school, and in the +world people can be very happy." + +Varden sighed and rolled about his eyes. "Are the fellows sorry +for what they did to me?" he asked in an affected voice. "I am +sure I forgive them from the bottom of my heart. We ought to +forgive our enemies, oughtn't we, sir?" + +"But they aren't your enemies. If you meet in five years' time +you may find each other splendid fellows." + +The boy would not admit this. He had been reading some +revivalistic literature. "We ought to forgive our enemies," he +repeated; "and however wicked they are, we ought not to wish them +evil. When I was ill, and death seemed nearest, I had many kind +letters on this subject." + +Rickie knew about these "many kind letters." Varden had induced +the silly nurse to write to people--people of all sorts, people +that he scarcely knew or did not know at all--detailing his +misfortune, and asking for spiritual aid and sympathy. + +"I am sorry for them," he pursued. "I would not like to be like +them." + +Rickie sighed. He saw that a year at Dunwood House had produced a +sanctimonious prig. "Don't think about them, Varden. Think about +anything beautiful--say, music. You like music. Be happy. It's +your duty. You can't be good until you've had a little happiness. +Then perhaps you will think less about forgiving people and more +about loving them." + +"I love them already, sir." And Rickie, in desperation, asked if +he might look at the many kind letters. + +Permission was gladly given. A neat bundle was produced, and for +about twenty minutes the master perused it, while the invalid +kept watch on his face. Rooks cawed out in the playing-fields, +and close under tile window there was the sound of delightful, +good-tempered laughter. A boy is no devil, whatever boys may be. +The letters were chilly productions, somewhat clerical in tone, +by whomsoever written. Varden, because he was ill at the time, +had been taken seriously. The writers declared that his illness +was fulfilling some mysterious purpose: suffering engendered +spiritual growth: he was showing signs of this already. They +consented to pray for him, some majestically, others shyly. But +they all consented with one exception, who worded his refusal as +follows:-- + +Dear A.C. Varden,-- + +I ought to say that I never remember seeing you. I am sorry that +you are ill, and hope you are wrong about it. Why did you not +write before, for I could have helped you then? When they pulled +your ear, you ought to have gone like this (here was a rough +sketch). I could not undertake praying, but would think of you +instead, if that would do. I am twenty-two in April, built rather +heavy, ordinary broad face, with eyes, etc. I write all this +because you have mixed me with some one else, for I am not +married, and do not want to be. I cannot think of you always, but +will promise a quarter of an hour daily (say 7.00-7.15 A.M.), and +might come to see you when you are better--that is, if you are a +kid, and you read like one. I have been otter-hunting-- + +Yours sincerely, + +Stephen Wonham + + + +XXIII + +Riekie went straight from Varden to his wife, who lay on the sofa +in her bedroom. There was now a wide gulf between them. She, like +the world she had created for him, was unreal. + +"Agnes, darling," he began, stroking her hand, "such an awkward +little thing has happened." + +"What is it, dear? Just wait till I've added up this hook." + +She had got over the tragedy: she got over everything. + +When she was at leisure he told her. Hitherto they had seldom +mentioned Stephen. He was classed among the unprofitable dead. + +She was more sympathetic than he expected. "Dear Rickie," she +murmured with averted eyes. "How tiresome for you." + +"I wish that Varden had stopped with Mrs. Orr." + +"Well, he leaves us for good tomorrow." + +"Yes, yes. And I made him answer the letter and apologize. They +had never met. It was some confusion with a man in the Church +Army, living at a place called Codford. I asked the nurse. It is +all explained." + +"There the matter ends." + +"I suppose so--if matters ever end." + +"If, by ill-luck, the person does call. I will just see him and +say that the boy has gone." + +"You, or I. I have got over all nonsense by this time. He's +absolutely nothing to me now." He took up the tradesman's book +and played with it idly. On its crimson cover was stamped a +grotesque sheep. How stale and stupid their life had become! + +"Don't talk like that, though," she said uneasily. "Think how +disastrous it would be if you made a slip in speaking to him." + +"Would it? It would have been disastrous once. But I expect, as a +matter of fact, that Aunt Emily has made the slip already." + +His wife was displeased. "You need not talk in that cynical way. +I credit Aunt Emily with better feeling. When I was there she did +mention the matter, but only once. She, and I, and all who have +any sense of decency, know better than to make slips, or to think +of making them." + +Agnes kept up what she called "the family connection." She had +been once alone to Cadover, and also corresponded with Mrs. +Failing. She had never told Rickie anything about her visit nor +had he ever asked her. But, from this moment, the whole subject +was reopened. + +"Most certainly he knows nothing," she continued. "Why, he does +not even realize that Varden lives in our house! We are perfectly +safe--unless Aunt Emily were to die. Perhaps then--but we are +perfectly safe for the present." + +"When she did mention the matter, what did she say?" + +"We had a long talk," said Agnes quietly. "She told me nothing +new--nothing new about the past, I mean. But we had a long talk +about the present. I think" and her voice grew displeased again-- +"that you have been both wrong and foolish in refusing to make up +your quarrel with Aunt Emily." + +"Wrong and wise, I should say." + +"It isn't to be expected that she--so much older and so +sensitive--can make the first step. But I know she'd he glad to +see you." + +"As far as I can remember that final scene in the garden, I +accused her of 'forgetting what other people were like.' She'll +never pardon me for saying that." + +Agnes was silent. To her the phrase was meaningless. Yet Rickie +was correct: Mrs. Failing had resented it more than anything. + +"At all events," she suggested, "you might go and see her." + +"No, dear. Thank you, no." + +"She is, after all--" She was going to say "your father's +sister," but the expression was scarcely a happy one, and she +turned it into, "She is, after all, growing old and lonely." + +"So are we all!" he cried, with a lapse of tone that was now +characteristic in him. + +"She oughtn't to be so isolated from her proper relatives. + +There was a moment's silence. Still playing with the book, he +remarked, "You forget, she's got her favourite nephew." + +A bright red flush spread over her cheeks. "What is the matter +with you this afternoon?" she asked. "I should think you'd better +go for a walk." + +"Before I go, tell me what is the matter with you." He also +flushed. "Why do you want me to make it up with my aunt?" + +"Because it's right and proper." + +"So? Or because she is old?" + +"I don't understand," she retorted. But her eyes dropped. His +sudden suspicion was true: she was legacy hunting. + +"Agnes, dear Agnes," he began with passing tenderness, "how can +you think of such things? You behave like a poor person. We don't +want any money from Aunt Emily, or from any one else. It isn't +virtue that makes me say it: we are not tempted in that way: we +have as much as we want already." + +"For the present," she answered, still looking aside. + +"There isn't any future," he cried in a gust of despair. + +"Rickie, what do you mean?" + +What did he mean? He meant that the relations between them were +fixed--that there would never be an influx of interest, nor even +of passion. To the end of life they would go on beating time, and +this was enough for her. She was content with the daily round, +the common task, performed indifferently. But he had dreamt of +another helpmate, and of other things. + +"We don't want money--why, we don't even spend any on travelling. +I've invested all my salary and more. As far as human foresight +goes, we shall never want money." And his thoughts went out to +the tiny grave. "You spoke of 'right and proper,' but the right +and proper thing for my aunt to do is to leave every penny she's +got to Stephen." + +Her lip quivered, and for one moment he thought that she was +going to cry. "What am I to do with you?" she said. "You talk +like a person in poetry." + +"I'll put it in prose. He's lived with her for twenty years, and +he ought to be paid for it." + +Poor Agnes! Indeed, what was she to do? The first moment she set +foot in Cadover she had thought, "Oh, here is money. We must try +and get it." Being a lady, she never mentioned the thought to her +husband, but she concluded that it would occur to him too. And +now, though it had occurred to him at last, he would not even +write his aunt a little note. + +He was to try her yet further. While they argued this point he +flashed out with, "I ought to have told him that day when he +called up to our room. There's where I went wrong first." + +"Rickie!" + +"In those days I was sentimental. I minded. For two pins I'd +write to him this afternoon. Why shouldn't he know he's my +brother? What's all this ridiculous mystery?" + +She became incoherent. + +"But WHY not? A reason why he shouldn't know." + +"A reason why he SHOULD know," she retorted. "I never heard such +rubbish! Give me a reason why he should know." + +"Because the lie we acted has ruined our lives." + +She looked in bewilderment at the well-appointed room. + +"It's been like a poison we won't acknowledge. How many times +have you thought of my brother? I've thought of him every day-- +not in love; don't misunderstand; only as a medicine I shirked. +Down in what they call the subconscious self he has been hurting +me." His voice broke. "Oh, my darling, we acted a lie then, and +this letter reminds us of it and gives us one more chance. I have +to say 'we' lied. I should be lying again if I took quite all the +blame. Let us ask God's forgiveness together. Then let us write, +as coldly as you please, to Stephen, and tell him he is my +father's son." + +Her reply need not be quoted. It was the last time he +attempted intimacy. And the remainder of their conversation, +though long and stormy, is also best forgotten. + +Thus the first effect of Varden's letter was to make them +quarrel. They had not openly disagreed before. In the evening he +kissed her and said, "How absurd I was to get angry about things +that happened last year. I will certainly not write to the +person." She returned the kiss. But he knew that they had +destroyed the habit of reverence, and would quarrel again. +On his rounds he looked in at Varden and asked nonchalantly for +the letter. He carried it off to his room. It was unwise of him, +for his nerves were already unstrung, and the man he had tried to +bury was stirring ominously. In the silence he examined the +handwriting till he felt that a living creature was with him, +whereas he, because his child had died, was dead. He perceived +more clearly the cruelty of Nature, to whom our refinement and +piety are but as bubbles, hurrying downwards on the turbid +waters. They break, and the stream continues. His father, as a +final insult, had brought into the world a man unlike all the +rest of them, a man dowered with coarse kindliness and rustic +strength, a kind of cynical ploughboy, against whom their own +misery and weakness might stand more vividly relieved. "Born an +Elliot--born a gentleman." So the vile phrase ran. But here was +an Elliot whose badness was not even gentlemanly. For that +Stephen was bad inherently he never doubted for a moment and he +would have children: he, not Rickie, would contribute to the +stream; he, through his remote posterity, might mingled with the +unknown sea. + +Thus musing he lay down to sleep, feeling diseased in body and +soul. It was no wonder that the night was the most terrible he +had ever known. He revisited Cambridge, and his name was a grey +ghost over the door. Then there recurred the voice of a gentle +shadowy woman, Mrs. Aberdeen, "It doesn't seem hardly right." +Those had been her words, her only complaint against the +mysteries of change and death. She bowed her head and laboured to +make her "gentlemen" comfortable. She was labouring still. As he +lay in bed he asked God to grant him her wisdom; that he might +keep sorrow within due bounds; that he might abstain from extreme +hatred and envy of Stephen. It was seldom that he prayed so +definitely, or ventured to obtrude his private wishes. Religion +was to him a service, a mystic communion with good; not a means +of getting what he wanted on the earth. But tonight, through +suffering, he was humbled, and became like Mrs. Aberdeen. +Hour after hour he awaited sleep and tried to endure the faces +that frothed in the gloom--his aunt's, his father's, and, worst +of all, the triumphant face of his brother. Once he struck at it, +and awoke, having hurt his hand on the wall. Then he prayed +hysterically for pardon and rest. + +Yet again did he awake, and from a more mysterious dream. He +heard his mother crying. She was crying quite distinctly in the +darkened room. He whispered, "Never mind, my darling, never +mind," and a voice echoed, "Never mind--come away--let them die +out--let them die out." He lit a candle, and the room was +empty. Then, hurrying to the window, he saw above mean houses the +frosty glories of Orion. + +Henceforward he deteriorates. Let those who censure him suggest +what he should do. He has lost the work that he loved, his +friends, and his child. He remained conscientious and decent, but +the spiritual part of him proceeded towards ruin. + + + +XXIV + +The coming months, though full of degradation and anxiety, were +to bring him nothing so terrible as that night. It was the crisis +of this agony. He was an outcast and a failure. But he was not +again forced to contemplate these facts so clearly. Varden left +in the morning, carrying the fatal letter with him. The whole +house was relieved. The good angel was with the boys again, or +else (as Herbert preferred to think) they had learnt a lesson, +and were more humane in consequence. At all events, the +disastrous term concluded quietly. + +In the Christmas holidays the two masters made an abortive +attempt to visit Italy, and at Easter there was talk of a cruise +in the Aegean. Herbert actually went, and enjoyed Athens and +Delphi. The Elliots paid a few visits together in England. They +returned to Sawston about ten days before school opened, to find +that Widdrington was again stopping with the Jacksons. +Intercourse was painful, for the two families were scarcely on +speaking terms; nor did the triumphant scaffoldings of the new +boarding-house make things easier. (The party of progress had +carried the day.) Widdrington was by nature touchy, but on this +occasion he refused to take offence, and often dropped in to see +them. His manner was friendly but critical. They agreed he was a +nuisance. Then Agnes left, very abruptly, to see Mrs. Failing, +and while she was away Rickie had a little stealthy intercourse. + +Her absence, convenient as it was, puzzled him. Mrs. Silt, half +goose, half stormy-petrel, had recently paid a flying visit to +Cadover, and thence had flown, without an invitation, to Sawston. +Generally she was not a welcome guest. On this occasion Agnes had +welcomed her, and--so Rickie thought--had made her promise not to +tell him something that she knew. The ladies had talked +mysteriously. "Mr. Silt would be one with you there," said Mrs. +Silt. Could there be any connection between the two visits? + +Agnes's letters told him nothing: they never did. She was too +clumsy or too cautious to express herself on paper. A drive to +Stonehenge; an anthem in the Cathedral; Aunt Emily's love. And +when he met her at Waterloo he learnt nothing (if there was +anything to learn) from her face. + +"How did you enjoy yourself?" + +"Thoroughly." + +"Were you and she alone?" + +"Sometimes. Sometimes other people." + +"Will Uncle Tony's Essays be published?" + +Here she was more communicative. The book was at last in proof. +Aunt Emily had written a charming introduction; but she was so +idle, she never finished things off. + +They got into an omnibus for the Army and Navy Stores: she wanted +to do some shopping before going down to Sawston. + +"Did you read any of the Essays?" + +"Every one. Delightful. Couldn't put them down. Now and then he +spoilt them by statistics--but you should read his descriptions +of Nature. He agrees with you: says the hills and trees are +alive! Aunt Emily called you his spiritual heir, which I thought +nice of her. We both so lamented that you have stopped writing." +She quoted fragments of the Essays as they went up in the Stores' +lift. + +"What else did you talk about?" + +"I've told you all my news. Now for yours. Let's have tea first." + +They sat down in the corridor amid ladies in every stage of +fatigue--haggard ladies, scarlet ladies, ladies with parcels that +twisted from every finger like joints of meat. Gentlemen were +scarcer, but all were of the sub-fashionable type, to which +Rickie himself now belonged. + +"I haven't done anything," he said feebly. "Ate, read, been rude +to tradespeople, talked to Widdrington. Herbert arrived this +morning. He has brought a most beautiful photograph of the +Parthenon." + +"Mr. Widdrington?" + +"Yes." + +"What did you talk about?" + +She might have heard every word. It was only the feeling of +pleasure that he wished to conceal. Even when we love people, we +desire to keep some corner secret from them, however small: it is +a human right: it is personality. She began to cross-question +him, but they were interrupted. A young lady at an adjacent table +suddenly rose and cried, "Yes, it is you. I thought so from your +walk." It was Maud Ansell. + +"Oh, do come and join us!" he cried. "Let me introduce my wife." +Maud bowed quite stiffly, but Agnes, taking it for ill-breeding, +was not offended. + +"Then I will come!" she continued in shrill, pleasant tones, +adroitly poising her tea things on either hand, and transferring +them to the Elliots' table. "Why haven't you ever come to us, +pray?" + +"I think you didn't ask me!" + +"You weren't to be asked." She sprawled forward with a wagging +finger. But her eyes had the honesty of her brother's. "Don't you +remember the day you left us? Father said, 'Now, Mr. Elliot--' Or +did he call you 'Elliot'? How one does forget. Anyhow, father +said you weren't to wait for an invitation, and you said, +'No, I won't.' Ours is a fair-sized house,"--she turned somewhat +haughtily to Agnes,--"and the second spare room, on account of a +harp that hangs on the wall, is always reserved for Stewart's +friends." + + +"How is Mr. Ansell, your brother?" +Maud's face fell. "Hadn't you heard?" she said in awe-struck +tones. + +"No." + +"He hasn't got his fellowship. It's the second time he's failed. +That means he will never get one. He will never be a don, nor +live in Cambridge and that, as we had hoped." + +"Oh, poor, poor fellow!" said Mrs. Elliot with a remorse that was +sincere, though her congratulations would not have been. "I am so +very sorry." + +But Maud turned to Rickie. "Mr. Elliot, you might know. Tell me. +What is wrong with Stewart's philosophy? What ought he to put in, +or to alter, so as to succeed?" + +Agnes, who knew better than this, smiled. + +"I don't know," said Rickie sadly. They were none of them so +clever, after all. + +"Hegel," she continued vindictively. "They say he's read too much +Hegel. But they never tell him what to read instead. Their own +stuffy books, I suppose. Look here--no, that's the 'Windsor.'" +After a little groping she produced a copy of "Mind," and handed +it round as if it was a geological specimen. "Inside that there's +a paragraph written about something Stewart's written about +before, and there it says he's read too much Hegel, and it seems +now that that's been the trouble all along." Her voice trembled. +"I call it most unfair, and the fellowship's gone to a man who +has counted the petals on an anemone." + +Rickie had no inclination to smile. + +"I wish Stewart had tried Oxford instead." + +"I don't wish it!" + +"You say that," she continued hotly, "and then you never come to +see him, though you knew you were not to wait for an invitation." + +"If it comes to that, Miss Ansell," retorted Rickie, in the +laughing tones that one adopts on such occasions, "Stewart won't +come to me, though he has had an invitation." + +"Yes," chimed in Agnes, "we ask Mr. Ansell again and again, and +he will have none of us." + +Maud looked at her with a flashing eye. "My brother is a very +peculiar person, and we ladies can't understand him. But I know +one thing, and that's that he has a reason all round for what he +does. Look here, I must be getting on. Waiter! Wai-ai-aiter! +Bill, please. Separately, of course. Call the Army and Navy +cheap! I know better!" + +"How does the drapery department compare?" said Agnes sweetly. + +The girl gave a sharp choking sound, gathered up her parcels, and +left them. Rickie was too much disgusted with his wife to speak. + +"Appalling person!" she gasped. "It was naughty of me, but I +couldn't help it. What a dreadful fate for a clever man! To fail +in life completely, and then to be thrown back on a family like +that!" + +"Maud is a snob and a Philistine. But, in her case, something +emerges." + +She glanced at him, but proceeded in her suavest tones, "Do let +us make one great united attempt to get Mr. Ansell to Sawston." + +"No." + +"What a changeable friend you are! When we were engaged you were +always talking about him." + +"Would you finish your tea, and then we will buy the linoleum for +the cubicles." + +But she returned to the subject again, not only on that day but +throughout the term. Could nothing be done for poor Mr. Ansell? +It seemed that she could not rest until all that he had once held +dear was humiliated. In this she strayed outside her nature: she +was unpractica1. And those who stray outside their nature invite +disaster. Rickie, goaded by her, wrote to his friend again. The +letter was in all ways unlike his old self. Ansell did not answer +it. But he did write to Mr. Jackson, with whom he was not +acquainted. + +"Dear Mr. Jackson,-- + +I understand from Widdrington that you have a large house. I +would like to tell you how convenient it would be for me to come +and stop in it. June suits me best.-- + +Yours truly, + +Stewart Ansell + + +To which Mr. Jackson replied that not only in June but during the +whole year his house was at the disposal of Mr. Ansell and of any +one who resembled him. + +But Agnes continued her life, cheerfully beating time. She, too, +knew that her marriage was a failure, and in her spare moments +regretted it. She wished that her husband was handsomer, more +successful, more dictatorial. But she would think, "No, no; one +mustn't grumble. It can't be helped." Ansell was wrong in sup- +posing she might ever leave Rickie. Spiritual apathy prevented +her. Nor would she ever be tempted by a jollier man. Here +criticism would willingly alter its tone. For Agnes also has her +tragedy. She belonged to the type--not necessarily an elevated +one--that loves once and once only. Her love for Gerald had not +been a noble passion: no imagination transfigured it. But such as +it was, it sprang to embrace him, and he carried it away with him +when he died. Les amours gui suivrent sont moins involuntaires: +by an effort of the will she had warmed herself for Rickie. + +She is not conscious of her tragedy, and therefore only the gods +need weep at it. But it is fair to remember that hitherto she +moves as one from whom the inner life has been withdrawn. + + + +XXV + +"I am afraid," said Agnes, unfolding a letter that she had +received in the morning, "that things go far from satisfactorily +at Cadover." + +The three were alone at supper. It was the June of Rickie's +second year at Sawston. + +"Indeed?" said Herbert, who took a friendly interest. "In what +way? + +"Do you remember us talking of Stephen--Stephen Wonham, who by an +odd coincidence--" + +"Yes. Who wrote last year to that miserable failure Varden. I +do." + +"It is about him." + +"I did not like the tone of his letter." + +Agnes had made her first move. She waited for her husband to +reply to it. But he, though full of a painful curiosity, would +not speak. She moved again. + +"I don't think, Herbert, that Aunt Emily, much as I like her, is +the kind of person to bring a young man up. At all events the +results have been disastrous this time." + +"What has happened?" + +"A tangle of things." She lowered her voice. "Drink." + +"Dear! Really! Was Mrs. Failing fond of him?" + +"She used to be. She let him live at Cadover ever since he was a +little boy. Naturally that cannot continue." + +Rickie never spoke. + +"And now he has taken to be violent and rude," she went on. + +"In short, a beggar on horseback. Who is he? Has he got +relatives?" + +"She has always been both father and mother to him. Now it must +all come to an end. I blame her--and she blames herself--for not +being severe enough. He has grown up without fixed principles. He +has always followed his inclinations, and one knows the result of +that" + +Herbert assented. "To me Mrs. Failing's course is perfectly +plain. She has a certain responsibility. She must pay the youth's +passage to one of the colonies, start him handsomely in some +business, and then break off all communications." + +"How funny! It is exactly what she is going to do." + +"I shall then consider that she has behaved in a thoroughly +honourable manner." He held out his plate for gooseberries. "His +letter to Varden was neither helpful nor sympathetic, and, if +written at all, it ought to have been both. I am not in the least +surprised to learn that he has turned out badly. When you write +next, would you tell her how sorry I am?" + +"Indeed I will. Two years ago, when she was already a little +anxious, she did so wish you could undertake him. + +"I could not alter a grown man." But in his heart he thought he +could, and smiled at his sister amiably. "Terrible, isn't it?" he +remarked to Rickie. Rickie, who was trying not to mind anything, +assented. And an onlooker would have supposed them a +dispassionate trio, who were sorry both for Mrs. Failing and for +the beggar who would bestride her horses' backs no longer. A new +topic was introduced by the arrival of the evening post + +Herbert took up all the letters, as he often did. + +"Jackson?" he exclaimed. "What does the fellow want?" He read, +and his tone was mollified, "'Dear Mr. Pembroke,--Could you, Mrs. +Elliot, and Mr. Elliot come to supper with us on Saturday next? I +should not merely be pleased, I should be grateful. My wife is +writing formally to Mrs. Elliot'--(Here, Agnes, take your +letter),--but I venture to write as well, and to add my more +uncouth entreaties.'--An olive-branch. It is time! But +(ridiculous person!) does he think that we can leave the House +deserted and all go out pleasuring in term time?--Rickie, a +letter for you." + +"Mine's the formal invitation," said Agnes. "How very odd! Mr. +Ansell will be there. Surely we asked him here! Did you know he +knew the Jacksons?" + +"This makes refusal very difficult," said Herbert, who was +anxious to accept. "At all events, Rickie ought to go." + +"I do not want to go," said Rickie, slowly opening his own +letter. "As Agnes says, Ansell has refused to come to us. I +cannot put myself out for him." + +"Who's yours from?" she demanded. + +"Mrs. Silt," replied Herbert, who had seen the handwriting. +"I trust she does not want to pay us a visit this term, with the +examinations impending and all the machinery at full pressure. +Though, Rickie, you will have to accept the Jacksons' +invitation." + +"I cannot possibly go. I have been too rude; with Widdrington we +always meet here. I'll stop with the boys--" His voice caught +suddenly. He had opened Mrs. Silt's letter. + +"The Silts are not ill, I hope?" + +"No. But, I say,"--he looked at his wife,--"I do think this is +going too far. Really, Agnes." + +"What has happened?" + +"It is going too far," he repeated. He was nerving himself for +another battle. "I cannot stand this sort of thing. There are +limits." + +He laid the letter down. It was Herbert who picked it up, and +read: "Aunt Emily has just written to us. We are so glad that her +troubles are over, in spite of the expense. It never does to live +apart from one's own relatives so much as she has done up to now. +He goes next Saturday to Canada. What you told her about him just +turned the scale. She has asked us--" + +"No, it's too much," he interrupted. "What I told her--told her +about him--no, I will have it out at last. Agnes!" + +"Yes?" said his wife, raising her eyes from Mrs. Jackson's formal +invitation. + +"It's you--it's you. I never mentioned him to her. Why, I've +never seen her or written to her since. I accuse you." + +Then Herbert overbore him, and he collapsed. He was asked what he +meant. Why was he so excited? Of what did he accuse his wife. +Each time he spoke more feebly, and before long the brother and +sister were laughing at him. He felt bewildered, like a boy who +knows that he is right but cannot put his case correctly. He +repeated, "I've never mentioned him to her. It's a libel. Never +in my life." And they cried, "My dear Rickie, what an absurd +fuss!" Then his brain cleared. His eye fell on the letter that +his wife had received from his aunt, and he reopened the battle. + +"Agnes, give me that letter, if you please." + +"Mrs. Jackson's?" + +"My aunt's." + +She put her hand on it, and looked at him doubtfully. She saw +that she had failed to bully him. + +"My aunt's letter," he repeated, rising to his feet and bending +over the table towards her. + +"Why, dear?" + +"Yes, why indeed?" echoed Herbert. He too had bullied Rickie, but +from a purer motive: he had tried to stamp out a dissension +between husband and wife. It was not the first time he had +intervened. + +"The letter. For this reason: it will show me what you have done. +I believe you have ruined Stephen. you have worked at it for two +years. You have put words into my mouth to 'turn the scale' +against him. He goes to Canada--and all the world thinks it is +owing to me. As I said before--I advise you to stop smiling--you +have gone a little too far." + +They were all on their feet now, standing round the little table. +Agnes said nothing, but the fingers of her delicate hand +tightened upon the letter. When her husband snatched at it she +resisted, and with the effect of a harlequinade everything went +on the floor--lamb, mint sauce, gooseberries, lemonade, whisky. +At once they were swamped in domesticities. She rang the bell for +the servant, cries arose, dusters were brought, broken crockery +(a wedding present) picked up from the carpet; while he stood +wrathfully at the window, regarding the obscured sun's decline. + +"I MUST see her letter," he repeated, when the agitation was +over. He was too angry to be diverted from his purpose. Only +slight emotions are thwarted by an interlude of farce. + +"I've had enough of this quarrelling," she retorted. "You know +that the Silts are inaccurate. I think you might have given me +the benefit of the doubt. If you will know--have you forgotten +that ride you took with him.?" + +"I--" he was again bewildered. "The ride where I dreamt--" + +"The ride where you turned back because you could not listen to a +disgraceful poem?" + +"I don't understand." + +"The poem was Aunt Emily. He read it to you and a stray soldier. +Afterwards you told me. You said, 'Really it is shocking, his +ingratitude. She ought to know about it' She does know, and I +should be glad of an apology." + +He had said something of the sort in a fit of irritation. Mrs. +Silt was right--he had helped to turn the scale. + +"Whatever I said, you knew what I meant. You knew I'd sooner cut +my tongue out than have it used against him. Even then." He +sighed. Had he ruined his brother? A curious tenderness came over +him, and passed when he remembered his own dead child. "We have +ruined him, then. Have you any objection to 'we'? We have +disinherited him." + +"I decide against you," interposed Herbert. "I have now heard +both sides of this deplorable affair. You are talking most +criminal nonsense. 'Disinherit!' Sentimental twaddle. It's been +clear to me from the first that Mrs. Failing has been imposed +upon by the Wonham man, a person with no legal claim on her, and +any one who exposes him performs a public duty--" + +"--And gets money." + +"Money?" He was always uneasy at the word. "Who mentioned money?" + +"Just understand me, Herbert, and of what it is that I accuse my +wife." Tears came into his eyes. "It is not that I like the +Wonham man, or think that he isn't a drunkard and worse. He's too +awful in every way. But he ought to have my aunt's money, because +he's lived all his life with her, and is her nephew as much as I +am. You see, my father went wrong." He stopped, amazed at +himself. How easy it had been to say! He was withering up: the +power to care about this stupid secret had died. + +When Herbert understood, his first thought was for Dunwood House. + +"Why have I never been told?" was his first remark. + +"We settled to tell no one," said Agnes. "Rickie, in his anxiety +to prove me a liar, has broken his promise." + +"I ought to have been told," said Herbert, his anger increasing. +"Had I known, I could have averted this deplorable scene." + +"Let me conclude it," said Rickie, again collapsing and leaving +the dining-room. His impulse was to go straight to Cadover and +make a business-like statement of the position to Stephen. Then +the man would be armed, and perhaps fight the two women +successfully, But he resisted the impulse. Why should he help one +power of evil against another? Let them go intertwined to +destruction. To enrich his brother would be as bad as enriching +himself. If their aunt's money ever did come to him, he would +refuse to accept it. That was the easiest and most dignified +course. He troubled himself no longer with justice or pity, and +the next day he asked his wife's pardon for his behaviour. + +In the dining-room the conversation continued. Agnes, without +much difficulty, gained her brother as an ally. She acknowledged +that she had been wrong in not telling him, and he then declared +that she had been right on every other point. She slurred a +little over the incident of her treachery, for Herbert was +sometimes clearsighted over details, though easily muddled in a +general survey. Mrs. Failing had had plenty of direct causes of +complaint, and she dwelt on these. She dealt, too, on the very +handsome way in which the young man, "though he knew nothing, had +never asked to know," was being treated by his aunt. + +"'Handsome' is the word," said Herbert. "I hope not indulgently. +He does not deserve indulgence." + +And she knew that he, like herself, could remember money, and +that it lent an acknowledged halo to her cause. + +"It is not a savoury subject," he continued, with sudden +stiffness. "I understand why Rickie is so hysterical. +My impulse"--he laid his hand on her shoulder--"is to abandon it +at once. But if I am to be of any use to you, I must hear it all. +There are moments when we must look facts in the face." + +She did not shrink from the subject as much as he thought, as +much as she herself could have wished. Two years before, it had +filled her with a physical loathing. But by now she had +accustomed herself to it. + +"I am afraid, Bertie boy, there is nothing else to bear, I have +tried to find out again and again, but Aunt Emily will not tell +me. I suppose it is natural. She wants to shield the Elliot name. +She only told us in a fit of temper; then we all agreed to keep +it to ourselves; then Rickie again mismanaged her, and ever since +she has refused to let us know any details." + +"A most unsatisfactory position." +"So I feel." She sat down again with a sigh. Mrs. Failing had +been a great trial to her orderly mind. "She is an odd woman. She +is always laughing. She actually finds it amusing that we know no +more." + +"They are an odd family." + +"They are indeed." + +Herbert, with unusual sweetness, bent down and kissed her. + +She thanked him. + +Their tenderness soon passed. They exchanged it with averted +eyes. It embarrassed them. There are moments for all of us when +we seem obliged to speak in a new unprofitable tongue. One might +fancy a seraph, vexed with our normal language, who touches the +pious to blasphemy, the blasphemous to piety. The seraph passes, +and we proceed unaltered--conscious, however, that we have not +been ourselves, and that we may fail in this function yet again. +So Agnes and Herbert, as they proceeded to discuss the Jackson's +supper-party, had an uneasy memory of spiritual deserts, +spiritual streams. + + + +XXVI + +Poor Mr. Ansell was actually sitting in the garden of Dunwood +House. It was Sunday morning. The air was full of roasting beef. +The sound of a manly hymn, taken very fast, floated over the road +from the school chapel. He frowned, for he was reading a book, +the Essays of Anthony Eustace Failing. + +He was here on account of this book--at least so he told himself. +It had just been published, and the Jacksons were sure that Mr. +Elliot would have a copy. For a book one may go anywhere. It +would not have been logical to enter Dunwood House for the +purpose of seeing Rickie, when Rickie had not come to supper +yesterday to see him. He was at Sawston to assure himself of his +friend's grave. With quiet eyes he had intended to view the sods, +with unfaltering fingers to inscribe the epitaph. Love remained. +But in high matters he was practical. He knew that it would be +useless to reveal it. + +"Morning!" said a voice behind him. + +He saw no reason to reply to this superfluous statement, and went +on with his reading. + +"Morning!" said the voice again. + +As for the Essays, the thought was somewhat old-fashioned, and he +picked many holes in it; nor was he anything but bored by the +prospect of the brotherhood of man. However, Mr. Failing stuck to +his guns, such as they were, and fired from them several good +remarks. Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and +vulgarity (coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing +something), and his avowed preference for coarseness. Vulgarity, +to him, had been the primal curse, the shoddy reticence that +prevents man opening his heart to man, the power that makes +against equality. From it sprang all the things that he hated-- +class shibboleths, ladies, lidies, the game laws, the +Conservative party--all the things that accent the divergencies +rather than the similarities in human nature. Whereas coarseness-- +But at this point Herbert Pembroke had scrawled with a blue +pencil: "Childish. One reads no further." + +"Morning!" repeated the voice. + +Ansell read further, for here was the book of a man who had +tried, however unsuccessfully, to practice what he preached. Mrs. +Failing, in her Introduction, described with delicate irony his +difficulties as a landlord; but she did not record the love in +which his name was held. Nor could her irony touch him when he +cried: "Attain the practical through the unpractical. There is no +other road." Ansell was inclined to think that the unpractical is +its own reward, but he respected those who attempted to journey +beyond it. We must all of us go over the mountains. There is +certainly no other road. + +"Nice morning!" said the voice. + +It was not a nice morning, so Ansell felt bound to speak. He +answered: "No. Why?" A clod of earth immediately struck him on +the back. He turned round indignantly, for he hated physical +rudeness. A square man of ruddy aspect was pacing the gravel +path, his hands deep in his pockets. He was very angry. Then he +saw that the clod of earth nourished a blue lobelia, and that a +wound of corresponding size appeared on the pie-shaped bed. He +was not so angry. "I expect they will mind it," he reflected. +Last night, at the Jacksons', Agnes had displayed a brisk pity +that made him wish to wring her neck. Maude had not exaggerated. +Mr. Pembroke had patronized through a sorrowful voice and large +round eyes. Till he met these people he had never been told that +his career was a failure. Apparently it was. They would never +have been civil to him if it had been a success, if they or +theirs had anything to fear from him. + +In many ways Ansell was a conceited man; but he was never proud +of being right. He had foreseen Rickie's catastrophe from the +first, but derived from this no consolation. In many ways he was +pedantic; but his pedantry lay close to the vineyards of life-- +far closer than that fetich Experience of the innumerable tea- +cups. He had a great many facts to learn, and before he died he +learnt a suitable quantity. But he never forgot that the holiness +of the heart's imagination can alone classify these facts--can +alone decide which is an exception, which an example. "How +unpractical it all is!" That was his comment on Dunwood House. +"How unbusiness-like! They live together without love. They +work without conviction. They seek money without requiring it. +They die, and nothing will have happened, either for themselves +or for others." It is a comment that the academic mind will often +make when first confronted with the world. + +But he was becoming illogical. The clod of earth had disturbed +him. Brushing the dirt off his back, he returned to the book. +What a curious affair was the essay on "Gaps"! Solitude, +star-crowned, pacing the fields of England, has a dialogue with +Seclusion. He, poor little man, lives in the choicest scenery-- +among rocks, forests, emerald lawns, azure lakes. To keep people +out he has built round his domain a high wall, on which is graven +his motto--"Procul este profani." But he cannot enjoy himself. +His only pleasure is in mocking the absent Profane. They are in +his mind night and day. Their blemishes and stupidities form the +subject of his great poem, "In the Heart of Nature." Then +Solitude tells him that so it always will be until he makes a gap +in the wall, and permits his seclusion to be the sport of +circumstance. He obeys. The Profane invade him; but for short +intervals they wander elsewhere, and during those intervals the +heart of Nature is revealed to him. + +This dialogue had really been suggested to Mr. Failing by a talk +with his brother-in-law. It also touched Ansell. He looked at the +man who had thrown the clod, and was now pacing with obvious +youth and impudence upon the lawn. "Shall I improve my soul at +his expense?" he thought. "I suppose I had better." In friendly +tones he remarked, "Were you waiting for Mr. Pembroke?" + +"No," said the young man. "Why?" + +Ansell, after a moment's admiration, flung the Essays at him. +They hit him in the back. The next moment he lay on his own back +in the lobelia pie. + +"But it hurts!" he gasped, in the tones of a puzzled +civilization. "What you do hurts!" For the young man was nicking +him over the shins with the rim of the book cover. "Little brute- +ee--ow!" + +"Then say Pax!" + +Something revolted in Ansell. Why should he say Pax? Freeing his +hand, he caught the little brute under the chin, and was again +knocked into the lobelias by a blow on the mouth. + +"Say Pax!" he repeated, pressing the philosopher's skull into the +mould; and he added, with an anxiety that was somehow not +offensive, "I do advise you. You'd really better." + +Ansell swallowed a little blood. He tried to move, and he could +not. He looked carefully into the young man's eyes and into the +palm of his right hand, which at present swung unclenched, and he +said "Pax!" + +"Shake hands!" said the other, helping him up. There was nothing +Ansell loathed so much as the hearty Britisher; but he shook +hands, and they stared at each other awkwardly. With civil +murmurs they picked the little blue flowers off each other's +clothes. Ansell was trying to remember why they had quarrelled, +and the young man was wondering why he had not guarded his chin +properly. In the distance a hymn swung off-- + +"Fight the good. Fight with. All thy. Might." + +They would be across from the chapel soon. + +"Your book, sir?" + +"Thank you, sir--yes." + +"Why!" cried the young man--"why, it's 'What We Want'! At least +the binding's exactly the same." + +"It's called 'Essays,'" said Ansell. + +"Then that's it. Mrs. Failing, you see, she wouldn't ca11 it +that, because three W's, you see, in a row, she said, are vulgar, +and sound like Tolstoy, if you've heard of him." + +Ansell confessed to an acquaintance, and then said, "Do you think +'What We Want' vulgar?" He was not at all interested, but he +desired to escape from the atmosphere of pugilistic courtesy, +more painful to him than blows themselves. + +"It IS the same book," said the other--"same title, same +binding." He weighed it like a brick in his muddy hands. + +"Open it to see if the inside corresponds," said Ansell, +swallowing a laugh and a little more blood with it. + +With a liberal allowance of thumb-marks, he turned the pages over +and read, "'the rural silence that is not a poet's luxury but a +practical need for all men.' Yes, it is the same book." Smiling +pleasantly over the discovery, he handed it back to the owner. + +"And is it true?" + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"Is it true that rural silence is a practical need?" + +"Don't ask me!" + +"Have you ever tried it?" + +"What?" + +"Rural silence." + +"A field with no noise in it, I suppose you mean. I don't +understand." + +Ansell smiled, but a slight fire in the man's eye checked him. +After all, this was a person who could knock one down. Moreover, +there was no reason why he should be teased. He had it in him to +retort "No. Why?" He was not stupid in essentials. He was +irritable--in Ansell's eyes a frequent sign of grace. Sitting +down on the upturned seat, he remarked, "I like the book in many +ways. I don't think 'What We Want' would have been a vulgar +title. But I don't intend to spoil myself on the chance of +mending the world, which is what the creed amounts to. Nor am I +keen on rural silences." + +"Curse!" he said thoughtfully, sucking at an empty pipe. + +"Tobacco?" + +"Please." + +"Rickie's is invariably--filthy." + +"Who says I know Rickie?" + +"Well, you know his aunt. It's a possible link. Be gentle with +Rickie. Don't knock him down if he doesn't think it's a nice +morning." + +The other was silent. + +"Do you know him well?" + +"Kind of." He was not inclined to talk. The wish to smoke was +very violent in him, and Ansell noticed how he gazed at the +wreaths that ascended from bowl and stem, and how, when the stem +was in his mouth, he bit it. He gave the idea of an animal with +just enough soul to contemplate its own bliss. United with +refinement, such a type was common in Greece. It is not common +today, and Ansell was surprised to find it in a friend of +Rickie's. Rickie, if he could even "kind of know" such a +creature, must be stirring in his grave. + +"Do you know his wife too?" + +"Oh yes. In a way I know Agnes. But thank you for this tobacco. +Last night I nearly died. I have no money." + +"Take the whole pouch--do." + +After a moment's hesitation he did. "Fight the good" had scarcely +ended, so quickly had their intimacy grown. + +"I suppose you're a friend of Rickie's?" + +Ansell was tempted to reply, "I don't know him at all." But it +seemed no moment for the severer truths, so he said, "I knew him +well at Cambridge, but I have seen very little of him since." + +"Is it true that his baby was lame?" + +"I believe so." + +His teeth closed on his pipe. Chapel was over. The organist was +prancing through the voluntary, and the first ripple of boys had +already reached Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters would +be here too, and Ansell, who was becoming interested, hurried the +conversation forward. + +"Have you come far?" + +"From Wiltshire. Do you know Wiltshire?" And for the first time +there came into his face the shadow of a sentiment, the passing +tribute to some mystery. "It's a good country. I live in one of +the finest valleys out of Salisbury Plain. I mean, I lived." + +"Have you been dismissed from Cadover, without a penny in your +pocket?" + +He was alarmed at this. Such knowledge seemed simply diabolical. +Ansell explained that if his boots were chalky, if his clothes +had obviously been slept in, if he knew Mrs. Failing, if he knew +Wiltshire, and if he could buy no tobacco--then the deduction was +possible. "You do just attend," he murmured. + +The house was filling with boys, and Ansell saw, to his regret, +the head of Agnes over the thuyia hedge that separated the small +front garden from the side lawn where he was sitting. After a few +minutes it was followed by the heads of Rickie and Mr. Pembroke. +All the heads were turned the other way. But they would find his +card in the hall, and if the man had left any message they would +find that too. "What are you?" he demanded. "Who are you--your +name--I don't care about that. But it interests me to class +people, and up to now I have failed with you." + +"I--" He stopped. Ansell reflected that there are worse answers. +"I really don't know what I am. Used to think I was something +special, but strikes me now I feel much like other chaps. Used to +look down on the labourers. Used to take for granted I was a +gentleman, but really I don't know where I do belong." + +"One belongs to the place one sleeps in and to the people one +eats with." + +"As often as not I sleep out of doors and eat by myself, so that +doesn't get you any further." + +A silence, akin to poetry, invaded Ansell. Was it only a pose to +like this man, or was he really wonderful? He was not romantic, +for Romance is a figure with outstretched hands, yearning for the +unattainable. Certain figures of the Greeks, to whom we +continually return, suggested him a little. One expected nothing +of him--no purity of phrase nor swift edged thought. Yet the +conviction grew that he had been back somewhere--back to some +table of the gods, spread in a field where there is no noise, and +that he belonged for ever to the guests with whom he had eaten. +Meanwhile he was simple and frank, and what he could tell he +would tell to any one. He had not the suburban reticence. Ansell +asked him, "Why did Mrs. Failing turn you out of Cadover? I +should like to hear that too." + +"Because she was tired of me. Because, again, I couldn't keep +quiet over the farm hands. I ask you, is it right?" He became +incoherent. Ansell caught, "And they grow old--they don't play +games--it ends they can't play." An illustration emerged. "Take a +kitten--if you fool about with her, she goes on playing well into +a cat." + +"But Mrs. Failing minded no mice being caught." + +"Mice?" said the young man blankly. "What I was going to say is, +that some one was jealous of my being at Cadover. I'll mention no +names, but I fancy it was Mrs. Silt. I'm sorry for her if it was. +Anyhow, she set Mrs. Failing against me. It came on the top of +other things--and out I went." + +"What did Mrs. Silt, whose name I don't mention, say?" + +He looked guilty. "I don't know. Easy enough to find something to +say. The point is that she said something. You know, Mr.--I don't +know your name, mine's Wonham, but I'm more grateful than I can +put it over this tobacco. I mean, you ought to know there is +another side to this quarrel. It's wrong, but it's there." + +Ansell told him not to be uneasy: he lad already guessed that +there might be another side. But he could not make out why Mr. +Wonham should have come straight from the aunt to the nephew. +They were now sitting on the upturned seat. "What We Want," a +good deal shattered, lay between them. + +"On account of above-mentioned reasons, there was a row. I don't +know--you can guess the style of thing. She wanted to treat me to +the colonies, and had up the parson to talk soft-sawder and +make out that a boundless continent was the place for a lad like +me. I said, 'I can't run up to the Rings without getting tired, +nor gallop a horse out of this view without tiring it, so what is +the point of a boundless continent?' Then I saw that she was +frightened of me, and bluffed a bit more, and in the end I was +nipped. She caught me--just like her! when I had nothing on but +flannels, and was coming into the house, having licked the +Cadchurch team. She stood up in the doorway between those stone +pilasters and said, 'No! Never again!' and behind her was +Wilbraham, whom I tried to turn out, and the gardener, and poor +old Leighton, who hates being hurt. She said, 'There's a hundred +pounds for you at the London bank, and as much more in December. +Go!' I said, 'Keep your--money, and tell me whose son I am.' I +didn't care really. I only said it on the off-chance of hurting +her. Sure enough, she caught on to the doorhandle (being lame) +and said, 'I can't--I promised--I don't really want to,' and +Wilbraham did stare. Then--she's very queer--she burst out +laughing, and went for the packet after all, and we heard her +laugh through the window as she got it. She rolled it at me down +the steps, and she says, 'A leaf out of the eternal comedy for +you, Stephen,' or something of that sort. I opened it as I walked +down the drive, she laughing always and catching on to the handle +of the front door. Of course it wasn't comic at all. But down in +the village there were both cricket teams, already a little +tight, and the mad plumber shouting 'Rights of Man!' They knew I +was turned out. We did have a row, and kept it up too. They +daren't touch Wilbraham's windows, but there isn't much glass +left up at Cadover. When you start, it's worth going on, but in +the end I had to cut. They subscribed a bob here and a bob there, +and these are Flea Thompson's Sundays. I sent a line to Leighton +not to forward my own things: I don't fancy them. They aren't +really mine." He did not mention his great symbolic act, +performed, it is to be feared, when he was rather drunk and the +friendly policeman was looking the other way. He had cast all his +flannels into the little millpond, and then waded himself through +the dark cold water to the new clothes on the other side. Some +one had flung his pipe and his packet after him. The packet had +fallen short. For this reason it was wet when he handed it to +Ansell, and ink that had been dry for twenty-three years had +begun to run again. + +"I wondered if you're right about the hundred pounds," said +Ansell gravely. "It is pleasant to be proud, but it is unpleasant +to die in the night through not having any tobacco." + +"But I'm not proud. Look how I've taken your pouch! The hundred +pounds was--well, can't you see yourself, it was quite different? +It was, so to speak, inconvenient for me to take the hundred +pounds. Or look again how I took a shilling from a boy who earns +nine bob a-week! Proves pretty conclusively I'm not proud." + +Ansell saw it was useless to argue. He perceived, beneath the +slatternly use of words, the man, buttoned up in them, just as +his body was buttoned up in a shoddy suit,--and he wondered more +than ever that such a man should know the Elliots. He looked at +the face, which was frank, proud, and beautiful, if truth is +beauty. Of mercy or tact such a face knew little. It might be +coarse, but it had in it nothing vulgar or wantonly cruel. "May I +read these papers?" he said. + +"Of course. Oh yes; didn't I say? I'm Rickie's half-brother, come +here to tell him the news. He doesn't know. There it is, put +shortly for you. I was saying, though, that I bolted in the dark, +slept in the rifle-butts above Salisbury, the sheds where they +keep the cardboard men, you know, never locked up as they ought +to be. I turned the whole place upside down to teach them." + +"Here is your packet again," said Ansell. "Thank you. How +interesting!" He rose from the seat and turned towards Dunwood +House. He looked at the bow-windows, the cheap picturesque +gables, the terracotta dragons clawing a dirty sky. He listened +to the clink of plates and to the voice of Mr. Pembroke taking +one of his innumerable roll-calls. He looked at the bed of +lobelias. How interesting! What else was there to say? + +"One must be the son of some one," remarked Stephen. And that was +all he had to say. To him those names on the moistened paper were +mere antiquities. He was neither proud of them nor ashamed. A man +must have parents, or he cannot enter the delightful world. A +man, if he has a brother, may reasonably visit him, for they may +have interests in common. He continued his narrative, how in the +night he had heard the clocks, how at daybreak, instead of +entering the city, he had struck eastward to save money,--while +Ansell still looked at the house and found that all his +imagination and knowledge could lead him no farther than this: +how interesting! + +"--And what do you think of that for a holy horror?" + +"For a what?" said Ansell, his thoughts far away. + +"This man I am telling you about, who gave me a lift towards +Andover, who said I was a blot on God's earth." + +One o'clock struck. It was strange that neither of them had had +any summons from the house. + +"He said I ought to be ashamed of myself. He said, 'I'll not be +the means of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady.' I +told him not to be a fool. I said I knew what I was about. Rickie +and Agnes are properly educated, which leads people to look at +things straight, and not go screaming about blots. A man like me, +with just a little reading at odd hours--I've got so far, and +Rickie has been through Cambridge." + +"And Mrs. Elliot?" + +"Oh, she won't mind, and I told the man so; but he kept on +saying, 'I'll not be the means of bringing shame to an honest +gentleman and lady,' until I got out of his rotten cart." His eye +watched the man a Nonconformist, driving away over God's earth. +"I caught the train by running. I got to Waterloo at--" + +Here the parlour-maid fluttered towards them, Would Mr. Wonham +come in? Mrs. Elliot would be glad to see him now. + +"Mrs. Elliot?" cried Ansell. "Not Mr. Elliot?" + +"It's all the same," said Stephen, and moved towards the house. + +"You see, I only left my name. They don't know why I've come." + +"Perhaps Mr. Elliot sees me meanwhile?" + +The parlour-maid looked blank. Mr. Elliot had not said so. He had +been with Mrs. Elliot and Mr. Pembroke in the study. Now the +gentlemen had gone upstairs. + +"All right, I can wait." After all, Rickie was treating him as he +had treated Rickie, as one in the grave, to whom it is futile to +make any loving motion. Gone upstairs--to brush his hair for +dinner! The irony of the situation appealed to him strongly. It +reminded him of the Greek Drama, where the actors know so little +and the spectators so much. + +"But, by the bye," he called after Stephen, "I think I ought to +tell you--don't--" + +"What is it?" + +"Don't--" Then he was silent. He had been tempted to explain +everything, to tell the fellow how things stood, that he must +avoid this if he wanted to attain that; that he must break the +news to Rickie gently; that he must have at least one battle +royal with Agnes. But it was contrary to his own spirit to coach +people: he held the human soul to be a very delicate thing, which +can receive eternal damage from a little patronage. Stephen must +go into the house simply as himself, for thus alone would he +remain there. + +"I ought to knock my pipe out? Was that it?" "By no means. Go in, +your pipe and you." + +He hesitated, torn between propriety and desire. Then he followed +the parlour-maid into the house smoking. As he entered the +dinner-bell rang, and there was the sound of rushing feet, which +died away into shuffling and silence. Through the window of the +boys' dining-hall came the colourless voice of Rickie- + +"'Benedictus benedicat.'" + +Ansell prepared himself to witness the second act of the drama; +forgetting that all this world, and not part of it, is a stage. + + + +XXVII + +The parlour-maid took Mr. Wonham to the study. He had been in the +drawing-room before, but had got bored, and so had strolled out +into the garden. Now he was in better spirits, as a man ought to +be who has knocked down a man. As he passed through the hall he +sparred at the teak monkey, and hung his cap on the bust of +Hermes. And he greeted Mrs. Elliot with a pleasant clap of +laughter. "Oh, I've come with the most tremendous news!" he +cried. + +She bowed, but did not shake hands, which rather surprised him. +But he never troubled over "details." He seldom watched people, +and never thought that they were watching him. Nor could he guess +how much it meant to her that he should enter her presence smok- +ing. Had she not said once at Cadover, "Oh, please smoke; I love +the smell of a pipe"? + +"Would you sit down? Exactly there, please." She placed him at a +large table, opposite an inkpot and a pad of blotting-paper. + +"Will you tell your 'tremendous news' to me? My brother and my +husband are giving the boys their dinner." + +"Ah!" said Stephen, who had had neither time nor money for +breakfast in London. + +"I told them not to wait for me." + +So he came to the point at once. He trusted this handsome woman. +His strength and his youth called to hers, expecting no prudish +response. "It's very odd. It is that I'm Rickie's brother. I've +just found out. I've come to tell you all." + +"Yes?" + +He felt in his pocket for the papers. "Half-brother I ought to +have said." + +"Yes?" + +"I'm illegitimate. Legally speaking, that is, I've been turned +out of Cadover. I haven't a penny. I--" + +"There is no occasion to inflict the details." Her face, which +had been an even brown, began to flush slowly in the centre of +the cheeks. The colour spread till all that he saw of her was +suffused, and she turned away. He thought he had shocked her, and +so did she. Neither knew that the body can be insincere and +express not the emotions we feel but those that we should like to +feel. In reality she was quite calm, and her dislike of him had +nothing emotional in it as yet. + +"You see--" he began. He was determined to tell the fidgety +story, for the sooner it was over the sooner they would have +something to eat. Delicacy he lacked, and his sympathies were +limited. But such as they were, they rang true: he put no +decorous phantom between him and his desires. + +"I do see. I have seen for two years." She sat down at the head +of the table, where there was another ink-pot. Into this she +dipped a pen. "I have seen everything, Mr. Wonham--who you are, +how you have behaved at Cadover, how you must have treated Mrs. +Failing yesterday; and now"--her voice became very grave--"I see +why you have come here, penniless. Before you speak, we know what +you will say." + +His mouth fell open, and he laughed so merrily that it might have +given her a warning. But she was thinking how to follow up her +first success. "And I thought I was bringing tremendous news!" he +cried. "I only twisted it out of Mrs. Failing last night. And +Rickie knows too?" + +"We have known for two years." + +"But come, by the bye,--if you've known for two years, how is it +you didn't--" The laugh died out of his eyes. "You aren't +ashamed?" he asked, half rising from his chair. "You aren't like +the man towards Andover?" + +"Please, please sit down," said Agnes, in the even tones she used +when speaking to the servants; "let us not discuss side issues. I +am a horribly direct person, Mr. Wonham. I go always straight to +the point." She opened a chequebook. "I am afraid I shall shock +you. For how much?" + +He was not attending. + +"There is the paper we suggest you shall sign." She pushed +towards him a pseudo-legal document, just composed by Herbert. + +"In consideration of the sum of..., I agree to perpetual silence- +-to restrain from libellous...never to molest the said Frederick +Elliot by intruding--'" + +His brain was not quick. He read the document over twice, and he +could still say, "But what's that cheque for?" + +"It is my husband's. He signed for you as soon as we heard you +were here. We guessed you had come to be silenced. Here is his +signature. But he has left the filling in for me. For how much? I +will cross it, shall I? You will just have started a banking +account, if I understand Mrs. Failing rightly. It is not quite +accurate to say you are penniless: I heard from her just before +you returned from your cricket. She allows you two hundred a- +year, I think. But this additional sum--shall I date the cheque +Saturday or for tomorrow?" + +At last he found words. Knocking his pipe out on the table, he +said slowly, "Here's a very bad mistake." + +"It is quite possible," retorted Agnes. She was glad she had +taken the offensive, instead of waiting till he began his +blackmailing, as had been the advice of Rickie. Aunt Emily had +said that very spring, "One's only hope with Stephen is to start +bullying first." Here he was, quite bewildered, smearing the +pipe-ashes with his thumb. He asked to read the document again. +"A stamp and all!" he remarked. + +They had anticipated that his claim would exceed two pounds. + +"I see. All right. It takes a fool a minute. Never mind. I've +made a bad mistake." + +"You refuse?" she exclaimed, for he was standing at the door. +"Then do your worst! We defy you!" + +"That's all right, Mrs. Elliot," he said roughly. "I don't want a +scene with you, nor yet with your husband. We'll say no more +about it. It's all right. I mean no harm." + +"But your signature then! You must sign--you--" + +He pushed past her, and said as he reached for his cap, "There, +that's all right. It's my mistake. I'm sorry." He spoke like a +farmer who has failed to sell a sheep. His manner was utterly +prosaic, and up to the last she thought he had not understood +her. "But it's money we offer you," she informed him, and then +darted back to the study, believing for one terrible moment that +he had picked up the blank cheque. When she returned to the hall +he had gone. He was walking down the road rather quickly. At the +corner he cleared his throat, spat into the gutter, and +disappeared. + +"There's an odd finish," she thought. She was puzzled, and +determined to recast the interview a little when she related it +to Rickie. She had not succeeded, for the paper was still +unsigned. But she had so cowed Stephen that he would probably +rest content with his two hundred a-year, and never come +troubling them again. Clever management, for one knew him to be +rapacious: she had heard tales of him lending to the poor and +exacting repayment to the uttermost farthing. He had also stolen +at school. Moderately triumphant, she hurried into the side- +garden: she had just remembered Ansell: she, not Rickie, had +received his card. + +"Oh, Mr. Ansell!" she exclaimed, awaking him from some day-dream. +"Haven't either Rickie or Herbert been out to you? Now, do come +into dinner, to show you aren't offended. You will find all of us +assembled in the boys' dining-hall." + +To her annoyance he accepted. + +"That is, if the Jacksons are not expecting you." + +The Jacksons did not matter. If he might brush his clothes and +bathe his lip, he would like to come. + +"Oh, what has happened to you? And oh, my pretty lobelias!" + +He replied, "A momentary contact with reality," and she, who did +not look for sense in his remarks, hurried away to the dining- +hall to announce him. + +The dining-hall was not unlike the preparation room. There was +the same parquet floor, and dado of shiny pitchpine. On its walls +also were imperial portraits, and over the harmonium to which +they sang the evening hymns was spread the Union Jack. Sunday +dinner, the most pompous meal of the week, was in progress. Her +brother sat at the head of the high table, her husband at the +head of the second. To each he gave a reassuring nod and went to +her own seat, which was among the junior boys. The beef was being +carried out; she stopped it. "Mr. Ansell is coming," she called. +"Herbert there is more room by you; sit up straight, boys." The +boys sat up straight, and a respectful hush spread over the room. + +"Here he is!" called Rickie cheerfully, taking his cue from his +wife. "Oh, this is splendid!" Ansell came in. "I'm so glad you +managed this. I couldn't leave these wretches last night!" The +boys tittered suitably. The atmosphere seemed normal. Even +Herbert, though longing to hear what had happened to the +blackmailer, gave adequate greeting to their guest: "Come in, Mr. +Ansell; come here. Take us as you find us!" + +"I understood," said Stewart, "that I should find you all. Mrs. +Elliot told me I should. On that understanding I came." + +It was at once evident that something had gone wrong. + +Ansell looked round the room carefully. Then clearing his throat +and ruffling his hair, he began- + +"I cannot see the man with whom I have talked, intimately, for an +hour, in your garden." + +The worst of it was they were all so far from him and from each +other, each at the end of a tableful of inquisitive boys. The two +masters looked at Agnes for information, for her reassuring nod +had not told them much. She looked hopelessly back. + +"I cannot see this man," repeated Ansell, who remained by the +harmonium in the midst of astonished waitresses. "Is he to be +given no lunch?" + +Herbert broke the silence by fresh greetings. Rickie knew that +the contest was lost, and that his friend had sided with the +enemy. It was the kind of thing he would do. One must face the +catastrophe quietly and with dignity. Perhaps Ansell would have +turned on his heel, and left behind him only vague suspicions, if +Mrs. Elliot had not tried to talk him down. "Man," she cried-- +"what man? Oh, I know--terrible bore! Did he get hold of you?"-- +thus committing their first blunder, and causing Ansell to say to +Rickie, "Have you seen your brother?" + +"I have not." + +"Have you been told he was here?" + +Rickie's answer was inaudible. + +"Have you been told you have a brother?" + +"Let us continue this conversation later." + +"Continue it? My dear man, how can we until you know what I'm +talking about? You must think me mad; but I tell you solemnly +that you have a brother of whom you've never heard, and that he +was in this house ten minutes ago." He paused impressively. "Your +wife has happened to see him first. Being neither serious nor +truthful, she is keeping you apart, telling him some lie and not +telling you a word." + +There was a murmur of alarm. One of the prefects rose, and Ansell +set his back to the wall, quite ready for a battle. For two years +he had waited for his opportunity. He would hit out at Mrs. +Elliot like any ploughboy now that it had come. Rickie said: +"There is a slight misunderstanding. I, like my wife, have known +what there is to know for two years"--a dignified rebuff, but +their second blunder. + +"Exactly," said Agnes. "Now I think Mr. Ansell had better go." + +"Go?" exploded Ansell. "I've everything to say yet. I beg your +pardon, Mrs. Elliot, I am concerned with you no longer. This +man"--he turned to the avenue of faces--"this man who teaches you +has a brother. He has known of him two years and been ashamed. He +has--oh--oh--how it fits together! Rickie, it's you, not Mrs. +Silt, who must have sent tales of him to your aunt. It's you +who've turned him out of Cadover. It's you who've ordered him to +be ruined today. + +Now Herbert arose. "Out of my sight, sir! But have it from me +first that Rickie and his aunt have both behaved most generously. +No, no, Agnes, I'll not be interrupted. Garbled versions must +not get about. If the Wonham man is not satisfied now, he must be +insatiable. He cannot levy blackmail on us for ever. Sir, I give +you two minutes; then you will be expelled by force." + +"Two minutes!" sang Ansell. "I can say a great deal in that." He +put one foot on a chair and held his arms over the quivering +room. He seemed transfigured into a Hebrew prophet passionate for +satire and the truth. "Oh, keep quiet for two minutes," he cried, +"and I'll tell you something you'll be glad to hear. You're a +little afraid Stephen may come back. Don't be afraid. I bring +good news. You'll never see him nor any one like him again. I +must speak very plainly, for you are all three fools. I don't +want you to say afterwards, 'Poor Mr. Ansell tried to be clever.' +Generally I don't mind, but I should mind today. Please listen. +Stephen is a bully; he drinks; he knocks one down; but he would +sooner die than take money from people he did not love. Perhaps +he will die, for he has nothing but a few pence that the poor +gave him and some tobacco which, to my eternal glory, he accepted +from me. Please listen again. Why did he come here? Because he +thought you would love him, and was ready to love you. But I tell +you, don't be afraid. He would sooner die now than say you were +his brother. Please listen again--" + +"Now, Stewart, don't go on like that," said Rickie bitterly. +"It's easy enough to preach when you are an outsider. You would +be more charitable if such a thing had happened to yourself. Easy +enough to be unconventional when you haven't suffered and know +nothing of the facts. You love anything out of the way, +anything queer, that doesn't often happen, and so you get excited +over this. It's useless, my dear man; you have hurt me, but you +will never upset me. As soon as you stop this ridiculous scene we +will finish our dinner. Spread this scandal; add to it. I'm too +old to mind such nonsense. I cannot help my father's disgrace, on +the one hand; nor, on the other, will I have anything to do with +his blackguard of a son." + +So the secret was given to the world. Agnes might colour at his +speech; Herbert might calculate the effect of it on the entries +for Dunwood House; but he cared for none of these things. Thank +God! he was withered up at last. + +"Please listen again," resumed Ansell. "Please correct two slight +mistakes: firstly, Stephen is one of the greatest people I have +ever met; secondly, he's not your father's son. He's the son of +your mother." + +It was Rickie, not Ansell, who was carried from the hall, and it +was Herbert who pronounced the blessing-- + +"Benedicto benedicatur." + +A profound stillness succeeded the storm, and the boys, slipping +away from their meal, told the news to the rest of the school, or +put it in the letters they were writing home. + + + +XXVIII + +The soul has her own currency. She mints her spiritual coinage +and stamps it with the image of some beloved face. With it she +pays her debts, with it she reckons, saying, "This man has worth, +this man is worthless." And in time she forgets its origin; it +seems to her to be a thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can +also have her bankruptcies. + +Perhaps she will be the richer in the end. In her agony she +learns to reckon clearly. Fair as the coin may have been, it was +not accurate; and though she knew it not, there were treasures +that it could not buy. The face, however beloved, was mortal, and +as liable as the soul herself to err. We do but shift +responsibility by making a standard of the dead. + +There is, indeed, another coinage that bears on it not man's +image but God's. It is incorruptible, and the soul may trust it +safely; it will serve her beyond the stars. But it cannot give us +friends, or the embrace of a lover, or the touch of children, for +with our fellow mortals it has no concern. It cannot even give +the joys we call trivial--fine weather, the pleasures of meat and +drink, bathing and the hot sand afterwards, running, dreamless +sleep. Have we learnt the true discipline of a bankruptcy if we +turn to such coinage as this? Will it really profit us so much if +we save our souls and lose the whole world? + + + + +PART 3 WILTSHIRE + +XXIX + +Robert--there is no occasion to mention his surname: he was a +young farmer of some education who tried to coax the aged soil of +Wiltshire scientifically--came to Cadover on business and fell in +love with Mrs. Elliot. She was there on her bridal visit, and he, +an obscure nobody, was received by Mrs. Failing into the house +and treated as her social equal. He was good-looking in a bucolic +way, and people sometimes mistook him for a gentleman until they +saw his hands. He discovered this, and one of the slow, gentle +jokes he played on society was to talk upon some cultured subject +with his hands behind his back and then suddenly reveal them. "Do +you go in for boating?" the lady would ask; and then he explained +that those particular weals are made by the handles of the +plough. Upon which she became extremely interested, but found an +early opportunity of talking to some one else. + +He played this joke on Mrs. Elliot the first evening, not knowing +that she observed him as he entered the room. He walked heavily, +lifting his feet as if the carpet was furrowed, and he had no +evening clothes. Every one tried to put him at his ease, but she +rather suspected that he was there already, and envied him. They +were introduced, and spoke of Byron, who was still fashionable. +Out came his hands--the only rough hands in the drawing-room, the +only hands that had ever worked. She was filled with some strange +approval, and liked him. + +After dinner they met again, to speak not of Byron but of manure. +The other people were so clever and so amusing that it relieved +her to listen to a man who told her three times not to buy +artificial manure ready made, but, if she would use it, to make +it herself at the last moment. Because the ammonia evaporated. +Here were two packets of powder. Did they smell? No. Mix them +together and pour some coffee--An appalling smell at once burst +forth, and every one began to cough and cry. This was good for +the earth when she felt sour, for he knew when the earth was ill. +He knew, too, when she was hungry he spoke of her tantrums--the +strange unscientific element in her that will baffle the +scientist to the end of time. "Study away, Mrs. Elliot," he told +her; "read all the books you can get hold of; but when it comes +to the point, stroll out with a pipe in your mouth and do a bit +of guessing." As he talked, the earth became a living being--or +rather a being with a living skin,--and manure no longer dirty +stuff, but a symbol of regeneration and of the birth of life from +life. "So it goes on for ever!" she cried excitedly. He replied: +"Not for ever. In time the fire at the centre will cool, and +nothing can go on then." + +He advanced into love with open eyes, slowly, heavily, just as he +had advanced across the drawing room carpet. But this time the +bride did not observe his tread. She was listening to her +husband, and trying not to be so stupid. When he was close to +her--so close that it was difficult not to take her in his arms-- +he spoke to Mr. Failing, and was at once turned out of Cadover. + +"I'm sorry," said Mr. Failing, as he walked down the drive with +his hand on his guest's shoulder. "I had no notion you were that +sort. Any one who behaves like that has to stop at the farm." + +"Any one?" + +"Any one." He sighed heavily, not for any personal grievance, but +because he saw how unruly, how barbaric, is the soul of man. +After all, this man was more civilized than most. + +"Are you angry with me, sir?" He called him "sir," not because he +was richer or cleverer or smarter, not because he had helped to +educate him and had lent him money, but for a reason more +profound--for the reason that there are gradations in heaven. + +"I did think you--that a man like you wouldn't risk making people +unhappy. My sister-in-law--I don't say this to stop you loving +her; something else must do that--my sister-in-law, as far as I +know, doesn't care for you one little bit. If you had said +anything, if she had guessed that a chance person was in--this +fearful state, you would simply--have opened hell. A woman of her +sort would have lost all--" + +"I knew that." + +Mr. Failing removed his hand. He was displeased. + +"But something here," said Robert incoherently. "This here." He +struck himself heavily on the heart. "This here, doing something +so unusual, makes it not matter what she loses--I--" After a +silence he asked, "Have I quite followed you, sir, in that +business of the brotherhood of man?" + +"How do you mean?" + +"I thought love was to bring it about." + +"Love of another man's wife? Sensual love? You have understood +nothing--nothing." Then he was ashamed, and cried, "I understand +nothing myself." For he remembered that sensual and spiritual are +not easy words to use; that there are, perhaps, not two +Aphrodites, but one Aphrodite with a Janus face. "I only +understand that you must try to forget her." + +"I will not try." + +"Promise me just this, then--not to do anything crooked." + +"I'm straight. No boasting, but I couldn't do a crooked thing-- +No, not if I tried." + +And so appallingly straight was he in after years, that Mr. +Failing wished that he had phrased the promise differently. + +Robert simply waited. He told himself that it was hopeless; but +something deeper than himself declared that there was hope. He +gave up drink, and kept himself in all ways clean, for he wanted +to be worthy of her when the time came. Women seemed fond of him, +and caused him to reflect with pleasure, "They do run after me. +There must be something in me. Good. I'd be done for if there +wasn't." For six years he turned up the earth of Wiltshire, and +read books for the sake of his mind, and talked to gentlemen for +the sake of their patois, and each year he rode to Cadover to +take off his hat to Mrs. Elliot, and, perhaps, to speak to her +about the crops. Mr. Failing was generally present, and it struck +neither man that those dull little visits were so many words out +of which a lonely woman might build sentences. Then Robert went +to London on business. He chanced to see Mr. Elliot with a +strange lady. The time had come. + +He became diplomatic, and called at Mr. Elliot's rooms to find +things out. For if Mrs. Elliot was happier than he could ever +make her, he would withdraw, and love her in renunciation. But if +he could make her happier, he would love her in fulfilment. Mr. +Elliot admitted him as a friend of his brother-in-law's, and felt +very broad-minded as he did so. Robert, however, was a success. +The youngish men there found him interesting, and liked to shock +him with tales of naughty London and naughtier Paris. They spoke +of "experience" and "sensations" and "seeing life," and when a +smile ploughed over his face, concluded that his prudery was +vanquished. He saw that they were much less vicious than they +supposed: one boy had obviously read his sensations in a book. +But he could pardon vice. What he could not pardon was +triviality, and he hoped that no decent woman could pardon it +either. There grew up in him a cold, steady anger against these +silly people who thought it advanced to be shocking, and who +described, as something particularly choice and educational, +things that he had understood and fought against for years. He +inquired after Mrs. Elliot, and a boy tittered. It seemed that +she "did not know," that she lived in a remote suburb, taking +care of a skinny baby. "I shall call some time or other," said +Robert. "Do," said Mr. Elliot, smiling. And next time he saw his +wife he congratulated her on her rustic admirer. + +She had suffered terribly. She had asked for bread, and had been +given not even a stone. People talk of hungering for the ideal, +but there is another hunger, quite as divine, for facts. She had +asked for facts and had been given "views," "emotional +standpoints," "attitudes towards life." To a woman who believed +that facts are beautiful, that the living world is beautiful +beyond the laws of beauty, that manure is neither gross nor +ludicrous, that a fire, not eternal, glows at the heart of the +earth, it was intolerable to be put off with what the Elliots +called "philosophy," and, if she refused, to be told that she had +no sense of humour. "Tarrying into the Elliot family." It had +sounded so splendid, for she was a penniless child with nothing +to offer, and the Elliots held their heads high. For what reason? +What had they ever done, except say sarcastic things, and limp, +and be refined? Mr. Failing suffered too, but she suffered more, +inasmuch as Frederick was more impossible than Emily. He did not +like her, he practically lived apart, he was not even faithful or +polite. These were grave faults, but they were human ones: she +could even imagine them in a man she loved. What she could never +love was a dilettante. + +Robert brought her an armful of sweet-peas. He laid it on the +table, put his hands behind his back, and kept them there till +the end of the visit. She knew quite well why he had come, and +though she also knew that he would fail, she loved him too much +to snub him or to stare in virtuous indignation. "Why have you +come?" she asked gravely, "and why have you brought me so many +flowers?" + +"My garden is full of them," he answered. "Sweetpeas need picking +down. And, generally speaking, flowers are plentiful in July." + +She broke his present into bunches--so much for the drawing-room, +so much for the nursery, so much for the kitchen and her +husband's room: he would be down for the night. The most +beautiful she would keep for herself. Presently he said, "Your +husband is no good. I've watched him for a week. I'm thirty, and +not what you call hasty, as I used to be, or thinking that +nothing matters like the French. No. I'm a plain Britisher, yet-- +I--I've begun wrong end, Mrs. Elliot; I should have said that +I've thought chiefly of you for six years, and that though I talk +here so respectfully, if I once unhooked my hands--" + +There was a pause. Then she said with great sweetness, "Thank +you; I am glad you love me," and rang the bell. + +"What have you done that for?" he cried. + +"Because you must now leave the house, and never enter it again." + +"I don't go alone," and he began to get furious. + +Her voice was still sweet, but strength lay in it too, as she +said, "You either go now with my thanks and blessing, or else you +go with the police. I am Mrs. Elliot. We need not discuss Mr. +Elliot. I am Mrs. Elliot, and if you make one step towards me I +give you in charge." + +But the maid answered the bell not of the drawing-room, but of +the front door. They were joined by Mr. Elliot, who held out his +hand with much urbanity. It was not taken. He looked quickly at +his wife, and said, "Am I de trop?" There was a long silence. +At last she said, "Frederick, turn this man out." + +"My love, why?" + +Robert said that he loved her. + +"Then I am de trop," said Mr. Elliot, smoothing out his gloves. +He would give these sodden barbarians a lesson. "My hansom is +waiting at the door. Pray make use of it." + +"Don't!" she cried, almost affectionately. "Dear Frederick, it +isn't a play. Just tell this man to go, or send for the police." + +"On the contrary; it is French comedy of the best type. Don't you +agree, sir, that the police would be an inartistic error?" He was +perfectly calm and collected, whereas they were in a pitiable +state. + +"Turn him out at once!" she cried. "He has insulted your wife. +Save me, save me!" She clung to her husband and wept. "He was +going I had managed him--he would never have known--" Mr. Elliot +repulsed her. + +"If you don't feel inclined to start at once," he said with easy +civility, "Let us have a little tea. My dear sir, do forgive me +for not shooting you. Nous avons change tout cela. Please don't +look so nervous. Please do unclasp your hands--" + +He was alone. + +"That's all right," he exclaimed, and strolled to the door. The +hansom was disappearing round the corner. "That's all right," he +repeated in more quavering tones as he returned to the drawing- +room and saw that it was littered with sweet-peas. Their colour +got on his nerves--magenta, crimson; magenta, crimson. He tried +to pick them up, and they escaped. He trod them underfoot, and +they multiplied and danced in the triumph of summer like a +thousand butterflies. The train had left when he got to the +station. He followed on to London, and there he lost all traces. +At midnight he began to realize that his wife could never belong +to him again. + +Mr. Failing had a letter from Stockholm. It was never known what +impulse sent them there. "I am sorry about it all, but it was the +only way." The letter censured the law of England, "which obliges +us to behave like this, or else we should never get married. I +shall come back to face things: she will not come back till she +is my wife. He must bring an action soon, or else we shall try +one against him. It seems all very unconventional, but it is not +really. it is only a difficult start. We are not like you or your +wife: we want to be just ordinary people, and make the farm pay, +and not be noticed all our lives." + +And they were capable of living as they wanted. The class +difference, which so intrigued Mrs. Failing, meant very little to +them. It was there, but so were other things. + +They both cared for work and living in the open, and for not +speaking unless they had got something to say. Their love of +beauty, like their love for each other, was not dependent on +detail: it grew not from the nerves but from the soul. + +"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work +of the stars +And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, +and the egg of the wren, +And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, +And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours +of heaven." + +They had never read these lines, and would have thought them +nonsense if they had. They did not dissect--indeed they could +not. But she, at all events, divined that more than perfect +health and perfect weather, more than personal love, had gone to +the making of those seventeen days. + +"Ordinary people!" cried Mrs. Failing on hearing the letter. At +that time she was young and daring. "Why, they're divine! They're +forces of Nature! They're as ordinary as volcanoes. We all knew +my brother was disgusting, and wanted him to be blown to pieces, +but we never thought it would happen. Do look at the thing +bravely, and say, as I do, that they are guiltless in the +sight of God." + +"I think they are," replied her husband. "But they are not +guiltless in the sight of man." + +"You conventional!" she exclaimed in disgust. +"What they have done means misery not only for themselves but for +others. For your brother, though you will not think of him. For +the little boy--did you think of him? And perhaps for another +child, who will have the whole world against him if it knows. +They have sinned against society, and you do not diminish the +misery by proving that society is bad or foolish. It is the +saddest truth I have yet perceived that the Beloved Republic"-- +here she took up a book--"of which Swinburne speaks"--she put the +book down--"will not be brought about by love alone. It will +approach with no flourish of trumpets, and have no declaration of +independence. Self-sacrifice and--worse still--self-mutilation +are the things that sometimes help it most, and that is why we +should start for Stockholm this evening." He waited for her +indignation to subside, and then continued. "I don't know whether +it can be hushed up. I don't yet know whether it ought to be +hushed up. But we ought to provide the opportunity. There is no +scandal yet. If we go, it is just possible there never will be +any. We must talk over the whole thing and--" + +"--And lie!" interrupted Mrs. Failing, who hated travel. + +"--And see how to avoid the greatest unhappiness." + +There was to be no scandal. By the time they arrived Robert had +been drowned. Mrs. Elliot described how they had gone swimming, +and how, "since he always lived inland," the great waves had +tired him. They had raced for the open sea. + +"What are your plans?" he asked. "I bring you a message from +Frederick." + +"I heard him call," she continued, "but I thought he was +laughing. When I turned, it was too late. He put his hands behind +his back and sank. For he would only have drowned me with him. I +should have done the same." + +Mrs. Failing was thrilled, and kissed her. But Mr. Failing knew +that life does not continue heroic for long, and he gave her the +message from her husband: Would she come back to him? + +To his intense astonishment--at first to his regret--she replied, +"I will think about it. If I loved him the very least bit I +should say no. If I had anything to do with my life I should say +no. But it is simply a question of beating time till I die. +Nothing that is coming matters. I may as well sit in his +drawing-room and dust his furniture, since he has suggested it." + +And Mr. Elliot, though he made certain stipulations, was +positively glad to see her. People had begun to laugh at him, and +to say that his wife had run away. She had not. She had been with +his sister in Sweden. In a half miraculous way the matter was +hushed up. Even the Silts only scented "something strange." When +Stephen was born, it was abroad. When he came to England, it was +as the child of a friend of Mr. Failing's. Mrs. Elliot returned +unsuspected to her husband. + +But though things can be hushed up, there is no such thing as +beating time; and as the years passed she realized her terrible +mistake. When her lover sank, eluding her last embrace, she +thought, as Agnes was to think after her, that her soul had sunk +with him, and that never again should she be capable of earthly + +love. Nothing mattered. She might as well go and be useful to her +husband and to the little boy who looked exactly like him, and +who, she thought, was exactly like him in disposition. Then +Stephen was born, and altered her life. She could still love +people passionately; she still drew strength from the heroic +past. Yet, to keep to her bond, she must see this son only as a +stranger. She was protected be the conventions, and must pay them +their fee. And a curious thing happened. Her second child drew +her towards her first. She began to love Rickie also, and to be +more than useful to him. And as her love revived, so did her +capacity for suffering. Life, more important, grew more bitter. +She minded her husband more, not less; and when at last he died, +and she saw a glorious autumn, beautiful with the voices of boys +who should call her mother, the end came for her as well, before +she could remember the grave in the alien north and the dust that +would never return to the dear fields that had given it. + + + +XXX + +Stephen, the son of these people, had one instinct that troubled +him. At night--especially out of doors--it seemed rather strange +that he was alive. The dry grass pricked his cheek, the fields +were invisible and mute, and here was he, throwing stones at the +darkness or smoking a pipe. The stones vanished, the pipe would +burn out. But he would be here in the morning when the sun rose, +and he would bathe, and run in the mist. He was proud of his good +circulation, and in the morning it seemed quite natural. But at +night, why should there be this difference between him and the +acres of land that cooled all round him until the sun returned? +What lucky chance had heated him up, and sent him, warm and +lovable, into a passive world? He had other instincts, but these +gave him no trouble. He simply gratified each as it occurred, +provided he could do so without grave injury to his fellows. But +the instinct to wonder at the night was not to be thus appeased. +At first he had lived under the care of Mr. Failing the only +person to whom his mother spoke freely, the only person who had +treated her neither as a criminal nor as a pioneer. In their rare +but intimate conversations she had asked him to educate her son. +"I will teach him Latin," he answered. "The rest such a boy must +remember." Latin, at all events, was a failure: who could attend +to Virgil when the sound of the thresher arose, and you knew that +the stack was decreasing and that rats rushed more plentifully +each moment to their doom? But he was fond of Mr. Failing, and +cried when he died. Mrs. Elliot, a pleasant woman, died soon +after. + +There was something fatal in the order of these deaths. Mr. +Failing had made no provision for the boy in his will: his wife +had promised to see to this. Then came Mr. Elliot's death, and, +before the new home was created, the sudden death of Mrs. Elliot. +She also left Stephen no money: she had none to leave. Chance +threw him into the power of Mrs. Failing. "Let things go on as +they are," she thought. "I will take care of this pretty little +boy, and the ugly little boy can live with the Silts. After my +death--well, the papers will be found after my death, and they +can meet then. I like the idea of their mutual ignorance. It is +amusing." + +He was then twelve. With a few brief intervals of school, he +lived in Wiltshire until he was driven out. Life had two distinct +sides--the drawing-room and the other. In the drawing-room people +talked a good deal, laughing as they talked. Being clever, they +did not care for animals: one man had never seen a hedgehog. In +the other life people talked and laughed separately, or even did +neither. On the whole, in spite of the wet and gamekeepers, this +life was preferable. He knew where he was. He glanced at the boy, +or later at the man, and behaved accordingly. There was no law-- +the policeman was negligible. Nothing bound him but his own word, +and he gave that sparingly. + +It is impossible to be romantic when you have your heart's +desire, and such a boy disappointed Mrs. Failing greatly. His +parents had met for one brief embrace, had found one little +interval between the power of the rulers of this world and the +power of death. He was the child of poetry and of rebellion, and +poetry should run in his veins. But he lived too near the things +he loved to seem poetical. Parted from them, he might yet satisfy +her, and stretch out his hands with a pagan's yearning. As it +was, he only rode her horses, and trespassed, and bathed, and +worked, for no obvious reason, upon her fields. Affection she did +not believe in, and made no attempt to mould him; and he, for his +part, was very content to harden untouched into a man. His +parents had given him excellent gifts--health, sturdy limbs, and +a face not ugly,--gifts that his habits confirmed. They had also +given him a cloudless spirit--the spirit of the seventeen days in +which he was created. But they had not given him the spirit of +their sit years of waiting, and love for one person was never to +be the greatest thing he knew. + +"Philosophy" had postponed the quarrel between them. Incurious +about his personal origin, he had a certain interest in our +eternal problems. The interest never became a passion: it sprang +out of his physical growth, and was soon merged in it again. Or, +as he put it himself, "I must get fixed up before starting." He +was soon fixed up as a materialist. Then he tore up the sixpenny +reprints, and never amused Mrs. Failing so much again. + +About the time he fixed himself up, he took to drink. He knew of +no reason against it. The instinct was in him, and it hurt +nobody. Here, as elsewhere, his motions were decided, and he +passed at once from roaring jollity to silence. For those who +live on the fuddled borderland, who crawl home by the railings +and maunder repentance in the morning, he had a biting contempt. +A man must take his tumble and his headache. He was, in fact, as +little disgusting as is conceivable; and hitherto he had not +strained his constitution or his will. Nor did he get drunk as +often as Agnes suggested. Thc real quarrel gathered elsewhere. + + +Presentable people have run wild in their youth. But the hour +comes when they turn from their boorish company to higher things. +This hour never came for Stephen. Somewhat a bully by nature, he +kept where his powers would tell, and continued to quarrel and +play with the men he had known as boys. He prolonged their youth +unduly. "They won't settle down," said Mr. Wilbraham to his wife. +"They're wanting things. It's the germ of a Trades Union. I shall +get rid of a few of the worst." Then Stephen rushed up to Mrs. +Failing and worried her. "It wasn't fair. So-and-so was a good +sort. He did his work. Keen about it? No. Why should he be? Why +should he be keen about somebody else's land? But keen enough. +And very keen on football." She laughed, and said a word about +So-and-so to Mr. Wilbraham. Mr. Wilbraham blazed up. "How could +the farm go on without discipline? How could there be discipline +if Mr. Stephen interfered? Mr. Stephen liked power. He spoke to +the men like one of themselves, and pretended it was all +equality, but he took care to come out top. Natural, of course, +that, being a gentleman, he should. But not natural for a +gentleman to loiter all day with poor people and learn their +work, and put wrong notions into their heads, and carry their +newfangled grievances to Mrs. Failing. Which partly accounted for +the deficit on the past year." She rebuked Stephen. Then he lost +his temper, was rude to her, and insulted Mr. Wilbraham. + +The worst days of Mr. Failing's rule seemed to be returning. And +Stephen had a practical experience, and also a taste for battle, +that her husband had never possessed. He drew up a list of +grievances, some absurd, others fundamental. No newspapers in the +reading-room, you could put a plate under the Thompsons' door, no +level cricket-pitch, no allotments and no time to work in them, +Mrs. Wilbraham's knife-boy underpaid. "Aren't you a little +unwise?" she asked coldly. "I am more bored than you think over +the farm." She was wanting to correct the proofs of the book and +rewrite the prefatory memoir. In her irritation she wrote to +Agnes. Agnes replied sympathetically, and Mrs. Failing, clever as +she was, fell into the power of the younger woman. They discussed +him at first as a wretch of a boy; then he got drunk and somehow +it seemed more criminal. All that she needed now was a personal +grievance, which Agnes casually supplied. Though vindictive, she +was determined to treat him well, and thought with satisfaction +of our distant colonies. But he burst into an odd passion: he +would sooner starve than leave England. "Why?" she asked. "Are +you in love?" He picked up a lump of the chalk-they were by the +arbour--and made no answer. The vicar murmured, "It is not like +going abroad--Greater Britain--blood is thicker than water--" A +lump of chalk broke her drawing-room window on the Saturday. + +Thus Stephen left Wiltshire, half-blackguard, half-martyr. Do not +brand him as a socialist. He had no quarrel with society, nor any +particular belief in people because they are poor. He only held +the creed of "here am I and there are you," and therefore class +distinctions were trivial things to him, and life no decorous +scheme, but a personal combat or a personal truce. For the same +reason ancestry also was trivial, and a man not the dearer +because the same woman was mother to them both. Yet it seemed +worth while to go to Sawston with the news. Perhaps nothing would +come of it; perhaps friendly intercourse, and a home while he +looked around. + +When they wronged him he walked quietly away. He never thought of +allotting the blame, nor or appealing to Ansell, who still sat +brooding in the side-garden. He only knew that educated people +could be horrible, and that a clean liver must never enter +Dunwood House again. The air seemed stuffy. He spat in the +gutter. Was it yesterday he had lain in the rifle-butts over +Salisbury? Slightly aggrieved, he wondered why he was not back +there now. "I ought to have written first," he reflected. "Here +is my money gone. I cannot move. The Elliots have, as it were, +practically robbed me." That was the only grudge he retained +against them. Their suspicions and insults were to him as the +curses of a tramp whom he passed by the wayside. They were dirty +people, not his sort. He summed up the complicated tragedy as a +"take in." + +While Rickie was being carried upstairs, and while Ansell (had he +known it) was dashing about the streets for him, he lay under a +railway arch trying to settle his plans. He must pay back the +friends who had given him shillings and clothes. He thought of +Flea, whose Sundays he was spoiling--poor Flea, who ought to be +in them now, shining before his girl. "I daresay he'll be ashamed +and not go to see her, and then she'll take the other man." He +was also very hungry. That worm Mrs. Elliot would be through her +lunch by now. Trying his braces round him, and tearing up those +old wet documents, he stepped forth to make money. A villainous +young brute he looked: his clothes were dirty, and he had lost +the spring of the morning. Touching the walls, frowning, talking +to himself at times, he slouched disconsolately northwards; no +wonder that some tawdry girls screamed at him, or that matrons +averted their eyes as they hurried to afternoon church. He +wandered from one suburb to another, till he was among people +more villainous than himself, who bought his tobacco from him and +sold him food. Again the neighbourhood "went up," and families, +instead of sitting on their doorsteps, would sit behind thick +muslin curtains. Again it would "go down" into a more avowed +despair. Far into the night he wandered, until he came to a +solemn river majestic as a stream in hell. Therein were gathered +the waters of Central England--those that flow off Hindhead, off +the Chilterns, off Wiltshire north of the Plain. Therein they +were made intolerable ere they reached the sea. But the waters he +had known escaped. Their course lay southward into the Avon by +forests and beautiful fields, even swift, even pure, until they +mirrored the tower of Christchurch and greeted the ramparts of +the Isle of Wight. Of these he thought for a moment as he crossed +the black river and entered the heart of the modern world. +Here he found employment. He was not hampered by genteel +traditions, and, as it was near quarter-day, managed to get taken +on at a furniture warehouse. He moved people from the suburbs to +London, from London to the suburbs, from one suburb to another. +His companions were hurried and querulous. In particular, he +loathed the foreman, a pious humbug who allowed no swearing, but +indulged in something far more degraded--the Cockney repartee. +The London intellect, so pert and shallow, like a stream that +never reaches the ocean, disgusted him almost as much as the +London physique, which for all its dexterity is not permanent, +and seldom continues into the third generation. His father, had +he known it, had felt the same; for between Mr. Elliot and the +foreman the gulf was social, not spiritual: both spent their +lives in trying to be clever. And Tony Failing had once put the +thing into words: "There's no such thing as a Londoner. He's only +a country man on the road to sterility." + +At the end of ten days he had saved scarcely anything. Once he +passed the bank where a hundred pounds lay ready for him, but it +was still inconvenient for him to take them. Then duty sent him +to a suburb not very far from Sawston. In the evening a man who +was driving a trap asked him to hold it, and by mistake tipped +him a sovereign. Stephen called after him; but the man had a +woman with him and wanted to show off, and though he had meant to +tip a shilling, and could not afford that, he shouted back that +his sovereign was as good as any one's, and that if Stephen did +not think so he could do various things and go to various places. +On the action of this man much depends. Stephen changed the +sovereign into a postal order, and sent it off to the people at +Cadford. It did not pay them back, but it paid them something, +and he felt that his soul was free. + +A few shillings remained in his pocket. They would have paid his +fare towards Wiltshire, a good county; but what should he do +there? Who would employ him? Today the journey did not seem worth +while. "Tomorrow, perhaps," he thought, and determined to spend +the money on pleasure of another kind. Two-pence went for a ride +on an electric tram. From the top he saw the sun descend--a disc +with a dark red edge. The same sun was descending over Salisbury +intolerably bright. Out of the golden haze the spire would be +piercing, like a purple needle; then mists arose from the Avon +and the other streams. Lamps flickered, but in the outer purity +the villages were already slumbering. Salisbury is only a Gothic +upstart beside these. For generations they have come down to her +to buy or to worship, and have found in her the reasonable crisis +of their lives; but generations before she was built they were +clinging to the soil, and renewing it with sheep and dogs and +men, who found the crisis of their lives upon Stonehenge. The +blood of these men ran in Stephen; the vigour they had won for +him was as yet untarnished; out on those downs they had united with +rough women to make the thing he spoke of as "himself"; the last +of them has rescued a woman of a different kind from streets and +houses such as these. As the sun descended he got off the tram +with a smile of expectation. A public-house lay opposite, and a +boy in a dirty uniform was already lighting its enormous lamp. +His lips parted, and he went in. + +Two hours later, when Rickie and Herbert were going the rounds, a +brick came crashing at the study window. Herbert peered into the +garden, and a hooligan slipped by him into the house, wrecked the +hall, lurched up the stairs, fell against the banisters, balanced +for a moment on his spine, and slid over. Herbert called for the +police. Rickie, who was upon the landing, caught the man by the +knees and saved his life. + +"What is it?" cried Agnes, emerging. + +"It's Stephen come back," was the answer. "Hullo, Stephen!" + + + +XXXI + +Hither had Rickie moved in ten days--from disgust to penitence, +from penitence to longing from a life of horror to a new life, in +which he still surprised himself by unexpected words. Hullo, +Stephen! For the son of his mother had come back, to forgive him, +as she would have done, to live with him, as she had planned. + +"He's drunk this time," said Agnes wearily. She too had altered: +the scandal was ageing her, and Ansell came to the house daily. + +"Hullo, Stephen!" + +But Stephen was now insensible. + +"Stephen, you live here--" + +"Good gracious me!" interposed Herbert. "My advice is, that we +all go to bed. The less said the better while our nerves are in this +state. Very +well, Rickie. Of course, Wonham sleeps the night if you wish." They +carried the +drunken mass into the spare room. A mass of scandal it seemed to one of +them, a +symbol of redemption to the other. Neither acknowledged it a man, who +would +answer them back after a few hours' rest. + +"Ansell thought he would never forgive me," said Rickie. "For +once he's wrong." + +"Come to bed now, I think." And as Rickie laid his hand on the +sleeper's hair, he added, "You won't do anything foolish, will +you? You are still in a morbid state. Your poor mother--Pardon +me, dear boy; it is my turn to speak out. You thought it was your +father, and minded. It is your mother. Surely you ought to mind +more?" + +"I have been too far back," said Rickie gently. "Ansell took me +on a journey that was even new to him. We got behind right and +wrong, to a place where only one thing matters--that the Beloved should +rise +from the dead." + +"But you won't do anything rash?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Remember poor Agnes," he stammered. "I--I am the first to +acknowledge that we might have pursued a different policy. But we +are committed to it now. It makes no difference whose son he is. +I mean, he is the same person. You and I and my sister stand or +fall together. It was our agreement from the first. I hope--No more of +these +distressing scenes with her, there's a dear fellow. I assure you they +make my +heart bleed." + +"Things will quiet down now." + +"To bed now; I insist upon that much." + +"Very well," said Rickie, and when they were in the passage, +locked the door from the outside. "We want no more muddles," he +explained. + +Mr. Pembroke was left examining the hall. The bust of Hermes was +broken. So was the pot of the palm. He could not go to bed +without once more sounding Rickie. "You'll do nothing rash," he called. +"The +notion of him living here was, of course, a passing impulse. We three +have +adopted a common policy." + +"Now, you go away!" called a voice that was almost flippant. "I +never did belong to that great sect whose doctrine is that each +one should select--at least, I'm not going to belong to it any +longer. Go away to bed." + +"A good night's rest is what you need," threatened Herbert, and +retired, not to find one for himself. + +But Rickie slept. The guilt of months and the remorse of the last +ten days had alike departed. He had thought that his life was +poisoned, and lo! it was purified. He had cursed his mother, and +Ansell had replied, "You may be right, but you stand too near to +settle. Step backwards. Pretend that it happened to me. Do you +want me to curse my mother? Now, step forward and see whether +anything has changed." Something had changed. He had journeyed-- +as on rare occasions a man must--till he stood behind right and +wrong. On the banks of the grey torrent of life, love is the only +flower. A little way up the stream and a little way down had +Rickie glanced, and he knew that she whom he loved had risen from +the dead, and might rise again. "Come away--let them die out--let +them die out." Surely that dream was a vision! To-night also he +hurried to the window--to remember, with a smile, that Orion is +not among the stars of June. + +"Let me die out. She will continue," he murmured, and in making +plans for Stephen's happiness, fell asleep. + +Next morning after breakfast he announced that his brother must +live at Dunwood House. They were awed by the very moderation of +his tone. "There's nothing else to be done. Cadover's hopeless, +and a boy of those tendencies can't go drifting. There is also +the question of a profession for him, and his allowance." + +"We have to thank Mr. Ansell for this," was all that Agnes could +say; and "I foresee disaster," was the contribution of Herbert. + +"There's plenty of money about," Rickie continued. "Quite a +man's-worth too much. It has been one of our absurdities. Don't +look so sad, Herbert. I'm sorry for you people, but he's sure to +let us down easy." For his experience of drunkards and of Stephen +was small. + +He supposed that he had come without malice to renew the offer of +ten days ago. + +"It is the end of Dunwood House." + +Rickie nodded, and hoped not. Agnes, who was not looking well, +began to cry. "Oh, it is too bad," she complained, "when I've +saved you from him all these years." But he could not pity her, +nor even sympathize with her wounded delicacy. The time for such +nonsense was over. He would take his share of the blame: it was +cant to assume it all. + +Perhaps he was over-hard. He did not realize how large his share +was, nor how his very virtues were to blame for her +deterioration. +"If I had a girl, I'd keep her in line," is not the remark of a +fool nor of a cad. Rickie had not kept his wife in line. He had +shown her all the workings of his soul, mistaking this for love; +and in consequence she was the worse woman after two years of +marriage, and he, on this morning of freedom, was harder upon her +than he need have been. + +The spare room bell rang. Herbert had a painful struggle between +curiosity and duty, for the bell for chapel was ringing also, and +he must go through the drizzle to school. He promised to come up +in the interval, Rickie, who had rapped his head that Sunday on +the edge of the table, was still forbidden to work. Before +him a quiet morning lay. Secure of his victory, he took the +portrait of their mother in his hand and walked leisurely +upstairs. The bell continued to ring. + +"See about his breakfast," he called to Agnes, who replied, "Very +well." The handle of the spare room door was moving slowly. "I'm +coming," he cried. The handle was still. He unlocked and entered, +his heart full of charity. + +But within stood a man who probably owned the world. + +Rickie scarcely knew him; last night he had seemed so colorless, +no negligible. In a few hours he had recaptured motion and +passion and the imprint of the sunlight and the wind. He stood, +not consciously heroic, with arms that dangled from broad +stooping shoulders, and feet that played with a hassock on the +carpet. But his hair was beautiful against the grey sky, and his +eyes, recalling the sky unclouded, shot past the intruder as if +to some worthier vision. So intent was their gaze that Rickie +himself glanced backwards, only to see the neat passage and the +banisters at the top of the stairs. Then the lips beat together +twice, and out burst a torrent of amazing words. + +"Add it all up, and let me know how much. I'd sooner have died. +It never took me that way before. I must have broken pounds' worth. +If you'll not tell the police, I promise you shan't lose, Mr. +Elliot, I swear. But it may be months before I send it. +Everything is to be new. You've not to be a penny out of pocket, +do you see? Do let me go, this once again." + +"What's the trouble?" asked Rickie, as if they had been friends +for years. "My dear man, we've other things to talk about. +Gracious me, what a fuss! If you'd smashed the whole house I +wouldn't mind, so long as you came back." + +"I'd sooner have died," gulped Stephen. + +"You did nearly! It was I who caught you. Never mind yesterday's +rag. What can you manage for breakfast?" + +The face grew more angry and more puzzled. "Yesterday wasn't a +rag," he said without focusing his eyes. "I was drunk, but +naturally meant it." + +"Meant what?" + +"To smash you. Bad liquor did what Mrs. Elliot couldn't. I've put +myself in the wrong. You've got me." + +It was a poor beginning. + +"As I have got you," said Rickie, controlling himself, "I want to +have a talk with you. There has been a ghastly mistake." + +But Stephen, with a countryman's persistency, continued on his +own line. He meant to be civil, but Rickie went cold round the +mouth. For he had not even been angry with them. Until he was +drunk, they had been dirty people--not his sort. Then the trivial +injury recurred, and he had reeled to smash them as he passed. +"And I will pay for everything," was his refrain, with which the +sighing of raindrops mingled. "You shan't lose a penny, if only +you let me free." + +"You'll pay for my coffin if you talk like that any longer! Will +you, one, forgive my frightful behaviour; two, live with me?" For +his only hope was in a cheerful precision. + +Stephen grew more agitated. He thought it was some trick. + +"I was saying I made an unspeakable mistake. Ansell put me right, +but it was too late to find you. Don't think I got off easily. +Ansell doesn't spare one. And you've got to forgive me, to share +my life, to share my money.--I've brought you this photograph--I +want it to be the first thing you accept from me--you have the +greater right--I know all the story now. You know who it is?" + +"Oh yes; but I don't want to drag all that in." + +"It is only her wish if we live together. She was planning it +when she died." + +"I can't follow--because--to share your life? Did you know I +called here last Sunday week?" + +"Yes. But then I only knew half. I thought you were my father's +son." + +Stephen's anger and bewilderment were increasing. He stuttered. +"What--what's the odds if you did?" + +"I hated my father," said Rickie. "I loved my mother." And never +had the phrases seemed so destitute of meaning. + +"Last Sunday week," interrupted Stephen, his voice suddenly +rising, "I came to call on you. Not as this or that's son. Not to +fall on your neck. Nor to live here. Nor--damn your dirty little +mind! I meant to say I didn't come for money. Sorry. Sorry. I +simply came as I was, and I haven't altered since." + +"Yes--yet our mother--for me she has risen from the dead since +then--I know I was wrong--" + +"And where do I come in?" He kicked the hassock. "I haven't risen +from the dead. I haven't altered since last Sunday week. I'm--" He +stuttered again. He could not quite explain what he was. "The man +towards Andover--after all, he was having principles. But you've- +-" His voice broke. "I mind it--I'm--I don't alter +--blackguard one week--live here the next--I keep to one or the +other--you've hurt something most badly in me that I didn't know +was there." + +"Don't let us talk," said Rickie. "It gets worse every minute. +Simply say you forgive me; shake hands, and have done with it." + +"That I won't. That I couldn't. In fact, I don't know what you +mean." + +Then Rickie began a new appeal--not to pity, for now he was in no +mood to whimper. For all its pathos, there was something heroic +in this meeting. "I warn you to stop here with me, Stephen. No one +else in the world will look after you. As far as I know, you have +never been really unhappy yet or suffered, as you should do, from +your faults. Last night you nearly killed yourself with drink. +Never mind why I'm willing to cure you. I am willing, and I warn +you to give me the chance. Forgive me or not, as you choose. I +care for other things more." + +Stephen looked at him at last, faintly approving. The offer was +ridiculous, but it did treat him as a man. + +"Let me tell you of a fault of mine, and how I was punished for +it," continued Rickie. "Two years ago I behaved badly to you, up +at the Rings. No, even a few days before that. We went for a +ride, and I thought too much of other matters, and did not try to +understand you. Then came the Rings, and in the evening, when you +called up to me most kindly, I never answered. But the ride was +the beginning. Ever since then I have taken the world at +second-hand. I have bothered less and less to look it in the +face--until not only you, but every one else has turned unreal. +Never Ansell: he kept away, and somehow saved himself. But every +one else. Do you remember in one of Tony Failing's books, 'Cast +bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days it really does +come back to you'? This had been true of my life; it will be +equally true of a drunkard's, and I warn you to stop with me." + +"I can't stop after that cheque," said Stephen more gently. "But +I do remember the ride. I was a bit bored myself." + +Agnes, who had not been seeing to the breakfast, chose this +moment to call from the passage. "Of course he can't stop," she +exclaimed. "For better or worse, it's settled. We've none of us +altered since last Sunday week." + +"There you're right, Mrs. Elliot!" he shouted, starting out of +the temperate past. "We haven't altered." With a rare flash of +insight he turned on Rickie. "I see your game. You don't care +about ME drinking, or to shake MY hand. It's some one else you +want to cure--as it were, that old photograph. You talk to me, +but all the time you look at the photograph." He snatched it up. + +"I've my own ideas of good manners, and to look friends between +the eyes is one of them; and this"--he tore the photograph across +"and this"--he tore it again--"and these--" He flung the pieces +at the man, who had sunk into a chair. "For my part, I'm off." + +Then Rickie was heroic no longer. Turning round in his chair, he +covered his face. The man was right. He did not love him, even as +he had never hated him. In either passion he had degraded him to +be a symbol for the vanished past. The man was right, and would +have been lovable. He longed to be back riding over those windy +fields, to be back in those mystic circles, beneath pure sky. +Then they could have watched and helped and taught each other, +until the word was a reality, and the past not a torn photograph, +but Demeter the goddess rejoicing in the spring. Ah, if he had +seized those high opportunities! For they led to the highest of +all, the symbolic moment, which, if a man accepts, he has +accepted life. + +The voice of Agnes, which had lured him then ("For my sake," she +had whispered), pealed over him now in triumph. Abruptly it broke +into sobs that had the effect of rain. He started up. The anger +had died out of Stephen's face, not for a subtle reason but +because here was a woman, near him, and unhappy. + +She tried to apologize, and brought on a fresh burst of tears. +Something had upset her. They heard her locking the door of her +room. From that moment their intercourse was changed. + +"Why does she keep crying today?" mused Rickie, as if he spoke to +some mutual friend. + +"I can make a guess," said Stephen, and his heavy face flushed. + +"Did you insult her?" he asked feebly. + +"But who's Gerald?" + +Rickie raised his hand to his mouth. + +"She looked at me as if she knew me, and then gasps 'Gerald,' and +started crying." + +"Gerald is the name of some one she once knew." + +"So I thought." There was a long silence, in which they could +hear a piteous gulping cough. "Where is he now?" asked Stephen. + +"Dead." + +"And then you--?" + +Rickie nodded. + +"Bad, this sort of thing." + +"I didn't know of this particular thing. She acted as if she had +forgotten him. Perhaps she had, and you woke him up. There are +queer tricks in the world. She is overstrained. She has probably +been plotting ever since you burst in last night." + +"Against me?" + +"Yes." + +Stephen stood irresolute. "I suppose you and she pulled +together?" He said at last. + +"Get away from us, man! I mind losing you. Yet it's as well you +don't stop." + +"Oh, THAT'S out of the question," said Stephen, brushing his cap. + +"If you've guessed anything, I'd be obliged if you didn't mention +it. I've no right to ask, but I'd be obliged." + +He nodded, and walked slowly along the landing and down the +stairs. Rickie accompanied him, and even opened the front door. +It was as if Agnes had absorbed the passion out of both of them. +The suburb was now wrapped in a cloud, not of its own making. +Sigh after sigh passed along its streets to break against +dripping walls. The school, the houses were hidden, and all +civilization seemed in abeyance. Only the simplest sounds, the +simplest desires emerged. They agreed that this weather was +strange after such a sunset. + +"That's a collie," said Stephen, listening. + +"I wish you'd have some breakfast before starting." + +"No food, thanks. But you know" He paused. "It's all been a +muddle, and I've no objection to your coming along with me." + +The cloud descended lower. + +"Come with me as a man," said Stephen, already out in the mist. +"Not as a brother; who cares what people did years back? We're +alive together, and the rest is cant. Here am I, Rickie, and +there are you, a fair wreck. They've no use for you here,--never +had any, if the truth was known,--and they've only made you +beastly. This house, so to speak, has the rot. It's common-sense +that you should come." + +"Stephen, wait a minute. What do you mean?" + +"Wait's what we won't do," said Stephen at the gate. + +"I must ask--" + +He did wait for a minute, and sobs were heard, faint, hopeless, +vindictive. Then he trudged away, and Rickie soon lost his colour +and his form. But a voice persisted, saying, "Come, I do mean it. +Come; I will take care of you, I can manage you." + +The words were kind; yet it was not for their sake that Rickie +plunged into the impalpable cloud. In the voice he had found a +surer guarantee. Habits and sex may change with the new +generation, features may alter with the play of a private +passion, but a voice is apart from these. It lies nearer to the +racial essence and perhaps to the divine; it can, at all events, +overleap one grave. + + + +XXXII + +Mr. Pembroke did not receive a clear account of what had happened +when he returned for the interval. His sister--he told her +frankly--was concealing something from him. She could make no +reply. Had she gone mad, she wondered. Hitherto she had pretended +to love her husband. Why choose such a moment for the truth? + +"But I understand Rickie's position," he told her. "It is an +unbalanced position, yet I understand it; I noted its approach +while he was ill. He imagines himself his brother's keeper. +Therefore we must make concessions. We must negotiate." The +negotiations were still progressing in November, the month during +which this story draws to its close. + +"I understand his position," he then told her. "It is both weak +and defiant. He is still with those Ansells. Read this letter, +which thanks me for his little stories. We sent them last month, +you remember--such of them as we could find. It seems that he +fills up his time by writing: he has already written a book." + +She only gave him half her attention, for a beautiful wreath had +just arrived from the florist's. She was taking it up to the +cemetery: today her child had been dead a year. + +"On the other hand, he has altered his will. Fortunately, he +cannot alter much. But I fear that what is not settled on you, +will go. Should I read what I wrote on this point, and also my +minutes of the interview with old Mr. Ansell, and the copy of my +correspondence with Stephen Wonham?" + +But her fly was announced. While he put the wreath in for her, +she ran for a moment upstairs. A few tears had come to her eyes. +A scandalous divorce would have been more bearable than this +withdrawal. People asked, "Why did her husband leave her?" and +the answer came, "Oh, nothing particular; he only couldn't stand +her; she lied and taught him to lie; she kept him from the work +that suited him, from his friends, from his brother,--in a word, +she tried to run him, which a man won't pardon." A few tears; not +many. To her, life never showed itself as a classic drama, in +which, by trying to advance our fortunes, we shatter them. She +had turned Stephen out of Wiltshire, and he fell like a +thunderbolt on Sawston and on herself. In trying to gain Mrs. +Failing's money she had probably lost money which would have been +her own. But irony is a subtle teacher, and she was not the woman +to learn from such lessons as these. Her suffering was more +direct. Three men had wronged her; therefore she hated them, and, +if she could, would do them harm. + +"These negotiations are quite useless," she told Herbert when she +came downstairs. "We had much better bide our time. Tell me just +about Stephen Wonham, though." + +He drew her into the study again. "Wonham is or was in Scotland, +learning to farm with connections of the Ansells: I believe the +money is to go towards setting him up. Apparently he is a hard +worker. He also drinks!" + +She nodded and smiled. "More than he did?" + +"My informant, Mr. Tilliard--oh, I ought not to have mentioned +his name. He is one of the better sort of Rickie's Cambridge +friends, and has been dreadfully grieved at the collapse, but he +does not want to be mixed up in it. This autumn he was up in the +Lowlands, close by, and very kindly made a few unobtrusive +inquiries for me. The man is becoming an habitual drunkard." + +She smiled again. Stephen had evoked her secret, and she hated +him more for that than for anything else that he had done. The +poise of his shoulders that morning--it was no more--had recalled +Gerald. + +If only she had not been so tired! He had reminded her of the +greatest thing she had known, and to her cloudy mind this seemed +degradation. She had turned to him as to her lover; with a look, +which a man of his type understood, she had asked for his pity; +for one terrible moment she had desired to be held in his arms. +Even Herbert was surprised when she said, "I'm glad he drinks. I +hope he'll kill himself. A man like that ought never to have been +born." + +"Perhaps the sins of the parents are visited on the children," +said Herbert, taking her to the carriage. "Yet it is not for us +to decide." + +"I feel sure he will be punished. What right has he--" She broke +off. What right had he to our common humanity? It was a hard +lesson for any one to learn. For Agnes it was impossible. +Stephen was illicit, abnormal, worse than a man diseased. Yet she +had turned to him: he had drawn out the truth. + +"My dear, don't cry," said her brother, drawing up the windows. +"I have great hopes of Mr. Tilliard--the Silts have written--Mrs. +Failing will do what she can--" + +As she drove to the cemetery, her bitterness turned against +Ansell, who had kept her husband alive in the days after +Stephen's expulsion. If he had not been there, Rickie would have +renounced his mother and his brother and all the outer world, +troubling no one. The mystic, inherent in him, would have +prevailed. So Ansell himself had told her. And Ansell, too, had +sheltered the fugitives and given them money, and saved them +from the ludicrous checks that so often stop young men. But when +she reached the cemetery, and stood beside the tiny grave, all +her bitterness, all her hatred were turned against Rickie. + +"But he'll come back in the end," she thought. "A wife has only +to wait. What are his friends beside me? They too will marry. I +have only to wait. His book, like all that he has done, will +fail. His brother is drinking himself away. Poor aimless Rickie! +I have only to keep civil. He will come back in the end." + +She had moved, and found herself close to the grave of Gerald. +The flowers she had planted after his death were dead, and she +had not liked to renew them. There lay the athlete, and his dust +was as the little child's whom she had brought into the world +with such hope, with such pain. + + + +XXXIII + +That same day Rickie, feeling neither poor nor aimless, left the +Ansells' for a night's visit to Cadover. His aunt had invited +him--why, he could not think, nor could he think why he should +refuse the invitation. She could not annoy him now, and he was +not vindictive. In the dell near Madingley he had cried, "I hate +no one," in his ignorance. Now, with full knowledge, he hated no +one again. The weather was pleasant, the county attractive, and +he was ready for a little change. + +Maud and Stewart saw him off. Stephen, who was down for the +holiday, had been left with his chin on the luncheon table. He +had wanted to come also. Rickie pointed out that you cannot visit +where you have broken the windows. There was an argument--there +generally was--and now the young man had turned sulky. + +"Let him do what he likes," said Ansell. "He knows more than we +do. He knows everything." + +"Is he to get drunk?" Rickie asked. + +"Most certainly." + +"And to go where he isn't asked?" + +Maud, though liking a little spirit in a man, declared this to be +impossible. + +"Well, I wish you joy!" Rickie called, as the train moved away. +"He means mischief this evening. He told me piously that he felt +it beating up. Good-bye!" + +"But we'll wait for you to pass," they cried. For the Salisbury +train always backed out of the station and then returned, and the +Ansell family, including Stewart, took an incredible pleasure in +seeing it do this. + +The carriage was empty. Rickie settled himself down for his +little journey. First he looked at the coloured photographs. Then +he read the directions for obtaining luncheon-baskets, and felt +the texture of the cushions. Through the windows a signal-box +interested him. Then he saw the ugly little town that was now his +home, and up its chief street the Ansells' memorable facade. The +spirit of a genial comedy dwelt there. It was so absurd, so +kindly. The house was divided against itself and yet stood. +Metaphysics, commerce, social aspirations--all lived together in +harmony. Mr. Ansell had done much, but one was tempted to believe +in a more capricious power--the power that abstains from +"nipping." "One nips or is nipped, and never knows +beforehand," quoted Rickie, and opened the poems of Shelley, a +man less foolish than you supposed. How pleasant it was to read! +If business worried him, if Stephen was noisy or Ansell perverse, +there still remained this paradise of books. It seemed as if he +had read nothing for two years. +Then the train stopped for the shunting, and he heard protests +from minor officials who were working on the line. They +complained that some one who didn't ought to, had mounted on +the footboard of the carriage. Stephen's face appeared, convulsed +with laughter. With the action of a swimmer he dived in through +the open window, and fell comfortably on Rickie's luggage and +Rickie. He declared it was the finest joke ever known. Rickie was +not so sure. "You'll be run over next," he said. "What did you do +that for?" + +"I'm coming with you," he giggled, rolling all that he could on +to the dusty floor. + +"Now, Stephen, this is too bad. Get up. We went into the whole +question yesterday." + +"I know; and I settled we wouldn't go into it again, spoiling my +holiday." + +"Well, it's execrable taste." + +Now he was waving to the Ansells, and showing them a piece of +soap: it was all his luggage, and even that he abandoned, for he +flung it at Stewart's lofty brow. + +"I can't think what you've done it for. You know how strongly I +felt." + +Stephen replied that he should stop in the village; meet Rickie +at the lodge gates; that kind of thing. + +"It's execrable taste," he repeated, trying to keep grave. + +"Well, you did all you could," he exclaimed with sudden sympathy. +"Leaving me talking to old Ansell, you might have thought you'd +got your way. I've as much taste as most chaps, but, hang it! +your aunt isn't the German Emperor. She doesn't own Wiltshire." + +"You ass!" sputtered Rickie, who had taken to laugh at nonsense +again. + +"No, she isn't," he repeated, blowing a kiss out of the window to +maidens. "Why, we started for Wiltshire on the wet morning!" + +"When Stewart found us at Sawston railway station?" He smiled +happily. "I never thought we should pull through." + +"Well, we DIDN'T. We never did what we meant. It's nonsense that +I couldn't have managed you alone. I've a notion. Slip out after +your dinner this evening, and we'll get thundering tight +together." + +"I've a notion I won't." + +"It'd do you no end of good. You'll get to know people-- +shepherds, carters--" He waved his arms vaguely, indicating +democracy. "Then you'll sing." + +"And then?" + +"Plop." + +"Precisely." + +"But I'll catch you," promised Stephen. "We shall carry you up +the hill to bed. In the morning you wake, have your row with old +Em'ly, she kicks you out, we meet--we'll meet at the Rings!" He +danced up and down the carriage. Some one in the next carriage +punched at the partition, and when this happens, all lads with +mettle know that they must punch the partition back. + +"Thank you. I've a notion I won't," said Rickie when the noise +had subsided--subsided for a moment only, for the following +conversation took place to an accompaniment of dust and bangs. +"Except as regards the Rings. We will meet there." + +"Then I'll get tight by myself." + +"No, you won't." + +"Yes, I will. I swore to do something special this evening. I +feel like it." + +"In that case, I get out at the next station." He was laughing, +but quite determined. Stephen had grown too dictatorial of late. +The Ansells spoilt him. "It's bad enough having you there at all. +Having you there drunk is impossible. I'd sooner not visit my +aunt than think, when I sat with her, that you're down in the +village teaching her labourers to be as beastly as yourself. Go +if you will. But not with me." + +"Why shouldn't I have a good time while I'm young, if I don't +harm any one?" said Stephen defiantly. + +"Need we discuss self." + +"Oh, I can stop myself any minute I choose. I just say 'I won't' +to you or any other fool, and I don't." + +Rickie knew that the boast was true. He continued, "There is also +a thing called Morality. You may learn in the Bible, and also +from the Greeks, that your body is a temple." + +"So you said in your longest letter." + +"Probably I wrote like a prig, for the reason that I have never +been tempted in this way; but surely it is wrong that your body +should escape you." + +"I don't follow," he retorted, punching. + +"It isn't right, even for a little time, to forget that you +exist." + +"I suppose you've never been tempted to go to sleep?" + +Just then the train passed through a coppice in which the grey +undergrowth looked no more alive than firewood. Yet every twig in +it was waiting for the spring. Rickie knew that the analogy was +false, but argument confused him, and he gave up this line of +attack also. + +"Do be more careful over life. If your body escapes you in one +thing, why not in more? A man will have other temptations." + +"You mean women," said Stephen quietly, pausing for a moment in +this game. "But that's absolutely different. That would be +harming some one else." + +"Is that the only thing that keeps you straight?" + +"What else should?" And he looked not into Rickie, but past him, +with the wondering eyes of a child. Rickie nodded, and referred +himself to the window. + +He observed that the country was smoother and more plastic. The +woods had gone, and under a pale-blue sky long contours of earth +were flowing, and merging, rising a little to bear some coronal +of beeches, parting a little to disclose some green valley, where +cottages stood under elms or beside translucent waters. It was +Wiltshire at last. The train had entered the chalk. At last it +slackened at a wayside platform. Without speaking he opened the +door. + +"What's that for?" + +"To go back." + +Stephen had forgotten the threat. He said that this was not +playing the game. + +"Surely!" + +"I can't have you going back." + +"Promise to behave decently then." + +He was seized and pulled away from the door. + +"We change at Salisbury," he remarked. "There is an hour to +wait. You will find me troublesome." + +"It isn't fair," exploded Stephen. "It's a lowdown trick. How can +I let you go back?" + +"Promise, then." + +"Oh, yes, yes, yes. Y.M.C.A. But for this occasion only." + +"No, no. For the rest of your holiday." + +"Yes, yes. Very well. I promise." + +"For the rest of your life?" + +Somehow it pleased him that Stephen should bang him crossly with +his elbow and say, "No. Get out. You've gone too far." So had the +train. The porter at the end of the wayside platform slammed the +door, and they proceeded toward Salisbury through the slowly +modulating downs. Rickie pretended to read. Over the book he +watched his brother's face, and wondered how bad temper could be +consistent with a mind so radiant. In spite of his obstinacy and +conceit, Stephen was an easy person to live with. He never +fidgeted or nursed hidden grievances, or indulged in a shoddy +pride. Though he spent Rickie's money as slowly as he could, he +asked for it without apology: "You must put it down against me," +he would say. In time--it was still very vague--he would rent or +purchase a farm. There is no formula in which we may sum up +decent people. So Ansell had preached, and had of course +proceeded to offer a formula: "They must be serious, they must be +truthful." Serious not in the sense of glum; but they must be +convinced that our life is a state of some importance, and our +earth not a place to beat time on. Of so much Stephen was +convinced: he showed it in his work, in his play, in his +self-respect, and above all--though the fact is hard to face-in +his sacred passion for alcohol. Drink, today, is an unlovely +thing. Between us and the heights of Cithaeron the river of sin +now flows. Yet the cries still call from the mountain, and +granted a man has responded to them, it is better he respond with +the candour of the Greek. + +"I shall stop at the Thompsons' now," said the disappointed +reveller. "Prayers." + +Rickie did not press his triumph, but it was a happy moment, +partly because of the triumph, partly because he was sure that +his brother must care for him. Stephen was too selfish to give up +any pleasure without grave reasons. He was certain that he had +been right to disentangle himself from Sawston, and to ignore the +threats and tears that still tempted him to return. Here there +was real work for him to do. Moreover, though he sought no +reward, it had come. His health was better, his brain sound, his +life washed clean, not by the waters of sentiment, but by the +efforts of a fellow-man. Stephen was man first, brother +afterwards. Herein lay his brutality and also his virtue. "Look +me in the face. Don't hang on me clothes that don't belong--as +you did on your wife, giving her saint's robes, whereas she was +simply a woman of her own sort, who needed careful watching. Tear +up the photographs. Here am I, and there are you. The rest is +cant." The rest was not cant, and perhaps Stephen would confess +as much in time. But Rickie needed a tonic, and a man, not a +brother, must hold it to his lips. + +"I see the old spire," he called, and then added, "I don't mind +seeing it again." + +"No one does, as far as I know. People have come from the other +side of the world to see it again." + +"Pious people. But I don't hold with bishops." He was young +enough to be uneasy. The cathedral, a fount of superstition, must +find no place in his life. At the age of twenty he had settled +things. + +"I've got my own philosophy," he once told Ansell, "and I don't +care a straw about yours." Ansell's mirth had annoyed him not a +little. And it was strange that one so settled should feel his +heart leap up at the sight of an old spire. "I regard it as a +public building," he told Rickie, who agreed. "It's useful, too, +as a landmark." His attitude today was defensive. It was part of +a subtle change that Rickie had noted in him since his return +from Scotland. His face gave hints of a new maturity. "You can +see the old spire from the Ridgeway," he said, suddenly laying a +hand on Rickie's knee, "before rain as clearly as any telegraph +post." + +"How far is the Ridgeway?" + +"Seventeen miles." + +"Which direction?" + +"North, naturally. North again from that you see Devizes, the +vale of Pewsey, and the other downs. Also towards Bath. It is +something of a view. You ought to get on the Ridgeway." + +"I shouldn't have time for that." + +"Or Beacon Hill. Or let's do Stonehenge." + +"If it's fine, I suggest the Rings." + +"It will be fine." Then he murmured the names of villages. + +"I wish you could live here," said Rickie kindly. "I believe you +love these particular acres more than the whole world." + +Stephen replied that this was not the case: he was only used to +them. He wished they were driving out, instead of waiting for the +Cadchurch train. + +They had advanced into Salisbury, and the cathedral, a public +building, was grey against a tender sky. Rickie suggested that, +while waiting for the train, they should visit it. He spoke of +the incomparable north porch. +"I've never been inside it, and I never will. Sorry to shock you, +Rickie, but I must tell you plainly. I'm an atheist. I don't +believe in anything." + +"I do," said Rickie. + +"When a man dies, it's as if he's never been," he asserted. The +train drew up in Salisbury station. Here a little incident took +place which caused them to alter their plans. + +They found outside the station a trap driven by a small boy, who +had come in from Cadford to fetch some wire-netting. "That'll do +us," said Stephen, and called to the boy, "If I pay your +railway-ticket back, and if I give you sixpence as well, will you +let us drive back in the trap?" The boy said no. "It will be all +right," said Rickie. "I am Mrs. Failing's nephew." The boy shook +his head. "And you know Mr. Wonham?" The boy couldn't say he +didn't. "Then what's your objection? Why? What is it? Why not?" +But Stephen leant against the time-tables and spoke of other +matters. + +Presently the boy said, "Did you say you'd pay my railway-ticket +back, Mr. Wonham?" + +"Yes," said a bystander. "Didn't you hear him?" + +"I heard him right enough." + +Now Stephen laid his hand on the splash-board, saying, "What I +want, though, is this trap here of yours, see, to drive in back +myself;" and as he spoke the bystander followed him in canon, +"What he wants, though, is that there trap of yours, see, to +drive hisself back in." + +"I've no objection," said the boy, as if deeply offended. For a +time he sat motionless, and then got down, remarking, "I won't +rob you of your sixpence." + +"Silly little fool," snapped Rickie, as they drove through the +town. + +Stephen looked surprised. "What's wrong with the boy? He had to +think it over. No one had asked him to do such a thing before. +Next time he'd let us have the trap quick enough." + +"Not if he had driven in for a cabbage instead of wire-netting." + +"He never would drive in for a cabbage." + +Rickie shuffled his feet. But his irritation passed. He saw that +the little incident had been a quiet challenge to the +civilization that he had known. "Organize." "Systematize." "Fill +up every moment," "Induce esprit de corps." He reviewed the +watchwords of the last two years, and found that they ignored +personal contest, personal truces, personal love. By following +them Sawston School had lost its quiet usefulness and become a +frothy sea, wherein plunged Dunwood House, that unnecessary ship. +Humbled, he turned to Stephen and said, "No, you're right. +Nothing is wrong with the boy. He was honestly thinking it out." +But Stephen had forgotten the incident, or else he was not +inclined to talk about it. His assertive fit was over. + +The direct road from Salisbury to Cadover is extremely dull. The +city--which God intended to keep by the river; did she not move +there, being thirsty, in the reign of William Rufus?--the city +had strayed out of her own plain, climbed up her slopes, and +tumbled over them in ugly cataracts of brick. The cataracts are +still short, and doubtless they meet or create some commercial +need. But instead of looking towards the cathedral, as all the +city should, they look outwards at a pagan entrenchment, as the +city should not. They neglect the poise of the earth, and the +sentiments she has decreed. They are the modern spirit. + +Through them the road descends into an unobtrusive country where, +nevertheless, the power of the earth grows stronger. Streams do +divide. Distances do still exist. It is easier to know the men in +your valley than those who live in the next, across a waste of +down. It is easier to know men well. The country is not paradise, +and can show the vices that grieve a good man everywhere. But +there is room in it, and leisure. + +"I suppose," said Rickie as the twilight fell, "this kind of +thing is going on all over England." Perhaps he meant that towns +are after all excrescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying +to find one another, have lost themselves. But he got no +response, and expected none. Turning round in his seat, he +watched the winter sun slide out of a quiet sky. The horizon was +primrose, and the earth against it gave momentary hints of +purple. All faded: no pageant would conclude the gracious day, +and when he turned eastward the night was already established. + +"Those verlands--" said Stephen, scarcely above his breath. + +"What are verlands?" + +He pointed at the dusk, and said, "Our name for a kind of field." +Then he drove his whip into its socket,and seemed to swallow +something. Rickie, straining his eyes for verlands, could only +see a tumbling wilderness of brown. + +"Are there many local words?" + +"There have been." + +"I suppose they die out." + +The conversation turned curiously. In the tone of one who +replies, he said, "I expect that some time or other I shall +marry." + +"I expect you will," said Rickie, and wondered a little why the +reply seemed not abrupt. "Would we see the Rings in the daytime +from here?" + +"(We do see them.) But Mrs. Failing once said no decent woman +would have me." + +"Did you agree to that?" + +"Drive a little, will you?" + +The horse went slowly forward into the wilderness, that turned +from brown to black. Then a luminous glimmer surrounded them, and +the air grew cooler: the road was descending between parapets of +chalk. + +"But, Rickie, mightn't I find a girl--naturally not refined--and +be happy with her in my own way? I would tell her straight I was +nothing much--faithful, of course, but that she should never have +all my thoughts. Out of no disrespect to her, but because all +one's thoughts can't belong to any single person." + +While he spoke even the road vanished, and invisible water came +gurgling through the wheel-spokes. The horse had chosen the ford. +"You can't own people. At least a fellow can't. It may be +different for a poet. (Let the horse drink.) And I want to marry +some one, and don't yet know who she is, which a poet again will +tell you is disgusting. Does it disgust you? Being nothing much, +surely I'd better go gently. For it's something rather outside +that makes one marry, if you follow me: not exactly oneself. +(Don't hurry the horse.) We want to marry, and yet--I can't +explain. I fancy I'll go wading: this is our stream." + +Romantic love is greater than this. There are men and women--we +know it from history--who have been born into the world for each +other, and for no one else, who have accomplished the longest +journey locked in each other's arms. But romantic love is also +the code of modern morals, and, for this reason, popular. Eternal +union, eternal ownership--these are tempting baits for the +average man. He swallows them, will not confess his mistake, +and--perhaps to cover it--cries "dirty cynic" at such a man as +Stephen. + +Rickie watched the black earth unite to the black sky. But the +sky overhead grew clearer, and in it twinkled the Plough and the +central stars. He thought of his brother's future and of his own +past, and of how much truth might lie in that antithesis of +Ansell's: "A man wants to love mankind, a woman wants to love one +man." At all events, he and his wife had illustrated it, and +perhaps the conflict, so tragic in their own case, was elsewhere +the salt of the world. Meanwhile Stephen called from the water +for matches: there was some trick with paper which Mr. Failing +had showed him, and which he would show Rickie now, instead of +talking nonsense. Bending down, he illuminated the dimpled +surface of the ford. "Quite a current." he said, and his face +flickered out in the darkness. "Yes, give me the loose paper, +quick! Crumple it into a ball." + +Rickie obeyed, though intent on the transfigured face. He +believed that a new spirit dwelt there, expelling the crudities +of youth. He saw steadier eyes, and the sign of manhood set like +a bar of gold upon steadier lips. Some faces are knit by beauty, +or by intellect, or by a great passion: had Stephen's waited for +the touch of the years? + +But they played as boys who continued the nonsense of the railway +carriage. The paper caught fire from the match, and spread into a +rose of flame. "Now gently with me," said Stephen, and they laid +it flowerlike on the stream. Gravel and tremulous weeds leapt +into sight, and then the flower sailed into deep water, and up +leapt the two arches of a bridge. "It'll strike!" they cried; +"no, it won't; it's chosen the left," and one arch became a fairy +tunnel, dropping diamonds. Then it vanished for Rickie; but +Stephen, who knelt in the water, declared that it was still +afloat, far through the arch, burning as if it would burn +forever. + + +XXXIV + +The carriage that Mrs. Failing had sent to meet her nephew +returned from Cadchurch station empty. She was preparing for a +solitary dinner when he somehow arrived, full of apologies, but +more sedate than she had expected. She cut his explanations +short. "Never mind how you got here. You are here, and I am quite +pleased to see you." He changed his clothes and they proceeded to +the dining-room. + +There was a bright fire, but the curtains were not drawn. Mr. +Failing had believed that windows with the night behind are more +beautiful than any pictures, and his widow had kept to the +custom. It was brave of her to persevere, lumps of chalk having +come out of the night last June. For some obscure reason--not so +obscure to Rickie--she had preserved them as mementoes of an +episode. Seeing them in a row on the mantelpiece, he expected +that their first topic would be Stephen. But they never mentioned +him, though he was latent in all that they said. + +It was of Mr. Failing that they spoke. The Essays had been a +success. She was really pleased. The book was brought in at her +request, and between the courses she read it aloud to her nephew, +in her soft yet unsympathetic voice. Then she sent for the press +notices--after all no one despises them--and read their comments +on her introduction. She wielded a graceful pen, was apt, +adequate, suggestive, indispensable, unnecessary. So the meal +passed pleasantly away, for no one could so well combine the +formal with the unconventional, and it only seemed charming when +papers littered her stately table. + +"My man wrote very nicely," she observed. "Now, you read me +something out of him that you like. Read 'The True Patriot.'" + +He took the book and found: "Let us love one another. Let our +children, physical and spiritual, love one another. It is all +that we can do. Perhaps the earth will neglect our love. Perhaps +she will confirm it, and suffer some rallying-point, spire, +mound, for the new generatons to cherish." + +"He wrote that when he was young. Later on he doubted whether we +had better love one another, or whether the earth will confirm +anything. He died a most unhappy man." + +He could not help saying, "Not knowing that the earth had +confirmed him." + +"Has she? It is quite possible. We meet so seldom in these days, +she and I. Do you see much of the earth?" + +"A little." + +"Do you expect that she will confirm you?" + +"It is quite possible." + +"Beware of her, Rickie, I think." + +"I think not." + +"Beware of her, surely. Going back to her really is going back-- +throwing away the artificiality which (though you young people +won't confess it) is the only good thing in life. Don't pretend +you are simple. Once I pretended. Don't pretend that you care for +anything but for clever talk such as this, and for books." + +"The talk," said Leighton afterwards, "certainly was clever. But +it meant something, all the same." He heard no more, for his +mistress told him to retire. + +"And my nephew, this being so, make up your quarrel with your +wife." She stretched out her hand to him with real feeling. "It +is easier now than it will be later. Poor lady, she has written +to me foolishly and often, but, on the whole, I side with her +against you. She would grant you all that you fought for--all the +people, all the theories. I have it, in her writing, that she +will never interfere with your life again." + +"She cannot help interfering," said Rickie, with his eyes on the +black windows. "She despises me. Besides, I do not love her." + +"I know, my dear. Nor she you. I am not being sentimental. I say +once more, beware of the earth. We are conventional people, and +conventions--if you will but see it--are majestic in their way, +and will claim us in the end. We do not live for great passions +or for great memories, or for anything great." + +He threw up his head. "We do." + +"Now listen to me. I am serious and friendly tonight, as you must +have observed. I have asked you here partly to amuse myself--you +belong to my March Past--but also to give you good advice. There +has been a volcano--a phenomenon which I too once greatly +admired. The eruption is over. Let the conventions do their work +now, and clear the rubbish away. My age is fifty-nine, and I tell +you solemnly that the important things in life are little things, +and that people are not important at all. Go back to your wife." + +He looked at her, and was filled with pity. He knew that he would +never be frightened of her again. Only because she was serious +and friendly did he trouble himself to reply. "There is one +little fact I should like to tell you, as confuting your theory. +The idea of a story--a long story--had been in my head for a +year. As a dream to amuse myself--the kind of amusement you would +recommend for the future. I should have had time to write it, but +the people round me coloured my life, and so it never seemed +worth while. For the story is not likely to pay. Then came the +volcano. A few days after it was over I lay in bed looking out +upon a world of rubbish. Two men I know--one intellectual, the +other very much the reverse--burst into the room. They said, +'What happened to your short stories? They weren't good, but +where are they? Why have you stopped writing? Why haven't you +been to Italy? You must write. You must go. Because to write, to +go, is you." Well, I have written, and yesterday we sent the long +story out on its rounds. The men do not like it, for different +reasons. But it mattered very much to them that I should write +it, and so it got written. As I told you, this is only one fact; +other facts, I trust, have happened in the last five months. But +I mention it to prove that people are important, and therefore, +however much it inconveniences my wife, I will not go back to +her." + +"And Italy?" asked Mrs. Failing. + +This question he avoided. Italy must wait. Now that he had the +time, he had not the money. + +"Or what is the long story about, then?" + +"About a man and a woman who meet and are happy." + +"Somewhat of a tour de force, I conclude." + +He frowned. "In literature we needn't intrude our own +limitations. I'm not so silly as to think that all marriages turn +out like mine. My character is to blame for our catastrophe, not +marriage." + +"My dear, I too have married; marriage is to blame." + +But here again he seemed to know better. + +"Well," she said, leaving the table and moving with her dessert +to the mantelpiece, "so you are abandoning marriage and taking to +literature. And are happy." + +"Yes." + +"Because, as we used to say at Cambridge, the cow is there. The +world is real again. This is a room, that a window, outside is +the night " + +"Go on." + +He pointed to the floor. "The day is straight below, shining +through other windows into other rooms." + +"You are very odd," she said after a pause, "and I do not like +you at all. There you sit, eating my biscuits, and all the time +you know that the earth is round. Who taught you? I am going to +bed now, and all the night, you tell me, you and I and the +biscuits go plunging eastwards, until we reach the sun. But +breakfast will be at nine as usual. Good-night." + +She rang the bell twice, and her maid came with her candle and +her walking-stick: it was her habit of late to go to her room as +soon as dinner was over, for she had no one to sit up with. +Rickie was impressed by her loneliness, and also by the mixture +in her of insight and obtuseness. She was so quick, so +clear-headed, so imaginative even. But all the same, she had +forgotten what people were like. Finding life dull, she had +dropped lies into it, as a chemist drops a new element into a +solution, hoping that life would thereby sparkle or turn some +beautiful colour. She loved to mislead others, and in the end her +private view of false and true was obscured, and she misled +herself. How she must have enjoyed their errors over Stephen! But +her own error had been greater, inasmuch as it was spiritual +entirely. + +Leighton came in with some coffee. Feeling it unnecessary to +light the drawing-room lamp for one small young man, he persuaded +Rickie to say he preferred the dining-room. So Rickie sat down by +the fire playing with one of the lumps of chalk. His thoughts +went back to the ford, from which they had scarcely wandered. +Still he heard the horse in the dark drinking, still he saw the +mystic rose, and the tunnel dropping diamonds. He had driven away +alone, believing the earth had confirmed him. He stood behind +things at last, and knew that conventions are not majestic, and +that they will not claim us in the end. + +As he mused, the chalk slipped from his fingers, and fell on the +coffee-cup, which broke. The china, said Leighton, was expensive. +He believed it was impossible to match it now. Each cup was +different. It was a harlequin set. The saucer, without the cup, +was therefore useless. Would Mr. Elliot please explain to Mrs. +Failing how it happened. + +Rickie promised he would explain. + +He had left Stephen preparing to bathe, and had heard him working +up-stream like an animal, splashing in the shallows, breathing +heavily as he swam the pools; at times reeds snapped, or clods of +earth were pulled in. By the fire he remembered it was again +November. "Should you like a walk?" he asked Leighton, and told +him who stopped in the village tonight. Leighton was pleased. At +nine o'clock the two young men left the house, under a sky that +was still only bright in the zenith. "It will rain tomorrow," +Leighton said. + +"My brother says, fine tomorrow." + +"Fine tomorrow," Leighton echoed. + +"Now which do you mean?" asked Rickie, laughing. + +Since the plumes of the fir-trees touched over the drive, only a +very little light penetrated. It was clearer outside the lodge +gate, and bubbles of air, which Wiltshire seemed to have +travelled from an immense distance, broke gently and separately +on his face. They paused on the bridge. He asked whether the +little fish and the bright green weeds were here now as well as +in the summer. The footman had not noticed. Over the bridge they +came to the cross-roads, of which one led to Salisbury and the +other up through the string of villages to the railway station. +The road in front was only the Roman road, the one that went on +to the downs. Turning to the left, they were in Cadford. + +"He will be with the Thompsons," said Rickie, looking up at dark +eaves. "Perhaps he's in bed already." + +"Perhaps he will be at The Antelope." + +"No. Tonight he is with the Thompsons." + +"With the Thompsons." After a dozen paces he said, "The Thompsons +have gone away." + +"Where? Why?" + +"They were turned out by Mr. Wilbraham on account of our broken +windows." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Five families were turned out." + +"That's bad for Stephen," said Rickie, after a pause. "He was +looking forward--oh, it's monstrous in any case!" + +"But the Thompsons have gone to London," said Leighton. "Why, +that family--they say it's been in the valley hundreds of years, +and never got beyond shepherding. To various parts of London." + +"Let us try The Antelope, then." + +"Let us try The Antelope." + +The inn lay up in the village. Rickie hastened his pace. This +tyranny was monstrous. Some men of the age of undergraduates had +broken windows, and therefore they and their families were to be +ruined. The fools who govern us find it easier to be severe. It +saves them trouble to say, "The innocent must suffer with the +guilty." It even gives them a thrill of pride. Against all this +wicked nonsense, against the Wilbrahams and Pembrokes who try to +rule our world Stephen would fight till he died. Stephen was a +hero. He was a law to himself, and rightly. He was great enough +to despise our small moralities. He was attaining love. This eve- +ning Rickie caught Ansell's enthusiasm, and felt it worth while +to sacrifice everything for such a man. + +"The Antelope," said Leighton. "Those lights under the greatest +elm." + +"Would you please ask if he's there, and if he'd come for a turn +with me. I don't think I'll go in." + +Leighton opened the door. They saw a little room, blue with +tobacco-smoke. Flanking the fire were deep settles hiding all but +the legs of the men who lounged in them. Between the settles +stood a table, covered with mugs and glasses. The scene was +picturesque--fairer than the cutglass palaces of the town. + +"Oh yes, he's there," he called, and after a moment's hesitation +came out. + +"Would he come?" + +"No. I shouldn't say so," replied Leighton, with a furtive +glance. He knew that Rickie was a milksop. "First night, you +know, sir, among old friends." + +"Yes, I know," said Rickie. "But he might like a turn down the +village. It looks stuffy inside there, and poor fun probably to +watch others drinking." + +Leighton shut the door. + +"What was that he called after you?" + +"Oh, nothing. A man when he's drunk--he says the worst he's ever +heard. At least, so they say." + +"A man when he's drunk?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"But Stephen isn't drinking?" + +"No, no." + +"He couldn't be. If he broke a promise--I don't pretend he's a +saint. I don't want him one. But it isn't in him to break a +promise." + +"Yes, sir; I understand." + +"In the train he promised me not to drink--nothing theatrical: +just a promise for these few days." + +"No, sir." +"'No, sir,'" stamped Rickie. "'Yes! no! yes!' Can't you speak +out? Is he drunk or isn't he?" + +Leighton, justly exasperated, cried, "He can't stand, and I've +told you so again and again." + +"Stephen!" shouted Rickie, darting up the steps. Heat and the +smell of beer awaited him, and he spoke more furiously than he +had intended. "Is there any one here who's sober?" he cried. The +landlord looked over the bar angrily, and asked him what he +meant. He pointed to the deep settles. "Inside there he's drunk. +Tell him he's broken his word, and I will not go with him to the +Rings." + +"Very well. You won't go with him to the Rings," said the +landlord, stepping forward and slamming the door in his face. + +In the room he was only angry, but out in the cool air he +remembered that Stephen was a law to himself. He had chosen to +break his word, and would break it again. Nothing else bound him. +To yield to temptation is not fatal for most of us. But it was +the end of everything for a hero. + +"He's suddenly ruined!" he cried, not yet remembering himself. +For a little he stood by the elm-tree, clutching the ridges of +its bark. Even so would he wrestle tomorrow, and Stephen, +imperturbable, reply, "My body is my own." Or worse still, he +might wrestle with a pliant Stephen who promised him glibly +again. While he prayed for a miracle to convert his brother, it +struck him that he must pray for himself. For he, too, was +ruined. + +"Why, what's the matter?" asked Leighton. "Stephen's only being +with friends. Mr. Elliot, sir, don't break down. Nothing's +happened bad. No one's died yet, or even hurt themselves." Ever +kind, he took hold of Rickie's arm, and, pitying such a nervous +fellow, set out with him for home. The shoulders of Orion rose +behind them over the topmost boughs of the elm. From the bridge +the whole constellation was visible, and Rickie said, "May God +receive me and pardon me for trusting the earth." + +"But, Mr. Elliot, what have you done that's wrong?" + +"Gone bankrupt, Leighton, for the second time. Pretended again +that people were real. May God have mercy on me!" + +Leighton dropped his arm. Though he did not understand, a chill +of disgust passed over him, and he said, "I will go back to The +Antelope. I will help them put Stephen to bed." + +"Do. I will wait for you here." Then he leant against the parapet +and prayed passionately, for he knew that the conventions would +claim him soon. God was beyond them, but ah, how far beyond, and +to be reached after what degradation! At the end of this childish +detour his wife awaited him, not less surely because she was only +his wife in name. He was too weak. Books and friends were not +enough. Little by little she would claim him and corrupt him and +make him what he had been; and the woman he loved would die out, +in drunkenness, in debauchery, and her strength would be +dissipated by a man, her beauty defiled in a man. She would not +continue. That mystic rose and the face it illumined meant +nothing. The stream--he was above it now--meant nothing, though +it burst from the pure turf and ran for ever to the sea. The +bather, the shoulders of Orion-they all meant nothing, and were +going nowhere. The whole affair was a ridiculous dream. + +Leighton returned, saying, "Haven't you seen Stephen? They say he +followed us: he can still walk: I told you he wasn't so bad." + +"I don't think he passed me. Ought one to look?" He wandered a +little along the Roman road. Again nothing mattered. At the +level-crossing he leant on the gate to watch a slow goods train +pass. In the glare of the engine he saw that his brother had come +this way, perhaps through some sodden memory of the Rings, and +now lay drunk over the rails. Wearily he did a man's duty. There +was time to raise him up and push him into safety. It is also a +man's duty to save his own life, and therefore he tried. The +train went over his knees. He died up in Cadover, whispering, +"You have been right," to Mrs. Failing. + +She wrote of him to Mrs. Lewin afterwards as "one who has failed +in all he undertook; one of the thousands whose dust returns to +the dust, accomplishing nothing in the interval. Agnes and I +buried him to the sound of our cracked bell, and pretended that +he had once been alive. The other, who was always honest, kept +away." + + + +XXXV + +>From the window they looked over a sober valley, whose sides were +not too sloping to be ploughed, and whose trend was followed by a +grass-grown track. It was late on Sunday afternoon, and the +valley was deserted except for one labourer, who was coasting +slowly downward on a rosy bicycle. The air was very quiet. A jay +screamed up in the woods behind, but the ring-doves, who roost +early, were already silent. Since the window opened westward, the +room was flooded with light, and Stephen, finding it hot, was +working in his shirtsleeves. + +"You guarantee they'll sell?" he asked, with a pen between his +teeth. He was tidying up a pile of manuscripts. + +"I guarantee that the world will be the gainer," said Mr. +Pembroke, now a clergyman, who sat beside him at the table with +an expression of refined disapproval on his face. + +"I'd got the idea that the long story had its points, but that +these shorter things didn't--what's the word?" + +"'Convince' is probably the word you want. But that type of +criticism is quite a thing of the past. Have you seen the +illustrated American edition?" + +"I don't remember." + +"Might I send you a copy? I think you ought to possess one." + +"Thank you." His eye wandered. The bicycle had disappeared into +some trees, and thither, through a cloudless sky, the sun was +also descending. + +"Is all quite plain?" said Mr. Pembroke. "Submit these ten +stories to the magazines, and make your own terms with the +editors. Then--I have your word for it--you will join forces with +me; and the four stories in my possession, together with yours, +should make up a volume, which we might well call 'Pan Pipes.'" + +"Are you sure `Pan Pipes' haven't been used up already?" + +Mr. Pembroke clenched his teeth. He had been bearing with this +sort of thing for nearly an hour. "If that is the case, we can +select another. A title is easy to come by. But that is the idea +it must suggest. The stories, as I have twice explained to you, +all centre round a Nature theme. Pan, being the god of--" + +"I know that," said Stephen impatiently. + +"--Being the god of--" + +"All right. Let's get furrard. I've learnt that." + +It was years since the schoolmaster had been interrupted, and he +could not stand it. "Very well," he said. "I bow to your superior +knowledge of the classics. Let us proceed." + +"Oh yes the introduction. There must be one. It was the +introduction with all those wrong details that sold the other +book." + +"You overwhelm me. I never penned the memoir with that +intention." + +"If you won't do one, Mrs. Keynes must!" + +"My sister leads a busy life. I could not ask her. I will do it +myself since you insist." + +"And the binding?" + +"The binding," said Mr. Pembroke coldly, "must really be left to +the discretion of the publisher. We cannot be concerned with such +details. Our task is purely literary." His attention wandered. He +began to fidget, and finally bent down and looked under the +table. "What have we here?" he asked. + +Stephen looked also, and for a moment they smiled at each other +over the prostrate figure of a child, who was cuddling Mr. +Pembroke's boots. "She's after the blacking," he explained. "If +we left her there, she'd lick them brown." + +"Indeed. Is that so very safe?" + +"It never did me any harm. Come up! Your tongue's dirty." + +"Can I--" She was understood to ask whether she could clean her +tongue on a lollie. + +"No, no!" said Mr. Pembroke. "Lollipops don't clean little girls' +tongues." + +"Yes, they do," he retorted. "But she won't get one." He lifted +her on his knee, and rasped her tongue with his handkerchief. + +"Dear little thing," said the visitor perfunctorily. The +child began to squall, and kicked her father in the stomach. +Stephen regarded her quietly. "You tried to hurt me," he said. +"Hurting doesn't count. Trying to hurt counts. Go and clean your +tongue yourself. Get off my knee." Tears of another sort came +into her eyes, but she obeyed him. "How's the great Bertie?" he +asked. + +"Thank you. My nephew is perfectly well. How came you to hear of +his existence?" + +"Through the Silts, of course. It isn't five miles to Cadover." + +Mr. Pembroke raised his eyes mournfully. "I cannot conceive how +the poor Silts go on in that great house. Whatever she intended, +it could not have been that. The house, the farm, the money,-- +everything down to the personal articles that belong to Mr. +Failing, and should have reverted to his family!" + +"It's legal. Interstate succession." + +"I do not dispute it. But it is a lesson to one to make a will. +Mrs. Keynes and myself were electrified." + +"They'll do there. They offered me the agency, but--" He looked +down the cultivated slopes. His manners were growing rough, for +he saw few gentlemen now, and he was either incoherent or else +alarmingly direct. "However, if Lawrie Silt's a Cockney like his +father, and if my next is a boy and like me--" A shy beautiful +look came into his eyes, and passed unnoticed. "They'll do," he +repeated. "They turned out Wilbraham and built new cottages, and +bridged the railway, and made other necessary alterations." There +was a moment's silence. + +Mr. Pembroke took out his watch. "I wonder if I might have the +trap? I mustn't miss my train, must I? It is good of you to have +granted me an interview. It is all quite plain?" + +"Yes." + +"A case of half and half-division of profits." + +"Half and half?" said the young farmer slowly. "What do you take +me for? Half and half, when I provide ten of the stories and you +only four?" + +"I--I--" stammered Mr. Pembroke. + +"I consider you did me over the long story, and I'm damned if you +do me over the short ones!" + +"Hush! if you please, hush!--if only for your little girl's +sake." + +He lifted a clerical palm. + +"You did me," his voice drove, "and all the thirty-nine Articles +won't stop me saying so. That long story was meant to be mine. I +got it written. You've done me out of every penny it fetched. +It's dedicated to me--flat out--and you even crossed out the +dedication and tidied me out of the introduction. Listen to me, +Pembroke. You've done people all your life--I think without +knowing it, but that won't comfort us. A wretched devil at your +school once wrote to me, and he'd been done. Sham food, sham +religion, sham straight talks--and when he broke down, you said +it was the world in miniature." He snatched at him roughly. "But +I'll show you the world." He twisted him round like a baby, and +through the open door they saw only the quiet valley, but in it a +rivulet that would in time bring its waters to the sea. "Look +even at that--and up behind where the Plain begins and you get on +the solid chalk--think of us riding some night when you're +ordering your hot bottle--that's the world, and there's no +miniature world. There's one world, Pembroke, and you can't tidy +men out of it. They answer you back do you hear?--they answer +back if you do them. If you tell a man this way that four sheep +equal ten, he answers back you're a liar." + +Mr. Pembroke was speechless, and--such is human nature--he chiefly +resented the allusion to the hot bottle; an unmanly luxury in which +he never indulged; contenting himself with nightsocks. "Enough-- +there is no witness present--as you have doubtless observed." But +there was. For a little voice cried, "Oh, mummy, they're fighting-- +such fun--" and feet went pattering up the stairs. "Enough. You +talk of 'doing,' but what about the money out of which you 'did' my +sister? What about this picture"--he pointed to a faded photograph +of Stockholm--"which you caused to be filched from the walls of my +house? What about--enough! Let us conclude this disheartening +scene. You object to my terms. Name yours. I shall accept them. +It is futile to reason with one who is the worse for drink." + +Stephen was quiet at once. "Steady on!" he said gently. "Steady +on in that direction. Take one-third for your four stories and +the introduction, and I will keep two-thirds for myself." Then he +went to harness the horse, while Mr. Pembroke, watching his +broad back, desired to bury a knife in it. The desire passed, +partly because it was unclerical, partly because he had no knife, +and partly because he soon blurred over what had happened. To him +all criticism was "rudeness": he never heeded it, for he never +needed it: he was never wrong. All his life he had ordered little +human beings about, and now he was equally magisterial to big +ones: Stephen was a fifth-form lout whom, owing to some flaw in +the regulations, he could not send up to the headmaster to be +caned. + +This attitude makes for tranquillity. Before long he felt merely +an injured martyr. His brain cleared. He stood deep in thought +before the only other picture that the bare room boasted--the +Demeter of Cnidus. Outside the sun was sinking, and its last rays +fell upon the immortal features and the shattered knees. Sweet- +peas offered their fragrance, and with it there entered those +more mysterious scents that come from no one flower or clod of +earth, but from the whole bosom of evening. +He tried not to be cynical. But in his heart he could not regret +that tragedy, already half-forgotten, conventionalized, +indistinct. Of course death is a terrible thing. Yet death is +merciful when it weeds out a failure. If we look deep enough, it +is all for the best. He stared at the picture and nodded. + +Stephen, who had met his visitor at the station, had intended to +drive him back there. But after their spurt of temper he sent him +with the boy. He remained in the doorway, glad that he was going +to make money, glad that he had been angry; while the glow of the +clear sky deepened, and the silence was perfected, and the scents +of the night grew stronger. Old vagrancies awoke, and he resolved +that, dearly as he loved his house, he would not enter it again +till dawn. "Goodnight!" he called, and then the child came +running, and he whispered, "Quick, then! Bring me a rug." +"Good-night," he repeated, and a pleasant voice called through an +upper window, "Why good-night?" He did not answer until the child +was wrapped up in his arms. + +"It is time that she learnt to sleep out," he cried. "If you want +me, we're out on the hillside, where I used to be." + +The voice protested, saying this and that. + +"Stewart's in the house," said the man, "and it cannot matter, +and I am going anyway." + +"Stephen, I wish you wouldn't. I wish you wouldn't take her. +Promise you won't say foolish things to her. Don't--I wish you'd +come up for a minute--" + +The child, whose face was laid against his, felt the muscles in +it harden. + +"Don't tell her foolish things about yourself--things that aren't +any longer true. Don't worry her with old dead dreadfulness. To +please me--don't." + +"Just tonight I won't, then." + +"Stevie, dear, please me more--don't take her with you." + +At this he laughed impertinently. "I suppose I'm being kept in +line," she called, and, though he could not see her, she +stretched her arms towards him. For a time he stood motionless, +under her window, musing on his happy tangible life. Then his +breath quickened, and he wondered why he was here, and why he +should hold a warm child in his arms. "It's time we were +starting," he whispered, and showed the sky, whose orange was +already fading into green. "Wish everything goodnight." + +"Good-night, dear mummy," she said sleepily. "Goodnight, dear +house. Good-night, you pictures--long picture--stone lady. I see +you through the window--your faces are pink." + +The twilight descended. He rested his lips on her hair, and +carried her, without speaking, until he reached the open down. He +had often slept here himself, alone, and on his wedding-night, +and he knew that the turf was dry, and that if you laid your face +to it you would smell the thyme. For a moment the earth aroused +her, and she began to chatter. "My prayers--" she said anxiously. +He gave her one hand, and she was asleep before her fingers had +nestled in its palm. Their touch made him pensive, and again he +marvelled why he, the accident, was here. He was alive and had +created life. By whose authority? Though he could not phrase it, +he believed that he guided the future of our race, and that, +century after century, his thoughts and his passions would +triumph in England. The dead who had evoked him, the unborn whom +he would evoke he governed the paths between them. By whose +authority? + +Out in the west lay Cadover and the fields of his earlier youth, +and over them descended the crescent moon. His eyes followed her +decline, and against her final radiance he saw, or thought he +saw, the outline of the Rings. He had always been grateful, as +people who understood him knew. But this evening his gratitude +seemed a gift of small account. The ear was deaf, and what thanks +of his could reach it? The body was dust, and in what ecstasy of +his could it share? The spirit had fled, in agony and loneliness, +never to know that it bequeathed him salvation. + +He filled his pipe, and then sat pressing the unlit tobacco with +his thumb. "What am I to do?" he thought. "Can he notice the +things he gave me? A parson would know. But what's a man like me +to do, who works all his life out of doors?" As he wondered, the +silence of the night was broken. The whistle of Mr. Pembroke's +train came faintly, and a lurid spot passed over the land-- +passed, and the silence returned. One thing remained that a man +of his sort might do. He bent down reverently and saluted the +child; to whom he had given the name of their mother. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Longest Journey, by E. M. Forster + diff --git a/old/ljrny10.zip b/old/ljrny10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..53fdccd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ljrny10.zip diff --git a/old/old-2025-05-07/2604-0.txt b/old/old-2025-05-07/2604-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dbe080c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2025-05-07/2604-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11465 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Longest Journey, by E. M. Forster + +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 Longest Journey + +Author: E. M. Forster + +Posting Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #2604] +Release Date: April, 2001 +Last Updated: October 14, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONGEST JOURNEY *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + + +THE LONGEST JOURNEY + + +By E. M. Forster + + + + +PART 1 -- CAMBRIDGE + + +I + +“The cow is there,” said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it out +over the carpet. No one spoke. He waited till the end of the match fell +off. Then he said again, “She is there, the cow. There, now.” + +“You have not proved it,” said a voice. + +“I have proved it to myself.” + +“I have proved to myself that she isn’t,” said the voice. “The cow is +not there.” Ansell frowned and lit another match. + +“She’s there for me,” he declared. “I don’t care whether she’s there for +you or not. Whether I’m in Cambridge or Iceland or dead, the cow will be +there.” + +It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects. Do +they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or have they a +real existence of their own? It is all very interesting, but at the same +time it is difficult. Hence the cow. She seemed to make things +easier. She was so familiar, so solid, that surely the truths that she +illustrated would in time become familiar and solid also. Is the cow +there or not? This was better than deciding between objectivity and +subjectivity. So at Oxford, just at the same time, one was asking, “What +do our rooms look like in the vac.?” + +“Look here, Ansell. I’m there--in the meadow--the cow’s there. You’re +there--the cow’s there. Do you agree so far?” “Well?” + +“Well, if you go, the cow stops; but if I go, the cow goes. Then what +will happen if you stop and I go?” + +Several voices cried out that this was quibbling. + +“I know it is,” said the speaker brightly, and silence descended again, +while they tried honestly to think the matter out. + +Rickie, on whose carpet the matches were being dropped, did not like to +join in the discussion. It was too difficult for him. He could not even +quibble. If he spoke, he should simply make himself a fool. He preferred +to listen, and to watch the tobacco-smoke stealing out past the +window-seat into the tranquil October air. He could see the court too, +and the college cat teasing the college tortoise, and the kitchen-men +with supper-trays upon their heads. Hot food for one--that must be for +the geographical don, who never came in for Hall; cold food for three, +apparently at half-a-crown a head, for some one he did not know; hot +food, a la carte--obviously for the ladies haunting the next staircase; +cold food for two, at two shillings--going to Ansell’s rooms for himself +and Ansell, and as it passed under the lamp he saw that it was meringues +again. Then the bedmakers began to arrive, chatting to each other +pleasantly, and he could hear Ansell’s bedmaker say, “Oh dang!” when +she found she had to lay Ansell’s tablecloth; for there was not a breath +stirring. The great elms were motionless, and seemed still in the glory +of midsummer, for the darkness hid the yellow blotches on their leaves, +and their outlines were still rounded against the tender sky. Those elms +were Dryads--so Rickie believed or pretended, and the line between the +two is subtler than we admit. At all events they were lady trees, and +had for generations fooled the college statutes by their residence in +the haunts of youth. + +But what about the cow? He returned to her with a start, for this would +never do. He also would try to think the matter out. Was she there or +not? The cow. There or not. He strained his eyes into the night. + +Either way it was attractive. If she was there, other cows were there +too. The darkness of Europe was dotted with them, and in the far East +their flanks were shining in the rising sun. Great herds of them stood +browsing in pastures where no man came nor need ever come, or plashed +knee-deep by the brink of impassable rivers. And this, moreover, was the +view of Ansell. Yet Tilliard’s view had a good deal in it. One might do +worse than follow Tilliard, and suppose the cow not to be there unless +oneself was there to see her. A cowless world, then, stretched round +him on every side. Yet he had only to peep into a field, and, click! it +would at once become radiant with bovine life. + +Suddenly he realized that this, again, would never do. As usual, he had +missed the whole point, and was overlaying philosophy with gross and +senseless details. For if the cow was not there, the world and the +fields were not there either. And what would Ansell care about sunlit +flanks or impassable streams? Rickie rebuked his own groveling soul, and +turned his eyes away from the night, which had led him to such absurd +conclusions. + +The fire was dancing, and the shadow of Ansell, who stood close up to +it, seemed to dominate the little room. He was still talking, or rather +jerking, and he was still lighting matches and dropping their ends upon +the carpet. Now and then he would make a motion with his feet as if he +were running quickly backward upstairs, and would tread on the edge +of the fender, so that the fire-irons went flying and the buttered-bun +dishes crashed against each other in the hearth. The other philosophers +were crouched in odd shapes on the sofa and table and chairs, and one, +who was a little bored, had crawled to the piano and was timidly trying +the Prelude to Rhinegold with his knee upon the soft pedal. The air was +heavy with good tobacco-smoke and the pleasant warmth of tea, and as +Rickie became more sleepy the events of the day seemed to float one by +one before his acquiescent eyes. In the morning he had read Theocritus, +whom he believed to be the greatest of Greek poets; he had lunched with +a merry don and had tasted Zwieback biscuits; then he had walked with +people he liked, and had walked just long enough; and now his room was +full of other people whom he liked, and when they left he would go and +have supper with Ansell, whom he liked as well as any one. A year ago +he had known none of these joys. He had crept cold and friendless +and ignorant out of a great public school, preparing for a silent and +solitary journey, and praying as a highest favour that he might be left +alone. Cambridge had not answered his prayer. She had taken and soothed +him, and warmed him, and had laughed at him a little, saying that he +must not be so tragic yet awhile, for his boyhood had been but a dusty +corridor that led to the spacious halls of youth. In one year he had +made many friends and learnt much, and he might learn even more if he +could but concentrate his attention on that cow. + +The fire had died down, and in the gloom the man by the piano ventured +to ask what would happen if an objective cow had a subjective calf. +Ansell gave an angry sigh, and at that moment there was a tap on the +door. + +“Come in!” said Rickie. + +The door opened. A tall young woman stood framed in the light that fell +from the passage. + +“Ladies!” whispered every-one in great agitation. + +“Yes?” he said nervously, limping towards the door (he was rather lame). +“Yes? Please come in. Can I be any good--” + +“Wicked boy!” exclaimed the young lady, advancing a gloved finger into +the room. “Wicked, wicked boy!” + +He clasped his head with his hands. + +“Agnes! Oh how perfectly awful!” + +“Wicked, intolerable boy!” She turned on the electric light. The +philosophers were revealed with unpleasing suddenness. “My goodness, +a tea-party! Oh really, Rickie, you are too bad! I say again: wicked, +abominable, intolerable boy! I’ll have you horsewhipped. If you +please”--she turned to the symposium, which had now risen to its feet +“If you please, he asks me and my brother for the week-end. We +accept. At the station, no Rickie. We drive to where his old lodgings +were--Trumpery Road or some such name--and he’s left them. I’m furious, +and before I can stop my brother, he’s paid off the cab and there we are +stranded. I’ve walked--walked for miles. Pray can you tell me what is to +be done with Rickie?” + +“He must indeed be horsewhipped,” said Tilliard pleasantly. Then he made +a bolt for the door. + +“Tilliard--do stop--let me introduce Miss Pembroke--don’t all go!” For +his friends were flying from his visitor like mists before the sun. +“Oh, Agnes, I am so sorry; I’ve nothing to say. I simply forgot you were +coming, and everything about you.” + +“Thank you, thank you! And how soon will you remember to ask where +Herbert is?” + +“Where is he, then?” + +“I shall not tell you.” + +“But didn’t he walk with you?” + +“I shall not tell, Rickie. It’s part of your punishment. You are not +really sorry yet. I shall punish you again later.” + +She was quite right. Rickie was not as much upset as he ought to have +been. He was sorry that he had forgotten, and that he had caused his +visitors inconvenience. But he did not feel profoundly degraded, as a +young man should who has acted discourteously to a young lady. Had he +acted discourteously to his bedmaker or his gyp, he would have minded +just as much, which was not polite of him. + +“First, I’ll go and get food. Do sit down and rest. Oh, let me +introduce--” + +Ansell was now the sole remnant of the discussion party. He still stood +on the hearthrug with a burnt match in his hand. Miss Pembroke’s arrival +had never disturbed him. + +“Let me introduce Mr. Ansell--Miss Pembroke.” + +There came an awful moment--a moment when he almost regretted that +he had a clever friend. Ansell remained absolutely motionless, moving +neither hand nor head. Such behaviour is so unknown that Miss Pembroke +did not realize what had happened, and kept her own hand stretched out +longer than is maidenly. + +“Coming to supper?” asked Ansell in low, grave tones. + +“I don’t think so,” said Rickie helplessly. + +Ansell departed without another word. + +“Don’t mind us,” said Miss Pembroke pleasantly. “Why shouldn’t you keep +your engagement with your friend? Herbert’s finding lodgings,--that’s +why he’s not here,--and they’re sure to be able to give us some dinner. +What jolly rooms you’ve got!” + +“Oh no--not a bit. I say, I am sorry. I am sorry. I am most awfully +sorry.” + +“What about?” + +“Ansell” Then he burst forth. “Ansell isn’t a gentleman. His father’s a +draper. His uncles are farmers. He’s here because he’s so clever--just +on account of his brains. Now, sit down. He isn’t a gentleman at all.” + And he hurried off to order some dinner. + +“What a snob the boy is getting!” thought Agnes, a good deal mollified. +It never struck her that those could be the words of affection--that +Rickie would never have spoken them about a person whom he disliked. +Nor did it strike her that Ansell’s humble birth scarcely explained +the quality of his rudeness. She was willing to find life full of +trivialities. Six months ago and she might have minded; but now--she +cared not what men might do unto her, for she had her own splendid +lover, who could have knocked all these unhealthy undergraduates into +a cocked-hat. She dared not tell Gerald a word of what had happened: he +might have come up from wherever he was and half killed Ansell. And she +determined not to tell her brother either, for her nature was kindly, +and it pleased her to pass things over. + +She took off her gloves, and then she took off her ear-rings and began +to admire them. These ear-rings were a freak of hers--her only freak. +She had always wanted some, and the day Gerald asked her to marry him +she went to a shop and had her ears pierced. In some wonderful way she +knew that it was right. And he had given her the rings--little gold +knobs, copied, the jeweller told them, from something prehistoric and +he had kissed the spots of blood on her handkerchief. Herbert, as usual, +had been shocked. + +“I can’t help it,” she cried, springing up. “I’m not like other girls.” + She began to pace about Rickie’s room, for she hated to keep quiet. +There was nothing much to see in it. The pictures were not attractive, +nor did they attract her--school groups, Watts’ “Sir Percival,” a +dog running after a rabbit, a man running after a maid, a cheap brown +Madonna in a cheap green frame--in short, a collection where one +mediocrity was generally cancelled by another. Over the door there hung +a long photograph of a city with waterways, which Agnes, who had never +been to Venice, took to be Venice, but which people who had been to +Stockholm knew to be Stockholm. Rickie’s mother, looking rather sweet, +was standing on the mantelpiece. Some more pictures had just arrived +from the framers and were leaning with their faces to the wall, but she +did not bother to turn them round. On the table were dirty teacups, a +flat chocolate cake, and Omar Khayyam, with an Oswego biscuit between +his pages. Also a vase filled with the crimson leaves of autumn. This +made her smile. + +Then she saw her host’s shoes: he had left them lying on the sofa. +Rickie was slightly deformed, and so the shoes were not the same size, +and one of them had a thick heel to help him towards an even walk. +“Ugh!” she exclaimed, and removed them gingerly to the bedroom. There +she saw other shoes and boots and pumps, a whole row of them, all +deformed. “Ugh! Poor boy! It is too bad. Why shouldn’t he be like other +people? This hereditary business is too awful.” She shut the door with +a sigh. Then she recalled the perfect form of Gerald, his athletic walk, +the poise of his shoulders, his arms stretched forward to receive her. +Gradually she was comforted. + +“I beg your pardon, miss, but might I ask how many to lay?” It was the +bedmaker, Mrs. Aberdeen. + +“Three, I think,” said Agnes, smiling pleasantly. “Mr. Elliot’ll be back +in a minute. He has gone to order dinner. + +“Thank you, miss.” + +“Plenty of teacups to wash up!” + +“But teacups is easy washing, particularly Mr. Elliot’s.” + +“Why are his so easy?” + +“Because no nasty corners in them to hold the dirt. Mr. Anderson--he’s +below-has crinkly noctagons, and one wouldn’t believe the difference. +It was I bought these for Mr. Elliot. His one thought is to save one +trouble. I never seed such a thoughtful gentleman. The world, I say, +will be the better for him.” She took the teacups into the gyp room, and +then returned with the tablecloth, and added, “if he’s spared.” + +“I’m afraid he isn’t strong,” said Agnes. + +“Oh, miss, his nose! I don’t know what he’d say if he knew I mentioned +his nose, but really I must speak to someone, and he has neither father +nor mother. His nose! It poured twice with blood in the Long.” + +“Yes?” + +“It’s a thing that ought to be known. I assure you, that little room!... +And in any case, Mr. Elliot’s a gentleman that can ill afford to lose +it. Luckily his friends were up; and I always say they’re more like +brothers than anything else.” + +“Nice for him. He has no real brothers.” + +“Oh, Mr. Hornblower, he is a merry gentleman, and Mr. Tilliard too! +And Mr. Elliot himself likes his romp at times. Why, it’s the merriest +staircase in the buildings! Last night the bedmaker from W said to +me, ‘What are you doing to my gentlemen? Here’s Mr. Ansell come back ‘ot +with his collar flopping.’ I said, ‘And a good thing.’ Some bedders keep +their gentlemen just so; but surely, miss, the world being what it is, +the longer one is able to laugh in it the better.” + +Bedmakers have to be comic and dishonest. It is expected of them. In a +picture of university life it is their only function. So when we meet +one who has the face of a lady, and feelings of which a lady might be +proud, we pass her by. + +“Yes?” said Miss Pembroke, and then their talk was stopped by the +arrival of her brother. + +“It is too bad!” he exclaimed. “It is really too bad.” + +“Now, Bertie boy, Bertie boy! I’ll have no peevishness.” + +“I am not peevish, Agnes, but I have a full right to be. Pray, why did +he not meet us? Why did he not provide rooms? And pray, why did you +leave me to do all the settling? All the lodgings I knew are full, and +our bedrooms look into a mews. I cannot help it. And then--look here! +It really is too bad.” He held up his foot like a wounded dog. It was +dripping with water. + +“Oho! This explains the peevishness. Off with it at once. It’ll be +another of your colds.” + +“I really think I had better.” He sat down by the fire and daintily +unlaced his boot. “I notice a great change in university tone. I can +never remember swaggering three abreast along the pavement and charging +inoffensive visitors into a gutter when I was an undergraduate. One of +the men, too, wore an Eton tie. But the others, I should say, came from +very queer schools, if they came from any schools at all.” + +Mr. Pembroke was nearly twenty years older than his sister, and had +never been as handsome. But he was not at all the person to knock into +a gutter, for though not in orders, he had the air of being on the verge +of them, and his features, as well as his clothes, had the clerical +cut. In his presence conversation became pure and colourless and full +of understatements, and--just as if he was a real clergyman--neither +men nor boys ever forgot that he was there. He had observed this, and it +pleased him very much. His conscience permitted him to enter the Church +whenever his profession, which was the scholastic, should demand it. + +“No gutter in the world’s as wet as this,” said Agnes, who had peeled +off her brother’s sock, and was now toasting it at the embers on a pair +of tongs. + +“Surely you know the running water by the edge of the Trumpington road? +It’s turned on occasionally to clear away the refuse--a most primitive +idea. When I was up we had a joke about it, and called it the ‘Pem.’” + +“How complimentary!” + +“You foolish girl,--not after me, of course. We called it the ‘Pem’ +because it is close to Pembroke College. I remember--” He smiled a +little, and twiddled his toes. Then he remembered the bedmaker, and +said, “My sock is now dry. My sock, please.” + +“Your sock is sopping. No, you don’t!” She twitched the tongs away from +him. Mrs. Aberdeen, without speaking, fetched a pair of Rickie’s socks +and a pair of Rickie’s shoes. + +“Thank you; ah, thank you. I am sure Mr. Elliot would allow it.” + +Then he said in French to his sister, “Has there been the slightest sign +of Frederick?” + +“Now, do call him Rickie, and talk English. I found him here. He had +forgotten about us, and was very sorry. Now he’s gone to get some +dinner, and I can’t think why he isn’t back.” + +Mrs. Aberdeen left them. + +“He wants pulling up sharply. There is nothing original in +absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower +classes have no nous. However can I wear such deformities?” For he had +been madly trying to cram a right-hand foot into a left-hand shoe. + +“Don’t!” said Agnes hastily. “Don’t touch the poor fellow’s things.” The +sight of the smart, stubby patent leather made her almost feel faint. +She had known Rickie for many years, but it seemed so dreadful and so +different now that he was a man. It was her first great contact with the +abnormal, and unknown fibres of her being rose in revolt against it. She +frowned when she heard his uneven tread upon the stairs. + +“Agnes--before he arrives--you ought never to have left me and gone +to his rooms alone. A most elementary transgression. Imagine the +unpleasantness if you had found him with friends. If Gerald--” + +Rickie by now had got into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost his +head, and when his turn came--he had had to wait--he had yielded his +place to those behind, saying that he didn’t matter. And he had wasted +more precious time buying bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes +were not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and chaotic hospitality +the meal got under way. All the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. +Aberdeen’s virtues were not practical. The fish seemed never to have +been alive, the meat had no kick, and the cork of the college +claret slid forth silently, as if ashamed of the contents. Agnes was +particularly pleasant. But her brother could not recover himself. He +still remembered their desolate arrival, and he could feel the waters of +the Pem eating into his instep. + +“Rickie,” cried the lady, “are you aware that you haven’t congratulated +me on my engagement?” + +Rickie laughed nervously, and said, “Why no! No more I have.” + +“Say something pretty, then.” + +“I hope you’ll be very happy,” he mumbled. “But I don’t know anything +about marriage.” + +“Oh, you awful boy! Herbert, isn’t he just the same? But you do know +something about Gerald, so don’t be so chilly and cautious. I’ve just +realized, looking at those groups, that you must have been at school +together. Did you come much across him?” + +“Very little,” he answered, and sounded shy. He got up hastily, and +began to muddle with the coffee. + +“But he was in the same house. Surely that’s a house group?” + +“He was a prefect.” He made his coffee on the simple system. One had a +brown pot, into which the boiling stuff was poured. Just before serving +one put in a drop of cold water, and the idea was that the grounds fell +to the bottom. + +“Wasn’t he a kind of athletic marvel? Couldn’t he knock any boy or +master down?” + +“Yes.” + +“If he had wanted to,” said Mr. Pembroke, who had not spoken for some +time. + +“If he had wanted to,” echoed Rickie. “I do hope, Agnes, you’ll be most +awfully happy. I don’t know anything about the army, but I should think +it must be most awfully interesting.” + +Mr. Pembroke laughed faintly. + +“Yes, Rickie. The army is a most interesting profession,--the profession +of Wellington and Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most interesting +profession, as you observe. A profession that may mean death--death, +rather than dishonour.” + +“That’s nice,” said Rickie, speaking to himself. “Any profession +may mean dishonour, but one isn’t allowed to die instead. The army’s +different. If a soldier makes a mess, it’s thought rather decent of +him, isn’t it, if he blows out his brains? In the other professions it +somehow seems cowardly.” + +“I am not competent to pronounce,” said Mr. Pembroke, who was not +accustomed to have his schoolroom satire commented on. “I merely know +that the army is the finest profession in the world. Which reminds me, +Rickie--have you been thinking about yours?” + +“No.” + +“Not at all?” + +“No.” + +“Now, Herbert, don’t bother him. Have another meringue.” + +“But, Rickie, my dear boy, you’re twenty. It’s time you thought. The +Tripos is the beginning of life, not the end. In less than two years you +will have got your B.A. What are you going to do with it?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“You’re M.A., aren’t you?” asked Agnes; but her brother proceeded-- + +“I have seen so many promising, brilliant lives wrecked simply on +account of this--not settling soon enough. My dear boy, you must think. +Consult your tastes if possible--but think. You have not a moment to +lose. The Bar, like your father?” + +“Oh, I wouldn’t like that at all.” + +“I don’t mention the Church.” + +“Oh, Rickie, do be a clergyman!” said Miss Pembroke. “You’d be simply +killing in a wide-awake.” + +He looked at his guests hopelessly. Their kindness and competence +overwhelmed him. “I wish I could talk to them as I talk to myself,” he +thought. “I’m not such an ass when I talk to myself. I don’t believe, +for instance, that quite all I thought about the cow was rot.” Aloud he +said, “I’ve sometimes wondered about writing.” + +“Writing?” said Mr. Pembroke, with the tone of one who gives everything +its trial. “Well, what about writing? What kind of writing?” + +“I rather like,”--he suppressed something in his throat,--“I rather like +trying to write little stories.” + +“Why, I made sure it was poetry!” said Agnes. “You’re just the boy for +poetry.” + +“I had no idea you wrote. Would you let me see something? Then I could +judge.” + +The author shook his head. “I don’t show it to any one. It isn’t +anything. I just try because it amuses me.” + +“What is it about?” + +“Silly nonsense.” + +“Are you ever going to show it to any one?” + +“I don’t think so.” + +Mr. Pembroke did not reply, firstly, because the meringue he was eating +was, after all, Rickie’s; secondly, because it was gluey and stuck his +jaws together. Agnes observed that the writing was really a very good +idea: there was Rickie’s aunt,--she could push him. + +“Aunt Emily never pushes any one; she says they always rebound and crush +her.” + +“I only had the pleasure of seeing your aunt once. I should have thought +her a quite uncrushable person. But she would be sure to help you.” + +“I couldn’t show her anything. She’d think them even sillier than they +are.” + +“Always running yourself down! There speaks the artist!” + +“I’m not modest,” he said anxiously. “I just know they’re bad.” + +Mr. Pembroke’s teeth were clear of meringue, and he could refrain no +longer. “My dear Rickie, your father and mother are dead, and you often +say your aunt takes no interest in you. Therefore your life depends on +yourself. Think it over carefully, but settle, and having once settled, +stick. If you think that this writing is practicable, and that you +could make your living by it--that you could, if needs be, support a +wife--then by all means write. But you must work. Work and drudge. Begin +at the bottom of the ladder and work upwards.” + +Rickie’s head drooped. Any metaphor silenced him. He never thought of +replying that art is not a ladder--with a curate, as it were, on the +first rung, a rector on the second, and a bishop, still nearer heaven, +at the top. He never retorted that the artist is not a bricklayer at +all, but a horseman, whose business it is to catch Pegasus at once, +not to practise for him by mounting tamer colts. This is hard, hot, and +generally ungraceful work, but it is not drudgery. For drudgery is not +art, and cannot lead to it. + +“Of course I don’t really think about writing,” he said, as he poured +the cold water into the coffee. “Even if my things ever were decent, I +don’t think the magazines would take them, and the magazines are one’s +only chance. I read somewhere, too, that Marie Corelli’s about the only +person who makes a thing out of literature. I’m certain it wouldn’t pay +me.” + +“I never mentioned the word ‘pay,’” said Mr. Pembroke uneasily. + +“You must not consider money. There are ideals too.” + +“I have no ideals.” + +“Rickie!” she exclaimed. “Horrible boy!” + +“No, Agnes, I have no ideals.” Then he got very red, for it was a phrase +he had caught from Ansell, and he could not remember what came next. + +“The person who has no ideals,” she exclaimed, “is to be pitied.” + +“I think so too,” said Mr. Pembroke, sipping his coffee. “Life without +an ideal would be like the sky without the sun.” + +Rickie looked towards the night, wherein there now twinkled innumerable +stars--gods and heroes, virgins and brides, to whom the Greeks have +given their names. + +“Life without an ideal--” repeated Mr. Pembroke, and then stopped, for +his mouth was full of coffee grounds. The same affliction had overtaken +Agnes. After a little jocose laughter they departed to their lodgings, +and Rickie, having seen them as far as the porter’s lodge, hurried, +singing as he went, to Ansell’s room, burst open the door, and said, +“Look here! Whatever do you mean by it?” + +“By what?” Ansell was sitting alone with a piece of paper in front of +him. On it was a diagram--a circle inside a square, inside which was +again a square. + +“By being so rude. You’re no gentleman, and I told her so.” He slammed +him on the head with a sofa cushion. “I’m certain one ought to be +polite, even to people who aren’t saved.” (“Not saved” was a phrase they +applied just then to those whom they did not like or intimately +know.) “And I believe she is saved. I never knew any one so always +good-tempered and kind. She’s been kind to me ever since I knew her. I +wish you’d heard her trying to stop her brother: you’d have certainly +come round. Not but what he was only being nice as well. But she is +really nice. And I thought she came into the room so beautifully. Do you +know--oh, of course, you despise music--but Anderson was playing Wagner, +and he’d just got to the part where they sing + + ‘Rheingold! + ‘Rheingold! + +and the sun strikes into the waters, and the music, which up to then has +so often been in E flat--” + +“Goes into D sharp. I have not understood a single word, partly because +you talk as if your mouth was full of plums, partly because I don’t know +whom you’re talking about.” “Miss Pembroke--whom you saw.” + +“I saw no one.” + +“Who came in?” + +“No one came in.” + +“You’re an ass!” shrieked Rickie. “She came in. You saw her come in. She +and her brother have been to dinner.” + +“You only think so. They were not really there.” + +“But they stop till Monday.” + +“You only think that they are stopping.” + +“But--oh, look here, shut up! The girl like an empress--” + +“I saw no empress, nor any girl, nor have you seen them.” + +“Ansell, don’t rag.” + +“Elliot, I never rag, and you know it. She was not really there.” + +There was a moment’s silence. Then Rickie exclaimed, “I’ve got you. You +say--or was it Tilliard?--no, YOU say that the cow’s there. Well--there +these people are, then. Got you. Yah!” + +“Did it never strike you that phenomena may be of two kinds: ONE, those +which have a real existence, such as the cow; TWO, those which are +the subjective product of a diseased imagination, and which, to our +destruction, we invest with the semblance of reality? If this never +struck you, let it strike you now.” + +Rickie spoke again, but received no answer. He paced a little up and +down the sombre roam. Then he sat on the edge of the table and watched +his clever friend draw within the square a circle, and within the +circle a square, and inside that another circle, and inside that another +square. + +“Why will you do that?” + +No answer. + +“Are they real?” + +“The inside one is--the one in the middle of everything, that there’s +never room enough to draw.” + + + +II + +A little this side of Madingley, to the left of the road, there is a +secluded dell, paved with grass and planted with fir-trees. It could not +have been worth a visit twenty years ago, for then it was only a scar +of chalk, and it is not worth a visit at the present day, for the trees +have grown too thick and choked it. But when Rickie was up, it chanced +to be the brief season of its romance, a season as brief for a chalk-pit +as a man--its divine interval between the bareness of boyhood and the +stuffiness of age. Rickie had discovered it in his second term, when the +January snows had melted and left fiords and lagoons of clearest water +between the inequalities of the floor. The place looked as big as +Switzerland or Norway--as indeed for the moment it was--and he came upon +it at a time when his life too was beginning to expand. Accordingly the +dell became for him a kind of church--a church where indeed you could +do anything you liked, but where anything you did would be transfigured. +Like the ancient Greeks, he could even laugh at his holy place and +leave it no less holy. He chatted gaily about it, and about the pleasant +thoughts with which it inspired him; he took his friends there; he even +took people whom he did not like. “Procul este, profani!” exclaimed a +delighted aesthete on being introduced to it. But this was never to be +the attitude of Rickie. He did not love the vulgar herd, but he knew +that his own vulgarity would be greater if he forbade it ingress, and +that it was not by preciosity that he would attain to the intimate +spirit of the dell. Indeed, if he had agreed with the aesthete, he +would possibly not have introduced him. If the dell was to bear any +inscription, he would have liked it to be “This way to Heaven,” painted +on a sign-post by the high-road, and he did not realize till later years +that the number of visitors would not thereby have sensibly increased. + +On the blessed Monday that the Pembrokes left, he walked out here with +three friends. It was a day when the sky seemed enormous. One cloud, +as large as a continent, was voyaging near the sun, whilst other clouds +seemed anchored to the horizon, too lazy or too happy to move. The sky +itself was of the palest blue, paling to white where it approached the +earth; and the earth, brown, wet, and odorous, was engaged beneath it on +its yearly duty of decay. Rickie was open to the complexities of autumn; +he felt extremely tiny--extremely tiny and extremely important; and +perhaps the combination is as fair as any that exists. He hoped that all +his life he would never be peevish or unkind. + +“Elliot is in a dangerous state,” said Ansell. They had reached the +dell, and had stood for some time in silence, each leaning against a +tree. It was too wet to sit down. + +“How’s that?” asked Rickie, who had not known he was in any state at +all. He shut up Keats, whom he thought he had been reading, and slipped +him back into his coat-pocket. Scarcely ever was he without a book. + +“He’s trying to like people.” + +“Then he’s done for,” said Widdrington. “He’s dead.” + +“He’s trying to like Hornblower.” + +The others gave shrill agonized cries. + +“He wants to bind the college together. He wants to link us to the beefy +set.” + +“I do like Hornblower,” he protested. “I don’t try.” + +“And Hornblower tries to like you.” + +“That part doesn’t matter.” + +“But he does try to like you. He tries not to despise you. It is +altogether a most public-spirited affair.” + +“Tilliard started them,” said Widdrington. “Tilliard thinks it such a +pity the college should be split into sets.” + +“Oh, Tilliard!” said Ansell, with much irritation. “But what can you +expect from a person who’s eternally beautiful? The other night we had +been discussing a long time, and suddenly the light was turned on. Every +one else looked a sight, as they ought. But there was Tilliard, sitting +neatly on a little chair, like an undersized god, with not a curl +crooked. I should say he will get into the Foreign Office.” + +“Why are most of us so ugly?” laughed Rickie. + +“It’s merely a sign of our salvation--merely another sign that the +college is split.” + +“The college isn’t split,” cried Rickie, who got excited on this subject +with unfailing regularity. “The college is, and has been, and always +will be, one. What you call the beefy set aren’t a set at all. They’re +just the rowing people, and naturally they chiefly see each other; but +they’re always nice to me or to any one. Of course, they think us rather +asses, but it’s quite in a pleasant way.” + +“That’s my whole objection,” said Ansell. “What right have they to +think us asses in a pleasant way? Why don’t they hate us? What right has +Hornblower to smack me on the back when I’ve been rude to him?” + +“Well, what right have you to be rude to him?” + +“Because I hate him. You think it is so splendid to hate no one. I tell +you it is a crime. You want to love every one equally, and that’s worse +than impossible it’s wrong. When you denounce sets, you’re really trying +to destroy friendship.” + +“I maintain,” said Rickie--it was a verb he clung to, in the hope that +it would lend stability to what followed--“I maintain that one can like +many more people than one supposes.” + +“And I maintain that you hate many more people than you pretend.” + +“I hate no one,” he exclaimed with extraordinary vehemence, and the dell +re-echoed that it hated no one. + +“We are obliged to believe you,” said Widdrington, smiling a little “but +we are sorry about it.” + +“Not even your father?” asked Ansell. + +Rickie was silent. + +“Not even your father?” + +The cloud above extended a great promontory across the sun. It only lay +there for a moment, yet that was enough to summon the lurking coldness +from the earth. + +“Does he hate his father?” said Widdrington, who had not known. “Oh, +good!” + +“But his father’s dead. He will say it doesn’t count.” + +“Still, it’s something. Do you hate yours?” + +Ansell did not reply. Rickie said: “I say, I wonder whether one ought to +talk like this?” + +“About hating dead people?” + +“Yes--” + +“Did you hate your mother?” asked Widdrington. + +Rickie turned crimson. + +“I don’t see Hornblower’s such a rotter,” remarked the other man, whose +name was James. + +“James, you are diplomatic,” said Ansell. “You are trying to tide over +an awkward moment. You can go.” + +Widdrington was crimson too. In his wish to be sprightly he had used +words without thinking of their meanings. Suddenly he realized that +“father” and “mother” really meant father and mother--people whom he had +himself at home. He was very uncomfortable, and thought Rickie had been +rather queer. He too tried to revert to Hornblower, but Ansell would not +let him. The sun came out, and struck on the white ramparts of the dell. +Rickie looked straight at it. Then he said abruptly-- + +“I think I want to talk.” + +“I think you do,” replied Ansell. + +“Shouldn’t I be rather a fool if I went through Cambridge without +talking? It’s said never to come so easy again. All the people are dead +too. I can’t see why I shouldn’t tell you most things about my birth and +parentage and education.” + +“Talk away. If you bore us, we have books.” + +With this invitation Rickie began to relate his history. The reader who +has no book will be obliged to listen to it. + +Some people spend their lives in a suburb, and not for any urgent +reason. This had been the fate of Rickie. He had opened his eyes +to filmy heavens, and taken his first walk on asphalt. He had seen +civilization as a row of semi-detached villas, and society as a state in +which men do not know the men who live next door. He had himself become +part of the grey monotony that surrounds all cities. There was no +necessity for this--it was only rather convenient to his father. + +Mr. Elliot was a barrister. In appearance he resembled his son, being +weakly and lame, with hollow little cheeks, a broad white band of +forehead, and stiff impoverished hair. His voice, which he did not +transmit, was very suave, with a fine command of cynical intonation. +By altering it ever so little he could make people wince, especially if +they were simple or poor. Nor did he transmit his eyes. Their peculiar +flatness, as if the soul looked through dirty window-panes, the +unkindness of them, the cowardice, the fear in them, were to trouble the +world no longer. + +He married a girl whose voice was beautiful. There was no caress in +it yet all who heard it were soothed, as though the world held some +unexpected blessing. She called to her dogs one night over invisible +waters, and he, a tourist up on the bridge, thought “that is +extraordinarily adequate.” In time he discovered that her figure, face, +and thoughts were adequate also, and as she was not impossible socially, +he married her. “I have taken a plunge,” he told his family. The family, +hostile at first, had not a word to say when the woman was introduced +to them; and his sister declared that the plunge had been taken from the +opposite bank. + +Things only went right for a little time. Though beautiful without and +within, Mrs. Elliot had not the gift of making her home beautiful; and +one day, when she bought a carpet for the dining-room that clashed, he +laughed gently, said he “really couldn’t,” and departed. Departure is +perhaps too strong a word. In Mrs. Elliot’s mouth it became, “My husband +has to sleep more in town.” He often came down to see them, nearly +always unexpectedly, and occasionally they went to see him. “Father’s +house,” as Rickie called it, only had three rooms, but these were full +of books and pictures and flowers; and the flowers, instead of being +squashed down into the vases as they were in mummy’s house, rose +gracefully from frames of lead which lay coiled at the bottom, as +doubtless the sea serpent has to lie, coiled at the bottom of the sea. +Once he was let to lift a frame out--only once, for he dropped some +water on a creton. “I think he’s going to have taste,” said Mr. Elliot +languidly. “It is quite possible,” his wife replied. She had not taken +off her hat and gloves, nor even pulled up her veil. Mr. Elliot laughed, +and soon afterwards another lady came in, and they--went away. + +“Why does father always laugh?” asked Rickie in the evening when he and +his mother were sitting in the nursery. + +“It is a way of your father’s.” + +“Why does he always laugh at me? Am I so funny?” Then after a pause, +“You have no sense of humour, have you, mummy?” + +Mrs. Elliot, who was raising a thread of cotton to her lips, held it +suspended in amazement. + +“You told him so this afternoon. But I have seen you laugh.” He nodded +wisely. “I have seen you laugh ever so often. One day you were laughing +alone all down in the sweet peas.” + +“Was I?” + +“Yes. Were you laughing at me?” + +“I was not thinking about you. Cotton, please--a reel of No. 50 white +from my chest of drawers. Left hand drawer. Now which is your left +hand?” + +“The side my pocket is.” + +“And if you had no pocket?” + +“The side my bad foot is.” + +“I meant you to say, ‘the side my heart is,’” said Mrs. Elliot, holding +up the duster between them. “Most of us--I mean all of us--can feel on +one side a little watch, that never stops ticking. So even if you had no +bad foot you would still know which is the left. No. 50 white, please. +No; I’ll get it myself.” For she had remembered that the dark passage +frightened him. + +These were the outlines. Rickie filled them in with the slowness and the +accuracy of a child. He was never told anything, but he discovered for +himself that his father and mother did not love each other, and that his +mother was lovable. He discovered that Mr. Elliot had dubbed him Rickie +because he was rickety, that he took pleasure in alluding to his son’s +deformity, and was sorry that it was not more serious than his own. Mr. +Elliot had not one scrap of genius. He gathered the pictures and the +books and the flower-supports mechanically, not in any impulse of love. +He passed for a cultured man because he knew how to select, and he +passed for an unconventional man because he did not select quite like +other people. In reality he never did or said or thought one single +thing that had the slightest beauty or value. And in time Rickie +discovered this as well. + +The boy grew up in great loneliness. He worshipped his mother, and she +was fond of him. But she was dignified and reticent, and pathos, like +tattle, was disgusting to her. She was afraid of intimacy, in case it +led to confidences and tears, and so all her life she held her son at a +little distance. Her kindness and unselfishness knew no limits, but if +he tried to be dramatic and thank her, she told him not to be a little +goose. And so the only person he came to know at all was himself. +He would play Halma against himself. He would conduct solitary +conversations, in which one part of him asked and another part answered. +It was an exciting game, and concluded with the formula: “Good-bye. +Thank you. I am glad to have met you. I hope before long we shall enjoy +another chat.” And then perhaps he would sob for loneliness, for he +would see real people--real brothers, real friends--doing in warm life +the things he had pretended. “Shall I ever have a friend?” he demanded +at the age of twelve. “I don’t see how. They walk too fast. And a +brother I shall never have.” + +(“No loss,” interrupted Widdrington. + +“But I shall never have one, and so I quite want one, even now.”) + +When he was thirteen Mr. Elliot entered on his illness. The pretty rooms +in town would not do for an invalid, and so he came back to his home. +One of the first consequences was that Rickie was sent to a public +school. Mrs. Elliot did what she could, but she had no hold whatever +over her husband. + +“He worries me,” he declared. “He’s a joke of which I have got tired.” + +“Would it be possible to send him to a private tutor’s?” + +“No,” said Mr. Elliot, who had all the money. “Coddling.” + +“I agree that boys ought to rough it; but when a boy is lame and very +delicate, he roughs it sufficiently if he leaves home. Rickie can’t play +games. He doesn’t make friends. He isn’t brilliant. Thinking it over, I +feel that as it’s like this, we can’t ever hope to give him the ordinary +education. Perhaps you could think it over too.” No. + +“I am sure that things are best for him as they are. The day-school +knocks quite as many corners off him as he can stand. He hates it, but +it is good for him. A public school will not be good for him. It is too +rough. Instead of getting manly and hard, he will--” + +“My head, please.” + +Rickie departed in a state of bewildered misery, which was scarcely ever +to grow clearer. + +Each holiday he found his father more irritable, and a little weaker. +Mrs. Elliot was quickly growing old. She had to manage the servants, to +hush the neighbouring children, to answer the correspondence, to paper +and re-paper the rooms--and all for the sake of a man whom she did not +like, and who did not conceal his dislike for her. One day she found +Rickie tearful, and said rather crossly, “Well, what is it this time?” + +He replied, “Oh, mummy, I’ve seen your wrinkles your grey hair--I’m +unhappy.” + +Sudden tenderness overcame her, and she cried, “My darling, what does it +matter? Whatever does it matter now?” + +He had never known her so emotional. Yet even better did he remember +another incident. Hearing high voices from his father’s room, he went +upstairs in the hope that the sound of his tread might stop them. Mrs. +Elliot burst open the door, and seeing him, exclaimed, “My dear! If you +please, he’s hit me.” She tried to laugh it off, but a few hours later +he saw the bruise which the stick of the invalid had raised upon his +mother’s hand. + +God alone knows how far we are in the grip of our bodies. He alone can +judge how far the cruelty of Mr. Elliot was the outcome of extenuating +circumstances. But Mrs. Elliot could accurately judge of its extent. + +At last he died. Rickie was now fifteen, and got off a whole week’s +school for the funeral. His mother was rather strange. She was much +happier, she looked younger, and her mourning was as unobtrusive as +convention permitted. All this he had expected. But she seemed to +be watching him, and to be extremely anxious for his opinion on any, +subject--more especially on his father. Why? At last he saw that she was +trying to establish confidence between them. But confidence cannot be +established in a moment. They were both shy. The habit of years was +upon them, and they alluded to the death of Mr. Elliot as an irreparable +loss. + +“Now that your father has gone, things will be very different.” + +“Shall we be poorer, mother?” No. + +“Oh!” + +“But naturally things will be very different.” + +“Yes, naturally.” + +“For instance, your poor father liked being near London, but I almost +think we might move. Would you like that?” + +“Of course, mummy.” He looked down at the ground. He was not accustomed +to being consulted, and it bewildered him. + +“Perhaps you might like quite a different life better?” + +He giggled. + +“It’s a little difficult for me,” said Mrs. Elliot, pacing vigorously up +and down the room, and more and more did her black dress seem a mockery. +“In some ways you ought to be consulted: nearly all the money is left to +you, as you must hear some time or other. But in other ways you’re only +a boy. What am I to do?” + +“I don’t know,” he replied, appearing more helpless and unhelpful than +he really was. + +“For instance, would you like me to arrange things exactly as I like?” + +“Oh do!” he exclaimed, thinking this a most brilliant suggestion. + +“The very nicest thing of all.” And he added, in his half-pedantic, +half-pleasing way, “I shall be as wax in your hands, mamma.” + +She smiled. “Very well, darling. You shall be.” And she pressed him +lovingly, as though she would mould him into something beautiful. + +For the next few days great preparations were in the air. She went to +see his father’s sister, the gifted and vivacious Aunt Emily. They were +to live in the country--somewhere right in the country, with grass and +trees up to the door, and birds singing everywhere, and a tutor. For he +was not to go back to school. Unbelievable! He was never to go back to +school, and the head-master had written saying that he regretted the +step, but that possibly it was a wise one. + +It was raw weather, and Mrs. Elliot watched over him with ceaseless +tenderness. It seemed as if she could not do too much to shield him and +to draw him nearer to her. + +“Put on your greatcoat, dearest,” she said to him. + +“I don’t think I want it,” answered Rickie, remembering that he was now +fifteen. + +“The wind is bitter. You ought to put it on.” + +“But it’s so heavy.” + +“Do put it on, dear.” + +He was not very often irritable or rude, but he answered, “Oh, I shan’t +catch cold. I do wish you wouldn’t keep on bothering.” He did not +catch cold, but while he was out his mother died. She only survived +her husband eleven days, a coincidence which was recorded on their +tombstone. + +Such, in substance, was the story which Rickie told his friends as +they stood together in the shelter of the dell. The green bank at the +entrance hid the road and the world, and now, as in spring, they could +see nothing but snow-white ramparts and the evergreen foliage of the +firs. Only from time to time would a beech leaf flutter in from the +woods above, to comment on the waning year, and the warmth and radiance +of the sun would vanish behind a passing cloud. + +About the greatcoat he did not tell them, for he could not have spoken +of it without tears. + + + +III + +Mr. Ansell, a provincial draper of moderate prosperity, ought by rights +to have been classed not with the cow, but with those phenomena that are +not really there. But his son, with pardonable illogicality, excepted +him. He never suspected that his father might be the subjective product +of a diseased imagination. From his earliest years he had taken him for +granted, as a most undeniable and lovable fact. To be born one thing and +grow up another--Ansell had accomplished this without weakening one +of the ties that bound him to his home. The rooms above the shop still +seemed as comfortable, the garden behind it as gracious, as they +had seemed fifteen years before, when he would sit behind Miss +Appleblossom’s central throne, and she, like some allegorical figure, +would send the change and receipted bills spinning away from her in +little boxwood balls. At first the young man had attributed these happy +relations to his own tact. But in time he perceived that the tact was +all on the side of his father. Mr. Ansell was not merely a man of some +education; he had what no education can bring--the power of detecting +what is important. Like many fathers, he had spared no expense over his +boy,--he had borrowed money to start him at a rapacious and fashionable +private school; he had sent him to tutors; he had sent him to Cambridge. +But he knew that all this was not the important thing. The important +thing was freedom. The boy must use his education as he chose, and if he +paid his father back it would certainly not be in his own coin. So when +Stewart said, “At Cambridge, can I read for the Moral Science Tripos?” + Mr. Ansell had only replied, “This philosophy--do you say that it lies +behind everything?” + +“Yes, I think so. It tries to discover what is good and true.” + +“Then, my boy, you had better read as much of it as you can.” + +And a year later: “I’d like to take up this philosophy seriously, but I +don’t feel justified.” + +“Why not?” + +“Because it brings in no return. I think I’m a great philosopher, but +then all philosophers think that, though they don’t dare to say so. But, +however great I am. I shan’t earn money. Perhaps I shan’t ever be able +to keep myself. I shan’t even get a good social position. You’ve only +to say one word, and I’ll work for the Civil Service. I’m good enough to +get in high.” + +Mr. Ansell liked money and social position. But he knew that there is +a more important thing, and replied, “You must take up this philosophy +seriously, I think.” + +“Another thing--there are the girls.” + +“There is enough money now to get Mary and Maud as good husbands as they +deserve.” And Mary and Maud took the same view. It was in this plebeian +household that Rickie spent part of the Christmas vacation. His own +home, such as it was, was with the Silts, needy cousins of his father’s, +and combined to a peculiar degree the restrictions of hospitality with +the discomforts of a boarding-house. Such pleasure as he had outside +Cambridge was in the homes of his friends, and it was a particular joy +and honour to visit Ansell, who, though as free from social snobbishness +as most of us will ever manage to be, was rather careful when he drove +up to the facade of his shop. + +“I like our new lettering,” he said thoughtfully. The words “Stewart +Ansell” were repeated again and again along the High Street--curly gold +letters that seemed to float in tanks of glazed chocolate. + +“Rather!” said Rickie. But he wondered whether one of the bonds that +kept the Ansell family united might not be their complete absence of +taste--a surer bond by far than the identity of it. And he wondered this +again when he sat at tea opposite a long row of crayons--Stewart as a +baby, Stewart as a small boy with large feet, Stewart as a larger boy +with smaller feet, Mary reading a book whose leaves were as thick as +eiderdowns. And yet again did he wonder it when he woke with a gasp in +the night to find a harp in luminous paint throbbing and glowering at +him from the adjacent wall. “Watch and pray” was written on the harp, +and until Rickie hung a towel over it the exhortation was partially +successful. + +It was a very happy visit. Miss Appleblosssom--who now acted as +housekeeper--had met him before, during her never-forgotten expedition +to Cambridge, and her admiration of University life was as shrill and +as genuine now as it had been then. The girls at first were a little +aggressive, for on his arrival he had been tired, and Maud had taken it +for haughtiness, and said he was looking down on them. But this passed. +They did not fall in love with him, nor he with them, but a morning was +spent very pleasantly in snow-balling in the back garden. Ansell was +rather different to what he was in Cambridge, but to Rickie not less +attractive. And there was a curious charm in the hum of the shop, which +swelled into a roar if one opened the partition door on a market-day. + +“Listen to your money!” said Rickie. “I wish I could hear mine. I wish +my money was alive.” + +“I don’t understand.” + +“Mine’s dead money. It’s come to me through about six dead +people--silently.” + +“Getting a little smaller and a little more respectable each time, on +account of the death-duties.” + +“It needed to get respectable.” + +“Why? Did your people, too, once keep a shop?” + +“Oh, not as bad as that! They only swindled. About a hundred years ago +an Elliot did something shady and founded the fortunes of our house.” + +“I never knew any one so relentless to his ancestors. You make up for +your soapiness towards the living.” + +“You’d be relentless if you’d heard the Silts, as I have, talk about ‘a +fortune, small perhaps, but unsoiled by trade!’ Of course Aunt Emily is +rather different. Oh, goodness me! I’ve forgotten my aunt. She lives not +so far. I shall have to call on her.” + +Accordingly he wrote to Mrs. Failing, and said he should like to pay his +respects. He told her about the Ansells, and so worded the letter that +she might reasonably have sent an invitation to his friend. + +She replied that she was looking forward to their tete-a-tete. + +“You mustn’t go round by the trains,” said Mr. Ansell. “It means +changing at Salisbury. By the road it’s no great way. Stewart shall +drive you over Salisbury Plain, and fetch you too.” + +“There’s too much snow,” said Ansell. + +“Then the girls shall take you in their sledge.” + +“That I will,” said Maud, who was not unwilling to see the inside of +Cadover. But Rickie went round by the trains. + +“We have all missed you,” said Ansell, when he returned. “There is a +general feeling that you are no nuisance, and had better stop till the +end of the vac.” + +This he could not do. He was bound for Christmas to the Silts--“as a +REAL guest,” Mrs. Silt had written, underlining the word “real” twice. +And after Christmas he must go to the Pembrokes. + +“These are no reasons. The only real reason for doing a thing is because +you want to do it. I think the talk about ‘engagements’ is cant.” + +“I think perhaps it is,” said Rickie. But he went. Never had the turkey +been so athletic, or the plum-pudding tied into its cloth so tightly. +Yet he knew that both these symbols of hilarity had cost money, and +it went to his heart when Mr. Silt said in a hungry voice, “Have you +thought at all of what you want to be? No? Well, why should you? You +have no need to be anything.” And at dessert: “I wonder who Cadover goes +to? I expect money will follow money. It always does.” It was with a +guilty feeling of relief that he left for the Pembrokes’. + +The Pembrokes lived in an adjacent suburb, or rather “sububurb,”--the +tract called Sawston, celebrated for its public school. Their style of +life, however, was not particularly suburban. Their house was small and +its name was Shelthorpe, but it had an air about it which suggested a +certain amount of money and a certain amount of taste. There were decent +water-colours in the drawing-room. Madonnas of acknowledged merit hung +upon the stairs. A replica of the Hermes of Praxiteles--of course only +the bust--stood in the hall with a real palm behind it. Agnes, in her +slap-dash way, was a good housekeeper, and kept the pretty things well +dusted. It was she who insisted on the strip of brown holland that led +diagonally from the front door to the door of Herbert’s study: boys’ +grubby feet should not go treading on her Indian square. It was she who +always cleaned the picture-frames and washed the bust and the leaves of +the palm. In short, if a house could speak--and sometimes it does speak +more clearly than the people who live in it--the house of the Pembrokes +would have said, “I am not quite like other houses, yet I am perfectly +comfortable. I contain works of art and a microscope and books. But I do +not live for any of these things or suffer them to disarrange me. I live +for myself and for the greater houses that shall come after me. Yet in +me neither the cry of money nor the cry for money shall ever be heard.” + +Mr. Pembroke was at the station. He did better as a host than as a +guest, and welcomed the young man with real friendliness. + +“We were all coming, but Gerald has strained his ankle slightly, +and wants to keep quiet, as he is playing next week in a match. And, +needless to say, that explains the absence of my sister.” + +“Gerald Dawes?” + +“Yes; he’s with us. I’m so glad you’ll meet again.” + +“So am I,” said Rickie with extreme awkwardness. “Does he remember me?” + +“Vividly.” + +Vivid also was Rickie’s remembrance of him. + +“A splendid fellow,” asserted Mr. Pembroke. + +“I hope that Agnes is well.” + +“Thank you, yes; she is well. And I think you’re looking more like other +people yourself.” + +“I’ve been having a very good time with a friend.” + +“Indeed. That’s right. Who was that?” + +Rickie had a young man’s reticence. He generally spoke of “a friend,” + “a person I know,” “a place I was at.” When the book of life is opening, +our readings are secret, and we are unwilling to give chapter and verse. +Mr. Pembroke, who was half way through the volume, and had skipped or +forgotten the earlier pages, could not understand Rickie’s hesitation, +nor why with such awkwardness he should pronounce the harmless +dissyllable “Ansell.” + +“Ansell? Wasn’t that the pleasant fellow who asked us to lunch?” + +“No. That was Anderson, who keeps below. You didn’t see Ansell. The ones +who came to breakfast were Tilliard and Hornblower.” + +“Of course. And since then you have been with the Silts. How are they?” + +“Very well, thank you. They want to be remembered to you.” + +The Pembrokes had formerly lived near the Elliots, and had shown great +kindness to Rickie when his parents died. They were thus rather in the +position of family friends. + +“Please remember us when you write.” He added, almost roguishly, “The +Silts are kindness itself. All the same, it must be just a little--dull, +we thought, and we thought that you might like a change. And of course +we are delighted to have you besides. That goes without saying.” + +“It’s very good of you,” said Rickie, who had accepted the invitation +because he felt he ought to. + +“Not a bit. And you mustn’t expect us to be otherwise than quiet on the +holidays. There is a library of a sort, as you know, and you will find +Gerald a splendid fellow.” + +“Will they be married soon?” + +“Oh no!” whispered Mr. Pembroke, shutting his eyes, as if Rickie had +made some terrible faux pas. “It will be a very long engagement. He must +make his way first. I have seen such endless misery result from people +marrying before they have made their way.” + +“Yes. That is so,” said Rickie despondently, thinking of the Silts. + +“It’s a sad unpalatable truth,” said Mr. Pembroke, thinking that the +despondency might be personal, “but one must accept it. My sister and +Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted it, though naturally it has +been a little pill.” + +Their cab lurched round the corner as he spoke, and the two patients +came in sight. Agnes was leaning over the creosoted garden-gate, and +behind her there stood a young man who had the figure of a Greek athlete +and the face of an English one. He was fair and cleanshaven, and his +colourless hair was cut rather short. The sun was in his eyes, and they, +like his mouth, seemed scarcely more than slits in his healthy skin. +Just where he began to be beautiful the clothes started. Round his neck +went an up-and-down collar and a mauve-and-gold tie, and the rest of his +limbs were hidden by a grey lounge suit, carefully creased in the right +places. + +“Lovely! Lovely!” cried Agnes, banging on the gate, “Your train must +have been to the minute.” + +“Hullo!” said the athlete, and vomited with the greeting a cloud of +tobacco-smoke. It must have been imprisoned in his mouth some time, for +no pipe was visible. + +“Hullo!” returned Rickie, laughing violently. They shook hands. + +“Where are you going, Rickie?” asked Agnes. “You aren’t grubby. Why +don’t you stop? Gerald, get the large wicker-chair. Herbert has letters, +but we can sit here till lunch. It’s like spring.” + +The garden of Shelthorpe was nearly all in front an unusual and pleasant +arrangement. The front gate and the servants’ entrance were both at the +side, and in the remaining space the gardener had contrived a little +lawn where one could sit concealed from the road by a fence, from the +neighbour by a fence, from the house by a tree, and from the path by a +bush. + +“This is the lovers’ bower,” observed Agnes, sitting down on the bench. +Rickie stood by her till the chair arrived. + +“Are you smoking before lunch?” asked Mr. Dawes. + +“No, thank you. I hardly ever smoke.” + +“No vices. Aren’t you at Cambridge now?” + +“Yes.” + +“What’s your college?” + +Rickie told him. + +“Do you know Carruthers?” + +“Rather!” + +“I mean A. P. Carruthers, who got his socker blue.” + +“Rather! He’s secretary to the college musical society.” + +“A. P. Carruthers?” + +“Yes.” + +Mr. Dawes seemed offended. He tapped on his teeth, and remarked that the +weather bad no business to be so warm in winter. “But it was fiendish +before Christmas,” said Agnes. + +He frowned, and asked, “Do you know a man called Gerrish?” + +“No.” + +“Ah.” + +“Do you know James?” + +“Never heard of him.” + +“He’s my year too. He got a blue for hockey his second term.” + +“I know nothing about the ‘Varsity.” + +Rickie winced at the abbreviation “‘Varsity.” It was at that time the +proper thing to speak of “the University.” + +“I haven’t the time,” pursued Mr. Dawes. + +“No, no,” said Rickie politely. + +“I had the chance of being an Undergrad, myself, and, by Jove, I’m +thankful I didn’t!” + +“Why?” asked Agnes, for there was a pause. + +“Puts you back in your profession. Men who go there first, before the +Army, start hopelessly behind. The same with the Stock Exchange or +Painting. I know men in both, and they’ve never caught up the time they +lost in the ‘Varsity--unless, of course, you turn parson.” + +“I love Cambridge,” said she. “All those glorious buildings, and every +one so happy and running in and out of each other’s rooms all day long.” + +“That might make an Undergrad happy, but I beg leave to state it +wouldn’t me. I haven’t four years to throw away for the sake of being +called a ‘Varsity man and hobnobbing with Lords.” + +Rickie was prepared to find his old schoolfellow ungrammatical and +bumptious, but he was not prepared to find him peevish. Athletes, he +believed, were simple, straightforward people, cruel and brutal if you +like, but never petty. They knocked you down and hurt you, and then went +on their way rejoicing. For this, Rickie thought, there is something to +be said: he had escaped the sin of despising the physically strong--a +sin against which the physically weak must guard. But here was Dawes +returning again and again to the subject of the University, full of +transparent jealousy and petty spite, nagging, nagging, nagging, like +a maiden lady who has not been invited to a tea-party. Rickie wondered +whether, after all, Ansell and the extremists might not be right, and +bodily beauty and strength be signs of the soul’s damnation. + +He glanced at Agnes. She was writing down some orderings for the +tradespeople on a piece of paper. Her handsome face was intent on the +work. The bench on which she and Gerald were sitting had no back, but +she sat as straight as a dart. He, though strong enough to sit straight, +did not take the trouble. + +“Why don’t they talk to each other?” thought Rickie. + +“Gerald, give this paper to the cook.” + +“I can give it to the other slavey, can’t I?” + +“She’d be dressing.” + +“Well, there’s Herbert.” + +“He’s busy. Oh, you know where the kitchen is. Take it to the cook.” + +He disappeared slowly behind the tree. + +“What do you think of him?” she immediately asked. He murmured civilly. + +“Has he changed since he was a schoolboy?” + +“In a way.” + +“Do tell me all about him. Why won’t you?” + +She might have seen a flash of horror pass over Rickie’s face. The +horror disappeared, for, thank God, he was now a man, whom civilization +protects. But he and Gerald had met, as it were, behind the scenes, +before our decorous drama opens, and there the elder boy had done things +to him--absurd things, not worth chronicling separately. An apple-pie +bed is nothing; pinches, kicks, boxed ears, twisted arms, pulled hair, +ghosts at night, inky books, befouled photographs, amount to very little +by themselves. But let them be united and continuous, and you have a +hell that no grown-up devil can devise. Between Rickie and Gerald there +lay a shadow that darkens life more often than we suppose. The bully and +his victim never quite forget their first relations. They meet in clubs +and country houses, and clap one another on the back; but in both the +memory is green of a more strenuous day, when they were boys together. + +He tried to say, “He was the right kind of boy, and I was the wrong +kind.” But Cambridge would not let him smooth the situation over by +self-belittlement. If he had been the wrong kind of boy, Gerald had been +a worse kind. He murmured, “We are different, very,” and Miss Pembroke, +perhaps suspecting something, asked no more. But she kept to the subject +of Mr. Dawes, humorously depreciating her lover and discussing him +without reverence. Rickie laughed, but felt uncomfortable. When people +were engaged, he felt that they should be outside criticism. Yet here he +was criticizing. He could not help it. He was dragged in. + +“I hope his ankle is better.” + +“Never was bad. He’s always fussing over something.” + +“He plays next week in a match, I think Herbert says.” + +“I dare say he does.” + +“Shall we be going?” + +“Pray go if you like. I shall stop at home. I’ve had enough of cold +feet.” + +It was all very colourless and odd. + +Gerald returned, saying, “I can’t stand your cook. What’s she want to +ask me questions for? I can’t stand talking to servants. I say, ‘If I +speak to you, well and good’--and it’s another thing besides if she were +pretty.” + +“Well, I hope our ugly cook will have lunch ready in a minute,” said +Agnes. “We’re frightfully unpunctual this morning, and I daren’t say +anything, because it was the same yesterday, and if I complain again +they might leave. Poor Rickie must be starved.” + +“Why, the Silts gave me all these sandwiches and I’ve never eaten them. +They always stuff one.” + +“And you thought you’d better, eh?” said Mr. Dawes, “in case you weren’t +stuffed here.” + +Miss Pembroke, who house-kept somewhat economically, looked annoyed. + +The voice of Mr. Pembroke was now heard calling from the house, +“Frederick! Frederick! My dear boy, pardon me. It was an important +letter about the Church Defence, otherwise--. Come in and see your +room.” + +He was glad to quit the little lawn. He had learnt too much there. It +was dreadful: they did not love each other. More dreadful even than the +case of his father and mother, for they, until they married, had got on +pretty well. But this man was already rude and brutal and cold: he was +still the school bully who twisted up the arms of little boys, and ran +pins into them at chapel, and struck them in the stomach when they were +swinging on the horizontal bar. Poor Agnes; why ever had she done it? +Ought not somebody to interfere? + +He had forgotten his sandwiches, and went back to get them. + +Gerald and Agnes were locked in each other’s arms. + +He only looked for a moment, but the sight burnt into his brain. The +man’s grip was the stronger. He had drawn the woman on to his knee, +was pressing her, with all his strength, against him. Already her hands +slipped off him, and she whispered, “Don’t you hurt--” Her face had no +expression. It stared at the intruder and never saw him. Then her lover +kissed it, and immediately it shone with mysterious beauty, like some +star. + +Rickie limped away without the sandwiches, crimson and afraid. He +thought, “Do such things actually happen?” and he seemed to be looking +down coloured valleys. Brighter they glowed, till gods of pure flame +were born in them, and then he was looking at pinnacles of virgin snow. +While Mr. Pembroke talked, the riot of fair images increased. + +They invaded his being and lit lamps at unsuspected shrines. Their +orchestra commenced in that suburban house, where he had to stand aside +for the maid to carry in the luncheon. Music flowed past him like +a river. He stood at the springs of creation and heard the primeval +monotony. Then an obscure instrument gave out a little phrase. + +The river continued unheeding. The phrase was repeated and a listener +might know it was a fragment of the Tune of tunes. Nobler instruments +accepted it, the clarionet protected, the brass encouraged, and it rose +to the surface to the whisper of violins. In full unison was Love born, +flame of the flame, flushing the dark river beneath him and the virgin +snows above. His wings were infinite, his youth eternal; the sun was +a jewel on his finger as he passed it in benediction over the world. +Creation, no longer monotonous, acclaimed him, in widening melody, in +brighter radiances. Was Love a column of fire? Was he a torrent of song? +Was he greater than either--the touch of a man on a woman? + +It was the merest accident that Rickie had not been disgusted. But this +he could not know. + +Mr. Pembroke, when he called the two dawdlers into lunch, was aware of a +hand on his arm and a voice that murmured, “Don’t--they may be happy.” + +He stared, and struck the gong. To its music they approached, priest and +high priestess. + +“Rickie, can I give these sandwiches to the boot boy?” said the one. “He +would love them.” + +“The gong! Be quick! The gong!” + +“Are you smoking before lunch?” said the other. + +But they had got into heaven, and nothing could get them out of it. +Others might think them surly or prosaic. He knew. He could remember +every word they spoke. He would treasure every motion, every glance of +either, and so in time to come, when the gates of heaven had shut, some +faint radiance, some echo of wisdom might remain with him outside. + +As a matter of fact, he saw them very little during his visit. He +checked himself because he was unworthy. What right had he to pry, even +in the spirit, upon their bliss? It was no crime to have seen them +on the lawn. It would be a crime to go to it again. He tried to keep +himself and his thoughts away, not because he was ascetic, but because +they would not like it if they knew. This behaviour of his suited them +admirably. And when any gracious little thing occurred to them--any +little thing that his sympathy had contrived and allowed--they put it +down to chance or to each other. + +So the lovers fall into the background. They are part of the distant +sunrise, and only the mountains speak to them. Rickie talks to Mr. +Pembroke, amidst the unlit valleys of our over-habitable world. + + + +IV + +Sawston School had been founded by a tradesman in the seventeenth +century. It was then a tiny grammar-school in a tiny town, and the City +Company who governed it had to drive half a day through the woods and +heath on the occasion of their annual visit. In the twentieth century +they still drove, but only from the railway station; and found +themselves not in a tiny town, nor yet in a large one, but amongst +innumerable residences, detached and semi-detached, which had gathered +round the school. For the intentions of the founder had been altered, or +at all events amplified, instead of educating the “poore of my home,” + he now educated the upper classes of England. The change had taken place +not so very far back. Till the nineteenth century the grammar-school was +still composed of day scholars from the neighbourhood. Then two things +happened. Firstly, the school’s property rose in value, and it became +rich. Secondly, for no obvious reason, it suddenly emitted a quantity +of bishops. The bishops, like the stars from a Roman candle, were +all colours, and flew in all directions, some high, some low, some to +distant colonies, one into the Church of Rome. But many a father traced +their course in the papers; many a mother wondered whether her son, if +properly ignited, might not burn as bright; many a family moved to the +place where living and education were so cheap, where day-boys were not +looked down upon, and where the orthodox and the up-to-date were said to +be combined. The school doubled its numbers. It built new class-rooms, +laboratories and a gymnasium. It dropped the prefix “Grammar.” It coaxed +the sons of the local tradesmen into a new foundation, the “Commercial +School,” built a couple of miles away. And it started boarding-houses. +It had not the gracious antiquity of Eton or Winchester, nor, on the +other hand, had it a conscious policy like Lancing, Wellington, and +other purely modern foundations. Where tradition served, it clung to +them. Where new departures seemed desirable, they were made. It aimed +at producing the average Englishman, and, to a very great extent, it +succeeded. + +Here Mr. Pembroke passed his happy and industrious life. His technical +position was that of master to a form low down on the Modern Side. But +his work lay elsewhere. He organized. If no organization existed, +he would create one. If one did exist, he would modify it. “An +organization,” he would say, “is after all not an end in itself. It must +contribute to a movement.” When one good custom seemed likely to +corrupt the school, he was ready with another; he believed that without +innumerable customs there was no safety, either for boys or men. + +Perhaps he is right, and always will be right. Perhaps each of us +would go to ruin if for one short hour we acted as we thought fit, and +attempted the service of perfect freedom. The school caps, with their +elaborate symbolism, were his; his the many-tinted bathing-drawers, +that showed how far a boy could swim; his the hierarchy of jerseys and +blazers. It was he who instituted Bounds, and call, and the two sorts +of exercise-paper, and the three sorts of caning, and “The Sawtonian,” a +bi-terminal magazine. His plump finger was in every pie. The dome of +his skull, mild but impressive, shone at every master’s meeting. He was +generally acknowledged to be the coming man. + +His last achievement had been the organization of the day-boys. They had +been left too much to themselves, and were weak in esprit de corps; +they were apt to regard home, not school, as the most important thing +in their lives. Moreover, they got out of their parents’ hands; they did +their preparation any time and some times anyhow. They shirked games, +they were out at all hours, they ate what they should not, they smoked, +they bicycled on the asphalt. Now all was over. Like boarders, they +were to be in at 7:15 P.M., and were not allowed out after unless with +a written order from their parent or guardian; they, too, must work at +fixed hours in the evening, and before breakfast next morning from 7 to +8. Games were compulsory. They must not go to parties in term time. +They must keep to bounds. Of course the reform was not complete. It +was impossible to control the dieting, though, on a printed circular, +day-parents were implored to provide simple food. And it is also +believed that some mothers disobeyed the rule about preparation, and +allowed their sons to do all the work over-night and have a longer +sleep in the morning. But the gulf between day-boys and boarders was +considerably lessened, and grew still narrower when the day-boys too +were organized into a House with house-master and colours of their own. +“Through the House,” said Mr. Pembroke, “one learns patriotism for +the school, just as through the school one learns patriotism for the +country. Our only course, therefore, is to organize the day-boys into +a House.” The headmaster agreed, as he often did, and the new community +was formed. Mr. Pembroke, to avoid the tongues of malice, had refused +the post of house-master for himself, saying to Mr. Jackson, who taught +the sixth, “You keep too much in the background. Here is a chance for +you.” But this was a failure. Mr. Jackson, a scholar and a student, +neither felt nor conveyed any enthusiasm, and when confronted with his +House, would say, “Well, I don’t know what we’re all here for. Now I +should think you’d better go home to your mothers.” He returned to his +background, and next term Mr. Pembroke was to take his place. + +Such were the themes on which Mr. Pembroke discoursed to Rickie’s civil +ear. He showed him the school, and the library, and the subterranean +hall where the day-boys might leave their coats and caps, and where, on +festal occasions, they supped. He showed him Mr. Jackson’s pretty house, +and whispered, “Were it not for his brilliant intellect, it would be a +case of Quickmarch!” He showed him the racquet-court, happily completed, +and the chapel, unhappily still in need of funds. Rickie was impressed, +but then he was impressed by everything. Of course a House of day-boys +seemed a little shadowy after Agnes and Gerald, but he imparted some +reality even to that. + +“The racquet-court,” said Mr. Pembroke, “is most gratifying. We never +expected to manage it this year. But before the Easter holidays every +boy received a subscription card, and was given to understand that he +must collect thirty shillings. You will scarcely believe me, but they +nearly all responded. Next term there was a dinner in the great school, +and all who had collected, not thirty shillings, but as much as a +pound, were invited to it--for naturally one was not precise for a few +shillings, the response being the really valuable thing. Practically the +whole school had to come.” + +“They must enjoy the court tremendously.” + +“Ah, it isn’t used very much. Racquets, as I daresay you know, is rather +an expensive game. Only the wealthier boys play--and I’m sorry to say +that it is not of our wealthier boys that we are always the proudest. +But the point is that no public school can be called first-class until +it has one. They are building them right and left.” + +“And now you must finish the chapel?” + +“Now we must complete the chapel.” He paused reverently, and said, “And +here is a fragment of the original building.” Rickie at once had a rush +of sympathy. He, too, looked with reverence at the morsel of Jacobean +brickwork, ruddy and beautiful amidst the machine-squared stones of the +modern apse. The two men, who had so little in common, were thrilled +with patriotism. They rejoiced that their country was great, noble, and +old. + +“Thank God I’m English,” said Rickie suddenly. + +“Thank Him indeed,” said Mr. Pembroke, laying a hand on his back. + +“We’ve been nearly as great as the Greeks, I do believe. Greater, I’m +sure, than the Italians, though they did get closer to beauty. Greater +than the French, though we do take all their ideas. I can’t help +thinking that England is immense. English literature certainly.” + +Mr. Pembroke removed his hand. He found such patriotism somewhat craven. +Genuine patriotism comes only from the heart. It knows no parleying with +reason. English ladies will declare abroad that there are no fogs in +London, and Mr. Pembroke, though he would not go to this, was only +restrained by the certainty of being found out. On this occasion +he remarked that the Greeks lacked spiritual insight, and had a low +conception of woman. + +“As to women--oh! there they were dreadful,” said Rickie, leaning his +hand on the chapel. “I realize that more and more. But as to spiritual +insight, I don’t quite like to say; and I find Plato too difficult, but +I know men who don’t, and I fancy they mightn’t agree with you.” + +“Far be it from me to disparage Plato. And for philosophy as a whole I +have the greatest respect. But it is the crown of a man’s education, +not the foundation. Myself, I read it with the utmost profit, but I have +known endless trouble result from boys who attempt it too soon, before +they were set.” + +“But if those boys had died first,” cried Rickie with sudden vehemence, +“without knowing what there is to know--” + +“Or isn’t to know!” said Mr. Pembroke sarcastically. + +“Or what there isn’t to know. Exactly. That’s it.” + +“My dear Rickie, what do you mean? If an old friend may be frank, you +are talking great rubbish.” And, with a few well-worn formulae, he +propped up the young man’s orthodoxy. The props were unnecessary. Rickie +had his own equilibrium. Neither the Revivalism that assails a boy at +about the age of fifteen, nor the scepticism that meets him five years +later, could sway him from his allegiance to the church into which he +had been born. But his equilibrium was personal, and the secret of it +useless to others. He desired that each man should find his own. + +“What does philosophy do?” the propper continued. “Does it make a man +happier in life? Does it make him die more peacefully? I fancy that in +the long-run Herbert Spencer will get no further than the rest of us. +Ah, Rickie! I wish you could move among the school boys, and see their +healthy contempt for all they cannot touch!” Here he was going too far, +and had to add, “Their spiritual capacities, of course, are another +matter.” Then he remembered the Greeks, and said, “Which proves my +original statement.” + +Submissive signs, as of one propped, appeared in Rickie’s face. +Mr. Pembroke then questioned him about the men who found Plato not +difficult. But here he kept silence, patting the school chapel gently, +and presently the conversation turned to topics with which they were +both more competent to deal. + +“Does Agnes take much interest in the school?” + +“Not as much as she did. It is the result of her engagement. If our +naughty soldier had not carried her off, she might have made an ideal +schoolmaster’s wife. I often chaff him about it, for he a little +despises the intellectual professions. Natural, perfectly natural. How +can a man who faces death feel as we do towards mensa or tupto?” + +“Perfectly true. Absolutely true.” + +Mr. Pembroke remarked to himself that Frederick was improving. + +“If a man shoots straight and hits straight and speaks straight, if his +heart is in the right place, if he has the instincts of a Christian +and a gentleman--then I, at all events, ask no better husband for my +sister.” + +“How could you get a better?” he cried. “Do you remember the thing in +‘The Clouds’?” And he quoted, as well as he could, from the invitation +of the Dikaios Logos, the description of the young Athenian, perfect in +body, placid in mind, who neglects his work at the Bar and trains all +day among the woods and meadows, with a garland on his head and a friend +to set the pace; the scent of new leaves is upon them; they rejoice in +the freshness of spring; over their heads the plane-tree whispers to the +elm, perhaps the most glorious invitation to the brainless life that has +ever been given. + +“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Pembroke, who did not want a brother-in-law out of +Aristophanes. Nor had he got one, for Mr. Dawes would not have bothered +over the garland or noticed the spring, and would have complained that +the friend ran too slowly or too fast. + +“And as for her--!” But he could think of no classical parallel for +Agnes. She slipped between examples. A kindly Medea, a Cleopatra with a +sense of duty--these suggested her a little. She was not born in Greece, +but came overseas to it--a dark, intelligent princess. With all her +splendour, there were hints of splendour still hidden--hints of an +older, richer, and more mysterious land. He smiled at the idea of her +being “not there.” Ansell, clever as he was, had made a bad blunder. She +had more reality than any other woman in the world. + +Mr. Pembroke looked pleased at this boyish enthusiasm. He was fond of +his sister, though he knew her to be full of faults. “Yes, I envy her,” + he said. “She has found a worthy helpmeet for life’s journey, I do +believe. And though they chafe at the long engagement, it is a blessing +in disguise. They learn to know each other thoroughly before contracting +more intimate ties.” + +Rickie did not assent. The length of the engagement seemed to him +unspeakably cruel. Here were two people who loved each other, and they +could not marry for years because they had no beastly money. Not all +Herbert’s pious skill could make this out a blessing. It was bad enough +being “so rich” at the Silts; here he was more ashamed of it than ever. +In a few weeks he would come of age and his money be his own. What a +pity things were so crookedly arranged. He did not want money, or at all +events he did not want so much. + +“Suppose,” he meditated, for he became much worried over this,--“suppose +I had a hundred pounds a year less than I shall have. Well, I should +still have enough. I don’t want anything but food, lodging, clothes, +and now and then a railway fare. I haven’t any tastes. I don’t collect +anything or play games. Books are nice to have, but after all there is +Mudie’s, or if it comes to that, the Free Library. Oh, my profession! I +forgot I shall have a profession. Well, that will leave me with more to +spare than ever.” And he supposed away till he lost touch with the world +and with what it permits, and committed an unpardonable sin. + +It happened towards the end of his visit--another airless day of that +mild January. Mr. Dawes was playing against a scratch team of cads, and +had to go down to the ground in the morning to settle something. Rickie +proposed to come too. + +Hitherto he had been no nuisance. “You will be frightfully bored,” said +Agnes, observing the cloud on her lover’s face. “And Gerald walks like a +maniac.” + +“I had a little thought of the Museum this morning,” said Mr. Pembroke. +“It is very strong in flint arrow-heads.” + +“Ah, that’s your line, Rickie. I do envy you and Herbert the way you +enjoy the past.” + +“I almost think I’ll go with Dawes, if he’ll have me. I can walk quite +fast just to the ground and back. Arrowheads are wonderful, but I don’t +really enjoy them yet, though I hope I shall in time.” + +Mr. Pembroke was offended, but Rickie held firm. + +In a quarter of an hour he was back at the house alone, nearly crying. + +“Oh, did the wretch go too fast?” called Miss Pembroke from her bedroom +window. + +“I went too fast for him.” He spoke quite sharply, and before he had +time to say he was sorry and didn’t mean exactly that, the window had +shut. + +“They’ve quarrelled,” she thought. “Whatever about?” + +She soon heard. Gerald returned in a cold stormy temper. Rickie had +offered him money. + +“My dear fellow don’t be so cross. The child’s mad.” + +“If it was, I’d forgive that. But I can’t stand unhealthiness.” + +“Now, Gerald, that’s where I hate you. You don’t know what it is to pity +the weak.” + +“Woman’s job. So you wish I’d taken a hundred pounds a year from him. +Did you ever hear such blasted cheek? Marry us--he, you, and me--a +hundred pounds down and as much annual--he, of course, to pry into all +we did, and we to kowtow and eat dirt-pie to him. If that’s Mr. Rickety +Elliot’s idea of a soldier and an Englishman, it isn’t mine, and I wish +I’d had a horse-whip.” + +She was roaring with laughter. “You’re babies, a pair of you, and you’re +the worst. Why couldn’t you let the little silly down gently? There he +was puffing and sniffing under my window, and I thought he’d insulted +you. Why didn’t you accept?” + +“Accept?” he thundered. + +“It would have taken the nonsense out of him for ever. Why, he was only +talking out of a book.” + +“More fool he.” + +“Well, don’t be angry with a fool. He means no harm. He muddles all day +with poetry and old dead people, and then tries to bring it into life. +It’s too funny for words.” + +Gerald repeated that he could not stand unhealthiness. + +“I don’t call that exactly unhealthy.” + +“I do. And why he could give the money’s worse.” + +“What do you mean?” + +He became shy. “I hadn’t meant to tell you. It’s not quite for a lady.” + For, like most men who are rather animal, he was intellectually a prude. +“He says he can’t ever marry, owing to his foot. It wouldn’t be fair to +posterity. His grandfather was crocked, his father too, and he’s as bad. +He thinks that it’s hereditary, and may get worse next generation. He’s +discussed it all over with other Undergrads. A bright lot they must be. +He daren’t risk having any children. Hence the hundred quid.” + +She stopped laughing. “Oh, little beast, if he said all that!” + +He was encouraged to proceed. Hitherto he had not talked about their +school days. Now he told her everything,--the “barley-sugar,” as he +called it, the pins in chapel, and how one afternoon he had tied him +head-downward on to a tree trunk and then ran away--of course only for a +moment. + +For this she scolded him well. But she had a thrill of joy when she +thought of the weak boy in the clutches of the strong one. + + + +V + +Gerald died that afternoon. He was broken up in the football match. +Rickie and Mr. Pembroke were on the ground when the accident took place. +It was no good torturing him by a drive to the hospital, and he was +merely carried to the little pavilion and laid upon the floor. A doctor +came, and so did a clergyman, but it seemed better to leave him for the +last few minutes with Agnes, who had ridden down on her bicycle. + +It was a strange lamentable interview. The girl was so accustomed to +health, that for a time she could not understand. It must be a joke that +he chose to lie there in the dust, with a rug over him and his knees +bent up towards his chin. His arms were as she knew them, and their +admirable muscles showed clear and clean beneath the jersey. The face, +too, though a little flushed, was uninjured: it must be some curious +joke. + +“Gerald, what have you been doing?” + +He replied, “I can’t see you. It’s too dark.” + +“Oh, I’ll soon alter that,” she said in her old brisk way. She opened +the pavilion door. The people who were standing by it moved aside. She +saw a deserted meadow, steaming and grey, and beyond it slateroofed +cottages, row beside row, climbing a shapeless hill. Towards London the +sky was yellow. “There. That’s better.” She sat down by him again, and +drew his hand into her own. “Now we are all right, aren’t we?” + +“Where are you?” + +This time she could not reply. + +“What is it? Where am I going?” + +“Wasn’t the rector here?” said she after a silence. + +“He explained heaven, and thinks that I--but--I couldn’t tell a parson; +but I don’t seem to have any use for any of the things there.” + +“We are Christians,” said Agnes shyly. “Dear love, we don’t talk about +these things, but we believe them. I think that you will get well and +be as strong again as ever; but, in any case, there is a spiritual life, +and we know that some day you and I--” + +“I shan’t do as a spirit,” he interrupted, sighing pitifully. “I want +you as I am, and it cannot be managed. The rector had to say so. I +want--I don’t want to talk. I can’t see you. Shut that door.” + +She obeyed, and crept into his arms. Only this time her grasp was the +stronger. Her heart beat louder and louder as the sound of his grew more +faint. He was crying like a little frightened child, and her lips were +wet with his tears. “Bear it bravely,” she told him. + +“I can’t,” he whispered. “It isn’t to be done. I can’t see you,” and +passed from her trembling with open eyes. + +She rode home on her bicycle, leaving the others to follow. Some ladies +who did not know what had happened bowed and smiled as she passed, and +she returned their salute. + +“Oh, miss, is it true?” cried the cook, her face streaming with tears. + +Agnes nodded. Presumably it was true. Letters had just arrived: one +was for Gerald from his mother. Life, which had given them no warning, +seemed to make no comment now. The incident was outside nature, and +would surely pass away like a dream. She felt slightly irritable, and +the grief of the servants annoyed her. + +They sobbed. “Ah, look at his marks! Ah, little he thought--little he +thought!” In the brown holland strip by the front door a heavy football +boot had left its impress. They had not liked Gerald, but he was a man, +they were women, he had died. Their mistress ordered them to leave her. + +For many minutes she sat at the foot of the stairs, rubbing her eyes. An +obscure spiritual crisis was going on. + +Should she weep like the servants? Or should she bear up and trust in +the consoler Time? Was the death of a man so terrible after all? As she +invited herself to apathy there were steps on the gravel, and Rickie +Elliot burst in. He was splashed with mud, his breath was gone, and +his hair fell wildly over his meagre face. She thought, “These are the +people who are left alive!” From the bottom of her soul she hated him. + +“I came to see what you’re doing,” he cried. + +“Resting.” + +He knelt beside her, and she said, “Would you please go away?” + +“Yes, dear Agnes, of course; but I must see first that you mind.” Her +breath caught. Her eves moved to the treads, going outwards, so firmly, +so irretrievably. + +He panted, “It’s the worst thing that can ever happen to you in all +your life, and you’ve got to mind it you’ve got to mind it. They’ll come +saying, ‘Bear up trust to time.’ No, no; they’re wrong. Mind it.” + +Through all her misery she knew that this boy was greater than they +supposed. He rose to his feet, and with intense conviction cried: “But +I know--I understand. It’s your death as well as his. He’s gone, Agnes, +and his arms will never hold you again. In God’s name, mind such a +thing, and don’t sit fencing with your soul. Don’t stop being great; +that’s the one crime he’ll never forgive you.” + +She faltered, “Who--who forgives?” + +“Gerald.” + +At the sound of his name she slid forward, and all her dishonesty left +her. She acknowledged that life’s meaning had vanished. Bending down, +she kissed the footprint. “How can he forgive me?” she sobbed. “Where +has he gone to? You could never dream such an awful thing. He couldn’t +see me though I opened the door--wide--plenty of light; and then he +could not remember the things that should comfort him. He wasn’t a--he +wasn’t ever a great reader, and he couldn’t remember the things. The +rector tried, and he couldn’t--I came, and I couldn’t--” She could not +speak for tears. Rickie did not check her. He let her accuse herself, +and fate, and Herbert, who had postponed their marriage. She might have +been a wife six months; but Herbert had spoken of self-control and of +all life before them. He let her kiss the footprints till their marks +gave way to the marks of her lips. She moaned. “He is gone--where is +he?” and then he replied quite quietly, “He is in heaven.” + +She begged him not to comfort her; she could not bear it. + +“I did not come to comfort you. I came to see that you mind. He is in +heaven, Agnes. The greatest thing is over.” + +Her hatred was lulled. She murmured, “Dear Rickie!” and held up her hand +to him. Through her tears his meagre face showed as a seraph’s who spoke +the truth and forbade her to juggle with her soul. “Dear Rickie--but for +the rest of my life what am I to do?” + +“Anything--if you remember that the greatest thing is over.” + +“I don’t know you,” she said tremulously. “You have grown up in a +moment. You never talked to us, and yet you understand it all. Tell me +again--I can only trust you--where he is.” + +“He is in heaven.” + +“You are sure?” + +It puzzled her that Rickie, who could scarcely tell you the time without +a saving clause, should be so certain about immortality. + + + +VI + +He did not stop for the funeral. Mr. Pembroke thought that he had a bad +effect on Agnes, and prevented her from acquiescing in the tragedy as +rapidly as she might have done. As he expressed it, “one must not court +sorrow,” and he hinted to the young man that they desired to be alone. + +Rickie went back to the Silts. + +He was only there a few days. As soon as term opened he returned to +Cambridge, for which he longed passionately. The journey thither was now +familiar to him, and he took pleasure in each landmark. The fair valley +of Tewin Water, the cutting into Hitchin where the train traverses the +chalk, Baldock Church, Royston with its promise of downs, were nothing +in themselves, but dear as stages in the pilgrimage towards the abode +of peace. On the platform he met friends. They had all had pleasant +vacations: it was a happy world. The atmosphere alters. + +Cambridge, according to her custom, welcomed her sons with open drains. +Pettycury was up, so was Trinity Street, and navvies peeped out of +King’s Parade. Here it was gas, there electric light, but everywhere +something, and always a smell. It was also the day that the wheels fell +off the station tram, and Rickie, who was naturally inside, was among +the passengers who “sustained no injury but a shock, and had as hearty a +laugh over the mishap afterwards as any one.” + +Tilliard fled into a hansom, cursing himself for having tried to do the +thing cheaply. Hornblower also swept past yelling derisively, with his +luggage neatly piled above his head. “Let’s get out and walk,” muttered +Ansell. But Rickie was succouring a distressed female--Mrs. Aberdeen. + +“Oh, Mrs. Aberdeen, I never saw you: I am so glad to see you--I am so +very glad.” Mrs. Aberdeen was cold. She did not like being spoken to +outside the college, and was also distrait about her basket. Hitherto +no genteel eye had even seen inside it, but in the collision its little +calico veil fell off, and there was revealed--nothing. The basket was +empty, and never would hold anything illegal. All the same she was +distrait, and “We shall meet later, sir, I dessy,” was all the greeting +Rickie got from her. + +“Now what kind of a life has Mrs. Aberdeen?” he exclaimed, as he and +Ansell pursued the Station Road. “Here these bedders come and make us +comfortable. We owe an enormous amount to them, their wages are absurd, +and we know nothing about them. Off they go to Barnwell, and then their +lives are hidden. I just know that Mrs. Aberdeen has a husband, but +that’s all. She never will talk about him. Now I do so want to fill in +her life. I see one-half of it. What’s the other half? She may have a +real jolly house, in good taste, with a little garden and books, and +pictures. Or, again, she mayn’t. But in any case one ought to know. I +know she’d dislike it, but she oughtn’t to dislike. After all, bedders +are to blame for the present lamentable state of things, just as much as +gentlefolk. She ought to want me to come. She ought to introduce me to +her husband.” + +They had reached the corner of Hills Road. Ansell spoke for the first +time. He said, “Ugh!” + +“Drains?” + +“Yes. A spiritual cesspool.” + +Rickie laughed. + +“I expected it from your letter.” + +“The one you never answered?” + +“I answer none of your letters. You are quite hopeless by now. You can +go to the bad. But I refuse to accompany you. I refuse to believe that +every human being is a moving wonder of supreme interest and tragedy and +beauty--which was what the letter in question amounted to. You’ll find +plenty who will believe it. It’s a very popular view among people +who are too idle to think; it saves them the trouble of detecting the +beautiful from the ugly, the interesting from the dull, the tragic from +the melodramatic. You had just come from Sawston, and were apparently +carried away by the fact that Miss Pembroke had the usual amount of arms +and legs.” + +Rickie was silent. He had told his friend how he felt, but not what had +happened. Ansell could discuss love and death admirably, but somehow he +would not understand lovers or a dying man, and in the letter there had +been scant allusion to these concrete facts. Would Cambridge understand +them either? He watched some dons who were peeping into an excavation, +and throwing up their hands with humorous gestures of despair. These +men would lecture next week on Catiline’s conspiracy, on Luther, on +Evolution, on Catullus. They dealt with so much and they had experienced +so little. Was it possible he would ever come to think Cambridge narrow? +In his short life Rickie had known two sudden deaths, and that is enough +to disarrange any placid outlook on the world. He knew once for all +that we are all of us bubbles on an extremely rough sea. Into this sea +humanity has built, as it were, some little breakwaters--scientific +knowledge, civilized restraint--so that the bubbles do not break so +frequently or so soon. But the sea has not altered, and it was only a +chance that he, Ansell, Tilliard, and Mrs. Aberdeen had not all been +killed in the tram. + +They waited for the other tram by the Roman Catholic Church, whose +florid bulk was already receding into twilight. It is the first big +building that the incoming visitor sees. “Oh, here come the colleges!” + cries the Protestant parent, and then learns that it was built by a +Papist who made a fortune out of movable eyes for dolls. “Built out of +doll’s eyes to contain idols”--that, at all events, is the legend and +the joke. It watches over the apostate city, taller by many a yard than +anything within, and asserting, however wildly, that here is eternity, +stability, and bubbles unbreakable upon a windless sea. + +A costly hymn tune announced five o’clock, and in the distance the more +lovable note of St. Mary’s could be heard, speaking from the heart of +the town. Then the tram arrived--the slow stuffy tram that plies every +twenty minutes between the unknown and the marketplace--and took them +past the desecrated grounds of Downing, past Addenbrookes Hospital, girt +like a Venetian palace with a mantling canal, past the Fitz William, +towering upon immense substructions like any Roman temple, right up to +the gates of one’s own college, which looked like nothing else in the +world. The porters were glad to see them, but wished it had been a +hansom. “Our luggage,” explained Rickie, “comes in the hotel omnibus, if +you would kindly pay a shilling for mine.” Ansell turned aside to some +large lighted windows, the abode of a hospitable don, and from other +windows there floated familiar voices and the familiar mistakes in a +Beethoven sonata. The college, though small, was civilized, and proud of +its civilization. It was not sufficient glory to be a Blue there, nor +an additional glory to get drunk. Many a maiden lady who had read +that Cambridge men were sad dogs, was surprised and perhaps a little +disappointed at the reasonable life which greeted her. Miss Appleblossom +in particular had had a tremendous shock. The sight of young fellows +making tea and drinking water had made her wonder whether this was +Cambridge College at all. “It is so,” she exclaimed afterwards. “It is +just as I say; and what’s more, I wouldn’t have it otherwise; Stewart +says it’s as easy as easy to get into the swim, and not at all +expensive.” The direction of the swim was determined a little by the +genius of the place--for places have a genius, though the less we talk +about it the better--and a good deal by the tutors and resident fellows, +who treated with rare dexterity the products that came up yearly +from the public schools. They taught the perky boy that he was not +everything, and the limp boy that he might be something. They even +welcomed those boys who were neither limp nor perky, but odd--those boys +who had never been at a public school at all, and such do not find a +welcome everywhere. And they did everything with ease--one might almost +say with nonchalance, so that the boys noticed nothing, and received +education, often for the first time in their lives. + +But Rickie turned to none of these friends, for just then he loved his +rooms better than any person. They were all he really possessed in the +world, the only place he could call his own. Over the door was his name, +and through the paint, like a grey ghost, he could still read the name +of his predecessor. With a sigh of joy he entered the perishable home +that was his for a couple of years. There was a beautiful fire, and +the kettle boiled at once. He made tea on the hearth-rug and ate the +biscuits which Mrs. Aberdeen had brought for him up from Anderson’s. +“Gentlemen,” she said, “must learn to give and take.” He sighed again +and again, like one who had escaped from danger. With his head on the +fender and all his limbs relaxed, he felt almost as safe as he felt once +when his mother killed a ghost in the passage by carrying him through +it in her arms. There was no ghost now; he was frightened at reality; he +was frightened at the splendours and horrors of the world. + +A letter from Miss Pembroke was on the table. He did not hurry to open +it, for she, and all that she did, was overwhelming. She wrote like +the Sibyl; her sorrowful face moved over the stars and shattered their +harmonies; last night he saw her with the eyes of Blake, a virgin widow, +tall, veiled, consecrated, with her hands stretched out against an +everlasting wind. Why should she write? Her letters were not for the +likes of him, nor to be read in rooms like his. + +“We are not leaving Sawston,” she wrote. “I saw how selfish it was of +me to risk spoiling Herbert’s career. I shall get used to any place. +Now that he is gone, nothing of that sort can matter. Every one has been +most kind, but you have comforted me most, though you did not mean to. I +cannot think how you did it, or understood so much. I still think of you +as a little boy with a lame leg,--I know you will let me say this,--and +yet when it came to the point you knew more than people who have been +all their lives with sorrow and death.” + +Rickie burnt this letter, which he ought not to have done, for it was +one of the few tributes Miss Pembroke ever paid to imagination. But +he felt that it did not belong to him: words so sincere should be for +Gerald alone. The smoke rushed up the chimney, and he indulged in a +vision. He saw it reach the outer air and beat against the low ceiling +of clouds. The clouds were too strong for it; but in them was one chink, +revealing one star, and through this the smoke escaped into the light +of stars innumerable. Then--but then the vision failed, and the voice of +science whispered that all smoke remains on earth in the form of smuts, +and is troublesome to Mrs. Aberdeen. + +“I am jolly unpractical,” he mused. “And what is the point of it when +real things are so wonderful? Who wants visions in a world that has +Agnes and Gerald?” He turned on the electric light and pulled open +the table-drawer. There, among spoons and corks and string, he found a +fragment of a little story that he had tried to write last term. It was +called “The Bay of the Fifteen Islets,” and the action took place on St. +John’s Eve off the coast of Sicily. A party of tourists land on one of +the islands. Suddenly the boatmen become uneasy, and say that the island +is not generally there. It is an extra one, and they had better have tea +on one of the ordinaries. “Pooh, volcanic!” says the leading tourist, +and the ladies say how interesting. The island begins to rock, and so +do the minds of its visitors. They start and quarrel and jabber. Fingers +burst up through the sand-black fingers of sea devils. The island tilts. +The tourists go mad. But just before the catastrophe one man, integer +vitae scelerisque purus, sees the truth. Here are no devils. Other +muscles, other minds, are pulling the island to its subterranean home. +Through the advancing wall of waters he sees no grisly faces, no +ghastly medieval limbs, but--But what nonsense! When real things are so +wonderful, what is the point of pretending? + +And so Rickie deflected his enthusiasms. Hitherto they had played on +gods and heroes, on the infinite and the impossible, on virtue and +beauty and strength. Now, with a steadier radiance, they transfigured a +man who was dead and a woman who was still alive. + + + +VII + +Love, say orderly people, can be fallen into by two methods: (1) through +the desires, (2) through the imagination. And if the orderly people are +English, they add that (1) is the inferior method, and characteristic +of the South. It is inferior. Yet those who pursue it at all events +know what they want; they are not puzzling to themselves or ludicrous +to others; they do not take the wings of the morning and fly into the +uttermost parts of the sea before walking to the registry office; they +cannot breed a tragedy quite like Rickie’s. + +He is, of course, absurdly young--not twenty-one and he will be engaged +to be married at twenty-three. He has no knowledge of the world; for +example, he thinks that if you do not want money you can give it to +friends who do. He believes in humanity because he knows a dozen decent +people. He believes in women because he has loved his mother. And his +friends are as young and as ignorant as himself. They are full of the +wine of life. But they have not tasted the cup--let us call it the +teacup--of experience, which has made men of Mr. Pembroke’s type what +they are. Oh, that teacup! To be taken at prayers, at friendship, at +love, till we are quite sane, efficient, quite experienced, and quite +useless to God or man. We must drink it, or we shall die. But we need +not drink it always. Here is our problem and our salvation. There comes +a moment--God knows when--at which we can say, “I will experience no +longer. I will create. I will be an experience.” But to do this we must +be both acute and heroic. For it is not easy, after accepting six cups +of tea, to throw the seventh in the face of the hostess. And to Rickie +this moment has not, as yet, been offered. + +Ansell, at the end of his third year, got a first in the Moral Science +Tripos. Being a scholar, he kept his rooms in college, and at once +began to work for a Fellowship. Rickie got a creditable second in the +Classical Tripos, Part I., and retired to sallow lodgings in Mill bane, +carrying with him the degree of B.A. and a small exhibition, which was +quite as much as he deserved. For Part II. he read Greek Archaeology, +and got a second. All this means that Ansell was much cleverer than +Rickie. As for the cow, she was still going strong, though turning a +little academic as the years passed over her. + +“We are bound to get narrow,” sighed Rickie. He and his friend were +lying in a meadow during their last summer term. In his incurable love +for flowers he had plaited two garlands of buttercups and cow-parsley, +and Ansell’s lean Jewish face was framed in one of them. “Cambridge is +wonderful, but--but it’s so tiny. You have no idea--at least, I think +you have no idea--how the great world looks down on it.” + +“I read the letters in the papers.” + +“It’s a bad look-out.” + +“How?” + +“Cambridge has lost touch with the times.” + +“Was she ever intended to touch them?” + +“She satisfies,” said Rickie mysteriously, “neither the professions, nor +the public schools, nor the great thinking mass of men and women. There +is a general feeling that her day is over, and naturally one feels +pretty sick.” + +“Do you still write short stories?” + +“Because your English has gone to the devil. You think and talk in +Journalese. Define a great thinking mass.” + +Rickie sat up and adjusted his floral crown. + +“Estimate the worth of a general feeling.” + +Silence. + +“And thirdly, where is the great world?” + +“Oh that--!” + +“Yes. That,” exclaimed Ansell, rising from his couch in violent +excitement. “Where is it? How do you set about finding it? How long does +it take to get there? What does it think? What does it do? What does +it want? Oblige me with specimens of its art and literature.” Silence. +“Till you do, my opinions will be as follows: There is no great world at +all, only a little earth, for ever isolated from the rest of the little +solar system. The earth is full of tiny societies, and Cambridge is one +of them. All the societies are narrow, but some are good and some are +bad--just as one house is beautiful inside and another ugly. Observe the +metaphor of the houses: I am coming back to it. The good societies say, +`I tell you to do this because I am Cambridge.’ The bad ones say, `I +tell you to do that because I am the great world, not because I am +‘Peckham,’ or `Billingsgate,’ or `Park Lane,’ but `because I am the +great world.’ They lie. And fools like you listen to them, and believe +that they are a thing which does not exist and never has existed, and +confuse ‘great,’ which has no meaning whatever, with ‘good,’ which means +salvation. Look at this great wreath: it’ll be dead tomorrow. Look +at that good flower: it’ll come up again next year. Now for the other +metaphor. To compare the world to Cambridge is like comparing the +outsides of houses with the inside of a house. No intellectual effort is +needed, no moral result is attained. You only have to say, ‘Oh, what +a difference!’ and then come indoors again and exhibit your broadened +mind.” + +“I never shall come indoors again,” said Rickie. “That’s the whole +point.” And his voice began to quiver. “It’s well enough for those +who’ll get a Fellowship, but in a few weeks I shall go down. In a few +years it’ll be as if I’ve never been up. It matters very much to me what +the world is like. I can’t answer your questions about it; and that’s +no loss to you, but so much the worse for me. And then you’ve got a +house--not a metaphorical one, but a house with father and sisters. I +haven’t, and never shall have. There’ll never again be a home for me +like Cambridge. I shall only look at the outside of homes. According to +your metaphor, I shall live in the street, and it matters very much to +me what I find there.” + +“You’ll live in another house right enough,” said Ansell, rather +uneasily. “Only take care you pick out a decent one. I can’t think +why you flop about so helplessly, like a bit of seaweed. In four years +you’ve taken as much root as any one.” + +“Where?” + +“I should say you’ve been fortunate in your friends.” + +“Oh--that!” But he was not cynical--or cynical in a very tender way. +He was thinking of the irony of friendship--so strong it is, and so +fragile. We fly together, like straws in an eddy, to part in the open +stream. Nature has no use for us: she has cut her stuff differently. +Dutiful sons, loving husbands, responsible fathers these are what she +wants, and if we are friends it must be in our spare time. Abram and +Sarai were sorrowful, yet their seed became as sand of the sea, and +distracts the politics of Europe at this moment. But a few verses of +poetry is all that survives of David and Jonathan. + +“I wish we were labelled,” said Rickie. He wished that all the +confidence and mutual knowledge that is born in such a place as +Cambridge could be organized. People went down into the world saying, +“We know and like each other; we shan’t forget.” But they did forget, +for man is so made that he cannot remember long without a symbol; he +wished there was a society, a kind of friendship office, where the +marriage of true minds could be registered. + +“Why labels?” + +“To know each other again.” + +“I have taught you pessimism splendidly.” He looked at his watch. + +“What time?” + +“Not twelve.” + +Rickie got up. + +“Why go?” He stretched out his hand and caught hold of Rickie’s ankle. + +“I’ve got that Miss Pembroke to lunch--that girl whom you say never’s +there.” + +“Then why go? All this week you have pretended Miss Pembroke awaited +you. Wednesday--Miss Pembroke to lunch. Thursday--Miss Pembroke to tea. +Now again--and you didn’t even invite her.” + +“To Cambridge, no. But the Hall man they’re stopping with has so many +engagements that she and her friend can often come to me, I’m glad to +say. I don’t think I ever told you much, but over two years ago the man +she was going to marry was killed at football. She nearly died of grief. +This visit to Cambridge is almost the first amusement she has felt up to +taking. Oh, they go back tomorrow! Give me breakfast tomorrow.” + +“All right.” + +“But I shall see you this evening. I shall be round at your paper on +Schopenhauer. Lemme go.” + +“Don’t go,” he said idly. “It’s much better for you to talk to me.” + +“Lemme go, Stewart.” + +“It’s amusing that you’re so feeble. You--simply--can’t--get--away. I +wish I wanted to bully you.” + +Rickie laughed, and suddenly over balanced into the grass. Ansell, with +unusual playfulness, held him prisoner. They lay there for few minutes, +talking and ragging aimlessly. Then Rickie seized his opportunity and +jerked away. + +“Go, go!” yawned the other. But he was a little vexed, for he was a +young man with great capacity for pleasure, and it pleased him that +morning to be with his friend. The thought of two ladies waiting lunch +did not deter him; stupid women, why shouldn’t they wait? Why should +they interfere with their betters? With his ear on the ground he +listened to Rickie’s departing steps, and thought, “He wastes a lot of +time keeping engagements. Why will he be pleasant to fools?” And then +he thought, “Why has he turned so unhappy? It isn’t as it he’s a +philosopher, or tries to solve the riddle of existence. And he’s got +money of his own.” Thus thinking, he fell asleep. + +Meanwhile Rickie hurried away from him, and slackened and stopped, and +hurried again. He was due at the Union in ten minutes, but he could not +bring himself there. He dared not meet Miss Pembroke: he loved her. + +The devil must have planned it. They had started so gloriously; she had +been a goddess both in joy and sorrow. She was a goddess still. But +he had dethroned the god whom once he had glorified equally. Slowly, +slowly, the image of Gerald had faded. That was the first step. Rickie +had thought, “No matter. He will be bright again. Just now all the +radiance chances to be in her.” And on her he had fixed his eyes. He +thought of her awake. He entertained her willingly in dreams. He found +her in poetry and music and in the sunset. She made him kind and strong. +She made him clever. Through her he kept Cambridge in its proper place, +and lived as a citizen of the great world. But one night he dreamt +that she lay in his arms. This displeased him. He determined to think a +little about Gerald instead. Then the fabric collapsed. + +It was hard on Rickie thus to meet the devil. He did not deserve it, for +he was comparatively civilized, and knew that there was nothing shameful +in love. But to love this woman! If only it had been any one else! Love +in return--that he could expect from no one, being too ugly and too +unattractive. But the love he offered would not then have been vile. +The insult to Miss Pembroke, who was consecrated, and whom he had +consecrated, who could still see Gerald, and always would see him, +shining on his everlasting throne this was the crime from the devil, +the crime that no penance would ever purge. She knew nothing. She never +would know. But the crime was registered in heaven. + +He had been tempted to confide in Ansell. But to what purpose? He would +say, “I love Miss Pembroke.” and Stewart would reply, “You ass.” And +then. “I’m never going to tell her.” “You ass,” again. After all, it +was not a practical question; Agnes would never hear of his fall. If +his friend had been, as he expressed it, “labelled”; if he had been +a father, or still better a brother, one might tell him of the +discreditable passion. But why irritate him for no reason? Thinking “I +am always angling for sympathy; I must stop myself,” he hurried onward +to the Union. + +He found his guests half way up the stairs, reading the advertisements +of coaches for the Long Vacation. He heard Mrs. Lewin say, “I wonder +what he’ll end by doing.” A little overacting his part, he apologized +nonchalantly for his lateness. + +“It’s always the same,” cried Agnes. “Last time he forgot I was coming +altogether.” She wore a flowered muslin--something indescribably liquid +and cool. It reminded him a little of those swift piercing streams, +neither blue nor green, that gush out of the dolomites. Her face +was clear and brown, like the face of a mountaineer; her hair was so +plentiful that it seemed banked up above it; and her little toque, +though it answered the note of the dress, was almost ludicrous, poised +on so much natural glory. When she moved, the sunlight flashed on her +ear-rings. + +He led them up to the luncheon-room. By now he was conscious of his +limitations as a host, and never attempted to entertain ladies in his +lodgings. Moreover, the Union seemed less intimate. It had a faint +flavour of a London club; it marked the undergraduate’s nearest approach +to the great world. Amid its waiters and serviettes one felt impersonal, +and able to conceal the private emotions. Rickie felt that if Miss +Pembroke knew one thing about him, she knew everything. During this +visit he took her to no place that he greatly loved. + +“Sit down, ladies. Fall to. I’m sorry. I was out towards Coton with a +dreadful friend.” + +Mrs. Lewin pushed up her veil. She was a typical May-term chaperon, +always pleasant, always hungry, and always tired. Year after year she +came up to Cambridge in a tight silk dress, and year after year she +nearly died of it. Her feet hurt, her limbs were cramped in a canoe, +black spots danced before her eyes from eating too much mayonnaise. But +still she came, if not as a mother as an aunt, if not as an aunt as a +friend. Still she ascended the roof of King’s, still she counted the +balls of Clare, still she was on the point of grasping the organization +of the May races. “And who is your friend?” she asked. + +“His name is Ansell.” + +“Well, now, did I see him two years ago--as a bedmaker in something they +did at the Foot Lights? Oh, how I roared.” + +“You didn’t see Mr. Ansell at the Foot Lights,” said Agnes, smiling. + +“How do you know?” asked Rickie. + +“He’d scarcely be so frivolous.” + +“Do you remember seeing him?” + +“For a moment.” + +What a memory she had! And how splendidly during that moment she had +behaved! + +“Isn’t he marvellously clever?” + +“I believe so.” + +“Oh, give me clever people!” cried Mrs. Lewin. “They are kindness itself +at the Hall, but I assure you I am depressed at times. One cannot talk +bump-rowing for ever.” + +“I never hear about him, Rickie; but isn’t he really your greatest +friend?” + +“I don’t go in for greatest friends.” + +“Do you mean you like us all equally?” + +“All differently, those of you I like.” + +“Ah, you’ve caught it!” cried Mrs. Lewin. “Mr. Elliot gave it you there +well.” + +Agnes laughed, and, her elbows on the table, regarded them both through +her fingers--a habit of hers. Then she said, “Can’t we see the great Mr. +Ansell?” + +“Oh, let’s. Or would he frighten me?” + +“He would frighten you,” said Rickie. “He’s a trifle weird.” + +“My good Rickie, if you knew the deathly dullness of Sawston--every +one saying the proper thing at the proper time, I so proper, Herbert +so proper! Why, weirdness is the one thing I long for! Do arrange +something.” + +“I’m afraid there’s no opportunity. Ansell goes some vast bicycle ride +this afternoon; this evening you’re tied up at the Hall; and tomorrow +you go.” + +“But there’s breakfast tomorrow,” said Agnes. “Look here, Rickie, bring +Mr. Ansell to breakfast with us at Buoys.” + +Mrs. Lewin seconded the invitation. + +“Bad luck again,” said Rickie boldly; “I’m already fixed up for +breakfast. I’ll tell him of your very kind intention.” + +“Let’s have him alone,” murmured Agnes. + +“My dear girl, I should die through the floor! Oh, it’ll be all right +about breakfast. I rather think we shall get asked this evening by that +shy man who has the pretty rooms in Trinity.” + +“Oh, very well. Where is it you breakfast, Rickie?” + +He faltered. “To Ansell’s, it is--” It seemed as if he was making some +great admission. So self-conscious was he, that he thought the two women +exchanged glances. Had Agnes already explored that part of him that did +not belong to her? Would another chance step reveal the part that did? +He asked them abruptly what they would like to do after lunch. + +“Anything,” said Mrs. Lewin,--“anything in the world.” + +A walk? A boat? Ely? A drive? Some objection was raised to each. “To +tell the truth,” she said at last, “I do feel a wee bit tired, and what +occurs to me is this. You and Agnes shall leave me here and have no more +bother. I shall be perfectly happy snoozling in one of these delightful +drawing-room chairs. Do what you like, and then pick me up after it.” + +“Alas, it’s against regulations,” said Rickie. “The Union won’t trust +lady visitors on its premises alone.” + +“But who’s to know I’m alone? With a lot of men in the drawing-room, +how’s each to know that I’m not with the others?” + +“That would shock Rickie,” said Agnes, laughing. “He’s frightfully +high-principled.” + +“No, I’m not,” said Rickie, thinking of his recent shiftiness over +breakfast. + +“Then come for a walk with me. I want exercise. Some connection of ours +was once rector of Madingley. I shall walk out and see the church.” + +Mrs. Lewin was accordingly left in the Union. + +“This is jolly!” Agnes exclaimed as she strode along the somewhat +depressing road that leads out of Cambridge past the observatory. “Do I +go too fast?” + +“No, thank you. I get stronger every year. If it wasn’t for the look of +the thing, I should be quite happy.” + +“But you don’t care for the look of the thing. It’s only ignorant people +who do that, surely.” + +“Perhaps. I care. I like people who are well-made and beautiful. They +are of some use in the world. I understand why they are there. I cannot +understand why the ugly and crippled are there, however healthy they +may feel inside. Don’t you know how Turner spoils his pictures by +introducing a man like a bolster in the foreground? Well, in actual life +every landscape is spoilt by men of worse shapes still.” + +“You sound like a bolster with the stuffing out.” They laughed. She +always blew his cobwebs away like this, with a puff of humorous mountain +air. Just now the associations he attached to her were various--she +reminded him of a heroine of Meredith’s--but a heroine at the end of the +book. All had been written about her. She had played her mighty part, +and knew that it was over. He and he alone was not content, and wrote +for her daily a trivial and impossible sequel. + +Last time they had talked about Gerald. But that was some six months +ago, when things felt easier. Today Gerald was the faintest blur. +Fortunately the conversation turned to Mr. Pembroke and to education. +Did women lose a lot by not knowing Greek? “A heap,” said Rickie, +roughly. But modern languages? Thus they got to Germany, which he had +visited last Easter with Ansell; and thence to the German Emperor, and +what a to-do he made; and from him to our own king (still Prince of +Wales), who had lived while an undergraduate at Madingley Hall. Here it +was. And all the time he thought, “It is hard on her. She has no right +to be walking with me. She would be ill with disgust if she knew. It is +hard on her to be loved.” + +They looked at the Hall, and went inside the pretty little church. Some +Arundel prints hung upon the pillars, and Agnes expressed the opinion +that pictures inside a place of worship were a pity. Rickie did not +agree with this. He said again that nothing beautiful was ever to be +regretted. + +“You’re cracked on beauty,” she whispered--they were still inside the +church. “Do hurry up and write something.” + +“Something beautiful?” + +“I believe you can. I’m going to lecture you seriously all the way home. +Take care that you don’t waste your life.” + +They continued the conversation outside. “But I’ve got to hate my own +writing. I believe that most people come to that stage--not so early +though. What I write is too silly. It can’t happen. For instance, a +stupid vulgar man is engaged to a lovely young lady. He wants her to +live in the towns, but she only cares for woods. She shocks him this way +and that, but gradually he tames her, and makes her nearly as dull as +he is. One day she has a last explosion--over the snobby wedding +presents--and flies out of the drawing-room window, shouting, ‘Freedom +and truth!’ Near the house is a little dell full of fir-trees, and she +runs into it. He comes there the next moment. But she’s gone.” + +“Awfully exciting. Where?” + +“Oh Lord, she’s a Dryad!” cried Rickie, in great disgust. “She’s turned +into a tree.” + +“Rickie, it’s very good indeed. The kind of thing has something in it. +Of course you get it all through Greek and Latin. How upset the man must +be when he sees the girl turn.” + +“He doesn’t see her. He never guesses. Such a man could never see a +Dryad.” + +“So you describe how she turns just before he comes up?” + +“No. Indeed I don’t ever say that she does turn. I don’t use the word +‘Dryad’ once.” + +“I think you ought to put that part plainly. Otherwise, with such an +original story, people might miss the point. Have you had any luck with +it?” + +“Magazines? I haven’t tried. I know what the stuff’s worth. You see, a +year or two ago I had a great idea of getting into touch with Nature, +just as the Greeks were in touch; and seeing England so beautiful, I +used to pretend that her trees and coppices and summer fields of parsley +were alive. It’s funny enough now, but it wasn’t funny then, for I got +in such a state that I believed, actually believed, that Fauns lived in +a certain double hedgerow near the Cog Magogs, and one evening I walked +a mile sooner than go through it alone.” + +“Good gracious!” She laid her hand on his shoulder. + +He moved to the other side of the road. “It’s all right now. I’ve +changed those follies for others. But while I had them I began to write, +and even now I keep on writing, though I know better. I’ve got quite a +pile of little stories, all harping on this ridiculous idea of getting +into touch with Nature.” + +“I wish you weren’t so modest. It’s simply splendid as an idea. +Though--but tell me about the Dryad who was engaged to be married. What +was she like?” + +“I can show you the dell in which the young person disappeared. We pass +it on the right in a moment.” + +“It does seem a pity that you don’t make something of your talents. It +seems such a waste to write little stories and never publish them. You +must have enough for a book. Life is so full in our days that short +stories are the very thing; they get read by people who’d never tackle a +novel. For example, at our Dorcas we tried to read out a long affair +by Henry James--Herbert saw it recommended in ‘The Times.’ There was no +doubt it was very good, but one simply couldn’t remember from one week +to another what had happened. So now our aim is to get something that +just lasts the hour. I take you seriously, Rickie, and that is why I am +so offensive. You are too modest. People who think they can do nothing +so often do nothing. I want you to plunge.” + +It thrilled him like a trumpet-blast. She took him seriously. Could he +but thank her for her divine affability! But the words would stick in +his throat, or worse still would bring other words along with them. His +breath came quickly, for he seldom spoke of his writing, and no one, not +even Ansell, had advised him to plunge. + +“But do you really think that I could take up literature?” + +“Why not? You can try. Even if you fail, you can try. Of course we think +you tremendously clever; and I met one of your dons at tea, and he said +that your degree was not in the least a proof of your abilities: he said +that you knocked up and got flurried in examinations. Oh!”--her cheek +flushed,--“I wish I was a man. The whole world lies before them. They +can do anything. They aren’t cooped up with servants and tea parties and +twaddle. But where’s this dell where the Dryad disappeared?” + +“We’ve passed it.” He had meant to pass it. It was too beautiful. All +he had read, all he had hoped for, all he had loved, seemed to quiver +in its enchanted air. It was perilous. He dared not enter it with such a +woman. + +“How long ago?” She turned back. “I don’t want to miss the dell. Here +it must be,” she added after a few moments, and sprang up the green bank +that hid the entrance from the road. “Oh, what a jolly place!” + +“Go right in if you want to see it,” said Rickie, and did not offer to +go with her. She stood for a moment looking at the view, for a few steps +will increase a view in Cambridgeshire. The wind blew her dress against +her. Then, like a cataract again, she vanished pure and cool into the +dell. + +The young man thought of her feelings no longer. His heart throbbed +louder and louder, and seemed to shake him to pieces. “Rickie!” + +She was calling from the dell. For an answer he sat down where he was, +on the dust-bespattered margin. She could call as loud as she liked. The +devil had done much, but he should not take him to her. + +“Rickie!”--and it came with the tones of an angel. He drove his fingers +into his ears, and invoked the name of Gerald. But there was no sign, +neither angry motion in the air nor hint of January mist. June--fields +of June, sky of June, songs of June. Grass of June beneath him, grass of +June over the tragedy he had deemed immortal. A bird called out of the +dell: “Rickie!” + +A bird flew into the dell. + +“Did you take me for the Dryad?” she asked. She was sitting down with +his head on her lap. He had laid it there for a moment before he went +out to die, and she had not let him take it away. + +“I prayed you might not be a woman,” he whispered. + +“Darling, I am very much a woman. I do not vanish into groves and trees. +I thought you would never come.” + +“Did you expect--?” + +“I hoped. I called hoping.” + +Inside the dell it was neither June nor January. The chalk walls barred +out the seasons, and the fir-trees did not seem to feel their passage. +Only from time to time the odours of summer slipped in from the wood +above, to comment on the waxing year. She bent down to touch him with +her lips. + +He started, and cried passionately, “Never forget that your greatest +thing is over. I have forgotten: I am too weak. You shall never forget. +What I said to you then is greater than what I say to you now. What he +gave you then is greater than anything you will get from me.” + +She was frightened. Again she had the sense of something abnormal. Then +she said, “What is all this nonsense?” and folded him in her arms. + + + +VIII + +Ansell stood looking at his breakfast-table, which was laid for four +instead of two. His bedmaker, equally peevish, explained how it had +happened. Last night, at one in the morning, the porter had been awoke +with a note for the kitchens, and in that note Mr. Elliot said that all +these things were to be sent to Mr. Ansell’s. + +“The fools have sent the original order as well. Here’s the lemon-sole +for two. I can’t move for food.” + +“The note being ambiguous, the Kitchens judged best to send it all.” + She spoke of the kitchens in a half-respectful, half-pitying way, much +as one speaks of Parliament. + +“Who’s to pay for it?” He peeped into the new dishes. Kidneys entombed +in an omelette, hot roast chicken in watery gravy, a glazed but pallid +pie. + +“And who’s to wash it up?” said the bedmaker to her help outside. + +Ansell had disputed late last night concerning Schopenhauer, and was a +little cross and tired. He bounced over to Tilliard, who kept opposite. +Tilliard was eating gooseberry jam. + +“Did Elliot ask you to breakfast with me?” + +“No,” said Tilliard mildly. + +“Well, you’d better come, and bring every one you know.” + +So Tilliard came, bearing himself a little formally, for he was not +very intimate with his neighbour. Out of the window they called to +Widdrington. But he laid his hand on his stomach, thus indicating it was +too late. + +“Who’s to pay for it?” repeated Ansell, as a man appeared from the +Buttery carrying coffee on a bright tin tray. + +“College coffee! How nice!” remarked Tilliard, who was cutting the pie. +“But before term ends you must come and try my new machine. My sister +gave it me. There is a bulb at the top, and as the water boils--” + +“He might have counter-ordered the lemon-sole. That’s Rickie all over. +Violently economical, and then loses his head, and all the things go +bad.” + +“Give them to the bedder while they’re hot.” This was done. She accepted +them dispassionately, with the air of one who lives without nourishment. +Tilliard continued to describe his sister’s coffee machine. + +“What’s that?” They could hear panting and rustling on the stairs. + +“It sounds like a lady,” said Tilliard fearfully. He slipped the piece +of pie back. It fell into position like a brick. + +“Is it here? Am I right? Is it here?” The door opened and in came Mrs. +Lewin. “Oh horrors! I’ve made a mistake.” + +“That’s all right,” said Ansell awkwardly. + +“I wanted Mr. Elliot. Where are they?” + +“We expect Mr. Elliot every-moment,” said Tilliard. + +“Don’t tell me I’m right,” cried Mrs. Lewin, “and that you’re the +terrifying Mr. Ansell.” And, with obvious relief, she wrung Tilliard +warmly by the hand. + +“I’m Ansell,” said Ansell, looking very uncouth and grim. + +“How stupid of me not to know it,” she gasped, and would have gone on to +I know not what, but the door opened again. It was Rickie. + +“Here’s Miss Pembroke,” he said. “I am going to marry her.” + +There was a profound silence. + +“We oughtn’t to have done things like this,” said Agnes, turning to Mrs. +Lewin. “We have no right to take Mr. Ansell by surprise. It is Rickie’s +fault. He was that obstinate. He would bring us. He ought to be +horsewhipped.” + +“He ought, indeed,” said Tilliard pleasantly, and bolted. Not till he +gained his room did he realize that he had been less apt than usual. As +for Ansell, the first thing he said was, “Why didn’t you counter-order +the lemon-sole?” + +In such a situation Mrs. Lewin was of priceless value. She led the way +to the table, observing, “I quite agree with Miss Pembroke. I loathe +surprises. Never shall I forget my horror when the knife-boy painted the +dove’s cage with the dove inside. He did it as a surprise. Poor Parsival +nearly died. His feathers were bright green!” + +“Well, give me the lemon-soles,” said Rickie. “I like them.” + +“The bedder’s got them.” + +“Well, there you are! What’s there to be annoyed about?” + +“And while the cage was drying we put him among the bantams. They had +been the greatest allies. But I suppose they took him for a parrot or a +hawk, or something that bantams hate for while his cage was drying they +picked out his feathers, and PICKED and PICKED out his feathers, till he +was perfectly bald. ‘Hugo, look,’ said I. ‘This is the end of Parsival. +Let me have no more surprises.’ He burst into tears.” + +Thus did Mrs. Lewin create an atmosphere. At first it seemed unreal, +but gradually they got used to it, and breathed scarcely anything else +throughout the meal. In such an atmosphere everything seemed of small +and equal value, and the engagement of Rickie and Agnes like the +feathers of Parsival, fluttered lightly to the ground. Ansell was +generally silent. He was no match for these two quite clever women. Only +once was there a hitch. + +They had been talking gaily enough about the betrothal when Ansell +suddenly interrupted with, “When is the marriage?” + +“Mr. Ansell,” said Agnes, blushing, “I wish you hadn’t asked that. That +part’s dreadful. Not for years, as far as we can see.” + +But Rickie had not seen as far. He had not talked to her of this at +all. Last night they had spoken only of love. He exclaimed, “Oh, +Agnes-don’t!” Mrs. Lewin laughed roguishly. + +“Why this delay?” asked Ansell. + +Agnes looked at Rickie, who replied, “I must get money, worse luck.” + +“I thought you’d got money.” + +He hesitated, and then said, “I must get my foot on the ladder, then.” + +Ansell began with, “On which ladder?” but Mrs. Lewin, using the +privilege of her sex, exclaimed, “Not another word. If there’s a thing I +abominate, it is plans. My head goes whirling at once.” What she really +abominated was questions, and she saw that Ansell was turning serious. +To appease him, she put on her clever manner and asked him about +Germany. How had it impressed him? Were we so totally unfitted to +repel invasion? Was not German scholarship overestimated? He replied +discourteously, but he did reply; and if she could have stopped him +thinking, her triumph would have been complete. + +When they rose to go, Agnes held Ansell’s hand for a moment in her own. + +“Good-bye,” she said. “It was very unconventional of us to come as we +did, but I don’t think any of us are conventional people.” + +He only replied, “Good-bye.” The ladies started off. Rickie lingered +behind to whisper, “I would have it so. I would have you begin square +together. I can’t talk yet--I’ve loved her for years--can’t think what +she’s done it for. I’m going to write short stories. I shall start this +afternoon. She declares there may be something in me.” + +As soon as he had left, Tilliard burst in, white with agitation, and +crying, “Did you see my awful faux pas--about the horsewhip? What shall +I do? I must call on Elliot. Or had I better write?” + +“Miss Pembroke will not mind,” said Ansell gravely. “She is +unconventional.” He knelt in an arm-chair and hid his face in the back. + +“It was like a bomb,” said Tilliard. + +“It was meant to be.” + +“I do feel a fool. What must she think?” + +“Never mind, Tilliard. You’ve not been as big a fool as myself. At all +events, you told her he must be horsewhipped.” + +Tilliard hummed a little tune. He hated anything nasty, and there was +nastiness in Ansell. “What did you tell her?” he asked. + +“Nothing.” + +“What do you think of it?” + +“I think: Damn those women.” + +“Ah, yes. One hates one’s friends to get engaged. It makes one feel so +old: I think that is one of the reasons. The brother just above me has +lately married, and my sister was quite sick about it, though the thing +was suitable in every way.” + +“Damn THESE women, then,” said Ansell, bouncing round in the chair. +“Damn these particular women.” + +“They looked and spoke like ladies.” + +“Exactly. Their diplomacy was ladylike. Their lies were ladylike. +They’ve caught Elliot in a most ladylike way. I saw it all during the +one moment we were natural. Generally we were clattering after the +married one, whom--like a fool--I took for a fool. But for one moment we +were natural, and during that moment Miss Pembroke told a lie, and made +Rickie believe it was the truth.” + +“What did she say?” + +“She said `we see’ instead of ‘I see.’” + +Tilliard burst into laughter. This jaundiced young philosopher, with his +kinky view of life, was too much for him. + +“She said ‘we see,’” repeated Ansell, “instead of ‘I see,’ and she made +him believe that it was the truth. She caught him and makes him believe +that he caught her. She came to see me and makes him think that it is +his idea. That is what I mean when I say that she is a lady.” + +“You are too subtle for me. My dull eyes could only see two happy +people.” + +“I never said they weren’t happy.” + +“Then, my dear Ansell, why are you so cut up? It’s beastly when a friend +marries,--and I grant he’s rather young,--but I should say it’s the best +thing for him. A decent woman--and you have proved not one thing against +her--a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting +slack. She’ll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie, +I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,”--his voice grew +sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell’s conceit, “and, really, you +talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil visit to +your rooms, and you see nothing but dark plots and challenges to war.” + +“War!” cried Ansell, crashing his fists together. “It’s war, then!” + +“Oh, what a lot of tommy-rot,” said Tilliard. “Can’t a man and woman get +engaged? My dear boy--excuse me talking like this--what on earth is it +to do with us?” + +“We’re his friends, and I hope we always shall be, but we shan’t keep +his friendship by fighting. We’re bound to fall into the background. +Wife first, friends some way after. You may resent the order, but it is +ordained by nature.” + +“The point is, not what’s ordained by nature or any other fool, but +what’s right.” + +“You are hopelessly unpractical,” said Tilliard, turning away. “And let +me remind you that you’ve already given away your case by acknowledging +that they’re happy.” + +“She is happy because she has conquered; he is happy because he has +at last hung all the world’s beauty on to a single peg. He was always +trying to do it. He used to call the peg humanity. Will either of these +happinesses last? His can’t. Hers only for a time. I fight this woman +not only because she fights me, but because I foresee the most appalling +catastrophe. She wants Rickie, partly to replace another man whom she +lost two years ago, partly to make something out of him. He is to write. +In time she will get sick of this. He won’t get famous. She will only +see how thin he is and how lame. She will long for a jollier husband, +and I don’t blame her. And, having made him thoroughly miserable and +degraded, she will bolt--if she can do it like a lady.” + +Such were the opinions of Stewart Ansell. + + + +IX + +Seven letters written in June:-- + + +Cambridge + +Dear Rickie, + +I would rather write, and you can guess what kind of letter this is +when I say it is a fair copy: I have been making rough drafts all +the morning. When I talk I get angry, and also at times try to be +clever--two reasons why I fail to get attention paid to me. This is a +letter of the prudent sort. If it makes you break off the engagement, +its work is done. You are not a person who ought to marry at all. You +are unfitted in body: that we once discussed. You are also unfitted in +soul: you want and you need to like many people, and a man of that sort +ought not to marry. “You never were attached to that great sect” who +can like one person only, and if you try to enter it you will find +destruction. I have read in books and I cannot afford to despise books, +they are all that I have to go by--that men and women desire different +things. Man wants to love mankind; woman wants to love one man. When she +has him her work is over. She is the emissary of Nature, and Nature’s +bidding has been fulfilled. But man does not care a damn for Nature--or +at least only a very little damn. He cares for a hundred things besides, +and the more civilized he is the more he will care for these other +hundred things, and demand not only--a wife and children, but also +friends, and work, and spiritual freedom. + +I believe you to be extraordinarily civilized.--Yours ever, + +S.A. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, Sawston + +Dear Ansell, + +But I’m in love--a detail you’ve forgotten. I can’t listen to English +Essays. The wretched Agnes may be an “emissary of Nature,” but I only +grinned when I read it. I may be extraordinarily civilized, but I don’t +feel so; I’m in love, and I’ve found a woman to love me, and I mean +to have the hundred other things as well. She wants me to have +them--friends and work, and spiritual freedom, and everything. You +and your books miss this, because your books are too sedate. Read +poetry--not only Shelley. Understand Beatrice, and Clara Middleton, and +Brunhilde in the first scene of Gotterdammerung. Understand Goethe when +he says “the eternal feminine leads us on,” and don’t write another +English Essay.--Yours ever affectionately, + +R.E. + + +Cambridge + +Dear Rickie: + +What am I to say? “Understand Xanthippe, and Mrs. Bennet, and Elsa in +the question scene of Lohengrin”? “Understand Euripides when he says the +eternal feminine leads us a pretty dance”? I shall say nothing of the +sort. The allusions in this English Essay shall not be literary. My +personal objections to Miss Pembroke are as follows:--(1) She is not +serious. (2) She is not truthful. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road Sawston + +My Dear Stewart, + +You couldn’t know. I didn’t know for a moment. But this letter of yours +is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me yet--more +wonderful (I don’t exaggerate) than the moment when Agnes promised to +marry me. I always knew you liked me, but I never knew how much until +this letter. Up to now I think we have been too much like the strong +heroes in books who feel so much and say so little, and feel all the +more for saying so little. Now that’s over and we shall never be that +kind of an ass again. We’ve hit--by accident--upon something permanent. +You’ve written to me, “I hate the woman who will be your wife,” and +I write back, “Hate her. Can’t I love you both?” She will never come +between us, Stewart (She wouldn’t wish to, but that’s by the way), +because our friendship has now passed beyond intervention. No third +person could break it. We couldn’t ourselves, I fancy. We may quarrel +and argue till one of us dies, but the thing is registered. I only wish, +dear man, you could be happier. For me, it’s as if a light was suddenly +held behind the world. + +R.E. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, Sawston + +Dear Mrs. Lewin,-- + +The time goes flying, but I am getting to learn my wonderful boy. We +speak a great deal about his work. He has just finished a curious thing +called “Nemi”--about a Roman ship that is actually sunk in some lake. I +cannot think how he describes the things, when he has never seen them. +If, as I hope, he goes to Italy next year, he should turn out something +really good. Meanwhile we are hunting for a publisher. Herbert believes +that a collection of short stories is hard to get published. It is, +after all, better to write one long one. + +But you must not think we only talk books. What we say on other topics +cannot so easily be repeated! Oh, Mrs Lewin, he is a dear, and dearer +than ever now that we have him at Sawston. Herbert, in a quiet way, +has been making inquiries about those Cambridge friends of his. Nothing +against them, but they seem to be terribly eccentric. None of them +are good at games, and they spend all their spare time thinking and +discussing. They discuss what one knows and what one never will know and +what one had much better not know. Herbert says it is because they have +not got enough to do.--Ever your grateful and affectionate friend, + +Agnes Pembroke + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road Sawston + +Dear Mr. Silt,-- + +Thank you for the congratulations, which I have handed over to the +delighted Rickie. + +(The congratulations were really addressed to Agnes--a social blunder +which Mr. Pembroke deftly corrects.) + +I am sorry that the rumor reached you that I was not pleased. Anything +pleases me that promises my sister’s happiness, and I have known your +cousin nearly as long as you have. It will be a very long engagement, +for he must make his way first. The dear boy is not nearly as wealthy as +he supposed; having no tastes, and hardly any expenses, he used to talk +as if he were a millionaire. He must at least double his income before +he can dream of more intimate ties. This has been a bitter pill, but I +am glad to say that they have accepted it bravely. + +Hoping that you and Mrs. Silt will profit by your week at Margate.-I +remain, yours very sincerely, + +Herbert Pembroke + + +Cadover, Wilts. + +Dear Miss Pembroke,--Agnes-- + +I hear that you are going to marry my nephew. I have no idea what he is +like, and wonder whether you would bring him that I may find out. Isn’t +September rather a nice month? You might have to go to Stone Henge, but +with that exception would be left unmolested. I do hope you will manage +the visit. We met once at Mrs. Lewin’s, and I have a very clear +recollection of you.--Believe me, yours sincerely, + +Emily Failing + + + +X + +The rain tilted a little from the south-west. For the most part it fell +from a grey cloud silently, but now and then the tilt increased, and +a kind of sigh passed over the country as the drops lashed the walls, +trees, shepherds, and other motionless objects that stood in their +slanting career. At times the cloud would descend and visibly embrace +the earth, to which it had only sent messages; and the earth itself +would bring forth clouds--clouds of a whiter breed--which formed in +shallow valleys and followed the courses of the streams. It seemed the +beginning of life. Again God said, “Shall we divide the waters from the +land or not? Was not the firmament labour and glory sufficient?” At all +events it was the beginning of life pastoral, behind which imagination +cannot travel. + +Yet complicated people were getting wet--not only the shepherds. For +instance, the piano-tuner was sopping. So was the vicar’s wife. So were +the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his Battleston car. Gallantry, +charity, and art pursued their various missions, perspiring and muddy, +while out on the slopes beyond them stood the eternal man and the +eternal dog, guarding eternal sheep until the world is vegetarian. + +Inside an arbour--which faced east, and thus avoided the bad +weather--there sat a complicated person who was dry. She looked at the +drenched world with a pleased expression, and would smile when a cloud +would lay down on the village, or when the rain sighed louder than usual +against her solid shelter. Ink, paperclips, and foolscap paper were +on the table before her, and she could also reach an umbrella, a +waterproof, a walking-stick, and an electric bell. Her age was between +elderly and old, and her forehead was wrinkled with an expression of +slight but perpetual pain. But the lines round her mouth indicated that +she had laughed a great deal during her life, just as the clean tight +skin round her eyes perhaps indicated that she had not often cried. She +was dressed in brown silk. A brown silk shawl lay most becomingly over +her beautiful hair. + +After long thought she wrote on the paper in front of her, “The subject +of this memoir first saw the light at Wolverhampton on May the 14th, +1842.” She laid down her pen and said “Ugh!” A robin hopped in and she +welcomed him. A sparrow followed and she stamped her foot. She watched +some thick white water which was sliding like a snake down the gutter +of the gravel path. It had just appeared. It must have escaped from a +hollow in the chalk up behind. The earth could absorb no longer. The +lady did not think of all this, for she hated questions of whence and +wherefore, and the ways of the earth (“our dull stepmother”) bored her +unspeakably. But the water, just the snake of water, was amusing, and +she flung her golosh at it to dam it up. Then she wrote feverishly, “The +subject of this memoir first saw the light in the middle of the night. +It was twenty to eleven. His pa was a parson, but he was not his pa’s +son, and never went to heaven.” There was the sound of a train, and +presently white smoke appeared, rising laboriously through the heavy +air. It distracted her, and for about a quarter of an hour she sat +perfectly still, doing nothing. At last she pushed the spoilt paper +aside, took afresh piece, and was beginning to write, “On May the 14th, +1842,” when there was a crunch on the gravel, and a furious voice said, +“I am sorry for Flea Thompson.” + +“I daresay I am sorry for him too,” said the lady; her voice was languid +and pleasant. “Who is he?” + +“Flea’s a liar, and the next time we meet he’ll be a football.” Off +slipped a sodden ulster. He hung it up angrily upon a peg: the arbour +provided several. + +“But who is he, and why has he that disastrous name?” + +“Flea? Fleance. All the Thompsons are named out of Shakespeare. He +grazes the Rings.” + +“Ah, I see. A pet lamb.” + +“Lamb! Shepherd!” + +“One of my Shepherds?” + +“The last time I go with his sheep. But not the last time he sees me. I +am sorry for him. He dodged me today.” + +“Do you mean to say”--she became animated--“that you have been out in +the wet keeping the sheep of Flea Thompson?” + +“I had to.” He blew on his fingers and took off his cap. Water trickled +over his unshaven cheeks. His hair was so wet that it seemed worked upon +his scalp in bronze. + +“Get away, bad dog!” screamed the lady, for he had given himself a shake +and spattered her dress with water. He was a powerful boy of twenty, +admirably muscular, but rather too broad for his height. People called +him “Podge” until they were dissuaded. Then they called him “Stephen” or +“Mr. Wonham.” Then he said, “You can call me Podge if you like.” + +“As for Flea--!” he began tempestuously. He sat down by her, and with +much heavy breathing told the story,--“Flea has a girl at Wintersbridge, +and I had to go with his sheep while he went to see her. Two hours. We +agreed. Half an hour to go, an hour to kiss his girl, and half an hour +back--and he had my bike. Four hours! Four hours and seven minutes I was +on the Rings, with a fool of a dog, and sheep doing all they knew to get +the turnips.” + +“My farm is a mystery to me,” said the lady, stroking her fingers. + +“Some day you must really take me to see it. It must be like a Gilbert +and Sullivan opera, with a chorus of agitated employers. How is it that +I have escaped? Why have I never been summoned to milk the cows, or flay +the pigs, or drive the young bullocks to the pasture?” + +He looked at her with astonishingly blue eyes--the only dry things he +had about him. He could not see into her: she would have puzzled an +older and clever man. He may have seen round her. + +“A thing of beauty you are not. But I sometimes think you are a joy for +ever.” + +“I beg your pardon?” + +“Oh, you understand right enough,” she exclaimed irritably, and then +smiled, for he was conceited, and did not like being told that he was +not a thing of beauty. “Large and steady feet,” she continued, “have +this disadvantage--you can knock down a man, but you will never knock +down a woman.” + +“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not likely--” + +“Oh, never mind--never, never mind. I was being funny. I repent. Tell me +about the sheep. Why did you go with them?” + +“I did tell you. I had to.” + +“But why?” + +“He had to see his girl.” + +“But why?” + +His eyes shot past her again. It was so obvious that the man had to see +his girl. For two hours though--not for four hours seven minutes. + +“Did you have any lunch?” + +“I don’t hold with regular meals.” + +“Did you have a book?” + +“I don’t hold with books in the open. None of the older men read.” + +“Did you commune with yourself, or don’t you hold with that?” + +“Oh Lord, don’t ask me!” + +“You distress me. You rob the Pastoral of its lingering romance. Is +there no poetry and no thought in England? Is there no one, in all these +downs, who warbles with eager thought the Doric lay?” + +“Chaps sing to themselves at times, if you mean that.” + +“I dream of Arcady. I open my eyes. Wiltshire. Of Amaryllis: Flea +Thompson’s girl. Of the pensive shepherd, twitching his mantle blue: you +in an ulster. Aren’t you sorry for me?” + +“May I put in a pipe?” + +“By all means put a pipe in. In return, tell me of what you were +thinking for the four hours and the seven minutes.” + +He laughed shyly. “You do ask a man such questions.” + +“Did you simply waste the time?” + +“I suppose so.” + +“I thought that Colonel Robert Ingersoll says you must be strenuous.” + +At the sound of this name he whisked open a little cupboard, and +declaring, “I haven’t a moment to spare,” took out of it a pile of +“Clarion” and other reprints, adorned as to their covers with bald or +bearded apostles of humanity. Selecting a bald one, he began at once +to read, occasionally exclaiming, “That’s got them,” “That’s knocked +Genesis,” with similar ejaculations of an aspiring mind. She glanced +at the pile. Reran, minus the style. Darwin, minus the modesty. A +comic edition of the book of Job, by “Excelsior,” Pittsburgh, Pa. “The +Beginning of Life,” with diagrams. “Angel or Ape?” by Mrs. Julia P. +Chunk. She was amused, and wondered idly what was passing within his +narrow but not uninteresting brain. Did he suppose that he was going to +“find out”? She had tried once herself, but had since subsided into a +sprightly orthodoxy. Why didn’t he read poetry, instead of wasting his +time between books like these and country like that? + +The cloud parted, and the increase of light made her look up. Over the +valley she saw a grave sullen down, and on its flanks a little brown +smudge--her sheep, together with her shepherd, Fleance Thompson, +returned to his duties at last. A trickle of water came through the +arbour roof. She shrieked in dismay. + +“That’s all right,” said her companion, moving her chair, but still +keeping his place in his book. + +She dried up the spot on the manuscript. Then she wrote: “Anthony +Eustace Failing, the subject of this memoir, was born at Wolverhampton.” + But she wrote no more. She was fidgety. Another drop fell from the roof. +Likewise an earwig. She wished she had not been so playful in flinging +her golosh into the path. The boy who was overthrowing religion breathed +somewhat heavily as he did so. Another earwig. She touched the electric +bell. + +“I’m going in,” she observed. “It’s far too wet.” Again the cloud parted +and caused her to add, “Weren’t you rather kind to Flea?” But he was +deep in the book. He read like a poor person, with lips apart and a +finger that followed the print. At times he scratched his ear, or ran +his tongue along a straggling blonde moustache. His face had after all a +certain beauty: at all events the colouring was regal--a steady crimson +from throat to forehead: the sun and the winds had worked on him daily +ever since he was born. “The face of a strong man,” thought the lady. +“Let him thank his stars he isn’t a silent strong man, or I’d turn +him into the gutter.” Suddenly it struck her that he was like an Irish +terrier. He worried infinity as if it was a bone. Gnashing his teeth, +he tried to carry the eternal subtleties by violence. As a man he often +bored her, for he was always saying and doing the same things. But as +a philosopher he really was a joy for ever, an inexhaustible buffoon. +Taking up her pen, she began to caricature him. She drew a rabbit-warren +where rabbits were at play in four dimensions. Before she had introduced +the principal figure, she was interrupted by the footman. He had come up +from the house to answer the bell. On seeing her he uttered a respectful +cry. + +“Madam! Are you here? I am very sorry. I looked for you everywhere. Mr. +Elliot and Miss Pembroke arrived nearly an hour ago.” + +“Oh dear, oh dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Failing. “Take these papers. Where’s +the umbrella? Mr. Stephen will hold it over me. You hurry back and +apologize. Are they happy?” + +“Miss Pembroke inquired after you, madam.” + +“Have they had tea?” + +“Yes, madam.” + +“Leighton!” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“I believe you knew she was here all the time. You didn’t want to wet +your pretty skin.” + +“You must not call me ‘she’ to the servants,” said Mrs. Failing as they +walked away, she limping with a stick, he holding a great umbrella over +her. “I will not have it.” Then more pleasantly, “And don’t tell him +he lies. We all lie. I knew quite well they were coming by the four-six +train. I saw it pass.” + +“That reminds me. Another child run over at the Roman crossing. +Whish--bang--dead.” + +“Oh my foot! Oh my foot, my foot!” said Mrs. Failing, and paused to take +breath. + +“Bad?” he asked callously. + +Leighton, with bowed head, passed them with the manuscript and +disappeared among the laurels. The twinge of pain, which had been +slight, passed away, and they proceeded, descending a green airless +corridor which opened into the gravel drive. + +“Isn’t it odd,” said Mrs. Failing, “that the Greeks should be +enthusiastic about laurels--that Apollo should pursue any one who could +possibly turn into such a frightful plant? What do you make of Rickie?” + +“Oh, I don’t know.” + +“Shall I lend you his story to read?” + +He made no reply. + +“Don’t you think, Stephen, that a person in your precarious position +ought to be civil to my relatives?” + +“Sorry, Mrs. Failing. I meant to be civil. I only hadn’t--anything to +say.” + +She a laughed. “Are you a dear boy? I sometimes wonder; or are you a +brute?” + +Again he had nothing to say. Then she laughed more mischievously, and +said-- + +“How can you be either, when you are a philosopher? Would you mind +telling me--I am so anxious to learn--what happens to people when they +die?” + +“Don’t ask ME.” He knew by bitter experience that she was making fun of +him. + +“Oh, but I do ask you. Those paper books of yours are so up-to-date. +For instance, what has happened to the child you say was killed on the +line?” + +The rain increased. The drops pattered hard on the leaves, and outside +the corridor men and women were struggling, however stupidly, with the +facts of life. Inside it they wrangled. She teased the boy, and laughed +at his theories, and proved that no man can be an agnostic who has a +sense of humour. Suddenly she stopped, not through any skill of his, but +because she had remembered some words of Bacon: “The true atheist is he +whose hands are cauterized by holy things.” She thought of her distant +youth. The world was not so humorous then, but it had been more +important. For a moment she respected her companion, and determined to +vex him no more. + +They left the shelter of the laurels, crossed the broad drive, and were +inside the house at last. She had got quite wet, for the weather would +not let her play the simple life with impunity. As for him, he seemed a +piece of the wet. + +“Look here,” she cried, as he hurried up to his attic, “don’t shave!” + +He was delighted with the permission. + +“I have an idea that Miss Pembroke is of the type that pretends to be +unconventional and really isn’t. I want to see how she takes it. Don’t +shave.” + +In the drawing-room she could hear the guests conversing in the subdued +tones of those who have not been welcomed. Having changed her dress and +glanced at the poems of Milton, she went to them, with uplifted hands of +apology and horror. + +“But I must have tea,” she announced, when they had assured her that +they understood. “Otherwise I shall start by being cross. Agnes, stop +me. Give me tea.” + +Agnes, looking pleased, moved to the table and served her hostess. +Rickie followed with a pagoda of sandwiches and little cakes. + +“I feel twenty-seven years younger. Rickie, you are so like your father. +I feel it is twenty-seven years ago, and that he is bringing your mother +to see me for the first time. It is curious--almost terrible--to see +history repeating itself.” + +The remark was not tactful. + +“I remember that visit well,” she continued thoughtfully, “I suppose it +was a wonderful visit, though we none of us knew it at the time. We all +fell in love with your mother. I wish she would have fallen in love with +us. She couldn’t bear me, could she?” + +“I never heard her say so, Aunt Emily.” + +“No; she wouldn’t. I am sure your father said so, though. My dear boy, +don’t look so shocked. Your father and I hated each other. He said so, +I said so, I say so; say so too. Then we shall start fair.--Just a +cocoanut cake.--Agnes, don’t you agree that it’s always best to speak +out?” + +“Oh, rather, Mrs. Failing. But I’m shockingly straightforward.” + +“So am I,” said the lady. “I like to get down to the bedrock.--Hullo! +Slippers? Slippers in the drawingroom?” + +A young man had come in silently. Agnes observed with a feeling of +regret that he had not shaved. Rickie, after a moment’s hesitation, +remembered who it was, and shook hands with him. “You’ve grown since I +saw you last.” + +He showed his teeth amiably. + +“How long was that?” asked Mrs. Failing. + +“Three years, wasn’t it? Came over from the Ansells--friends.” + +“How disgraceful, Rickie! Why don’t you come and see me oftener?” + +He could not retort that she never asked him. + +“Agnes will make you come. Oh, let me introduce Mr. Wonham--Miss +Pembroke.” + +“I am deputy hostess,” said Agnes. “May I give you some tea?” + +“Thank you, but I have had a little beer.” + +“It is one of the shepherds,” said Mrs. Failing, in low tones. + +Agnes smiled rather wildly. Mrs. Lewin had warned her that Cadover +was an extraordinary place, and that one must never be astonished at +anything. A shepherd in the drawing-room! No harm. Still one ought +to know whether it was a shepherd or not. At all events he was in +gentleman’s clothing. She was anxious not to start with a blunder, and +therefore did not talk to the young fellow, but tried to gather what he +was from the demeanour of Rickie. + +“I am sure, Mrs. Failing, that you need not talk of ‘making’ people come +to Cadover. There will be no difficulty, I should say.” + +“Thank you, my dear. Do you know who once said those exact words to me?” + +“Who?” + +“Rickie’s mother.” + +“Did she really?” + +“My sister-in-law was a dear. You will have heard Rickie’s praises, but +now you must hear mine. I never knew a woman who was so unselfish and +yet had such capacities for life.” + +“Does one generally exclude the other?” asked Rickie. + +“Unselfish people, as a rule, are deathly dull. They have no colour. +They think of other people because it is easier. They give money because +they are too stupid or too idle to spend it properly on themselves. +That was the beauty of your mother--she gave away, but she also spent on +herself, or tried to.” + +The light faded out of the drawing-room, in spite of it being September +and only half-past six. From her low chair Agnes could see the trees by +the drive, black against a blackening sky. That drive was half a mile +long, and she was praising its gravelled surface when Rickie called in a +voice of alarm, “I say, when did our train arrive?” + +“Four-six.” + +“I said so.” + +“It arrived at four-six on the time-table,” said Mr. Wonham. “I want to +know when it got to the station?” + +“I tell you again it was punctual. I tell you I looked at my watch. I +can do no more.” + +Agnes was amazed. Was Rickie mad? A minute ago and they were boring each +other over dogs. What had happened? + +“Now, now! Quarrelling already?” asked Mrs. Failing. + +The footman, bringing a lamp, lit up two angry faces. + +“He says--” + +“He says--” + +“He says we ran over a child.” + +“So you did. You ran over a child in the village at four-seven by my +watch. Your train was late. You couldn’t have got to the station till +four-ten.” + +“I don’t believe it. We had passed the village by four-seven. Agnes, +hadn’t we passed the village? It must have been an express that ran over +the child.” + +“Now is it likely”--he appealed to the practical world--“is it likely +that the company would run a stopping train and then an express three +minutes after it?” + +“A child--” said Rickie. “I can’t believe that the train killed a +child.” He thought of their journey. They were alone in the carriage. +As the train slackened speed he had caught her for a moment in his arms. +The rain beat on the windows, but they were in heaven. + +“You’ve got to believe it,” said the other, and proceeded to “rub it +in.” His healthy, irritable face drew close to Rickie’s. “Two children +were kicking and screaming on the Roman crossing. Your train, being +late, came down on them. One of them was pulled off the line, but the +other was caught. How will you get out of that?” + +“And how will you get out of it?” cried Mrs. Failing, turning the tables +on him. “Where’s the child now? What has happened to its soul? You must +know, Agnes, that this young gentleman is a philosopher.” + +“Oh, drop all that,” said Mr. Wonham, suddenly collapsing. + +“Drop it? Where? On my nice carpet?” + +“I hate philosophy,” remarked Agnes, trying to turn the subject, for she +saw that it made Rickie unhappy. + +“So do I. But I daren’t say so before Stephen. He despises us women.” + +“No, I don’t,” said the victim, swaying to and fro on the window-sill, +whither he had retreated. + +“Yes, he does. He won’t even trouble to answer us. Stephen! Podge! +Answer me. What has happened to the child’s soul?” + +He flung open the window and leant from them into the dusk. They heard +him mutter something about a bridge. + +“What did I tell you? He won’t answer my question.” + +The delightful moment was approaching when the boy would lose his +temper: she knew it by a certain tremor in his heels. + +“There wants a bridge,” he exploded. “A bridge instead of all this +rotten talk and the level-crossing. It wouldn’t break you to build a +two-arch bridge. Then the child’s soul, as you call it--well, nothing +would have happened to the child at all.” + +A gust of night air entered, accompanied by rain. The flowers in the +vases rustled, and the flame of the lamp shot up and smoked the glass. +Slightly irritated, she ordered him to close the window. + + + +XI + +Cadover was not a large house. But it is the largest house with which +this story has dealings, and must always be thought of with respect. It +was built about the year 1800, and favoured the architecture of ancient +Rome--chiefly by means of five lank pilasters, which stretched from the +top of it to the bottom. Between the pilasters was the glass front door, +to the right of them the drawing room windows, to the left of them the +windows of the dining-room, above them a triangular area, which the +better-class servants knew as a “pendiment,” and which had in its middle +a small round hole, according to the usage of Palladio. The classical +note was also sustained by eight grey steps which led from the building +down into the drive, and by an attempt at a formal garden on the +adjoining lawn. The lawn ended in a Ha-ha (“Ha! ha! who shall regard +it?”), and thence the bare land sloped down into the village. The main +garden (walled) was to the left as one faced the house, while to the +right was that laurel avenue, leading up to Mrs. Failing’s arbour. + +It was a comfortable but not very attractive place, and, to a certain +type of mind, its situation was not attractive either. From the +distance it showed as a grey box, huddled against evergreens. There +was no mystery about it. You saw it for miles. Its hill had none of the +beetling romance of Devonshire, none of the subtle contours that prelude +a cottage in Kent, but profferred its burden crudely, on a huge bare +palm. “There’s Cadover,” visitors would say. “How small it still looks. +We shall be late for lunch.” And the view from the windows, though +extensive, would not have been accepted by the Royal Academy. A valley, +containing a stream, a road, a railway; over the valley fields of barley +and wurzel, divided by no pretty hedges, and passing into a great and +formless down--this was the outlook, desolate at all times, and almost +terrifying beneath a cloudy sky. The down was called “Cadbury Range” + (“Cocoa Squares” if you were young and funny), because high upon +it--one cannot say “on the top,” there being scarcely any tops +in Wiltshire--because high upon it there stood a double circle of +entrenchments. A bank of grass enclosed a ring of turnips, which +enclosed a second bank of grass, which enclosed more turnips, and in +the middle of the pattern grew one small tree. British? Roman? Saxon? +Danish? The competent reader will decide. The Thompson family knew it +to be far older than the Franco-German war. It was the property of +Government. It was full of gold and dead soldiers who had fought with +the soldiers on Castle Rings and been beaten. The road to Londinium, +having forded the stream and crossed the valley road and the railway, +passed up by these entrenchments. The road to London lay half a mile to +the right of them. + +To complete this survey one must mention the church and the farm, both +of which lay over the stream in Cadford. Between them they ruled the +village, one claiming the souls of the labourers, the other their +bodies. If a man desired other religion or other employment he must +leave. The church lay up by the railway, the farm was down by the water +meadows. The vicar, a gentle charitable man scarcely realized his power, +and never tried to abuse it. Mr. Wilbraham, the agent, was of another +mould. He knew his place, and kept others to theirs: all society seemed +spread before him like a map. The line between the county and the local, +the line between the labourer and the artisan--he knew them all, and +strengthened them with no uncertain touch. Everything with him was +graduated--carefully graduated civility towards his superior, towards +his inferiors carefully graduated incivility. So--for he was a +thoughtful person--so alone, declared he, could things be kept together. + +Perhaps the Comic Muse, to whom so much is now attributed, had caused +his estate to be left to Mr. Failing. Mr. Failing was the author of some +brilliant books on socialism,--that was why his wife married him--and +for twenty-five years he reigned up at Cadover and tried to put his +theories into practice. He believed that things could be kept together +by accenting the similarities, not the differences of men. “We are all +much more alike than we confess,” was one of his favourite speeches. As +a speech it sounded very well, and his wife had applauded; but when it +resulted in hard work, evenings in the reading-rooms, mixed-parties, and +long unobtrusive talks with dull people, she got bored. In her piquant +way she declared that she was not going to love her husband, and +succeeded. He took it quietly, but his brilliancy decreased. His health +grew worse, and he knew that when he died there was no one to carry on +his work. He felt, besides, that he had done very little. Toil as he +would, he had not a practical mind, and could never dispense with Mr. +Wilbraham. For all his tact, he would often stretch out the hand of +brotherhood too soon, or withhold it when it would have been accepted. +Most people misunderstood him, or only understood him when he was dead. +In after years his reign became a golden age; but he counted a few +disciples in his life-time, a few young labourers and tenant farmers, +who swore tempestuously that he was not really a fool. This, he told +himself, was as much as he deserved. + +Cadover was inherited by his widow. She tried to sell it; she tried to +let it; but she asked too much, and as it was neither a pretty place nor +fertile, it was left on her hands. With many a groan she settled down +to banishment. Wiltshire people, she declared, were the stupidest in +England. She told them so to their faces, which made them no brighter. +And their county was worthy of them: no distinction in it--no +style--simply land. + +But her wrath passed, or remained only as a graceful fretfulness. She +made the house comfortable, and abandoned the farm to Mr. Wilbraham. +With a good deal of care she selected a small circle of acquaintances, +and had them to stop in the summer months. In the winter she would go to +town and frequent the salons of the literary. As her lameness increased +she moved about less, and at the time of her nephew’s visit seldom left +the place that had been forced upon her as a home. Just now she +was busy. A prominent politician had quoted her husband. The young +generation asked, “Who is this Mr. Failing?” and the publishers wrote, +“Now is the time.” She was collecting some essays and penning an +introductory memoir. + +Rickie admired his aunt, but did not care for her. She reminded him too +much of his father. She had the same affliction, the same heartlessness, +the same habit of taking life with a laugh--as if life is a pill! He +also felt that she had neglected him. He would not have asked much: as +for “prospects,” they never entered his head, but she was his only near +relative, and a little kindness and hospitality during the lonely years +would have made incalculable difference. Now that he was happier and +could bring her Agnes, she had asked him to stop at once. The sun as it +rose next morning spoke to him of a new life. He too had a purpose and +a value in the world at last. Leaning out of the window, he gazed at the +earth washed clean and heard through the pure air the distant noises of +the farm. + +But that day nothing was to remain divine but the weather. His aunt, for +reasons of her own, decreed that he should go for a ride with the Wonham +boy. They were to look at Old Sarum, proceed thence to Salisbury, lunch +there, see the sights, call on a certain canon for tea, and return to +Cadover in the evening. The arrangement suited no one. He did not want +to ride, but to be with Agnes; nor did Agnes want to be parted from him, +nor Stephen to go with him. But the clearer the wishes of her guests +became, the more determined was Mrs. Failing to disregard them. She +smoothed away every difficulty, she converted every objection into a +reason, and she ordered the horses for half-past nine. + +“It is a bore,” he grumbled as he sat in their little private +sitting-room, breaking his finger-nails upon the coachman’s gaiters. “I +can’t ride. I shall fall off. We should have been so happy here. It’s +just like Aunt Emily. Can’t you imagine her saying afterwards, ‘Lovers +are absurd. I made a point of keeping them apart,’ and then everybody +laughing.” + +With a pretty foretaste of the future, Agnes knelt before him and did +the gaiters up. “Who is this Mr. Wonham, by the bye?” + +“I don’t know. Some connection of Mr. Failing’s, I think.” + +“Does he live here?” + +“He used to be at school or something. He seems to have grown into a +tiresome person.” + +“I suppose that Mrs. Failing has adopted him.” + +“I suppose so. I believe that she has been quite kind. I do hope she’ll +be kind to you this morning. I hate leaving you with her.” + +“Why, you say she likes me.” + +“Yes, but that wouldn’t prevent--you see she doesn’t mind what she says +or what she repeats if it amuses her. If she thought it really funny, +for instance, to break off our engagement, she’d try.” + +“Dear boy, what a frightful remark! But it would be funnier for us to +see her trying. Whatever could she do?” + +He kissed the hands that were still busy with the fastenings. “Nothing. +I can’t see one thing. We simply lie open to each other, you and I. +There isn’t one new corner in either of us that she could reveal. +It’s only that I always have in this house the most awful feeling of +insecurity.” + +“Why?” + +“If any one says or does a foolish thing it’s always here. All the +family breezes have started here. It’s a kind of focus for aimed and +aimless scandal. You know, when my father and mother had their special +quarrel, my aunt was mixed up in it,--I never knew how or how much--but +you may be sure she didn’t calm things down, unless she found things +more entertaining calm.” + +“Rickie! Rickie!” cried the lady from the garden, “Your riding-master’s +impatient.” + +“We really oughtn’t to talk of her like this here,” whispered Agnes. +“It’s a horrible habit.” + +“The habit of the country, Agnes. Ugh, this gossip!” Suddenly he flung +his arms over her. “Dear--dear--let’s beware of I don’t know what--of +nothing at all perhaps.” + +“Oh, buck up!” yelled the irritable Stephen. “Which am I to +shorten--left stirrup or right?” + +“Left!” shouted Agnes. + +“How many holes?” + +They hurried down. On the way she said: “I’m glad of the warning. Now +I’m prepared. Your aunt will get nothing out of me.” + +Her betrothed tried to mount with the wrong foot according to his +invariable custom. She also had to pick up his whip. At last they +started, the boy showing off pretty consistently, and she was left alone +with her hostess. + +“Dido is quiet as a lamb,” said Mrs. Failing, “and Stephen is a good +fielder. What a blessing it is to have cleared out the men. What shall +you and I do this heavenly morning?” + +“I’m game for anything.” + +“Have you quite unpacked?” + +“Yes.” + +“Any letters to write?” No. + +“Then let’s go to my arbour. No, we won’t. It gets the morning sun, and +it’ll be too hot today.” Already she regretted clearing out the men. On +such a morning she would have liked to drive, but her third animal had +gone lame. She feared, too, that Miss Pembroke was going to bore her. +However, they did go to the arbour. In languid tones she pointed out the +various objects of interest. + +“There’s the Cad, which goes into the something, which goes into the +Avon. Cadbury Rings opposite, Cadchurch to the extreme left: you can’t +see it. You were there last night. It is famous for the drunken parson +and the railway-station. Then Cad Dauntsey. Then Cadford, that side of +the stream, connected with Cadover, this. Observe the fertility of the +Wiltshire mind.” + +“A terrible lot of Cads,” said Agnes brightly. + +Mrs. Failing divided her guests into those who made this joke and those +who did not. The latter class was very small. + +“The vicar of Cadford--not the nice drunkard--declares the name is +really ‘Chadford,’ and he worried on till I put up a window to St. Chad +in our church. His Cambridge wife pronounces it ‘Hyadford.’ I could +smack them both. How do you like Podge? Ah! you jump; I meant you to. +How do you like Podge Wonham?” + +“Very nice,” said Agnes, laughing. + +“Nice! He is a hero.” + +There was a long interval of silence. Each lady looked, without much +interest, at the view. Mrs. Failing’s attitude towards Nature was +severely aesthetic--an attitude more sterile than the severely +practical. She applied the test of beauty to shadow and odour and sound; +they never filled her with reverence or excitement; she never knew them +as a resistless trinity that may intoxicate the worshipper with joy. If +she liked a ploughed field, it was only as a spot of colour--not also as +a hint of the endless strength of the earth. And today she could approve +of one cloud, but object to its fellow. As for Miss Pembroke, she was +not approving or objecting at all. “A hero?” she queried, when the +interval had passed. Her voice was indifferent, as if she had been +thinking of other things. + +“A hero? Yes. Didn’t you notice how heroic he was?” + +“I don’t think I did.” + +“Not at dinner? Ah, Agnes, always look out for heroism at dinner. It is +their great time. They live up to the stiffness of their shirt fronts. +Do you mean to say that you never noticed how he set down Rickie?” + +“Oh, that about poetry!” said Agnes, laughing. “Rickie would not mind it +for a moment. But why do you single out that as heroic?” + +“To snub people! to set them down! to be rude to them! to make them feel +small! Surely that’s the lifework of a hero?” + +“I shouldn’t have said that. And as a matter of fact Mr. Wonham was +wrong over the poetry. I made Rickie look it up afterwards.” + +“But of course. A hero always is wrong.” + +“To me,” she persisted, rather gently, “a hero has always been a strong +wonderful being, who champions--” + +“Ah, wait till you are the dragon! I have been a dragon most of my life, +I think. A dragon that wants nothing but a peaceful cave. Then in +comes the strong, wonderful, delightful being, and gains a princess +by piercing my hide. No, seriously, my dear Agnes, the chief +characteristics of a hero are infinite disregard for the feelings of +others, plus general inability to understand them.” + +“But surely Mr. Wonham--” + +“Yes; aren’t we being unkind to the poor boy. Ought we to go on +talking?” + +Agnes waited, remembering the warnings of Rickie, and thinking that +anything she said might perhaps be repeated. + +“Though even if he was here he wouldn’t understand what we are saying.” + +“Wouldn’t understand?” + +Mrs. Failing gave the least flicker of an eye towards her companion. +“Did you take him for clever?” + +“I don’t think I took him for anything.” She smiled. “I have been +thinking of other things, and another boy.” + +“But do think for a moment of Stephen. I will describe how he spent +yesterday. He rose at eight. From eight to eleven he sang. The song was +called, ‘Father’s boots will soon fit Willie.’ He stopped once to say to +the footman, ‘She’ll never finish her book. She idles: ‘She’ being I. At +eleven he went out, and stood in the rain till four, but had the luck +to see a child run over at the level-crossing. By half-past four he had +knocked the bottom out of Christianity.” + +Agnes looked bewildered. + +“Aren’t you impressed? I was. I told him that he was on no account to +unsettle the vicar. Open that cupboard, one of those sixpenny books +tells Podge that he’s made of hard little black things, another +that he’s made of brown things, larger and squashy. There seems a +discrepancy, but anything is better for a thoughtful youth than to be +made in the Garden of Eden. Let us eliminate the poetic, at whatever +cost to the probable.” When for a moment she spoke more gravely. “Here +he is at twenty, with nothing to hold on by. I don’t know what’s to be +done. I suppose it’s my fault. But I’ve never had any bother over the +Church of England; have you?” + +“Of course I go with my Church,” said Miss Pembroke, who hated this +style of conversation. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I think you should +consult a man.” + +“Would Rickie help me?” + +“Rickie would do anything he can.” And Mrs. Failing noted the half +official way in which she vouched for her lover. “But of course Rickie +is a little--complicated. I doubt whether Mr. Wonham would understand +him. He wants--doesn’t he?--some one who’s a little more assertive and +more accustomed to boys. Some one more like my brother.” + +“Agnes!” she seized her by the arm. “Do you suppose that Mr. Pembroke +would undertake my Podge?” + +She shook her head. “His time is so filled up. He gets a boarding-house +next term. Besides--after all I don’t know what Herbert would do.” + +“Morality. He would teach him morality. The Thirty-Nine Articles +may come of themselves, but if you have no morals you come to grief. +Morality is all I demand from Mr. Herbert Pembroke. He shall be excused +the use of the globes. You know, of course, that Stephen’s expelled from +a public school? He stole.” + +The school was not a public one, and the expulsion, or rather request +for removal, had taken place when Stephen was fourteen. A violent +spasm of dishonesty--such as often heralds the approach of manhood--had +overcome him. He stole everything, especially what was difficult to +steal, and hid the plunder beneath a loose plank in the passage. He was +betrayed by the inclusion of a ham. This was the crisis of his career. +His benefactress was just then rather bored with him. He had stopped +being a pretty boy, and she rather doubted whether she would see him +through. But she was so raged with the letters of the schoolmaster, and +so delighted with those of the criminal, that she had him back and gave +him a prize. + +“No,” said Agnes, “I didn’t know. I should be happy to speak to Herbert, +but, as I said, his time will be very full. But I know he has friends +who make a speciality of weakly or--or unusual boys.” + +“My dear, I’ve tried it. Stephen kicked the weakly boys and robbed +apples with the unusual ones. He was expelled again.” + +Agnes began to find Mrs. Failing rather tiresome. Wherever you trod on +her, she seemed to slip away from beneath your feet. Agnes liked to know +where she was and where other people were as well. She said: “My brother +thinks a great deal of home life. I daresay he’d think that Mr. Wonham +is best where he is--with you. You have been so kind to him. You”--she +paused--“have been to him both father and mother.” + +“I’m too hot,” was Mrs. Failing’s reply. It seemed that Miss Pembroke +had at last touched a topic on which she was reticent. She rang the +electric bell,--it was only to tell the footman to take the reprints to +Mr. Wonham’s room,--and then murmuring something about work, proceeded +herself to the house. + +“Mrs. Failing--” said Agnes, who had not expected such a speedy end to +their chat. + +“Call me Aunt Emily. My dear?” + +“Aunt Emily, what did you think of that story Rickie sent you?” + +“It is bad,” said Mrs. Failing. “But. But. But.” Then she escaped, +having told the truth, and yet leaving a pleasurable impression behind +her. + + + +XII + +The excursion to Salisbury was but a poor business--in fact, Rickie +never got there. They were not out of the drive before Mr. Wonham began +doing acrobatics. He showed Rickie how very quickly he could turn round +in his saddle and sit with his face to Aeneas’s tail. “I see,” said +Rickie coldly, and became almost cross when they arrived in this +condition at the gate behind the house, for he had to open it, and was +afraid of falling. As usual, he anchored just beyond the fastenings, and +then had to turn Dido, who seemed as long as a battleship. To his relief +a man came forward, and murmuring, “Worst gate in the parish,” pushed it +wide and held it respectfully. “Thank you,” cried Rickie; “many +thanks.” But Stephen, who was riding into the world back first, said +majestically, “No, no; it doesn’t count. You needn’t think it does. You +make it worse by touching your hat. Four hours and seven minutes! You’ll +see me again.” The man answered nothing. + +“Eh, but I’ll hurt him,” he chanted, as he swung into position. “That +was Flea. Eh, but he’s forgotten my fists; eh, but I’ll hurt him.” + +“Why?” ventured Rickie. Last night, over cigarettes, he had been bored +to death by the story of Flea. The boy had a little reminded him of +Gerald--the Gerald of history, not the Gerald of romance. He was more +genial, but there was the same brutality, the same peevish insistence on +the pound of flesh. + +“Hurt him till he learns.” + +“Learns what?” + +“Learns, of course,” retorted Stephen. Neither of them was very civil. +They did not dislike each other, but they each wanted to be somewhere +else--exactly the situation that Mrs. Failing had expected. + +“He behaved badly,” said Rickie, “because he is poorer than we are, and +more ignorant. Less money has been spent on teaching him to behave.” + +“Well, I’ll teach him for nothing.” + +“Perhaps his fists are stronger than yours!” + +“They aren’t. I looked.” + +After this conversation flagged. Rickie glanced back at Cadover, +and thought of the insipid day that lay before him. Generally he was +attracted by fresh people, and Stephen was almost fresh: they had been +to him symbols of the unknown, and all that they did was interesting. +But now he cared for the unknown no longer. He knew. + +Mr. Wilbraham passed them in his dog-cart, and lifted his hat to his +employer’s nephew. Stephen he ignored: he could not find him on the map. + +“Good morning,” said Rickie. “What a lovely morning!” + +“I say,” called the other, “another child dead!” Mr. Wilbraham, who had +seemed inclined to chat, whipped up his horse and left them. + +“There goes an out and outer,” said Stephen; and then, as if introducing +an entirely new subject--“Don’t you think Flea Thompson treated me +disgracefully?” + +“I suppose he did. But I’m scarcely the person to sympathize.” The +allusion fell flat, and he had to explain it. “I should have done the +same myself,--promised to be away two hours, and stopped four.” + +“Stopped-oh--oh, I understand. You being in love, you mean?” + +He smiled and nodded. + +“Oh, I’ve no objection to Flea loving. He says he can’t help it. But as +long as my fists are stronger, he’s got to keep it in line.” + +“In line?” + +“A man like that, when he’s got a girl, thinks the rest can go to the +devil. He goes cutting his work and breaking his word. Wilbraham ought +to sack him. I promise you when I’ve a girl I’ll keep her in line, and +if she turns nasty, I’ll get another.” + +Rickie smiled and said no more. But he was sorry that any one should +start life with such a creed--all the more sorry because the creed +caricatured his own. He too believed that life should be in a line--a +line of enormous length, full of countless interests and countless +figures, all well beloved. But woman was not to be “kept” to this line. +Rather did she advance it continually, like some triumphant general, +making each unit still more interesting, still more lovable, than it had +been before. He loved Agnes, not only for herself, but because she was +lighting up the human world. But he could scarcely explain this to an +inexperienced animal, nor did he make the attempt. + +For a long time they proceeded in silence. The hill behind Cadover +was in harvest, and the horses moved regretfully between the sheaves. +Stephen had picked a grass leaf, and was blowing catcalls upon it. He +blew very well, and this morning all his soul went into the wail. For he +was ill. He was tortured with the feeling that he could not get away +and do--do something, instead of being civil to this anaemic prig. Four +hours in the rain was better than this: he had not wanted to fidget in +the rain. But now the air was like wine, and the stubble was smelling of +wet, and over his head white clouds trundled more slowly and more seldom +through broadening tracts of blue. There never had been such a morning, +and he shut up his eyes and called to it. And whenever he called, Rickie +shut up his eyes and winced. + +At last the blade broke. “We don’t go quick, do we” he remarked, and +looked on the weedy track for another. + +“I wish you wouldn’t let me keep you. If you were alone you would be +galloping or something of that sort.” + +“I was told I must go your pace,” he said mournfully. “And you promised +Miss Pembroke not to hurry.” + +“Well, I’ll disobey.” But he could not rise above a gentle trot, and +even that nearly jerked him out of the saddle. + +“Sit like this,” said Stephen. “Can’t you see like this?” Rickie lurched +forward, and broke his thumb nail on the horse’s neck. It bled a little, +and had to be bound up. + +“Thank you--awfully kind--no tighter, please--I’m simply spoiling your +day.” + +“I can’t think how a man can help riding. You’ve only to leave it to the +horse so!--so!--just as you leave it to water in swimming.” + +Rickie left it to Dido, who stopped immediately. + +“I said LEAVE it.” His voice rose irritably. “I didn’t say ‘die.’ Of +course she stops if you die. First you sit her as if you’re Sandow +exercising, and then you sit like a corpse. Can’t you tell her you’re +alive? That’s all she wants.” + +In trying to convey the information, Rickie dropped his whip. Stephen +picked it up and rammed it into the belt of his own Norfolk jacket. He +was scarcely a fashionable horseman. He was not even graceful. But he +rode as a living man, though Rickie was too much bored to notice it. Not +a muscle in him was idle, not a muscle working hard. When he returned +from the gallop his limbs were still unsatisfied and his manners still +irritable. He did not know that he was ill: he knew nothing about +himself at all. + +“Like a howdah in the Zoo,” he grumbled. “Mother Failing will buy +elephants.” And he proceeded to criticize his benefactress. Rickie, +keenly alive to bad taste, tried to stop him, and gained instead a +criticism of religion. Stephen overthrew the Mosaic cosmogony. He +pointed out the discrepancies in the Gospels. He levelled his wit +against the most beautiful spire in the world, now rising against the +southern sky. Between whiles he went for a gallop. After a time Rickie +stopped listening, and simply went his way. For Dido was a perfect +mount, and as indifferent to the motions of Aeneas as if she was +strolling in the Elysian fields. He had had a bad night, and the strong +air made him sleepy. The wind blew from the Plain. Cadover and its +valley had disappeared, and though they had not climbed much and could +not see far, there was a sense of infinite space. The fields were +enormous, like fields on the Continent, and the brilliant sun showed up +their colours well. The green of the turnips, the gold of the harvest, +and the brown of the newly turned clods, were each contrasted with +morsels of grey down. But the general effect was pale, or rather +silvery, for Wiltshire is not a county of heavy tints. Beneath these +colours lurked the unconquerable chalk, and wherever the soil was poor +it emerged. The grassy track, so gay with scabious and bedstraw, was +snow-white at the bottom of its ruts. A dazzling amphitheatre gleamed +in the flank of a distant hill, cut for some Olympian audience. And +here and there, whatever the surface crop, the earth broke into little +embankments, little ditches, little mounds: there had been no lack of +drama to solace the gods. + +In Cadover, the perilous house, Agnes had already parted from Mrs. +Failing. His thoughts returned to her. Was she, the soul of truth, in +safety? Was her purity vexed by the lies and selfishness? Would she +elude the caprice which had, he vaguely knew, caused suffering before? +Ah, the frailty of joy! Ah, the myriads of longings that pass without +fruition, and the turf grows over them! Better men, women as noble--they +had died up here and their dust had been mingled, but only their dust. +These are morbid thoughts, but who dare contradict them? There is much +good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We +are children, playing or quarreling on the line, and some of us have +Rickie’s temperament, or his experiences, and admit it. + +So he mused, that anxious little speck, and all the land seemed to +comment on his fears and on his love. + +Their path lay upward, over a great bald skull, half grass, half +stubble. It seemed each moment there would be a splendid view. The view +never came, for none of the inclines were sharp enough, and they +moved over the skull for many minutes, scarcely shifting a landmark or +altering the blue fringe of the distance. The spire of Salisbury did +alter, but very slightly, rising and falling like the mercury in a +thermometer. At the most it would be half hidden; at the least the +tip would show behind the swelling barrier of earth. They passed two +elder-trees--a great event. The bare patch, said Stephen, was owing to +the gallows. Rickie nodded. He had lost all sense of incident. In this +great solitude--more solitary than any Alpine range--he and Agnes +were floating alone and for ever, between the shapeless earth and the +shapeless clouds. An immense silence seemed to move towards them. A lark +stopped singing, and they were glad of it. They were approaching the +Throne of God. The silence touched them; the earth and all danger +dissolved, but ere they quite vanished Rickie heard himself saying, “Is +it exactly what we intended?” + +“Yes,” said a man’s voice; “it’s the old plan.” They were in another +valley. Its sides were thick with trees. Down it ran another stream +and another road: it, too, sheltered a string of villages. But all +was richer, larger, and more beautiful--the valley of the Avon below +Amesbury. + +“I’ve been asleep!” said Rickie, in awestruck tones. + +“Never!” said the other facetiously. “Pleasant dreams?” + +“Perhaps--I’m really tired of apologizing to you. How long have you been +holding me on?” + +“All in the day’s work.” He gave him back the reins. + +“Where’s that round hill?” + +“Gone where the good niggers go. I want a drink.” + +This is Nature’s joke in Wiltshire--her one joke. You toil on windy +slopes, and feel very primeval. You are miles from your fellows, and lo! +a little valley full of elms and cottages. Before Rickie had waked up to +it, they had stopped by a thatched public-house, and Stephen was yelling +like a maniac for beer. + +There was no occasion to yell. He was not very thirsty, and they were +quite ready to serve him. Nor need he have drunk in the saddle, with the +air of a warrior who carries important dispatches and has not the time +to dismount. A real soldier, bound on a similar errand, rode up to the +inn, and Stephen feared that he would yell louder, and was hostile. But +they made friends and treated each other, and slanged the proprietor and +ragged the pretty girls; while Rickie, as each wave of vulgarity burst +over him, sunk his head lower and lower, and wished that the earth +would swallow him up. He was only used to Cambridge, and to a very small +corner of that. He and his friends there believed in free speech. +But they spoke freely about generalities. They were scientific and +philosophic. They would have shrunk from the empirical freedom that +results from a little beer. + +That was what annoyed him as he rode down the new valley with two +chattering companions. He was more skilled than they were in the +principles of human existence, but he was not so indecently familiar +with the examples. A sordid village scandal--such as Stephen described +as a huge joke--sprang from certain defects in human nature, with which +he was theoretically acquainted. But the example! He blushed at it like +a maiden lady, in spite of its having a parallel in a beautiful idyll of +Theocritus. Was experience going to be such a splendid thing after all? +Were the outside of houses so very beautiful? + +“That’s spicy!” the soldier was saying. “Got any more like that?” + +“I’se got a pome,” said Stephen, and drew a piece of paper from his +pocket. The valley had broadened. Old Sarum rose before them, ugly and +majestic. + +“Write this yourself?” he asked, chuckling. + +“Rather,” said Stephen, lowering his head and kissing Aeneas between the +ears. + +“But who’s old Em’ly?” Rickie winced and frowned. + +“Now you’re asking. + +“Old Em’ly she limps, And as--” + +“I am so tired,” said Rickie. Why should he stand it any longer? + +He would go home to the woman he loved. “Do you mind if I give up +Salisbury?” + +“But we’ve seen nothing!” cried Stephen. + +“I shouldn’t enjoy anything, I am so absurdly tired.” + +“Left turn, then--all in the day’s work.” He bit at his moustache +angrily. + +“Good gracious me, man!--of course I’m going back alone. I’m not going +to spoil your day. How could you think it of me?” + +Stephen gave a loud sigh of relief. “If you do want to go home, here’s +your whip. Don’t fall off. Say to her you wanted it, or there might be +ructions.” + +“Certainly. Thank you for your kind care of me.” + +“‘Old Em’ly she limps, And as--’” + +Soon he was out of earshot. Soon they were lost to view. Soon they were +out of his thoughts. He forgot the coarseness and the drinking and the +ingratitude. A few months ago he would not have forgotten so quickly, +and he might also have detected something else. But a lover is dogmatic. +To him the world shall be beautiful and pure. When it is not, he ignores +it. + +“He’s not tired,” said Stephen to the soldier; “he wants his girl.” And +they winked at each other, and cracked jokes over the eternal comedy of +love. They asked each other if they’d let a girl spoil a morning’s ride. +They both exhibited a profound cynicism. Stephen, who was quite without +ballast, described the household at Cadover: he should say that Rickie +would find Miss Pembroke kissing the footman. + +“I say the footman’s kissing old Em’ly.” + +“Jolly day,” said Stephen. His voice was suddenly constrained. He was +not sure whether he liked the soldier after all, nor whether he had been +wise in showing him his compositions. + +“‘Old Em’ly she limps, And as--’” + +“All right, Thomas. That’ll do.” + +“Old Em’ly--’” + +“I wish you’d dry up, like a good fellow. This is the lady’s horse, you +know, hang it, after all.” + +“In-deed!” + +“Don’t you see--when a fellow’s on a horse, he can’t let another +fellow--kind of--don’t you know?” + +The man did know. “There’s sense in that.” he said approvingly. Peace +was restored, and they would have reached Salisbury if they had not had +some more beer. It unloosed the soldier’s fancies, and again he spoke of +old Em’ly, and recited the poem, with Aristophanic variations. + +“Jolly day,” repeated Stephen, with a straightening of the eyebrows +and a quick glance at the other’s body. He then warned him against +the variations. In consequence he was accused of being a member of the +Y.M.C.A. His blood boiled at this. He refuted the charge, and became +great friends with the soldier, for the third time. + +“Any objection to ‘Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton’?” + +“Rather not.” + +The soldier sang “Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton.” It is really a work +for two voices, most of the sauciness disappearing when taken as a solo. +Nor is Mrs. Tackleton’s name Em’lv. + +“I call it a jolly rotten song,” said Stephen crossly. “I won’t stand +being got at.” + +“P’r’aps y’like therold song. Lishen. + + “‘Of all the gulls that arsshmart, + There’s none line pretty--Em’ly; + For she’s the darling of merart’” + +“Now, that’s wrong.” He rode up close to the singer. + +“Shright.” + +“‘Tisn’t.” + +“It’s as my mother taught me.” + +“I don’t care.” + +“I’ll not alter from mother’s way.” + +Stephen was baffled. Then he said, “How does your mother make it rhyme?” + +“Wot?” + +“Squat. You’re an ass, and I’m not. Poems want rhymes. ‘Alley’ comes +next line.” + +He said “alley” was--welcome to come if it liked. + +“It can’t. You want Sally. Sally--alley. Em’ly-alley doesn’t do.” + +“Emily-femily!” cried the soldier, with an inspiration that was not his +when sober. “My mother taught me femily. + +“‘For she’s the darling of merart, And she lives in my femily.’” + +“Well, you’d best be careful, Thomas, and your mother too.” + +“Your mother’s no better than she should be,” said Thomas vaguely. + +“Do you think I haven’t heard that before?” retorted the boy. The other +concluded he might now say anything. So he might--the name of old Emily +excepted. Stephen cared little about his benefactress’s honour, but a +great deal about his own. He had made Mrs. Failing into a test. For the +moment he would die for her, as a knight would die for a glove. He is +not to be distinguished from a hero. + +Old Sarum was passed. They approached the most beautiful spire in +the world. “Lord! another of these large churches!” said the soldier. +Unfriendly to Gothic, he lifted both hands to his nose, and declared +that old Em’ly was buried there. He lay in the mud. His horse trotted +back towards Amesbury, Stephen had twisted him out of the saddle. + +“I’ve done him!” he yelled, though no one was there to hear. He rose up +in his stirrups and shouted with joy. He flung his arms round Aeneas’s +neck. The elderly horse understood, capered, and bolted. It was a +centaur that dashed into Salisbury and scattered the people. In +the stable he would not dismount. “I’ve done him!” he yelled to the +ostlers--apathetic men. Stretching upwards, he clung to a beam. Aeneas +moved on and he was left hanging. Greatly did he incommode them by his +exercises. He pulled up, he circled, he kicked the other customers. At +last he fell to the earth, deliciously fatigued. His body worried him no +longer. + +He went, like the baby he was, to buy a white linen hat. There were +soldiers about, and he thought it would disguise him. Then he had a +little lunch to steady the beer. This day had turned out admirably. All +the money that should have fed Rickie he could spend on himself. Instead +of toiling over the Cathedral and seeing the stuffed penguins, he could +stop the whole thing in the cattle market. There he met and made some +friends. He watched the cheap-jacks, and saw how necessary it was to +have a confident manner. He spoke confidently himself about lambs, and +people listened. He spoke confidently about pigs, and they roared with +laughter. He must learn more about pigs. He witnessed a performance--not +too namby-pamby--of Punch and Judy. “Hullo, Podge!” cried a naughty +little girl. He tried to catch her, and failed. She was one of the +Cadford children. For Salisbury on market day, though it is not +picturesque, is certainly representative, and you read the names of +half the Wiltshire villages upon the carriers’ carts. He found, in Penny +Farthing Street, the cart from Wintersbridge. It would not start for +several hours, but the passengers always used it as a club, and sat in +it every now and then during the day. No less than three ladies were +these now, staring at the shafts. One of them was Flea Thompson’s girl. +He asked her, quite politely, why her lover had broken faith with him +in the rain. She was silent. He warned her of approaching vengeance. She +was still silent, but another woman hoped that a gentleman would not +be hard on a poor person. Something in this annoyed him; it wasn’t a +question of gentility and poverty--it was a question of two men. He +determined to go back by Cadbury Rings where the shepherd would now be. + +He did. But this part must be treated lightly. He rode up to the culprit +with the air of a Saint George, spoke a few stern words from the saddle, +tethered his steed to a hurdle, and took off his coat. “Are you ready?” + he asked. + +“Yes, sir,” said Flea, and flung him on his back. + +“That’s not fair,” he protested. + +The other did not reply, but flung him on his head. + +“How on earth did you learn that?” + +“By trying often,” said Flea. + +Stephen sat on the ground, picking mud out of his forehead. “I meant it +to be fists,” he said gloomily. + +“I know, sir.” + +“It’s jolly smart though, and--and I beg your pardon all round.” It +cost him a great deal to say this, but he was sure that it was the right +thing to say. He must acknowledge the better man. Whereas most people, +if they provoke a fight and are flung, say, “You cannot rob me of my +moral victory.” + +There was nothing further to be done. He mounted again, not exactly +depressed, but feeling that this delightful world is extraordinarily +unreliable. He had never expected to fling the soldier, or to be +flung by Flea. “One nips or is nipped,” he thought, “and never knows +beforehand. I should not be surprised if many people had more in them +than I suppose, while others were just the other way round. I haven’t +seen that sort of thing in Ingersoll, but it’s quite important.” Then +his thoughts turned to a curious incident of long ago, when he had been +“nipped”--as a little boy. He was trespassing in those woods, when +he met in a narrow glade a flock of sheep. They had neither dog nor +shepherd, and advanced towards him silently. He was accustomed to sheep, +but had never happened to meet them in a wood before, and disliked it. +He retired, slowly at first, then fast; and the flock, in a dense mass, +pressed after him. His terror increased. He turned and screamed at their +long white faces; and still they came on, all stuck together, like some +horrible jell--. If once he got into them! Bellowing and screeching, he +rushed into the undergrowth, tore himself all over, and reached home in +convulsions. Mr. Failing, his only grown-up friend, was sympathetic, but +quite stupid. “Pan ovium custos,” he sympathetic, as he pulled out the +thorns. “Why not?” “Pan ovium custos.” Stephen learnt the meaning of the +phrase at school, “A pan of eggs for custard.” He still remembered how +the other boys looked as he peeped at them between his legs, awaiting +the descending cane. + +So he returned, full of pleasant disconnected thoughts. He had had a +rare good time. He liked every one--even that poor little Elliot--and +yet no one mattered. They were all out. On the landing he saw the +housemaid. He felt skittish and irresistible. Should he slip his arm +round her waist? Perhaps better not; she might box his ears. And he +wanted to smoke on the roof before dinner. So he only said, “Please will +you stop the boy blacking my brown boots,” and she with downcast eyes, +answered, “Yes, sir; I will indeed.” + +His room was in the pediment. Classical architecture, like all things in +this world that attempt serenity, is bound to have its lapses into the +undignified, and Cadover lapsed hopelessly when it came to Stephen’s +room. It gave him one round window, to see through which he must lie +upon his stomach, one trapdoor opening upon the leads, three iron +girders, three beams, six buttresses, no circling, unless you count the +walls, no walls unless you count the ceiling and in its embarrassment +presented him with the gurgly cistern that supplied the bath water. Here +he lived, absolutely happy, and unaware that Mrs. Failing had poked him +up here on purpose, to prevent him from growing too bumptious. Here he +worked and sang and practised on the ocharoon. Here, in the crannies, he +had constructed shelves and cupboards and useless little drawers. He had +only one picture--the Demeter of Onidos--and she hung straight from the +roof like a joint of meat. Once she was in the drawing-room; but +Mrs. Failing had got tired of her, and decreed her removal and this +degradation. Now she faced the sunrise; and when the moon rose its light +also fell on her, and trembled, like light upon the sea. For she was +never still, and if the draught increased she would twist on her string, +and would sway and tap upon the rafters until Stephen woke up and said +what he thought of her. “Want your nose?” he would murmur. “Don’t you +wish you may get it” Then he drew the clothes over his ears, while above +him, in the wind and the darkness, the goddess continued her motions. + +Today, as he entered, he trod on the pile of sixpenny reprints. Leighton +had brought them up. He looked at the portraits in their covers, and +began to think that these people were not everything. What a fate, +to look like Colonel Ingersoll, or to marry Mrs. Julia P. Chunk! The +Demeter turned towards him as he bathed, and in the cold water he sang-- + + “They aren’t beautiful, they aren’t modest; + I’d just as soon follow an old stone goddess,” + +and sprang upward through the skylight on to the roof. Years ago, when +a nurse was washing him, he had slipped from her soapy hands and got up +here. She implored him to remember that he was a little gentleman; but +he forgot the fact--if it was a fact--and not even the butler could get +him down. Mr. Failing, who was sitting alone in the garden too ill to +read, heard a shout, “Am I an acroterium?” He looked up and saw a naked +child poised on the summit of Cadover. “Yes,” he replied; “but they are +unfashionable. Go in,” and the vision had remained with him as something +peculiarly gracious. He felt that nonsense and beauty have close +connections,--closer connections than Art will allow,--and that both +would remain when his own heaviness and his own ugliness had perished. +Mrs. Failing found in his remains a sentence that puzzled her. “I see +the respectable mansion. I see the smug fortress of culture. The doors +are shut. The windows are shut. But on the roof the children go dancing +for ever.” + +Stephen was a child no longer. He never stood on the pediment now, +except for a bet. He never, or scarcely ever, poured water down the +chimneys. When he caught the cat, he seldom dropped her into the +housekeeper’s bedroom. But still, when the weather was fair, he liked to +come up after bathing, and get dry in the sun. Today he brought with him +a towel, a pipe of tobacco, and Rickie’s story. He must get it done some +time, and he was tired of the six-penny reprints. The sloping gable +was warm, and he lay back on it with closed eyes, gasping for pleasure. +Starlings criticized him, snots fell on his clean body, and over him a +little cloud was tinged with the colours of evening. “Good! good!” he +whispered. “Good, oh good!” and opened the manuscript reluctantly. + +What a production! Who was this girl? Where did she go to? Why so much +talk about trees? “I take it he wrote it when feeling bad,” he murmured, +and let it fall into the gutter. It fell face downwards, and on the back +he saw a neat little resume in Miss Pembroke’s handwriting, intended for +such as him. “Allegory. Man = modern civilization (in bad sense). Girl = +getting into touch with Nature.” + +In touch with Nature! The girl was a tree! He lit his pipe and gazed at +the radiant earth. The foreground was hidden, but there was the village +with its elms, and the Roman Road, and Cadbury Rings. There, too, were +those woods, and little beech copses, crowning a waste of down. Not to +mention the air, or the sun, or water. Good, oh good! + +In touch with Nature! What cant would the books think of next? His eyes +closed. He was sleepy. Good, oh good! Sighing into his pipe, he fell +asleep. + + + +XIII + +Glad as Agnes was when her lover returned for lunch, she was at the +same time rather dismayed: she knew that Mrs. Failing would not like her +plans altered. And her dismay was justified. Their hostess was a little +stiff, and asked whether Stephen had been obnoxious. + +“Indeed he hasn’t. He spent the whole time looking after me.” + +“From which I conclude he was more obnoxious than usual.” Rickie praised +him diligently. But his candid nature showed everything through. His +aunt soon saw that they had not got on. She had expected this--almost +planned it. Nevertheless she resented it, and her resentment was to fall +on him. + +The storm gathered slowly, and many other things went to swell it. +Weakly people, if they are not careful, hate one another, and when the +weakness is hereditary the temptation increases. Elliots had never got +on among themselves. They talked of “The Family,” but they always turned +outwards to the health and beauty that lie so promiscuously about the +world. Rickie’s father had turned, for a time at all events, to his +mother. Rickie himself was turning to Agnes. And Mrs. Failing now was +irritable, and unfair to the nephew who was lame like her horrible +brother and like herself. She thought him invertebrate and conventional. +She was envious of his happiness. She did not trouble to understand his +art. She longed to shatter him, but knowing as she did that the human +thunderbolt often rebounds and strikes the wielder, she held her hand. + +Agnes watched the approaching clouds. Rickie had warned her; now she +began to warn him. As the visit wore away she urged him to be pleasant +to his aunt, and so convert it into a success. + +He replied, “Why need it be a success?”--a reply in the manner of +Ansell. + +She laughed. “Oh, that’s so like you men--all theory! What about your +great theory of hating no one? As soon as it comes in useful you drop +it.” + +“I don’t hate Aunt Emily. Honestly. But certainly I don’t want to be +near her or think about her. Don’t you think there are two great things +in life that we ought to aim at--truth and kindness? Let’s have both if +we can, but let’s be sure of having one or the other. My aunt gives up +both for the sake of being funny.” + +“And Stephen Wonham,” pursued Agnes. “There’s another person you +hate--or don’t think about, if you prefer it put like that.” + +“The truth is, I’m changing. I’m beginning to see that the world has +many people in it who don’t matter. I had time for them once. Not now.” + There was only one gate to the kingdom of heaven now. + +Agnes surprised him by saying, “But the Wonham boy is evidently a part +of your aunt’s life. She laughs at him, but she is fond of him.” + +“What’s that to do with it?” + +“You ought to be pleasant to him on account of it.” + +“Why on earth?” + +She flushed a little. “I’m old-fashioned. One ought to consider one’s +hostess, and fall in with her life. After we leave it’s another thing. +But while we take her hospitality I think it’s our duty.” + +Her good sense triumphed. Henceforth he tried to fall in with Aunt +Emily’s life. Aunt Emily watched him trying. The storm broke, as storms +sometimes do, on Sunday. + +Sunday church was a function at Cadover, though a strange one. The +pompous landau rolled up to the house at a quarter to eleven. Then Mrs. +Failing said, “Why am I being hurried?” and after an interval descended +the steps in her ordinary clothes. She regarded the church as a sort of +sitting-room, and refused even to wear a bonnet there. The village was +shocked, but at the same time a little proud; it would point out the +carriage to strangers and gossip about the pale smiling lady who sat in +it, always alone, always late, her hair always draped in an expensive +shawl. + +This Sunday, though late as usual, she was not alone. Miss Pembroke, +en grande toilette, sat by her side. Rickie, looking plain and devout, +perched opposite. And Stephen actually came too, murmuring that it would +be the Benedicite, which he had never minded. There was also the Litany, +which drove him into the air again, much to Mrs. Failing’s delight. She +enjoyed this sort of thing. It amused her when her Protege left the pew, +looking bored, athletic, and dishevelled, and groping most obviously for +his pipe. She liked to keep a thoroughbred pagan to shock people. “He’s +gone to worship Nature,” she whispered. Rickie did not look up. “Don’t +you think he’s charming?” He made no reply. + +“Charming,” whispered Agnes over his head. + +During the sermon she analysed her guests. Miss +Pembroke--undistinguished, unimaginative, tolerable. +Rickie--intolerable. “And how pedantic!” she mused. “He smells of the +University library. If he was stupid in the right way he would be a +don.” She looked round the tiny church; at the whitewashed pillars, +the humble pavement, the window full of magenta saints. There was +the vicar’s wife. And Mrs. Wilbraham’s bonnet. Ugh! The rest of the +congregation were poor women, with flat, hopeless faces--she saw them +Sunday after Sunday, but did not know their names--diversified with a +few reluctant plough-boys, and the vile little school children row upon +row. “Ugh! what a hole,” thought Mrs. Failing, whose Christianity was +the type best described as “cathedral.” “What a hole for a cultured +woman! I don’t think it has blunted my sensations, though; I still +see its squalor as clearly as ever. And my nephew pretends he is +worshipping. Pah! the hypocrite.” Above her the vicar spoke of the +danger of hurrying from one dissipation to another. She treasured his +words, and continued: “I cannot stand smugness. It is the one, the +unpardonable sin. Fresh air! The fresh air that has made Stephen Wonham +fresh and companionable and strong. Even if it kills, I will let in the +fresh air.” + +Thus reasoned Mrs. Failing, in the facile vein of Ibsenism. She imagined +herself to be a cold-eyed Scandinavian heroine. Really she was an +English old lady, who did not mind giving other people a chill provided +it was not infectious. + +Agnes, on the way back, noted that her hostess was a little snappish. +But one is so hungry after morning service, and either so hot or so +cold, that he would be a saint indeed who becomes a saint at once. Mrs. +Failing, after asserting vindictively that it was impossible to make +a living out of literature, was courteously left alone. Roast-beef +and moselle might yet work miracles, and Agnes still hoped for the +introductions--the introductions to certain editors and publishers--on +which her whole diplomacy was bent. Rickie would not push himself. It +was his besetting sin. Well for him that he would have a wife, and a +loving wife, who knew the value of enterprise. + +Unfortunately lunch was a quarter of an hour late, and during that +quarter of an hour the aunt and the nephew quarrelled. She had been +inveighing against the morning service, and he quietly and deliberately +replied, “If organized religion is anything--and it is something to +me--it will not be wrecked by a harmonium and a dull sermon.” + +Mrs. Failing frowned. “I envy you. It is a great thing to have no sense +of beauty.” + +“I think I have a sense of beauty, which leads me astray if I am not +careful.” + +“But this is a great relief to me. I thought the present day young man +was an agnostic! Isn’t agnosticism all the thing at Cambridge?” + +“Nothing is the ‘thing’ at Cambridge. If a few men are agnostic there, +it is for some grave reason, not because they are irritated with the way +the parson says his vowels.” + +Agnes intervened. “Well, I side with Aunt Emily. I believe in ritual.” + +“Don’t, my dear, side with me. He will only say you have no sense of +religion either.” + +“Excuse me,” said Rickie, perhaps he too was a little hungry,--“I never +suggested such a thing. I never would suggest such a thing. Why cannot +you understand my position? I almost feel it is that you won’t.” + +“I try to understand your position night and day dear--what you mean, +what you like, why you came to Cadover, and why you stop here when my +presence is so obviously unpleasing to you.” + +“Luncheon is served,” said Leighton, but he said it too late. They +discussed the beef and the moselle in silence. The air was heavy and +ominous. Even the Wonham boy was affected by it, shivered at times, +choked once, and hastened anew into the sun. He could not understand +clever people. + +Agnes, in a brief anxious interview, advised the culprit to take a +solitary walk. She would stop near Aunt Emily, and pave the way for an +apology. + +“Don’t worry too much. It doesn’t really matter.” + +“I suppose not, dear. But it seems a pity, considering we are so near +the end of our visit.” + +“Rudeness and Grossness matter, and I’ve shown both, and already I’m +sorry, and I hope she’ll let me apologize. But from the selfish point of +view it doesn’t matter a straw. She’s no more to us than the Wonham boy +or the boot boy.” + +“Which way will you walk?” + +“I think to that entrenchment. Look at it.” They were sitting on the +steps. He stretched out his hand to Cadsbury Rings, and then let it rest +for a moment on her shoulder. “You’re changing me,” he said gently. “God +bless you for it.” + +He enjoyed his walk. Cadford was a charming village and for a time he +hung over the bridge by the mill. So clear was the stream that it seemed +not water at all, but some invisible quintessence in which the happy +minnows and the weeds were vibrating. And he paused again at the Roman +crossing, and thought for a moment of the unknown child. The line curved +suddenly: certainly it was dangerous. Then he lifted his eyes to the +down. The entrenchment showed like the rim of a saucer, and over +its narrow line peeped the summit of the central tree. It looked +interesting. He hurried forward, with the wind behind him. + +The Rings were curious rather than impressive. Neither embankment was +over twelve feet high, and the grass on them had not the exquisite +green of Old Sarum, but was grey and wiry. But Nature (if she arranges +anything) had arranged that from them, at all events, there should be a +view. The whole system of the country lay spread before Rickie, and he +gained an idea of it that he never got in his elaborate ride. He saw how +all the water converges at Salisbury; how Salisbury lies in a shallow +basin, just at the change of the soil. He saw to the north the Plain, +and the stream of the Cad flowing down from it, with a tributary that +broke out suddenly, as the chalk streams do: one village had clustered +round the source and clothed itself with trees. He saw Old Sarum, and +hints of the Avon valley, and the land above Stone Henge. And behind him +he saw the great wood beginning unobtrusively, as if the down too needed +shaving; and into it the road to London slipped, covering the bushes +with white dust. Chalk made the dust white, chalk made the water clear, +chalk made the clean rolling outlines of the land, and favoured the +grass and the distant coronals of trees. Here is the heart of our +island: the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South Downs radiate hence. +The fibres of England unite in Wiltshire, and did we condescend to +worship her, here we should erect our national shrine. + +People at that time were trying to think imperially, Rickie wondered how +they did it, for he could not imagine a place larger than England. +And other people talked of Italy, the spiritual fatherland of us all. +Perhaps Italy would prove marvellous. But at present he conceived it as +something exotic, to be admired and reverenced, but not to be loved like +these unostentatious fields. He drew out a book, it was natural for him +to read when he was happy, and to read out loud,--and for a little time +his voice disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book was +Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he had cherished greatly two +years before, and marked as “very good.” + +“I never was attached to that great sect Whose doctrine is that each one +should select Out of the world a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, +though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion,--though it is the code +Of modern morals, and the beaten road Which those poor slaves with weary +footsteps tread Who travel to their home among the dead By the broad +highway of the world,--and so With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous +foe, The dreariest and the longest journey go.” + +It was “very good”--fine poetry, and, in a sense, true. Yet he was +surprised that he had ever selected it so vehemently. This afternoon it +seemed a little inhuman. Half a mile off two lovers were keeping company +where all the villagers could see them. They cared for no one else; +they felt only the pressure of each other, and so progressed, silent +and oblivious, across the land. He felt them to be nearer the truth +than Shelley. Even if they suffered or quarrelled, they would have been +nearer the truth. He wondered whether they were Henry Adams and Jessica +Thompson, both of this parish, whose banns had been asked for the second +time in the church this morning. Why could he not marry on fifteen +shillings a-week? And be looked at them with respect, and wished that he +was not a cumbersome gentleman. + +Presently he saw something less pleasant--his aunt’s pony carriage. It +had crossed the railway, and was advancing up the Roman road along by +the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, but someone waved to him. +It was Agnes. She waved continually, as much as to say, “Wait for us.” + Mrs. Failing herself raised the whip in a nonchalant way. Stephen Wonham +was following on foot, some way behind. He put the Shelley back into his +pocket and waited for them. When the carriage stopped by some hurdles +he went down from the embankment and helped them to dismount. He felt +rather nervous. + +His aunt gave him one of her disquieting smiles, but said pleasantly +enough, “Aren’t the Rings a little immense? Agnes and I came here +because we wanted an antidote to the morning service.” + +“Pang!” said the church bell suddenly; “pang! pang!” It sounded petty +and ludicrous. They all laughed. Rickie blushed, and Agnes, with a +glance that said “apologize,” darted away to the entrenchment, as though +unable to restrain her curiosity. + +“The pony won’t move,” said Mrs. Failing. “Leave him for Stephen to tie +up. Will you walk me to the tree in the middle? Booh! I’m tired. Give me +your arm--unless you’re tired as well.” + +“No. I came out partly in the hope of helping you.” + +“How sweet of you.” She contrasted his blatant unselfishness with the +hardness of Stephen. Stephen never came out to help you. But if you got +hold of him he was some good. He didn’t wobble and bend at the critical +moment. Her fancy compared Rickie to the cracked church bell sending +forth its message of “Pang! pang!” to the countryside, and Stephen to +the young pagans who were said to lie under this field guarding their +pagan gold. + +“This place is full of ghosties,” she remarked; “have you seen any yet?” + +“I’ve kept on the outer rim so far.” + +“Let’s go to the tree in the centre.” + +“Here’s the path.” The bank of grass where he had sat was broken by a +gap, through which chariots had entered, and farm carts entered now. The +track, following the ancient track, led straight through turnips to a +similar gap in the second circle, and thence continued, through more +turnips, to the central tree. + +“Pang!” said the bell, as they paused at the entrance. + +“You needn’t unharness,” shouted Mrs. Failing, for Stephen was +approaching the carriage. + +“Yes, I will,” he retorted. + +“You will, will you?” she murmured with a smile. “I wish your brother +wasn’t quite so uppish. Let’s get on. Doesn’t that church distract you?” + +“It’s so faint here,” said Rickie. And it sounded fainter inside, though +the earthwork was neither thick nor tall; and the view, though not +hidden, was greatly diminished. He was reminded for a minute of that +chalk pit near Madingley, whose ramparts excluded the familiar world. +Agnes was here, as she had once been there. She stood on the farther +barrier, waiting to receive them when they had traversed the heart of +the camp. + +“Admire my mangel-wurzels,” said Mrs. Failing. “They are said to grow +so splendidly on account of the dead soldiers. Isn’t it a sweet thought? +Need I say it is your brother’s?” + +“Wonham’s?” he suggested. It was the second time that she had made the +little slip. She nodded, and he asked her what kind of ghosties haunted +this curious field. + +“The D.,” was her prompt reply. “He leans against the tree in the +middle, especially on Sunday afternoons and all the worshippers rise +through the turnips and dance round him.” + +“Oh, these were decent people,” he replied, looking downwards--“soldiers +and shepherds. They have no ghosts. They worshipped Mars or Pan-Erda +perhaps; not the devil.” + +“Pang!” went the church, and was silent, for the afternoon service +had begun. They entered the second entrenchment, which was in height, +breadth, and composition, similar to the first, and excluded still more +of the view. His aunt continued friendly. Agnes stood watching them. + +“Soldiers may seem decent in the past,” she continued, “but wait till +they turn into Tommies from Bulford Camp, who rob the chickens.” + +“I don’t mind Bulford Camp,” said Rickie, looking, though in vain, for +signs of its snowy tents. “The men there are the sons of the men here, +and have come back to the old country. War’s horrible, yet one loves all +continuity. And no one could mind a shepherd.” + +“Indeed! What about your brother--a shepherd if ever there was? Look how +he bores you! Don’t be so sentimental.” + +“But--oh, you mean--” + +“Your brother Stephen.” + +He glanced at her nervously. He had never known her so queer before. +Perhaps it was some literary allusion that he had not caught; but her +face did not at that moment suggest literature. In the differential +tones that one uses to an old and infirm person he said “Stephen Wonham +isn’t my brother, Aunt Emily.” + +“My dear, you’re that precise. One can’t say ‘half-brother’ every time.” + +They approached the central tree. + +“How you do puzzle me,” he said, dropping her arm and beginning to +laugh. “How could I have a half-brother?” + +She made no answer. + +Then a horror leapt straight at him, and he beat it back and said, +“I will not be frightened.” The tree in the centre revolved, the tree +disappeared, and he saw a room--the room where his father had lived in +town. “Gently,” he told himself, “gently.” Still laughing, he said, “I, +with a brother-younger it’s not possible.” The horror leapt again, and +he exclaimed, “It’s a foul lie!” + +“My dear, my dear!” + +“It’s a foul lie! He wasn’t--I won’t stand--” + +“My dear, before you say several noble things, remember that it’s worse +for him than for you--worse for your brother, for your half-brother, for +your younger brother.” + +But he heard her no longer. He was gazing at the past, which he had +praised so recently, which gaped ever wider, like an unhallowed grave. +Turn where he would, it encircled him. It took visible form: it was this +double entrenchment of the Rings. His mouth went cold, and he knew that +he was going to faint among the dead. He started running, missed the +exit, stumbled on the inner barrier, fell into darkness-- + +“Get his head down,” said a voice. “Get the blood back into him. +That’s all he wants. Leave him to me. Elliot!”--the blood was +returning--“Elliot, wake up!” + +He woke up. The earth he had dreaded lay close to his eyes, and seemed +beautiful. He saw the structure of the clods. A tiny beetle swung on +the grass blade. On his own neck a human hand pressed, guiding the blood +back to his brain. + +There broke from him a cry, not of horror but of acceptance. For one +short moment he understood. “Stephen--” he began, and then he heard his +own name called: “Rickie! Rickie!” Agnes hurried from her post on the +margin, and, as if understanding also, caught him to her breast. + +Stephen offered to help them further, but finding that he made things +worse, he stepped aside to let them pass and then sauntered inwards. The +whole field, with concentric circles, was visible, and the broad leaves +of the turnips rustled in the gathering wind. Miss Pembroke and Elliot +were moving towards the Cadover entrance. Mrs. Failing stood watching in +her turn on the opposite bank. He was not an inquisitive boy; but as he +leant against the tree he wondered what it was all about, and whether he +would ever know. + + + +XIV + +On the way back--at that very level-crossing where he had paused on +his upward route--Rickie stopped suddenly and told the girl why he had +fainted. Hitherto she had asked him in vain. His tone had gone from him, +and he told her harshly and brutally, so that she started away with +a horrified cry. Then his manner altered, and he exclaimed: “Will you +mind? Are you going to mind?” + +“Of course I mind,” she whispered. She turned from him, and saw up on +the sky-line two figures that seemed to be of enormous size. + +“They’re watching us. They stand on the edge watching us. This country’s +so open--you--you can’t they watch us wherever we go. Of course you +mind.” + +They heard the rumble of the train, and she pulled herself together. +“Come, dearest, we shall be run over next. We’re saying things that have +no sense.” But on the way back he repeated: “They can still see us. They +can see every inch of this road. They watch us for ever.” And when they +arrived at the steps there, sure enough, were still the two figures +gazing from the outer circle of the Rings. + +She made him go to his room at once: he was almost hysterical. Leighton +brought out some tea for her, and she sat drinking it on the little +terrace. Of course she minded. + +Again she was menaced by the abnormal. All had seemed so fair and so +simple, so in accordance with her ideas; and then, like a corpse, this +horror rose up to the surface. She saw the two figures descend and pause +while one of them harnessed the pony; she saw them drive downward, and +knew that before long she must face them and the world. She glanced at +her engagement ring. + +When the carriage drove up Mrs. Failing dismounted, but did not speak. +It was Stephen who inquired after Rickie. She, scarcely knowing the +sound of her own voice, replied that he was a little tired. + +“Go and put up the pony,” said Mrs. Failing rather sharply. + +“Agnes, give me some tea.” + +“It is rather strong,” said Agnes as the carriage drove off and left +them alone. Then she noticed that Mrs. Failing herself was agitated. Her +lips were trembling, and she saw the boy depart with manifest relief. + +“Do you know,” she said hurriedly, as if talking against time--“Do you +know what upset Rickie?” + +“I do indeed know.” + +“Has he told any one else?” + +“I believe not.” + +“Agnes--have I been a fool?” + +“You have been very unkind,” said the girl, and her eyes filled with +tears. + +For a moment Mrs. Failing was annoyed. “Unkind? I do not see that at +all. I believe in looking facts in the face. Rickie must know his ghosts +some time. Why not this afternoon?” + +She rose with quiet dignity, but her tears came faster. “That is not so. +You told him to hurt him. I cannot think what you did it for. I suppose +because he was rude to you after church. It is a mean, cowardly revenge. + +“What--what if it’s a lie?” + +“Then, Mrs. Failing, it is sickening of you. There is no other word. +Sickening. I am sorry--a nobody like myself--to speak like this. How +COULD you, oh, how could you demean yourself? Why, not even a poor +person--Her indignation was fine and genuine. But her tears fell no +longer. Nothing menaced her if they were not really brothers. + +“It is not a lie, my clear; sit down. I will swear so much solemnly. It +is not a lie, but--” + +Agnes waited. + +“--we can call it a lie if we choose.” + +“I am not so childish. You have said it, and we must all suffer. You +have had your fun: I conclude you did it for fun. You cannot go +back. He--” She pointed towards the stables, and could not finish her +sentence. + +“I have not been a fool twice.” + +Agnes did not understand. + +“My dense lady, can’t you follow? I have not told Stephen one single +word, neither before nor now.” + +There was a long silence. + +Indeed, Mrs. Failing was in an awkward position. + +Rickie had irritated her, and, in her desire to shock him, she had +imperilled her own peace. She had felt so unconventional upon the +hillside, when she loosed the horror against him; but now it was +darting at her as well. Suppose the scandal came out. Stephen, who was +absolutely without delicacy, would tell it to the people as soon as tell +them the time. His paganism would be too assertive; it might even be in +bad taste. After all, she had a prominent position in the neighbourhood; +she was talked about, respected, looked up to. After all, she was +growing old. And therefore, though she had no true regard for Rickie, +nor for Agnes, nor for Stephen, nor for Stephen’s parents, in whose +tragedy she had assisted, yet she did feel that if the scandal revived +it would disturb the harmony of Cadover, and therefore tried to retrace +her steps. It is easy to say shocking things: it is so different to be +connected with anything shocking. Life and death were not involved, but +comfort and discomfort were. + +The silence was broken by the sound of feet on the gravel. Agnes said +hastily, “Is that really true--that he knows nothing?” + +“You, Rickie, and I are the only people alive that know. He realizes +what he is--with a precision that is sometimes alarming. Who he is, he +doesn’t know and doesn’t care. I suppose he would know when I’m dead. +There are papers.” + +“Aunt Emily, before he comes, may I say to you I’m sorry I was so rude?” + +Mrs. Failing had not disliked her courage. “My dear, you may. We’re all +off our hinges this Sunday. Sit down by me again.” + +Agnes obeyed, and they awaited the arrival of Stephen. They were clever +enough to understand each other. The thing must be hushed up. The matron +must repair the consequences of her petulance. The girl must hide the +stain in her future husband’s family. Why not? Who was injured? What +does a grown-up man want with a grown brother? Rickie upstairs, how +grateful he would be to them for saving him. + +“Stephen!” + +“Yes.” + +“I’m tired of you. Go and bathe in the sea.” + +“All right.” + +And the whole thing was settled. She liked no fuss, and so did he. He +sat down on the step to tighten his bootlaces. Then he would be ready. +Mrs. Failing laid two or three sovereigns on the step above him. Agnes +tried to make conversation, and said, with averted eyes, that the sea +was a long way off. + +“The sea’s downhill. That’s all I know about it.” He swept up the money +with a word of pleasure: he was kept like a baby in such things. Then he +started off, but slowly, for he meant to walk till the morning. + +“He will be gone days,” said Mrs. Failing. “The comedy is finished. Let +us come in.” + +She went to her room. The storm that she had raised had shattered +her. Yet, because it was stilled for a moment, she resumed her old +emancipated manner, and spoke of it as a comedy. + +As for Miss Pembroke, she pretended to be emancipated no longer. People +like “Stephen Wonham” were social thunderbolts, to be shunned at all +costs, or at almost all costs. Her joy was now unfeigned, and she +hurried upstairs to impart it to Rickie. + +“I don’t think we are rewarded if we do right, but we are punished if +we lie. It’s the fashion to laugh at poetic justice, but I do believe +in half of it. Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days it +really will come back to you.” These were the words of Mr. Failing. They +were also the opinions of Stewart Ansell, another unpractical person. +Rickie was trying to write to him when she entered with the good news. + +“Dear, we’re saved! He doesn’t know, and he never is to know. I can’t +tell you how glad I am. All the time we saw them standing together up +there, she wasn’t telling him at all. She was keeping him out of the +way, in case you let it out. Oh, I like her! She may be unwise, but she +is nice, really. She said, ‘I’ve been a fool but I haven’t been a fool +twice.’ You must forgive her, Rickie. I’ve forgiven her, and she me; for +at first I was so angry with her. Oh, my darling boy, I am so glad!” + +He was shivering all over, and could not reply. At last he said, “Why +hasn’t she told him?” + +“Because she has come to her senses.” + +“But she can’t behave to people like that. She must tell him.” + +“Because he must be told such a real thing.” + +“Such a real thing?” the girl echoed, screwing up her forehead. +“But--but you don’t mean you’re glad about it?” + +His head bowed over the letter. “My God--no! But it’s a real thing. She +must tell him. I nearly told him myself--up there--when he made me look +at the ground, but you happened to prevent me.” + +How Providence had watched over them! + +“She won’t tell him. I know that much.” + +“Then, Agnes, darling”--he drew her to the table “we must talk together +a little. If she won’t, then we ought to.” + +“WE tell him?” cried the girl, white with horror. “Tell him now, when +everything has been comfortably arranged?” + +“You see, darling”--he took hold of her hand--“what one must do is to +think the thing out and settle what’s right, I’m still all trembling and +stupid. I see it mixed up with other things. I want you to help me. +It seems to me that here and there in life we meet with a person or +incident that is symbolical. It’s nothing in itself, yet for the moment +it stands for some eternal principle. We accept it, at whatever costs, +and we have accepted life. But if we are frightened and reject it, the +moment, so to speak, passes; the symbol is never offered again. Is this +nonsense? Once before a symbol was offered to me--I shall not tell you +how; but I did accept it, and cherished it through much anxiety and +repulsion, and in the end I am rewarded. There will be no reward this +time. I think, from such a man--the son of such a man. But I want to do +what is right.” + +“Because doing right is its own reward,” said Agnes anxiously. + +“I do not think that. I have seen few examples of it. Doing right is +simply doing right.” + +“I think that all you say is wonderfully clever; but since you ask me, +it IS nonsense, dear Rickie, absolutely.” + +“Thank you,” he said humbly, and began to stroke her hand. “But all my +disgust; my indignation with my father, my love for--” He broke off; he +could not bear to mention the name of his mother. “I was trying to say, +I oughtn’t to follow these impulses too much. There are others things. +Truth. Our duty to acknowledge each man accurately, however vile he +is. And apart from ideals” (here she had won the battle), “and leaving +ideals aside, I couldn’t meet him and keep silent. It isn’t in me. I +should blurt it out.” + +“But you won’t meet him!” she cried. “It’s all been arranged. We’ve +sent him to the sea. Isn’t it splendid? He’s gone. My own boy won’t +be fantastic, will he?” Then she fought the fantasy on its own ground. +“And, bye the bye, what you call the ‘symbolic moment’ is over. You had +it up by the Rings. You tried to tell him, I interrupted you. It’s not +your fault. You did all you could.” + +She thought this excellent logic, and was surprised that he looked so +gloomy. “So he’s gone to the sea. For the present that does settle it. +Has Aunt Emily talked about him yet?” + +“No. Ask her tomorrow if you wish to know. Ask her kindly. It would be +so dreadful if you did not part friends, and--” + +“What’s that?” + +It was Stephen calling up from the drive. He had come back. Agnes threw +out her hand in despair. + +“Elliot!” the voice called. + +They were facing each other, silent and motionless. Then Rickie advanced +to the window. The girl darted in front of him. He thought he had never +seen her so beautiful. She was stopping his advance quite frankly, with +widespread arms. + +“Elliot!” + +He moved forward--into what? He pretended to himself he would rather see +his brother before he answered; that it was easier to acknowledge him +thus. But at the back of his soul he knew that the woman had conquered, +and that he was moving forward to acknowledge her. “If he calls me +again--” he thought. + +“Elliot!” + +“Well, if he calls me once again, I will answer him, vile as he is.” + +He did not call again. + +Stephen had really come back for some tobacco, but as he passed under +the windows he thought of the poor fellow who had been “nipped” (nothing +serious, said Mrs. Failing), and determined to shout good-bye to him. +And once or twice, as he followed the river into the darkness, he +wondered what it was like to be so weak,--not to ride, not to swim, not +to care for anything but books and a girl. + +They embraced passionately. The danger had brought them very near to +each other. They both needed a home to confront the menacing tumultuous +world. And what weary years of work, of waiting, lay between them and +that home! Still holding her fast, he said, “I was writing to Ansell +when you came in.” + +“Do you owe him a letter?” + +“No.” He paused. “I was writing to tell him about this. He would help +us. He always picks out the important point.” + +“Darling, I don’t like to say anything, and I know that Mr. Ansell +would keep a secret, but haven’t we picked out the important point for +ourselves?” + +He released her and tore the letter up. + + + +XV + +The sense of purity is a puzzling and at times a fearful thing. It seems +so noble, and it starts as one with morality. But it is a dangerous +guide, and can lead us away not only from what is gracious, but also +from what is good. Agnes, in this tangle, had followed it blindly, +partly because she was a woman, and it meant more to her than it +can ever mean to a man; partly because, though dangerous, it is also +obvious, and makes no demand upon the intellect. She could not feel that +Stephen had full human rights. He was illicit, abnormal, worse than a +man diseased. And Rickie remembering whose son he was, gradually adopted +her opinion. He, too, came to be glad that his brother had passed from +him untried, that the symbolic moment had been rejected. Stephen was the +fruit of sin; therefore he was sinful, He, too, became a sexual snob. + +And now he must hear the unsavoury details. That evening they sat in the +walled garden. Agues, according to arrangement, left him alone with his +aunt. He asked her, and was not answered. + +“You are shocked,” she said in a hard, mocking voice, “It is very nice +of you to be shocked, and I do not wish to grieve you further. We will +not allude to it again. Let us all go on just as we are. The comedy is +finished.” + +He could not tolerate this. His nerves were shattered, and all that was +good in him revolted as well. To the horror of Agnes, who was within +earshot, he replied, “You used to puzzle me, Aunt Emily, but I +understand you at last. You have forgotten what other people are like. +Continual selfishness leads to that. I am sure of it. I see now how you +look at the world. ‘Nice of me to be shocked!’ I want to go tomorrow, if +I may.” + +“Certainly, dear. The morning trains are the best.” And so the +disastrous visit ended. + +As he walked back to the house he met a certain poor woman, whose child +Stephen had rescued at the level-crossing, and who had decided, after +some delay, that she must thank the kind gentleman in person. “He has +got some brute courage,” thought Rickie, “and it was decent of him not +to boast about it.” But he had labelled the boy as “Bad,” and it was +convenient to revert to his good qualities as seldom as possible. He +preferred to brood over his coarseness, his caddish ingratitude, his +irreligion. Out of these he constructed a repulsive figure, forgetting +how slovenly his own perceptions had been during the past week, how +dogmatic and intolerant his attitude to all that was not Love. + +During the packing he was obliged to go up to the attic to find the +Dryad manuscript which had never been returned. Leighton came too, and +for about half an hour they hunted in the flickering light of a candle. +It was a strange, ghostly place, and Rickie was quite startled when a +picture swung towards him, and he saw the Demeter of Cnidus, shimmering +and grey. Leighton suggested the roof. Mr. Stephen sometimes left +things on the roof. So they climbed out of the skylight--the night was +perfectly still--and continued the search among the gables. Enormous +stars hung overhead, and the roof was bounded by chasms, impenetrable +and black. “It doesn’t matter,” said Rickie, suddenly convinced of the +futility of all that he did. “Oh, let us look properly,” said Leighton, +a kindly, pliable man, who had tried to shirk coming, but who was +genuinely sympathetic now that he had come. They were rewarded: the +manuscript lay in a gutter, charred and smudged. + +The rest of the year was spent by Rickie partly in bed,--he had a +curious breakdown,--partly in the attempt to get his little stories +published. He had written eight or nine, and hoped they would make up +a book, and that the book might be called “Pan Pipes.” He was very +energetic over this; he liked to work, for some imperceptible bloom had +passed from the world, and he no longer found such acute pleasure in +people. Mrs. Failing’s old publishers, to whom the book was submitted, +replied that, greatly as they found themselves interested, they did not +see their way to making an offer at present. They were very polite, and +singled out for special praise “Andante Pastorale,” which Rickie had +thought too sentimental, but which Agnes had persuaded him to include. +The stories were sent to another publisher, who considered them for six +weeks, and then returned them. A fragment of red cotton, Placed by Agnes +between the leaves, had not shifted its position. + +“Can’t you try something longer, Rickie?” she said; “I believe we’re on +the wrong track. Try an out--and--out love-story.” + +“My notion just now,” he replied, “is to leave the passions on the +fringe.” She nodded, and tapped for the waiter: they had met in a +London restaurant. “I can’t soar; I can only indicate. That’s where +the musicians have the pull, for music has wings, and when she says +‘Tristan’ and he says ‘Isolde,’ you are on the heights at once. What do +people mean when they call love music artificial?” + +“I know what they mean, though I can’t exactly explain. Or couldn’t +you make your stories more obvious? I don’t see any harm in that. Uncle +Willie floundered hopelessly. He doesn’t read much, and he got muddled. +I had to explain, and then he was delighted. Of course, to write down to +the public would be quite another thing and horrible. You have certain +ideas, and you must express them. But couldn’t you express them more +clearly?” + +“You see--” He got no further than “you see.” + +“The soul and the body. The soul’s what matters,” said Agnes, and tapped +for the waiter again. He looked at her admiringly, but felt that she was +not a perfect critic. Perhaps she was too perfect to be a critic. Actual +life might seem to her so real that she could not detect the union of +shadow and adamant that men call poetry. He would even go further and +acknowledge that she was not as clever as himself--and he was stupid +enough! She did not like discussing anything or reading solid books, and +she was a little angry with such women as did. It pleased him to make +these concessions, for they touched nothing in her that he valued. He +looked round the restaurant, which was in Soho and decided that she was +incomparable. + +“At half-past two I call on the editor of the ‘Holborn.’ He’s got a +stray story to look at, and he’s written about it.” + +“Oh, Rickie! Rickie! Why didn’t you put on a boiled shirt!” + +He laughed, and teased her. “‘The soul’s what matters. We literary +people don’t care about dress.” + +“Well, you ought to care. And I believe you do. Can’t you change?” + +“Too far.” He had rooms in South Kensington. “And I’ve forgot my +card-case. There’s for you!” + +She shook her head. “Naughty, naughty boy! Whatever will you do?” + +“Send in my name, or ask for a bit of paper and write it. Hullo! that’s +Tilliard!” + +Tilliard blushed, partly on account of the faux pas he had made last +June, partly on account of the restaurant. He explained how he came to +be pigging in Soho: it was so frightfully convenient and so frightfully +cheap. + +“Just why Rickie brings me,” said Miss Pembroke. + +“And I suppose you’re here to study life?” said Tilliard, sitting down. + +“I don’t know,” said Rickie, gazing round at the waiters and the guests. + +“Doesn’t one want to see a good deal of life for writing? There’s life +of a sort in Soho,--Un peu de faisan, s’il vows plait.” + +Agnes also grabbed at the waiter, and paid. She always did the paying, +Rickie muddled with his purse. + +“I’m cramming,” pursued Tilliard, “and so naturally I come into contact +with very little at present. But later on I hope to see things.” He +blushed a little, for he was talking for Rickie’s edification. “It is +most frightfully important not to get a narrow or academic outlook, +don’t you think? A person like Ansell, who goes from Cambridge, +home--home, Cambridge--it must tell on him in time.” + +“But Mr. Ansell is a philosopher.” + +“A very kinky one,” said Tilliard abruptly. “Not my idea of a +philosopher. How goes his dissertation?” + +“He never answers my letters,” replied Rickie. “He never would. I’ve +heard nothing since June.” + +“It’s a pity he sends in this year. There are so many good people in. +He’d have afar better chance if he waited.” + +“So I said, but he wouldn’t wait. He’s so keen about this particular +subject.” + +“What is it?” asked Agnes. + +“About things being real, wasn’t it, Tilliard?” + +“That’s near enough.” + +“Well, good luck to him!” said the girl. “And good luck to you, Mr. +Tilliard! Later on, I hope, we’ll meet again.” + +They parted. Tilliard liked her, though he did not feel that she was +quite in his couche sociale. His sister, for instance, would never have +been lured into a Soho restaurant--except for the experience of the +thing. Tilliard’s couche sociale permitted experiences. Provided his +heart did not go out to the poor and the unorthodox, he might stare at +them as much as he liked. It was seeing life. + +Agnes put her lover safely into an omnibus at Cambridge Circus. She +shouted after him that his tie was rising over his collar, but he +did not hear her. For a moment she felt depressed, and pictured quite +accurately the effect that his appearance would have on the editor. The +editor was a tall neat man of forty, slow of speech, slow of soul, and +extraordinarily kind. He and Rickie sat over a fire, with an enormous +table behind them whereon stood many books waiting to be reviewed. + +“I’m sorry,” he said, and paused. + +Rickie smiled feebly. + +“Your story does not convince.” He tapped it. “I have read it with very +great pleasure. It convinces in parts, but it does not convince as a +whole; and stories, don’t you think, ought to convince as a whole?” + +“They ought indeed,” said Rickie, and plunged into self-depreciation. +But the editor checked him. + +“No--no. Please don’t talk like that. I can’t bear to hear any one talk +against imagination. There are countless openings for imagination,--for +the mysterious, for the supernatural, for all the things you are trying +to do, and which, I hope, you will succeed in doing. I’m not OBJECTING +to imagination; on the contrary, I’d advise you to cultivate it, to +accent it. Write a really good ghost story and we’d take it at once. +Or”--he suggested it as an alternative to imagination--“or you might get +inside life. It’s worth doing.” + +“Life?” echoed Rickie anxiously. + +He looked round the pleasant room, as if life might be fluttering there +like an imprisoned bird. Then he looked at the editor: perhaps he was +sitting inside life at this very moment. “See life, Mr. Elliot, and then +send us another story.” He held out his hand. “I am sorry I have to say +‘No, thank you’; it’s so much nicer to say, ‘Yes, please.’” He laid his +hand on the young man’s sleeve, and added, “Well, the interview’s not +been so alarming after all, has it?” + +“I don’t think that either of us is a very alarming person,” was not +Rickie’s reply. It was what he thought out afterwards in the omnibus. +His reply was “Ow,” delivered with a slight giggle. + +As he rumbled westward, his face was drawn, and his eyes moved quickly +to the right and left, as if he would discover something in the squalid +fashionable streets some bird on the wing, some radiant archway, the +face of some god beneath a beaver hat. He loved, he was loved, he had +seen death and other things; but the heart of all things was hidden. +There was a password and he could not learn it, nor could the kind +editor of the “Holborn” teach him. He sighed, and then sighed more +piteously. For had he not known the password once--known it and +forgotten it already? But at this point his fortunes become intimately +connected with those of Mr. Pembroke. + + + + +PART 2 -- SAWSTON + + +XVI + +In three years Mr. Pembroke had done much to solidify the day-boys +at Sawston School. If they were not solid, they were at all events +curdling, and his activities might reasonably turn elsewhere. He had +served the school for many years, and it was really time he should be +entrusted with a boarding-house. The headmaster, an impulsive man who +darted about like a minnow and gave his mother a great deal of trouble, +agreed with him, and also agreed with Mrs. Jackson when she said that +Mr. Jackson had served the school for many years and that it was really +time he should be entrusted with a boarding-house. Consequently, when +Dunwood House fell vacant the headmaster found himself in rather a +difficult position. + +Dunwood House was the largest and most lucrative of the boarding-houses. +It stood almost opposite the school buildings. Originally it had been +a villa residence--a red-brick villa, covered with creepers and crowned +with terracotta dragons. Mr. Annison, founder of its glory, had lived +here, and had had one or two boys to live with him. Times changed. The +fame of the bishops blazed brighter, the school increased, the one or +two boys became a dozen, and an addition was made to Dunwood House that +more than doubled its size. A huge new building, replete with every +convenience, was stuck on to its right flank. Dormitories, cubicles, +studies, a preparation-room, a dining-room, parquet floors, hot-air +pipes--no expense was spared, and the twelve boys roamed over it like +princes. Baize doors communicated on every floor with Mr. Annison’s +part, and he, an anxious gentleman, would stroll backwards and forwards, +a little depressed at the hygienic splendours, and conscious of some +vanished intimacy. Somehow he had known his boys better when they had +all muddled together as one family, and algebras lay strewn upon the +drawing room chairs. As the house filled, his interest in it decreased. +When he retired--which he did the same summer that Rickie left +Cambridge--it had already passed the summit of excellence and was +beginning to decline. Its numbers were still satisfactory, and for a +little time it would subsist on its past reputation. But that mysterious +asset the tone had lowered, and it was therefore of great importance +that Mr. Annison’s successor should be a first-class man. Mr. Coates, +who came next in seniority, was passed over, and rightly. The choice lay +between Mr. Pembroke and Mr. Jackson, the one an organizer, the other a +humanist. Mr. Jackson was master of the Sixth, and--with the exception +of the headmaster, who was too busy to impart knowledge--the only +first-class intellect in the school. But he could not or rather would +not, keep order. He told his form that if it chose to listen to him it +would learn; if it didn’t, it wouldn’t. One half listened. The other +half made paper frogs, and bored holes in the raised map of Italy with +their penknives. When the penknives gritted he punished them with undue +severity, and then forgot to make them show the punishments up. Yet out +of this chaos two facts emerged. Half the boys got scholarships at +the University, and some of them--including several of the paper-frog +sort--remained friends with him throughout their lives. Moreover, he was +rich, and had a competent wife. His claim to Dunwood House was stronger +than one would have supposed. + +The qualifications of Mr. Pembroke have already been indicated. They +prevailed--but under conditions. If things went wrong, he must promise +to resign. + +“In the first place,” said the headmaster, “you are doing so splendidly +with the day-boys. Your attitude towards the parents is magnificent. +I--don’t know how to replace you there. Whereas, of course, the parents +of a boarder--” + +“Of course,” said Mr. Pembroke. + +The parent of a boarder, who only had to remove his son if he was +discontented with the school, was naturally in a more independent +position than the parent who had brought all his goods and chattels to +Sawston, and was renting a house there. + +“Now the parents of boarders--this is my second point--practically +demand that the house-master should have a wife.” + +“A most unreasonable demand,” said Mr. Pembroke. + +“To my mind also a bright motherly matron is quite sufficient. But that +is what they demand. And that is why--do you see?--we HAVE to regard +your appointment as experimental. Possibly Miss Pembroke will be able +to help you. Or I don’t know whether if ever--” He left the sentence +unfinished. Two days later Mr. Pembroke proposed to Mrs. Orr. + +He had always intended to marry when he could afford it; and once he +had been in love, violently in love, but had laid the passion aside, and +told it to wait till a more convenient season. This was, of course, the +proper thing to do, and prudence should have been rewarded. But when, +after the lapse of fifteen years, he went, as it were, to his spiritual +larder and took down Love from the top shelf to offer him to Mrs. Orr, +he was rather dismayed. Something had happened. Perhaps the god had +flown; perhaps he had been eaten by the rats. At all events, he was not +there. + +Mr. Pembroke was conscientious and romantic, and knew that marriage +without love is intolerable. On the other hand, he could not admit +that love had vanished from him. To admit this, would argue that he had +deteriorated. + +Whereas he knew for a fact that he had improved, year by year. Each year +be grew more moral, more efficient, more learned, more genial. So how +could he fail to be more loving? He did not speak to himself as follows, +because he never spoke to himself; but the following notions moved in +the recesses of his mind: “It is not the fire of youth. But I am not +sure that I approve of the fire of youth. Look at my sister! Once she +has suffered, twice she has been most imprudent, and put me to great +inconvenience besides, for if she was stopping with me she would have +done the housekeeping. I rather suspect that it is a nobler, riper +emotion that I am laying at the feet of Mrs. Orr.” It never took him +long to get muddled, or to reverse cause and effect. In a short time he +believed that he had been pining for years, and only waiting for this +good fortune to ask the lady to share it with him. + +Mrs. Orr was quiet, clever, kindly, capable, and amusing and they were +old acquaintances. Altogether it was not surprising that he should ask +her to be his wife, nor very surprising that she should refuse. But +she refused with a violence that alarmed them both. He left her house +declaring that he had been insulted, and she, as soon as he left, passed +from disgust into tears. + +He was much annoyed. There was a certain Miss Herriton who, though far +inferior to Mrs. Orr, would have done instead of her. But now it was +impossible. He could not go offering himself about Sawston. Having +engaged a matron who had the reputation for being bright and motherly, +he moved into Dunwood House and opened the Michaelmas term. Everything +went wrong. The cook left; the boys had a disease called roseola; Agnes, +who was still drunk with her engagement, was of no assistance, but kept +flying up to London to push Rickie’s fortunes; and, to crown everything, +the matron was too bright and not motherly enough: she neglected the +little boys and was overattentive to the big ones. She left abruptly, +and the voice of Mrs. Jackson arose, prophesying disaster. + +Should he avert it by taking orders? Parents do not demand that a +house-master should be a clergyman, yet it reassures them when he is. +And he would have to take orders some time, if he hoped for a school +of his own. His religious convictions were ready to hand, but he spent +several uncomfortable days hunting up his religious enthusiasms. It +was not unlike his attempt to marry Mrs. Orr. But his piety was more +genuine, and this time he never came to the point. His sense of decency +forbade him hurrying into a Church that he reverenced. Moreover, he +thought of another solution: Agnes must marry Rickie in the Christmas +holidays, and they must come, both of them, to Sawston, she as +housekeeper, he as assistant-master. The girl was a good worker when +once she was settled down; and as for Rickie, he could easily be fitted +in somewhere in the school. He was not a good classic, but good enough +to take the Lower Fifth. He was no athlete, but boys might profitably +note that he was a perfect gentleman all the same. He had no experience, +but he would gain it. He had no decision, but he could simulate it. +“Above all,” thought Mr. Pembroke, “it will be something regular for +him to do.” Of course this was not “above all.” Dunwood House held that +position. But Mr. Pembroke soon came to think that it was, and believed +that he was planning for Rickie, just as he had believed he was pining +for Mrs. Orr. + +Agnes, when she got back from the lunch in Soho, was told of the plan. +She refused to give any opinion until she had seen her lover. A telegram +was sent to him, and next morning he arrived. He was very susceptible to +the weather, and perhaps it was unfortunate that the morning was foggy. +His train had been stopped outside Sawston Station, and there he had +sat for half an hour, listening to the unreal noises that came from the +line, and watching the shadowy figures that worked there. The gas was +alight in the great drawing-room, and in its depressing rays he and +Agnes greeted each other, and discussed the most momentous question of +their lives. They wanted to be married: there was no doubt of that. +They wanted it, both of them, dreadfully. But should they marry on these +terms? + +“I’d never thought of such a thing, you see. When the scholastic +agencies sent me circulars after the Tripos, I tore them up at once.” + +“There are the holidays,” said Agnes. “You would have three months in +the year to yourself, and you could do your writing then.” + +“But who’ll read what I’ve written?” and he told her about the editor of +the “Holborn.” + +She became extremely grave. At the bottom of her heart she had always +mistrusted the little stories, and now people who knew agreed with her. +How could Rickie, or any one, make a living by pretending that Greek +gods were alive, or that young ladies could vanish into trees? A +sparkling society tale, full of verve and pathos, would have been +another thing, and the editor might have been convinced by it. + +“But what does he mean?” Rickie was saying. “What does he mean by life?” + +“I know what he means, but I can’t exactly explain. You ought to see +life, Rickie. I think he’s right there. And Mr. Tilliard was right when +he said one oughtn’t to be academic.” + +He stood in the twilight that fell from the window, she in the twilight +of the gas. “I wonder what Ansell would say,” he murmured. + +“Oh, poor Mr. Ansell!” + +He was somewhat surprised. Why was Ansell poor? It was the first time +the epithet had been applied to him. + +“But to change the conversation,” said Agnes. + +“If we did marry, we might get to Italy at Easter and escape this +horrible fog.” + +“Yes. Perhaps there--” Perhaps life would be there. He thought of Renan, +who declares that on the Acropolis at Athens beauty and wisdom do exist, +really exist, as external powers. He did not aspire to beauty or wisdom, +but he prayed to be delivered from the shadow of unreality that had +begun to darken the world. For it was as if some power had pronounced +against him--as if, by some heedless action, he had offended an Olympian +god. Like many another, he wondered whether the god might be appeased by +work--hard uncongenial work. Perhaps he had not worked hard enough, +or had enjoyed his work too much, and for that reason the shadow was +falling. + +“--And above all, a schoolmaster has wonderful opportunities for doing +good; one mustn’t forget that.” + +To do good! For what other reason are we here? Let us give up our +refined sensations, and our comforts, and our art, if thereby we can +make other people happier and better. The woman he loved had urged him +to do good! With a vehemence that surprised her, he exclaimed, “I’ll do +it.” + +“Think it over,” she cautioned, though she was greatly pleased. + +“No; I think over things too much.” + +The room grew brighter. A boy’s laughter floated in, and it seemed to +him that people were as important and vivid as they had been six months +before. Then he was at Cambridge, idling in the parsley meadows, and +weaving perishable garlands out of flowers. Now he was at Sawston, +preparing to work a beneficent machine. No man works for nothing, and +Rickie trusted that to him also benefits might accrue; that his wound +might heal as he laboured, and his eyes recapture the Holy Grail. + + + +XVII + +In practical matters Mr. Pembroke was often a generous man. He offered +Rickie a good salary, and insisted on paying Agnes as well. And as he +housed them for nothing, and as Rickie would also have a salary from the +school, the money question disappeared--if not forever, at all events +for the present. + +“I can work you in,” he said. “Leave all that to me, and in a few days +you shall hear from the headmaster. He shall create a vacancy. And once +in, we stand or fall together. I am resolved on that.” + +Rickie did not like the idea of being “worked in,” but he was determined +to raise no difficulties. It is so easy to be refined and high-minded +when we have nothing to do. But the active, useful man cannot be equally +particular. Rickie’s programme involved a change in values as well as a +change of occupation. + +“Adopt a frankly intellectual attitude,” Mr. Pembroke continued. “I do +not advise you at present even to profess any interest in athletics or +organization. When the headmaster writes, he will probably ask whether +you are an all-round man. Boldly say no. A bold ‘no’ is at times the +best. Take your stand upon classics and general culture.” + +Classics! A second in the Tripos. General culture. A smattering of +English Literature, and less than a smattering of French. + +“That is how we begin. Then we get you a little post--say that of +librarian. And so on, until you are indispensable.” + +Rickie laughed; the headmaster wrote, the reply was satisfactory, and in +due course the new life began. + +Sawston was already familiar to him. But he knew it as an amateur, and +under an official gaze it grouped itself afresh. The school, a bland +Gothic building, now showed as a fortress of learning, whose outworks +were the boarding-houses. Those straggling roads were full of the houses +of the parents of the day-boys. These shops were in bounds, those out. +How often had he passed Dunwood House! He had once confused it with its +rival, Cedar View. Now he was to live there--perhaps for many years. +On the left of the entrance a large saffron drawing-room, full of cosy +corners and dumpy chairs: here the parents would be received. On the +right of the entrance a study, which he shared with Herbert: here +the boys would be caned--he hoped not often. In the hall a framed +certificate praising the drains, the bust of Hermes, and a carved +teak monkey holding out a salver. Some of the furniture had come from +Shelthorpe, some had been bought from Mr. Annison, some of it was new. +But throughout he recognized a certain decision of arrangement. Nothing +in the house was accidental, or there merely for its own sake. He +contrasted it with his room at Cambridge, which had been a jumble of +things that he loved dearly and of things that he did not love at all. +Now these also had come to Dunwood House, and had been distributed where +each was seemly--Sir Percival to the drawing-room, the photograph of +Stockholm to the passage, his chair, his inkpot, and the portrait of his +mother to the study. And then he contrasted it with the Ansells’ house, +to which their resolute ill-taste had given unity. He was extremely +sensitive to the inside of a house, holding it an organism that +expressed the thoughts, conscious and subconscious, of its inmates. +He was equally sensitive to places. He would compare Cambridge with +Sawston, and either with a third type of existence, to which, for want +of a better name, he gave the name of “Wiltshire.” + +It must not be thought that he is going to waste his time. These +contrasts and comparisons never took him long, and he never indulged +in them until the serious business of the day was over. And, as time +passed, he never indulged in them at all. The school returned at the +end of January, before he had been settled in a week. His health +had improved, but not greatly, and he was nervous at the prospect of +confronting the assembled house. All day long cabs had been driving +up, full of boys in bowler hats too big for them; and Agnes had been +superintending the numbering of the said hats, and the placing of them +in cupboards, since they would not be wanted till the end of the term. +Each boy had, or should have had, a bag, so that he need not unpack his +box till the morrow, One boy had only a brown-paper parcel, tied with +hairy string, and Rickie heard the firm pleasant voice say, “But you’ll +bring a bag next term,” and the submissive, “Yes, Mrs. Elliot,” of the +reply. In the passage he ran against the head boy, who was alarmingly +like an undergraduate. They looked at each other suspiciously, and +parted. Two minutes later he ran into another boy, and then into +another, and began to wonder whether they were doing it on purpose, and +if so, whether he ought to mind. As the day wore on, the noises grew +louder-trampings of feet, breakdowns, jolly little squawks--and +the cubicles were assigned, and the bags unpacked, and the bathing +arrangements posted up, and Herbert kept on saying, “All this is +informal--all this is informal. We shall meet the house at eight +fifteen.” + +And so, at eight ten, Rickie put on his cap and gown,--hitherto symbols +of pupilage, now to be symbols of dignity,--the very cap and gown that +Widdrington had so recently hung upon the college fountain. Herbert, +similarly attired, was waiting for him in their private dining-room, +where also sat Agnes, ravenously devouring scrambled eggs. “But you’ll +wear your hoods,” she cried. Herbert considered, and them said she was +quite right. He fetched his white silk, Rickie the fragment of rabbit’s +wool that marks the degree of B.A. Thus attired, they proceeded +through the baize door. They were a little late, and the boys, who +were marshalled in the preparation room, were getting uproarious. One, +forgetting how far his voice carried, shouted, “Cave! Here comes the +Whelk.” And another young devil yelled, “The Whelk’s brought a pet with +him!” + +“You mustn’t mind,” said Herbert kindly. “We masters make a point of +never minding nicknames--unless, of course, they are applied openly, in +which case a thousand lines is not too much.” Rickie assented, and they +entered the preparation room just as the prefects had established order. + +Here Herbert took his seat on a high-legged chair, while Rickie, like a +queen-consort, sat near him on a chair with somewhat shorter legs. Each +chair had a desk attached to it, and Herbert flung up the lid of his, +and then looked round the preparation room with a quick frown, as if +the contents had surprised him. So impressed was Rickie that he peeped +sideways, but could only see a little blotting-paper in the desk. Then +he noticed that the boys were impressed too. Their chatter ceased. They +attended. + +The room was almost full. The prefects, instead of lolling disdainfully +in the back row, were ranged like councillors beneath the central +throne. This was an innovation of Mr. Pembroke’s. Carruthers, the head +boy, sat in the middle, with his arm round Lloyd. It was Lloyd who had +made the matron too bright: he nearly lost his colours in consequence. +These two were grown up. Beside them sat Tewson, a saintly child in +the spectacles, who had risen to this height by reason of his immense +learning. He, like the others, was a school prefect. The house prefects, +an inferior brand, were beyond, and behind came the indistinguishable +many. The faces all looked alike as yet--except the face of one boy, who +was inclined to cry. + +“School,” said Mr. Pembroke, slowly closing the lid of the +desk,--“school is the world in miniature.” Then he paused, as a man well +may who has made such a remark. It is not, however, the intention of +this work to quote an opening address. Rickie, at all events, refused to +be critical: Herbert’s experience was far greater than his, and he must +take his tone from him. Nor could any one criticize the exhortations +to be patriotic, athletic, learned, and religious, that flowed like +a four-part fugue from Mr. Pembroke’s mouth. He was a practised +speaker--that is to say, he held his audience’s attention. He told them +that this term, the second of his reign, was THE term for Dunwood House; +that it behooved every boy to labour during it for his house’s honour, +and, through the house, for the honour of the school. Taking a wider +range, he spoke of England, or rather of Great Britain, and of her +continental foes. Portraits of empire-builders hung on the wall, and he +pointed to them. He quoted imperial poets. He showed how patriotism had +broadened since the days of Shakespeare, who, for all his genius, could +only write of his country as-- + +“This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the +hand of war, This hazy breed of men, this little world, This precious +stone set in the silver sea.” + +And it seemed that only a short ladder lay between the preparation room +and the Anglo-Saxon hegemony of the globe. Then he paused, and in the +silence came “sob, sob, sob,” from a little boy, who was regretting a +villa in Guildford and his mother’s half acre of garden. + +The proceeding terminated with the broader patriotism of the school +anthem, recently composed by the organist. Words and tune were still a +matter for taste, and it was Mr. Pembroke (and he only because he had +the music) who gave the right intonation to + + “Perish each laggard! + Let it not be said + That Sawston such within her walls hath bred.” + +“Come, come,” he said pleasantly, as they ended with harmonies in the +style of Richard Strauss. “This will never do. We must grapple with the +anthem this term--you’re as tuneful as--as day-boys!” + +Hearty laughter, and then the whole house filed past them and shook +hands. + +“But how did it impress you?” Herbert asked, as soon as they were back +in their own part. Agnes had provided them with a tray of food: the +meals were still anyhow, and she had to fly at once to see after the +boys. + +“I liked the look of them.” + +“I meant rather, how did the house impress you as a house?” + +“I don’t think I thought,” said Rickie rather nervously. “It is not easy +to catch the spirit of a thing at once. I only saw a roomful of boys.” + +“My dear Rickie, don’t be so diffident. You are perfectly right. You +only did see a roomful of boys. As yet there’s nothing else to see. The +house, like the school, lacks tradition. Look at Winchester. Look at +the traditional rivalry between Eton and Harrow. Tradition is of +incalculable importance, if a school is to have any status. Why should +Sawston be without?” + +“Yes. Tradition is of incalculable value. And I envy those schools that +have a natural connection with the past. Of course Sawston has a past, +though not of the kind that you quite want. The sons of poor tradesmen +went to it at first. So wouldn’t its traditions be more likely to linger +in the Commercial School?” he concluded nervously. + +“You have a great deal to learn--a very great deal. Listen to me. Why +has Sawston no traditions?” His round, rather foolish, face assumed the +expression of a conspirator. Bending over the mutton, he whispered, “I +can tell you why. Owing to the day-boys. How can traditions flourish in +such soil? Picture the day-boy’s life--at home for meals, at home for +preparation, at home for sleep, running home with every fancied wrong. +There are day-boys in your class, and, mark my words, they will give you +ten times as much trouble as the boarders, late, slovenly, stopping away +at the slightest pretext. And then the letters from the parents! ‘Why +has my boy not been moved this term?’ ‘Why has my boy been moved this +term?’ ‘I am a dissenter, and do not wish my boy to subscribe to the +school mission.’ ‘Can you let my boy off early to water the garden?’ +Remember that I have been a day-boy house-master, and tried to infuse +some esprit de corps into them. It is practically impossible. They come +as units, and units they remain. Worse. They infect the boarders. Their +pestilential, critical, discontented attitude is spreading over the +school. If I had my own way--” + +He stopped somewhat abruptly. + +“Was that why you laughed at their singing?” + +“Not at all. Not at all. It is not my habit to set one section of the +school against the other.” + +After a little they went the rounds. The boys were in bed now. +“Good-night!” called Herbert, standing in the corridor of the cubicles, +and from behind each of the green curtains came the sound of a voice +replying, “Good-night, sir!” “Good-night,” he observed into each +dormitory. + +Then he went to the switch in the passage and plunged the whole house +into darkness. Rickie lingered behind him, strangely impressed. In the +morning those boys had been scattered over England, leading their own +lives. Now, for three months, they must change everything--see new +faces, accept new ideals. They, like himself, must enter a beneficent +machine, and learn the value of esprit de corps. Good luck attend +them--good luck and a happy release. For his heart would have them +not in these cubicles and dormitories, but each in his own dear home, +amongst faces and things that he knew. + +Next morning, after chapel, he made the acquaintance of his class. +Towards that he felt very differently. Esprit de corps was not expected +of it. It was simply two dozen boys who were gathered together for the +purpose of learning Latin. His duties and difficulties would not lie +here. He was not required to provide it with an atmosphere. The scheme +of work was already mapped out, and he started gaily upon familiar +words-- + +“Pan, ovium custos, tua si tibi Maenala curae Adsis, O Tegaee, favens.” + +“Do you think that beautiful?” he asked, and received the honest answer, +“No, sir; I don’t think I do.” He met Herbert in high spirits in the +quadrangle during the interval. But Herbert thought his enthusiasm +rather amateurish, and cautioned him. + +“You must take care they don’t get out of hand. I approve of a lively +teacher, but discipline must be established first.” + +“I felt myself a learner, not a teacher. If I’m wrong over a point, or +don’t know, I mean to tell them at once.” Herbert shook his head. + +“It’s different if I was really a scholar. But I can’t pose as one, can +I? I know much more than the boys, but I know very little. Surely the +honest thing is to be myself to them. Let them accept or refuse me as +that. That’s the only attitude we shall any of us profit by in the end.” + +Mr. Pembroke was silent. Then he observed, “There is, as you say, a +higher attitude and a lower attitude. Yet here, as so often, cannot we +find a golden mean between them?” + +“What’s that?” said a dreamy voice. They turned and saw a tall, +spectacled man, who greeted the newcomer kindly, and took hold of his +arm. “What’s that about the golden mean?” + +“Mr. Jackson--Mr. Elliot: Mr. Elliot--Mr. Jackson,” said Herbert, who +did not seem quite pleased. “Rickie, have you a moment to spare me?” + +But the humanist spoke to the young man about the golden mean and +the pinchbeck mean, adding, “You know the Greeks aren’t broad church +clergymen. They really aren’t, in spite of much conflicting evidence. +Boys will regard Sophocles as a kind of enlightened bishop, and +something tells me that they are wrong.” + +“Mr. Jackson is a classical enthusiast,” said Herbert. “He makes the +past live. I want to talk to you about the humdrum present.” + +“And I am warning him against the humdrum past. That’s another point, +Mr. Elliot. Impress on your class that many Greeks and most Romans were +frightfully stupid, and if they disbelieve you, read Ctesiphon with +them, or Valerius Flaccus. Whatever is that noise?” + +“It comes from your class-room, I think,” snapped the other master. + +“So it does. Ah, yes. I expect they are putting your little Tewson into +the waste-paper basket.” + +“I always lock my class-room in the interval--” + +“Yes?” + +“--and carry the key in my pocket.” + +“Ah. But, Mr. Elliot, I am a cousin of Widdrington’s. He wrote to me +about you. I am so glad. Will you, first of all, come to supper next +Sunday?” + +“I am afraid,” put in Herbert, “that we poor housemasters must deny +ourselves festivities in term time.” + +“But mayn’t he come once, just once?” + +“May, my dear Jackson! My brother-in-law is not a baby. He decides for +himself.” + +Rickie naturally refused. As soon as they were out of hearing, Herbert +said, “This is a little unfortunate. Who is Mr. Widdrington?” + +“I knew him at Cambridge.” + +“Let me explain how we stand,” he continued, after a pause. + +“Jackson is the worst of the reactionaries here, while I--why should I +conceal it?--have thrown in my lot with the party of progress. You will +see how we suffer from him at the masters’ meetings. He has no talent +for organization, and yet he is always inflicting his ideas on others. +It was like his impertinence to dictate to you what authors you should +read, and meanwhile the sixth-form room like a bear-garden, and a school +prefect being put into the waste-paper basket. My good Rickie, there’s +nothing to smile at. How is the school to go on with a man like that? +It would be a case of ‘quick march,’ if it was not for his brilliant +intellect. That’s why I say it’s a little unfortunate. You will have +very little in common, you and he.” + +Rickie did not answer. He was very fond of Widdrington, who was a +quaint, sensitive person. And he could not help being attracted by +Mr. Jackson, whose welcome contrasted pleasantly with the official +breeziness of his other colleagues. He wondered, too, whether it is so +very reactionary to contemplate the antique. + +“It is true that I vote Conservative,” pursued Mr. Pembroke, apparently +confronting some objector. “But why? Because the Conservatives, rather +than the Liberals, stand for progress. One must not be misled by +catch-words.” + +“Didn’t you want to ask me something?” + +“Ah, yes. You found a boy in your form called Varden?” + +“Varden? Yes; there is.” + +“Drop on him heavily. He has broken the statutes of the school. He is +attending as a day-boy. The statutes provide that a boy must reside with +his parents or guardians. He does neither. It must be stopped. You must +tell the headmaster.” + +“Where does the boy live?” + +“At a certain Mrs. Orr’s, who has no connection with the school of any +kind. It must be stopped. He must either enter a boarding-house or go.” + +“But why should I tell?” said Rickie. He remembered the boy, an +unattractive person with protruding ears, “It is the business of his +house-master.” + +“House-master--exactly. Here we come back again. Who is now the +day-boys’ house-master? Jackson once again--as if anything was Jackson’s +business! I handed the house back last term in a most flourishing +condition. It has already gone to rack and ruin for the second time. To +return to Varden. I have unearthed a put-up job. Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. +Orr are friends. Do you see? It all works round.” + +“I see. It does--or might.” + +“The headmaster will never sanction it when it’s put to him plainly.” + +“But why should I put it?” said Rickie, twisting the ribbons of his gown +round his fingers. + +“Because you’re the boy’s form-master.” + +“Is that a reason?” + +“Of course it is.” + +“I only wondered whether--” He did not like to say that he wondered +whether he need do it his first morning. + +“By some means or other you must find out--of course you know already, +but you must find out from the boy. I know--I have it! Where’s his +health certificate?” + +“He had forgotten it.” + +“Just like them. Well, when he brings it, it will be signed by Mrs. Orr, +and you must look at it and say, ‘Orr--Orr--Mrs. Orr?’ or something to +that effect, and then the whole thing will come naturally out.” + +The bell rang, and they went in for the hour of school that concluded +the morning. Varden brought his health certificate--a pompous document +asserting that he had not suffered from roseola or kindred ailments in +the holidays--and for a long time Rickie sat with it before him, +spread open upon his desk. He did not quite like the job. It suggested +intrigue, and he had come to Sawston not to intrigue but to labour. +Doubtless Herbert was right, and Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Orr were wrong. +But why could they not have it out among themselves? Then he thought, +“I am a coward, and that’s why I’m raising these objections,” called the +boy up to him, and it did all come out naturally, more or less. Hitherto +Varden had lived with his mother; but she had left Sawston at Christmas, +and now he would live with Mrs. Orr. “Mr. Jackson, sir, said it would be +all right.” + +“Yes, yes,” said Rickie; “quite so.” He remembered Herbert’s dictum: +“Masters must present a united front. If they do not--the deluge.” He +sent the boy back to his seat, and after school took the compromising +health certificate to the headmaster. The headmaster was at that time +easily excited by a breach of the constitution. “Parents or guardians,” + he reputed--“parents or guardians,” and flew with those words on his +lips to Mr. Jackson. To say that Rickie was a cat’s-paw is to put it too +strongly. Herbert was strictly honourable, and never pushed him into an +illegal or really dangerous position; but there is no doubt that on +this and on many other occasions he had to do things that he would not +otherwise have done. There was always some diplomatic corner that had +to be turned, always something that he had to say or not to say. As the +term wore on he lost his independence--almost without knowing it. He had +much to learn about boys, and he learnt not by direct observation--for +which he believed he was unfitted--but by sedulous imitation of the more +experienced masters. Originally he had intended to be friends with his +pupils, and Mr. Pembroke commended the intention highly; but you cannot +be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in +the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, for “personal +intercourse,” substituted the safer “personal influence,” and gave his +junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in which the boy does give +himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master, +intact, commends or corrects them. Originally Rickie had meant to help +boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at +Cambridge he had numbered this among life’s duties. But here is a +subject in which we must inevitably speak as one human being to another, +not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for this +reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a few formulae. +Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie’s line, so he abandoned +these subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what +was easy. In the house he did as Herbert did, and referred all doubtful +subjects to him. In his form, oddly enough, he became a martinet. It +is so much simpler to be severe. He grasped the school regulations, +and insisted on prompt obedience to them. He adopted the doctrine of +collective responsibility. When one boy was late, he punished the whole +form. “I can’t help it,” he would say, as if he was a power of nature. +As a teacher he was rather dull. He curbed his own enthusiasms, finding +that they distracted his attention, and that while he throbbed to the +music of Virgil the boys in the back row were getting unruly. But on the +whole he liked his form work: he knew why he was there, and Herbert did +not overshadow him so completely. + +What was amiss with Herbert? He had known that something was amiss, +and had entered into partnership with open eyes. The man was kind and +unselfish; more than that he was truly charitable, and it was a real +pleasure to him to give--pleasure to others. Certainly he might talk too +much about it afterwards; but it was the doing, not the talking, that he +really valued, and benefactors of this sort are not too common. He was, +moreover, diligent and conscientious: his heart was in his work, and +his adherence to the Church of England no mere matter of form. He was +capable of affection: he was usually courteous and tolerant. Then what +was amiss? Why, in spite of all these qualities, should Rickie feel that +there was something wrong with him--nay, that he was wrong as a whole, +and that if the Spirit of Humanity should ever hold a judgment he would +assuredly be classed among the goats? The answer at first sight appeared +a graceless one--it was that Herbert was stupid. Not stupid in the +ordinary sense--he had a business-like brain, and acquired knowledge +easily--but stupid in the important sense: his whole life was coloured +by a contempt of the intellect. That he had a tolerable intellect of his +own was not the point: it is in what we value, not in what we have, that +the test of us resides. Now, Rickie’s intellect was not remarkable. He +came to his worthier results rather by imagination and instinct than by +logic. An argument confused him, and he could with difficulty follow it +even on paper. But he saw in this no reason for satisfaction, and tried +to make such use of his brain as he could, just as a weak athlete might +lovingly exercise his body. Like a weak athlete, too, he loved to watch +the exploits, or rather the efforts, of others--their efforts not so +much to acquire knowledge as to dispel a little of the darkness by which +we and all our acquisitions are surrounded. Cambridge had taught him +this, and he knew, if for no other reason, that his time there had not +been in vain. And Herbert’s contempt for such efforts revolted him. He +saw that for all his fine talk about a spiritual life he had but one +test for things--success: success for the body in this life or for the +soul in the life to come. And for this reason Humanity, and perhaps such +other tribunals as there may be, would assuredly reject him. + + + +XVIII + +Meanwhile he was a husband. Perhaps his union should have been +emphasized before. The crown of life had been attained, the vague +yearnings, the misread impulses, had found accomplishment at last. Never +again must he feel lonely, or as one who stands out of the broad highway +of the world and fears, like poor Shelley, to undertake the longest +journey. So he reasoned, and at first took the accomplishment for +granted. But as the term passed he knew that behind the yearning there +remained a yearning, behind the drawn veil a veil that he could not +draw. His wedding had been no mighty landmark: he would often wonder +whether such and such a speech or incident came after it or before. +Since that meeting in the Soho restaurant there had been so much to +do--clothes to buy, presents to thank for, a brief visit to a Training +College, a honeymoon as brief. In such a bustle, what spiritual union +could take place? Surely the dust would settle soon: in Italy, at +Easter, he might perceive the infinities of love. But love had shown him +its infinities already. Neither by marriage nor by any other device can +men insure themselves a vision; and Rickie’s had been granted him three +years before, when he had seen his wife and a dead man clasped in each +other’s arms. She was never to be so real to him again. + +She ran about the house looking handsomer than ever. Her cheerful +voice gave orders to the servants. As he sat in the study correcting +compositions, she would dart in and give him a kiss. “Dear girl--” he +would murmur, with a glance at the rings on her hand. The tone of their +marriage life was soon set. It was to be a frank good-fellowship, and +before long he found it difficult to speak in a deeper key. + +One evening he made the effort. There had been more beauty than was +usual at Sawston. The air was pure and quiet. Tomorrow the fog might +be here, but today one said, “It is like the country.” Arm in arm they +strolled in the side-garden, stopping at times to notice the crocuses, +or to wonder when the daffodils would flower. Suddenly he tightened his +pressure, and said, “Darling, why don’t you still wear ear-rings?” + +“Ear-rings?” She laughed. “My taste has improved, perhaps.” + +So after all they never mentioned Gerald’s name. But he hoped it was +still dear to her. He did not want her to forget the greatest moment in +her life. His love desired not ownership but confidence, and to a love +so pure it does not seem terrible to come second. + +He valued emotion--not for itself, but because it is the only final path +to intimacy. She, ever robust and practical, always discouraged him. +She was not cold; she would willingly embrace him. But she hated being +upset, and would laugh or thrust him off when his voice grew serious. +In this she reminded him of his mother. But his mother--he had never +concealed it from himself--had glories to which his wife would never +attain: glories that had unfolded against a life of horror--a life even +more horrible than he had guessed. He thought of her often during these +earlier months. Did she bless his union, so different to her own? Did +she love his wife? He tried to speak of her to Agnes, but again she was +reluctant. And perhaps it was this aversion to acknowledge the dead, +whose images alone have immortality, that made her own image somewhat +transient, so that when he left her no mystic influence remained, and +only by an effort could he realize that God had united them forever. + +They conversed and differed healthily upon other topics. A rifle corps +was to be formed: she hoped that the boys would have proper uniforms, +instead of shooting in their old clothes, as Mr. Jackson had suggested. +There was Tewson; could nothing be done about him? He would slink away +from the other prefects and go with boys of his own age. There was +Lloyd: he would not learn the school anthem, saying that it hurt his +throat. And above all there was Varden, who, to Rickie’s bewilderment, +was now a member of Dunwood House. + +“He had to go somewhere,” said Agnes. “Lucky for his mother that we had +a vacancy.” + +“Yes--but when I meet Mrs. Orr--I can’t help feeling ashamed.” + +“Oh, Mrs. Orr! Who cares for her? Her teeth are drawn. If she chooses +to insinuate that we planned it, let her. Hers was rank dishonesty. She +attempted to set up a boarding-house.” + +Mrs. Orr, who was quite rich, had attempted no such thing. She had taken +the boy out of charity, and without a thought of being unconstitutional. +But in had come this officious “Limpet” and upset the headmaster, +and she was scolded, and Mrs. Varden was scolded, and Mr. Jackson was +scolded, and the boy was scolded and placed with Mr. Pembroke, whom she +revered less than any man in the world. Naturally enough, she considered +it a further attempt of the authorities to snub the day-boys, for whose +advantage the school had been founded. She and Mrs. Jackson discussed +the subject at their tea-parties, and the latter lady was sure that +no good, no good of any kind, would come to Dunwood House from such +ill-gotten plunder. + +“We say, ‘Let them talk,’” persisted Rickie, “but I never did like +letting people talk. We are right and they are wrong, but I wish the +thing could have been done more quietly. The headmaster does get so +excited. He has given a gang of foolish people their opportunity. I +don’t like being branded as the day-boy’s foe, when I think how much I +would have given to be a day-boy myself. My father found me a nuisance, +and put me through the mill, and I can never forget it particularly the +evenings.” + +“There’s very little bullying here,” said Agnes. + +“There was very little bullying at my school. There was simply the +atmosphere of unkindness, which no discipline can dispel. It’s not what +people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.” + +“I don’t understand.” + +“Physical pain doesn’t hurt--at least not what I call hurt--if a man +hits you by accident or play. But just a little tap, when you know it +comes from hatred, is too terrible. Boys do hate each other: I remember +it, and see it again. They can make strong isolated friendships, but of +general good-fellowship they haven’t a notion.” + +“All I know is there’s very little bullying here.” + +“You see, the notion of good-fellowship develops late: you can just see +its beginning here among the prefects: up at Cambridge it flourishes +amazingly. That’s why I pity people who don’t go up to Cambridge: not +because a University is smart, but because those are the magic years, +and--with luck--you see up there what you couldn’t see before and mayn’t +ever see again. + +“Aren’t these the magic years?” the lady demanded. + +He laughed and hit at her. “I’m getting somewhat involved. But hear me, +O Agnes, for I am practical. I approve of our public schools. Long may +they, flourish. But I do not approve of the boarding-house system. It +isn’t an inevitable adjunct--” + +“Good gracious me!” she shrieked. “Have you gone mad?” + +“Silence, madam. Don’t betray me to Herbert, or I’ll give us the sack. +But seriously, what is the good of, throwing boys so much together? +Isn’t it building their lives on a wrong basis? They don’t understand +each other. I wish they did, but they don’t. They don’t realize that +human beings are simply marvellous. When they do, the whole of life +changes, and you get the true thing. But don’t pretend you’ve got it +before you have. Patriotism and esprit de corps are all very well, but +masters a little forget that they must grow from sentiment. They cannot +create one. Cannot-cannot--cannot. I never cared a straw for England +until I cared for Englishmen, and boys can’t love the school when they +hate each other. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now conclude my address. +And most of it is copied out of Mr. Ansell.” + +The truth is, he was suddenly ashamed. He had been carried away on the +flood of his old emotions. Cambridge and all that it meant had stood +before him passionately clear, and beside it stood his mother and the +sweet family life which nurses up a boy until he can salute his equals. +He was ashamed, for he remembered his new resolution--to work without +criticizing, to throw himself vigorously into the machine, not to mind +if he was pinched now and then by the elaborate wheels. + +“Mr. Ansell!” cried his wife, laughing somewhat shrilly. “Aha! Now I +understand. It’s just the kind of thing poor Mr. Ansell would say. Well, +I’m brutal. I believe it does Varden good to have his ears pulled now +and then, and I don’t care whether they pull them in play or not. Boys +ought to rough it, or they never grow up into men, and your mother would +have agreed with me. Oh yes; and you’re all wrong about patriotism. It +can, can, create a sentiment.” + +She was unusually precise, and had followed his thoughts with an +attention that was also unusual. He wondered whether she was not right, +and regretted that she proceeded to say, “My dear boy, you mustn’t talk +these heresies inside Dunwood House! You sound just like one of that +reactionary Jackson set, who want to fling the school back a hundred +years and have nothing but day-boys all dressed anyhow.” + +“The Jackson set have their points.” + +“You’d better join it.” + +“The Dunwood House set has its points.” For Rickie suffered from the +Primal Curse, which is not--as the Authorized Version suggests--the +knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of good-and-evil. + +“Then stick to the Dunwood House set.” + +“I do, and shall.” Again he was ashamed. Why would he see the other +side of things? He rebuked his soul, not unsuccessfully, and then they +returned to the subject of Varden. + +“I’m certain he suffers,” said he, for she would do nothing but laugh. +“Each boy who passes pulls his ears--very funny, no doubt; but every day +they stick out more and get redder, and this afternoon, when he didn’t +know he was being watched, he was holding his head and moaning. I hate +the look about his eyes.” + +“I hate the whole boy. Nasty weedy thing.” + +“Well, I’m a nasty weedy thing, if it comes to that.” + +“No, you aren’t,” she cried, kissing him. But he led her back to +the subject. Could nothing be suggested? He drew up some new +rules--alterations in the times of going to bed, and so on--the effect +of which would be to provide fewer opportunities for the pulling of +Varden’s ears. The rules were submitted to Herbert, who sympathized +with weakliness more than did his sister, and gave them his careful +consideration. But unfortunately they collided with other rules, and +on a closer examination he found that they also ran contrary to the +fundamentals on which the government of Dunwood House was based. So +nothing was done. Agnes was rather pleased, and took to teasing her +husband about Varden. At last he asked her to stop. He felt uneasy about +the boy--almost superstitious. His first morning’s work had brought +sixty pounds a year to their hotel. + + + +XIX + +They did not get to Italy at Easter. Herbert had the offer of some +private pupils, and needed Rickie’s help. It seemed unreasonable +to leave England when money was to be made in it, so they went to +Ilfracombe instead. They spent three weeks among the natural advantages +and unnatural disadvantages of that resort. It was out of the season, +and they encamped in a huge hotel, which took them at a reduction. By a +disastrous chance the Jacksons were down there too, and a good deal of +constrained civility had to pass between the two families. Constrained +it was not in Mr. Jackson’s case. At all times he was ready to talk, and +as long as they kept off the school it was pleasant enough. But he was +very indiscreet, and feminine tact had often to intervene. “Go away, +dear ladies,” he would then observe. “You think you see life because you +see the chasms in it. Yet all the chasms are full of female skeletons.” + The ladies smiled anxiously. To Rickie he was friendly and even +intimate. They had long talks on the deserted Capstone, while their +wives sat reading in the Winter Garden and Mr. Pembroke kept an eye upon +the tutored youths. “Once I had tutored youths,” said Mr. Jackson, +“but I lost them all by letting them paddle with my nieces. It is so +impossible to remember what is proper.” And sooner or later their talk +gravitated towards his central passion--the Fragments of Sophocles. Some +day (“never,” said Herbert) he would edit them. At present they were +merely in his blood. With the zeal of a scholar and the imagination of +a poet he reconstructed lost dramas--Niobe, Phaedra, Philoctetes against +Troy, whose names, but for an accident, would have thrilled the world. +“Is it worth it?” he cried. “Had we better be planting potatoes?” And +then: “We had; but this is the second best.” + +Agnes did not approve of these colloquies. Mr. Jackson was not a +buffoon, but he behaved like one, which is what matters; and from the +Winter Garden she could see people laughing at him, and at her husband, +who got excited too. She hinted once or twice, but no notice was taken, +and at last she said rather sharply, “Now, you’re not to, Rickie. I +won’t have it.” + +“He’s a type that suits me. He knows people I know, or would like to +have known. He was a friend of Tony Failing’s. It is so hard to realize +that a man connected with one was great. Uncle Tony seems to have been. +He loved poetry and music and pictures, and everything tempted him to +live in a kind of cultured paradise, with the door shut upon squalor. +But to have more decent people in the world--he sacrificed everything +to that. He would have ‘smashed the whole beauty-shop’ if it would help +him. I really couldn’t go as far as that. I don’t think one need go as +far--pictures might have to be smashed, but not music or poetry; surely +they help--and Jackson doesn’t think so either.” + +“Well, I won’t have it, and that’s enough.” She laughed, for her voice +had a little been that of the professional scold. “You see we must hang +together. He’s in the reactionary camp.” + +“He doesn’t know it. He doesn’t know that he is in any camp at all.” + +“His wife is, which comes to the same.” + +“Still, it’s the holidays--” He and Mr. Jackson had drifted apart in +the term, chiefly owing to the affair of Varden. “We were to have the +holidays to ourselves, you know.” And following some line of thought, +he continued, “He cheers one up. He does believe in poetry. Smart, +sentimental books do seem absolutely absurd to him, and gods and fairies +far nearer to reality. He tries to express all modern life in the terms +of Greek mythology, because the Greeks looked very straight at things, +and Demeter or Aphrodite are thinner veils than ‘The survival of the +fittest’, or ‘A marriage has been arranged,’ and other draperies of +modern journalese.” + +“And do you know what that means?” + +“It means that poetry, not prose, lies at the core.” + +“No. I can tell you what it means--balder-dash.” + +His mouth fell. She was sweeping away the cobwebs with a vengeance. “I +hope you’re wrong,” he replied, “for those are the lines on which I’ve +been writing, however badly, for the last two years.” + +“But you write stories, not poems.” + +He looked at his watch. “Lessons again. One never has a moment’s peace.” + +“Poor Rickie. You shall have a real holiday in the summer.” And she +called after him to say, “Remember, dear, about Mr. Jackson. Don’t go +talking so much to him.” + +Rather arbitrary. Her tone had been a little arbitrary of late. But what +did it matter? Mr. Jackson was not a friend, and he must risk the chance +of offending Widdrington. After the lesson he wrote to Ansell, whom he +had not seen since June, asking him to come down to Ilfracombe, if only +for a day. On reading the letter over, its tone displeased him. It was +quite pathetic: it sounded like a cry from prison. “I can’t send him +such nonsense,” he thought, and wrote again. But phrase it as he would +the letter always suggested that he was unhappy. “What’s wrong?” he +wondered. “I could write anything I wanted to him once.” So he scrawled +“Come!” on a post-card. But even this seemed too serious. The post-card +followed the letters, and Agnes found them all in the waste-paper +basket. + +Then she said, “I’ve been thinking--oughtn’t you to ask Mr. Ansell over? +A breath of sea air would do the poor thing good.” + +There was no difficulty now. He wrote at once, “My dear Stewart, We both +so much wish you could come over.” But the invitation was refused. A +little uneasy he wrote again, using the dialect of their past intimacy. +The effect of this letter was not pathetic but jaunty, and he felt +a keen regret as soon as it slipped into the box. It was a relief to +receive no reply. + +He brooded a good deal over this painful yet intangible episode. Was +the pain all of his own creating? or had it been produced by something +external? And he got the answer that brooding always gives--it was both. +He was morbid, and had been so since his visit to Cadover--quicker to +register discomfort than joy. But, none the less, Ansell was definitely +brutal, and Agnes definitely jealous. Brutality he could understand, +alien as it was to himself. Jealousy, equally alien, was a harder +matter. Let husband and wife be as sun and moon, or as moon and sun. +Shall they therefore not give greeting to the stars? He was willing to +grant that the love that inspired her might be higher than his own. Yet +did it not exclude them both from much that is gracious? That dream of +his when he rode on the Wiltshire expanses--a curious dream: the lark +silent, the earth dissolving. And he awoke from it into a valley full of +men. + +She was jealous in many ways--sometimes in an open humorous fashion, +sometimes more subtly, never content till “we” had extended our +patronage, and, if possible, our pity. She began to patronize and pity +Ansell, and most sincerely trusted that he would get his fellowship. +Otherwise what was the poor fellow to do? Ridiculous as it may seem, she +was even jealous of Nature. One day her husband escaped from Ilfracombe +to Morthoe, and came back ecstatic over its fangs of slate, piercing an +oily sea. “Sounds like an hippopotamus,” she said peevishly. And when +they returned to Sawston through the Virgilian counties, she disliked +him looking out of the windows, for all the world as if Nature was some +dangerous woman. + +He resumed his duties with a feeling that he had never left them. Again +he confronted the assembled house. This term was again the term; school +still the world in miniature. The music of the four-part fugue entered +into him more deeply, and he began to hum its little phrases. The same +routine, the same diplomacies, the same old sense of only half knowing +boys or men--he returned to it all: and all that changed was the cloud +of unreality, which ever brooded a little more densely than before. He +spoke to his wife about this, he spoke to her about everything, and she +was alarmed, and wanted him to see a doctor. But he explained that it +was nothing of any practical importance, nothing that interfered with +his work or his appetite, nothing more than a feeling that the cow was +not really there. She laughed, and “how is the cow today?” soon passed +into a domestic joke. + + + +XX + +Ansell was in his favourite haunt--the reading-room of the British +Museum. In that book-encircled space he always could find peace. He +loved to see the volumes rising tier above tier into the misty dome. He +loved the chairs that glide so noiselessly, and the radiating desks, +and the central area, where the catalogue shelves curve, round the +superintendent’s throne. There he knew that his life was not ignoble. It +was worth while to grow old and dusty seeking for truth though truth is +unattainable, restating questions that have been stated at the beginning +of the world. Failure would await him, but not disillusionment. It was +worth while reading books, and writing a book or two which few would +read, and no one, perhaps, endorse. He was not a hero, and he knew it. +His father and sister, by their steady goodness, had made this life +possible. But, all the same, it was not the life of a spoilt child. + +In the next chair to him sat Widdrington, engaged in his historical +research. His desk was edged with enormous volumes, and every few +moments an assistant brought him more. They rose like a wall against +Ansell. Towards the end of the morning a gap was made, and through it +they held the following conversation. + +“I’ve been stopping with my cousin at Sawston.” + +“M’m.” + +“It was quite exciting. The air rang with battle. About two-thirds of +the masters have lost their heads, and are trying to produce a gimcrack +copy of Eton. Last term, you know, with a great deal of puffing and +blowing, they fixed the numbers of the school. This term they want to +create a new boarding-house.” + +“They are very welcome.” + +“But the more boarding-houses they create, the less room they leave for +day-boys. The local mothers are frantic, and so is my queer cousin. +I never knew him so excited over sub-Hellenic things. There was an +indignation meeting at his house. He is supposed to look after the +day-boys’ interests, but no one thought he would--least of all the +people who gave him the post. The speeches were most eloquent. +They argued that the school was founded for day-boys, and that it’s +intolerable to handicap them. One poor lady cried, ‘Here’s my Harold in +the school, and my Toddie coming on. As likely as not I shall be told +there is no vacancy for him. Then what am I to do? If I go, what’s to +become of Harold; and if I stop, what’s to become of Toddie?’ I must +say I was touched. Family life is more real than national life--at least +I’ve ordered all these books to prove it is--and I fancy that the bust +of Euripides agreed with me, and was sorry for the hot-faced mothers. +Jackson will do what he can. He didn’t quite like to state the +naked truth-which is, that boardinghouses pay. He explained it to me +afterwards: they are the only, future open to a stupid master. It’s easy +enough to be a beak when you’re young and athletic, and can offer the +latest University smattering. The difficulty is to keep your place when +you get old and stiff, and younger smatterers are pushing up behind +you. Crawl into a boarding-house and you’re safe. A master’s life is +frightfully tragic. Jackson’s fairly right himself, because he has got +a first-class intellect. But I met a poor brute who was hired as an +athlete. He has missed his shot at a boarding-house, and there’s nothing +in the world for him to do but to trundle down the hill.” + +Ansell yawned. + +“I saw Rickie too. Once I dined there.” + +Another yawn. + +“My cousin thinks Mrs. Elliot one of the most horrible women he has +ever seen. He calls her ‘Medusa in Arcady.’ She’s so pleasant, too. But +certainly it was a very stony meal.” + +“What kind of stoniness” + +“No one stopped talking for a moment.” + +“That’s the real kind,” said Ansell moodily. “The only kind.” + +“Well, I,” he continued, “am inclined to compare her to an electric +light. Click! she’s on. Click! she’s off. No waste. No flicker.” + +“I wish she’d fuse.” + +“She’ll never fuse--unless anything was to happen at the main.” + +“What do you mean by the main?” said Ansell, who always pursued a +metaphor relentlessly. + +Widdrington did not know what he meant, and suggested that Ansell should +visit Sawston to see whether one could know. + +“It is no good me going. I should not find Mrs. Elliot: she has no real +existence.” + +“Rickie has.” + +“I very much doubt it. I had two letters from Ilfracombe last April, +and I very much doubt that the man who wrote them can exist.” Bending +downwards he began to adorn the manuscript of his dissertation with a +square, and inside that a circle, and inside that another square. It was +his second dissertation: the first had failed. + +“I think he exists: he is so unhappy.” + +Ansell nodded. “How did you know he was unhappy?” + +“Because he was always talking.” After a pause he added, “What clever +young men we are!” + +“Aren’t we? I expect we shall get asked in marriage soon. I say, +Widdrington, shall we--?” + +“Accept? Of course. It is not young manly to say no.” + +“I meant shall we ever do a more tremendous thing,--fuse Mrs. Elliot.” + +“No,” said Widdrington promptly. “We shall never do that in all our +lives.” He added, “I think you might go down to Sawston, though.” + +“I have already refused or ignored three invitations.” + +“So I gathered.” + +“What’s the good of it?” said Ansell through his teeth. “I will not put +up with little things. I would rather be rude than to listen to twaddle +from a man I’ve known. + +“You might go down to Sawston, just for a night, to see him.” + +“I saw him last month--at least, so Tilliard informs me. He says that we +all three lunched together, that Rickie paid, and that the conversation +was most interesting.” + +“Well, I contend that he does exist, and that if you go--oh, I can’t be +clever any longer. You really must go, man. I’m certain he’s miserable +and lonely. Dunwood House reeks of commerce and snobbery and all the +things he hated most. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t make any +friends. He is so odd, too. In this day-boy row that has just started +he’s gone for my cousin. Would you believe it? Quite spitefully. It made +quite a difficulty when I wanted to dine. It isn’t like him either the +sentiments or the behaviour. I’m sure he’s not himself. Pembroke used to +look after the day-boys, and so he can’t very well take the lead against +them, and perhaps Rickie’s doing his dirty work--and has overdone it, as +decent people generally do. He’s even altering to talk to. Yet he’s not +been married a year. Pembroke and that wife simply run him. I don’t see +why they should, and no more do you; and that’s why I want you to go to +Sawston, if only for one night.” + +Ansell shook his head, and looked up at the dome as other men look at +the sky. In it the great arc lamps sputtered and flared, for the month +was again November. Then he lowered his eyes from the cold violet +radiance to the books. + +“No, Widdrington; no. We don’t go to see people because they are happy +or unhappy. We go when we can talk to them. I cannot talk to Rickie, +therefore I will not waste my time at Sawston.” + +“I think you’re right,” said Widdrington softly. “But we are bloodless +brutes. I wonder whether-If we were different people--something might be +done to save him. That is the curse of being a little intellectual. You +and our sort have always seen too clearly. We stand aside--and meanwhile +he turns into stone. Two philosophic youths repining in the British +Museum! What have we done? What shall we ever do? Just drift and +criticize, while people who know what they want snatch it away from us +and laugh.” + +“Perhaps you are that sort. I’m not. When the moment comes I shall hit +out like any ploughboy. Don’t believe those lies about intellectual +people. They’re only written to soothe the majority. Do you suppose, +with the world as it is, that it’s an easy matter to keep quiet? Do +you suppose that I didn’t want to rescue him from that ghastly woman? +Action! Nothing’s easier than action; as fools testify. But I want to +act rightly.” + +“The superintendent is looking at us. I must get back to my work.” + +“You think this all nonsense,” said Ansell, detaining him. “Please +remember that if I do act, you are bound to help me.” + +Widdrington looked a little grave. He was no anarchist. A few plaintive +cries against Mrs. Elliot were all that he prepared to emit. + +“There’s no mystery,” continued Ansell. “I haven’t the shadow of a plan +in my head. I know not only Rickie but the whole of his history: you +remember the day near Madingley. Nothing in either helps me: I’m just +watching.” + +“But what for?” + +“For the Spirit of Life.” + +Widdrington was surprised. It was a phrase unknown to their philosophy. +They had trespassed into poetry. + +“You can’t fight Medusa with anything else. If you ask me what the +Spirit of Life is, or to what it is attached, I can’t tell you. I only +tell you, watch for it. Myself I’ve found it in books. Some people find +it out of doors or in each other. Never mind. It’s the same spirit, and +I trust myself to know it anywhere, and to use it rightly.” + +But at this point the superintendent sent a message. + +Widdrington then suggested a stroll in the galleries. It was foggy: they +needed fresh air. He loved and admired his friend, but today he could +not grasp him. The world as Ansell saw it seemed such a fantastic place, +governed by brand-new laws. What more could one do than to see Rickie +as often as possible, to invite his confidence, to offer him spiritual +support? And Mrs. Elliot--what power could “fuse” a respectable woman? + +Ansell consented to the stroll, but, as usual, only breathed depression. +The comfort of books deserted him among those marble goddesses and gods. +The eye of an artist finds pleasure in texture and poise, but he could +only think of the vanished incense and deserted temples beside an +unfurrowed sea. + +“Let us go,” he said. “I do not like carved stones.” + +“You are too particular,” said Widdrington. “You are always expecting +to meet living people. One never does. I am content with the Parthenon +frieze.” And he moved along a few yards of it, while Ansell followed, +conscious only of its pathos. + +“There’s Tilliard,” he observed. “Shall we kill him?” + +“Please,” said Widdrington, and as he spoke Tilliard joined them. He +brought them news. That morning he had heard from Rickie: Mrs. Elliot +was expecting a child. + +“A child?” said Ansell, suddenly bewildered. + +“Oh, I forgot,” interposed Widdrington. “My cousin did tell me.” + +“You forgot! Well, after all, I forgot that it might be, We are indeed +young men.” He leant against the pedestal of Ilissus and remembered +their talk about the Spirit of Life. In his ignorance of what a child +means he wondered whether the opportunity he sought lay here. + +“I am very glad,” said Tilliard, not without intention. “A child will +draw them even closer together. I like to see young people wrapped up in +their child.” + +“I suppose I must be getting back to my dissertation,” said Ansell. +He left the Parthenon to pass by the monuments of our more reticent +beliefs--the temple of the Ephesian Artemis, the statue of the Cnidian +Demeter. Honest, he knew that here were powers he could not cope with, +nor, as yet, understand. + + +XXI + +The mists that had gathered round Rickie seemed to be breaking. He had +found light neither in work for which he was unfitted nor in a woman who +had ceased to respect him, and whom he was ceasing to love. Though he +called himself fickle and took all the blame of their marriage on his +own shoulders, there remained in Agnes certain terrible faults of heart +and head, and no self-reproach would diminish them. The glamour of +wedlock had faded; indeed, he saw now that it had faded even before +wedlock, and that during the final months he had shut his eyes and +pretended it was still there. But now the mists were breaking. + +That November the supreme event approached. He saw it with Nature’s +eyes. It dawned on him, as on Ansell, that personal love and marriage +only cover one side of the shield, and that on the other is graven the +epic of birth. In the midst of lessons he would grow dreamy, as one who +spies a new symbol for the universe, a fresh circle within the square. +Within the square shall be a circle, within the circle another square, +until the visual eye is baffled. Here is meaning of a kind. His mother +had forgotten herself in him. He would forget himself in his son. + +He was at his duties when the news arrived--taking preparation. Boys are +marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes; perhaps +they will attain to a woman’s tenderness. Though they despised Rickie, +and had suffered under Agnes’s meanness, their one thought this term was +to be gentle and to give no trouble. + +“Rickie--one moment--” + +His face grew ashen. He followed Herbert into the passage, closing +the door of the preparation room behind him. “Oh, is she safe?” he +whispered. + +“Yes, yes,” said Herbert; but there sounded in his answer a sombre +hostile note. + +“Our boy?” + +“Girl--a girl, dear Rickie; a little daughter. She--she is in many ways +a healthy child. She will live--oh yes.” A flash of horror passed over +his face. He hurried into the preparation room, lifted the lid of his +desk, glanced mechanically at the boys, and came out again. + +Mrs. Lewin appeared through the door that led into their own part of the +house. + +“Both going on well!” she cried; but her voice also was grave, +exasperated. + +“What is it?” he gasped. “It’s something you daren’t tell me.” + +“Only this”--stuttered Herbert. “You mustn’t mind when you see--she’s +lame.” + +Mrs. Lewin disappeared. “Lame! but not as lame as I am?” + +“Oh, my dear boy, worse. Don’t--oh, be a man in this. Come away from the +preparation room. Remember she’ll live--in many ways healthy--only just +this one defect.” + +The horror of that week never passed away from him. To the end of his +life he remembered the excuses--the consolations that the child would +live; suffered very little, if at all; would walk with crutches; would +certainly live. God was more merciful. A window was opened too wide on a +draughty day--after a short, painless illness his daughter died. But +the lesson he had learnt so glibly at Cambridge should be heeded now; no +child should ever be born to him again. + + + +XXII + +That same term there took place at Dunwood House another event. With +their private tragedy it seemed to have no connection; but in time +Rickie perceived it as a bitter comment. Its developments were +unforeseen and lasting. It was perhaps the most terrible thing he had to +bear. + +Varden had now been a boarder for ten months. His health had broken in +the previous term,--partly, it is to be feared, as the result of the +indifferent food--and during the summer holidays he was attacked by a +series of agonizing earaches. His mother, a feeble person, wished to +keep him at home, but Herbert dissuaded her. Soon after the death of the +child there arose at Dunwood House one of those waves of hostility of +which no boy knows the origin nor any master can calculate the course. +Varden had never been popular--there was no reason why he should be--but +he had never been seriously bullied hitherto. One evening nearly the +whole house set on him. The prefects absented themselves, the bigger +boys stood round and the lesser boys, to whom power was delegated, flung +him down, and rubbed his face under the desks, and wrenched at his ears. +The noise penetrated the baize doors, and Herbert swept through and +punished the whole house, including Varden, whom it would not do to +leave out. The poor man was horrified. He approved of a little healthy +roughness, but this was pure brutalization. What had come over his boys? +Were they not gentlemen’s sons? He would not admit that if you herd +together human beings before they can understand each other the great +god Pan is angry, and will in the end evade your regulations and drive +them mad. That night the victim was screaming with pain, and the doctor +next day spoke of an operation. The suspense lasted a whole week. +Comment was made in the local papers, and the reputation not only of the +house but of the school was imperilled. “If only I had known,” repeated +Herbert--“if only I had known I would have arranged it all differently. +He should have had a cubicle.” The boy did not die, but he left Sawston, +never to return. + +The day before his departure Rickie sat with him some time, and tried to +talk in a way that was not pedantic. In his own sorrow, which he could +share with no one, least of all with his wife, he was still alive to the +sorrows of others. He still fought against apathy, though he was losing +the battle. + +“Don’t lose heart,” he told him. “The world isn’t all going to be like +this. There are temptations and trials, of course, but nothing at all of +the kind you have had here.” + +“But school is the world in miniature, is it not, sir?” asked the +boy, hoping to please one master by echoing what had been told him by +another. He was always on the lookout for sympathy--: it was one of the +things that had contributed to his downfall. + +“I never noticed that myself. I was unhappy at school, and in the world +people can be very happy.” + +Varden sighed and rolled about his eyes. “Are the fellows sorry for what +they did to me?” he asked in an affected voice. “I am sure I forgive +them from the bottom of my heart. We ought to forgive our enemies, +oughtn’t we, sir?” + +“But they aren’t your enemies. If you meet in five years’ time you may +find each other splendid fellows.” + +The boy would not admit this. He had been reading some revivalistic +literature. “We ought to forgive our enemies,” he repeated; “and however +wicked they are, we ought not to wish them evil. When I was ill, and +death seemed nearest, I had many kind letters on this subject.” + +Rickie knew about these “many kind letters.” Varden had induced the +silly nurse to write to people--people of all sorts, people that he +scarcely knew or did not know at all--detailing his misfortune, and +asking for spiritual aid and sympathy. + +“I am sorry for them,” he pursued. “I would not like to be like them.” + +Rickie sighed. He saw that a year at Dunwood House had produced a +sanctimonious prig. “Don’t think about them, Varden. Think about +anything beautiful--say, music. You like music. Be happy. It’s your +duty. You can’t be good until you’ve had a little happiness. Then +perhaps you will think less about forgiving people and more about loving +them.” + +“I love them already, sir.” And Rickie, in desperation, asked if he +might look at the many kind letters. + +Permission was gladly given. A neat bundle was produced, and for about +twenty minutes the master perused it, while the invalid kept watch on +his face. Rooks cawed out in the playing-fields, and close under the +window there was the sound of delightful, good-tempered laughter. A boy +is no devil, whatever boys may be. The letters were chilly productions, +somewhat clerical in tone, by whomsoever written. Varden, because he was +ill at the time, had been taken seriously. The writers declared that +his illness was fulfilling some mysterious purpose: suffering engendered +spiritual growth: he was showing signs of this already. They consented +to pray for him, some majestically, others shyly. But they all consented +with one exception, who worded his refusal as follows:-- + +Dear A.C. Varden,-- + +I ought to say that I never remember seeing you. I am sorry that you are +ill, and hope you are wrong about it. Why did you not write before, for +I could have helped you then? When they pulled your ear, you ought to +have gone like this (here was a rough sketch). I could not undertake +praying, but would think of you instead, if that would do. I am +twenty-two in April, built rather heavy, ordinary broad face, with eyes, +etc. I write all this because you have mixed me with some one else, for +I am not married, and do not want to be. I cannot think of you always, +but will promise a quarter of an hour daily (say 7.00-7.15 A.M.), and +might come to see you when you are better--that is, if you are a kid, +and you read like one. I have been otter-hunting-- + +Yours sincerely, + +Stephen Wonham + + + +XXIII + +Riekie went straight from Varden to his wife, who lay on the sofa in her +bedroom. There was now a wide gulf between them. She, like the world she +had created for him, was unreal. + +“Agnes, darling,” he began, stroking her hand, “such an awkward little +thing has happened.” + +“What is it, dear? Just wait till I’ve added up this hook.” + +She had got over the tragedy: she got over everything. + +When she was at leisure he told her. Hitherto they had seldom mentioned +Stephen. He was classed among the unprofitable dead. + +She was more sympathetic than he expected. “Dear Rickie,” she murmured +with averted eyes. “How tiresome for you.” + +“I wish that Varden had stopped with Mrs. Orr.” + +“Well, he leaves us for good tomorrow.” + +“Yes, yes. And I made him answer the letter and apologize. They had +never met. It was some confusion with a man in the Church Army, living +at a place called Codford. I asked the nurse. It is all explained.” + +“There the matter ends.” + +“I suppose so--if matters ever end.” + +“If, by ill-luck, the person does call. I will just see him and say that +the boy has gone.” + +“You, or I. I have got over all nonsense by this time. He’s absolutely +nothing to me now.” He took up the tradesman’s book and played with it +idly. On its crimson cover was stamped a grotesque sheep. How stale and +stupid their life had become! + +“Don’t talk like that, though,” she said uneasily. “Think how disastrous +it would be if you made a slip in speaking to him.” + +“Would it? It would have been disastrous once. But I expect, as a matter +of fact, that Aunt Emily has made the slip already.” + +His wife was displeased. “You need not talk in that cynical way. I +credit Aunt Emily with better feeling. When I was there she did mention +the matter, but only once. She, and I, and all who have any sense of +decency, know better than to make slips, or to think of making them.” + +Agnes kept up what she called “the family connection.” She had been once +alone to Cadover, and also corresponded with Mrs. Failing. She had never +told Rickie anything about her visit nor had he ever asked her. But, +from this moment, the whole subject was reopened. + +“Most certainly he knows nothing,” she continued. “Why, he does not even +realize that Varden lives in our house! We are perfectly safe--unless +Aunt Emily were to die. Perhaps then--but we are perfectly safe for the +present.” + +“When she did mention the matter, what did she say?” + +“We had a long talk,” said Agnes quietly. “She told me nothing +new--nothing new about the past, I mean. But we had a long talk about +the present. I think” and her voice grew displeased again--“that you +have been both wrong and foolish in refusing to make up your quarrel +with Aunt Emily.” + +“Wrong and wise, I should say.” + +“It isn’t to be expected that she--so much older and so sensitive--can +make the first step. But I know she’d he glad to see you.” + +“As far as I can remember that final scene in the garden, I accused her +of ‘forgetting what other people were like.’ She’ll never pardon me for +saying that.” + +Agnes was silent. To her the phrase was meaningless. Yet Rickie was +correct: Mrs. Failing had resented it more than anything. + +“At all events,” she suggested, “you might go and see her.” + +“No, dear. Thank you, no.” + +“She is, after all--” She was going to say “your father’s sister,” but +the expression was scarcely a happy one, and she turned it into, “She +is, after all, growing old and lonely.” + +“So are we all!” he cried, with a lapse of tone that was now +characteristic in him. + +“She oughtn’t to be so isolated from her proper relatives.” + +There was a moment’s silence. Still playing with the book, he remarked, +“You forget, she’s got her favourite nephew.” + +A bright red flush spread over her cheeks. “What is the matter with you +this afternoon?” she asked. “I should think you’d better go for a walk.” + +“Before I go, tell me what is the matter with you.” He also flushed. +“Why do you want me to make it up with my aunt?” + +“Because it’s right and proper.” + +“So? Or because she is old?” + +“I don’t understand,” she retorted. But her eyes dropped. His sudden +suspicion was true: she was legacy hunting. + +“Agnes, dear Agnes,” he began with passing tenderness, “how can you +think of such things? You behave like a poor person. We don’t want any +money from Aunt Emily, or from any one else. It isn’t virtue that makes +me say it: we are not tempted in that way: we have as much as we want +already.” + +“For the present,” she answered, still looking aside. + +“There isn’t any future,” he cried in a gust of despair. + +“Rickie, what do you mean?” + +What did he mean? He meant that the relations between them were +fixed--that there would never be an influx of interest, nor even of +passion. To the end of life they would go on beating time, and this was +enough for her. She was content with the daily round, the common task, +performed indifferently. But he had dreamt of another helpmate, and of +other things. + +“We don’t want money--why, we don’t even spend any on travelling. I’ve +invested all my salary and more. As far as human foresight goes, we +shall never want money.” And his thoughts went out to the tiny grave. +“You spoke of ‘right and proper,’ but the right and proper thing for my +aunt to do is to leave every penny she’s got to Stephen.” + +Her lip quivered, and for one moment he thought that she was going to +cry. “What am I to do with you?” she said. “You talk like a person in +poetry.” + +“I’ll put it in prose. He’s lived with her for twenty years, and he +ought to be paid for it.” + +Poor Agnes! Indeed, what was she to do? The first moment she set foot +in Cadover she had thought, “Oh, here is money. We must try and get it.” + Being a lady, she never mentioned the thought to her husband, but +she concluded that it would occur to him too. And now, though it had +occurred to him at last, he would not even write his aunt a little note. + +He was to try her yet further. While they argued this point he flashed +out with, “I ought to have told him that day when he called up to our +room. There’s where I went wrong first.” + +“Rickie!” + +“In those days I was sentimental. I minded. For two pins I’d write to +him this afternoon. Why shouldn’t he know he’s my brother? What’s all +this ridiculous mystery?” + +She became incoherent. + +“But WHY not? A reason why he shouldn’t know.” + +“A reason why he SHOULD know,” she retorted. “I never heard such +rubbish! Give me a reason why he should know.” + +“Because the lie we acted has ruined our lives.” + +She looked in bewilderment at the well-appointed room. + +“It’s been like a poison we won’t acknowledge. How many times have you +thought of my brother? I’ve thought of him every day--not in love; don’t +misunderstand; only as a medicine I shirked. Down in what they call +the subconscious self he has been hurting me.” His voice broke. “Oh, my +darling, we acted a lie then, and this letter reminds us of it and gives +us one more chance. I have to say ‘we’ lied. I should be lying again if +I took quite all the blame. Let us ask God’s forgiveness together. Then +let us write, as coldly as you please, to Stephen, and tell him he is my +father’s son.” + +Her reply need not be quoted. It was the last time he attempted +intimacy. And the remainder of their conversation, though long and +stormy, is also best forgotten. + +Thus the first effect of Varden’s letter was to make them quarrel. They +had not openly disagreed before. In the evening he kissed her and said, +“How absurd I was to get angry about things that happened last year. I +will certainly not write to the person.” She returned the kiss. But he +knew that they had destroyed the habit of reverence, and would quarrel +again. On his rounds he looked in at Varden and asked nonchalantly for +the letter. He carried it off to his room. It was unwise of him, for +his nerves were already unstrung, and the man he had tried to bury was +stirring ominously. In the silence he examined the handwriting till he +felt that a living creature was with him, whereas he, because his child +had died, was dead. He perceived more clearly the cruelty of Nature, to +whom our refinement and piety are but as bubbles, hurrying downwards on +the turbid waters. They break, and the stream continues. His father, as +a final insult, had brought into the world a man unlike all the rest of +them, a man dowered with coarse kindliness and rustic strength, a kind +of cynical ploughboy, against whom their own misery and weakness might +stand more vividly relieved. “Born an Elliot--born a gentleman.” So +the vile phrase ran. But here was an Elliot whose badness was not even +gentlemanly. For that Stephen was bad inherently he never doubted for a +moment and he would have children: he, not Rickie, would contribute to +the stream; he, through his remote posterity, might mingled with the +unknown sea. + +Thus musing he lay down to sleep, feeling diseased in body and soul. It +was no wonder that the night was the most terrible he had ever known. He +revisited Cambridge, and his name was a grey ghost over the door. Then +there recurred the voice of a gentle shadowy woman, Mrs. Aberdeen, “It +doesn’t seem hardly right.” Those had been her words, her only complaint +against the mysteries of change and death. She bowed her head and +laboured to make her “gentlemen” comfortable. She was labouring still. +As he lay in bed he asked God to grant him her wisdom; that he might +keep sorrow within due bounds; that he might abstain from extreme hatred +and envy of Stephen. It was seldom that he prayed so definitely, or +ventured to obtrude his private wishes. Religion was to him a service, a +mystic communion with good; not a means of getting what he wanted on the +earth. But tonight, through suffering, he was humbled, and became like +Mrs. Aberdeen. Hour after hour he awaited sleep and tried to endure the +faces that frothed in the gloom--his aunt’s, his father’s, and, worst +of all, the triumphant face of his brother. Once he struck at it, and +awoke, having hurt his hand on the wall. Then he prayed hysterically for +pardon and rest. + +Yet again did he awake, and from a more mysterious dream. He heard his +mother crying. She was crying quite distinctly in the darkened room. +He whispered, “Never mind, my darling, never mind,” and a voice echoed, +“Never mind--come away--let them die out--let them die out.” He lit a +candle, and the room was empty. Then, hurrying to the window, he saw +above mean houses the frosty glories of Orion. + +Henceforward he deteriorates. Let those who censure him suggest what +he should do. He has lost the work that he loved, his friends, and his +child. He remained conscientious and decent, but the spiritual part of +him proceeded towards ruin. + + + +XXIV + +The coming months, though full of degradation and anxiety, were to bring +him nothing so terrible as that night. It was the crisis of this +agony. He was an outcast and a failure. But he was not again forced to +contemplate these facts so clearly. Varden left in the morning, carrying +the fatal letter with him. The whole house was relieved. The good angel +was with the boys again, or else (as Herbert preferred to think) they +had learnt a lesson, and were more humane in consequence. At all events, +the disastrous term concluded quietly. + +In the Christmas holidays the two masters made an abortive attempt to +visit Italy, and at Easter there was talk of a cruise in the Aegean. +Herbert actually went, and enjoyed Athens and Delphi. The Elliots paid a +few visits together in England. They returned to Sawston about ten days +before school opened, to find that Widdrington was again stopping +with the Jacksons. Intercourse was painful, for the two families were +scarcely on speaking terms; nor did the triumphant scaffoldings of +the new boarding-house make things easier. (The party of progress had +carried the day.) Widdrington was by nature touchy, but on this occasion +he refused to take offence, and often dropped in to see them. His manner +was friendly but critical. They agreed he was a nuisance. Then Agnes +left, very abruptly, to see Mrs. Failing, and while she was away Rickie +had a little stealthy intercourse. + +Her absence, convenient as it was, puzzled him. Mrs. Silt, half goose, +half stormy-petrel, had recently paid a flying visit to Cadover, and +thence had flown, without an invitation, to Sawston. Generally she was +not a welcome guest. On this occasion Agnes had welcomed her, and--so +Rickie thought--had made her promise not to tell him something that she +knew. The ladies had talked mysteriously. “Mr. Silt would be one with +you there,” said Mrs. Silt. Could there be any connection between the +two visits? + +Agnes’s letters told him nothing: they never did. She was too clumsy +or too cautious to express herself on paper. A drive to Stonehenge; +an anthem in the Cathedral; Aunt Emily’s love. And when he met her at +Waterloo he learnt nothing (if there was anything to learn) from her +face. + +“How did you enjoy yourself?” + +“Thoroughly.” + +“Were you and she alone?” + +“Sometimes. Sometimes other people.” + +“Will Uncle Tony’s Essays be published?” + +Here she was more communicative. The book was at last in proof. Aunt +Emily had written a charming introduction; but she was so idle, she +never finished things off. + +They got into an omnibus for the Army and Navy Stores: she wanted to do +some shopping before going down to Sawston. + +“Did you read any of the Essays?” + +“Every one. Delightful. Couldn’t put them down. Now and then he spoilt +them by statistics--but you should read his descriptions of Nature. He +agrees with you: says the hills and trees are alive! Aunt Emily called +you his spiritual heir, which I thought nice of her. We both so lamented +that you have stopped writing.” She quoted fragments of the Essays as +they went up in the Stores’ lift. + +“What else did you talk about?” + +“I’ve told you all my news. Now for yours. Let’s have tea first.” + +They sat down in the corridor amid ladies in every stage of +fatigue--haggard ladies, scarlet ladies, ladies with parcels that +twisted from every finger like joints of meat. Gentlemen were scarcer, +but all were of the sub-fashionable type, to which Rickie himself now +belonged. + +“I haven’t done anything,” he said feebly. “Ate, read, been rude to +tradespeople, talked to Widdrington. Herbert arrived this morning. He +has brought a most beautiful photograph of the Parthenon.” + +“Mr. Widdrington?” + +“Yes.” + +“What did you talk about?” + +She might have heard every word. It was only the feeling of pleasure +that he wished to conceal. Even when we love people, we desire to keep +some corner secret from them, however small: it is a human right: it is +personality. She began to cross-question him, but they were interrupted. +A young lady at an adjacent table suddenly rose and cried, “Yes, it is +you. I thought so from your walk.” It was Maud Ansell. + +“Oh, do come and join us!” he cried. “Let me introduce my wife.” Maud +bowed quite stiffly, but Agnes, taking it for ill-breeding, was not +offended. + +“Then I will come!” she continued in shrill, pleasant tones, adroitly +poising her tea things on either hand, and transferring them to the +Elliots’ table. “Why haven’t you ever come to us, pray?” + +“I think you didn’t ask me!” + +“You weren’t to be asked.” She sprawled forward with a wagging finger. +But her eyes had the honesty of her brother’s. “Don’t you remember the +day you left us? Father said, ‘Now, Mr. Elliot--’ Or did he call you +‘Elliot’? How one does forget. Anyhow, father said you weren’t to wait +for an invitation, and you said, ‘No, I won’t.’ Ours is a fair-sized +house,”--she turned somewhat haughtily to Agnes,--“and the second spare +room, on account of a harp that hangs on the wall, is always reserved +for Stewart’s friends.” + + +“How is Mr. Ansell, your brother?” Maud’s face fell. “Hadn’t you heard?” + she said in awe-struck tones. + +“No.” + +“He hasn’t got his fellowship. It’s the second time he’s failed. +That means he will never get one. He will never be a don, nor live in +Cambridge and that, as we had hoped.” + +“Oh, poor, poor fellow!” said Mrs. Elliot with a remorse that was +sincere, though her congratulations would not have been. “I am so very +sorry.” + +But Maud turned to Rickie. “Mr. Elliot, you might know. Tell me. What is +wrong with Stewart’s philosophy? What ought he to put in, or to alter, +so as to succeed?” + +Agnes, who knew better than this, smiled. + +“I don’t know,” said Rickie sadly. They were none of them so clever, +after all. + +“Hegel,” she continued vindictively. “They say he’s read too much Hegel. +But they never tell him what to read instead. Their own stuffy books, +I suppose. Look here--no, that’s the ‘Windsor.’” After a little groping +she produced a copy of “Mind,” and handed it round as if it was a +geological specimen. “Inside that there’s a paragraph written about +something Stewart’s written about before, and there it says he’s read +too much Hegel, and it seems now that that’s been the trouble all +along.” Her voice trembled. “I call it most unfair, and the fellowship’s +gone to a man who has counted the petals on an anemone.” + +Rickie had no inclination to smile. + +“I wish Stewart had tried Oxford instead.” + +“I don’t wish it!” + +“You say that,” she continued hotly, “and then you never come to see +him, though you knew you were not to wait for an invitation.” + +“If it comes to that, Miss Ansell,” retorted Rickie, in the laughing +tones that one adopts on such occasions, “Stewart won’t come to me, +though he has had an invitation.” + +“Yes,” chimed in Agnes, “we ask Mr. Ansell again and again, and he will +have none of us.” + +Maud looked at her with a flashing eye. “My brother is a very peculiar +person, and we ladies can’t understand him. But I know one thing, and +that’s that he has a reason all round for what he does. Look here, I +must be getting on. Waiter! Wai-ai-aiter! Bill, please. Separately, of +course. Call the Army and Navy cheap! I know better!” + +“How does the drapery department compare?” said Agnes sweetly. + +The girl gave a sharp choking sound, gathered up her parcels, and left +them. Rickie was too much disgusted with his wife to speak. + +“Appalling person!” she gasped. “It was naughty of me, but I couldn’t +help it. What a dreadful fate for a clever man! To fail in life +completely, and then to be thrown back on a family like that!” + +“Maud is a snob and a Philistine. But, in her case, something emerges.” + +She glanced at him, but proceeded in her suavest tones, “Do let us make +one great united attempt to get Mr. Ansell to Sawston.” + +“No.” + +“What a changeable friend you are! When we were engaged you were always +talking about him.” + +“Would you finish your tea, and then we will buy the linoleum for the +cubicles.” + +But she returned to the subject again, not only on that day but +throughout the term. Could nothing be done for poor Mr. Ansell? It +seemed that she could not rest until all that he had once held dear was +humiliated. In this she strayed outside her nature: she was unpractical. +And those who stray outside their nature invite disaster. Rickie, goaded +by her, wrote to his friend again. The letter was in all ways unlike +his old self. Ansell did not answer it. But he did write to Mr. Jackson, +with whom he was not acquainted. + +“Dear Mr. Jackson,-- + +“I understand from Widdrington that you have a large house. I would like +to tell you how convenient it would be for me to come and stop in it. +June suits me best.-- + +“Yours truly, + +“Stewart Ansell” + + +To which Mr. Jackson replied that not only in June but during the whole +year his house was at the disposal of Mr. Ansell and of any one who +resembled him. + +But Agnes continued her life, cheerfully beating time. She, too, knew +that her marriage was a failure, and in her spare moments regretted +it. She wished that her husband was handsomer, more successful, more +dictatorial. But she would think, “No, no; one mustn’t grumble. It can’t +be helped.” Ansell was wrong in sup-posing she might ever leave Rickie. +Spiritual apathy prevented her. Nor would she ever be tempted by a +jollier man. Here criticism would willingly alter its tone. For Agnes +also has her tragedy. She belonged to the type--not necessarily an +elevated one--that loves once and once only. Her love for Gerald had +not been a noble passion: no imagination transfigured it. But such as it +was, it sprang to embrace him, and he carried it away with him when he +died. Les amours gui suivrent sont moins involuntaires: by an effort of +the will she had warmed herself for Rickie. + +She is not conscious of her tragedy, and therefore only the gods need +weep at it. But it is fair to remember that hitherto she moves as one +from whom the inner life has been withdrawn. + + + +XXV + +“I am afraid,” said Agnes, unfolding a letter that she had received in +the morning, “that things go far from satisfactorily at Cadover.” + +The three were alone at supper. It was the June of Rickie’s second year +at Sawston. + +“Indeed?” said Herbert, who took a friendly interest. “In what way? + +“Do you remember us talking of Stephen--Stephen Wonham, who by an odd +coincidence--” + +“Yes. Who wrote last year to that miserable failure Varden. I do.” + +“It is about him.” + +“I did not like the tone of his letter.” + +Agnes had made her first move. She waited for her husband to reply to +it. But he, though full of a painful curiosity, would not speak. She +moved again. + +“I don’t think, Herbert, that Aunt Emily, much as I like her, is the +kind of person to bring a young man up. At all events the results have +been disastrous this time.” + +“What has happened?” + +“A tangle of things.” She lowered her voice. “Drink.” + +“Dear! Really! Was Mrs. Failing fond of him?” + +“She used to be. She let him live at Cadover ever since he was a little +boy. Naturally that cannot continue.” + +Rickie never spoke. + +“And now he has taken to be violent and rude,” she went on. + +“In short, a beggar on horseback. Who is he? Has he got relatives?” + +“She has always been both father and mother to him. Now it must all come +to an end. I blame her--and she blames herself--for not being severe +enough. He has grown up without fixed principles. He has always followed +his inclinations, and one knows the result of that.” + +Herbert assented. “To me Mrs. Failing’s course is perfectly plain. She +has a certain responsibility. She must pay the youth’s passage to one of +the colonies, start him handsomely in some business, and then break off +all communications.” + +“How funny! It is exactly what she is going to do.” + +“I shall then consider that she has behaved in a thoroughly honourable +manner.” He held out his plate for gooseberries. “His letter to Varden +was neither helpful nor sympathetic, and, if written at all, it ought +to have been both. I am not in the least surprised to learn that he has +turned out badly. When you write next, would you tell her how sorry I +am?” + +“Indeed I will. Two years ago, when she was already a little anxious, +she did so wish you could undertake him. + +“I could not alter a grown man.” But in his heart he thought he could, +and smiled at his sister amiably. “Terrible, isn’t it?” he remarked to +Rickie. Rickie, who was trying not to mind anything, assented. And an +onlooker would have supposed them a dispassionate trio, who were sorry +both for Mrs. Failing and for the beggar who would bestride her horses’ +backs no longer. A new topic was introduced by the arrival of the +evening post. + +Herbert took up all the letters, as he often did. + +“Jackson?” he exclaimed. “What does the fellow want?” He read, and his +tone was mollified, “‘Dear Mr. Pembroke,--Could you, Mrs. Elliot, and +Mr. Elliot come to supper with us on Saturday next? I should not merely +be pleased, I should be grateful. My wife is writing formally to Mrs. +Elliot’--(Here, Agnes, take your letter),--but I venture to write as +well, and to add my more uncouth entreaties.’--An olive-branch. It is +time! But (ridiculous person!) does he think that we can leave the House +deserted and all go out pleasuring in term time?--Rickie, a letter for +you.” + +“Mine’s the formal invitation,” said Agnes. “How very odd! Mr. Ansell +will be there. Surely we asked him here! Did you know he knew the +Jacksons?” + +“This makes refusal very difficult,” said Herbert, who was anxious to +accept. “At all events, Rickie ought to go.” + +“I do not want to go,” said Rickie, slowly opening his own letter. “As +Agnes says, Ansell has refused to come to us. I cannot put myself out +for him.” + +“Who’s yours from?” she demanded. + +“Mrs. Silt,” replied Herbert, who had seen the handwriting. “I trust +she does not want to pay us a visit this term, with the examinations +impending and all the machinery at full pressure. Though, Rickie, you +will have to accept the Jacksons’ invitation.” + +“I cannot possibly go. I have been too rude; with Widdrington we always +meet here. I’ll stop with the boys--” His voice caught suddenly. He had +opened Mrs. Silt’s letter. + +“The Silts are not ill, I hope?” + +“No. But, I say,”--he looked at his wife,--“I do think this is going too +far. Really, Agnes.” + +“What has happened?” + +“It is going too far,” he repeated. He was nerving himself for another +battle. “I cannot stand this sort of thing. There are limits.” + +He laid the letter down. It was Herbert who picked it up, and read: +“Aunt Emily has just written to us. We are so glad that her troubles are +over, in spite of the expense. It never does to live apart from one’s +own relatives so much as she has done up to now. He goes next Saturday +to Canada. What you told her about him just turned the scale. She has +asked us--” + +“No, it’s too much,” he interrupted. “What I told her--told her about +him--no, I will have it out at last. Agnes!” + +“Yes?” said his wife, raising her eyes from Mrs. Jackson’s formal +invitation. + +“It’s you--it’s you. I never mentioned him to her. Why, I’ve never seen +her or written to her since. I accuse you.” + +Then Herbert overbore him, and he collapsed. He was asked what he meant. +Why was he so excited? Of what did he accuse his wife. Each time he +spoke more feebly, and before long the brother and sister were laughing +at him. He felt bewildered, like a boy who knows that he is right but +cannot put his case correctly. He repeated, “I’ve never mentioned him to +her. It’s a libel. Never in my life.” And they cried, “My dear Rickie, +what an absurd fuss!” Then his brain cleared. His eye fell on the letter +that his wife had received from his aunt, and he reopened the battle. + +“Agnes, give me that letter, if you please.” + +“Mrs. Jackson’s?” + +“My aunt’s.” + +She put her hand on it, and looked at him doubtfully. She saw that she +had failed to bully him. + +“My aunt’s letter,” he repeated, rising to his feet and bending over the +table towards her. + +“Why, dear?” + +“Yes, why indeed?” echoed Herbert. He too had bullied Rickie, but from a +purer motive: he had tried to stamp out a dissension between husband and +wife. It was not the first time he had intervened. + +“The letter. For this reason: it will show me what you have done. I +believe you have ruined Stephen. You have worked at it for two years. +You have put words into my mouth to ‘turn the scale’ against him. He +goes to Canada--and all the world thinks it is owing to me. As I said +before--I advise you to stop smiling--you have gone a little too far.” + +They were all on their feet now, standing round the little table. Agnes +said nothing, but the fingers of her delicate hand tightened upon the +letter. When her husband snatched at it she resisted, and with the +effect of a harlequinade everything went on the floor--lamb, mint +sauce, gooseberries, lemonade, whisky. At once they were swamped in +domesticities. She rang the bell for the servant, cries arose, dusters +were brought, broken crockery (a wedding present) picked up from the +carpet; while he stood wrathfully at the window, regarding the obscured +sun’s decline. + +“I MUST see her letter,” he repeated, when the agitation was over. He +was too angry to be diverted from his purpose. Only slight emotions are +thwarted by an interlude of farce. + +“I’ve had enough of this quarrelling,” she retorted. “You know that the +Silts are inaccurate. I think you might have given me the benefit of +the doubt. If you will know--have you forgotten that ride you took with +him?” + +“I--” he was again bewildered. “The ride where I dreamt--” + +“The ride where you turned back because you could not listen to a +disgraceful poem?” + +“I don’t understand.” + +“The poem was Aunt Emily. He read it to you and a stray soldier. +Afterwards you told me. You said, ‘Really it is shocking, his +ingratitude. She ought to know about it’ She does know, and I should be +glad of an apology.” + +He had said something of the sort in a fit of irritation. Mrs. Silt was +right--he had helped to turn the scale. + +“Whatever I said, you knew what I meant. You knew I’d sooner cut my +tongue out than have it used against him. Even then.” He sighed. Had he +ruined his brother? A curious tenderness came over him, and passed when +he remembered his own dead child. “We have ruined him, then. Have you +any objection to ‘we’? We have disinherited him.” + +“I decide against you,” interposed Herbert. “I have now heard both +sides of this deplorable affair. You are talking most criminal nonsense. +‘Disinherit!’ Sentimental twaddle. It’s been clear to me from the first +that Mrs. Failing has been imposed upon by the Wonham man, a person with +no legal claim on her, and any one who exposes him performs a public +duty--” + +“--And gets money.” + +“Money?” He was always uneasy at the word. “Who mentioned money?” + +“Just understand me, Herbert, and of what it is that I accuse my wife.” + Tears came into his eyes. “It is not that I like the Wonham man, or +think that he isn’t a drunkard and worse. He’s too awful in every way. +But he ought to have my aunt’s money, because he’s lived all his life +with her, and is her nephew as much as I am. You see, my father went +wrong.” He stopped, amazed at himself. How easy it had been to say! He +was withering up: the power to care about this stupid secret had died. + +When Herbert understood, his first thought was for Dunwood House. + +“Why have I never been told?” was his first remark. + +“We settled to tell no one,” said Agnes. “Rickie, in his anxiety to +prove me a liar, has broken his promise.” + +“I ought to have been told,” said Herbert, his anger increasing. “Had I +known, I could have averted this deplorable scene.” + +“Let me conclude it,” said Rickie, again collapsing and leaving the +dining-room. His impulse was to go straight to Cadover and make a +business-like statement of the position to Stephen. Then the man would +be armed, and perhaps fight the two women successfully, But he resisted +the impulse. Why should he help one power of evil against another? Let +them go intertwined to destruction. To enrich his brother would be as +bad as enriching himself. If their aunt’s money ever did come to him, +he would refuse to accept it. That was the easiest and most dignified +course. He troubled himself no longer with justice or pity, and the next +day he asked his wife’s pardon for his behaviour. + +In the dining-room the conversation continued. Agnes, without much +difficulty, gained her brother as an ally. She acknowledged that she had +been wrong in not telling him, and he then declared that she had been +right on every other point. She slurred a little over the incident of +her treachery, for Herbert was sometimes clearsighted over details, +though easily muddled in a general survey. Mrs. Failing had had plenty +of direct causes of complaint, and she dwelt on these. She dealt, +too, on the very handsome way in which the young man, “though he knew +nothing, had never asked to know,” was being treated by his aunt. + +“‘Handsome’ is the word,” said Herbert. “I hope not indulgently. He does +not deserve indulgence.” + +And she knew that he, like herself, could remember money, and that it +lent an acknowledged halo to her cause. + +“It is not a savoury subject,” he continued, with sudden stiffness. “I +understand why Rickie is so hysterical. My impulse”--he laid his hand on +her shoulder--“is to abandon it at once. But if I am to be of any use +to you, I must hear it all. There are moments when we must look facts in +the face.” + +She did not shrink from the subject as much as he thought, as much as +she herself could have wished. Two years before, it had filled her with +a physical loathing. But by now she had accustomed herself to it. + +“I am afraid, Bertie boy, there is nothing else to bear, I have tried to +find out again and again, but Aunt Emily will not tell me. I suppose it +is natural. She wants to shield the Elliot name. She only told us in a +fit of temper; then we all agreed to keep it to ourselves; then Rickie +again mismanaged her, and ever since she has refused to let us know any +details.” + +“A most unsatisfactory position.” “So I feel.” She sat down again with +a sigh. Mrs. Failing had been a great trial to her orderly mind. “She is +an odd woman. She is always laughing. She actually finds it amusing that +we know no more.” + +“They are an odd family.” + +“They are indeed.” + +Herbert, with unusual sweetness, bent down and kissed her. + +She thanked him. + +Their tenderness soon passed. They exchanged it with averted eyes. It +embarrassed them. There are moments for all of us when we seem obliged +to speak in a new unprofitable tongue. One might fancy a seraph, vexed +with our normal language, who touches the pious to blasphemy, +the blasphemous to piety. The seraph passes, and we proceed +unaltered--conscious, however, that we have not been ourselves, and that +we may fail in this function yet again. So Agnes and Herbert, as they +proceeded to discuss the Jackson’s supper-party, had an uneasy memory of +spiritual deserts, spiritual streams. + + + +XXVI + +Poor Mr. Ansell was actually sitting in the garden of Dunwood House. It +was Sunday morning. The air was full of roasting beef. The sound of +a manly hymn, taken very fast, floated over the road from the school +chapel. He frowned, for he was reading a book, the Essays of Anthony +Eustace Failing. + +He was here on account of this book--at least so he told himself. It had +just been published, and the Jacksons were sure that Mr. Elliot would +have a copy. For a book one may go anywhere. It would not have been +logical to enter Dunwood House for the purpose of seeing Rickie, when +Rickie had not come to supper yesterday to see him. He was at Sawston to +assure himself of his friend’s grave. With quiet eyes he had intended +to view the sods, with unfaltering fingers to inscribe the epitaph. Love +remained. But in high matters he was practical. He knew that it would be +useless to reveal it. + +“Morning!” said a voice behind him. + +He saw no reason to reply to this superfluous statement, and went on +with his reading. + +“Morning!” said the voice again. + +As for the Essays, the thought was somewhat old-fashioned, and he picked +many holes in it; nor was he anything but bored by the prospect of the +brotherhood of man. However, Mr. Failing stuck to his guns, such as they +were, and fired from them several good remarks. Very notable was his +distinction between coarseness and vulgarity (coarseness, revealing +something; vulgarity, concealing something), and his avowed preference +for coarseness. Vulgarity, to him, had been the primal curse, the shoddy +reticence that prevents man opening his heart to man, the power +that makes against equality. From it sprang all the things that +he hated--class shibboleths, ladies, lidies, the game laws, the +Conservative party--all the things that accent the divergencies rather +than the similarities in human nature. Whereas coarseness--But at this +point Herbert Pembroke had scrawled with a blue pencil: “Childish. One +reads no further.” + +“Morning!” repeated the voice. + +Ansell read further, for here was the book of a man who had tried, +however unsuccessfully, to practice what he preached. Mrs. Failing, in +her Introduction, described with delicate irony his difficulties as a +landlord; but she did not record the love in which his name was held. +Nor could her irony touch him when he cried: “Attain the practical +through the unpractical. There is no other road.” Ansell was inclined to +think that the unpractical is its own reward, but he respected those who +attempted to journey beyond it. We must all of us go over the mountains. +There is certainly no other road. + +“Nice morning!” said the voice. + +It was not a nice morning, so Ansell felt bound to speak. He answered: +“No. Why?” A clod of earth immediately struck him on the back. He turned +round indignantly, for he hated physical rudeness. A square man of ruddy +aspect was pacing the gravel path, his hands deep in his pockets. He was +very angry. Then he saw that the clod of earth nourished a blue lobelia, +and that a wound of corresponding size appeared on the pie-shaped bed. +He was not so angry. “I expect they will mind it,” he reflected. Last +night, at the Jacksons’, Agnes had displayed a brisk pity that made +him wish to wring her neck. Maude had not exaggerated. Mr. Pembroke had +patronized through a sorrowful voice and large round eyes. Till he +met these people he had never been told that his career was a failure. +Apparently it was. They would never have been civil to him if it had +been a success, if they or theirs had anything to fear from him. + +In many ways Ansell was a conceited man; but he was never proud of being +right. He had foreseen Rickie’s catastrophe from the first, but derived +from this no consolation. In many ways he was pedantic; but his +pedantry lay close to the vineyards of life--far closer than that fetich +Experience of the innumerable tea-cups. He had a great many facts to +learn, and before he died he learnt a suitable quantity. But he never +forgot that the holiness of the heart’s imagination can alone classify +these facts--can alone decide which is an exception, which an example. +“How unpractical it all is!” That was his comment on Dunwood House. +“How unbusiness-like! They live together without love. They work without +conviction. They seek money without requiring it. They die, and nothing +will have happened, either for themselves or for others.” It is a +comment that the academic mind will often make when first confronted +with the world. + +But he was becoming illogical. The clod of earth had disturbed him. +Brushing the dirt off his back, he returned to the book. What a curious +affair was the essay on “Gaps”! Solitude, star-crowned, pacing the +fields of England, has a dialogue with Seclusion. He, poor little man, +lives in the choicest scenery--among rocks, forests, emerald lawns, +azure lakes. To keep people out he has built round his domain a high +wall, on which is graven his motto--“Procul este profani.” But he cannot +enjoy himself. His only pleasure is in mocking the absent Profane. They +are in his mind night and day. Their blemishes and stupidities form the +subject of his great poem, “In the Heart of Nature.” Then Solitude tells +him that so it always will be until he makes a gap in the wall, and +permits his seclusion to be the sport of circumstance. He obeys. The +Profane invade him; but for short intervals they wander elsewhere, and +during those intervals the heart of Nature is revealed to him. + +This dialogue had really been suggested to Mr. Failing by a talk with +his brother-in-law. It also touched Ansell. He looked at the man who +had thrown the clod, and was now pacing with obvious youth and impudence +upon the lawn. “Shall I improve my soul at his expense?” he thought. “I +suppose I had better.” In friendly tones he remarked, “Were you waiting +for Mr. Pembroke?” + +“No,” said the young man. “Why?” + +Ansell, after a moment’s admiration, flung the Essays at him. They hit +him in the back. The next moment he lay on his own back in the lobelia +pie. + +“But it hurts!” he gasped, in the tones of a puzzled civilization. “What +you do hurts!” For the young man was nicking him over the shins with the +rim of the book cover. “Little brute-ee--ow!” + +“Then say Pax!” + +Something revolted in Ansell. Why should he say Pax? Freeing his hand, +he caught the little brute under the chin, and was again knocked into +the lobelias by a blow on the mouth. + +“Say Pax!” he repeated, pressing the philosopher’s skull into the mould; +and he added, with an anxiety that was somehow not offensive, “I do +advise you. You’d really better.” + +Ansell swallowed a little blood. He tried to move, and he could not. +He looked carefully into the young man’s eyes and into the palm of his +right hand, which at present swung unclenched, and he said “Pax!” + +“Shake hands!” said the other, helping him up. There was nothing Ansell +loathed so much as the hearty Britisher; but he shook hands, and they +stared at each other awkwardly. With civil murmurs they picked the +little blue flowers off each other’s clothes. Ansell was trying to +remember why they had quarrelled, and the young man was wondering why he +had not guarded his chin properly. In the distance a hymn swung off-- + +“Fight the good. Fight with. All thy. Might.” + +They would be across from the chapel soon. + +“Your book, sir?” + +“Thank you, sir--yes.” + +“Why!” cried the young man--“why, it’s ‘What We Want’! At least the +binding’s exactly the same.” + +“It’s called ‘Essays,’” said Ansell. + +“Then that’s it. Mrs. Failing, you see, she wouldn’t call it that, +because three W’s, you see, in a row, she said, are vulgar, and sound +like Tolstoy, if you’ve heard of him.” + +Ansell confessed to an acquaintance, and then said, “Do you think ‘What +We Want’ vulgar?” He was not at all interested, but he desired to escape +from the atmosphere of pugilistic courtesy, more painful to him than +blows themselves. + +“It IS the same book,” said the other--“same title, same binding.” He +weighed it like a brick in his muddy hands. + +“Open it to see if the inside corresponds,” said Ansell, swallowing a +laugh and a little more blood with it. + +With a liberal allowance of thumb-marks, he turned the pages over and +read, “‘the rural silence that is not a poet’s luxury but a practical +need for all men.’ Yes, it is the same book.” Smiling pleasantly over +the discovery, he handed it back to the owner. + +“And is it true?” + +“I beg your pardon?” + +“Is it true that rural silence is a practical need?” + +“Don’t ask me!” + +“Have you ever tried it?” + +“What?” + +“Rural silence.” + +“A field with no noise in it, I suppose you mean. I don’t understand.” + +Ansell smiled, but a slight fire in the man’s eye checked him. After +all, this was a person who could knock one down. Moreover, there was no +reason why he should be teased. He had it in him to retort “No. Why?” + He was not stupid in essentials. He was irritable--in Ansell’s eyes a +frequent sign of grace. Sitting down on the upturned seat, he remarked, +“I like the book in many ways. I don’t think ‘What We Want’ would have +been a vulgar title. But I don’t intend to spoil myself on the chance of +mending the world, which is what the creed amounts to. Nor am I keen on +rural silences.” + +“Curse!” he said thoughtfully, sucking at an empty pipe. + +“Tobacco?” + +“Please.” + +“Rickie’s is invariably--filthy.” + +“Who says I know Rickie?” + +“Well, you know his aunt. It’s a possible link. Be gentle with Rickie. +Don’t knock him down if he doesn’t think it’s a nice morning.” + +The other was silent. + +“Do you know him well?” + +“Kind of.” He was not inclined to talk. The wish to smoke was very +violent in him, and Ansell noticed how he gazed at the wreaths that +ascended from bowl and stem, and how, when the stem was in his mouth, +he bit it. He gave the idea of an animal with just enough soul to +contemplate its own bliss. United with refinement, such a type was +common in Greece. It is not common today, and Ansell was surprised to +find it in a friend of Rickie’s. Rickie, if he could even “kind of know” + such a creature, must be stirring in his grave. + +“Do you know his wife too?” + +“Oh yes. In a way I know Agnes. But thank you for this tobacco. Last +night I nearly died. I have no money.” + +“Take the whole pouch--do.” + +After a moment’s hesitation he did. “Fight the good” had scarcely ended, +so quickly had their intimacy grown. + +“I suppose you’re a friend of Rickie’s?” + +Ansell was tempted to reply, “I don’t know him at all.” But it seemed +no moment for the severer truths, so he said, “I knew him well at +Cambridge, but I have seen very little of him since.” + +“Is it true that his baby was lame?” + +“I believe so.” + +His teeth closed on his pipe. Chapel was over. The organist was prancing +through the voluntary, and the first ripple of boys had already reached +Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters would be here too, and +Ansell, who was becoming interested, hurried the conversation forward. + +“Have you come far?” + +“From Wiltshire. Do you know Wiltshire?” And for the first time there +came into his face the shadow of a sentiment, the passing tribute to +some mystery. “It’s a good country. I live in one of the finest valleys +out of Salisbury Plain. I mean, I lived.” + +“Have you been dismissed from Cadover, without a penny in your pocket?” + +He was alarmed at this. Such knowledge seemed simply diabolical. Ansell +explained that if his boots were chalky, if his clothes had obviously +been slept in, if he knew Mrs. Failing, if he knew Wiltshire, and if +he could buy no tobacco--then the deduction was possible. “You do just +attend,” he murmured. + +The house was filling with boys, and Ansell saw, to his regret, the head +of Agnes over the thuyia hedge that separated the small front garden +from the side lawn where he was sitting. After a few minutes it was +followed by the heads of Rickie and Mr. Pembroke. All the heads were +turned the other way. But they would find his card in the hall, and if +the man had left any message they would find that too. “What are you?” + he demanded. “Who are you--your name--I don’t care about that. But it +interests me to class people, and up to now I have failed with you.” + +“I--” He stopped. Ansell reflected that there are worse answers. “I +really don’t know what I am. Used to think I was something special, but +strikes me now I feel much like other chaps. Used to look down on the +labourers. Used to take for granted I was a gentleman, but really I +don’t know where I do belong.” + +“One belongs to the place one sleeps in and to the people one eats +with.” + +“As often as not I sleep out of doors and eat by myself, so that doesn’t +get you any further.” + +A silence, akin to poetry, invaded Ansell. Was it only a pose to like +this man, or was he really wonderful? He was not romantic, for Romance +is a figure with outstretched hands, yearning for the unattainable. +Certain figures of the Greeks, to whom we continually return, suggested +him a little. One expected nothing of him--no purity of phrase nor +swift edged thought. Yet the conviction grew that he had been back +somewhere--back to some table of the gods, spread in a field where there +is no noise, and that he belonged for ever to the guests with whom he +had eaten. Meanwhile he was simple and frank, and what he could tell he +would tell to any one. He had not the suburban reticence. Ansell asked +him, “Why did Mrs. Failing turn you out of Cadover? I should like to +hear that too.” + +“Because she was tired of me. Because, again, I couldn’t keep quiet over +the farm hands. I ask you, is it right?” He became incoherent. Ansell +caught, “And they grow old--they don’t play games--it ends they can’t +play.” An illustration emerged. “Take a kitten--if you fool about with +her, she goes on playing well into a cat.” + +“But Mrs. Failing minded no mice being caught.” + +“Mice?” said the young man blankly. “What I was going to say is, that +some one was jealous of my being at Cadover. I’ll mention no names, but +I fancy it was Mrs. Silt. I’m sorry for her if it was. Anyhow, she set +Mrs. Failing against me. It came on the top of other things--and out I +went.” + +“What did Mrs. Silt, whose name I don’t mention, say?” + +He looked guilty. “I don’t know. Easy enough to find something to say. +The point is that she said something. You know, Mr.--I don’t know your +name, mine’s Wonham, but I’m more grateful than I can put it over +this tobacco. I mean, you ought to know there is another side to this +quarrel. It’s wrong, but it’s there.” + +Ansell told him not to be uneasy: he lad already guessed that there +might be another side. But he could not make out why Mr. Wonham should +have come straight from the aunt to the nephew. They were now sitting +on the upturned seat. “What We Want,” a good deal shattered, lay between +them. + +“On account of above-mentioned reasons, there was a row. I don’t +know--you can guess the style of thing. She wanted to treat me to the +colonies, and had up the parson to talk soft-sawder and make out that +a boundless continent was the place for a lad like me. I said, ‘I can’t +run up to the Rings without getting tired, nor gallop a horse out +of this view without tiring it, so what is the point of a boundless +continent?’ Then I saw that she was frightened of me, and bluffed a bit +more, and in the end I was nipped. She caught me--just like her! when +I had nothing on but flannels, and was coming into the house, having +licked the Cadchurch team. She stood up in the doorway between those +stone pilasters and said, ‘No! Never again!’ and behind her was +Wilbraham, whom I tried to turn out, and the gardener, and poor old +Leighton, who hates being hurt. She said, ‘There’s a hundred pounds for +you at the London bank, and as much more in December. Go!’ I said, ‘Keep +your--money, and tell me whose son I am.’ I didn’t care really. I only +said it on the off-chance of hurting her. Sure enough, she caught on +to the doorhandle (being lame) and said, ‘I can’t--I promised--I don’t +really want to,’ and Wilbraham did stare. Then--she’s very queer--she +burst out laughing, and went for the packet after all, and we heard her +laugh through the window as she got it. She rolled it at me down +the steps, and she says, ‘A leaf out of the eternal comedy for you, +Stephen,’ or something of that sort. I opened it as I walked down the +drive, she laughing always and catching on to the handle of the front +door. Of course it wasn’t comic at all. But down in the village there +were both cricket teams, already a little tight, and the mad plumber +shouting ‘Rights of Man!’ They knew I was turned out. We did have a row, +and kept it up too. They daren’t touch Wilbraham’s windows, but there +isn’t much glass left up at Cadover. When you start, it’s worth going +on, but in the end I had to cut. They subscribed a bob here and a bob +there, and these are Flea Thompson’s Sundays. I sent a line to Leighton +not to forward my own things: I don’t fancy them. They aren’t really +mine.” He did not mention his great symbolic act, performed, it is to be +feared, when he was rather drunk and the friendly policeman was looking +the other way. He had cast all his flannels into the little millpond, +and then waded himself through the dark cold water to the new clothes +on the other side. Some one had flung his pipe and his packet after him. +The packet had fallen short. For this reason it was wet when he handed +it to Ansell, and ink that had been dry for twenty-three years had begun +to run again. + +“I wondered if you’re right about the hundred pounds,” said Ansell +gravely. “It is pleasant to be proud, but it is unpleasant to die in the +night through not having any tobacco.” + +“But I’m not proud. Look how I’ve taken your pouch! The hundred pounds +was--well, can’t you see yourself, it was quite different? It was, so to +speak, inconvenient for me to take the hundred pounds. Or look again how +I took a shilling from a boy who earns nine bob a-week! Proves pretty +conclusively I’m not proud.” + +Ansell saw it was useless to argue. He perceived, beneath the slatternly +use of words, the man, buttoned up in them, just as his body was +buttoned up in a shoddy suit,--and he wondered more than ever that such +a man should know the Elliots. He looked at the face, which was frank, +proud, and beautiful, if truth is beauty. Of mercy or tact such a face +knew little. It might be coarse, but it had in it nothing vulgar or +wantonly cruel. “May I read these papers?” he said. + +“Of course. Oh yes; didn’t I say? I’m Rickie’s half-brother, come here +to tell him the news. He doesn’t know. There it is, put shortly for +you. I was saying, though, that I bolted in the dark, slept in the +rifle-butts above Salisbury, the sheds where they keep the cardboard +men, you know, never locked up as they ought to be. I turned the whole +place upside down to teach them.” + +“Here is your packet again,” said Ansell. “Thank you. How interesting!” + He rose from the seat and turned towards Dunwood House. He looked at +the bow-windows, the cheap picturesque gables, the terracotta dragons +clawing a dirty sky. He listened to the clink of plates and to the voice +of Mr. Pembroke taking one of his innumerable roll-calls. He looked at +the bed of lobelias. How interesting! What else was there to say? + +“One must be the son of some one,” remarked Stephen. And that was all +he had to say. To him those names on the moistened paper were mere +antiquities. He was neither proud of them nor ashamed. A man must have +parents, or he cannot enter the delightful world. A man, if he has +a brother, may reasonably visit him, for they may have interests in +common. He continued his narrative, how in the night he had heard the +clocks, how at daybreak, instead of entering the city, he had struck +eastward to save money,--while Ansell still looked at the house and +found that all his imagination and knowledge could lead him no farther +than this: how interesting! + +“--And what do you think of that for a holy horror?” + +“For a what?” said Ansell, his thoughts far away. + +“This man I am telling you about, who gave me a lift towards Andover, +who said I was a blot on God’s earth.” + +One o’clock struck. It was strange that neither of them had had any +summons from the house. + +“He said I ought to be ashamed of myself. He said, ‘I’ll not be the +means of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady.’ I told him +not to be a fool. I said I knew what I was about. Rickie and Agnes are +properly educated, which leads people to look at things straight, and +not go screaming about blots. A man like me, with just a little reading +at odd hours--I’ve got so far, and Rickie has been through Cambridge.” + +“And Mrs. Elliot?” + +“Oh, she won’t mind, and I told the man so; but he kept on saying, ‘I’ll +not be the means of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady,’ +until I got out of his rotten cart.” His eye watched the man a +Nonconformist, driving away over God’s earth. “I caught the train by +running. I got to Waterloo at--” + +Here the parlour-maid fluttered towards them, Would Mr. Wonham come in? +Mrs. Elliot would be glad to see him now. + +“Mrs. Elliot?” cried Ansell. “Not Mr. Elliot?” + +“It’s all the same,” said Stephen, and moved towards the house. + +“You see, I only left my name. They don’t know why I’ve come.” + +“Perhaps Mr. Elliot sees me meanwhile?” + +The parlour-maid looked blank. Mr. Elliot had not said so. He had been +with Mrs. Elliot and Mr. Pembroke in the study. Now the gentlemen had +gone upstairs. + +“All right, I can wait.” After all, Rickie was treating him as he had +treated Rickie, as one in the grave, to whom it is futile to make any +loving motion. Gone upstairs--to brush his hair for dinner! The irony +of the situation appealed to him strongly. It reminded him of the Greek +Drama, where the actors know so little and the spectators so much. + +“But, by the bye,” he called after Stephen, “I think I ought to tell +you--don’t--” + +“What is it?” + +“Don’t--” Then he was silent. He had been tempted to explain everything, +to tell the fellow how things stood, that he must avoid this if he +wanted to attain that; that he must break the news to Rickie gently; +that he must have at least one battle royal with Agnes. But it was +contrary to his own spirit to coach people: he held the human soul to +be a very delicate thing, which can receive eternal damage from a little +patronage. Stephen must go into the house simply as himself, for thus +alone would he remain there. + +“I ought to knock my pipe out? Was that it?” “By no means. Go in, your +pipe and you.” + +He hesitated, torn between propriety and desire. Then he followed the +parlour-maid into the house smoking. As he entered the dinner-bell rang, +and there was the sound of rushing feet, which died away into shuffling +and silence. Through the window of the boys’ dining-hall came the +colourless voice of Rickie--“‘Benedictus benedicat.’” + +Ansell prepared himself to witness the second act of the drama; +forgetting that all this world, and not part of it, is a stage. + + + +XXVII + +The parlour-maid took Mr. Wonham to the study. He had been in the +drawing-room before, but had got bored, and so had strolled out into +the garden. Now he was in better spirits, as a man ought to be who has +knocked down a man. As he passed through the hall he sparred at the +teak monkey, and hung his cap on the bust of Hermes. And he greeted Mrs. +Elliot with a pleasant clap of laughter. “Oh, I’ve come with the most +tremendous news!” he cried. + +She bowed, but did not shake hands, which rather surprised him. But +he never troubled over “details.” He seldom watched people, and never +thought that they were watching him. Nor could he guess how much it +meant to her that he should enter her presence smoking. Had she not +said once at Cadover, “Oh, please smoke; I love the smell of a pipe”? + +“Would you sit down? Exactly there, please.” She placed him at a large +table, opposite an inkpot and a pad of blotting-paper. + +“Will you tell your ‘tremendous news’ to me? My brother and my husband +are giving the boys their dinner.” + +“Ah!” said Stephen, who had had neither time nor money for breakfast in +London. + +“I told them not to wait for me.” + +So he came to the point at once. He trusted this handsome woman. His +strength and his youth called to hers, expecting no prudish response. +“It’s very odd. It is that I’m Rickie’s brother. I’ve just found out. +I’ve come to tell you all.” + +“Yes?” + +He felt in his pocket for the papers. “Half-brother I ought to have +said.” + +“Yes?” + +“I’m illegitimate. Legally speaking, that is, I’ve been turned out of +Cadover. I haven’t a penny. I--” + +“There is no occasion to inflict the details.” Her face, which had been +an even brown, began to flush slowly in the centre of the cheeks. The +colour spread till all that he saw of her was suffused, and she turned +away. He thought he had shocked her, and so did she. Neither knew that +the body can be insincere and express not the emotions we feel but those +that we should like to feel. In reality she was quite calm, and her +dislike of him had nothing emotional in it as yet. + +“You see--” he began. He was determined to tell the fidgety story, for +the sooner it was over the sooner they would have something to eat. +Delicacy he lacked, and his sympathies were limited. But such as they +were, they rang true: he put no decorous phantom between him and his +desires. + +“I do see. I have seen for two years.” She sat down at the head of the +table, where there was another ink-pot. Into this she dipped a pen. “I +have seen everything, Mr. Wonham--who you are, how you have behaved at +Cadover, how you must have treated Mrs. Failing yesterday; and now”--her +voice became very grave--“I see why you have come here, penniless. +Before you speak, we know what you will say.” + +His mouth fell open, and he laughed so merrily that it might have given +her a warning. But she was thinking how to follow up her first success. +“And I thought I was bringing tremendous news!” he cried. “I only +twisted it out of Mrs. Failing last night. And Rickie knows too?” + +“We have known for two years.” + +“But come, by the bye,--if you’ve known for two years, how is it you +didn’t--” The laugh died out of his eyes. “You aren’t ashamed?” he +asked, half rising from his chair. “You aren’t like the man towards +Andover?” + +“Please, please sit down,” said Agnes, in the even tones she used +when speaking to the servants; “let us not discuss side issues. I am a +horribly direct person, Mr. Wonham. I go always straight to the point.” + She opened a chequebook. “I am afraid I shall shock you. For how much?” + +He was not attending. + +“There is the paper we suggest you shall sign.” She pushed towards him a +pseudo-legal document, just composed by Herbert. + +“In consideration of the sum of..., I agree to perpetual silence--to +restrain from libellous...never to molest the said Frederick Elliot by +intruding--’” + +His brain was not quick. He read the document over twice, and he could +still say, “But what’s that cheque for?” + +“It is my husband’s. He signed for you as soon as we heard you were +here. We guessed you had come to be silenced. Here is his signature. But +he has left the filling in for me. For how much? I will cross it, shall +I? You will just have started a banking account, if I understand Mrs. +Failing rightly. It is not quite accurate to say you are penniless: I +heard from her just before you returned from your cricket. She allows +you two hundred a-year, I think. But this additional sum--shall I date +the cheque Saturday or for tomorrow?” + +At last he found words. Knocking his pipe out on the table, he said +slowly, “Here’s a very bad mistake.” + +“It is quite possible,” retorted Agnes. She was glad she had taken the +offensive, instead of waiting till he began his blackmailing, as had +been the advice of Rickie. Aunt Emily had said that very spring, “One’s +only hope with Stephen is to start bullying first.” Here he was, quite +bewildered, smearing the pipe-ashes with his thumb. He asked to read the +document again. “A stamp and all!” he remarked. + +They had anticipated that his claim would exceed two pounds. + +“I see. All right. It takes a fool a minute. Never mind. I’ve made a bad +mistake.” + +“You refuse?” she exclaimed, for he was standing at the door. “Then do +your worst! We defy you!” + +“That’s all right, Mrs. Elliot,” he said roughly. “I don’t want a scene +with you, nor yet with your husband. We’ll say no more about it. It’s +all right. I mean no harm.” + +“But your signature then! You must sign--you--” + +He pushed past her, and said as he reached for his cap, “There, that’s +all right. It’s my mistake. I’m sorry.” He spoke like a farmer who has +failed to sell a sheep. His manner was utterly prosaic, and up to the +last she thought he had not understood her. “But it’s money we offer +you,” she informed him, and then darted back to the study, believing +for one terrible moment that he had picked up the blank cheque. When she +returned to the hall he had gone. He was walking down the road rather +quickly. At the corner he cleared his throat, spat into the gutter, and +disappeared. + +“There’s an odd finish,” she thought. She was puzzled, and determined to +recast the interview a little when she related it to Rickie. She had +not succeeded, for the paper was still unsigned. But she had so cowed +Stephen that he would probably rest content with his two hundred a-year, +and never come troubling them again. Clever management, for one knew +him to be rapacious: she had heard tales of him lending to the poor +and exacting repayment to the uttermost farthing. He had also stolen at +school. Moderately triumphant, she hurried into the side-garden: she had +just remembered Ansell: she, not Rickie, had received his card. + +“Oh, Mr. Ansell!” she exclaimed, awaking him from some day-dream. +“Haven’t either Rickie or Herbert been out to you? Now, do come into +dinner, to show you aren’t offended. You will find all of us assembled +in the boys’ dining-hall.” + +To her annoyance he accepted. + +“That is, if the Jacksons are not expecting you.” + +The Jacksons did not matter. If he might brush his clothes and bathe his +lip, he would like to come. + +“Oh, what has happened to you? And oh, my pretty lobelias!” + +He replied, “A momentary contact with reality,” and she, who did not +look for sense in his remarks, hurried away to the dining-hall to +announce him. + +The dining-hall was not unlike the preparation room. There was the +same parquet floor, and dado of shiny pitchpine. On its walls also +were imperial portraits, and over the harmonium to which they sang the +evening hymns was spread the Union Jack. Sunday dinner, the most pompous +meal of the week, was in progress. Her brother sat at the head of the +high table, her husband at the head of the second. To each he gave a +reassuring nod and went to her own seat, which was among the junior +boys. The beef was being carried out; she stopped it. “Mr. Ansell +is coming,” she called. “Herbert there is more room by you; sit up +straight, boys.” The boys sat up straight, and a respectful hush spread +over the room. + +“Here he is!” called Rickie cheerfully, taking his cue from his wife. +“Oh, this is splendid!” Ansell came in. “I’m so glad you managed this. +I couldn’t leave these wretches last night!” The boys tittered suitably. +The atmosphere seemed normal. Even Herbert, though longing to hear what +had happened to the blackmailer, gave adequate greeting to their guest: +“Come in, Mr. Ansell; come here. Take us as you find us!” + +“I understood,” said Stewart, “that I should find you all. Mrs. Elliot +told me I should. On that understanding I came.” + +It was at once evident that something had gone wrong. + +Ansell looked round the room carefully. Then clearing his throat and +ruffling his hair, he began--“I cannot see the man with whom I have +talked, intimately, for an hour, in your garden.” + +The worst of it was they were all so far from him and from each other, +each at the end of a tableful of inquisitive boys. The two masters +looked at Agnes for information, for her reassuring nod had not told +them much. She looked hopelessly back. + +“I cannot see this man,” repeated Ansell, who remained by the harmonium +in the midst of astonished waitresses. “Is he to be given no lunch?” + +Herbert broke the silence by fresh greetings. Rickie knew that the +contest was lost, and that his friend had sided with the enemy. It was +the kind of thing he would do. One must face the catastrophe quietly +and with dignity. Perhaps Ansell would have turned on his heel, and left +behind him only vague suspicions, if Mrs. Elliot had not tried to talk +him down. “Man,” she cried--“what man? Oh, I know--terrible bore! Did +he get hold of you?”--thus committing their first blunder, and causing +Ansell to say to Rickie, “Have you seen your brother?” + +“I have not.” + +“Have you been told he was here?” + +Rickie’s answer was inaudible. + +“Have you been told you have a brother?” + +“Let us continue this conversation later.” + +“Continue it? My dear man, how can we until you know what I’m talking +about? You must think me mad; but I tell you solemnly that you have a +brother of whom you’ve never heard, and that he was in this house ten +minutes ago.” He paused impressively. “Your wife has happened to see +him first. Being neither serious nor truthful, she is keeping you apart, +telling him some lie and not telling you a word.” + +There was a murmur of alarm. One of the prefects rose, and Ansell set +his back to the wall, quite ready for a battle. For two years he had +waited for his opportunity. He would hit out at Mrs. Elliot like +any ploughboy now that it had come. Rickie said: “There is a slight +misunderstanding. I, like my wife, have known what there is to know for +two years”--a dignified rebuff, but their second blunder. + +“Exactly,” said Agnes. “Now I think Mr. Ansell had better go.” + +“Go?” exploded Ansell. “I’ve everything to say yet. I beg your pardon, +Mrs. Elliot, I am concerned with you no longer. This man”--he turned +to the avenue of faces--“this man who teaches you has a brother. He has +known of him two years and been ashamed. He has--oh--oh--how it fits +together! Rickie, it’s you, not Mrs. Silt, who must have sent tales of +him to your aunt. It’s you who’ve turned him out of Cadover. It’s you +who’ve ordered him to be ruined today.” + +Now Herbert arose. “Out of my sight, sir! But have it from me first that +Rickie and his aunt have both behaved most generously. No, no, Agnes, +I’ll not be interrupted. Garbled versions must not get about. If the +Wonham man is not satisfied now, he must be insatiable. He cannot levy +blackmail on us for ever. Sir, I give you two minutes; then you will be +expelled by force.” + +“Two minutes!” sang Ansell. “I can say a great deal in that.” He put +one foot on a chair and held his arms over the quivering room. He seemed +transfigured into a Hebrew prophet passionate for satire and the truth. +“Oh, keep quiet for two minutes,” he cried, “and I’ll tell you something +you’ll be glad to hear. You’re a little afraid Stephen may come back. +Don’t be afraid. I bring good news. You’ll never see him nor any one +like him again. I must speak very plainly, for you are all three +fools. I don’t want you to say afterwards, ‘Poor Mr. Ansell tried to be +clever.’ Generally I don’t mind, but I should mind today. Please listen. +Stephen is a bully; he drinks; he knocks one down; but he would sooner +die than take money from people he did not love. Perhaps he will die, +for he has nothing but a few pence that the poor gave him and some +tobacco which, to my eternal glory, he accepted from me. Please listen +again. Why did he come here? Because he thought you would love him, and +was ready to love you. But I tell you, don’t be afraid. He would sooner +die now than say you were his brother. Please listen again--” + +“Now, Stewart, don’t go on like that,” said Rickie bitterly. “It’s easy +enough to preach when you are an outsider. You would be more +charitable if such a thing had happened to yourself. Easy enough to be +unconventional when you haven’t suffered and know nothing of the facts. +You love anything out of the way, anything queer, that doesn’t often +happen, and so you get excited over this. It’s useless, my dear man; +you have hurt me, but you will never upset me. As soon as you stop this +ridiculous scene we will finish our dinner. Spread this scandal; add +to it. I’m too old to mind such nonsense. I cannot help my father’s +disgrace, on the one hand; nor, on the other, will I have anything to do +with his blackguard of a son.” + +So the secret was given to the world. Agnes might colour at his speech; +Herbert might calculate the effect of it on the entries for Dunwood +House; but he cared for none of these things. Thank God! he was withered +up at last. + +“Please listen again,” resumed Ansell. “Please correct two slight +mistakes: firstly, Stephen is one of the greatest people I have ever +met; secondly, he’s not your father’s son. He’s the son of your mother.” + +It was Rickie, not Ansell, who was carried from the hall, and it was +Herbert who pronounced the blessing-- + +“Benedicto benedicatur.” + +A profound stillness succeeded the storm, and the boys, slipping away +from their meal, told the news to the rest of the school, or put it in +the letters they were writing home. + + + +XXVIII + +The soul has her own currency. She mints her spiritual coinage and +stamps it with the image of some beloved face. With it she pays her +debts, with it she reckons, saying, “This man has worth, this man is +worthless.” And in time she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a +thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can also have her bankruptcies. + +Perhaps she will be the richer in the end. In her agony she learns to +reckon clearly. Fair as the coin may have been, it was not accurate; and +though she knew it not, there were treasures that it could not buy. The +face, however beloved, was mortal, and as liable as the soul herself to +err. We do but shift responsibility by making a standard of the dead. + +There is, indeed, another coinage that bears on it not man’s image but +God’s. It is incorruptible, and the soul may trust it safely; it will +serve her beyond the stars. But it cannot give us friends, or the +embrace of a lover, or the touch of children, for with our fellow +mortals it has no concern. It cannot even give the joys we call +trivial--fine weather, the pleasures of meat and drink, bathing and the +hot sand afterwards, running, dreamless sleep. Have we learnt the true +discipline of a bankruptcy if we turn to such coinage as this? Will it +really profit us so much if we save our souls and lose the whole world? + + + + +PART 3 -- WILTSHIRE + +XXIX + +Robert--there is no occasion to mention his surname: he was a young +farmer of some education who tried to coax the aged soil of Wiltshire +scientifically--came to Cadover on business and fell in love with Mrs. +Elliot. She was there on her bridal visit, and he, an obscure nobody, +was received by Mrs. Failing into the house and treated as her social +equal. He was good-looking in a bucolic way, and people sometimes +mistook him for a gentleman until they saw his hands. He discovered +this, and one of the slow, gentle jokes he played on society was to +talk upon some cultured subject with his hands behind his back and then +suddenly reveal them. “Do you go in for boating?” the lady would ask; +and then he explained that those particular weals are made by the +handles of the plough. Upon which she became extremely interested, but +found an early opportunity of talking to some one else. + +He played this joke on Mrs. Elliot the first evening, not knowing that +she observed him as he entered the room. He walked heavily, lifting his +feet as if the carpet was furrowed, and he had no evening clothes. Every +one tried to put him at his ease, but she rather suspected that he was +there already, and envied him. They were introduced, and spoke of Byron, +who was still fashionable. Out came his hands--the only rough hands in +the drawing-room, the only hands that had ever worked. She was filled +with some strange approval, and liked him. + +After dinner they met again, to speak not of Byron but of manure. The +other people were so clever and so amusing that it relieved her to +listen to a man who told her three times not to buy artificial manure +ready made, but, if she would use it, to make it herself at the last +moment. Because the ammonia evaporated. Here were two packets of powder. +Did they smell? No. Mix them together and pour some coffee--An appalling +smell at once burst forth, and every one began to cough and cry. This +was good for the earth when she felt sour, for he knew when the earth +was ill. He knew, too, when she was hungry he spoke of her tantrums--the +strange unscientific element in her that will baffle the scientist to +the end of time. “Study away, Mrs. Elliot,” he told her; “read all the +books you can get hold of; but when it comes to the point, stroll out +with a pipe in your mouth and do a bit of guessing.” As he talked, the +earth became a living being--or rather a being with a living skin,--and +manure no longer dirty stuff, but a symbol of regeneration and of the +birth of life from life. “So it goes on for ever!” she cried excitedly. +He replied: “Not for ever. In time the fire at the centre will cool, and +nothing can go on then.” + +He advanced into love with open eyes, slowly, heavily, just as he had +advanced across the drawing room carpet. But this time the bride did not +observe his tread. She was listening to her husband, and trying not to +be so stupid. When he was close to her--so close that it was difficult +not to take her in his arms--he spoke to Mr. Failing, and was at once +turned out of Cadover. + +“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Failing, as he walked down the drive with his hand +on his guest’s shoulder. “I had no notion you were that sort. Any one +who behaves like that has to stop at the farm.” + +“Any one?” + +“Any one.” He sighed heavily, not for any personal grievance, but +because he saw how unruly, how barbaric, is the soul of man. After all, +this man was more civilized than most. + +“Are you angry with me, sir?” He called him “sir,” not because he was +richer or cleverer or smarter, not because he had helped to educate him +and had lent him money, but for a reason more profound--for the reason +that there are gradations in heaven. + +“I did think you--that a man like you wouldn’t risk making people +unhappy. My sister-in-law--I don’t say this to stop you loving her; +something else must do that--my sister-in-law, as far as I know, doesn’t +care for you one little bit. If you had said anything, if she had +guessed that a chance person was in--this fearful state, you would +simply--have opened hell. A woman of her sort would have lost all--” + +“I knew that.” + +Mr. Failing removed his hand. He was displeased. + +“But something here,” said Robert incoherently. “This here.” He struck +himself heavily on the heart. “This here, doing something so unusual, +makes it not matter what she loses--I--” After a silence he asked, “Have +I quite followed you, sir, in that business of the brotherhood of man?” + +“How do you mean?” + +“I thought love was to bring it about.” + +“Love of another man’s wife? Sensual love? You have understood +nothing--nothing.” Then he was ashamed, and cried, “I understand nothing +myself.” For he remembered that sensual and spiritual are not easy words +to use; that there are, perhaps, not two Aphrodites, but one Aphrodite +with a Janus face. “I only understand that you must try to forget her.” + +“I will not try.” + +“Promise me just this, then--not to do anything crooked.” + +“I’m straight. No boasting, but I couldn’t do a crooked thing--No, not +if I tried.” + +And so appallingly straight was he in after years, that Mr. Failing +wished that he had phrased the promise differently. + +Robert simply waited. He told himself that it was hopeless; but +something deeper than himself declared that there was hope. He gave up +drink, and kept himself in all ways clean, for he wanted to be worthy +of her when the time came. Women seemed fond of him, and caused him to +reflect with pleasure, “They do run after me. There must be something in +me. Good. I’d be done for if there wasn’t.” For six years he turned up +the earth of Wiltshire, and read books for the sake of his mind, and +talked to gentlemen for the sake of their patois, and each year he rode +to Cadover to take off his hat to Mrs. Elliot, and, perhaps, to speak +to her about the crops. Mr. Failing was generally present, and it struck +neither man that those dull little visits were so many words out of +which a lonely woman might build sentences. Then Robert went to London +on business. He chanced to see Mr. Elliot with a strange lady. The time +had come. + +He became diplomatic, and called at Mr. Elliot’s rooms to find things +out. For if Mrs. Elliot was happier than he could ever make her, he +would withdraw, and love her in renunciation. But if he could make her +happier, he would love her in fulfilment. Mr. Elliot admitted him as a +friend of his brother-in-law’s, and felt very broad-minded as he did +so. Robert, however, was a success. The youngish men there found him +interesting, and liked to shock him with tales of naughty London and +naughtier Paris. They spoke of “experience” and “sensations” and “seeing +life,” and when a smile ploughed over his face, concluded that his +prudery was vanquished. He saw that they were much less vicious than +they supposed: one boy had obviously read his sensations in a book. But +he could pardon vice. What he could not pardon was triviality, and he +hoped that no decent woman could pardon it either. There grew up in him +a cold, steady anger against these silly people who thought it advanced +to be shocking, and who described, as something particularly choice and +educational, things that he had understood and fought against for years. +He inquired after Mrs. Elliot, and a boy tittered. It seemed that she +“did not know,” that she lived in a remote suburb, taking care of a +skinny baby. “I shall call some time or other,” said Robert. “Do,” said +Mr. Elliot, smiling. And next time he saw his wife he congratulated her +on her rustic admirer. + +She had suffered terribly. She had asked for bread, and had been given +not even a stone. People talk of hungering for the ideal, but there is +another hunger, quite as divine, for facts. She had asked for facts +and had been given “views,” “emotional standpoints,” “attitudes towards +life.” To a woman who believed that facts are beautiful, that the living +world is beautiful beyond the laws of beauty, that manure is neither +gross nor ludicrous, that a fire, not eternal, glows at the heart of +the earth, it was intolerable to be put off with what the Elliots called +“philosophy,” and, if she refused, to be told that she had no sense of +humour. “Tarrying into the Elliot family.” It had sounded so splendid, +for she was a penniless child with nothing to offer, and the Elliots +held their heads high. For what reason? What had they ever done, except +say sarcastic things, and limp, and be refined? Mr. Failing suffered +too, but she suffered more, inasmuch as Frederick was more impossible +than Emily. He did not like her, he practically lived apart, he was not +even faithful or polite. These were grave faults, but they were human +ones: she could even imagine them in a man she loved. What she could +never love was a dilettante. + +Robert brought her an armful of sweet-peas. He laid it on the table, +put his hands behind his back, and kept them there till the end of the +visit. She knew quite well why he had come, and though she also knew +that he would fail, she loved him too much to snub him or to stare in +virtuous indignation. “Why have you come?” she asked gravely, “and why +have you brought me so many flowers?” + +“My garden is full of them,” he answered. “Sweetpeas need picking down. +And, generally speaking, flowers are plentiful in July.” + +She broke his present into bunches--so much for the drawing-room, so +much for the nursery, so much for the kitchen and her husband’s room: +he would be down for the night. The most beautiful she would keep for +herself. Presently he said, “Your husband is no good. I’ve watched him +for a week. I’m thirty, and not what you call hasty, as I used to be, +or thinking that nothing matters like the French. No. I’m a plain +Britisher, yet--I--I’ve begun wrong end, Mrs. Elliot; I should have said +that I’ve thought chiefly of you for six years, and that though I talk +here so respectfully, if I once unhooked my hands--” + +There was a pause. Then she said with great sweetness, “Thank you; I am +glad you love me,” and rang the bell. + +“What have you done that for?” he cried. + +“Because you must now leave the house, and never enter it again.” + +“I don’t go alone,” and he began to get furious. + +Her voice was still sweet, but strength lay in it too, as she said, +“You either go now with my thanks and blessing, or else you go with +the police. I am Mrs. Elliot. We need not discuss Mr. Elliot. I am Mrs. +Elliot, and if you make one step towards me I give you in charge.” + +But the maid answered the bell not of the drawing-room, but of the front +door. They were joined by Mr. Elliot, who held out his hand with much +urbanity. It was not taken. He looked quickly at his wife, and said, “Am +I de trop?” There was a long silence. At last she said, “Frederick, turn +this man out.” + +“My love, why?” + +Robert said that he loved her. + +“Then I am de trop,” said Mr. Elliot, smoothing out his gloves. He would +give these sodden barbarians a lesson. “My hansom is waiting at the +door. Pray make use of it.” + +“Don’t!” she cried, almost affectionately. “Dear Frederick, it isn’t a +play. Just tell this man to go, or send for the police.” + +“On the contrary; it is French comedy of the best type. Don’t you agree, +sir, that the police would be an inartistic error?” He was perfectly +calm and collected, whereas they were in a pitiable state. + +“Turn him out at once!” she cried. “He has insulted your wife. Save me, +save me!” She clung to her husband and wept. “He was going I had managed +him--he would never have known--” Mr. Elliot repulsed her. + +“If you don’t feel inclined to start at once,” he said with easy +civility, “Let us have a little tea. My dear sir, do forgive me for not +shooting you. Nous avons change tout cela. Please don’t look so nervous. +Please do unclasp your hands--” + +He was alone. + +“That’s all right,” he exclaimed, and strolled to the door. The hansom +was disappearing round the corner. “That’s all right,” he repeated in +more quavering tones as he returned to the drawing-room and saw that it +was littered with sweet-peas. Their colour got on his nerves--magenta, +crimson; magenta, crimson. He tried to pick them up, and they escaped. +He trod them underfoot, and they multiplied and danced in the triumph +of summer like a thousand butterflies. The train had left when he got to +the station. He followed on to London, and there he lost all traces. +At midnight he began to realize that his wife could never belong to him +again. + +Mr. Failing had a letter from Stockholm. It was never known what impulse +sent them there. “I am sorry about it all, but it was the only way.” + The letter censured the law of England, “which obliges us to behave like +this, or else we should never get married. I shall come back to face +things: she will not come back till she is my wife. He must bring an +action soon, or else we shall try one against him. It seems all very +unconventional, but it is not really, it is only a difficult start. We +are not like you or your wife: we want to be just ordinary people, and +make the farm pay, and not be noticed all our lives.” + +And they were capable of living as they wanted. The class difference, +which so intrigued Mrs. Failing, meant very little to them. It was +there, but so were other things. + +They both cared for work and living in the open, and for not speaking +unless they had got something to say. Their love of beauty, like their +love for each other, was not dependent on detail: it grew not from the +nerves but from the soul. + +“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars +And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of +the wren, And the tree toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest, And the +running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven.” + +They had never read these lines, and would have thought them nonsense if +they had. They did not dissect--indeed they could not. But she, at all +events, divined that more than perfect health and perfect weather, more +than personal love, had gone to the making of those seventeen days. + +“Ordinary people!” cried Mrs. Failing on hearing the letter. At that +time she was young and daring. “Why, they’re divine! They’re forces of +Nature! They’re as ordinary as volcanoes. We all knew my brother was +disgusting, and wanted him to be blown to pieces, but we never thought +it would happen. Do look at the thing bravely, and say, as I do, that +they are guiltless in the sight of God.” + +“I think they are,” replied her husband. “But they are not guiltless in +the sight of man.” + +“You conventional!” she exclaimed in disgust. “What they have done means +misery not only for themselves but for others. For your brother, though +you will not think of him. For the little boy--did you think of him? And +perhaps for another child, who will have the whole world against him if +it knows. They have sinned against society, and you do not diminish +the misery by proving that society is bad or foolish. It is the saddest +truth I have yet perceived that the Beloved Republic”--here she took up +a book--“of which Swinburne speaks”--she put the book down--“will not +be brought about by love alone. It will approach with no flourish +of trumpets, and have no declaration of independence. Self-sacrifice +and--worse still--self-mutilation are the things that sometimes help it +most, and that is why we should start for Stockholm this evening.” He +waited for her indignation to subside, and then continued. “I don’t know +whether it can be hushed up. I don’t yet know whether it ought to be +hushed up. But we ought to provide the opportunity. There is no scandal +yet. If we go, it is just possible there never will be any. We must talk +over the whole thing and--” + +“--And lie!” interrupted Mrs. Failing, who hated travel. + +“--And see how to avoid the greatest unhappiness.” + +There was to be no scandal. By the time they arrived Robert had been +drowned. Mrs. Elliot described how they had gone swimming, and how, +“since he always lived inland,” the great waves had tired him. They had +raced for the open sea. + +“What are your plans?” he asked. “I bring you a message from Frederick.” + +“I heard him call,” she continued, “but I thought he was laughing. When +I turned, it was too late. He put his hands behind his back and sank. +For he would only have drowned me with him. I should have done the +same.” + +Mrs. Failing was thrilled, and kissed her. But Mr. Failing knew that +life does not continue heroic for long, and he gave her the message from +her husband: Would she come back to him? + +To his intense astonishment--at first to his regret--she replied, “I +will think about it. If I loved him the very least bit I should say no. +If I had anything to do with my life I should say no. But it is simply +a question of beating time till I die. Nothing that is coming matters. I +may as well sit in his drawing-room and dust his furniture, since he has +suggested it.” + +And Mr. Elliot, though he made certain stipulations, was positively glad +to see her. People had begun to laugh at him, and to say that his wife +had run away. She had not. She had been with his sister in Sweden. In +a half miraculous way the matter was hushed up. Even the Silts only +scented “something strange.” When Stephen was born, it was abroad. When +he came to England, it was as the child of a friend of Mr. Failing’s. +Mrs. Elliot returned unsuspected to her husband. + +But though things can be hushed up, there is no such thing as beating +time; and as the years passed she realized her terrible mistake. When +her lover sank, eluding her last embrace, she thought, as Agnes was to +think after her, that her soul had sunk with him, and that never again +should she be capable of earthly love. Nothing mattered. She might as +well go and be useful to her husband and to the little boy who looked +exactly like him, and who, she thought, was exactly like him in +disposition. Then Stephen was born, and altered her life. She could +still love people passionately; she still drew strength from the heroic +past. Yet, to keep to her bond, she must see this son only as a +stranger. She was protected be the conventions, and must pay them their +fee. And a curious thing happened. Her second child drew her towards her +first. She began to love Rickie also, and to be more than useful to him. +And as her love revived, so did her capacity for suffering. Life, more +important, grew more bitter. She minded her husband more, not less; and +when at last he died, and she saw a glorious autumn, beautiful with the +voices of boys who should call her mother, the end came for her as well, +before she could remember the grave in the alien north and the dust that +would never return to the dear fields that had given it. + + + +XXX + +Stephen, the son of these people, had one instinct that troubled him. +At night--especially out of doors--it seemed rather strange that he was +alive. The dry grass pricked his cheek, the fields were invisible and +mute, and here was he, throwing stones at the darkness or smoking a +pipe. The stones vanished, the pipe would burn out. But he would be here +in the morning when the sun rose, and he would bathe, and run in the +mist. He was proud of his good circulation, and in the morning it seemed +quite natural. But at night, why should there be this difference between +him and the acres of land that cooled all round him until the sun +returned? What lucky chance had heated him up, and sent him, warm and +lovable, into a passive world? He had other instincts, but these gave +him no trouble. He simply gratified each as it occurred, provided he +could do so without grave injury to his fellows. But the instinct to +wonder at the night was not to be thus appeased. At first he had lived +under the care of Mr. Failing the only person to whom his mother spoke +freely, the only person who had treated her neither as a criminal nor as +a pioneer. In their rare but intimate conversations she had asked him to +educate her son. “I will teach him Latin,” he answered. “The rest such +a boy must remember.” Latin, at all events, was a failure: who could +attend to Virgil when the sound of the thresher arose, and you knew +that the stack was decreasing and that rats rushed more plentifully each +moment to their doom? But he was fond of Mr. Failing, and cried when he +died. Mrs. Elliot, a pleasant woman, died soon after. + +There was something fatal in the order of these deaths. Mr. Failing had +made no provision for the boy in his will: his wife had promised to +see to this. Then came Mr. Elliot’s death, and, before the new home +was created, the sudden death of Mrs. Elliot. She also left Stephen no +money: she had none to leave. Chance threw him into the power of Mrs. +Failing. “Let things go on as they are,” she thought. “I will take care +of this pretty little boy, and the ugly little boy can live with the +Silts. After my death--well, the papers will be found after my death, +and they can meet then. I like the idea of their mutual ignorance. It is +amusing.” + +He was then twelve. With a few brief intervals of school, he lived in +Wiltshire until he was driven out. Life had two distinct sides--the +drawing-room and the other. In the drawing-room people talked a good +deal, laughing as they talked. Being clever, they did not care for +animals: one man had never seen a hedgehog. In the other life people +talked and laughed separately, or even did neither. On the whole, in +spite of the wet and gamekeepers, this life was preferable. He knew +where he was. He glanced at the boy, or later at the man, and behaved +accordingly. There was no law--the policeman was negligible. Nothing +bound him but his own word, and he gave that sparingly. + +It is impossible to be romantic when you have your heart’s desire, and +such a boy disappointed Mrs. Failing greatly. His parents had met for +one brief embrace, had found one little interval between the power of +the rulers of this world and the power of death. He was the child of +poetry and of rebellion, and poetry should run in his veins. But he +lived too near the things he loved to seem poetical. Parted from them, +he might yet satisfy her, and stretch out his hands with a pagan’s +yearning. As it was, he only rode her horses, and trespassed, and +bathed, and worked, for no obvious reason, upon her fields. Affection +she did not believe in, and made no attempt to mould him; and he, for +his part, was very content to harden untouched into a man. His parents +had given him excellent gifts--health, sturdy limbs, and a face not +ugly,--gifts that his habits confirmed. They had also given him a +cloudless spirit--the spirit of the seventeen days in which he was +created. But they had not given him the spirit of their sit years of +waiting, and love for one person was never to be the greatest thing he +knew. + +“Philosophy” had postponed the quarrel between them. Incurious about his +personal origin, he had a certain interest in our eternal problems. The +interest never became a passion: it sprang out of his physical growth, +and was soon merged in it again. Or, as he put it himself, “I must get +fixed up before starting.” He was soon fixed up as a materialist. Then +he tore up the sixpenny reprints, and never amused Mrs. Failing so much +again. + +About the time he fixed himself up, he took to drink. He knew of no +reason against it. The instinct was in him, and it hurt nobody. Here, as +elsewhere, his motions were decided, and he passed at once from roaring +jollity to silence. For those who live on the fuddled borderland, who +crawl home by the railings and maunder repentance in the morning, he had +a biting contempt. A man must take his tumble and his headache. He was, +in fact, as little disgusting as is conceivable; and hitherto he had not +strained his constitution or his will. Nor did he get drunk as often as +Agnes suggested. The real quarrel gathered elsewhere. + + +Presentable people have run wild in their youth. But the hour comes when +they turn from their boorish company to higher things. This hour never +came for Stephen. Somewhat a bully by nature, he kept where his powers +would tell, and continued to quarrel and play with the men he had known +as boys. He prolonged their youth unduly. “They won’t settle down,” said +Mr. Wilbraham to his wife. “They’re wanting things. It’s the germ of +a Trades Union. I shall get rid of a few of the worst.” Then Stephen +rushed up to Mrs. Failing and worried her. “It wasn’t fair. So-and-so +was a good sort. He did his work. Keen about it? No. Why should he be? +Why should he be keen about somebody else’s land? But keen enough. And +very keen on football.” She laughed, and said a word about So-and-so +to Mr. Wilbraham. Mr. Wilbraham blazed up. “How could the farm go +on without discipline? How could there be discipline if Mr. Stephen +interfered? Mr. Stephen liked power. He spoke to the men like one of +themselves, and pretended it was all equality, but he took care to come +out top. Natural, of course, that, being a gentleman, he should. But +not natural for a gentleman to loiter all day with poor people and learn +their work, and put wrong notions into their heads, and carry their +newfangled grievances to Mrs. Failing. Which partly accounted for the +deficit on the past year.” She rebuked Stephen. Then he lost his temper, +was rude to her, and insulted Mr. Wilbraham. + +The worst days of Mr. Failing’s rule seemed to be returning. And Stephen +had a practical experience, and also a taste for battle, that her +husband had never possessed. He drew up a list of grievances, some +absurd, others fundamental. No newspapers in the reading-room, you +could put a plate under the Thompsons’ door, no level cricket-pitch, +no allotments and no time to work in them, Mrs. Wilbraham’s knife-boy +underpaid. “Aren’t you a little unwise?” she asked coldly. “I am more +bored than you think over the farm.” She was wanting to correct the +proofs of the book and rewrite the prefatory memoir. In her irritation +she wrote to Agnes. Agnes replied sympathetically, and Mrs. Failing, +clever as she was, fell into the power of the younger woman. They +discussed him at first as a wretch of a boy; then he got drunk and +somehow it seemed more criminal. All that she needed now was a personal +grievance, which Agnes casually supplied. Though vindictive, she was +determined to treat him well, and thought with satisfaction of our +distant colonies. But he burst into an odd passion: he would sooner +starve than leave England. “Why?” she asked. “Are you in love?” He +picked up a lump of the chalk-they were by the arbour--and made no +answer. The vicar murmured, “It is not like going abroad--Greater +Britain--blood is thicker than water--” A lump of chalk broke her +drawing-room window on the Saturday. + +Thus Stephen left Wiltshire, half-blackguard, half-martyr. Do not brand +him as a socialist. He had no quarrel with society, nor any particular +belief in people because they are poor. He only held the creed of “here +am I and there are you,” and therefore class distinctions were trivial +things to him, and life no decorous scheme, but a personal combat or a +personal truce. For the same reason ancestry also was trivial, and a man +not the dearer because the same woman was mother to them both. Yet it +seemed worth while to go to Sawston with the news. Perhaps nothing would +come of it; perhaps friendly intercourse, and a home while he looked +around. + +When they wronged him he walked quietly away. He never thought of +allotting the blame, nor or appealing to Ansell, who still sat brooding +in the side-garden. He only knew that educated people could be horrible, +and that a clean liver must never enter Dunwood House again. The air +seemed stuffy. He spat in the gutter. Was it yesterday he had lain in +the rifle-butts over Salisbury? Slightly aggrieved, he wondered why he +was not back there now. “I ought to have written first,” he reflected. +“Here is my money gone. I cannot move. The Elliots have, as it were, +practically robbed me.” That was the only grudge he retained against +them. Their suspicions and insults were to him as the curses of a tramp +whom he passed by the wayside. They were dirty people, not his sort. He +summed up the complicated tragedy as a “take in.” + +While Rickie was being carried upstairs, and while Ansell (had he known +it) was dashing about the streets for him, he lay under a railway arch +trying to settle his plans. He must pay back the friends who had given +him shillings and clothes. He thought of Flea, whose Sundays he was +spoiling--poor Flea, who ought to be in them now, shining before his +girl. “I daresay he’ll be ashamed and not go to see her, and then she’ll +take the other man.” He was also very hungry. That worm Mrs. Elliot +would be through her lunch by now. Trying his braces round him, and +tearing up those old wet documents, he stepped forth to make money. A +villainous young brute he looked: his clothes were dirty, and he had +lost the spring of the morning. Touching the walls, frowning, talking to +himself at times, he slouched disconsolately northwards; no wonder that +some tawdry girls screamed at him, or that matrons averted their eyes +as they hurried to afternoon church. He wandered from one suburb to +another, till he was among people more villainous than himself, who +bought his tobacco from him and sold him food. Again the neighbourhood +“went up,” and families, instead of sitting on their doorsteps, would +sit behind thick muslin curtains. Again it would “go down” into a more +avowed despair. Far into the night he wandered, until he came to a +solemn river majestic as a stream in hell. Therein were gathered +the waters of Central England--those that flow off Hindhead, off the +Chilterns, off Wiltshire north of the Plain. Therein they were made +intolerable ere they reached the sea. But the waters he had known +escaped. Their course lay southward into the Avon by forests and +beautiful fields, even swift, even pure, until they mirrored the tower +of Christchurch and greeted the ramparts of the Isle of Wight. Of these +he thought for a moment as he crossed the black river and entered the +heart of the modern world. Here he found employment. He was not hampered +by genteel traditions, and, as it was near quarter-day, managed to get +taken on at a furniture warehouse. He moved people from the suburbs +to London, from London to the suburbs, from one suburb to another. His +companions were hurried and querulous. In particular, he loathed +the foreman, a pious humbug who allowed no swearing, but indulged in +something far more degraded--the Cockney repartee. The London intellect, +so pert and shallow, like a stream that never reaches the ocean, +disgusted him almost as much as the London physique, which for all +its dexterity is not permanent, and seldom continues into the third +generation. His father, had he known it, had felt the same; for between +Mr. Elliot and the foreman the gulf was social, not spiritual: both +spent their lives in trying to be clever. And Tony Failing had once put +the thing into words: “There’s no such thing as a Londoner. He’s only a +country man on the road to sterility.” + +At the end of ten days he had saved scarcely anything. Once he passed +the bank where a hundred pounds lay ready for him, but it was still +inconvenient for him to take them. Then duty sent him to a suburb not +very far from Sawston. In the evening a man who was driving a trap asked +him to hold it, and by mistake tipped him a sovereign. Stephen called +after him; but the man had a woman with him and wanted to show off, and +though he had meant to tip a shilling, and could not afford that, he +shouted back that his sovereign was as good as any one’s, and that if +Stephen did not think so he could do various things and go to various +places. On the action of this man much depends. Stephen changed the +sovereign into a postal order, and sent it off to the people at Cadford. +It did not pay them back, but it paid them something, and he felt that +his soul was free. + +A few shillings remained in his pocket. They would have paid his fare +towards Wiltshire, a good county; but what should he do there? Who +would employ him? Today the journey did not seem worth while. “Tomorrow, +perhaps,” he thought, and determined to spend the money on pleasure of +another kind. Two-pence went for a ride on an electric tram. From the +top he saw the sun descend--a disc with a dark red edge. The same sun +was descending over Salisbury intolerably bright. Out of the golden haze +the spire would be piercing, like a purple needle; then mists arose from +the Avon and the other streams. Lamps flickered, but in the outer purity +the villages were already slumbering. Salisbury is only a Gothic upstart +beside these. For generations they have come down to her to buy or to +worship, and have found in her the reasonable crisis of their lives; +but generations before she was built they were clinging to the soil, and +renewing it with sheep and dogs and men, who found the crisis of their +lives upon Stonehenge. The blood of these men ran in Stephen; the vigour +they had won for him was as yet untarnished; out on those downs they had +united with rough women to make the thing he spoke of as “himself”; the +last of them has rescued a woman of a different kind from streets and +houses such as these. As the sun descended he got off the tram with a +smile of expectation. A public-house lay opposite, and a boy in a dirty +uniform was already lighting its enormous lamp. His lips parted, and he +went in. + +Two hours later, when Rickie and Herbert were going the rounds, a brick +came crashing at the study window. Herbert peered into the garden, and a +hooligan slipped by him into the house, wrecked the hall, lurched up the +stairs, fell against the banisters, balanced for a moment on his spine, +and slid over. Herbert called for the police. Rickie, who was upon the +landing, caught the man by the knees and saved his life. + +“What is it?” cried Agnes, emerging. + +“It’s Stephen come back,” was the answer. “Hullo, Stephen!” + + + +XXXI + +Hither had Rickie moved in ten days--from disgust to penitence, from +penitence to longing from a life of horror to a new life, in which he +still surprised himself by unexpected words. Hullo, Stephen! For the son +of his mother had come back, to forgive him, as she would have done, to +live with him, as she had planned. + +“He’s drunk this time,” said Agnes wearily. She too had altered: the +scandal was ageing her, and Ansell came to the house daily. + +“Hullo, Stephen!” + +But Stephen was now insensible. + +“Stephen, you live here--” + +“Good gracious me!” interposed Herbert. “My advice is, that we all go to +bed. The less said the better while our nerves are in this state. Very +well, Rickie. Of course, Wonham sleeps the night if you wish.” They +carried the drunken mass into the spare room. A mass of scandal it +seemed to one of them, a symbol of redemption to the other. Neither +acknowledged it a man, who would answer them back after a few hours’ +rest. + +“Ansell thought he would never forgive me,” said Rickie. “For once he’s +wrong.” + +“Come to bed now, I think.” And as Rickie laid his hand on the sleeper’s +hair, he added, “You won’t do anything foolish, will you? You are still +in a morbid state. Your poor mother--Pardon me, dear boy; it is my turn +to speak out. You thought it was your father, and minded. It is your +mother. Surely you ought to mind more?” + +“I have been too far back,” said Rickie gently. “Ansell took me on a +journey that was even new to him. We got behind right and wrong, to a +place where only one thing matters--that the Beloved should rise from +the dead.” + +“But you won’t do anything rash?” + +“Why should I?” + +“Remember poor Agnes,” he stammered. “I--I am the first to acknowledge +that we might have pursued a different policy. But we are committed to +it now. It makes no difference whose son he is. I mean, he is the same +person. You and I and my sister stand or fall together. It was our +agreement from the first. I hope--No more of these distressing scenes +with her, there’s a dear fellow. I assure you they make my heart bleed.” + +“Things will quiet down now.” + +“To bed now; I insist upon that much.” + +“Very well,” said Rickie, and when they were in the passage, locked the +door from the outside. “We want no more muddles,” he explained. + +Mr. Pembroke was left examining the hall. The bust of Hermes was broken. +So was the pot of the palm. He could not go to bed without once more +sounding Rickie. “You’ll do nothing rash,” he called. “The notion of him +living here was, of course, a passing impulse. We three have adopted a +common policy.” + +“Now, you go away!” called a voice that was almost flippant. “I never +did belong to that great sect whose doctrine is that each one should +select--at least, I’m not going to belong to it any longer. Go away to +bed.” + +“A good night’s rest is what you need,” threatened Herbert, and retired, +not to find one for himself. + +But Rickie slept. The guilt of months and the remorse of the last ten +days had alike departed. He had thought that his life was poisoned, and +lo! it was purified. He had cursed his mother, and Ansell had replied, +“You may be right, but you stand too near to settle. Step backwards. +Pretend that it happened to me. Do you want me to curse my mother? +Now, step forward and see whether anything has changed.” Something had +changed. He had journeyed--as on rare occasions a man must--till he +stood behind right and wrong. On the banks of the grey torrent of life, +love is the only flower. A little way up the stream and a little way +down had Rickie glanced, and he knew that she whom he loved had risen +from the dead, and might rise again. “Come away--let them die out--let +them die out.” Surely that dream was a vision! To-night also he hurried +to the window--to remember, with a smile, that Orion is not among the +stars of June. + +“Let me die out. She will continue,” he murmured, and in making plans +for Stephen’s happiness, fell asleep. + +Next morning after breakfast he announced that his brother must live +at Dunwood House. They were awed by the very moderation of his tone. +“There’s nothing else to be done. Cadover’s hopeless, and a boy of those +tendencies can’t go drifting. There is also the question of a profession +for him, and his allowance.” + +“We have to thank Mr. Ansell for this,” was all that Agnes could say; +and “I foresee disaster,” was the contribution of Herbert. + +“There’s plenty of money about,” Rickie continued. “Quite a man’s-worth +too much. It has been one of our absurdities. Don’t look so sad, +Herbert. I’m sorry for you people, but he’s sure to let us down easy.” + For his experience of drunkards and of Stephen was small. + +He supposed that he had come without malice to renew the offer of ten +days ago. + +“It is the end of Dunwood House.” + +Rickie nodded, and hoped not. Agnes, who was not looking well, began to +cry. “Oh, it is too bad,” she complained, “when I’ve saved you from him +all these years.” But he could not pity her, nor even sympathize with +her wounded delicacy. The time for such nonsense was over. He would take +his share of the blame: it was cant to assume it all. + +Perhaps he was over-hard. He did not realize how large his share was, +nor how his very virtues were to blame for her deterioration. “If I had +a girl, I’d keep her in line,” is not the remark of a fool nor of a cad. +Rickie had not kept his wife in line. He had shown her all the workings +of his soul, mistaking this for love; and in consequence she was the +worse woman after two years of marriage, and he, on this morning of +freedom, was harder upon her than he need have been. + +The spare room bell rang. Herbert had a painful struggle between +curiosity and duty, for the bell for chapel was ringing also, and he +must go through the drizzle to school. He promised to come up in the +interval, Rickie, who had rapped his head that Sunday on the edge of +the table, was still forbidden to work. Before him a quiet morning lay. +Secure of his victory, he took the portrait of their mother in his hand +and walked leisurely upstairs. The bell continued to ring. + +“See about his breakfast,” he called to Agnes, who replied, “Very well.” + The handle of the spare room door was moving slowly. “I’m coming,” he +cried. The handle was still. He unlocked and entered, his heart full of +charity. + +But within stood a man who probably owned the world. + +Rickie scarcely knew him; last night he had seemed so colorless, no +negligible. In a few hours he had recaptured motion and passion and the +imprint of the sunlight and the wind. He stood, not consciously heroic, +with arms that dangled from broad stooping shoulders, and feet that +played with a hassock on the carpet. But his hair was beautiful against +the grey sky, and his eyes, recalling the sky unclouded, shot past the +intruder as if to some worthier vision. So intent was their gaze that +Rickie himself glanced backwards, only to see the neat passage and the +banisters at the top of the stairs. Then the lips beat together twice, +and out burst a torrent of amazing words. + +“Add it all up, and let me know how much. I’d sooner have died. It never +took me that way before. I must have broken pounds’ worth. If you’ll not +tell the police, I promise you shan’t lose, Mr. Elliot, I swear. But it +may be months before I send it. Everything is to be new. You’ve not to +be a penny out of pocket, do you see? Do let me go, this once again.” + +“What’s the trouble?” asked Rickie, as if they had been friends for +years. “My dear man, we’ve other things to talk about. Gracious me, what +a fuss! If you’d smashed the whole house I wouldn’t mind, so long as you +came back.” + +“I’d sooner have died,” gulped Stephen. + +“You did nearly! It was I who caught you. Never mind yesterday’s rag. +What can you manage for breakfast?” + +The face grew more angry and more puzzled. “Yesterday wasn’t a rag,” he +said without focusing his eyes. “I was drunk, but naturally meant it.” + +“Meant what?” + +“To smash you. Bad liquor did what Mrs. Elliot couldn’t. I’ve put myself +in the wrong. You’ve got me.” + +It was a poor beginning. + +“As I have got you,” said Rickie, controlling himself, “I want to have a +talk with you. There has been a ghastly mistake.” + +But Stephen, with a countryman’s persistency, continued on his own line. +He meant to be civil, but Rickie went cold round the mouth. For he had +not even been angry with them. Until he was drunk, they had been dirty +people--not his sort. Then the trivial injury recurred, and he had +reeled to smash them as he passed. “And I will pay for everything,” was +his refrain, with which the sighing of raindrops mingled. “You shan’t +lose a penny, if only you let me free.” + +“You’ll pay for my coffin if you talk like that any longer! Will you, +one, forgive my frightful behaviour; two, live with me?” For his only +hope was in a cheerful precision. + +Stephen grew more agitated. He thought it was some trick. + +“I was saying I made an unspeakable mistake. Ansell put me right, but it +was too late to find you. Don’t think I got off easily. Ansell doesn’t +spare one. And you’ve got to forgive me, to share my life, to share +my money.--I’ve brought you this photograph--I want it to be the first +thing you accept from me--you have the greater right--I know all the +story now. You know who it is?” + +“Oh yes; but I don’t want to drag all that in.” + +“It is only her wish if we live together. She was planning it when she +died.” + +“I can’t follow--because--to share your life? Did you know I called here +last Sunday week?” + +“Yes. But then I only knew half. I thought you were my father’s son.” + +Stephen’s anger and bewilderment were increasing. He stuttered. +“What--what’s the odds if you did?” + +“I hated my father,” said Rickie. “I loved my mother.” And never had the +phrases seemed so destitute of meaning. + +“Last Sunday week,” interrupted Stephen, his voice suddenly rising, +“I came to call on you. Not as this or that’s son. Not to fall on your +neck. Nor to live here. Nor--damn your dirty little mind! I meant to +say I didn’t come for money. Sorry. Sorry. I simply came as I was, and I +haven’t altered since.” + +“Yes--yet our mother--for me she has risen from the dead since then--I +know I was wrong--” + +“And where do I come in?” He kicked the hassock. “I haven’t risen from +the dead. I haven’t altered since last Sunday week. I’m--” He stuttered +again. He could not quite explain what he was. “The man towards +Andover--after all, he was having principles. But you’ve--” His voice +broke. “I mind it--I’m--I don’t alter--blackguard one week--live here +the next--I keep to one or the other--you’ve hurt something most badly +in me that I didn’t know was there.” + +“Don’t let us talk,” said Rickie. “It gets worse every minute. Simply +say you forgive me; shake hands, and have done with it.” + +“That I won’t. That I couldn’t. In fact, I don’t know what you mean.” + +Then Rickie began a new appeal--not to pity, for now he was in no mood +to whimper. For all its pathos, there was something heroic in this +meeting. “I warn you to stop here with me, Stephen. No one else in the +world will look after you. As far as I know, you have never been really +unhappy yet or suffered, as you should do, from your faults. Last night +you nearly killed yourself with drink. Never mind why I’m willing to +cure you. I am willing, and I warn you to give me the chance. Forgive me +or not, as you choose. I care for other things more.” + +Stephen looked at him at last, faintly approving. The offer was +ridiculous, but it did treat him as a man. + +“Let me tell you of a fault of mine, and how I was punished for it,” + continued Rickie. “Two years ago I behaved badly to you, up at the +Rings. No, even a few days before that. We went for a ride, and I +thought too much of other matters, and did not try to understand you. +Then came the Rings, and in the evening, when you called up to me most +kindly, I never answered. But the ride was the beginning. Ever since +then I have taken the world at second-hand. I have bothered less and +less to look it in the face--until not only you, but every one else has +turned unreal. Never Ansell: he kept away, and somehow saved himself. +But every one else. Do you remember in one of Tony Failing’s books, +‘Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days it really does +come back to you’? This had been true of my life; it will be equally +true of a drunkard’s, and I warn you to stop with me.” + +“I can’t stop after that cheque,” said Stephen more gently. “But I do +remember the ride. I was a bit bored myself.” + +Agnes, who had not been seeing to the breakfast, chose this moment to +call from the passage. “Of course he can’t stop,” she exclaimed. “For +better or worse, it’s settled. We’ve none of us altered since last +Sunday week.” + +“There you’re right, Mrs. Elliot!” he shouted, starting out of the +temperate past. “We haven’t altered.” With a rare flash of insight he +turned on Rickie. “I see your game. You don’t care about ME drinking, or +to shake MY hand. It’s some one else you want to cure--as it were, +that old photograph. You talk to me, but all the time you look at the +photograph.” He snatched it up. + +“I’ve my own ideas of good manners, and to look friends between the eyes +is one of them; and this”--he tore the photograph across “and this”--he +tore it again--“and these--” He flung the pieces at the man, who had +sunk into a chair. “For my part, I’m off.” + +Then Rickie was heroic no longer. Turning round in his chair, he covered +his face. The man was right. He did not love him, even as he had never +hated him. In either passion he had degraded him to be a symbol for the +vanished past. The man was right, and would have been lovable. He longed +to be back riding over those windy fields, to be back in those mystic +circles, beneath pure sky. Then they could have watched and helped and +taught each other, until the word was a reality, and the past not a torn +photograph, but Demeter the goddess rejoicing in the spring. Ah, if he +had seized those high opportunities! For they led to the highest of all, +the symbolic moment, which, if a man accepts, he has accepted life. + +The voice of Agnes, which had lured him then (“For my sake,” she had +whispered), pealed over him now in triumph. Abruptly it broke into sobs +that had the effect of rain. He started up. The anger had died out of +Stephen’s face, not for a subtle reason but because here was a woman, +near him, and unhappy. + +She tried to apologize, and brought on a fresh burst of tears. Something +had upset her. They heard her locking the door of her room. From that +moment their intercourse was changed. + +“Why does she keep crying today?” mused Rickie, as if he spoke to some +mutual friend. + +“I can make a guess,” said Stephen, and his heavy face flushed. + +“Did you insult her?” he asked feebly. + +“But who’s Gerald?” + +Rickie raised his hand to his mouth. + +“She looked at me as if she knew me, and then gasps ‘Gerald,’ and +started crying.” + +“Gerald is the name of some one she once knew.” + +“So I thought.” There was a long silence, in which they could hear a +piteous gulping cough. “Where is he now?” asked Stephen. + +“Dead.” + +“And then you--?” + +Rickie nodded. + +“Bad, this sort of thing.” + +“I didn’t know of this particular thing. She acted as if she had +forgotten him. Perhaps she had, and you woke him up. There are queer +tricks in the world. She is overstrained. She has probably been plotting +ever since you burst in last night.” + +“Against me?” + +“Yes.” + +Stephen stood irresolute. “I suppose you and she pulled together?” He +said at last. + +“Get away from us, man! I mind losing you. Yet it’s as well you don’t +stop.” + +“Oh, THAT’S out of the question,” said Stephen, brushing his cap. + +“If you’ve guessed anything, I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention it. +I’ve no right to ask, but I’d be obliged.” + +He nodded, and walked slowly along the landing and down the stairs. +Rickie accompanied him, and even opened the front door. It was as if +Agnes had absorbed the passion out of both of them. The suburb was now +wrapped in a cloud, not of its own making. Sigh after sigh passed along +its streets to break against dripping walls. The school, the houses +were hidden, and all civilization seemed in abeyance. Only the simplest +sounds, the simplest desires emerged. They agreed that this weather was +strange after such a sunset. + +“That’s a collie,” said Stephen, listening. + +“I wish you’d have some breakfast before starting.” + +“No food, thanks. But you know” He paused. “It’s all been a muddle, and +I’ve no objection to your coming along with me.” + +The cloud descended lower. + +“Come with me as a man,” said Stephen, already out in the mist. “Not as +a brother; who cares what people did years back? We’re alive together, +and the rest is cant. Here am I, Rickie, and there are you, a fair +wreck. They’ve no use for you here,--never had any, if the truth was +known,--and they’ve only made you beastly. This house, so to speak, has +the rot. It’s common-sense that you should come.” + +“Stephen, wait a minute. What do you mean?” + +“Wait’s what we won’t do,” said Stephen at the gate. + +“I must ask--” + +He did wait for a minute, and sobs were heard, faint, hopeless, +vindictive. Then he trudged away, and Rickie soon lost his colour and +his form. But a voice persisted, saying, “Come, I do mean it. Come; I +will take care of you, I can manage you.” + +The words were kind; yet it was not for their sake that Rickie plunged +into the impalpable cloud. In the voice he had found a surer guarantee. +Habits and sex may change with the new generation, features may alter +with the play of a private passion, but a voice is apart from these. It +lies nearer to the racial essence and perhaps to the divine; it can, at +all events, overleap one grave. + + + +XXXII + +Mr. Pembroke did not receive a clear account of what had happened when +he returned for the interval. His sister--he told her frankly--was +concealing something from him. She could make no reply. Had she gone +mad, she wondered. Hitherto she had pretended to love her husband. Why +choose such a moment for the truth? + +“But I understand Rickie’s position,” he told her. “It is an unbalanced +position, yet I understand it; I noted its approach while he was ill. +He imagines himself his brother’s keeper. Therefore we must make +concessions. We must negotiate.” The negotiations were still progressing +in November, the month during which this story draws to its close. + +“I understand his position,” he then told her. “It is both weak and +defiant. He is still with those Ansells. Read this letter, which thanks +me for his little stories. We sent them last month, you remember--such +of them as we could find. It seems that he fills up his time by writing: +he has already written a book.” + +She only gave him half her attention, for a beautiful wreath had just +arrived from the florist’s. She was taking it up to the cemetery: today +her child had been dead a year. + +“On the other hand, he has altered his will. Fortunately, he cannot +alter much. But I fear that what is not settled on you, will go. Should +I read what I wrote on this point, and also my minutes of the interview +with old Mr. Ansell, and the copy of my correspondence with Stephen +Wonham?” + +But her fly was announced. While he put the wreath in for her, she ran +for a moment upstairs. A few tears had come to her eyes. A scandalous +divorce would have been more bearable than this withdrawal. People +asked, “Why did her husband leave her?” and the answer came, “Oh, +nothing particular; he only couldn’t stand her; she lied and taught him +to lie; she kept him from the work that suited him, from his friends, +from his brother,--in a word, she tried to run him, which a man won’t +pardon.” A few tears; not many. To her, life never showed itself as a +classic drama, in which, by trying to advance our fortunes, we shatter +them. She had turned Stephen out of Wiltshire, and he fell like a +thunderbolt on Sawston and on herself. In trying to gain Mrs. Failing’s +money she had probably lost money which would have been her own. But +irony is a subtle teacher, and she was not the woman to learn from such +lessons as these. Her suffering was more direct. Three men had wronged +her; therefore she hated them, and, if she could, would do them harm. + +“These negotiations are quite useless,” she told Herbert when she +came downstairs. “We had much better bide our time. Tell me just about +Stephen Wonham, though.” + +He drew her into the study again. “Wonham is or was in Scotland, +learning to farm with connections of the Ansells: I believe the money +is to go towards setting him up. Apparently he is a hard worker. He also +drinks!” + +She nodded and smiled. “More than he did?” + +“My informant, Mr. Tilliard--oh, I ought not to have mentioned his name. +He is one of the better sort of Rickie’s Cambridge friends, and has been +dreadfully grieved at the collapse, but he does not want to be mixed up +in it. This autumn he was up in the Lowlands, close by, and very kindly +made a few unobtrusive inquiries for me. The man is becoming an habitual +drunkard.” + +She smiled again. Stephen had evoked her secret, and she hated him +more for that than for anything else that he had done. The poise of his +shoulders that morning--it was no more--had recalled Gerald. + +If only she had not been so tired! He had reminded her of the greatest +thing she had known, and to her cloudy mind this seemed degradation. She +had turned to him as to her lover; with a look, which a man of his type +understood, she had asked for his pity; for one terrible moment she +had desired to be held in his arms. Even Herbert was surprised when she +said, “I’m glad he drinks. I hope he’ll kill himself. A man like that +ought never to have been born.” + +“Perhaps the sins of the parents are visited on the children,” said +Herbert, taking her to the carriage. “Yet it is not for us to decide.” + +“I feel sure he will be punished. What right has he--” She broke off. +What right had he to our common humanity? It was a hard lesson for +any one to learn. For Agnes it was impossible. Stephen was illicit, +abnormal, worse than a man diseased. Yet she had turned to him: he had +drawn out the truth. + +“My dear, don’t cry,” said her brother, drawing up the windows. “I have +great hopes of Mr. Tilliard--the Silts have written--Mrs. Failing will +do what she can--” + +As she drove to the cemetery, her bitterness turned against Ansell, who +had kept her husband alive in the days after Stephen’s expulsion. If +he had not been there, Rickie would have renounced his mother and his +brother and all the outer world, troubling no one. The mystic, inherent +in him, would have prevailed. So Ansell himself had told her. And +Ansell, too, had sheltered the fugitives and given them money, and saved +them from the ludicrous checks that so often stop young men. But when +she reached the cemetery, and stood beside the tiny grave, all her +bitterness, all her hatred were turned against Rickie. + +“But he’ll come back in the end,” she thought. “A wife has only to wait. +What are his friends beside me? They too will marry. I have only to +wait. His book, like all that he has done, will fail. His brother is +drinking himself away. Poor aimless Rickie! I have only to keep civil. +He will come back in the end.” + +She had moved, and found herself close to the grave of Gerald. The +flowers she had planted after his death were dead, and she had not liked +to renew them. There lay the athlete, and his dust was as the little +child’s whom she had brought into the world with such hope, with such +pain. + + + +XXXIII + +That same day Rickie, feeling neither poor nor aimless, left the +Ansells’ for a night’s visit to Cadover. His aunt had invited him--why, +he could not think, nor could he think why he should refuse the +invitation. She could not annoy him now, and he was not vindictive. In +the dell near Madingley he had cried, “I hate no one,” in his ignorance. +Now, with full knowledge, he hated no one again. The weather was +pleasant, the county attractive, and he was ready for a little change. + +Maud and Stewart saw him off. Stephen, who was down for the holiday, +had been left with his chin on the luncheon table. He had wanted to come +also. Rickie pointed out that you cannot visit where you have broken the +windows. There was an argument--there generally was--and now the young +man had turned sulky. + +“Let him do what he likes,” said Ansell. “He knows more than we do. He +knows everything.” + +“Is he to get drunk?” Rickie asked. + +“Most certainly.” + +“And to go where he isn’t asked?” + +Maud, though liking a little spirit in a man, declared this to be +impossible. + +“Well, I wish you joy!” Rickie called, as the train moved away. “He +means mischief this evening. He told me piously that he felt it beating +up. Good-bye!” + +“But we’ll wait for you to pass,” they cried. For the Salisbury train +always backed out of the station and then returned, and the Ansell +family, including Stewart, took an incredible pleasure in seeing it do +this. + +The carriage was empty. Rickie settled himself down for his little +journey. First he looked at the coloured photographs. Then he read the +directions for obtaining luncheon-baskets, and felt the texture of the +cushions. Through the windows a signal-box interested him. Then he saw +the ugly little town that was now his home, and up its chief street the +Ansells’ memorable facade. The spirit of a genial comedy dwelt there. It +was so absurd, so kindly. The house was divided against itself and yet +stood. Metaphysics, commerce, social aspirations--all lived together in +harmony. Mr. Ansell had done much, but one was tempted to believe in a +more capricious power--the power that abstains from “nipping.” “One nips +or is nipped, and never knows beforehand,” quoted Rickie, and opened the +poems of Shelley, a man less foolish than you supposed. How pleasant +it was to read! If business worried him, if Stephen was noisy or Ansell +perverse, there still remained this paradise of books. It seemed as +if he had read nothing for two years. Then the train stopped for the +shunting, and he heard protests from minor officials who were working on +the line. They complained that some one who didn’t ought to, had mounted +on the footboard of the carriage. Stephen’s face appeared, convulsed +with laughter. With the action of a swimmer he dived in through the open +window, and fell comfortably on Rickie’s luggage and Rickie. He declared +it was the finest joke ever known. Rickie was not so sure. “You’ll be +run over next,” he said. “What did you do that for?” + +“I’m coming with you,” he giggled, rolling all that he could on to the +dusty floor. + +“Now, Stephen, this is too bad. Get up. We went into the whole question +yesterday.” + +“I know; and I settled we wouldn’t go into it again, spoiling my +holiday.” + +“Well, it’s execrable taste.” + +Now he was waving to the Ansells, and showing them a piece of soap: +it was all his luggage, and even that he abandoned, for he flung it at +Stewart’s lofty brow. + +“I can’t think what you’ve done it for. You know how strongly I felt.” + +Stephen replied that he should stop in the village; meet Rickie at the +lodge gates; that kind of thing. + +“It’s execrable taste,” he repeated, trying to keep grave. + +“Well, you did all you could,” he exclaimed with sudden sympathy. +“Leaving me talking to old Ansell, you might have thought you’d got your +way. I’ve as much taste as most chaps, but, hang it! your aunt isn’t the +German Emperor. She doesn’t own Wiltshire.” + +“You ass!” sputtered Rickie, who had taken to laugh at nonsense again. + +“No, she isn’t,” he repeated, blowing a kiss out of the window to +maidens. “Why, we started for Wiltshire on the wet morning!” + +“When Stewart found us at Sawston railway station?” He smiled happily. +“I never thought we should pull through.” + +“Well, we DIDN’T. We never did what we meant. It’s nonsense that I +couldn’t have managed you alone. I’ve a notion. Slip out after your +dinner this evening, and we’ll get thundering tight together.” + +“I’ve a notion I won’t.” + +“It’d do you no end of good. You’ll get to know people--shepherds, +carters--” He waved his arms vaguely, indicating democracy. “Then you’ll +sing.” + +“And then?” + +“Plop.” + +“Precisely.” + +“But I’ll catch you,” promised Stephen. “We shall carry you up the hill +to bed. In the morning you wake, have your row with old Em’ly, she kicks +you out, we meet--we’ll meet at the Rings!” He danced up and down the +carriage. Some one in the next carriage punched at the partition, and +when this happens, all lads with mettle know that they must punch the +partition back. + +“Thank you. I’ve a notion I won’t,” said Rickie when the noise had +subsided--subsided for a moment only, for the following conversation +took place to an accompaniment of dust and bangs. “Except as regards the +Rings. We will meet there.” + +“Then I’ll get tight by myself.” + +“No, you won’t.” + +“Yes, I will. I swore to do something special this evening. I feel like +it.” + +“In that case, I get out at the next station.” He was laughing, but +quite determined. Stephen had grown too dictatorial of late. The Ansells +spoilt him. “It’s bad enough having you there at all. Having you there +drunk is impossible. I’d sooner not visit my aunt than think, when I sat +with her, that you’re down in the village teaching her labourers to be +as beastly as yourself. Go if you will. But not with me.” + +“Why shouldn’t I have a good time while I’m young, if I don’t harm any +one?” said Stephen defiantly. + +“Need we discuss self.” + +“Oh, I can stop myself any minute I choose. I just say ‘I won’t’ to you +or any other fool, and I don’t.” + +Rickie knew that the boast was true. He continued, “There is also a +thing called Morality. You may learn in the Bible, and also from the +Greeks, that your body is a temple.” + +“So you said in your longest letter.” + +“Probably I wrote like a prig, for the reason that I have never been +tempted in this way; but surely it is wrong that your body should escape +you.” + +“I don’t follow,” he retorted, punching. + +“It isn’t right, even for a little time, to forget that you exist.” + +“I suppose you’ve never been tempted to go to sleep?” + +Just then the train passed through a coppice in which the grey +undergrowth looked no more alive than firewood. Yet every twig in it +was waiting for the spring. Rickie knew that the analogy was false, but +argument confused him, and he gave up this line of attack also. + +“Do be more careful over life. If your body escapes you in one thing, +why not in more? A man will have other temptations.” + +“You mean women,” said Stephen quietly, pausing for a moment in this +game. “But that’s absolutely different. That would be harming some one +else.” + +“Is that the only thing that keeps you straight?” + +“What else should?” And he looked not into Rickie, but past him, with +the wondering eyes of a child. Rickie nodded, and referred himself to +the window. + +He observed that the country was smoother and more plastic. The woods +had gone, and under a pale-blue sky long contours of earth were flowing, +and merging, rising a little to bear some coronal of beeches, parting a +little to disclose some green valley, where cottages stood under elms +or beside translucent waters. It was Wiltshire at last. The train had +entered the chalk. At last it slackened at a wayside platform. Without +speaking he opened the door. + +“What’s that for?” + +“To go back.” + +Stephen had forgotten the threat. He said that this was not playing the +game. + +“Surely!” + +“I can’t have you going back.” + +“Promise to behave decently then.” + +He was seized and pulled away from the door. + +“We change at Salisbury,” he remarked. “There is an hour to wait. You +will find me troublesome.” + +“It isn’t fair,” exploded Stephen. “It’s a lowdown trick. How can I let +you go back?” + +“Promise, then.” + +“Oh, yes, yes, yes. Y.M.C.A. But for this occasion only.” + +“No, no. For the rest of your holiday.” + +“Yes, yes. Very well. I promise.” + +“For the rest of your life?” + +Somehow it pleased him that Stephen should bang him crossly with his +elbow and say, “No. Get out. You’ve gone too far.” So had the train. +The porter at the end of the wayside platform slammed the door, and they +proceeded toward Salisbury through the slowly modulating downs. Rickie +pretended to read. Over the book he watched his brother’s face, and +wondered how bad temper could be consistent with a mind so radiant. In +spite of his obstinacy and conceit, Stephen was an easy person to live +with. He never fidgeted or nursed hidden grievances, or indulged in a +shoddy pride. Though he spent Rickie’s money as slowly as he could, +he asked for it without apology: “You must put it down against me,” he +would say. In time--it was still very vague--he would rent or purchase +a farm. There is no formula in which we may sum up decent people. So +Ansell had preached, and had of course proceeded to offer a formula: +“They must be serious, they must be truthful.” Serious not in the sense +of glum; but they must be convinced that our life is a state of some +importance, and our earth not a place to beat time on. Of so much +Stephen was convinced: he showed it in his work, in his play, in his +self-respect, and above all--though the fact is hard to face-in his +sacred passion for alcohol. Drink, today, is an unlovely thing. Between +us and the heights of Cithaeron the river of sin now flows. Yet the +cries still call from the mountain, and granted a man has responded to +them, it is better he respond with the candour of the Greek. + +“I shall stop at the Thompsons’ now,” said the disappointed reveller. +“Prayers.” + +Rickie did not press his triumph, but it was a happy moment, partly +because of the triumph, partly because he was sure that his brother must +care for him. Stephen was too selfish to give up any pleasure without +grave reasons. He was certain that he had been right to disentangle +himself from Sawston, and to ignore the threats and tears that still +tempted him to return. Here there was real work for him to do. Moreover, +though he sought no reward, it had come. His health was better, his +brain sound, his life washed clean, not by the waters of sentiment, +but by the efforts of a fellow-man. Stephen was man first, brother +afterwards. Herein lay his brutality and also his virtue. “Look me in +the face. Don’t hang on me clothes that don’t belong--as you did on your +wife, giving her saint’s robes, whereas she was simply a woman of her +own sort, who needed careful watching. Tear up the photographs. Here +am I, and there are you. The rest is cant.” The rest was not cant, +and perhaps Stephen would confess as much in time. But Rickie needed a +tonic, and a man, not a brother, must hold it to his lips. + +“I see the old spire,” he called, and then added, “I don’t mind seeing +it again.” + +“No one does, as far as I know. People have come from the other side of +the world to see it again.” + +“Pious people. But I don’t hold with bishops.” He was young enough to +be uneasy. The cathedral, a fount of superstition, must find no place in +his life. At the age of twenty he had settled things. + +“I’ve got my own philosophy,” he once told Ansell, “and I don’t care a +straw about yours.” Ansell’s mirth had annoyed him not a little. And +it was strange that one so settled should feel his heart leap up at +the sight of an old spire. “I regard it as a public building,” he told +Rickie, who agreed. “It’s useful, too, as a landmark.” His attitude +today was defensive. It was part of a subtle change that Rickie had +noted in him since his return from Scotland. His face gave hints of a +new maturity. “You can see the old spire from the Ridgeway,” he said, +suddenly laying a hand on Rickie’s knee, “before rain as clearly as any +telegraph post.” + +“How far is the Ridgeway?” + +“Seventeen miles.” + +“Which direction?” + +“North, naturally. North again from that you see Devizes, the vale of +Pewsey, and the other downs. Also towards Bath. It is something of a +view. You ought to get on the Ridgeway.” + +“I shouldn’t have time for that.” + +“Or Beacon Hill. Or let’s do Stonehenge.” + +“If it’s fine, I suggest the Rings.” + +“It will be fine.” Then he murmured the names of villages. + +“I wish you could live here,” said Rickie kindly. “I believe you love +these particular acres more than the whole world.” + +Stephen replied that this was not the case: he was only used to them. +He wished they were driving out, instead of waiting for the Cadchurch +train. + +They had advanced into Salisbury, and the cathedral, a public building, +was grey against a tender sky. Rickie suggested that, while waiting +for the train, they should visit it. He spoke of the incomparable north +porch. “I’ve never been inside it, and I never will. Sorry to shock you, +Rickie, but I must tell you plainly. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in +anything.” + +“I do,” said Rickie. + +“When a man dies, it’s as if he’s never been,” he asserted. The train +drew up in Salisbury station. Here a little incident took place which +caused them to alter their plans. + +They found outside the station a trap driven by a small boy, who had +come in from Cadford to fetch some wire-netting. “That’ll do us,” said +Stephen, and called to the boy, “If I pay your railway-ticket back, and +if I give you sixpence as well, will you let us drive back in the +trap?” The boy said no. “It will be all right,” said Rickie. “I am Mrs. +Failing’s nephew.” The boy shook his head. “And you know Mr. Wonham?” + The boy couldn’t say he didn’t. “Then what’s your objection? Why? What +is it? Why not?” But Stephen leant against the time-tables and spoke of +other matters. + +Presently the boy said, “Did you say you’d pay my railway-ticket back, +Mr. Wonham?” + +“Yes,” said a bystander. “Didn’t you hear him?” + +“I heard him right enough.” + +Now Stephen laid his hand on the splash-board, saying, “What I want, +though, is this trap here of yours, see, to drive in back myself;” and +as he spoke the bystander followed him in canon, “What he wants, though, +is that there trap of yours, see, to drive hisself back in.” + +“I’ve no objection,” said the boy, as if deeply offended. For a time he +sat motionless, and then got down, remarking, “I won’t rob you of your +sixpence.” + +“Silly little fool,” snapped Rickie, as they drove through the town. + +Stephen looked surprised. “What’s wrong with the boy? He had to think it +over. No one had asked him to do such a thing before. Next time he’d let +us have the trap quick enough.” + +“Not if he had driven in for a cabbage instead of wire-netting.” + +“He never would drive in for a cabbage.” + +Rickie shuffled his feet. But his irritation passed. He saw that the +little incident had been a quiet challenge to the civilization that he +had known. “Organize.” “Systematize.” “Fill up every moment,” “Induce +esprit de corps.” He reviewed the watchwords of the last two years, +and found that they ignored personal contest, personal truces, personal +love. By following them Sawston School had lost its quiet usefulness +and become a frothy sea, wherein plunged Dunwood House, that unnecessary +ship. Humbled, he turned to Stephen and said, “No, you’re right. Nothing +is wrong with the boy. He was honestly thinking it out.” But Stephen had +forgotten the incident, or else he was not inclined to talk about it. +His assertive fit was over. + +The direct road from Salisbury to Cadover is extremely dull. The +city--which God intended to keep by the river; did she not move there, +being thirsty, in the reign of William Rufus?--the city had strayed out +of her own plain, climbed up her slopes, and tumbled over them in ugly +cataracts of brick. The cataracts are still short, and doubtless they +meet or create some commercial need. But instead of looking towards +the cathedral, as all the city should, they look outwards at a pagan +entrenchment, as the city should not. They neglect the poise of the +earth, and the sentiments she has decreed. They are the modern spirit. + +Through them the road descends into an unobtrusive country where, +nevertheless, the power of the earth grows stronger. Streams do divide. +Distances do still exist. It is easier to know the men in your valley +than those who live in the next, across a waste of down. It is easier to +know men well. The country is not paradise, and can show the vices that +grieve a good man everywhere. But there is room in it, and leisure. + +“I suppose,” said Rickie as the twilight fell, “this kind of thing is +going on all over England.” Perhaps he meant that towns are after all +excrescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying to find one another, +have lost themselves. But he got no response, and expected none. Turning +round in his seat, he watched the winter sun slide out of a quiet sky. +The horizon was primrose, and the earth against it gave momentary hints +of purple. All faded: no pageant would conclude the gracious day, and +when he turned eastward the night was already established. + +“Those verlands--” said Stephen, scarcely above his breath. + +“What are verlands?” + +He pointed at the dusk, and said, “Our name for a kind of field.” Then +he drove his whip into its socket, and seemed to swallow something. +Rickie, straining his eyes for verlands, could only see a tumbling +wilderness of brown. + +“Are there many local words?” + +“There have been.” + +“I suppose they die out.” + +The conversation turned curiously. In the tone of one who replies, he +said, “I expect that some time or other I shall marry.” + +“I expect you will,” said Rickie, and wondered a little why the reply +seemed not abrupt. “Would we see the Rings in the daytime from here?” + +“(We do see them.) But Mrs. Failing once said no decent woman would have +me.” + +“Did you agree to that?” + +“Drive a little, will you?” + +The horse went slowly forward into the wilderness, that turned from +brown to black. Then a luminous glimmer surrounded them, and the air +grew cooler: the road was descending between parapets of chalk. + +“But, Rickie, mightn’t I find a girl--naturally not refined--and be +happy with her in my own way? I would tell her straight I was nothing +much--faithful, of course, but that she should never have all my +thoughts. Out of no disrespect to her, but because all one’s thoughts +can’t belong to any single person.” + +While he spoke even the road vanished, and invisible water came gurgling +through the wheel-spokes. The horse had chosen the ford. “You can’t own +people. At least a fellow can’t. It may be different for a poet. (Let +the horse drink.) And I want to marry some one, and don’t yet know who +she is, which a poet again will tell you is disgusting. Does it disgust +you? Being nothing much, surely I’d better go gently. For it’s something +rather outside that makes one marry, if you follow me: not exactly +oneself. (Don’t hurry the horse.) We want to marry, and yet--I can’t +explain. I fancy I’ll go wading: this is our stream.” + +Romantic love is greater than this. There are men and women--we know it +from history--who have been born into the world for each other, and for +no one else, who have accomplished the longest journey locked in each +other’s arms. But romantic love is also the code of modern morals, and, +for this reason, popular. Eternal union, eternal ownership--these are +tempting baits for the average man. He swallows them, will not confess +his mistake, and--perhaps to cover it--cries “dirty cynic” at such a man +as Stephen. + +Rickie watched the black earth unite to the black sky. But the sky +overhead grew clearer, and in it twinkled the Plough and the central +stars. He thought of his brother’s future and of his own past, and of +how much truth might lie in that antithesis of Ansell’s: “A man wants to +love mankind, a woman wants to love one man.” At all events, he and his +wife had illustrated it, and perhaps the conflict, so tragic in their +own case, was elsewhere the salt of the world. Meanwhile Stephen called +from the water for matches: there was some trick with paper which Mr. +Failing had showed him, and which he would show Rickie now, instead of +talking nonsense. Bending down, he illuminated the dimpled surface of +the ford. “Quite a current.” he said, and his face flickered out in the +darkness. “Yes, give me the loose paper, quick! Crumple it into a ball.” + +Rickie obeyed, though intent on the transfigured face. He believed +that a new spirit dwelt there, expelling the crudities of youth. He +saw steadier eyes, and the sign of manhood set like a bar of gold upon +steadier lips. Some faces are knit by beauty, or by intellect, or by a +great passion: had Stephen’s waited for the touch of the years? + +But they played as boys who continued the nonsense of the railway +carriage. The paper caught fire from the match, and spread into a +rose of flame. “Now gently with me,” said Stephen, and they laid it +flowerlike on the stream. Gravel and tremulous weeds leapt into sight, +and then the flower sailed into deep water, and up leapt the two arches +of a bridge. “It’ll strike!” they cried; “no, it won’t; it’s chosen the +left,” and one arch became a fairy tunnel, dropping diamonds. Then it +vanished for Rickie; but Stephen, who knelt in the water, declared that +it was still afloat, far through the arch, burning as if it would burn +forever. + + +XXXIV + +The carriage that Mrs. Failing had sent to meet her nephew returned from +Cadchurch station empty. She was preparing for a solitary dinner when +he somehow arrived, full of apologies, but more sedate than she had +expected. She cut his explanations short. “Never mind how you got here. +You are here, and I am quite pleased to see you.” He changed his clothes +and they proceeded to the dining-room. + +There was a bright fire, but the curtains were not drawn. Mr. Failing +had believed that windows with the night behind are more beautiful than +any pictures, and his widow had kept to the custom. It was brave of her +to persevere, lumps of chalk having come out of the night last June. For +some obscure reason--not so obscure to Rickie--she had preserved them +as mementoes of an episode. Seeing them in a row on the mantelpiece, +he expected that their first topic would be Stephen. But they never +mentioned him, though he was latent in all that they said. + +It was of Mr. Failing that they spoke. The Essays had been a success. +She was really pleased. The book was brought in at her request, and +between the courses she read it aloud to her nephew, in her soft yet +unsympathetic voice. Then she sent for the press notices--after all +no one despises them--and read their comments on her introduction. She +wielded a graceful pen, was apt, adequate, suggestive, indispensable, +unnecessary. So the meal passed pleasantly away, for no one could so +well combine the formal with the unconventional, and it only seemed +charming when papers littered her stately table. + +“My man wrote very nicely,” she observed. “Now, you read me something +out of him that you like. Read ‘The True Patriot.’” + +He took the book and found: “Let us love one another. Let our children, +physical and spiritual, love one another. It is all that we can do. +Perhaps the earth will neglect our love. Perhaps she will confirm it, +and suffer some rallying-point, spire, mound, for the new generations to +cherish.” + +“He wrote that when he was young. Later on he doubted whether we had +better love one another, or whether the earth will confirm anything. He +died a most unhappy man.” + +He could not help saying, “Not knowing that the earth had confirmed +him.” + +“Has she? It is quite possible. We meet so seldom in these days, she and +I. Do you see much of the earth?” + +“A little.” + +“Do you expect that she will confirm you?” + +“It is quite possible.” + +“Beware of her, Rickie, I think.” + +“I think not.” + +“Beware of her, surely. Going back to her really is going back--throwing +away the artificiality which (though you young people won’t confess it) +is the only good thing in life. Don’t pretend you are simple. Once I +pretended. Don’t pretend that you care for anything but for clever talk +such as this, and for books.” + +“The talk,” said Leighton afterwards, “certainly was clever. But it +meant something, all the same.” He heard no more, for his mistress told +him to retire. + +“And my nephew, this being so, make up your quarrel with your wife.” She +stretched out her hand to him with real feeling. “It is easier now than +it will be later. Poor lady, she has written to me foolishly and often, +but, on the whole, I side with her against you. She would grant you all +that you fought for--all the people, all the theories. I have it, in her +writing, that she will never interfere with your life again.” + +“She cannot help interfering,” said Rickie, with his eyes on the black +windows. “She despises me. Besides, I do not love her.” + +“I know, my dear. Nor she you. I am not being sentimental. I say +once more, beware of the earth. We are conventional people, and +conventions--if you will but see it--are majestic in their way, and +will claim us in the end. We do not live for great passions or for great +memories, or for anything great.” + +He threw up his head. “We do.” + +“Now listen to me. I am serious and friendly tonight, as you must have +observed. I have asked you here partly to amuse myself--you belong to +my March Past--but also to give you good advice. There has been a +volcano--a phenomenon which I too once greatly admired. The eruption is +over. Let the conventions do their work now, and clear the rubbish away. +My age is fifty-nine, and I tell you solemnly that the important things +in life are little things, and that people are not important at all. Go +back to your wife.” + +He looked at her, and was filled with pity. He knew that he would never +be frightened of her again. Only because she was serious and friendly +did he trouble himself to reply. “There is one little fact I should +like to tell you, as confuting your theory. The idea of a story--a long +story--had been in my head for a year. As a dream to amuse myself--the +kind of amusement you would recommend for the future. I should have had +time to write it, but the people round me coloured my life, and so it +never seemed worth while. For the story is not likely to pay. Then came +the volcano. A few days after it was over I lay in bed looking out upon +a world of rubbish. Two men I know--one intellectual, the other very +much the reverse--burst into the room. They said, ‘What happened to +your short stories? They weren’t good, but where are they? Why have you +stopped writing? Why haven’t you been to Italy? You must write. You +must go. Because to write, to go, is you.’ Well, I have written, and +yesterday we sent the long story out on its rounds. The men do not like +it, for different reasons. But it mattered very much to them that I +should write it, and so it got written. As I told you, this is only one +fact; other facts, I trust, have happened in the last five months. But +I mention it to prove that people are important, and therefore, however +much it inconveniences my wife, I will not go back to her.” + +“And Italy?” asked Mrs. Failing. + +This question he avoided. Italy must wait. Now that he had the time, he +had not the money. + +“Or what is the long story about, then?” + +“About a man and a woman who meet and are happy.” + +“Somewhat of a tour de force, I conclude.” + +He frowned. “In literature we needn’t intrude our own limitations. +I’m not so silly as to think that all marriages turn out like mine. My +character is to blame for our catastrophe, not marriage.” + +“My dear, I too have married; marriage is to blame.” + +But here again he seemed to know better. + +“Well,” she said, leaving the table and moving with her dessert to the +mantelpiece, “so you are abandoning marriage and taking to literature. +And are happy.” + +“Yes.” + +“Because, as we used to say at Cambridge, the cow is there. The world is +real again. This is a room, that a window, outside is the night.” + +“Go on.” + +He pointed to the floor. “The day is straight below, shining through +other windows into other rooms.” + +“You are very odd,” she said after a pause, “and I do not like you at +all. There you sit, eating my biscuits, and all the time you know that +the earth is round. Who taught you? I am going to bed now, and all the +night, you tell me, you and I and the biscuits go plunging eastwards, +until we reach the sun. But breakfast will be at nine as usual. +Good-night.” + +She rang the bell twice, and her maid came with her candle and her +walking-stick: it was her habit of late to go to her room as soon as +dinner was over, for she had no one to sit up with. Rickie was impressed +by her loneliness, and also by the mixture in her of insight and +obtuseness. She was so quick, so clear-headed, so imaginative even. +But all the same, she had forgotten what people were like. Finding life +dull, she had dropped lies into it, as a chemist drops a new element +into a solution, hoping that life would thereby sparkle or turn some +beautiful colour. She loved to mislead others, and in the end her +private view of false and true was obscured, and she misled herself. How +she must have enjoyed their errors over Stephen! But her own error had +been greater, inasmuch as it was spiritual entirely. + +Leighton came in with some coffee. Feeling it unnecessary to light the +drawing-room lamp for one small young man, he persuaded Rickie to say he +preferred the dining-room. So Rickie sat down by the fire playing with +one of the lumps of chalk. His thoughts went back to the ford, from +which they had scarcely wandered. Still he heard the horse in the +dark drinking, still he saw the mystic rose, and the tunnel dropping +diamonds. He had driven away alone, believing the earth had confirmed +him. He stood behind things at last, and knew that conventions are not +majestic, and that they will not claim us in the end. + +As he mused, the chalk slipped from his fingers, and fell on the +coffee-cup, which broke. The china, said Leighton, was expensive. He +believed it was impossible to match it now. Each cup was different. It +was a harlequin set. The saucer, without the cup, was therefore useless. +Would Mr. Elliot please explain to Mrs. Failing how it happened. + +Rickie promised he would explain. + +He had left Stephen preparing to bathe, and had heard him working +up-stream like an animal, splashing in the shallows, breathing heavily +as he swam the pools; at times reeds snapped, or clods of earth were +pulled in. By the fire he remembered it was again November. “Should you +like a walk?” he asked Leighton, and told him who stopped in the village +tonight. Leighton was pleased. At nine o’clock the two young men left +the house, under a sky that was still only bright in the zenith. “It +will rain tomorrow,” Leighton said. + +“My brother says, fine tomorrow.” + +“Fine tomorrow,” Leighton echoed. + +“Now which do you mean?” asked Rickie, laughing. + +Since the plumes of the fir-trees touched over the drive, only a very +little light penetrated. It was clearer outside the lodge gate, and +bubbles of air, which Wiltshire seemed to have travelled from an immense +distance, broke gently and separately on his face. They paused on the +bridge. He asked whether the little fish and the bright green weeds were +here now as well as in the summer. The footman had not noticed. Over the +bridge they came to the cross-roads, of which one led to Salisbury and +the other up through the string of villages to the railway station. +The road in front was only the Roman road, the one that went on to the +downs. Turning to the left, they were in Cadford. + +“He will be with the Thompsons,” said Rickie, looking up at dark eaves. +“Perhaps he’s in bed already.” + +“Perhaps he will be at The Antelope.” + +“No. Tonight he is with the Thompsons.” + +“With the Thompsons.” After a dozen paces he said, “The Thompsons have +gone away.” + +“Where? Why?” + +“They were turned out by Mr. Wilbraham on account of our broken +windows.” + +“Are you sure?” + +“Five families were turned out.” + +“That’s bad for Stephen,” said Rickie, after a pause. “He was looking +forward--oh, it’s monstrous in any case!” + +“But the Thompsons have gone to London,” said Leighton. “Why, that +family--they say it’s been in the valley hundreds of years, and never +got beyond shepherding. To various parts of London.” + +“Let us try The Antelope, then.” + +“Let us try The Antelope.” + +The inn lay up in the village. Rickie hastened his pace. This tyranny +was monstrous. Some men of the age of undergraduates had broken windows, +and therefore they and their families were to be ruined. The fools who +govern us find it easier to be severe. It saves them trouble to say, +“The innocent must suffer with the guilty.” It even gives them a thrill +of pride. Against all this wicked nonsense, against the Wilbrahams and +Pembrokes who try to rule our world Stephen would fight till he died. +Stephen was a hero. He was a law to himself, and rightly. He was great +enough to despise our small moralities. He was attaining love. This +evening Rickie caught Ansell’s enthusiasm, and felt it worth while to +sacrifice everything for such a man. + +“The Antelope,” said Leighton. “Those lights under the greatest elm.” + +“Would you please ask if he’s there, and if he’d come for a turn with +me. I don’t think I’ll go in.” + +Leighton opened the door. They saw a little room, blue with +tobacco-smoke. Flanking the fire were deep settles hiding all but the +legs of the men who lounged in them. Between the settles stood a table, +covered with mugs and glasses. The scene was picturesque--fairer than +the cutglass palaces of the town. + +“Oh yes, he’s there,” he called, and after a moment’s hesitation came +out. + +“Would he come?” + +“No. I shouldn’t say so,” replied Leighton, with a furtive glance. He +knew that Rickie was a milksop. “First night, you know, sir, among old +friends.” + +“Yes, I know,” said Rickie. “But he might like a turn down the village. +It looks stuffy inside there, and poor fun probably to watch others +drinking.” + +Leighton shut the door. + +“What was that he called after you?” + +“Oh, nothing. A man when he’s drunk--he says the worst he’s ever heard. +At least, so they say.” + +“A man when he’s drunk?” + +“Yes, Sir.” + +“But Stephen isn’t drinking?” + +“No, no.” + +“He couldn’t be. If he broke a promise--I don’t pretend he’s a saint. I +don’t want him one. But it isn’t in him to break a promise.” + +“Yes, sir; I understand.” + +“In the train he promised me not to drink--nothing theatrical: just a +promise for these few days.” + +“No, sir.” “‘No, sir,’” stamped Rickie. “‘Yes! no! yes!’ Can’t you speak +out? Is he drunk or isn’t he?” + +Leighton, justly exasperated, cried, “He can’t stand, and I’ve told you +so again and again.” + +“Stephen!” shouted Rickie, darting up the steps. Heat and the smell of +beer awaited him, and he spoke more furiously than he had intended. “Is +there any one here who’s sober?” he cried. The landlord looked over +the bar angrily, and asked him what he meant. He pointed to the deep +settles. “Inside there he’s drunk. Tell him he’s broken his word, and I +will not go with him to the Rings.” + +“Very well. You won’t go with him to the Rings,” said the landlord, +stepping forward and slamming the door in his face. + +In the room he was only angry, but out in the cool air he remembered +that Stephen was a law to himself. He had chosen to break his word, and +would break it again. Nothing else bound him. To yield to temptation is +not fatal for most of us. But it was the end of everything for a hero. + +“He’s suddenly ruined!” he cried, not yet remembering himself. For a +little he stood by the elm-tree, clutching the ridges of its bark. Even +so would he wrestle tomorrow, and Stephen, imperturbable, reply, “My +body is my own.” Or worse still, he might wrestle with a pliant Stephen +who promised him glibly again. While he prayed for a miracle to convert +his brother, it struck him that he must pray for himself. For he, too, +was ruined. + +“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Leighton. “Stephen’s only being with +friends. Mr. Elliot, sir, don’t break down. Nothing’s happened bad. No +one’s died yet, or even hurt themselves.” Ever kind, he took hold of +Rickie’s arm, and, pitying such a nervous fellow, set out with him for +home. The shoulders of Orion rose behind them over the topmost boughs of +the elm. From the bridge the whole constellation was visible, and Rickie +said, “May God receive me and pardon me for trusting the earth.” + +“But, Mr. Elliot, what have you done that’s wrong?” + +“Gone bankrupt, Leighton, for the second time. Pretended again that +people were real. May God have mercy on me!” + +Leighton dropped his arm. Though he did not understand, a chill of +disgust passed over him, and he said, “I will go back to The Antelope. I +will help them put Stephen to bed.” + +“Do. I will wait for you here.” Then he leant against the parapet and +prayed passionately, for he knew that the conventions would claim him +soon. God was beyond them, but ah, how far beyond, and to be reached +after what degradation! At the end of this childish detour his wife +awaited him, not less surely because she was only his wife in name. He +was too weak. Books and friends were not enough. Little by little she +would claim him and corrupt him and make him what he had been; and the +woman he loved would die out, in drunkenness, in debauchery, and her +strength would be dissipated by a man, her beauty defiled in a man. She +would not continue. That mystic rose and the face it illumined meant +nothing. The stream--he was above it now--meant nothing, though it +burst from the pure turf and ran for ever to the sea. The bather, the +shoulders of Orion-they all meant nothing, and were going nowhere. The +whole affair was a ridiculous dream. + +Leighton returned, saying, “Haven’t you seen Stephen? They say he +followed us: he can still walk: I told you he wasn’t so bad.” + +“I don’t think he passed me. Ought one to look?” He wandered a little +along the Roman road. Again nothing mattered. At the level-crossing he +leant on the gate to watch a slow goods train pass. In the glare of the +engine he saw that his brother had come this way, perhaps through some +sodden memory of the Rings, and now lay drunk over the rails. Wearily +he did a man’s duty. There was time to raise him up and push him into +safety. It is also a man’s duty to save his own life, and therefore he +tried. The train went over his knees. He died up in Cadover, whispering, +“You have been right,” to Mrs. Failing. + +She wrote of him to Mrs. Lewin afterwards as “one who has failed in +all he undertook; one of the thousands whose dust returns to the dust, +accomplishing nothing in the interval. Agnes and I buried him to the +sound of our cracked bell, and pretended that he had once been alive. +The other, who was always honest, kept away.” + + + +XXXV + +From the window they looked over a sober valley, whose sides were +not too sloping to be ploughed, and whose trend was followed by a +grass-grown track. It was late on Sunday afternoon, and the valley was +deserted except for one labourer, who was coasting slowly downward on +a rosy bicycle. The air was very quiet. A jay screamed up in the woods +behind, but the ring-doves, who roost early, were already silent. +Since the window opened westward, the room was flooded with light, and +Stephen, finding it hot, was working in his shirtsleeves. + +“You guarantee they’ll sell?” he asked, with a pen between his teeth. He +was tidying up a pile of manuscripts. + +“I guarantee that the world will be the gainer,” said Mr. Pembroke, +now a clergyman, who sat beside him at the table with an expression of +refined disapproval on his face. + +“I’d got the idea that the long story had its points, but that these +shorter things didn’t--what’s the word?” + +“‘Convince’ is probably the word you want. But that type of criticism +is quite a thing of the past. Have you seen the illustrated American +edition?” + +“I don’t remember.” + +“Might I send you a copy? I think you ought to possess one.” + +“Thank you.” His eye wandered. The bicycle had disappeared into +some trees, and thither, through a cloudless sky, the sun was also +descending. + +“Is all quite plain?” said Mr. Pembroke. “Submit these ten stories to +the magazines, and make your own terms with the editors. Then--I have +your word for it--you will join forces with me; and the four stories in +my possession, together with yours, should make up a volume, which we +might well call ‘Pan Pipes.’” + +“Are you sure `Pan Pipes’ haven’t been used up already?” + +Mr. Pembroke clenched his teeth. He had been bearing with this sort of +thing for nearly an hour. “If that is the case, we can select another. +A title is easy to come by. But that is the idea it must suggest. The +stories, as I have twice explained to you, all centre round a Nature +theme. Pan, being the god of--” + +“I know that,” said Stephen impatiently. + +“--Being the god of--” + +“All right. Let’s get furrard. I’ve learnt that.” + +It was years since the schoolmaster had been interrupted, and he could +not stand it. “Very well,” he said. “I bow to your superior knowledge of +the classics. Let us proceed.” + +“Oh yes the introduction. There must be one. It was the introduction +with all those wrong details that sold the other book.” + +“You overwhelm me. I never penned the memoir with that intention.” + +“If you won’t do one, Mrs. Keynes must!” + +“My sister leads a busy life. I could not ask her. I will do it myself +since you insist.” + +“And the binding?” + +“The binding,” said Mr. Pembroke coldly, “must really be left to the +discretion of the publisher. We cannot be concerned with such details. +Our task is purely literary.” His attention wandered. He began to +fidget, and finally bent down and looked under the table. “What have we +here?” he asked. + +Stephen looked also, and for a moment they smiled at each other over +the prostrate figure of a child, who was cuddling Mr. Pembroke’s boots. +“She’s after the blacking,” he explained. “If we left her there, she’d +lick them brown.” + +“Indeed. Is that so very safe?” + +“It never did me any harm. Come up! Your tongue’s dirty.” + +“Can I--” She was understood to ask whether she could clean her tongue +on a lollie. + +“No, no!” said Mr. Pembroke. “Lollipops don’t clean little girls’ +tongues.” + +“Yes, they do,” he retorted. “But she won’t get one.” He lifted her on +his knee, and rasped her tongue with his handkerchief. + +“Dear little thing,” said the visitor perfunctorily. The child began +to squall, and kicked her father in the stomach. Stephen regarded her +quietly. “You tried to hurt me,” he said. “Hurting doesn’t count. Trying +to hurt counts. Go and clean your tongue yourself. Get off my knee.” + Tears of another sort came into her eyes, but she obeyed him. “How’s the +great Bertie?” he asked. + +“Thank you. My nephew is perfectly well. How came you to hear of his +existence?” + +“Through the Silts, of course. It isn’t five miles to Cadover.” + +Mr. Pembroke raised his eyes mournfully. “I cannot conceive how the poor +Silts go on in that great house. Whatever she intended, it could not +have been that. The house, the farm, the money,--everything down to the +personal articles that belong to Mr. Failing, and should have reverted +to his family!” + +“It’s legal. Interstate succession.” + +“I do not dispute it. But it is a lesson to one to make a will. Mrs. +Keynes and myself were electrified.” + +“They’ll do there. They offered me the agency, but--” He looked down +the cultivated slopes. His manners were growing rough, for he saw few +gentlemen now, and he was either incoherent or else alarmingly direct. +“However, if Lawrie Silt’s a Cockney like his father, and if my next is +a boy and like me--” A shy beautiful look came into his eyes, and passed +unnoticed. “They’ll do,” he repeated. “They turned out Wilbraham and +built new cottages, and bridged the railway, and made other necessary +alterations.” There was a moment’s silence. + +Mr. Pembroke took out his watch. “I wonder if I might have the trap? I +mustn’t miss my train, must I? It is good of you to have granted me an +interview. It is all quite plain?” + +“Yes.” + +“A case of half and half-division of profits.” + +“Half and half?” said the young farmer slowly. “What do you take me for? +Half and half, when I provide ten of the stories and you only four?” + +“I--I--” stammered Mr. Pembroke. + +“I consider you did me over the long story, and I’m damned if you do me +over the short ones!” + +“Hush! if you please, hush!--if only for your little girl’s sake.” + +He lifted a clerical palm. + +“You did me,” his voice drove, “and all the thirty-nine Articles won’t +stop me saying so. That long story was meant to be mine. I got it +written. You’ve done me out of every penny it fetched. It’s dedicated to +me--flat out--and you even crossed out the dedication and tidied me out +of the introduction. Listen to me, Pembroke. You’ve done people all your +life--I think without knowing it, but that won’t comfort us. A wretched +devil at your school once wrote to me, and he’d been done. Sham food, +sham religion, sham straight talks--and when he broke down, you said it +was the world in miniature.” He snatched at him roughly. “But I’ll show +you the world.” He twisted him round like a baby, and through the open +door they saw only the quiet valley, but in it a rivulet that would +in time bring its waters to the sea. “Look even at that--and up behind +where the Plain begins and you get on the solid chalk--think of us +riding some night when you’re ordering your hot bottle--that’s the +world, and there’s no miniature world. There’s one world, Pembroke, and +you can’t tidy men out of it. They answer you back do you hear?--they +answer back if you do them. If you tell a man this way that four sheep +equal ten, he answers back you’re a liar.” + +Mr. Pembroke was speechless, and--such is human nature--he chiefly +resented the allusion to the hot bottle; an unmanly luxury in which he +never indulged; contenting himself with nightsocks. “Enough--there is no +witness present--as you have doubtless observed.” But there was. For a +little voice cried, “Oh, mummy, they’re fighting--such fun--” and feet +went pattering up the stairs. “Enough. You talk of ‘doing,’ but what +about the money out of which you ‘did’ my sister? What about this +picture”--he pointed to a faded photograph of Stockholm--“which you +caused to be filched from the walls of my house? What about--enough! +Let us conclude this disheartening scene. You object to my terms. Name +yours. I shall accept them. It is futile to reason with one who is the +worse for drink.” + +Stephen was quiet at once. “Steady on!” he said gently. “Steady on +in that direction. Take one-third for your four stories and the +introduction, and I will keep two-thirds for myself.” Then he went to +harness the horse, while Mr. Pembroke, watching his broad back, +desired to bury a knife in it. The desire passed, partly because it was +unclerical, partly because he had no knife, and partly because he soon +blurred over what had happened. To him all criticism was “rudeness”: +he never heeded it, for he never needed it: he was never wrong. All his +life he had ordered little human beings about, and now he was equally +magisterial to big ones: Stephen was a fifth-form lout whom, owing to +some flaw in the regulations, he could not send up to the headmaster to +be caned. + +This attitude makes for tranquillity. Before long he felt merely an +injured martyr. His brain cleared. He stood deep in thought before the +only other picture that the bare room boasted--the Demeter of Cnidus. +Outside the sun was sinking, and its last rays fell upon the immortal +features and the shattered knees. Sweet-peas offered their fragrance, +and with it there entered those more mysterious scents that come from +no one flower or clod of earth, but from the whole bosom of evening. +He tried not to be cynical. But in his heart he could not regret that +tragedy, already half-forgotten, conventionalized, indistinct. Of course +death is a terrible thing. Yet death is merciful when it weeds out a +failure. If we look deep enough, it is all for the best. He stared at +the picture and nodded. + +Stephen, who had met his visitor at the station, had intended to drive +him back there. But after their spurt of temper he sent him with the +boy. He remained in the doorway, glad that he was going to make money, +glad that he had been angry; while the glow of the clear sky deepened, +and the silence was perfected, and the scents of the night grew +stronger. Old vagrancies awoke, and he resolved that, dearly as he +loved his house, he would not enter it again till dawn. “Goodnight!” he +called, and then the child came running, and he whispered, “Quick, then! +Bring me a rug.” “Good-night,” he repeated, and a pleasant voice called +through an upper window, “Why good-night?” He did not answer until the +child was wrapped up in his arms. + +“It is time that she learnt to sleep out,” he cried. “If you want me, +we’re out on the hillside, where I used to be.” + +The voice protested, saying this and that. + +“Stewart’s in the house,” said the man, “and it cannot matter, and I am +going anyway.” + +“Stephen, I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you wouldn’t take her. Promise +you won’t say foolish things to her. Don’t--I wish you’d come up for a +minute--” + +The child, whose face was laid against his, felt the muscles in it +harden. + +“Don’t tell her foolish things about yourself--things that aren’t any +longer true. Don’t worry her with old dead dreadfulness. To please +me--don’t.” + +“Just tonight I won’t, then.” + +“Stevie, dear, please me more--don’t take her with you.” + +At this he laughed impertinently. “I suppose I’m being kept in line,” + she called, and, though he could not see her, she stretched her arms +towards him. For a time he stood motionless, under her window, musing on +his happy tangible life. Then his breath quickened, and he wondered why +he was here, and why he should hold a warm child in his arms. “It’s time +we were starting,” he whispered, and showed the sky, whose orange was +already fading into green. “Wish everything goodnight.” + +“Good-night, dear mummy,” she said sleepily. “Goodnight, dear house. +Good-night, you pictures--long picture--stone lady. I see you through +the window--your faces are pink.” + +The twilight descended. He rested his lips on her hair, and carried her, +without speaking, until he reached the open down. He had often slept +here himself, alone, and on his wedding-night, and he knew that the turf +was dry, and that if you laid your face to it you would smell the +thyme. For a moment the earth aroused her, and she began to chatter. “My +prayers--” she said anxiously. He gave her one hand, and she was +asleep before her fingers had nestled in its palm. Their touch made him +pensive, and again he marvelled why he, the accident, was here. He was +alive and had created life. By whose authority? Though he could not +phrase it, he believed that he guided the future of our race, and that, +century after century, his thoughts and his passions would triumph in +England. The dead who had evoked him, the unborn whom he would evoke he +governed the paths between them. By whose authority? + +Out in the west lay Cadover and the fields of his earlier youth, and +over them descended the crescent moon. His eyes followed her decline, +and against her final radiance he saw, or thought he saw, the outline +of the Rings. He had always been grateful, as people who understood him +knew. But this evening his gratitude seemed a gift of small account. The +ear was deaf, and what thanks of his could reach it? The body was dust, +and in what ecstasy of his could it share? The spirit had fled, in agony +and loneliness, never to know that it bequeathed him salvation. + +He filled his pipe, and then sat pressing the unlit tobacco with his +thumb. “What am I to do?” he thought. “Can he notice the things he gave +me? A parson would know. But what’s a man like me to do, who works all +his life out of doors?” As he wondered, the silence of the night was +broken. The whistle of Mr. Pembroke’s train came faintly, and a lurid +spot passed over the land--passed, and the silence returned. One thing +remained that a man of his sort might do. He bent down reverently and +saluted the child; to whom he had given the name of their mother. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Longest Journey, by E. M. Forster + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONGEST JOURNEY *** + +***** This file should be named 2604-0.txt or 2604-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/0/2604/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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M. Forster + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Longest Journey, by E. M. Forster + +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 Longest Journey + +Author: E. M. Forster + +Release Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #2604] +Last Updated: October 14, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONGEST JOURNEY *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE LONGEST JOURNEY + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By E. M. Forster + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PART1"> PART 1 — CAMBRIDGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PART2"> PART 2 — SAWSTON </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PART3"> PART 3 — WILTSHIRE </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PART1" id="link2H_PART1"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + PART 1 — CAMBRIDGE + </h2> + <p> + I + </p> + <p> + “The cow is there,” said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it out over + the carpet. No one spoke. He waited till the end of the match fell off. + Then he said again, “She is there, the cow. There, now.” + </p> + <p> + “You have not proved it,” said a voice. + </p> + <p> + “I have proved it to myself.” + </p> + <p> + “I have proved to myself that she isn’t,” said the voice. “The cow is not + there.” Ansell frowned and lit another match. + </p> + <p> + “She’s there for me,” he declared. “I don’t care whether she’s there for + you or not. Whether I’m in Cambridge or Iceland or dead, the cow will be + there.” + </p> + <p> + It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects. Do they + exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or have they a real + existence of their own? It is all very interesting, but at the same time + it is difficult. Hence the cow. She seemed to make things easier. She was + so familiar, so solid, that surely the truths that she illustrated would + in time become familiar and solid also. Is the cow there or not? This was + better than deciding between objectivity and subjectivity. So at Oxford, + just at the same time, one was asking, “What do our rooms look like in the + vac.?” + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Ansell. I’m there—in the meadow—the cow’s there. + You’re there—the cow’s there. Do you agree so far?” “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if you go, the cow stops; but if I go, the cow goes. Then what will + happen if you stop and I go?” + </p> + <p> + Several voices cried out that this was quibbling. + </p> + <p> + “I know it is,” said the speaker brightly, and silence descended again, + while they tried honestly to think the matter out. + </p> + <p> + Rickie, on whose carpet the matches were being dropped, did not like to + join in the discussion. It was too difficult for him. He could not even + quibble. If he spoke, he should simply make himself a fool. He preferred + to listen, and to watch the tobacco-smoke stealing out past the + window-seat into the tranquil October air. He could see the court too, and + the college cat teasing the college tortoise, and the kitchen-men with + supper-trays upon their heads. Hot food for one—that must be for the + geographical don, who never came in for Hall; cold food for three, + apparently at half-a-crown a head, for some one he did not know; hot food, + a la carte—obviously for the ladies haunting the next staircase; + cold food for two, at two shillings—going to Ansell’s rooms for + himself and Ansell, and as it passed under the lamp he saw that it was + meringues again. Then the bedmakers began to arrive, chatting to each + other pleasantly, and he could hear Ansell’s bedmaker say, “Oh dang!” when + she found she had to lay Ansell’s tablecloth; for there was not a breath + stirring. The great elms were motionless, and seemed still in the glory of + midsummer, for the darkness hid the yellow blotches on their leaves, and + their outlines were still rounded against the tender sky. Those elms were + Dryads—so Rickie believed or pretended, and the line between the two + is subtler than we admit. At all events they were lady trees, and had for + generations fooled the college statutes by their residence in the haunts + of youth. + </p> + <p> + But what about the cow? He returned to her with a start, for this would + never do. He also would try to think the matter out. Was she there or not? + The cow. There or not. He strained his eyes into the night. + </p> + <p> + Either way it was attractive. If she was there, other cows were there too. + The darkness of Europe was dotted with them, and in the far East their + flanks were shining in the rising sun. Great herds of them stood browsing + in pastures where no man came nor need ever come, or plashed knee-deep by + the brink of impassable rivers. And this, moreover, was the view of + Ansell. Yet Tilliard’s view had a good deal in it. One might do worse than + follow Tilliard, and suppose the cow not to be there unless oneself was + there to see her. A cowless world, then, stretched round him on every + side. Yet he had only to peep into a field, and, click! it would at once + become radiant with bovine life. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly he realized that this, again, would never do. As usual, he had + missed the whole point, and was overlaying philosophy with gross and + senseless details. For if the cow was not there, the world and the fields + were not there either. And what would Ansell care about sunlit flanks or + impassable streams? Rickie rebuked his own groveling soul, and turned his + eyes away from the night, which had led him to such absurd conclusions. + </p> + <p> + The fire was dancing, and the shadow of Ansell, who stood close up to it, + seemed to dominate the little room. He was still talking, or rather + jerking, and he was still lighting matches and dropping their ends upon + the carpet. Now and then he would make a motion with his feet as if he + were running quickly backward upstairs, and would tread on the edge of the + fender, so that the fire-irons went flying and the buttered-bun dishes + crashed against each other in the hearth. The other philosophers were + crouched in odd shapes on the sofa and table and chairs, and one, who was + a little bored, had crawled to the piano and was timidly trying the + Prelude to Rhinegold with his knee upon the soft pedal. The air was heavy + with good tobacco-smoke and the pleasant warmth of tea, and as Rickie + became more sleepy the events of the day seemed to float one by one before + his acquiescent eyes. In the morning he had read Theocritus, whom he + believed to be the greatest of Greek poets; he had lunched with a merry + don and had tasted Zwieback biscuits; then he had walked with people he + liked, and had walked just long enough; and now his room was full of other + people whom he liked, and when they left he would go and have supper with + Ansell, whom he liked as well as any one. A year ago he had known none of + these joys. He had crept cold and friendless and ignorant out of a great + public school, preparing for a silent and solitary journey, and praying as + a highest favour that he might be left alone. Cambridge had not answered + his prayer. She had taken and soothed him, and warmed him, and had laughed + at him a little, saying that he must not be so tragic yet awhile, for his + boyhood had been but a dusty corridor that led to the spacious halls of + youth. In one year he had made many friends and learnt much, and he might + learn even more if he could but concentrate his attention on that cow. + </p> + <p> + The fire had died down, and in the gloom the man by the piano ventured to + ask what would happen if an objective cow had a subjective calf. Ansell + gave an angry sigh, and at that moment there was a tap on the door. + </p> + <p> + “Come in!” said Rickie. + </p> + <p> + The door opened. A tall young woman stood framed in the light that fell + from the passage. + </p> + <p> + “Ladies!” whispered every-one in great agitation. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” he said nervously, limping towards the door (he was rather lame). + “Yes? Please come in. Can I be any good—” + </p> + <p> + “Wicked boy!” exclaimed the young lady, advancing a gloved finger into the + room. “Wicked, wicked boy!” + </p> + <p> + He clasped his head with his hands. + </p> + <p> + “Agnes! Oh how perfectly awful!” + </p> + <p> + “Wicked, intolerable boy!” She turned on the electric light. The + philosophers were revealed with unpleasing suddenness. “My goodness, a + tea-party! Oh really, Rickie, you are too bad! I say again: wicked, + abominable, intolerable boy! I’ll have you horsewhipped. If you please”—she + turned to the symposium, which had now risen to its feet “If you please, + he asks me and my brother for the week-end. We accept. At the station, no + Rickie. We drive to where his old lodgings were—Trumpery Road or + some such name—and he’s left them. I’m furious, and before I can + stop my brother, he’s paid off the cab and there we are stranded. I’ve + walked—walked for miles. Pray can you tell me what is to be done + with Rickie?” + </p> + <p> + “He must indeed be horsewhipped,” said Tilliard pleasantly. Then he made a + bolt for the door. + </p> + <p> + “Tilliard—do stop—let me introduce Miss Pembroke—don’t + all go!” For his friends were flying from his visitor like mists before + the sun. “Oh, Agnes, I am so sorry; I’ve nothing to say. I simply forgot + you were coming, and everything about you.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, thank you! And how soon will you remember to ask where Herbert + is?” + </p> + <p> + “Where is he, then?” + </p> + <p> + “I shall not tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “But didn’t he walk with you?” + </p> + <p> + “I shall not tell, Rickie. It’s part of your punishment. You are not + really sorry yet. I shall punish you again later.” + </p> + <p> + She was quite right. Rickie was not as much upset as he ought to have + been. He was sorry that he had forgotten, and that he had caused his + visitors inconvenience. But he did not feel profoundly degraded, as a + young man should who has acted discourteously to a young lady. Had he + acted discourteously to his bedmaker or his gyp, he would have minded just + as much, which was not polite of him. + </p> + <p> + “First, I’ll go and get food. Do sit down and rest. Oh, let me introduce—” + </p> + <p> + Ansell was now the sole remnant of the discussion party. He still stood on + the hearthrug with a burnt match in his hand. Miss Pembroke’s arrival had + never disturbed him. + </p> + <p> + “Let me introduce Mr. Ansell—Miss Pembroke.” + </p> + <p> + There came an awful moment—a moment when he almost regretted that he + had a clever friend. Ansell remained absolutely motionless, moving neither + hand nor head. Such behaviour is so unknown that Miss Pembroke did not + realize what had happened, and kept her own hand stretched out longer than + is maidenly. + </p> + <p> + “Coming to supper?” asked Ansell in low, grave tones. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think so,” said Rickie helplessly. + </p> + <p> + Ansell departed without another word. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t mind us,” said Miss Pembroke pleasantly. “Why shouldn’t you keep + your engagement with your friend? Herbert’s finding lodgings,—that’s + why he’s not here,—and they’re sure to be able to give us some + dinner. What jolly rooms you’ve got!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no—not a bit. I say, I am sorry. I am sorry. I am most awfully + sorry.” + </p> + <p> + “What about?” + </p> + <p> + “Ansell” Then he burst forth. “Ansell isn’t a gentleman. His father’s a + draper. His uncles are farmers. He’s here because he’s so clever—just + on account of his brains. Now, sit down. He isn’t a gentleman at all.” And + he hurried off to order some dinner. + </p> + <p> + “What a snob the boy is getting!” thought Agnes, a good deal mollified. It + never struck her that those could be the words of affection—that + Rickie would never have spoken them about a person whom he disliked. Nor + did it strike her that Ansell’s humble birth scarcely explained the + quality of his rudeness. She was willing to find life full of + trivialities. Six months ago and she might have minded; but now—she + cared not what men might do unto her, for she had her own splendid lover, + who could have knocked all these unhealthy undergraduates into a + cocked-hat. She dared not tell Gerald a word of what had happened: he + might have come up from wherever he was and half killed Ansell. And she + determined not to tell her brother either, for her nature was kindly, and + it pleased her to pass things over. + </p> + <p> + She took off her gloves, and then she took off her ear-rings and began to + admire them. These ear-rings were a freak of hers—her only freak. + She had always wanted some, and the day Gerald asked her to marry him she + went to a shop and had her ears pierced. In some wonderful way she knew + that it was right. And he had given her the rings—little gold knobs, + copied, the jeweller told them, from something prehistoric and he had + kissed the spots of blood on her handkerchief. Herbert, as usual, had been + shocked. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t help it,” she cried, springing up. “I’m not like other girls.” + She began to pace about Rickie’s room, for she hated to keep quiet. There + was nothing much to see in it. The pictures were not attractive, nor did + they attract her—school groups, Watts’ “Sir Percival,” a dog running + after a rabbit, a man running after a maid, a cheap brown Madonna in a + cheap green frame—in short, a collection where one mediocrity was + generally cancelled by another. Over the door there hung a long photograph + of a city with waterways, which Agnes, who had never been to Venice, took + to be Venice, but which people who had been to Stockholm knew to be + Stockholm. Rickie’s mother, looking rather sweet, was standing on the + mantelpiece. Some more pictures had just arrived from the framers and were + leaning with their faces to the wall, but she did not bother to turn them + round. On the table were dirty teacups, a flat chocolate cake, and Omar + Khayyam, with an Oswego biscuit between his pages. Also a vase filled with + the crimson leaves of autumn. This made her smile. + </p> + <p> + Then she saw her host’s shoes: he had left them lying on the sofa. Rickie + was slightly deformed, and so the shoes were not the same size, and one of + them had a thick heel to help him towards an even walk. “Ugh!” she + exclaimed, and removed them gingerly to the bedroom. There she saw other + shoes and boots and pumps, a whole row of them, all deformed. “Ugh! Poor + boy! It is too bad. Why shouldn’t he be like other people? This hereditary + business is too awful.” She shut the door with a sigh. Then she recalled + the perfect form of Gerald, his athletic walk, the poise of his shoulders, + his arms stretched forward to receive her. Gradually she was comforted. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon, miss, but might I ask how many to lay?” It was the + bedmaker, Mrs. Aberdeen. + </p> + <p> + “Three, I think,” said Agnes, smiling pleasantly. “Mr. Elliot’ll be back + in a minute. He has gone to order dinner. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, miss.” + </p> + <p> + “Plenty of teacups to wash up!” + </p> + <p> + “But teacups is easy washing, particularly Mr. Elliot’s.” + </p> + <p> + “Why are his so easy?” + </p> + <p> + “Because no nasty corners in them to hold the dirt. Mr. Anderson—he’s + below-has crinkly noctagons, and one wouldn’t believe the difference. It + was I bought these for Mr. Elliot. His one thought is to save one trouble. + I never seed such a thoughtful gentleman. The world, I say, will be the + better for him.” She took the teacups into the gyp room, and then returned + with the tablecloth, and added, “if he’s spared.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid he isn’t strong,” said Agnes. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, miss, his nose! I don’t know what he’d say if he knew I mentioned his + nose, but really I must speak to someone, and he has neither father nor + mother. His nose! It poured twice with blood in the Long.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a thing that ought to be known. I assure you, that little room!... + And in any case, Mr. Elliot’s a gentleman that can ill afford to lose it. + Luckily his friends were up; and I always say they’re more like brothers + than anything else.” + </p> + <p> + “Nice for him. He has no real brothers.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mr. Hornblower, he is a merry gentleman, and Mr. Tilliard too! And + Mr. Elliot himself likes his romp at times. Why, it’s the merriest + staircase in the buildings! Last night the bedmaker from W said to + me, ‘What are you doing to my gentlemen? Here’s Mr. Ansell come back ‘ot + with his collar flopping.’ I said, ‘And a good thing.’ Some bedders keep + their gentlemen just so; but surely, miss, the world being what it is, the + longer one is able to laugh in it the better.” + </p> + <p> + Bedmakers have to be comic and dishonest. It is expected of them. In a + picture of university life it is their only function. So when we meet one + who has the face of a lady, and feelings of which a lady might be proud, + we pass her by. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said Miss Pembroke, and then their talk was stopped by the arrival + of her brother. + </p> + <p> + “It is too bad!” he exclaimed. “It is really too bad.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, Bertie boy, Bertie boy! I’ll have no peevishness.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not peevish, Agnes, but I have a full right to be. Pray, why did he + not meet us? Why did he not provide rooms? And pray, why did you leave me + to do all the settling? All the lodgings I knew are full, and our bedrooms + look into a mews. I cannot help it. And then—look here! It really is + too bad.” He held up his foot like a wounded dog. It was dripping with + water. + </p> + <p> + “Oho! This explains the peevishness. Off with it at once. It’ll be another + of your colds.” + </p> + <p> + “I really think I had better.” He sat down by the fire and daintily + unlaced his boot. “I notice a great change in university tone. I can never + remember swaggering three abreast along the pavement and charging + inoffensive visitors into a gutter when I was an undergraduate. One of the + men, too, wore an Eton tie. But the others, I should say, came from very + queer schools, if they came from any schools at all.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke was nearly twenty years older than his sister, and had never + been as handsome. But he was not at all the person to knock into a gutter, + for though not in orders, he had the air of being on the verge of them, + and his features, as well as his clothes, had the clerical cut. In his + presence conversation became pure and colourless and full of + understatements, and—just as if he was a real clergyman—neither + men nor boys ever forgot that he was there. He had observed this, and it + pleased him very much. His conscience permitted him to enter the Church + whenever his profession, which was the scholastic, should demand it. + </p> + <p> + “No gutter in the world’s as wet as this,” said Agnes, who had peeled off + her brother’s sock, and was now toasting it at the embers on a pair of + tongs. + </p> + <p> + “Surely you know the running water by the edge of the Trumpington road? + It’s turned on occasionally to clear away the refuse—a most + primitive idea. When I was up we had a joke about it, and called it the + ‘Pem.’” + </p> + <p> + “How complimentary!” + </p> + <p> + “You foolish girl,—not after me, of course. We called it the ‘Pem’ + because it is close to Pembroke College. I remember—” He smiled a + little, and twiddled his toes. Then he remembered the bedmaker, and said, + “My sock is now dry. My sock, please.” + </p> + <p> + “Your sock is sopping. No, you don’t!” She twitched the tongs away from + him. Mrs. Aberdeen, without speaking, fetched a pair of Rickie’s socks and + a pair of Rickie’s shoes. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you; ah, thank you. I am sure Mr. Elliot would allow it.” + </p> + <p> + Then he said in French to his sister, “Has there been the slightest sign + of Frederick?” + </p> + <p> + “Now, do call him Rickie, and talk English. I found him here. He had + forgotten about us, and was very sorry. Now he’s gone to get some dinner, + and I can’t think why he isn’t back.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Aberdeen left them. + </p> + <p> + “He wants pulling up sharply. There is nothing original in + absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower + classes have no nous. However can I wear such deformities?” For he had + been madly trying to cram a right-hand foot into a left-hand shoe. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t!” said Agnes hastily. “Don’t touch the poor fellow’s things.” The + sight of the smart, stubby patent leather made her almost feel faint. She + had known Rickie for many years, but it seemed so dreadful and so + different now that he was a man. It was her first great contact with the + abnormal, and unknown fibres of her being rose in revolt against it. She + frowned when she heard his uneven tread upon the stairs. + </p> + <p> + “Agnes—before he arrives—you ought never to have left me and + gone to his rooms alone. A most elementary transgression. Imagine the + unpleasantness if you had found him with friends. If Gerald—” + </p> + <p> + Rickie by now had got into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost his + head, and when his turn came—he had had to wait—he had yielded + his place to those behind, saying that he didn’t matter. And he had wasted + more precious time buying bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes were + not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and chaotic hospitality the meal got + under way. All the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. Aberdeen’s + virtues were not practical. The fish seemed never to have been alive, the + meat had no kick, and the cork of the college claret slid forth silently, + as if ashamed of the contents. Agnes was particularly pleasant. But her + brother could not recover himself. He still remembered their desolate + arrival, and he could feel the waters of the Pem eating into his instep. + </p> + <p> + “Rickie,” cried the lady, “are you aware that you haven’t congratulated me + on my engagement?” + </p> + <p> + Rickie laughed nervously, and said, “Why no! No more I have.” + </p> + <p> + “Say something pretty, then.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you’ll be very happy,” he mumbled. “But I don’t know anything + about marriage.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you awful boy! Herbert, isn’t he just the same? But you do know + something about Gerald, so don’t be so chilly and cautious. I’ve just + realized, looking at those groups, that you must have been at school + together. Did you come much across him?” + </p> + <p> + “Very little,” he answered, and sounded shy. He got up hastily, and began + to muddle with the coffee. + </p> + <p> + “But he was in the same house. Surely that’s a house group?” + </p> + <p> + “He was a prefect.” He made his coffee on the simple system. One had a + brown pot, into which the boiling stuff was poured. Just before serving + one put in a drop of cold water, and the idea was that the grounds fell to + the bottom. + </p> + <p> + “Wasn’t he a kind of athletic marvel? Couldn’t he knock any boy or master + down?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “If he had wanted to,” said Mr. Pembroke, who had not spoken for some + time. + </p> + <p> + “If he had wanted to,” echoed Rickie. “I do hope, Agnes, you’ll be most + awfully happy. I don’t know anything about the army, but I should think it + must be most awfully interesting.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke laughed faintly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Rickie. The army is a most interesting profession,—the + profession of Wellington and Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most + interesting profession, as you observe. A profession that may mean death—death, + rather than dishonour.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s nice,” said Rickie, speaking to himself. “Any profession may mean + dishonour, but one isn’t allowed to die instead. The army’s different. If + a soldier makes a mess, it’s thought rather decent of him, isn’t it, if he + blows out his brains? In the other professions it somehow seems cowardly.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not competent to pronounce,” said Mr. Pembroke, who was not + accustomed to have his schoolroom satire commented on. “I merely know that + the army is the finest profession in the world. Which reminds me, Rickie—have + you been thinking about yours?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, Herbert, don’t bother him. Have another meringue.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Rickie, my dear boy, you’re twenty. It’s time you thought. The + Tripos is the beginning of life, not the end. In less than two years you + will have got your B.A. What are you going to do with it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re M.A., aren’t you?” asked Agnes; but her brother proceeded— + </p> + <p> + “I have seen so many promising, brilliant lives wrecked simply on account + of this—not settling soon enough. My dear boy, you must think. + Consult your tastes if possible—but think. You have not a moment to + lose. The Bar, like your father?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I wouldn’t like that at all.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t mention the Church.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Rickie, do be a clergyman!” said Miss Pembroke. “You’d be simply + killing in a wide-awake.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at his guests hopelessly. Their kindness and competence + overwhelmed him. “I wish I could talk to them as I talk to myself,” he + thought. “I’m not such an ass when I talk to myself. I don’t believe, for + instance, that quite all I thought about the cow was rot.” Aloud he said, + “I’ve sometimes wondered about writing.” + </p> + <p> + “Writing?” said Mr. Pembroke, with the tone of one who gives everything + its trial. “Well, what about writing? What kind of writing?” + </p> + <p> + “I rather like,”—he suppressed something in his throat,—“I + rather like trying to write little stories.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, I made sure it was poetry!” said Agnes. “You’re just the boy for + poetry.” + </p> + <p> + “I had no idea you wrote. Would you let me see something? Then I could + judge.” + </p> + <p> + The author shook his head. “I don’t show it to any one. It isn’t anything. + I just try because it amuses me.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it about?” + </p> + <p> + “Silly nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you ever going to show it to any one?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think so.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke did not reply, firstly, because the meringue he was eating + was, after all, Rickie’s; secondly, because it was gluey and stuck his + jaws together. Agnes observed that the writing was really a very good + idea: there was Rickie’s aunt,—she could push him. + </p> + <p> + “Aunt Emily never pushes any one; she says they always rebound and crush + her.” + </p> + <p> + “I only had the pleasure of seeing your aunt once. I should have thought + her a quite uncrushable person. But she would be sure to help you.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t show her anything. She’d think them even sillier than they + are.” + </p> + <p> + “Always running yourself down! There speaks the artist!” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not modest,” he said anxiously. “I just know they’re bad.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke’s teeth were clear of meringue, and he could refrain no + longer. “My dear Rickie, your father and mother are dead, and you often + say your aunt takes no interest in you. Therefore your life depends on + yourself. Think it over carefully, but settle, and having once settled, + stick. If you think that this writing is practicable, and that you could + make your living by it—that you could, if needs be, support a wife—then + by all means write. But you must work. Work and drudge. Begin at the + bottom of the ladder and work upwards.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie’s head drooped. Any metaphor silenced him. He never thought of + replying that art is not a ladder—with a curate, as it were, on the + first rung, a rector on the second, and a bishop, still nearer heaven, at + the top. He never retorted that the artist is not a bricklayer at all, but + a horseman, whose business it is to catch Pegasus at once, not to practise + for him by mounting tamer colts. This is hard, hot, and generally + ungraceful work, but it is not drudgery. For drudgery is not art, and + cannot lead to it. + </p> + <p> + “Of course I don’t really think about writing,” he said, as he poured the + cold water into the coffee. “Even if my things ever were decent, I don’t + think the magazines would take them, and the magazines are one’s only + chance. I read somewhere, too, that Marie Corelli’s about the only person + who makes a thing out of literature. I’m certain it wouldn’t pay me.” + </p> + <p> + “I never mentioned the word ‘pay,’” said Mr. Pembroke uneasily. + </p> + <p> + “You must not consider money. There are ideals too.” + </p> + <p> + “I have no ideals.” + </p> + <p> + “Rickie!” she exclaimed. “Horrible boy!” + </p> + <p> + “No, Agnes, I have no ideals.” Then he got very red, for it was a phrase + he had caught from Ansell, and he could not remember what came next. + </p> + <p> + “The person who has no ideals,” she exclaimed, “is to be pitied.” + </p> + <p> + “I think so too,” said Mr. Pembroke, sipping his coffee. “Life without an + ideal would be like the sky without the sun.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie looked towards the night, wherein there now twinkled innumerable + stars—gods and heroes, virgins and brides, to whom the Greeks have + given their names. + </p> + <p> + “Life without an ideal—” repeated Mr. Pembroke, and then stopped, + for his mouth was full of coffee grounds. The same affliction had + overtaken Agnes. After a little jocose laughter they departed to their + lodgings, and Rickie, having seen them as far as the porter’s lodge, + hurried, singing as he went, to Ansell’s room, burst open the door, and + said, “Look here! Whatever do you mean by it?” + </p> + <p> + “By what?” Ansell was sitting alone with a piece of paper in front of him. + On it was a diagram—a circle inside a square, inside which was again + a square. + </p> + <p> + “By being so rude. You’re no gentleman, and I told her so.” He slammed him + on the head with a sofa cushion. “I’m certain one ought to be polite, even + to people who aren’t saved.” (“Not saved” was a phrase they applied just + then to those whom they did not like or intimately know.) “And I believe + she is saved. I never knew any one so always good-tempered and kind. She’s + been kind to me ever since I knew her. I wish you’d heard her trying to + stop her brother: you’d have certainly come round. Not but what he was + only being nice as well. But she is really nice. And I thought she came + into the room so beautifully. Do you know—oh, of course, you despise + music—but Anderson was playing Wagner, and he’d just got to the part + where they sing + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Rheingold! + ‘Rheingold! +</pre> + <p> + and the sun strikes into the waters, and the music, which up to then has + so often been in E flat—” + </p> + <p> + “Goes into D sharp. I have not understood a single word, partly because + you talk as if your mouth was full of plums, partly because I don’t know + whom you’re talking about.” “Miss Pembroke—whom you saw.” + </p> + <p> + “I saw no one.” + </p> + <p> + “Who came in?” + </p> + <p> + “No one came in.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re an ass!” shrieked Rickie. “She came in. You saw her come in. She + and her brother have been to dinner.” + </p> + <p> + “You only think so. They were not really there.” + </p> + <p> + “But they stop till Monday.” + </p> + <p> + “You only think that they are stopping.” + </p> + <p> + “But—oh, look here, shut up! The girl like an empress—” + </p> + <p> + “I saw no empress, nor any girl, nor have you seen them.” + </p> + <p> + “Ansell, don’t rag.” + </p> + <p> + “Elliot, I never rag, and you know it. She was not really there.” + </p> + <p> + There was a moment’s silence. Then Rickie exclaimed, “I’ve got you. You + say—or was it Tilliard?—no, YOU say that the cow’s there. Well—there + these people are, then. Got you. Yah!” + </p> + <p> + “Did it never strike you that phenomena may be of two kinds: ONE, those + which have a real existence, such as the cow; TWO, those which are the + subjective product of a diseased imagination, and which, to our + destruction, we invest with the semblance of reality? If this never struck + you, let it strike you now.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie spoke again, but received no answer. He paced a little up and down + the sombre roam. Then he sat on the edge of the table and watched his + clever friend draw within the square a circle, and within the circle a + square, and inside that another circle, and inside that another square. + </p> + <p> + “Why will you do that?” + </p> + <p> + No answer. + </p> + <p> + “Are they real?” + </p> + <p> + “The inside one is—the one in the middle of everything, that there’s + never room enough to draw.” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + A little this side of Madingley, to the left of the road, there is a + secluded dell, paved with grass and planted with fir-trees. It could not + have been worth a visit twenty years ago, for then it was only a scar of + chalk, and it is not worth a visit at the present day, for the trees have + grown too thick and choked it. But when Rickie was up, it chanced to be + the brief season of its romance, a season as brief for a chalk-pit as a + man—its divine interval between the bareness of boyhood and the + stuffiness of age. Rickie had discovered it in his second term, when the + January snows had melted and left fiords and lagoons of clearest water + between the inequalities of the floor. The place looked as big as + Switzerland or Norway—as indeed for the moment it was—and he + came upon it at a time when his life too was beginning to expand. + Accordingly the dell became for him a kind of church—a church where + indeed you could do anything you liked, but where anything you did would + be transfigured. Like the ancient Greeks, he could even laugh at his holy + place and leave it no less holy. He chatted gaily about it, and about the + pleasant thoughts with which it inspired him; he took his friends there; + he even took people whom he did not like. “Procul este, profani!” + exclaimed a delighted aesthete on being introduced to it. But this was + never to be the attitude of Rickie. He did not love the vulgar herd, but + he knew that his own vulgarity would be greater if he forbade it ingress, + and that it was not by preciosity that he would attain to the intimate + spirit of the dell. Indeed, if he had agreed with the aesthete, he would + possibly not have introduced him. If the dell was to bear any inscription, + he would have liked it to be “This way to Heaven,” painted on a sign-post + by the high-road, and he did not realize till later years that the number + of visitors would not thereby have sensibly increased. + </p> + <p> + On the blessed Monday that the Pembrokes left, he walked out here with + three friends. It was a day when the sky seemed enormous. One cloud, as + large as a continent, was voyaging near the sun, whilst other clouds + seemed anchored to the horizon, too lazy or too happy to move. The sky + itself was of the palest blue, paling to white where it approached the + earth; and the earth, brown, wet, and odorous, was engaged beneath it on + its yearly duty of decay. Rickie was open to the complexities of autumn; + he felt extremely tiny—extremely tiny and extremely important; and + perhaps the combination is as fair as any that exists. He hoped that all + his life he would never be peevish or unkind. + </p> + <p> + “Elliot is in a dangerous state,” said Ansell. They had reached the dell, + and had stood for some time in silence, each leaning against a tree. It + was too wet to sit down. + </p> + <p> + “How’s that?” asked Rickie, who had not known he was in any state at all. + He shut up Keats, whom he thought he had been reading, and slipped him + back into his coat-pocket. Scarcely ever was he without a book. + </p> + <p> + “He’s trying to like people.” + </p> + <p> + “Then he’s done for,” said Widdrington. “He’s dead.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s trying to like Hornblower.” + </p> + <p> + The others gave shrill agonized cries. + </p> + <p> + “He wants to bind the college together. He wants to link us to the beefy + set.” + </p> + <p> + “I do like Hornblower,” he protested. “I don’t try.” + </p> + <p> + “And Hornblower tries to like you.” + </p> + <p> + “That part doesn’t matter.” + </p> + <p> + “But he does try to like you. He tries not to despise you. It is + altogether a most public-spirited affair.” + </p> + <p> + “Tilliard started them,” said Widdrington. “Tilliard thinks it such a pity + the college should be split into sets.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Tilliard!” said Ansell, with much irritation. “But what can you + expect from a person who’s eternally beautiful? The other night we had + been discussing a long time, and suddenly the light was turned on. Every + one else looked a sight, as they ought. But there was Tilliard, sitting + neatly on a little chair, like an undersized god, with not a curl crooked. + I should say he will get into the Foreign Office.” + </p> + <p> + “Why are most of us so ugly?” laughed Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “It’s merely a sign of our salvation—merely another sign that the + college is split.” + </p> + <p> + “The college isn’t split,” cried Rickie, who got excited on this subject + with unfailing regularity. “The college is, and has been, and always will + be, one. What you call the beefy set aren’t a set at all. They’re just the + rowing people, and naturally they chiefly see each other; but they’re + always nice to me or to any one. Of course, they think us rather asses, + but it’s quite in a pleasant way.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s my whole objection,” said Ansell. “What right have they to think + us asses in a pleasant way? Why don’t they hate us? What right has + Hornblower to smack me on the back when I’ve been rude to him?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what right have you to be rude to him?” + </p> + <p> + “Because I hate him. You think it is so splendid to hate no one. I tell + you it is a crime. You want to love every one equally, and that’s worse + than impossible it’s wrong. When you denounce sets, you’re really trying + to destroy friendship.” + </p> + <p> + “I maintain,” said Rickie—it was a verb he clung to, in the hope + that it would lend stability to what followed—“I maintain that one + can like many more people than one supposes.” + </p> + <p> + “And I maintain that you hate many more people than you pretend.” + </p> + <p> + “I hate no one,” he exclaimed with extraordinary vehemence, and the dell + re-echoed that it hated no one. + </p> + <p> + “We are obliged to believe you,” said Widdrington, smiling a little “but + we are sorry about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Not even your father?” asked Ansell. + </p> + <p> + Rickie was silent. + </p> + <p> + “Not even your father?” + </p> + <p> + The cloud above extended a great promontory across the sun. It only lay + there for a moment, yet that was enough to summon the lurking coldness + from the earth. + </p> + <p> + “Does he hate his father?” said Widdrington, who had not known. “Oh, + good!” + </p> + <p> + “But his father’s dead. He will say it doesn’t count.” + </p> + <p> + “Still, it’s something. Do you hate yours?” + </p> + <p> + Ansell did not reply. Rickie said: “I say, I wonder whether one ought to + talk like this?” + </p> + <p> + “About hating dead people?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—” + </p> + <p> + “Did you hate your mother?” asked Widdrington. + </p> + <p> + Rickie turned crimson. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see Hornblower’s such a rotter,” remarked the other man, whose + name was James. + </p> + <p> + “James, you are diplomatic,” said Ansell. “You are trying to tide over an + awkward moment. You can go.” + </p> + <p> + Widdrington was crimson too. In his wish to be sprightly he had used words + without thinking of their meanings. Suddenly he realized that “father” and + “mother” really meant father and mother—people whom he had himself + at home. He was very uncomfortable, and thought Rickie had been rather + queer. He too tried to revert to Hornblower, but Ansell would not let him. + The sun came out, and struck on the white ramparts of the dell. Rickie + looked straight at it. Then he said abruptly— + </p> + <p> + “I think I want to talk.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you do,” replied Ansell. + </p> + <p> + “Shouldn’t I be rather a fool if I went through Cambridge without talking? + It’s said never to come so easy again. All the people are dead too. I + can’t see why I shouldn’t tell you most things about my birth and + parentage and education.” + </p> + <p> + “Talk away. If you bore us, we have books.” + </p> + <p> + With this invitation Rickie began to relate his history. The reader who + has no book will be obliged to listen to it. + </p> + <p> + Some people spend their lives in a suburb, and not for any urgent reason. + This had been the fate of Rickie. He had opened his eyes to filmy heavens, + and taken his first walk on asphalt. He had seen civilization as a row of + semi-detached villas, and society as a state in which men do not know the + men who live next door. He had himself become part of the grey monotony + that surrounds all cities. There was no necessity for this—it was + only rather convenient to his father. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Elliot was a barrister. In appearance he resembled his son, being + weakly and lame, with hollow little cheeks, a broad white band of + forehead, and stiff impoverished hair. His voice, which he did not + transmit, was very suave, with a fine command of cynical intonation. By + altering it ever so little he could make people wince, especially if they + were simple or poor. Nor did he transmit his eyes. Their peculiar + flatness, as if the soul looked through dirty window-panes, the unkindness + of them, the cowardice, the fear in them, were to trouble the world no + longer. + </p> + <p> + He married a girl whose voice was beautiful. There was no caress in it yet + all who heard it were soothed, as though the world held some unexpected + blessing. She called to her dogs one night over invisible waters, and he, + a tourist up on the bridge, thought “that is extraordinarily adequate.” In + time he discovered that her figure, face, and thoughts were adequate also, + and as she was not impossible socially, he married her. “I have taken a + plunge,” he told his family. The family, hostile at first, had not a word + to say when the woman was introduced to them; and his sister declared that + the plunge had been taken from the opposite bank. + </p> + <p> + Things only went right for a little time. Though beautiful without and + within, Mrs. Elliot had not the gift of making her home beautiful; and one + day, when she bought a carpet for the dining-room that clashed, he laughed + gently, said he “really couldn’t,” and departed. Departure is perhaps too + strong a word. In Mrs. Elliot’s mouth it became, “My husband has to sleep + more in town.” He often came down to see them, nearly always unexpectedly, + and occasionally they went to see him. “Father’s house,” as Rickie called + it, only had three rooms, but these were full of books and pictures and + flowers; and the flowers, instead of being squashed down into the vases as + they were in mummy’s house, rose gracefully from frames of lead which lay + coiled at the bottom, as doubtless the sea serpent has to lie, coiled at + the bottom of the sea. Once he was let to lift a frame out—only + once, for he dropped some water on a creton. “I think he’s going to have + taste,” said Mr. Elliot languidly. “It is quite possible,” his wife + replied. She had not taken off her hat and gloves, nor even pulled up her + veil. Mr. Elliot laughed, and soon afterwards another lady came in, and + they—went away. + </p> + <p> + “Why does father always laugh?” asked Rickie in the evening when he and + his mother were sitting in the nursery. + </p> + <p> + “It is a way of your father’s.” + </p> + <p> + “Why does he always laugh at me? Am I so funny?” Then after a pause, “You + have no sense of humour, have you, mummy?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Elliot, who was raising a thread of cotton to her lips, held it + suspended in amazement. + </p> + <p> + “You told him so this afternoon. But I have seen you laugh.” He nodded + wisely. “I have seen you laugh ever so often. One day you were laughing + alone all down in the sweet peas.” + </p> + <p> + “Was I?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Were you laughing at me?” + </p> + <p> + “I was not thinking about you. Cotton, please—a reel of No. 50 white + from my chest of drawers. Left hand drawer. Now which is your left hand?” + </p> + <p> + “The side my pocket is.” + </p> + <p> + “And if you had no pocket?” + </p> + <p> + “The side my bad foot is.” + </p> + <p> + “I meant you to say, ‘the side my heart is,’” said Mrs. Elliot, holding up + the duster between them. “Most of us—I mean all of us—can feel + on one side a little watch, that never stops ticking. So even if you had + no bad foot you would still know which is the left. No. 50 white, please. + No; I’ll get it myself.” For she had remembered that the dark passage + frightened him. + </p> + <p> + These were the outlines. Rickie filled them in with the slowness and the + accuracy of a child. He was never told anything, but he discovered for + himself that his father and mother did not love each other, and that his + mother was lovable. He discovered that Mr. Elliot had dubbed him Rickie + because he was rickety, that he took pleasure in alluding to his son’s + deformity, and was sorry that it was not more serious than his own. Mr. + Elliot had not one scrap of genius. He gathered the pictures and the books + and the flower-supports mechanically, not in any impulse of love. He + passed for a cultured man because he knew how to select, and he passed for + an unconventional man because he did not select quite like other people. + In reality he never did or said or thought one single thing that had the + slightest beauty or value. And in time Rickie discovered this as well. + </p> + <p> + The boy grew up in great loneliness. He worshipped his mother, and she was + fond of him. But she was dignified and reticent, and pathos, like tattle, + was disgusting to her. She was afraid of intimacy, in case it led to + confidences and tears, and so all her life she held her son at a little + distance. Her kindness and unselfishness knew no limits, but if he tried + to be dramatic and thank her, she told him not to be a little goose. And + so the only person he came to know at all was himself. He would play Halma + against himself. He would conduct solitary conversations, in which one + part of him asked and another part answered. It was an exciting game, and + concluded with the formula: “Good-bye. Thank you. I am glad to have met + you. I hope before long we shall enjoy another chat.” And then perhaps he + would sob for loneliness, for he would see real people—real + brothers, real friends—doing in warm life the things he had + pretended. “Shall I ever have a friend?” he demanded at the age of twelve. + “I don’t see how. They walk too fast. And a brother I shall never have.” + </p> + <p> + (“No loss,” interrupted Widdrington. + </p> + <p> + “But I shall never have one, and so I quite want one, even now.”) + </p> + <p> + When he was thirteen Mr. Elliot entered on his illness. The pretty rooms + in town would not do for an invalid, and so he came back to his home. One + of the first consequences was that Rickie was sent to a public school. + Mrs. Elliot did what she could, but she had no hold whatever over her + husband. + </p> + <p> + “He worries me,” he declared. “He’s a joke of which I have got tired.” + </p> + <p> + “Would it be possible to send him to a private tutor’s?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Mr. Elliot, who had all the money. “Coddling.” + </p> + <p> + “I agree that boys ought to rough it; but when a boy is lame and very + delicate, he roughs it sufficiently if he leaves home. Rickie can’t play + games. He doesn’t make friends. He isn’t brilliant. Thinking it over, I + feel that as it’s like this, we can’t ever hope to give him the ordinary + education. Perhaps you could think it over too.” No. + </p> + <p> + “I am sure that things are best for him as they are. The day-school knocks + quite as many corners off him as he can stand. He hates it, but it is good + for him. A public school will not be good for him. It is too rough. + Instead of getting manly and hard, he will—” + </p> + <p> + “My head, please.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie departed in a state of bewildered misery, which was scarcely ever + to grow clearer. + </p> + <p> + Each holiday he found his father more irritable, and a little weaker. Mrs. + Elliot was quickly growing old. She had to manage the servants, to hush + the neighbouring children, to answer the correspondence, to paper and + re-paper the rooms—and all for the sake of a man whom she did not + like, and who did not conceal his dislike for her. One day she found + Rickie tearful, and said rather crossly, “Well, what is it this time?” + </p> + <p> + He replied, “Oh, mummy, I’ve seen your wrinkles your grey hair—I’m + unhappy.” + </p> + <p> + Sudden tenderness overcame her, and she cried, “My darling, what does it + matter? Whatever does it matter now?” + </p> + <p> + He had never known her so emotional. Yet even better did he remember + another incident. Hearing high voices from his father’s room, he went + upstairs in the hope that the sound of his tread might stop them. Mrs. + Elliot burst open the door, and seeing him, exclaimed, “My dear! If you + please, he’s hit me.” She tried to laugh it off, but a few hours later he + saw the bruise which the stick of the invalid had raised upon his mother’s + hand. + </p> + <p> + God alone knows how far we are in the grip of our bodies. He alone can + judge how far the cruelty of Mr. Elliot was the outcome of extenuating + circumstances. But Mrs. Elliot could accurately judge of its extent. + </p> + <p> + At last he died. Rickie was now fifteen, and got off a whole week’s school + for the funeral. His mother was rather strange. She was much happier, she + looked younger, and her mourning was as unobtrusive as convention + permitted. All this he had expected. But she seemed to be watching him, + and to be extremely anxious for his opinion on any, subject—more + especially on his father. Why? At last he saw that she was trying to + establish confidence between them. But confidence cannot be established in + a moment. They were both shy. The habit of years was upon them, and they + alluded to the death of Mr. Elliot as an irreparable loss. + </p> + <p> + “Now that your father has gone, things will be very different.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we be poorer, mother?” No. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” + </p> + <p> + “But naturally things will be very different.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, naturally.” + </p> + <p> + “For instance, your poor father liked being near London, but I almost + think we might move. Would you like that?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, mummy.” He looked down at the ground. He was not accustomed to + being consulted, and it bewildered him. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you might like quite a different life better?” + </p> + <p> + He giggled. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a little difficult for me,” said Mrs. Elliot, pacing vigorously up + and down the room, and more and more did her black dress seem a mockery. + “In some ways you ought to be consulted: nearly all the money is left to + you, as you must hear some time or other. But in other ways you’re only a + boy. What am I to do?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” he replied, appearing more helpless and unhelpful than he + really was. + </p> + <p> + “For instance, would you like me to arrange things exactly as I like?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh do!” he exclaimed, thinking this a most brilliant suggestion. + </p> + <p> + “The very nicest thing of all.” And he added, in his half-pedantic, + half-pleasing way, “I shall be as wax in your hands, mamma.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled. “Very well, darling. You shall be.” And she pressed him + lovingly, as though she would mould him into something beautiful. + </p> + <p> + For the next few days great preparations were in the air. She went to see + his father’s sister, the gifted and vivacious Aunt Emily. They were to + live in the country—somewhere right in the country, with grass and + trees up to the door, and birds singing everywhere, and a tutor. For he + was not to go back to school. Unbelievable! He was never to go back to + school, and the head-master had written saying that he regretted the step, + but that possibly it was a wise one. + </p> + <p> + It was raw weather, and Mrs. Elliot watched over him with ceaseless + tenderness. It seemed as if she could not do too much to shield him and to + draw him nearer to her. + </p> + <p> + “Put on your greatcoat, dearest,” she said to him. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I want it,” answered Rickie, remembering that he was now + fifteen. + </p> + <p> + “The wind is bitter. You ought to put it on.” + </p> + <p> + “But it’s so heavy.” + </p> + <p> + “Do put it on, dear.” + </p> + <p> + He was not very often irritable or rude, but he answered, “Oh, I shan’t + catch cold. I do wish you wouldn’t keep on bothering.” He did not catch + cold, but while he was out his mother died. She only survived her husband + eleven days, a coincidence which was recorded on their tombstone. + </p> + <p> + Such, in substance, was the story which Rickie told his friends as they + stood together in the shelter of the dell. The green bank at the entrance + hid the road and the world, and now, as in spring, they could see nothing + but snow-white ramparts and the evergreen foliage of the firs. Only from + time to time would a beech leaf flutter in from the woods above, to + comment on the waning year, and the warmth and radiance of the sun would + vanish behind a passing cloud. + </p> + <p> + About the greatcoat he did not tell them, for he could not have spoken of + it without tears. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ansell, a provincial draper of moderate prosperity, ought by rights to + have been classed not with the cow, but with those phenomena that are not + really there. But his son, with pardonable illogicality, excepted him. He + never suspected that his father might be the subjective product of a + diseased imagination. From his earliest years he had taken him for + granted, as a most undeniable and lovable fact. To be born one thing and + grow up another—Ansell had accomplished this without weakening one + of the ties that bound him to his home. The rooms above the shop still + seemed as comfortable, the garden behind it as gracious, as they had + seemed fifteen years before, when he would sit behind Miss Appleblossom’s + central throne, and she, like some allegorical figure, would send the + change and receipted bills spinning away from her in little boxwood balls. + At first the young man had attributed these happy relations to his own + tact. But in time he perceived that the tact was all on the side of his + father. Mr. Ansell was not merely a man of some education; he had what no + education can bring—the power of detecting what is important. Like + many fathers, he had spared no expense over his boy,—he had borrowed + money to start him at a rapacious and fashionable private school; he had + sent him to tutors; he had sent him to Cambridge. But he knew that all + this was not the important thing. The important thing was freedom. The boy + must use his education as he chose, and if he paid his father back it + would certainly not be in his own coin. So when Stewart said, “At + Cambridge, can I read for the Moral Science Tripos?” Mr. Ansell had only + replied, “This philosophy—do you say that it lies behind + everything?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I think so. It tries to discover what is good and true.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, my boy, you had better read as much of it as you can.” + </p> + <p> + And a year later: “I’d like to take up this philosophy seriously, but I + don’t feel justified.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “Because it brings in no return. I think I’m a great philosopher, but then + all philosophers think that, though they don’t dare to say so. But, + however great I am. I shan’t earn money. Perhaps I shan’t ever be able to + keep myself. I shan’t even get a good social position. You’ve only to say + one word, and I’ll work for the Civil Service. I’m good enough to get in + high.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ansell liked money and social position. But he knew that there is a + more important thing, and replied, “You must take up this philosophy + seriously, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Another thing—there are the girls.” + </p> + <p> + “There is enough money now to get Mary and Maud as good husbands as they + deserve.” And Mary and Maud took the same view. It was in this plebeian + household that Rickie spent part of the Christmas vacation. His own home, + such as it was, was with the Silts, needy cousins of his father’s, and + combined to a peculiar degree the restrictions of hospitality with the + discomforts of a boarding-house. Such pleasure as he had outside Cambridge + was in the homes of his friends, and it was a particular joy and honour to + visit Ansell, who, though as free from social snobbishness as most of us + will ever manage to be, was rather careful when he drove up to the facade + of his shop. + </p> + <p> + “I like our new lettering,” he said thoughtfully. The words “Stewart + Ansell” were repeated again and again along the High Street—curly + gold letters that seemed to float in tanks of glazed chocolate. + </p> + <p> + “Rather!” said Rickie. But he wondered whether one of the bonds that kept + the Ansell family united might not be their complete absence of taste—a + surer bond by far than the identity of it. And he wondered this again when + he sat at tea opposite a long row of crayons—Stewart as a baby, + Stewart as a small boy with large feet, Stewart as a larger boy with + smaller feet, Mary reading a book whose leaves were as thick as + eiderdowns. And yet again did he wonder it when he woke with a gasp in the + night to find a harp in luminous paint throbbing and glowering at him from + the adjacent wall. “Watch and pray” was written on the harp, and until + Rickie hung a towel over it the exhortation was partially successful. + </p> + <p> + It was a very happy visit. Miss Appleblosssom—who now acted as + housekeeper—had met him before, during her never-forgotten + expedition to Cambridge, and her admiration of University life was as + shrill and as genuine now as it had been then. The girls at first were a + little aggressive, for on his arrival he had been tired, and Maud had + taken it for haughtiness, and said he was looking down on them. But this + passed. They did not fall in love with him, nor he with them, but a + morning was spent very pleasantly in snow-balling in the back garden. + Ansell was rather different to what he was in Cambridge, but to Rickie not + less attractive. And there was a curious charm in the hum of the shop, + which swelled into a roar if one opened the partition door on a + market-day. + </p> + <p> + “Listen to your money!” said Rickie. “I wish I could hear mine. I wish my + money was alive.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Mine’s dead money. It’s come to me through about six dead people—silently.” + </p> + <p> + “Getting a little smaller and a little more respectable each time, on + account of the death-duties.” + </p> + <p> + “It needed to get respectable.” + </p> + <p> + “Why? Did your people, too, once keep a shop?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, not as bad as that! They only swindled. About a hundred years ago an + Elliot did something shady and founded the fortunes of our house.” + </p> + <p> + “I never knew any one so relentless to his ancestors. You make up for your + soapiness towards the living.” + </p> + <p> + “You’d be relentless if you’d heard the Silts, as I have, talk about ‘a + fortune, small perhaps, but unsoiled by trade!’ Of course Aunt Emily is + rather different. Oh, goodness me! I’ve forgotten my aunt. She lives not + so far. I shall have to call on her.” + </p> + <p> + Accordingly he wrote to Mrs. Failing, and said he should like to pay his + respects. He told her about the Ansells, and so worded the letter that she + might reasonably have sent an invitation to his friend. + </p> + <p> + She replied that she was looking forward to their tete-a-tete. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn’t go round by the trains,” said Mr. Ansell. “It means changing + at Salisbury. By the road it’s no great way. Stewart shall drive you over + Salisbury Plain, and fetch you too.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s too much snow,” said Ansell. + </p> + <p> + “Then the girls shall take you in their sledge.” + </p> + <p> + “That I will,” said Maud, who was not unwilling to see the inside of + Cadover. But Rickie went round by the trains. + </p> + <p> + “We have all missed you,” said Ansell, when he returned. “There is a + general feeling that you are no nuisance, and had better stop till the end + of the vac.” + </p> + <p> + This he could not do. He was bound for Christmas to the Silts—“as a + REAL guest,” Mrs. Silt had written, underlining the word “real” twice. And + after Christmas he must go to the Pembrokes. + </p> + <p> + “These are no reasons. The only real reason for doing a thing is because + you want to do it. I think the talk about ‘engagements’ is cant.” + </p> + <p> + “I think perhaps it is,” said Rickie. But he went. Never had the turkey + been so athletic, or the plum-pudding tied into its cloth so tightly. Yet + he knew that both these symbols of hilarity had cost money, and it went to + his heart when Mr. Silt said in a hungry voice, “Have you thought at all + of what you want to be? No? Well, why should you? You have no need to be + anything.” And at dessert: “I wonder who Cadover goes to? I expect money + will follow money. It always does.” It was with a guilty feeling of relief + that he left for the Pembrokes’. + </p> + <p> + The Pembrokes lived in an adjacent suburb, or rather “sububurb,”—the + tract called Sawston, celebrated for its public school. Their style of + life, however, was not particularly suburban. Their house was small and + its name was Shelthorpe, but it had an air about it which suggested a + certain amount of money and a certain amount of taste. There were decent + water-colours in the drawing-room. Madonnas of acknowledged merit hung + upon the stairs. A replica of the Hermes of Praxiteles—of course + only the bust—stood in the hall with a real palm behind it. Agnes, + in her slap-dash way, was a good housekeeper, and kept the pretty things + well dusted. It was she who insisted on the strip of brown holland that + led diagonally from the front door to the door of Herbert’s study: boys’ + grubby feet should not go treading on her Indian square. It was she who + always cleaned the picture-frames and washed the bust and the leaves of + the palm. In short, if a house could speak—and sometimes it does + speak more clearly than the people who live in it—the house of the + Pembrokes would have said, “I am not quite like other houses, yet I am + perfectly comfortable. I contain works of art and a microscope and books. + But I do not live for any of these things or suffer them to disarrange me. + I live for myself and for the greater houses that shall come after me. Yet + in me neither the cry of money nor the cry for money shall ever be heard.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke was at the station. He did better as a host than as a guest, + and welcomed the young man with real friendliness. + </p> + <p> + “We were all coming, but Gerald has strained his ankle slightly, and wants + to keep quiet, as he is playing next week in a match. And, needless to + say, that explains the absence of my sister.” + </p> + <p> + “Gerald Dawes?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; he’s with us. I’m so glad you’ll meet again.” + </p> + <p> + “So am I,” said Rickie with extreme awkwardness. “Does he remember me?” + </p> + <p> + “Vividly.” + </p> + <p> + Vivid also was Rickie’s remembrance of him. + </p> + <p> + “A splendid fellow,” asserted Mr. Pembroke. + </p> + <p> + “I hope that Agnes is well.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, yes; she is well. And I think you’re looking more like other + people yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been having a very good time with a friend.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed. That’s right. Who was that?” + </p> + <p> + Rickie had a young man’s reticence. He generally spoke of “a friend,” “a + person I know,” “a place I was at.” When the book of life is opening, our + readings are secret, and we are unwilling to give chapter and verse. Mr. + Pembroke, who was half way through the volume, and had skipped or + forgotten the earlier pages, could not understand Rickie’s hesitation, nor + why with such awkwardness he should pronounce the harmless dissyllable + “Ansell.” + </p> + <p> + “Ansell? Wasn’t that the pleasant fellow who asked us to lunch?” + </p> + <p> + “No. That was Anderson, who keeps below. You didn’t see Ansell. The ones + who came to breakfast were Tilliard and Hornblower.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. And since then you have been with the Silts. How are they?” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, thank you. They want to be remembered to you.” + </p> + <p> + The Pembrokes had formerly lived near the Elliots, and had shown great + kindness to Rickie when his parents died. They were thus rather in the + position of family friends. + </p> + <p> + “Please remember us when you write.” He added, almost roguishly, “The + Silts are kindness itself. All the same, it must be just a little—dull, + we thought, and we thought that you might like a change. And of course we + are delighted to have you besides. That goes without saying.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s very good of you,” said Rickie, who had accepted the invitation + because he felt he ought to. + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit. And you mustn’t expect us to be otherwise than quiet on the + holidays. There is a library of a sort, as you know, and you will find + Gerald a splendid fellow.” + </p> + <p> + “Will they be married soon?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no!” whispered Mr. Pembroke, shutting his eyes, as if Rickie had made + some terrible faux pas. “It will be a very long engagement. He must make + his way first. I have seen such endless misery result from people marrying + before they have made their way.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. That is so,” said Rickie despondently, thinking of the Silts. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a sad unpalatable truth,” said Mr. Pembroke, thinking that the + despondency might be personal, “but one must accept it. My sister and + Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted it, though naturally it has + been a little pill.” + </p> + <p> + Their cab lurched round the corner as he spoke, and the two patients came + in sight. Agnes was leaning over the creosoted garden-gate, and behind her + there stood a young man who had the figure of a Greek athlete and the face + of an English one. He was fair and cleanshaven, and his colourless hair + was cut rather short. The sun was in his eyes, and they, like his mouth, + seemed scarcely more than slits in his healthy skin. Just where he began + to be beautiful the clothes started. Round his neck went an up-and-down + collar and a mauve-and-gold tie, and the rest of his limbs were hidden by + a grey lounge suit, carefully creased in the right places. + </p> + <p> + “Lovely! Lovely!” cried Agnes, banging on the gate, “Your train must have + been to the minute.” + </p> + <p> + “Hullo!” said the athlete, and vomited with the greeting a cloud of + tobacco-smoke. It must have been imprisoned in his mouth some time, for no + pipe was visible. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo!” returned Rickie, laughing violently. They shook hands. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you going, Rickie?” asked Agnes. “You aren’t grubby. Why don’t + you stop? Gerald, get the large wicker-chair. Herbert has letters, but we + can sit here till lunch. It’s like spring.” + </p> + <p> + The garden of Shelthorpe was nearly all in front an unusual and pleasant + arrangement. The front gate and the servants’ entrance were both at the + side, and in the remaining space the gardener had contrived a little lawn + where one could sit concealed from the road by a fence, from the neighbour + by a fence, from the house by a tree, and from the path by a bush. + </p> + <p> + “This is the lovers’ bower,” observed Agnes, sitting down on the bench. + Rickie stood by her till the chair arrived. + </p> + <p> + “Are you smoking before lunch?” asked Mr. Dawes. + </p> + <p> + “No, thank you. I hardly ever smoke.” + </p> + <p> + “No vices. Aren’t you at Cambridge now?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s your college?” + </p> + <p> + Rickie told him. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know Carruthers?” + </p> + <p> + “Rather!” + </p> + <p> + “I mean A. P. Carruthers, who got his socker blue.” + </p> + <p> + “Rather! He’s secretary to the college musical society.” + </p> + <p> + “A. P. Carruthers?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Dawes seemed offended. He tapped on his teeth, and remarked that the + weather bad no business to be so warm in winter. “But it was fiendish + before Christmas,” said Agnes. + </p> + <p> + He frowned, and asked, “Do you know a man called Gerrish?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know James?” + </p> + <p> + “Never heard of him.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s my year too. He got a blue for hockey his second term.” + </p> + <p> + “I know nothing about the ‘Varsity.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie winced at the abbreviation “‘Varsity.” It was at that time the + proper thing to speak of “the University.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t the time,” pursued Mr. Dawes. + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” said Rickie politely. + </p> + <p> + “I had the chance of being an Undergrad, myself, and, by Jove, I’m + thankful I didn’t!” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” asked Agnes, for there was a pause. + </p> + <p> + “Puts you back in your profession. Men who go there first, before the + Army, start hopelessly behind. The same with the Stock Exchange or + Painting. I know men in both, and they’ve never caught up the time they + lost in the ‘Varsity—unless, of course, you turn parson.” + </p> + <p> + “I love Cambridge,” said she. “All those glorious buildings, and every one + so happy and running in and out of each other’s rooms all day long.” + </p> + <p> + “That might make an Undergrad happy, but I beg leave to state it wouldn’t + me. I haven’t four years to throw away for the sake of being called a + ‘Varsity man and hobnobbing with Lords.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie was prepared to find his old schoolfellow ungrammatical and + bumptious, but he was not prepared to find him peevish. Athletes, he + believed, were simple, straightforward people, cruel and brutal if you + like, but never petty. They knocked you down and hurt you, and then went + on their way rejoicing. For this, Rickie thought, there is something to be + said: he had escaped the sin of despising the physically strong—a + sin against which the physically weak must guard. But here was Dawes + returning again and again to the subject of the University, full of + transparent jealousy and petty spite, nagging, nagging, nagging, like a + maiden lady who has not been invited to a tea-party. Rickie wondered + whether, after all, Ansell and the extremists might not be right, and + bodily beauty and strength be signs of the soul’s damnation. + </p> + <p> + He glanced at Agnes. She was writing down some orderings for the + tradespeople on a piece of paper. Her handsome face was intent on the + work. The bench on which she and Gerald were sitting had no back, but she + sat as straight as a dart. He, though strong enough to sit straight, did + not take the trouble. + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t they talk to each other?” thought Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “Gerald, give this paper to the cook.” + </p> + <p> + “I can give it to the other slavey, can’t I?” + </p> + <p> + “She’d be dressing.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, there’s Herbert.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s busy. Oh, you know where the kitchen is. Take it to the cook.” + </p> + <p> + He disappeared slowly behind the tree. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of him?” she immediately asked. He murmured civilly. + </p> + <p> + “Has he changed since he was a schoolboy?” + </p> + <p> + “In a way.” + </p> + <p> + “Do tell me all about him. Why won’t you?” + </p> + <p> + She might have seen a flash of horror pass over Rickie’s face. The horror + disappeared, for, thank God, he was now a man, whom civilization protects. + But he and Gerald had met, as it were, behind the scenes, before our + decorous drama opens, and there the elder boy had done things to him—absurd + things, not worth chronicling separately. An apple-pie bed is nothing; + pinches, kicks, boxed ears, twisted arms, pulled hair, ghosts at night, + inky books, befouled photographs, amount to very little by themselves. But + let them be united and continuous, and you have a hell that no grown-up + devil can devise. Between Rickie and Gerald there lay a shadow that + darkens life more often than we suppose. The bully and his victim never + quite forget their first relations. They meet in clubs and country houses, + and clap one another on the back; but in both the memory is green of a + more strenuous day, when they were boys together. + </p> + <p> + He tried to say, “He was the right kind of boy, and I was the wrong kind.” + But Cambridge would not let him smooth the situation over by + self-belittlement. If he had been the wrong kind of boy, Gerald had been a + worse kind. He murmured, “We are different, very,” and Miss Pembroke, + perhaps suspecting something, asked no more. But she kept to the subject + of Mr. Dawes, humorously depreciating her lover and discussing him without + reverence. Rickie laughed, but felt uncomfortable. When people were + engaged, he felt that they should be outside criticism. Yet here he was + criticizing. He could not help it. He was dragged in. + </p> + <p> + “I hope his ankle is better.” + </p> + <p> + “Never was bad. He’s always fussing over something.” + </p> + <p> + “He plays next week in a match, I think Herbert says.” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say he does.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we be going?” + </p> + <p> + “Pray go if you like. I shall stop at home. I’ve had enough of cold feet.” + </p> + <p> + It was all very colourless and odd. + </p> + <p> + Gerald returned, saying, “I can’t stand your cook. What’s she want to ask + me questions for? I can’t stand talking to servants. I say, ‘If I speak to + you, well and good’—and it’s another thing besides if she were + pretty.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I hope our ugly cook will have lunch ready in a minute,” said + Agnes. “We’re frightfully unpunctual this morning, and I daren’t say + anything, because it was the same yesterday, and if I complain again they + might leave. Poor Rickie must be starved.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, the Silts gave me all these sandwiches and I’ve never eaten them. + They always stuff one.” + </p> + <p> + “And you thought you’d better, eh?” said Mr. Dawes, “in case you weren’t + stuffed here.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Pembroke, who house-kept somewhat economically, looked annoyed. + </p> + <p> + The voice of Mr. Pembroke was now heard calling from the house, + “Frederick! Frederick! My dear boy, pardon me. It was an important letter + about the Church Defence, otherwise—. Come in and see your room.” + </p> + <p> + He was glad to quit the little lawn. He had learnt too much there. It was + dreadful: they did not love each other. More dreadful even than the case + of his father and mother, for they, until they married, had got on pretty + well. But this man was already rude and brutal and cold: he was still the + school bully who twisted up the arms of little boys, and ran pins into + them at chapel, and struck them in the stomach when they were swinging on + the horizontal bar. Poor Agnes; why ever had she done it? Ought not + somebody to interfere? + </p> + <p> + He had forgotten his sandwiches, and went back to get them. + </p> + <p> + Gerald and Agnes were locked in each other’s arms. + </p> + <p> + He only looked for a moment, but the sight burnt into his brain. The man’s + grip was the stronger. He had drawn the woman on to his knee, was pressing + her, with all his strength, against him. Already her hands slipped off + him, and she whispered, “Don’t you hurt—” Her face had no + expression. It stared at the intruder and never saw him. Then her lover + kissed it, and immediately it shone with mysterious beauty, like some + star. + </p> + <p> + Rickie limped away without the sandwiches, crimson and afraid. He thought, + “Do such things actually happen?” and he seemed to be looking down + coloured valleys. Brighter they glowed, till gods of pure flame were born + in them, and then he was looking at pinnacles of virgin snow. While Mr. + Pembroke talked, the riot of fair images increased. + </p> + <p> + They invaded his being and lit lamps at unsuspected shrines. Their + orchestra commenced in that suburban house, where he had to stand aside + for the maid to carry in the luncheon. Music flowed past him like a river. + He stood at the springs of creation and heard the primeval monotony. Then + an obscure instrument gave out a little phrase. + </p> + <p> + The river continued unheeding. The phrase was repeated and a listener + might know it was a fragment of the Tune of tunes. Nobler instruments + accepted it, the clarionet protected, the brass encouraged, and it rose to + the surface to the whisper of violins. In full unison was Love born, flame + of the flame, flushing the dark river beneath him and the virgin snows + above. His wings were infinite, his youth eternal; the sun was a jewel on + his finger as he passed it in benediction over the world. Creation, no + longer monotonous, acclaimed him, in widening melody, in brighter + radiances. Was Love a column of fire? Was he a torrent of song? Was he + greater than either—the touch of a man on a woman? + </p> + <p> + It was the merest accident that Rickie had not been disgusted. But this he + could not know. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke, when he called the two dawdlers into lunch, was aware of a + hand on his arm and a voice that murmured, “Don’t—they may be + happy.” + </p> + <p> + He stared, and struck the gong. To its music they approached, priest and + high priestess. + </p> + <p> + “Rickie, can I give these sandwiches to the boot boy?” said the one. “He + would love them.” + </p> + <p> + “The gong! Be quick! The gong!” + </p> + <p> + “Are you smoking before lunch?” said the other. + </p> + <p> + But they had got into heaven, and nothing could get them out of it. Others + might think them surly or prosaic. He knew. He could remember every word + they spoke. He would treasure every motion, every glance of either, and so + in time to come, when the gates of heaven had shut, some faint radiance, + some echo of wisdom might remain with him outside. + </p> + <p> + As a matter of fact, he saw them very little during his visit. He checked + himself because he was unworthy. What right had he to pry, even in the + spirit, upon their bliss? It was no crime to have seen them on the lawn. + It would be a crime to go to it again. He tried to keep himself and his + thoughts away, not because he was ascetic, but because they would not like + it if they knew. This behaviour of his suited them admirably. And when any + gracious little thing occurred to them—any little thing that his + sympathy had contrived and allowed—they put it down to chance or to + each other. + </p> + <p> + So the lovers fall into the background. They are part of the distant + sunrise, and only the mountains speak to them. Rickie talks to Mr. + Pembroke, amidst the unlit valleys of our over-habitable world. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Sawston School had been founded by a tradesman in the seventeenth century. + It was then a tiny grammar-school in a tiny town, and the City Company who + governed it had to drive half a day through the woods and heath on the + occasion of their annual visit. In the twentieth century they still drove, + but only from the railway station; and found themselves not in a tiny + town, nor yet in a large one, but amongst innumerable residences, detached + and semi-detached, which had gathered round the school. For the intentions + of the founder had been altered, or at all events amplified, instead of + educating the “poore of my home,” he now educated the upper classes of + England. The change had taken place not so very far back. Till the + nineteenth century the grammar-school was still composed of day scholars + from the neighbourhood. Then two things happened. Firstly, the school’s + property rose in value, and it became rich. Secondly, for no obvious + reason, it suddenly emitted a quantity of bishops. The bishops, like the + stars from a Roman candle, were all colours, and flew in all directions, + some high, some low, some to distant colonies, one into the Church of + Rome. But many a father traced their course in the papers; many a mother + wondered whether her son, if properly ignited, might not burn as bright; + many a family moved to the place where living and education were so cheap, + where day-boys were not looked down upon, and where the orthodox and the + up-to-date were said to be combined. The school doubled its numbers. It + built new class-rooms, laboratories and a gymnasium. It dropped the prefix + “Grammar.” It coaxed the sons of the local tradesmen into a new + foundation, the “Commercial School,” built a couple of miles away. And it + started boarding-houses. It had not the gracious antiquity of Eton or + Winchester, nor, on the other hand, had it a conscious policy like + Lancing, Wellington, and other purely modern foundations. Where tradition + served, it clung to them. Where new departures seemed desirable, they were + made. It aimed at producing the average Englishman, and, to a very great + extent, it succeeded. + </p> + <p> + Here Mr. Pembroke passed his happy and industrious life. His technical + position was that of master to a form low down on the Modern Side. But his + work lay elsewhere. He organized. If no organization existed, he would + create one. If one did exist, he would modify it. “An organization,” he + would say, “is after all not an end in itself. It must contribute to a + movement.” When one good custom seemed likely to corrupt the school, he + was ready with another; he believed that without innumerable customs there + was no safety, either for boys or men. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps he is right, and always will be right. Perhaps each of us would go + to ruin if for one short hour we acted as we thought fit, and attempted + the service of perfect freedom. The school caps, with their elaborate + symbolism, were his; his the many-tinted bathing-drawers, that showed how + far a boy could swim; his the hierarchy of jerseys and blazers. It was he + who instituted Bounds, and call, and the two sorts of exercise-paper, and + the three sorts of caning, and “The Sawtonian,” a bi-terminal magazine. + His plump finger was in every pie. The dome of his skull, mild but + impressive, shone at every master’s meeting. He was generally acknowledged + to be the coming man. + </p> + <p> + His last achievement had been the organization of the day-boys. They had + been left too much to themselves, and were weak in esprit de corps; they + were apt to regard home, not school, as the most important thing in their + lives. Moreover, they got out of their parents’ hands; they did their + preparation any time and some times anyhow. They shirked games, they were + out at all hours, they ate what they should not, they smoked, they + bicycled on the asphalt. Now all was over. Like boarders, they were to be + in at 7:15 P.M., and were not allowed out after unless with a written + order from their parent or guardian; they, too, must work at fixed hours + in the evening, and before breakfast next morning from 7 to 8. Games were + compulsory. They must not go to parties in term time. They must keep to + bounds. Of course the reform was not complete. It was impossible to + control the dieting, though, on a printed circular, day-parents were + implored to provide simple food. And it is also believed that some mothers + disobeyed the rule about preparation, and allowed their sons to do all the + work over-night and have a longer sleep in the morning. But the gulf + between day-boys and boarders was considerably lessened, and grew still + narrower when the day-boys too were organized into a House with + house-master and colours of their own. “Through the House,” said Mr. + Pembroke, “one learns patriotism for the school, just as through the + school one learns patriotism for the country. Our only course, therefore, + is to organize the day-boys into a House.” The headmaster agreed, as he + often did, and the new community was formed. Mr. Pembroke, to avoid the + tongues of malice, had refused the post of house-master for himself, + saying to Mr. Jackson, who taught the sixth, “You keep too much in the + background. Here is a chance for you.” But this was a failure. Mr. + Jackson, a scholar and a student, neither felt nor conveyed any + enthusiasm, and when confronted with his House, would say, “Well, I don’t + know what we’re all here for. Now I should think you’d better go home to + your mothers.” He returned to his background, and next term Mr. Pembroke + was to take his place. + </p> + <p> + Such were the themes on which Mr. Pembroke discoursed to Rickie’s civil + ear. He showed him the school, and the library, and the subterranean hall + where the day-boys might leave their coats and caps, and where, on festal + occasions, they supped. He showed him Mr. Jackson’s pretty house, and + whispered, “Were it not for his brilliant intellect, it would be a case of + Quickmarch!” He showed him the racquet-court, happily completed, and the + chapel, unhappily still in need of funds. Rickie was impressed, but then + he was impressed by everything. Of course a House of day-boys seemed a + little shadowy after Agnes and Gerald, but he imparted some reality even + to that. + </p> + <p> + “The racquet-court,” said Mr. Pembroke, “is most gratifying. We never + expected to manage it this year. But before the Easter holidays every boy + received a subscription card, and was given to understand that he must + collect thirty shillings. You will scarcely believe me, but they nearly + all responded. Next term there was a dinner in the great school, and all + who had collected, not thirty shillings, but as much as a pound, were + invited to it—for naturally one was not precise for a few shillings, + the response being the really valuable thing. Practically the whole school + had to come.” + </p> + <p> + “They must enjoy the court tremendously.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, it isn’t used very much. Racquets, as I daresay you know, is rather + an expensive game. Only the wealthier boys play—and I’m sorry to say + that it is not of our wealthier boys that we are always the proudest. But + the point is that no public school can be called first-class until it has + one. They are building them right and left.” + </p> + <p> + “And now you must finish the chapel?” + </p> + <p> + “Now we must complete the chapel.” He paused reverently, and said, “And + here is a fragment of the original building.” Rickie at once had a rush of + sympathy. He, too, looked with reverence at the morsel of Jacobean + brickwork, ruddy and beautiful amidst the machine-squared stones of the + modern apse. The two men, who had so little in common, were thrilled with + patriotism. They rejoiced that their country was great, noble, and old. + </p> + <p> + “Thank God I’m English,” said Rickie suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “Thank Him indeed,” said Mr. Pembroke, laying a hand on his back. + </p> + <p> + “We’ve been nearly as great as the Greeks, I do believe. Greater, I’m + sure, than the Italians, though they did get closer to beauty. Greater + than the French, though we do take all their ideas. I can’t help thinking + that England is immense. English literature certainly.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke removed his hand. He found such patriotism somewhat craven. + Genuine patriotism comes only from the heart. It knows no parleying with + reason. English ladies will declare abroad that there are no fogs in + London, and Mr. Pembroke, though he would not go to this, was only + restrained by the certainty of being found out. On this occasion he + remarked that the Greeks lacked spiritual insight, and had a low + conception of woman. + </p> + <p> + “As to women—oh! there they were dreadful,” said Rickie, leaning his + hand on the chapel. “I realize that more and more. But as to spiritual + insight, I don’t quite like to say; and I find Plato too difficult, but I + know men who don’t, and I fancy they mightn’t agree with you.” + </p> + <p> + “Far be it from me to disparage Plato. And for philosophy as a whole I + have the greatest respect. But it is the crown of a man’s education, not + the foundation. Myself, I read it with the utmost profit, but I have known + endless trouble result from boys who attempt it too soon, before they were + set.” + </p> + <p> + “But if those boys had died first,” cried Rickie with sudden vehemence, + “without knowing what there is to know—” + </p> + <p> + “Or isn’t to know!” said Mr. Pembroke sarcastically. + </p> + <p> + “Or what there isn’t to know. Exactly. That’s it.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Rickie, what do you mean? If an old friend may be frank, you are + talking great rubbish.” And, with a few well-worn formulae, he propped up + the young man’s orthodoxy. The props were unnecessary. Rickie had his own + equilibrium. Neither the Revivalism that assails a boy at about the age of + fifteen, nor the scepticism that meets him five years later, could sway + him from his allegiance to the church into which he had been born. But his + equilibrium was personal, and the secret of it useless to others. He + desired that each man should find his own. + </p> + <p> + “What does philosophy do?” the propper continued. “Does it make a man + happier in life? Does it make him die more peacefully? I fancy that in the + long-run Herbert Spencer will get no further than the rest of us. Ah, + Rickie! I wish you could move among the school boys, and see their healthy + contempt for all they cannot touch!” Here he was going too far, and had to + add, “Their spiritual capacities, of course, are another matter.” Then he + remembered the Greeks, and said, “Which proves my original statement.” + </p> + <p> + Submissive signs, as of one propped, appeared in Rickie’s face. Mr. + Pembroke then questioned him about the men who found Plato not difficult. + But here he kept silence, patting the school chapel gently, and presently + the conversation turned to topics with which they were both more competent + to deal. + </p> + <p> + “Does Agnes take much interest in the school?” + </p> + <p> + “Not as much as she did. It is the result of her engagement. If our + naughty soldier had not carried her off, she might have made an ideal + schoolmaster’s wife. I often chaff him about it, for he a little despises + the intellectual professions. Natural, perfectly natural. How can a man + who faces death feel as we do towards mensa or tupto?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly true. Absolutely true.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke remarked to himself that Frederick was improving. + </p> + <p> + “If a man shoots straight and hits straight and speaks straight, if his + heart is in the right place, if he has the instincts of a Christian and a + gentleman—then I, at all events, ask no better husband for my + sister.” + </p> + <p> + “How could you get a better?” he cried. “Do you remember the thing in ‘The + Clouds’?” And he quoted, as well as he could, from the invitation of the + Dikaios Logos, the description of the young Athenian, perfect in body, + placid in mind, who neglects his work at the Bar and trains all day among + the woods and meadows, with a garland on his head and a friend to set the + pace; the scent of new leaves is upon them; they rejoice in the freshness + of spring; over their heads the plane-tree whispers to the elm, perhaps + the most glorious invitation to the brainless life that has ever been + given. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Pembroke, who did not want a brother-in-law out of + Aristophanes. Nor had he got one, for Mr. Dawes would not have bothered + over the garland or noticed the spring, and would have complained that the + friend ran too slowly or too fast. + </p> + <p> + “And as for her—!” But he could think of no classical parallel for + Agnes. She slipped between examples. A kindly Medea, a Cleopatra with a + sense of duty—these suggested her a little. She was not born in + Greece, but came overseas to it—a dark, intelligent princess. With + all her splendour, there were hints of splendour still hidden—hints + of an older, richer, and more mysterious land. He smiled at the idea of + her being “not there.” Ansell, clever as he was, had made a bad blunder. + She had more reality than any other woman in the world. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke looked pleased at this boyish enthusiasm. He was fond of his + sister, though he knew her to be full of faults. “Yes, I envy her,” he + said. “She has found a worthy helpmeet for life’s journey, I do believe. + And though they chafe at the long engagement, it is a blessing in + disguise. They learn to know each other thoroughly before contracting more + intimate ties.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie did not assent. The length of the engagement seemed to him + unspeakably cruel. Here were two people who loved each other, and they + could not marry for years because they had no beastly money. Not all + Herbert’s pious skill could make this out a blessing. It was bad enough + being “so rich” at the Silts; here he was more ashamed of it than ever. In + a few weeks he would come of age and his money be his own. What a pity + things were so crookedly arranged. He did not want money, or at all events + he did not want so much. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose,” he meditated, for he became much worried over this,—“suppose + I had a hundred pounds a year less than I shall have. Well, I should still + have enough. I don’t want anything but food, lodging, clothes, and now and + then a railway fare. I haven’t any tastes. I don’t collect anything or + play games. Books are nice to have, but after all there is Mudie’s, or if + it comes to that, the Free Library. Oh, my profession! I forgot I shall + have a profession. Well, that will leave me with more to spare than ever.” + And he supposed away till he lost touch with the world and with what it + permits, and committed an unpardonable sin. + </p> + <p> + It happened towards the end of his visit—another airless day of that + mild January. Mr. Dawes was playing against a scratch team of cads, and + had to go down to the ground in the morning to settle something. Rickie + proposed to come too. + </p> + <p> + Hitherto he had been no nuisance. “You will be frightfully bored,” said + Agnes, observing the cloud on her lover’s face. “And Gerald walks like a + maniac.” + </p> + <p> + “I had a little thought of the Museum this morning,” said Mr. Pembroke. + “It is very strong in flint arrow-heads.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that’s your line, Rickie. I do envy you and Herbert the way you enjoy + the past.” + </p> + <p> + “I almost think I’ll go with Dawes, if he’ll have me. I can walk quite + fast just to the ground and back. Arrowheads are wonderful, but I don’t + really enjoy them yet, though I hope I shall in time.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke was offended, but Rickie held firm. + </p> + <p> + In a quarter of an hour he was back at the house alone, nearly crying. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, did the wretch go too fast?” called Miss Pembroke from her bedroom + window. + </p> + <p> + “I went too fast for him.” He spoke quite sharply, and before he had time + to say he was sorry and didn’t mean exactly that, the window had shut. + </p> + <p> + “They’ve quarrelled,” she thought. “Whatever about?” + </p> + <p> + She soon heard. Gerald returned in a cold stormy temper. Rickie had + offered him money. + </p> + <p> + “My dear fellow don’t be so cross. The child’s mad.” + </p> + <p> + “If it was, I’d forgive that. But I can’t stand unhealthiness.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, Gerald, that’s where I hate you. You don’t know what it is to pity + the weak.” + </p> + <p> + “Woman’s job. So you wish I’d taken a hundred pounds a year from him. Did + you ever hear such blasted cheek? Marry us—he, you, and me—a + hundred pounds down and as much annual—he, of course, to pry into + all we did, and we to kowtow and eat dirt-pie to him. If that’s Mr. + Rickety Elliot’s idea of a soldier and an Englishman, it isn’t mine, and I + wish I’d had a horse-whip.” + </p> + <p> + She was roaring with laughter. “You’re babies, a pair of you, and you’re + the worst. Why couldn’t you let the little silly down gently? There he was + puffing and sniffing under my window, and I thought he’d insulted you. Why + didn’t you accept?” + </p> + <p> + “Accept?” he thundered. + </p> + <p> + “It would have taken the nonsense out of him for ever. Why, he was only + talking out of a book.” + </p> + <p> + “More fool he.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, don’t be angry with a fool. He means no harm. He muddles all day + with poetry and old dead people, and then tries to bring it into life. + It’s too funny for words.” + </p> + <p> + Gerald repeated that he could not stand unhealthiness. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t call that exactly unhealthy.” + </p> + <p> + “I do. And why he could give the money’s worse.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + He became shy. “I hadn’t meant to tell you. It’s not quite for a lady.” + For, like most men who are rather animal, he was intellectually a prude. + “He says he can’t ever marry, owing to his foot. It wouldn’t be fair to + posterity. His grandfather was crocked, his father too, and he’s as bad. + He thinks that it’s hereditary, and may get worse next generation. He’s + discussed it all over with other Undergrads. A bright lot they must be. He + daren’t risk having any children. Hence the hundred quid.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped laughing. “Oh, little beast, if he said all that!” + </p> + <p> + He was encouraged to proceed. Hitherto he had not talked about their + school days. Now he told her everything,—the “barley-sugar,” as he + called it, the pins in chapel, and how one afternoon he had tied him + head-downward on to a tree trunk and then ran away—of course only + for a moment. + </p> + <p> + For this she scolded him well. But she had a thrill of joy when she + thought of the weak boy in the clutches of the strong one. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + Gerald died that afternoon. He was broken up in the football match. Rickie + and Mr. Pembroke were on the ground when the accident took place. It was + no good torturing him by a drive to the hospital, and he was merely + carried to the little pavilion and laid upon the floor. A doctor came, and + so did a clergyman, but it seemed better to leave him for the last few + minutes with Agnes, who had ridden down on her bicycle. + </p> + <p> + It was a strange lamentable interview. The girl was so accustomed to + health, that for a time she could not understand. It must be a joke that + he chose to lie there in the dust, with a rug over him and his knees bent + up towards his chin. His arms were as she knew them, and their admirable + muscles showed clear and clean beneath the jersey. The face, too, though a + little flushed, was uninjured: it must be some curious joke. + </p> + <p> + “Gerald, what have you been doing?” + </p> + <p> + He replied, “I can’t see you. It’s too dark.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’ll soon alter that,” she said in her old brisk way. She opened the + pavilion door. The people who were standing by it moved aside. She saw a + deserted meadow, steaming and grey, and beyond it slateroofed cottages, + row beside row, climbing a shapeless hill. Towards London the sky was + yellow. “There. That’s better.” She sat down by him again, and drew his + hand into her own. “Now we are all right, aren’t we?” + </p> + <p> + “Where are you?” + </p> + <p> + This time she could not reply. + </p> + <p> + “What is it? Where am I going?” + </p> + <p> + “Wasn’t the rector here?” said she after a silence. + </p> + <p> + “He explained heaven, and thinks that I—but—I couldn’t tell a + parson; but I don’t seem to have any use for any of the things there.” + </p> + <p> + “We are Christians,” said Agnes shyly. “Dear love, we don’t talk about + these things, but we believe them. I think that you will get well and be + as strong again as ever; but, in any case, there is a spiritual life, and + we know that some day you and I—” + </p> + <p> + “I shan’t do as a spirit,” he interrupted, sighing pitifully. “I want you + as I am, and it cannot be managed. The rector had to say so. I want—I + don’t want to talk. I can’t see you. Shut that door.” + </p> + <p> + She obeyed, and crept into his arms. Only this time her grasp was the + stronger. Her heart beat louder and louder as the sound of his grew more + faint. He was crying like a little frightened child, and her lips were wet + with his tears. “Bear it bravely,” she told him. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t,” he whispered. “It isn’t to be done. I can’t see you,” and + passed from her trembling with open eyes. + </p> + <p> + She rode home on her bicycle, leaving the others to follow. Some ladies + who did not know what had happened bowed and smiled as she passed, and she + returned their salute. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, miss, is it true?” cried the cook, her face streaming with tears. + </p> + <p> + Agnes nodded. Presumably it was true. Letters had just arrived: one was + for Gerald from his mother. Life, which had given them no warning, seemed + to make no comment now. The incident was outside nature, and would surely + pass away like a dream. She felt slightly irritable, and the grief of the + servants annoyed her. + </p> + <p> + They sobbed. “Ah, look at his marks! Ah, little he thought—little he + thought!” In the brown holland strip by the front door a heavy football + boot had left its impress. They had not liked Gerald, but he was a man, + they were women, he had died. Their mistress ordered them to leave her. + </p> + <p> + For many minutes she sat at the foot of the stairs, rubbing her eyes. An + obscure spiritual crisis was going on. + </p> + <p> + Should she weep like the servants? Or should she bear up and trust in the + consoler Time? Was the death of a man so terrible after all? As she + invited herself to apathy there were steps on the gravel, and Rickie + Elliot burst in. He was splashed with mud, his breath was gone, and his + hair fell wildly over his meagre face. She thought, “These are the people + who are left alive!” From the bottom of her soul she hated him. + </p> + <p> + “I came to see what you’re doing,” he cried. + </p> + <p> + “Resting.” + </p> + <p> + He knelt beside her, and she said, “Would you please go away?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, dear Agnes, of course; but I must see first that you mind.” Her + breath caught. Her eves moved to the treads, going outwards, so firmly, so + irretrievably. + </p> + <p> + He panted, “It’s the worst thing that can ever happen to you in all your + life, and you’ve got to mind it you’ve got to mind it. They’ll come + saying, ‘Bear up trust to time.’ No, no; they’re wrong. Mind it.” + </p> + <p> + Through all her misery she knew that this boy was greater than they + supposed. He rose to his feet, and with intense conviction cried: “But I + know—I understand. It’s your death as well as his. He’s gone, Agnes, + and his arms will never hold you again. In God’s name, mind such a thing, + and don’t sit fencing with your soul. Don’t stop being great; that’s the + one crime he’ll never forgive you.” + </p> + <p> + She faltered, “Who—who forgives?” + </p> + <p> + “Gerald.” + </p> + <p> + At the sound of his name she slid forward, and all her dishonesty left + her. She acknowledged that life’s meaning had vanished. Bending down, she + kissed the footprint. “How can he forgive me?” she sobbed. “Where has he + gone to? You could never dream such an awful thing. He couldn’t see me + though I opened the door—wide—plenty of light; and then he + could not remember the things that should comfort him. He wasn’t a—he + wasn’t ever a great reader, and he couldn’t remember the things. The + rector tried, and he couldn’t—I came, and I couldn’t—” She + could not speak for tears. Rickie did not check her. He let her accuse + herself, and fate, and Herbert, who had postponed their marriage. She + might have been a wife six months; but Herbert had spoken of self-control + and of all life before them. He let her kiss the footprints till their + marks gave way to the marks of her lips. She moaned. “He is gone—where + is he?” and then he replied quite quietly, “He is in heaven.” + </p> + <p> + She begged him not to comfort her; she could not bear it. + </p> + <p> + “I did not come to comfort you. I came to see that you mind. He is in + heaven, Agnes. The greatest thing is over.” + </p> + <p> + Her hatred was lulled. She murmured, “Dear Rickie!” and held up her hand + to him. Through her tears his meagre face showed as a seraph’s who spoke + the truth and forbade her to juggle with her soul. “Dear Rickie—but + for the rest of my life what am I to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Anything—if you remember that the greatest thing is over.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know you,” she said tremulously. “You have grown up in a moment. + You never talked to us, and yet you understand it all. Tell me again—I + can only trust you—where he is.” + </p> + <p> + “He is in heaven.” + </p> + <p> + “You are sure?” + </p> + <p> + It puzzled her that Rickie, who could scarcely tell you the time without a + saving clause, should be so certain about immortality. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + He did not stop for the funeral. Mr. Pembroke thought that he had a bad + effect on Agnes, and prevented her from acquiescing in the tragedy as + rapidly as she might have done. As he expressed it, “one must not court + sorrow,” and he hinted to the young man that they desired to be alone. + </p> + <p> + Rickie went back to the Silts. + </p> + <p> + He was only there a few days. As soon as term opened he returned to + Cambridge, for which he longed passionately. The journey thither was now + familiar to him, and he took pleasure in each landmark. The fair valley of + Tewin Water, the cutting into Hitchin where the train traverses the chalk, + Baldock Church, Royston with its promise of downs, were nothing in + themselves, but dear as stages in the pilgrimage towards the abode of + peace. On the platform he met friends. They had all had pleasant + vacations: it was a happy world. The atmosphere alters. + </p> + <p> + Cambridge, according to her custom, welcomed her sons with open drains. + Pettycury was up, so was Trinity Street, and navvies peeped out of King’s + Parade. Here it was gas, there electric light, but everywhere something, + and always a smell. It was also the day that the wheels fell off the + station tram, and Rickie, who was naturally inside, was among the + passengers who “sustained no injury but a shock, and had as hearty a laugh + over the mishap afterwards as any one.” + </p> + <p> + Tilliard fled into a hansom, cursing himself for having tried to do the + thing cheaply. Hornblower also swept past yelling derisively, with his + luggage neatly piled above his head. “Let’s get out and walk,” muttered + Ansell. But Rickie was succouring a distressed female—Mrs. Aberdeen. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mrs. Aberdeen, I never saw you: I am so glad to see you—I am so + very glad.” Mrs. Aberdeen was cold. She did not like being spoken to + outside the college, and was also distrait about her basket. Hitherto no + genteel eye had even seen inside it, but in the collision its little + calico veil fell off, and there was revealed—nothing. The basket was + empty, and never would hold anything illegal. All the same she was + distrait, and “We shall meet later, sir, I dessy,” was all the greeting + Rickie got from her. + </p> + <p> + “Now what kind of a life has Mrs. Aberdeen?” he exclaimed, as he and + Ansell pursued the Station Road. “Here these bedders come and make us + comfortable. We owe an enormous amount to them, their wages are absurd, + and we know nothing about them. Off they go to Barnwell, and then their + lives are hidden. I just know that Mrs. Aberdeen has a husband, but that’s + all. She never will talk about him. Now I do so want to fill in her life. + I see one-half of it. What’s the other half? She may have a real jolly + house, in good taste, with a little garden and books, and pictures. Or, + again, she mayn’t. But in any case one ought to know. I know she’d dislike + it, but she oughtn’t to dislike. After all, bedders are to blame for the + present lamentable state of things, just as much as gentlefolk. She ought + to want me to come. She ought to introduce me to her husband.” + </p> + <p> + They had reached the corner of Hills Road. Ansell spoke for the first + time. He said, “Ugh!” + </p> + <p> + “Drains?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. A spiritual cesspool.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie laughed. + </p> + <p> + “I expected it from your letter.” + </p> + <p> + “The one you never answered?” + </p> + <p> + “I answer none of your letters. You are quite hopeless by now. You can go + to the bad. But I refuse to accompany you. I refuse to believe that every + human being is a moving wonder of supreme interest and tragedy and beauty—which + was what the letter in question amounted to. You’ll find plenty who will + believe it. It’s a very popular view among people who are too idle to + think; it saves them the trouble of detecting the beautiful from the ugly, + the interesting from the dull, the tragic from the melodramatic. You had + just come from Sawston, and were apparently carried away by the fact that + Miss Pembroke had the usual amount of arms and legs.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie was silent. He had told his friend how he felt, but not what had + happened. Ansell could discuss love and death admirably, but somehow he + would not understand lovers or a dying man, and in the letter there had + been scant allusion to these concrete facts. Would Cambridge understand + them either? He watched some dons who were peeping into an excavation, and + throwing up their hands with humorous gestures of despair. These men would + lecture next week on Catiline’s conspiracy, on Luther, on Evolution, on + Catullus. They dealt with so much and they had experienced so little. Was + it possible he would ever come to think Cambridge narrow? In his short + life Rickie had known two sudden deaths, and that is enough to disarrange + any placid outlook on the world. He knew once for all that we are all of + us bubbles on an extremely rough sea. Into this sea humanity has built, as + it were, some little breakwaters—scientific knowledge, civilized + restraint—so that the bubbles do not break so frequently or so soon. + But the sea has not altered, and it was only a chance that he, Ansell, + Tilliard, and Mrs. Aberdeen had not all been killed in the tram. + </p> + <p> + They waited for the other tram by the Roman Catholic Church, whose florid + bulk was already receding into twilight. It is the first big building that + the incoming visitor sees. “Oh, here come the colleges!” cries the + Protestant parent, and then learns that it was built by a Papist who made + a fortune out of movable eyes for dolls. “Built out of doll’s eyes to + contain idols”—that, at all events, is the legend and the joke. It + watches over the apostate city, taller by many a yard than anything + within, and asserting, however wildly, that here is eternity, stability, + and bubbles unbreakable upon a windless sea. + </p> + <p> + A costly hymn tune announced five o’clock, and in the distance the more + lovable note of St. Mary’s could be heard, speaking from the heart of the + town. Then the tram arrived—the slow stuffy tram that plies every + twenty minutes between the unknown and the marketplace—and took them + past the desecrated grounds of Downing, past Addenbrookes Hospital, girt + like a Venetian palace with a mantling canal, past the Fitz William, + towering upon immense substructions like any Roman temple, right up to the + gates of one’s own college, which looked like nothing else in the world. + The porters were glad to see them, but wished it had been a hansom. “Our + luggage,” explained Rickie, “comes in the hotel omnibus, if you would + kindly pay a shilling for mine.” Ansell turned aside to some large lighted + windows, the abode of a hospitable don, and from other windows there + floated familiar voices and the familiar mistakes in a Beethoven sonata. + The college, though small, was civilized, and proud of its civilization. + It was not sufficient glory to be a Blue there, nor an additional glory to + get drunk. Many a maiden lady who had read that Cambridge men were sad + dogs, was surprised and perhaps a little disappointed at the reasonable + life which greeted her. Miss Appleblossom in particular had had a + tremendous shock. The sight of young fellows making tea and drinking water + had made her wonder whether this was Cambridge College at all. “It is so,” + she exclaimed afterwards. “It is just as I say; and what’s more, I + wouldn’t have it otherwise; Stewart says it’s as easy as easy to get into + the swim, and not at all expensive.” The direction of the swim was + determined a little by the genius of the place—for places have a + genius, though the less we talk about it the better—and a good deal + by the tutors and resident fellows, who treated with rare dexterity the + products that came up yearly from the public schools. They taught the + perky boy that he was not everything, and the limp boy that he might be + something. They even welcomed those boys who were neither limp nor perky, + but odd—those boys who had never been at a public school at all, and + such do not find a welcome everywhere. And they did everything with ease—one + might almost say with nonchalance, so that the boys noticed nothing, and + received education, often for the first time in their lives. + </p> + <p> + But Rickie turned to none of these friends, for just then he loved his + rooms better than any person. They were all he really possessed in the + world, the only place he could call his own. Over the door was his name, + and through the paint, like a grey ghost, he could still read the name of + his predecessor. With a sigh of joy he entered the perishable home that + was his for a couple of years. There was a beautiful fire, and the kettle + boiled at once. He made tea on the hearth-rug and ate the biscuits which + Mrs. Aberdeen had brought for him up from Anderson’s. “Gentlemen,” she + said, “must learn to give and take.” He sighed again and again, like one + who had escaped from danger. With his head on the fender and all his limbs + relaxed, he felt almost as safe as he felt once when his mother killed a + ghost in the passage by carrying him through it in her arms. There was no + ghost now; he was frightened at reality; he was frightened at the + splendours and horrors of the world. + </p> + <p> + A letter from Miss Pembroke was on the table. He did not hurry to open it, + for she, and all that she did, was overwhelming. She wrote like the Sibyl; + her sorrowful face moved over the stars and shattered their harmonies; + last night he saw her with the eyes of Blake, a virgin widow, tall, + veiled, consecrated, with her hands stretched out against an everlasting + wind. Why should she write? Her letters were not for the likes of him, nor + to be read in rooms like his. + </p> + <p> + “We are not leaving Sawston,” she wrote. “I saw how selfish it was of me + to risk spoiling Herbert’s career. I shall get used to any place. Now that + he is gone, nothing of that sort can matter. Every one has been most kind, + but you have comforted me most, though you did not mean to. I cannot think + how you did it, or understood so much. I still think of you as a little + boy with a lame leg,—I know you will let me say this,—and yet + when it came to the point you knew more than people who have been all + their lives with sorrow and death.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie burnt this letter, which he ought not to have done, for it was one + of the few tributes Miss Pembroke ever paid to imagination. But he felt + that it did not belong to him: words so sincere should be for Gerald + alone. The smoke rushed up the chimney, and he indulged in a vision. He + saw it reach the outer air and beat against the low ceiling of clouds. The + clouds were too strong for it; but in them was one chink, revealing one + star, and through this the smoke escaped into the light of stars + innumerable. Then—but then the vision failed, and the voice of + science whispered that all smoke remains on earth in the form of smuts, + and is troublesome to Mrs. Aberdeen. + </p> + <p> + “I am jolly unpractical,” he mused. “And what is the point of it when real + things are so wonderful? Who wants visions in a world that has Agnes and + Gerald?” He turned on the electric light and pulled open the table-drawer. + There, among spoons and corks and string, he found a fragment of a little + story that he had tried to write last term. It was called “The Bay of the + Fifteen Islets,” and the action took place on St. John’s Eve off the coast + of Sicily. A party of tourists land on one of the islands. Suddenly the + boatmen become uneasy, and say that the island is not generally there. It + is an extra one, and they had better have tea on one of the ordinaries. + “Pooh, volcanic!” says the leading tourist, and the ladies say how + interesting. The island begins to rock, and so do the minds of its + visitors. They start and quarrel and jabber. Fingers burst up through the + sand-black fingers of sea devils. The island tilts. The tourists go mad. + But just before the catastrophe one man, integer vitae scelerisque purus, + sees the truth. Here are no devils. Other muscles, other minds, are + pulling the island to its subterranean home. Through the advancing wall of + waters he sees no grisly faces, no ghastly medieval limbs, but—But + what nonsense! When real things are so wonderful, what is the point of + pretending? + </p> + <p> + And so Rickie deflected his enthusiasms. Hitherto they had played on gods + and heroes, on the infinite and the impossible, on virtue and beauty and + strength. Now, with a steadier radiance, they transfigured a man who was + dead and a woman who was still alive. + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + Love, say orderly people, can be fallen into by two methods: (1) through + the desires, (2) through the imagination. And if the orderly people are + English, they add that (1) is the inferior method, and characteristic of + the South. It is inferior. Yet those who pursue it at all events know what + they want; they are not puzzling to themselves or ludicrous to others; + they do not take the wings of the morning and fly into the uttermost parts + of the sea before walking to the registry office; they cannot breed a + tragedy quite like Rickie’s. + </p> + <p> + He is, of course, absurdly young—not twenty-one and he will be + engaged to be married at twenty-three. He has no knowledge of the world; + for example, he thinks that if you do not want money you can give it to + friends who do. He believes in humanity because he knows a dozen decent + people. He believes in women because he has loved his mother. And his + friends are as young and as ignorant as himself. They are full of the wine + of life. But they have not tasted the cup—let us call it the teacup—of + experience, which has made men of Mr. Pembroke’s type what they are. Oh, + that teacup! To be taken at prayers, at friendship, at love, till we are + quite sane, efficient, quite experienced, and quite useless to God or man. + We must drink it, or we shall die. But we need not drink it always. Here + is our problem and our salvation. There comes a moment—God knows + when—at which we can say, “I will experience no longer. I will + create. I will be an experience.” But to do this we must be both acute and + heroic. For it is not easy, after accepting six cups of tea, to throw the + seventh in the face of the hostess. And to Rickie this moment has not, as + yet, been offered. + </p> + <p> + Ansell, at the end of his third year, got a first in the Moral Science + Tripos. Being a scholar, he kept his rooms in college, and at once began + to work for a Fellowship. Rickie got a creditable second in the Classical + Tripos, Part I., and retired to sallow lodgings in Mill bane, carrying + with him the degree of B.A. and a small exhibition, which was quite as + much as he deserved. For Part II. he read Greek Archaeology, and got a + second. All this means that Ansell was much cleverer than Rickie. As for + the cow, she was still going strong, though turning a little academic as + the years passed over her. + </p> + <p> + “We are bound to get narrow,” sighed Rickie. He and his friend were lying + in a meadow during their last summer term. In his incurable love for + flowers he had plaited two garlands of buttercups and cow-parsley, and + Ansell’s lean Jewish face was framed in one of them. “Cambridge is + wonderful, but—but it’s so tiny. You have no idea—at least, I + think you have no idea—how the great world looks down on it.” + </p> + <p> + “I read the letters in the papers.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a bad look-out.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “Cambridge has lost touch with the times.” + </p> + <p> + “Was she ever intended to touch them?” + </p> + <p> + “She satisfies,” said Rickie mysteriously, “neither the professions, nor + the public schools, nor the great thinking mass of men and women. There is + a general feeling that her day is over, and naturally one feels pretty + sick.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you still write short stories?” + </p> + <p> + “Because your English has gone to the devil. You think and talk in + Journalese. Define a great thinking mass.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie sat up and adjusted his floral crown. + </p> + <p> + “Estimate the worth of a general feeling.” + </p> + <p> + Silence. + </p> + <p> + “And thirdly, where is the great world?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh that—!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. That,” exclaimed Ansell, rising from his couch in violent + excitement. “Where is it? How do you set about finding it? How long does + it take to get there? What does it think? What does it do? What does it + want? Oblige me with specimens of its art and literature.” Silence. “Till + you do, my opinions will be as follows: There is no great world at all, + only a little earth, for ever isolated from the rest of the little solar + system. The earth is full of tiny societies, and Cambridge is one of them. + All the societies are narrow, but some are good and some are bad—just + as one house is beautiful inside and another ugly. Observe the metaphor of + the houses: I am coming back to it. The good societies say, `I tell you to + do this because I am Cambridge.’ The bad ones say, `I tell you to do that + because I am the great world, not because I am ‘Peckham,’ or + `Billingsgate,’ or `Park Lane,’ but `because I am the great world.’ They + lie. And fools like you listen to them, and believe that they are a thing + which does not exist and never has existed, and confuse ‘great,’ which has + no meaning whatever, with ‘good,’ which means salvation. Look at this + great wreath: it’ll be dead tomorrow. Look at that good flower: it’ll come + up again next year. Now for the other metaphor. To compare the world to + Cambridge is like comparing the outsides of houses with the inside of a + house. No intellectual effort is needed, no moral result is attained. You + only have to say, ‘Oh, what a difference!’ and then come indoors again and + exhibit your broadened mind.” + </p> + <p> + “I never shall come indoors again,” said Rickie. “That’s the whole point.” + And his voice began to quiver. “It’s well enough for those who’ll get a + Fellowship, but in a few weeks I shall go down. In a few years it’ll be as + if I’ve never been up. It matters very much to me what the world is like. + I can’t answer your questions about it; and that’s no loss to you, but so + much the worse for me. And then you’ve got a house—not a + metaphorical one, but a house with father and sisters. I haven’t, and + never shall have. There’ll never again be a home for me like Cambridge. I + shall only look at the outside of homes. According to your metaphor, I + shall live in the street, and it matters very much to me what I find + there.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll live in another house right enough,” said Ansell, rather uneasily. + “Only take care you pick out a decent one. I can’t think why you flop + about so helplessly, like a bit of seaweed. In four years you’ve taken as + much root as any one.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “I should say you’ve been fortunate in your friends.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—that!” But he was not cynical—or cynical in a very tender + way. He was thinking of the irony of friendship—so strong it is, and + so fragile. We fly together, like straws in an eddy, to part in the open + stream. Nature has no use for us: she has cut her stuff differently. + Dutiful sons, loving husbands, responsible fathers these are what she + wants, and if we are friends it must be in our spare time. Abram and Sarai + were sorrowful, yet their seed became as sand of the sea, and distracts + the politics of Europe at this moment. But a few verses of poetry is all + that survives of David and Jonathan. + </p> + <p> + “I wish we were labelled,” said Rickie. He wished that all the confidence + and mutual knowledge that is born in such a place as Cambridge could be + organized. People went down into the world saying, “We know and like each + other; we shan’t forget.” But they did forget, for man is so made that he + cannot remember long without a symbol; he wished there was a society, a + kind of friendship office, where the marriage of true minds could be + registered. + </p> + <p> + “Why labels?” + </p> + <p> + “To know each other again.” + </p> + <p> + “I have taught you pessimism splendidly.” He looked at his watch. + </p> + <p> + “What time?” + </p> + <p> + “Not twelve.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie got up. + </p> + <p> + “Why go?” He stretched out his hand and caught hold of Rickie’s ankle. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got that Miss Pembroke to lunch—that girl whom you say never’s + there.” + </p> + <p> + “Then why go? All this week you have pretended Miss Pembroke awaited you. + Wednesday—Miss Pembroke to lunch. Thursday—Miss Pembroke to + tea. Now again—and you didn’t even invite her.” + </p> + <p> + “To Cambridge, no. But the Hall man they’re stopping with has so many + engagements that she and her friend can often come to me, I’m glad to say. + I don’t think I ever told you much, but over two years ago the man she was + going to marry was killed at football. She nearly died of grief. This + visit to Cambridge is almost the first amusement she has felt up to + taking. Oh, they go back tomorrow! Give me breakfast tomorrow.” + </p> + <p> + “All right.” + </p> + <p> + “But I shall see you this evening. I shall be round at your paper on + Schopenhauer. Lemme go.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t go,” he said idly. “It’s much better for you to talk to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Lemme go, Stewart.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s amusing that you’re so feeble. You—simply—can’t—get—away. + I wish I wanted to bully you.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie laughed, and suddenly over balanced into the grass. Ansell, with + unusual playfulness, held him prisoner. They lay there for few minutes, + talking and ragging aimlessly. Then Rickie seized his opportunity and + jerked away. + </p> + <p> + “Go, go!” yawned the other. But he was a little vexed, for he was a young + man with great capacity for pleasure, and it pleased him that morning to + be with his friend. The thought of two ladies waiting lunch did not deter + him; stupid women, why shouldn’t they wait? Why should they interfere with + their betters? With his ear on the ground he listened to Rickie’s + departing steps, and thought, “He wastes a lot of time keeping + engagements. Why will he be pleasant to fools?” And then he thought, “Why + has he turned so unhappy? It isn’t as it he’s a philosopher, or tries to + solve the riddle of existence. And he’s got money of his own.” Thus + thinking, he fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Rickie hurried away from him, and slackened and stopped, and + hurried again. He was due at the Union in ten minutes, but he could not + bring himself there. He dared not meet Miss Pembroke: he loved her. + </p> + <p> + The devil must have planned it. They had started so gloriously; she had + been a goddess both in joy and sorrow. She was a goddess still. But he had + dethroned the god whom once he had glorified equally. Slowly, slowly, the + image of Gerald had faded. That was the first step. Rickie had thought, + “No matter. He will be bright again. Just now all the radiance chances to + be in her.” And on her he had fixed his eyes. He thought of her awake. He + entertained her willingly in dreams. He found her in poetry and music and + in the sunset. She made him kind and strong. She made him clever. Through + her he kept Cambridge in its proper place, and lived as a citizen of the + great world. But one night he dreamt that she lay in his arms. This + displeased him. He determined to think a little about Gerald instead. Then + the fabric collapsed. + </p> + <p> + It was hard on Rickie thus to meet the devil. He did not deserve it, for + he was comparatively civilized, and knew that there was nothing shameful + in love. But to love this woman! If only it had been any one else! Love in + return—that he could expect from no one, being too ugly and too + unattractive. But the love he offered would not then have been vile. The + insult to Miss Pembroke, who was consecrated, and whom he had consecrated, + who could still see Gerald, and always would see him, shining on his + everlasting throne this was the crime from the devil, the crime that no + penance would ever purge. She knew nothing. She never would know. But the + crime was registered in heaven. + </p> + <p> + He had been tempted to confide in Ansell. But to what purpose? He would + say, “I love Miss Pembroke.” and Stewart would reply, “You ass.” And then. + “I’m never going to tell her.” “You ass,” again. After all, it was not a + practical question; Agnes would never hear of his fall. If his friend had + been, as he expressed it, “labelled”; if he had been a father, or still + better a brother, one might tell him of the discreditable passion. But why + irritate him for no reason? Thinking “I am always angling for sympathy; I + must stop myself,” he hurried onward to the Union. + </p> + <p> + He found his guests half way up the stairs, reading the advertisements of + coaches for the Long Vacation. He heard Mrs. Lewin say, “I wonder what + he’ll end by doing.” A little overacting his part, he apologized + nonchalantly for his lateness. + </p> + <p> + “It’s always the same,” cried Agnes. “Last time he forgot I was coming + altogether.” She wore a flowered muslin—something indescribably + liquid and cool. It reminded him a little of those swift piercing streams, + neither blue nor green, that gush out of the dolomites. Her face was clear + and brown, like the face of a mountaineer; her hair was so plentiful that + it seemed banked up above it; and her little toque, though it answered the + note of the dress, was almost ludicrous, poised on so much natural glory. + When she moved, the sunlight flashed on her ear-rings. + </p> + <p> + He led them up to the luncheon-room. By now he was conscious of his + limitations as a host, and never attempted to entertain ladies in his + lodgings. Moreover, the Union seemed less intimate. It had a faint flavour + of a London club; it marked the undergraduate’s nearest approach to the + great world. Amid its waiters and serviettes one felt impersonal, and able + to conceal the private emotions. Rickie felt that if Miss Pembroke knew + one thing about him, she knew everything. During this visit he took her to + no place that he greatly loved. + </p> + <p> + “Sit down, ladies. Fall to. I’m sorry. I was out towards Coton with a + dreadful friend.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Lewin pushed up her veil. She was a typical May-term chaperon, always + pleasant, always hungry, and always tired. Year after year she came up to + Cambridge in a tight silk dress, and year after year she nearly died of + it. Her feet hurt, her limbs were cramped in a canoe, black spots danced + before her eyes from eating too much mayonnaise. But still she came, if + not as a mother as an aunt, if not as an aunt as a friend. Still she + ascended the roof of King’s, still she counted the balls of Clare, still + she was on the point of grasping the organization of the May races. “And + who is your friend?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “His name is Ansell.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, now, did I see him two years ago—as a bedmaker in something + they did at the Foot Lights? Oh, how I roared.” + </p> + <p> + “You didn’t see Mr. Ansell at the Foot Lights,” said Agnes, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” asked Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “He’d scarcely be so frivolous.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember seeing him?” + </p> + <p> + “For a moment.” + </p> + <p> + What a memory she had! And how splendidly during that moment she had + behaved! + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t he marvellously clever?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe so.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, give me clever people!” cried Mrs. Lewin. “They are kindness itself + at the Hall, but I assure you I am depressed at times. One cannot talk + bump-rowing for ever.” + </p> + <p> + “I never hear about him, Rickie; but isn’t he really your greatest + friend?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t go in for greatest friends.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean you like us all equally?” + </p> + <p> + “All differently, those of you I like.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, you’ve caught it!” cried Mrs. Lewin. “Mr. Elliot gave it you there + well.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes laughed, and, her elbows on the table, regarded them both through + her fingers—a habit of hers. Then she said, “Can’t we see the great + Mr. Ansell?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, let’s. Or would he frighten me?” + </p> + <p> + “He would frighten you,” said Rickie. “He’s a trifle weird.” + </p> + <p> + “My good Rickie, if you knew the deathly dullness of Sawston—every + one saying the proper thing at the proper time, I so proper, Herbert so + proper! Why, weirdness is the one thing I long for! Do arrange something.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid there’s no opportunity. Ansell goes some vast bicycle ride + this afternoon; this evening you’re tied up at the Hall; and tomorrow you + go.” + </p> + <p> + “But there’s breakfast tomorrow,” said Agnes. “Look here, Rickie, bring + Mr. Ansell to breakfast with us at Buoys.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Lewin seconded the invitation. + </p> + <p> + “Bad luck again,” said Rickie boldly; “I’m already fixed up for breakfast. + I’ll tell him of your very kind intention.” + </p> + <p> + “Let’s have him alone,” murmured Agnes. + </p> + <p> + “My dear girl, I should die through the floor! Oh, it’ll be all right + about breakfast. I rather think we shall get asked this evening by that + shy man who has the pretty rooms in Trinity.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, very well. Where is it you breakfast, Rickie?” + </p> + <p> + He faltered. “To Ansell’s, it is—” It seemed as if he was making + some great admission. So self-conscious was he, that he thought the two + women exchanged glances. Had Agnes already explored that part of him that + did not belong to her? Would another chance step reveal the part that did? + He asked them abruptly what they would like to do after lunch. + </p> + <p> + “Anything,” said Mrs. Lewin,—“anything in the world.” + </p> + <p> + A walk? A boat? Ely? A drive? Some objection was raised to each. “To tell + the truth,” she said at last, “I do feel a wee bit tired, and what occurs + to me is this. You and Agnes shall leave me here and have no more bother. + I shall be perfectly happy snoozling in one of these delightful + drawing-room chairs. Do what you like, and then pick me up after it.” + </p> + <p> + “Alas, it’s against regulations,” said Rickie. “The Union won’t trust lady + visitors on its premises alone.” + </p> + <p> + “But who’s to know I’m alone? With a lot of men in the drawing-room, how’s + each to know that I’m not with the others?” + </p> + <p> + “That would shock Rickie,” said Agnes, laughing. “He’s frightfully + high-principled.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I’m not,” said Rickie, thinking of his recent shiftiness over + breakfast. + </p> + <p> + “Then come for a walk with me. I want exercise. Some connection of ours + was once rector of Madingley. I shall walk out and see the church.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Lewin was accordingly left in the Union. + </p> + <p> + “This is jolly!” Agnes exclaimed as she strode along the somewhat + depressing road that leads out of Cambridge past the observatory. “Do I go + too fast?” + </p> + <p> + “No, thank you. I get stronger every year. If it wasn’t for the look of + the thing, I should be quite happy.” + </p> + <p> + “But you don’t care for the look of the thing. It’s only ignorant people + who do that, surely.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. I care. I like people who are well-made and beautiful. They are + of some use in the world. I understand why they are there. I cannot + understand why the ugly and crippled are there, however healthy they may + feel inside. Don’t you know how Turner spoils his pictures by introducing + a man like a bolster in the foreground? Well, in actual life every + landscape is spoilt by men of worse shapes still.” + </p> + <p> + “You sound like a bolster with the stuffing out.” They laughed. She always + blew his cobwebs away like this, with a puff of humorous mountain air. + Just now the associations he attached to her were various—she + reminded him of a heroine of Meredith’s—but a heroine at the end of + the book. All had been written about her. She had played her mighty part, + and knew that it was over. He and he alone was not content, and wrote for + her daily a trivial and impossible sequel. + </p> + <p> + Last time they had talked about Gerald. But that was some six months ago, + when things felt easier. Today Gerald was the faintest blur. Fortunately + the conversation turned to Mr. Pembroke and to education. Did women lose a + lot by not knowing Greek? “A heap,” said Rickie, roughly. But modern + languages? Thus they got to Germany, which he had visited last Easter with + Ansell; and thence to the German Emperor, and what a to-do he made; and + from him to our own king (still Prince of Wales), who had lived while an + undergraduate at Madingley Hall. Here it was. And all the time he thought, + “It is hard on her. She has no right to be walking with me. She would be + ill with disgust if she knew. It is hard on her to be loved.” + </p> + <p> + They looked at the Hall, and went inside the pretty little church. Some + Arundel prints hung upon the pillars, and Agnes expressed the opinion that + pictures inside a place of worship were a pity. Rickie did not agree with + this. He said again that nothing beautiful was ever to be regretted. + </p> + <p> + “You’re cracked on beauty,” she whispered—they were still inside the + church. “Do hurry up and write something.” + </p> + <p> + “Something beautiful?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe you can. I’m going to lecture you seriously all the way home. + Take care that you don’t waste your life.” + </p> + <p> + They continued the conversation outside. “But I’ve got to hate my own + writing. I believe that most people come to that stage—not so early + though. What I write is too silly. It can’t happen. For instance, a stupid + vulgar man is engaged to a lovely young lady. He wants her to live in the + towns, but she only cares for woods. She shocks him this way and that, but + gradually he tames her, and makes her nearly as dull as he is. One day she + has a last explosion—over the snobby wedding presents—and + flies out of the drawing-room window, shouting, ‘Freedom and truth!’ Near + the house is a little dell full of fir-trees, and she runs into it. He + comes there the next moment. But she’s gone.” + </p> + <p> + “Awfully exciting. Where?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh Lord, she’s a Dryad!” cried Rickie, in great disgust. “She’s turned + into a tree.” + </p> + <p> + “Rickie, it’s very good indeed. The kind of thing has something in it. Of + course you get it all through Greek and Latin. How upset the man must be + when he sees the girl turn.” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn’t see her. He never guesses. Such a man could never see a + Dryad.” + </p> + <p> + “So you describe how she turns just before he comes up?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Indeed I don’t ever say that she does turn. I don’t use the word + ‘Dryad’ once.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you ought to put that part plainly. Otherwise, with such an + original story, people might miss the point. Have you had any luck with + it?” + </p> + <p> + “Magazines? I haven’t tried. I know what the stuff’s worth. You see, a + year or two ago I had a great idea of getting into touch with Nature, just + as the Greeks were in touch; and seeing England so beautiful, I used to + pretend that her trees and coppices and summer fields of parsley were + alive. It’s funny enough now, but it wasn’t funny then, for I got in such + a state that I believed, actually believed, that Fauns lived in a certain + double hedgerow near the Cog Magogs, and one evening I walked a mile + sooner than go through it alone.” + </p> + <p> + “Good gracious!” She laid her hand on his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + He moved to the other side of the road. “It’s all right now. I’ve changed + those follies for others. But while I had them I began to write, and even + now I keep on writing, though I know better. I’ve got quite a pile of + little stories, all harping on this ridiculous idea of getting into touch + with Nature.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you weren’t so modest. It’s simply splendid as an idea. Though—but + tell me about the Dryad who was engaged to be married. What was she like?” + </p> + <p> + “I can show you the dell in which the young person disappeared. We pass it + on the right in a moment.” + </p> + <p> + “It does seem a pity that you don’t make something of your talents. It + seems such a waste to write little stories and never publish them. You + must have enough for a book. Life is so full in our days that short + stories are the very thing; they get read by people who’d never tackle a + novel. For example, at our Dorcas we tried to read out a long affair by + Henry James—Herbert saw it recommended in ‘The Times.’ There was no + doubt it was very good, but one simply couldn’t remember from one week to + another what had happened. So now our aim is to get something that just + lasts the hour. I take you seriously, Rickie, and that is why I am so + offensive. You are too modest. People who think they can do nothing so + often do nothing. I want you to plunge.” + </p> + <p> + It thrilled him like a trumpet-blast. She took him seriously. Could he but + thank her for her divine affability! But the words would stick in his + throat, or worse still would bring other words along with them. His breath + came quickly, for he seldom spoke of his writing, and no one, not even + Ansell, had advised him to plunge. + </p> + <p> + “But do you really think that I could take up literature?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? You can try. Even if you fail, you can try. Of course we think + you tremendously clever; and I met one of your dons at tea, and he said + that your degree was not in the least a proof of your abilities: he said + that you knocked up and got flurried in examinations. Oh!”—her cheek + flushed,—“I wish I was a man. The whole world lies before them. They + can do anything. They aren’t cooped up with servants and tea parties and + twaddle. But where’s this dell where the Dryad disappeared?” + </p> + <p> + “We’ve passed it.” He had meant to pass it. It was too beautiful. All he + had read, all he had hoped for, all he had loved, seemed to quiver in its + enchanted air. It was perilous. He dared not enter it with such a woman. + </p> + <p> + “How long ago?” She turned back. “I don’t want to miss the dell. Here it + must be,” she added after a few moments, and sprang up the green bank that + hid the entrance from the road. “Oh, what a jolly place!” + </p> + <p> + “Go right in if you want to see it,” said Rickie, and did not offer to go + with her. She stood for a moment looking at the view, for a few steps will + increase a view in Cambridgeshire. The wind blew her dress against her. + Then, like a cataract again, she vanished pure and cool into the dell. + </p> + <p> + The young man thought of her feelings no longer. His heart throbbed louder + and louder, and seemed to shake him to pieces. “Rickie!” + </p> + <p> + She was calling from the dell. For an answer he sat down where he was, on + the dust-bespattered margin. She could call as loud as she liked. The + devil had done much, but he should not take him to her. + </p> + <p> + “Rickie!”—and it came with the tones of an angel. He drove his + fingers into his ears, and invoked the name of Gerald. But there was no + sign, neither angry motion in the air nor hint of January mist. June—fields + of June, sky of June, songs of June. Grass of June beneath him, grass of + June over the tragedy he had deemed immortal. A bird called out of the + dell: “Rickie!” + </p> + <p> + A bird flew into the dell. + </p> + <p> + “Did you take me for the Dryad?” she asked. She was sitting down with his + head on her lap. He had laid it there for a moment before he went out to + die, and she had not let him take it away. + </p> + <p> + “I prayed you might not be a woman,” he whispered. + </p> + <p> + “Darling, I am very much a woman. I do not vanish into groves and trees. I + thought you would never come.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you expect—?” + </p> + <p> + “I hoped. I called hoping.” + </p> + <p> + Inside the dell it was neither June nor January. The chalk walls barred + out the seasons, and the fir-trees did not seem to feel their passage. + Only from time to time the odours of summer slipped in from the wood + above, to comment on the waxing year. She bent down to touch him with her + lips. + </p> + <p> + He started, and cried passionately, “Never forget that your greatest thing + is over. I have forgotten: I am too weak. You shall never forget. What I + said to you then is greater than what I say to you now. What he gave you + then is greater than anything you will get from me.” + </p> + <p> + She was frightened. Again she had the sense of something abnormal. Then + she said, “What is all this nonsense?” and folded him in her arms. + </p> + <p> + VIII + </p> + <p> + Ansell stood looking at his breakfast-table, which was laid for four + instead of two. His bedmaker, equally peevish, explained how it had + happened. Last night, at one in the morning, the porter had been awoke + with a note for the kitchens, and in that note Mr. Elliot said that all + these things were to be sent to Mr. Ansell’s. + </p> + <p> + “The fools have sent the original order as well. Here’s the lemon-sole for + two. I can’t move for food.” + </p> + <p> + “The note being ambiguous, the Kitchens judged best to send it all.” She + spoke of the kitchens in a half-respectful, half-pitying way, much as one + speaks of Parliament. + </p> + <p> + “Who’s to pay for it?” He peeped into the new dishes. Kidneys entombed in + an omelette, hot roast chicken in watery gravy, a glazed but pallid pie. + </p> + <p> + “And who’s to wash it up?” said the bedmaker to her help outside. + </p> + <p> + Ansell had disputed late last night concerning Schopenhauer, and was a + little cross and tired. He bounced over to Tilliard, who kept opposite. + Tilliard was eating gooseberry jam. + </p> + <p> + “Did Elliot ask you to breakfast with me?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Tilliard mildly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you’d better come, and bring every one you know.” + </p> + <p> + So Tilliard came, bearing himself a little formally, for he was not very + intimate with his neighbour. Out of the window they called to Widdrington. + But he laid his hand on his stomach, thus indicating it was too late. + </p> + <p> + “Who’s to pay for it?” repeated Ansell, as a man appeared from the Buttery + carrying coffee on a bright tin tray. + </p> + <p> + “College coffee! How nice!” remarked Tilliard, who was cutting the pie. + “But before term ends you must come and try my new machine. My sister gave + it me. There is a bulb at the top, and as the water boils—” + </p> + <p> + “He might have counter-ordered the lemon-sole. That’s Rickie all over. + Violently economical, and then loses his head, and all the things go bad.” + </p> + <p> + “Give them to the bedder while they’re hot.” This was done. She accepted + them dispassionately, with the air of one who lives without nourishment. + Tilliard continued to describe his sister’s coffee machine. + </p> + <p> + “What’s that?” They could hear panting and rustling on the stairs. + </p> + <p> + “It sounds like a lady,” said Tilliard fearfully. He slipped the piece of + pie back. It fell into position like a brick. + </p> + <p> + “Is it here? Am I right? Is it here?” The door opened and in came Mrs. + Lewin. “Oh horrors! I’ve made a mistake.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right,” said Ansell awkwardly. + </p> + <p> + “I wanted Mr. Elliot. Where are they?” + </p> + <p> + “We expect Mr. Elliot every-moment,” said Tilliard. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t tell me I’m right,” cried Mrs. Lewin, “and that you’re the + terrifying Mr. Ansell.” And, with obvious relief, she wrung Tilliard + warmly by the hand. + </p> + <p> + “I’m Ansell,” said Ansell, looking very uncouth and grim. + </p> + <p> + “How stupid of me not to know it,” she gasped, and would have gone on to I + know not what, but the door opened again. It was Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “Here’s Miss Pembroke,” he said. “I am going to marry her.” + </p> + <p> + There was a profound silence. + </p> + <p> + “We oughtn’t to have done things like this,” said Agnes, turning to Mrs. + Lewin. “We have no right to take Mr. Ansell by surprise. It is Rickie’s + fault. He was that obstinate. He would bring us. He ought to be + horsewhipped.” + </p> + <p> + “He ought, indeed,” said Tilliard pleasantly, and bolted. Not till he + gained his room did he realize that he had been less apt than usual. As + for Ansell, the first thing he said was, “Why didn’t you counter-order the + lemon-sole?” + </p> + <p> + In such a situation Mrs. Lewin was of priceless value. She led the way to + the table, observing, “I quite agree with Miss Pembroke. I loathe + surprises. Never shall I forget my horror when the knife-boy painted the + dove’s cage with the dove inside. He did it as a surprise. Poor Parsival + nearly died. His feathers were bright green!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, give me the lemon-soles,” said Rickie. “I like them.” + </p> + <p> + “The bedder’s got them.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, there you are! What’s there to be annoyed about?” + </p> + <p> + “And while the cage was drying we put him among the bantams. They had been + the greatest allies. But I suppose they took him for a parrot or a hawk, + or something that bantams hate for while his cage was drying they picked + out his feathers, and PICKED and PICKED out his feathers, till he was + perfectly bald. ‘Hugo, look,’ said I. ‘This is the end of Parsival. Let me + have no more surprises.’ He burst into tears.” + </p> + <p> + Thus did Mrs. Lewin create an atmosphere. At first it seemed unreal, but + gradually they got used to it, and breathed scarcely anything else + throughout the meal. In such an atmosphere everything seemed of small and + equal value, and the engagement of Rickie and Agnes like the feathers of + Parsival, fluttered lightly to the ground. Ansell was generally silent. He + was no match for these two quite clever women. Only once was there a + hitch. + </p> + <p> + They had been talking gaily enough about the betrothal when Ansell + suddenly interrupted with, “When is the marriage?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ansell,” said Agnes, blushing, “I wish you hadn’t asked that. That + part’s dreadful. Not for years, as far as we can see.” + </p> + <p> + But Rickie had not seen as far. He had not talked to her of this at all. + Last night they had spoken only of love. He exclaimed, “Oh, Agnes-don’t!” + Mrs. Lewin laughed roguishly. + </p> + <p> + “Why this delay?” asked Ansell. + </p> + <p> + Agnes looked at Rickie, who replied, “I must get money, worse luck.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you’d got money.” + </p> + <p> + He hesitated, and then said, “I must get my foot on the ladder, then.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell began with, “On which ladder?” but Mrs. Lewin, using the privilege + of her sex, exclaimed, “Not another word. If there’s a thing I abominate, + it is plans. My head goes whirling at once.” What she really abominated + was questions, and she saw that Ansell was turning serious. To appease + him, she put on her clever manner and asked him about Germany. How had it + impressed him? Were we so totally unfitted to repel invasion? Was not + German scholarship overestimated? He replied discourteously, but he did + reply; and if she could have stopped him thinking, her triumph would have + been complete. + </p> + <p> + When they rose to go, Agnes held Ansell’s hand for a moment in her own. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye,” she said. “It was very unconventional of us to come as we did, + but I don’t think any of us are conventional people.” + </p> + <p> + He only replied, “Good-bye.” The ladies started off. Rickie lingered + behind to whisper, “I would have it so. I would have you begin square + together. I can’t talk yet—I’ve loved her for years—can’t + think what she’s done it for. I’m going to write short stories. I shall + start this afternoon. She declares there may be something in me.” + </p> + <p> + As soon as he had left, Tilliard burst in, white with agitation, and + crying, “Did you see my awful faux pas—about the horsewhip? What + shall I do? I must call on Elliot. Or had I better write?” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Pembroke will not mind,” said Ansell gravely. “She is + unconventional.” He knelt in an arm-chair and hid his face in the back. + </p> + <p> + “It was like a bomb,” said Tilliard. + </p> + <p> + “It was meant to be.” + </p> + <p> + “I do feel a fool. What must she think?” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind, Tilliard. You’ve not been as big a fool as myself. At all + events, you told her he must be horsewhipped.” + </p> + <p> + Tilliard hummed a little tune. He hated anything nasty, and there was + nastiness in Ansell. “What did you tell her?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of it?” + </p> + <p> + “I think: Damn those women.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes. One hates one’s friends to get engaged. It makes one feel so + old: I think that is one of the reasons. The brother just above me has + lately married, and my sister was quite sick about it, though the thing + was suitable in every way.” + </p> + <p> + “Damn THESE women, then,” said Ansell, bouncing round in the chair. “Damn + these particular women.” + </p> + <p> + “They looked and spoke like ladies.” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly. Their diplomacy was ladylike. Their lies were ladylike. They’ve + caught Elliot in a most ladylike way. I saw it all during the one moment + we were natural. Generally we were clattering after the married one, whom—like + a fool—I took for a fool. But for one moment we were natural, and + during that moment Miss Pembroke told a lie, and made Rickie believe it + was the truth.” + </p> + <p> + “What did she say?” + </p> + <p> + “She said `we see’ instead of ‘I see.’” + </p> + <p> + Tilliard burst into laughter. This jaundiced young philosopher, with his + kinky view of life, was too much for him. + </p> + <p> + “She said ‘we see,’” repeated Ansell, “instead of ‘I see,’ and she made + him believe that it was the truth. She caught him and makes him believe + that he caught her. She came to see me and makes him think that it is his + idea. That is what I mean when I say that she is a lady.” + </p> + <p> + “You are too subtle for me. My dull eyes could only see two happy people.” + </p> + <p> + “I never said they weren’t happy.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, my dear Ansell, why are you so cut up? It’s beastly when a friend + marries,—and I grant he’s rather young,—but I should say it’s + the best thing for him. A decent woman—and you have proved not one + thing against her—a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and + stop him getting slack. She’ll make him responsible and manly, for much as + I like Rickie, I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,”—his + voice grew sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell’s conceit, “and, + really, you talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil + visit to your rooms, and you see nothing but dark plots and challenges to + war.” + </p> + <p> + “War!” cried Ansell, crashing his fists together. “It’s war, then!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, what a lot of tommy-rot,” said Tilliard. “Can’t a man and woman get + engaged? My dear boy—excuse me talking like this—what on earth + is it to do with us?” + </p> + <p> + “We’re his friends, and I hope we always shall be, but we shan’t keep his + friendship by fighting. We’re bound to fall into the background. Wife + first, friends some way after. You may resent the order, but it is + ordained by nature.” + </p> + <p> + “The point is, not what’s ordained by nature or any other fool, but what’s + right.” + </p> + <p> + “You are hopelessly unpractical,” said Tilliard, turning away. “And let me + remind you that you’ve already given away your case by acknowledging that + they’re happy.” + </p> + <p> + “She is happy because she has conquered; he is happy because he has at + last hung all the world’s beauty on to a single peg. He was always trying + to do it. He used to call the peg humanity. Will either of these + happinesses last? His can’t. Hers only for a time. I fight this woman not + only because she fights me, but because I foresee the most appalling + catastrophe. She wants Rickie, partly to replace another man whom she lost + two years ago, partly to make something out of him. He is to write. In + time she will get sick of this. He won’t get famous. She will only see how + thin he is and how lame. She will long for a jollier husband, and I don’t + blame her. And, having made him thoroughly miserable and degraded, she + will bolt—if she can do it like a lady.” + </p> + <p> + Such were the opinions of Stewart Ansell. + </p> + <p> + IX + </p> + <p> + Seven letters written in June:— + </p> + <p> + Cambridge + </p> + <p> + Dear Rickie, + </p> + <p> + I would rather write, and you can guess what kind of letter this is when I + say it is a fair copy: I have been making rough drafts all the morning. + When I talk I get angry, and also at times try to be clever—two + reasons why I fail to get attention paid to me. This is a letter of the + prudent sort. If it makes you break off the engagement, its work is done. + You are not a person who ought to marry at all. You are unfitted in body: + that we once discussed. You are also unfitted in soul: you want and you + need to like many people, and a man of that sort ought not to marry. “You + never were attached to that great sect” who can like one person only, and + if you try to enter it you will find destruction. I have read in books and + I cannot afford to despise books, they are all that I have to go by—that + men and women desire different things. Man wants to love mankind; woman + wants to love one man. When she has him her work is over. She is the + emissary of Nature, and Nature’s bidding has been fulfilled. But man does + not care a damn for Nature—or at least only a very little damn. He + cares for a hundred things besides, and the more civilized he is the more + he will care for these other hundred things, and demand not only—a + wife and children, but also friends, and work, and spiritual freedom. + </p> + <p> + I believe you to be extraordinarily civilized.—Yours ever, + </p> + <p> + S.A. + </p> + <p> + Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, Sawston + </p> + <p> + Dear Ansell, + </p> + <p> + But I’m in love—a detail you’ve forgotten. I can’t listen to English + Essays. The wretched Agnes may be an “emissary of Nature,” but I only + grinned when I read it. I may be extraordinarily civilized, but I don’t + feel so; I’m in love, and I’ve found a woman to love me, and I mean to + have the hundred other things as well. She wants me to have them—friends + and work, and spiritual freedom, and everything. You and your books miss + this, because your books are too sedate. Read poetry—not only + Shelley. Understand Beatrice, and Clara Middleton, and Brunhilde in the + first scene of Gotterdammerung. Understand Goethe when he says “the + eternal feminine leads us on,” and don’t write another English Essay.—Yours + ever affectionately, + </p> + <p> + R.E. + </p> + <p> + Cambridge + </p> + <p> + Dear Rickie: + </p> + <p> + What am I to say? “Understand Xanthippe, and Mrs. Bennet, and Elsa in the + question scene of Lohengrin”? “Understand Euripides when he says the + eternal feminine leads us a pretty dance”? I shall say nothing of the + sort. The allusions in this English Essay shall not be literary. My + personal objections to Miss Pembroke are as follows:—(1) She is not + serious. (2) She is not truthful. + </p> + <p> + Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road Sawston + </p> + <p> + My Dear Stewart, + </p> + <p> + You couldn’t know. I didn’t know for a moment. But this letter of yours is + the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me yet—more + wonderful (I don’t exaggerate) than the moment when Agnes promised to + marry me. I always knew you liked me, but I never knew how much until this + letter. Up to now I think we have been too much like the strong heroes in + books who feel so much and say so little, and feel all the more for saying + so little. Now that’s over and we shall never be that kind of an ass + again. We’ve hit—by accident—upon something permanent. You’ve + written to me, “I hate the woman who will be your wife,” and I write back, + “Hate her. Can’t I love you both?” She will never come between us, Stewart + (She wouldn’t wish to, but that’s by the way), because our friendship has + now passed beyond intervention. No third person could break it. We + couldn’t ourselves, I fancy. We may quarrel and argue till one of us dies, + but the thing is registered. I only wish, dear man, you could be happier. + For me, it’s as if a light was suddenly held behind the world. + </p> + <p> + R.E. + </p> + <p> + Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, Sawston + </p> + <p> + Dear Mrs. Lewin,— + </p> + <p> + The time goes flying, but I am getting to learn my wonderful boy. We speak + a great deal about his work. He has just finished a curious thing called + “Nemi”—about a Roman ship that is actually sunk in some lake. I + cannot think how he describes the things, when he has never seen them. If, + as I hope, he goes to Italy next year, he should turn out something really + good. Meanwhile we are hunting for a publisher. Herbert believes that a + collection of short stories is hard to get published. It is, after all, + better to write one long one. + </p> + <p> + But you must not think we only talk books. What we say on other topics + cannot so easily be repeated! Oh, Mrs Lewin, he is a dear, and dearer than + ever now that we have him at Sawston. Herbert, in a quiet way, has been + making inquiries about those Cambridge friends of his. Nothing against + them, but they seem to be terribly eccentric. None of them are good at + games, and they spend all their spare time thinking and discussing. They + discuss what one knows and what one never will know and what one had much + better not know. Herbert says it is because they have not got enough to + do.—Ever your grateful and affectionate friend, + </p> + <p> + Agnes Pembroke + </p> + <p> + Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road Sawston + </p> + <p> + Dear Mr. Silt,— + </p> + <p> + Thank you for the congratulations, which I have handed over to the + delighted Rickie. + </p> + <p> + (The congratulations were really addressed to Agnes—a social blunder + which Mr. Pembroke deftly corrects.) + </p> + <p> + I am sorry that the rumor reached you that I was not pleased. Anything + pleases me that promises my sister’s happiness, and I have known your + cousin nearly as long as you have. It will be a very long engagement, for + he must make his way first. The dear boy is not nearly as wealthy as he + supposed; having no tastes, and hardly any expenses, he used to talk as if + he were a millionaire. He must at least double his income before he can + dream of more intimate ties. This has been a bitter pill, but I am glad to + say that they have accepted it bravely. + </p> + <p> + Hoping that you and Mrs. Silt will profit by your week at Margate.-I + remain, yours very sincerely, + </p> + <p> + Herbert Pembroke + </p> + <p> + Cadover, Wilts. + </p> + <p> + Dear Miss Pembroke,—Agnes— + </p> + <p> + I hear that you are going to marry my nephew. I have no idea what he is + like, and wonder whether you would bring him that I may find out. Isn’t + September rather a nice month? You might have to go to Stone Henge, but + with that exception would be left unmolested. I do hope you will manage + the visit. We met once at Mrs. Lewin’s, and I have a very clear + recollection of you.—Believe me, yours sincerely, + </p> + <p> + Emily Failing + </p> + <p> + X + </p> + <p> + The rain tilted a little from the south-west. For the most part it fell + from a grey cloud silently, but now and then the tilt increased, and a + kind of sigh passed over the country as the drops lashed the walls, trees, + shepherds, and other motionless objects that stood in their slanting + career. At times the cloud would descend and visibly embrace the earth, to + which it had only sent messages; and the earth itself would bring forth + clouds—clouds of a whiter breed—which formed in shallow + valleys and followed the courses of the streams. It seemed the beginning + of life. Again God said, “Shall we divide the waters from the land or not? + Was not the firmament labour and glory sufficient?” At all events it was + the beginning of life pastoral, behind which imagination cannot travel. + </p> + <p> + Yet complicated people were getting wet—not only the shepherds. For + instance, the piano-tuner was sopping. So was the vicar’s wife. So were + the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his Battleston car. Gallantry, + charity, and art pursued their various missions, perspiring and muddy, + while out on the slopes beyond them stood the eternal man and the eternal + dog, guarding eternal sheep until the world is vegetarian. + </p> + <p> + Inside an arbour—which faced east, and thus avoided the bad weather—there + sat a complicated person who was dry. She looked at the drenched world + with a pleased expression, and would smile when a cloud would lay down on + the village, or when the rain sighed louder than usual against her solid + shelter. Ink, paperclips, and foolscap paper were on the table before her, + and she could also reach an umbrella, a waterproof, a walking-stick, and + an electric bell. Her age was between elderly and old, and her forehead + was wrinkled with an expression of slight but perpetual pain. But the + lines round her mouth indicated that she had laughed a great deal during + her life, just as the clean tight skin round her eyes perhaps indicated + that she had not often cried. She was dressed in brown silk. A brown silk + shawl lay most becomingly over her beautiful hair. + </p> + <p> + After long thought she wrote on the paper in front of her, “The subject of + this memoir first saw the light at Wolverhampton on May the 14th, 1842.” + She laid down her pen and said “Ugh!” A robin hopped in and she welcomed + him. A sparrow followed and she stamped her foot. She watched some thick + white water which was sliding like a snake down the gutter of the gravel + path. It had just appeared. It must have escaped from a hollow in the + chalk up behind. The earth could absorb no longer. The lady did not think + of all this, for she hated questions of whence and wherefore, and the ways + of the earth (“our dull stepmother”) bored her unspeakably. But the water, + just the snake of water, was amusing, and she flung her golosh at it to + dam it up. Then she wrote feverishly, “The subject of this memoir first + saw the light in the middle of the night. It was twenty to eleven. His pa + was a parson, but he was not his pa’s son, and never went to heaven.” + There was the sound of a train, and presently white smoke appeared, rising + laboriously through the heavy air. It distracted her, and for about a + quarter of an hour she sat perfectly still, doing nothing. At last she + pushed the spoilt paper aside, took afresh piece, and was beginning to + write, “On May the 14th, 1842,” when there was a crunch on the gravel, and + a furious voice said, “I am sorry for Flea Thompson.” + </p> + <p> + “I daresay I am sorry for him too,” said the lady; her voice was languid + and pleasant. “Who is he?” + </p> + <p> + “Flea’s a liar, and the next time we meet he’ll be a football.” Off + slipped a sodden ulster. He hung it up angrily upon a peg: the arbour + provided several. + </p> + <p> + “But who is he, and why has he that disastrous name?” + </p> + <p> + “Flea? Fleance. All the Thompsons are named out of Shakespeare. He grazes + the Rings.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, I see. A pet lamb.” + </p> + <p> + “Lamb! Shepherd!” + </p> + <p> + “One of my Shepherds?” + </p> + <p> + “The last time I go with his sheep. But not the last time he sees me. I am + sorry for him. He dodged me today.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean to say”—she became animated—“that you have been + out in the wet keeping the sheep of Flea Thompson?” + </p> + <p> + “I had to.” He blew on his fingers and took off his cap. Water trickled + over his unshaven cheeks. His hair was so wet that it seemed worked upon + his scalp in bronze. + </p> + <p> + “Get away, bad dog!” screamed the lady, for he had given himself a shake + and spattered her dress with water. He was a powerful boy of twenty, + admirably muscular, but rather too broad for his height. People called him + “Podge” until they were dissuaded. Then they called him “Stephen” or “Mr. + Wonham.” Then he said, “You can call me Podge if you like.” + </p> + <p> + “As for Flea—!” he began tempestuously. He sat down by her, and with + much heavy breathing told the story,—“Flea has a girl at + Wintersbridge, and I had to go with his sheep while he went to see her. + Two hours. We agreed. Half an hour to go, an hour to kiss his girl, and + half an hour back—and he had my bike. Four hours! Four hours and + seven minutes I was on the Rings, with a fool of a dog, and sheep doing + all they knew to get the turnips.” + </p> + <p> + “My farm is a mystery to me,” said the lady, stroking her fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Some day you must really take me to see it. It must be like a Gilbert and + Sullivan opera, with a chorus of agitated employers. How is it that I have + escaped? Why have I never been summoned to milk the cows, or flay the + pigs, or drive the young bullocks to the pasture?” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her with astonishingly blue eyes—the only dry things he + had about him. He could not see into her: she would have puzzled an older + and clever man. He may have seen round her. + </p> + <p> + “A thing of beauty you are not. But I sometimes think you are a joy for + ever.” + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you understand right enough,” she exclaimed irritably, and then + smiled, for he was conceited, and did not like being told that he was not + a thing of beauty. “Large and steady feet,” she continued, “have this + disadvantage—you can knock down a man, but you will never knock down + a woman.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not likely—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, never mind—never, never mind. I was being funny. I repent. Tell + me about the sheep. Why did you go with them?” + </p> + <p> + “I did tell you. I had to.” + </p> + <p> + “But why?” + </p> + <p> + “He had to see his girl.” + </p> + <p> + “But why?” + </p> + <p> + His eyes shot past her again. It was so obvious that the man had to see + his girl. For two hours though—not for four hours seven minutes. + </p> + <p> + “Did you have any lunch?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t hold with regular meals.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you have a book?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t hold with books in the open. None of the older men read.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you commune with yourself, or don’t you hold with that?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh Lord, don’t ask me!” + </p> + <p> + “You distress me. You rob the Pastoral of its lingering romance. Is there + no poetry and no thought in England? Is there no one, in all these downs, + who warbles with eager thought the Doric lay?” + </p> + <p> + “Chaps sing to themselves at times, if you mean that.” + </p> + <p> + “I dream of Arcady. I open my eyes. Wiltshire. Of Amaryllis: Flea + Thompson’s girl. Of the pensive shepherd, twitching his mantle blue: you + in an ulster. Aren’t you sorry for me?” + </p> + <p> + “May I put in a pipe?” + </p> + <p> + “By all means put a pipe in. In return, tell me of what you were thinking + for the four hours and the seven minutes.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed shyly. “You do ask a man such questions.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you simply waste the time?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought that Colonel Robert Ingersoll says you must be strenuous.” + </p> + <p> + At the sound of this name he whisked open a little cupboard, and + declaring, “I haven’t a moment to spare,” took out of it a pile of + “Clarion” and other reprints, adorned as to their covers with bald or + bearded apostles of humanity. Selecting a bald one, he began at once to + read, occasionally exclaiming, “That’s got them,” “That’s knocked + Genesis,” with similar ejaculations of an aspiring mind. She glanced at + the pile. Reran, minus the style. Darwin, minus the modesty. A comic + edition of the book of Job, by “Excelsior,” Pittsburgh, Pa. “The Beginning + of Life,” with diagrams. “Angel or Ape?” by Mrs. Julia P. Chunk. She was + amused, and wondered idly what was passing within his narrow but not + uninteresting brain. Did he suppose that he was going to “find out”? She + had tried once herself, but had since subsided into a sprightly orthodoxy. + Why didn’t he read poetry, instead of wasting his time between books like + these and country like that? + </p> + <p> + The cloud parted, and the increase of light made her look up. Over the + valley she saw a grave sullen down, and on its flanks a little brown + smudge—her sheep, together with her shepherd, Fleance Thompson, + returned to his duties at last. A trickle of water came through the arbour + roof. She shrieked in dismay. + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right,” said her companion, moving her chair, but still + keeping his place in his book. + </p> + <p> + She dried up the spot on the manuscript. Then she wrote: “Anthony Eustace + Failing, the subject of this memoir, was born at Wolverhampton.” But she + wrote no more. She was fidgety. Another drop fell from the roof. Likewise + an earwig. She wished she had not been so playful in flinging her golosh + into the path. The boy who was overthrowing religion breathed somewhat + heavily as he did so. Another earwig. She touched the electric bell. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going in,” she observed. “It’s far too wet.” Again the cloud parted + and caused her to add, “Weren’t you rather kind to Flea?” But he was deep + in the book. He read like a poor person, with lips apart and a finger that + followed the print. At times he scratched his ear, or ran his tongue along + a straggling blonde moustache. His face had after all a certain beauty: at + all events the colouring was regal—a steady crimson from throat to + forehead: the sun and the winds had worked on him daily ever since he was + born. “The face of a strong man,” thought the lady. “Let him thank his + stars he isn’t a silent strong man, or I’d turn him into the gutter.” + Suddenly it struck her that he was like an Irish terrier. He worried + infinity as if it was a bone. Gnashing his teeth, he tried to carry the + eternal subtleties by violence. As a man he often bored her, for he was + always saying and doing the same things. But as a philosopher he really + was a joy for ever, an inexhaustible buffoon. Taking up her pen, she began + to caricature him. She drew a rabbit-warren where rabbits were at play in + four dimensions. Before she had introduced the principal figure, she was + interrupted by the footman. He had come up from the house to answer the + bell. On seeing her he uttered a respectful cry. + </p> + <p> + “Madam! Are you here? I am very sorry. I looked for you everywhere. Mr. + Elliot and Miss Pembroke arrived nearly an hour ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh dear, oh dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Failing. “Take these papers. Where’s + the umbrella? Mr. Stephen will hold it over me. You hurry back and + apologize. Are they happy?” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Pembroke inquired after you, madam.” + </p> + <p> + “Have they had tea?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, madam.” + </p> + <p> + “Leighton!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “I believe you knew she was here all the time. You didn’t want to wet your + pretty skin.” + </p> + <p> + “You must not call me ‘she’ to the servants,” said Mrs. Failing as they + walked away, she limping with a stick, he holding a great umbrella over + her. “I will not have it.” Then more pleasantly, “And don’t tell him he + lies. We all lie. I knew quite well they were coming by the four-six + train. I saw it pass.” + </p> + <p> + “That reminds me. Another child run over at the Roman crossing. Whish—bang—dead.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh my foot! Oh my foot, my foot!” said Mrs. Failing, and paused to take + breath. + </p> + <p> + “Bad?” he asked callously. + </p> + <p> + Leighton, with bowed head, passed them with the manuscript and disappeared + among the laurels. The twinge of pain, which had been slight, passed away, + and they proceeded, descending a green airless corridor which opened into + the gravel drive. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it odd,” said Mrs. Failing, “that the Greeks should be enthusiastic + about laurels—that Apollo should pursue any one who could possibly + turn into such a frightful plant? What do you make of Rickie?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall I lend you his story to read?” + </p> + <p> + He made no reply. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you think, Stephen, that a person in your precarious position ought + to be civil to my relatives?” + </p> + <p> + “Sorry, Mrs. Failing. I meant to be civil. I only hadn’t—anything to + say.” + </p> + <p> + She a laughed. “Are you a dear boy? I sometimes wonder; or are you a + brute?” + </p> + <p> + Again he had nothing to say. Then she laughed more mischievously, and said— + </p> + <p> + “How can you be either, when you are a philosopher? Would you mind telling + me—I am so anxious to learn—what happens to people when they + die?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t ask ME.” He knew by bitter experience that she was making fun of + him. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but I do ask you. Those paper books of yours are so up-to-date. For + instance, what has happened to the child you say was killed on the line?” + </p> + <p> + The rain increased. The drops pattered hard on the leaves, and outside the + corridor men and women were struggling, however stupidly, with the facts + of life. Inside it they wrangled. She teased the boy, and laughed at his + theories, and proved that no man can be an agnostic who has a sense of + humour. Suddenly she stopped, not through any skill of his, but because + she had remembered some words of Bacon: “The true atheist is he whose + hands are cauterized by holy things.” She thought of her distant youth. + The world was not so humorous then, but it had been more important. For a + moment she respected her companion, and determined to vex him no more. + </p> + <p> + They left the shelter of the laurels, crossed the broad drive, and were + inside the house at last. She had got quite wet, for the weather would not + let her play the simple life with impunity. As for him, he seemed a piece + of the wet. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” she cried, as he hurried up to his attic, “don’t shave!” + </p> + <p> + He was delighted with the permission. + </p> + <p> + “I have an idea that Miss Pembroke is of the type that pretends to be + unconventional and really isn’t. I want to see how she takes it. Don’t + shave.” + </p> + <p> + In the drawing-room she could hear the guests conversing in the subdued + tones of those who have not been welcomed. Having changed her dress and + glanced at the poems of Milton, she went to them, with uplifted hands of + apology and horror. + </p> + <p> + “But I must have tea,” she announced, when they had assured her that they + understood. “Otherwise I shall start by being cross. Agnes, stop me. Give + me tea.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes, looking pleased, moved to the table and served her hostess. Rickie + followed with a pagoda of sandwiches and little cakes. + </p> + <p> + “I feel twenty-seven years younger. Rickie, you are so like your father. I + feel it is twenty-seven years ago, and that he is bringing your mother to + see me for the first time. It is curious—almost terrible—to + see history repeating itself.” + </p> + <p> + The remark was not tactful. + </p> + <p> + “I remember that visit well,” she continued thoughtfully, “I suppose it + was a wonderful visit, though we none of us knew it at the time. We all + fell in love with your mother. I wish she would have fallen in love with + us. She couldn’t bear me, could she?” + </p> + <p> + “I never heard her say so, Aunt Emily.” + </p> + <p> + “No; she wouldn’t. I am sure your father said so, though. My dear boy, + don’t look so shocked. Your father and I hated each other. He said so, I + said so, I say so; say so too. Then we shall start fair.—Just a + cocoanut cake.—Agnes, don’t you agree that it’s always best to speak + out?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, rather, Mrs. Failing. But I’m shockingly straightforward.” + </p> + <p> + “So am I,” said the lady. “I like to get down to the bedrock.—Hullo! + Slippers? Slippers in the drawingroom?” + </p> + <p> + A young man had come in silently. Agnes observed with a feeling of regret + that he had not shaved. Rickie, after a moment’s hesitation, remembered + who it was, and shook hands with him. “You’ve grown since I saw you last.” + </p> + <p> + He showed his teeth amiably. + </p> + <p> + “How long was that?” asked Mrs. Failing. + </p> + <p> + “Three years, wasn’t it? Came over from the Ansells—friends.” + </p> + <p> + “How disgraceful, Rickie! Why don’t you come and see me oftener?” + </p> + <p> + He could not retort that she never asked him. + </p> + <p> + “Agnes will make you come. Oh, let me introduce Mr. Wonham—Miss + Pembroke.” + </p> + <p> + “I am deputy hostess,” said Agnes. “May I give you some tea?” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, but I have had a little beer.” + </p> + <p> + “It is one of the shepherds,” said Mrs. Failing, in low tones. + </p> + <p> + Agnes smiled rather wildly. Mrs. Lewin had warned her that Cadover was an + extraordinary place, and that one must never be astonished at anything. A + shepherd in the drawing-room! No harm. Still one ought to know whether it + was a shepherd or not. At all events he was in gentleman’s clothing. She + was anxious not to start with a blunder, and therefore did not talk to the + young fellow, but tried to gather what he was from the demeanour of + Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “I am sure, Mrs. Failing, that you need not talk of ‘making’ people come + to Cadover. There will be no difficulty, I should say.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, my dear. Do you know who once said those exact words to me?” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “Rickie’s mother.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she really?” + </p> + <p> + “My sister-in-law was a dear. You will have heard Rickie’s praises, but + now you must hear mine. I never knew a woman who was so unselfish and yet + had such capacities for life.” + </p> + <p> + “Does one generally exclude the other?” asked Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “Unselfish people, as a rule, are deathly dull. They have no colour. They + think of other people because it is easier. They give money because they + are too stupid or too idle to spend it properly on themselves. That was + the beauty of your mother—she gave away, but she also spent on + herself, or tried to.” + </p> + <p> + The light faded out of the drawing-room, in spite of it being September + and only half-past six. From her low chair Agnes could see the trees by + the drive, black against a blackening sky. That drive was half a mile + long, and she was praising its gravelled surface when Rickie called in a + voice of alarm, “I say, when did our train arrive?” + </p> + <p> + “Four-six.” + </p> + <p> + “I said so.” + </p> + <p> + “It arrived at four-six on the time-table,” said Mr. Wonham. “I want to + know when it got to the station?” + </p> + <p> + “I tell you again it was punctual. I tell you I looked at my watch. I can + do no more.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes was amazed. Was Rickie mad? A minute ago and they were boring each + other over dogs. What had happened? + </p> + <p> + “Now, now! Quarrelling already?” asked Mrs. Failing. + </p> + <p> + The footman, bringing a lamp, lit up two angry faces. + </p> + <p> + “He says—” + </p> + <p> + “He says—” + </p> + <p> + “He says we ran over a child.” + </p> + <p> + “So you did. You ran over a child in the village at four-seven by my + watch. Your train was late. You couldn’t have got to the station till + four-ten.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe it. We had passed the village by four-seven. Agnes, + hadn’t we passed the village? It must have been an express that ran over + the child.” + </p> + <p> + “Now is it likely”—he appealed to the practical world—“is it + likely that the company would run a stopping train and then an express + three minutes after it?” + </p> + <p> + “A child—” said Rickie. “I can’t believe that the train killed a + child.” He thought of their journey. They were alone in the carriage. As + the train slackened speed he had caught her for a moment in his arms. The + rain beat on the windows, but they were in heaven. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve got to believe it,” said the other, and proceeded to “rub it in.” + His healthy, irritable face drew close to Rickie’s. “Two children were + kicking and screaming on the Roman crossing. Your train, being late, came + down on them. One of them was pulled off the line, but the other was + caught. How will you get out of that?” + </p> + <p> + “And how will you get out of it?” cried Mrs. Failing, turning the tables + on him. “Where’s the child now? What has happened to its soul? You must + know, Agnes, that this young gentleman is a philosopher.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, drop all that,” said Mr. Wonham, suddenly collapsing. + </p> + <p> + “Drop it? Where? On my nice carpet?” + </p> + <p> + “I hate philosophy,” remarked Agnes, trying to turn the subject, for she + saw that it made Rickie unhappy. + </p> + <p> + “So do I. But I daren’t say so before Stephen. He despises us women.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don’t,” said the victim, swaying to and fro on the window-sill, + whither he had retreated. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he does. He won’t even trouble to answer us. Stephen! Podge! Answer + me. What has happened to the child’s soul?” + </p> + <p> + He flung open the window and leant from them into the dusk. They heard him + mutter something about a bridge. + </p> + <p> + “What did I tell you? He won’t answer my question.” + </p> + <p> + The delightful moment was approaching when the boy would lose his temper: + she knew it by a certain tremor in his heels. + </p> + <p> + “There wants a bridge,” he exploded. “A bridge instead of all this rotten + talk and the level-crossing. It wouldn’t break you to build a two-arch + bridge. Then the child’s soul, as you call it—well, nothing would + have happened to the child at all.” + </p> + <p> + A gust of night air entered, accompanied by rain. The flowers in the vases + rustled, and the flame of the lamp shot up and smoked the glass. Slightly + irritated, she ordered him to close the window. + </p> + <p> + XI + </p> + <p> + Cadover was not a large house. But it is the largest house with which this + story has dealings, and must always be thought of with respect. It was + built about the year 1800, and favoured the architecture of ancient Rome—chiefly + by means of five lank pilasters, which stretched from the top of it to the + bottom. Between the pilasters was the glass front door, to the right of + them the drawing room windows, to the left of them the windows of the + dining-room, above them a triangular area, which the better-class servants + knew as a “pendiment,” and which had in its middle a small round hole, + according to the usage of Palladio. The classical note was also sustained + by eight grey steps which led from the building down into the drive, and + by an attempt at a formal garden on the adjoining lawn. The lawn ended in + a Ha-ha (“Ha! ha! who shall regard it?”), and thence the bare land sloped + down into the village. The main garden (walled) was to the left as one + faced the house, while to the right was that laurel avenue, leading up to + Mrs. Failing’s arbour. + </p> + <p> + It was a comfortable but not very attractive place, and, to a certain type + of mind, its situation was not attractive either. From the distance it + showed as a grey box, huddled against evergreens. There was no mystery + about it. You saw it for miles. Its hill had none of the beetling romance + of Devonshire, none of the subtle contours that prelude a cottage in Kent, + but profferred its burden crudely, on a huge bare palm. “There’s Cadover,” + visitors would say. “How small it still looks. We shall be late for + lunch.” And the view from the windows, though extensive, would not have + been accepted by the Royal Academy. A valley, containing a stream, a road, + a railway; over the valley fields of barley and wurzel, divided by no + pretty hedges, and passing into a great and formless down—this was + the outlook, desolate at all times, and almost terrifying beneath a cloudy + sky. The down was called “Cadbury Range” (“Cocoa Squares” if you were + young and funny), because high upon it—one cannot say “on the top,” + there being scarcely any tops in Wiltshire—because high upon it + there stood a double circle of entrenchments. A bank of grass enclosed a + ring of turnips, which enclosed a second bank of grass, which enclosed + more turnips, and in the middle of the pattern grew one small tree. + British? Roman? Saxon? Danish? The competent reader will decide. The + Thompson family knew it to be far older than the Franco-German war. It was + the property of Government. It was full of gold and dead soldiers who had + fought with the soldiers on Castle Rings and been beaten. The road to + Londinium, having forded the stream and crossed the valley road and the + railway, passed up by these entrenchments. The road to London lay half a + mile to the right of them. + </p> + <p> + To complete this survey one must mention the church and the farm, both of + which lay over the stream in Cadford. Between them they ruled the village, + one claiming the souls of the labourers, the other their bodies. If a man + desired other religion or other employment he must leave. The church lay + up by the railway, the farm was down by the water meadows. The vicar, a + gentle charitable man scarcely realized his power, and never tried to + abuse it. Mr. Wilbraham, the agent, was of another mould. He knew his + place, and kept others to theirs: all society seemed spread before him + like a map. The line between the county and the local, the line between + the labourer and the artisan—he knew them all, and strengthened them + with no uncertain touch. Everything with him was graduated—carefully + graduated civility towards his superior, towards his inferiors carefully + graduated incivility. So—for he was a thoughtful person—so + alone, declared he, could things be kept together. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the Comic Muse, to whom so much is now attributed, had caused his + estate to be left to Mr. Failing. Mr. Failing was the author of some + brilliant books on socialism,—that was why his wife married him—and + for twenty-five years he reigned up at Cadover and tried to put his + theories into practice. He believed that things could be kept together by + accenting the similarities, not the differences of men. “We are all much + more alike than we confess,” was one of his favourite speeches. As a + speech it sounded very well, and his wife had applauded; but when it + resulted in hard work, evenings in the reading-rooms, mixed-parties, and + long unobtrusive talks with dull people, she got bored. In her piquant way + she declared that she was not going to love her husband, and succeeded. He + took it quietly, but his brilliancy decreased. His health grew worse, and + he knew that when he died there was no one to carry on his work. He felt, + besides, that he had done very little. Toil as he would, he had not a + practical mind, and could never dispense with Mr. Wilbraham. For all his + tact, he would often stretch out the hand of brotherhood too soon, or + withhold it when it would have been accepted. Most people misunderstood + him, or only understood him when he was dead. In after years his reign + became a golden age; but he counted a few disciples in his life-time, a + few young labourers and tenant farmers, who swore tempestuously that he + was not really a fool. This, he told himself, was as much as he deserved. + </p> + <p> + Cadover was inherited by his widow. She tried to sell it; she tried to let + it; but she asked too much, and as it was neither a pretty place nor + fertile, it was left on her hands. With many a groan she settled down to + banishment. Wiltshire people, she declared, were the stupidest in England. + She told them so to their faces, which made them no brighter. And their + county was worthy of them: no distinction in it—no style—simply + land. + </p> + <p> + But her wrath passed, or remained only as a graceful fretfulness. She made + the house comfortable, and abandoned the farm to Mr. Wilbraham. With a + good deal of care she selected a small circle of acquaintances, and had + them to stop in the summer months. In the winter she would go to town and + frequent the salons of the literary. As her lameness increased she moved + about less, and at the time of her nephew’s visit seldom left the place + that had been forced upon her as a home. Just now she was busy. A + prominent politician had quoted her husband. The young generation asked, + “Who is this Mr. Failing?” and the publishers wrote, “Now is the time.” + She was collecting some essays and penning an introductory memoir. + </p> + <p> + Rickie admired his aunt, but did not care for her. She reminded him too + much of his father. She had the same affliction, the same heartlessness, + the same habit of taking life with a laugh—as if life is a pill! He + also felt that she had neglected him. He would not have asked much: as for + “prospects,” they never entered his head, but she was his only near + relative, and a little kindness and hospitality during the lonely years + would have made incalculable difference. Now that he was happier and could + bring her Agnes, she had asked him to stop at once. The sun as it rose + next morning spoke to him of a new life. He too had a purpose and a value + in the world at last. Leaning out of the window, he gazed at the earth + washed clean and heard through the pure air the distant noises of the + farm. + </p> + <p> + But that day nothing was to remain divine but the weather. His aunt, for + reasons of her own, decreed that he should go for a ride with the Wonham + boy. They were to look at Old Sarum, proceed thence to Salisbury, lunch + there, see the sights, call on a certain canon for tea, and return to + Cadover in the evening. The arrangement suited no one. He did not want to + ride, but to be with Agnes; nor did Agnes want to be parted from him, nor + Stephen to go with him. But the clearer the wishes of her guests became, + the more determined was Mrs. Failing to disregard them. She smoothed away + every difficulty, she converted every objection into a reason, and she + ordered the horses for half-past nine. + </p> + <p> + “It is a bore,” he grumbled as he sat in their little private + sitting-room, breaking his finger-nails upon the coachman’s gaiters. “I + can’t ride. I shall fall off. We should have been so happy here. It’s just + like Aunt Emily. Can’t you imagine her saying afterwards, ‘Lovers are + absurd. I made a point of keeping them apart,’ and then everybody + laughing.” + </p> + <p> + With a pretty foretaste of the future, Agnes knelt before him and did the + gaiters up. “Who is this Mr. Wonham, by the bye?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. Some connection of Mr. Failing’s, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Does he live here?” + </p> + <p> + “He used to be at school or something. He seems to have grown into a + tiresome person.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose that Mrs. Failing has adopted him.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so. I believe that she has been quite kind. I do hope she’ll be + kind to you this morning. I hate leaving you with her.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, you say she likes me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but that wouldn’t prevent—you see she doesn’t mind what she + says or what she repeats if it amuses her. If she thought it really funny, + for instance, to break off our engagement, she’d try.” + </p> + <p> + “Dear boy, what a frightful remark! But it would be funnier for us to see + her trying. Whatever could she do?” + </p> + <p> + He kissed the hands that were still busy with the fastenings. “Nothing. I + can’t see one thing. We simply lie open to each other, you and I. There + isn’t one new corner in either of us that she could reveal. It’s only that + I always have in this house the most awful feeling of insecurity.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “If any one says or does a foolish thing it’s always here. All the family + breezes have started here. It’s a kind of focus for aimed and aimless + scandal. You know, when my father and mother had their special quarrel, my + aunt was mixed up in it,—I never knew how or how much—but you + may be sure she didn’t calm things down, unless she found things more + entertaining calm.” + </p> + <p> + “Rickie! Rickie!” cried the lady from the garden, “Your riding-master’s + impatient.” + </p> + <p> + “We really oughtn’t to talk of her like this here,” whispered Agnes. “It’s + a horrible habit.” + </p> + <p> + “The habit of the country, Agnes. Ugh, this gossip!” Suddenly he flung his + arms over her. “Dear—dear—let’s beware of I don’t know what—of + nothing at all perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, buck up!” yelled the irritable Stephen. “Which am I to shorten—left + stirrup or right?” + </p> + <p> + “Left!” shouted Agnes. + </p> + <p> + “How many holes?” + </p> + <p> + They hurried down. On the way she said: “I’m glad of the warning. Now I’m + prepared. Your aunt will get nothing out of me.” + </p> + <p> + Her betrothed tried to mount with the wrong foot according to his + invariable custom. She also had to pick up his whip. At last they started, + the boy showing off pretty consistently, and she was left alone with her + hostess. + </p> + <p> + “Dido is quiet as a lamb,” said Mrs. Failing, “and Stephen is a good + fielder. What a blessing it is to have cleared out the men. What shall you + and I do this heavenly morning?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m game for anything.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you quite unpacked?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Any letters to write?” No. + </p> + <p> + “Then let’s go to my arbour. No, we won’t. It gets the morning sun, and + it’ll be too hot today.” Already she regretted clearing out the men. On + such a morning she would have liked to drive, but her third animal had + gone lame. She feared, too, that Miss Pembroke was going to bore her. + However, they did go to the arbour. In languid tones she pointed out the + various objects of interest. + </p> + <p> + “There’s the Cad, which goes into the something, which goes into the Avon. + Cadbury Rings opposite, Cadchurch to the extreme left: you can’t see it. + You were there last night. It is famous for the drunken parson and the + railway-station. Then Cad Dauntsey. Then Cadford, that side of the stream, + connected with Cadover, this. Observe the fertility of the Wiltshire + mind.” + </p> + <p> + “A terrible lot of Cads,” said Agnes brightly. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Failing divided her guests into those who made this joke and those + who did not. The latter class was very small. + </p> + <p> + “The vicar of Cadford—not the nice drunkard—declares the name + is really ‘Chadford,’ and he worried on till I put up a window to St. Chad + in our church. His Cambridge wife pronounces it ‘Hyadford.’ I could smack + them both. How do you like Podge? Ah! you jump; I meant you to. How do you + like Podge Wonham?” + </p> + <p> + “Very nice,” said Agnes, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “Nice! He is a hero.” + </p> + <p> + There was a long interval of silence. Each lady looked, without much + interest, at the view. Mrs. Failing’s attitude towards Nature was severely + aesthetic—an attitude more sterile than the severely practical. She + applied the test of beauty to shadow and odour and sound; they never + filled her with reverence or excitement; she never knew them as a + resistless trinity that may intoxicate the worshipper with joy. If she + liked a ploughed field, it was only as a spot of colour—not also as + a hint of the endless strength of the earth. And today she could approve + of one cloud, but object to its fellow. As for Miss Pembroke, she was not + approving or objecting at all. “A hero?” she queried, when the interval + had passed. Her voice was indifferent, as if she had been thinking of + other things. + </p> + <p> + “A hero? Yes. Didn’t you notice how heroic he was?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I did.” + </p> + <p> + “Not at dinner? Ah, Agnes, always look out for heroism at dinner. It is + their great time. They live up to the stiffness of their shirt fronts. Do + you mean to say that you never noticed how he set down Rickie?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that about poetry!” said Agnes, laughing. “Rickie would not mind it + for a moment. But why do you single out that as heroic?” + </p> + <p> + “To snub people! to set them down! to be rude to them! to make them feel + small! Surely that’s the lifework of a hero?” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t have said that. And as a matter of fact Mr. Wonham was wrong + over the poetry. I made Rickie look it up afterwards.” + </p> + <p> + “But of course. A hero always is wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “To me,” she persisted, rather gently, “a hero has always been a strong + wonderful being, who champions—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, wait till you are the dragon! I have been a dragon most of my life, I + think. A dragon that wants nothing but a peaceful cave. Then in comes the + strong, wonderful, delightful being, and gains a princess by piercing my + hide. No, seriously, my dear Agnes, the chief characteristics of a hero + are infinite disregard for the feelings of others, plus general inability + to understand them.” + </p> + <p> + “But surely Mr. Wonham—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; aren’t we being unkind to the poor boy. Ought we to go on talking?” + </p> + <p> + Agnes waited, remembering the warnings of Rickie, and thinking that + anything she said might perhaps be repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Though even if he was here he wouldn’t understand what we are saying.” + </p> + <p> + “Wouldn’t understand?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Failing gave the least flicker of an eye towards her companion. “Did + you take him for clever?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I took him for anything.” She smiled. “I have been thinking + of other things, and another boy.” + </p> + <p> + “But do think for a moment of Stephen. I will describe how he spent + yesterday. He rose at eight. From eight to eleven he sang. The song was + called, ‘Father’s boots will soon fit Willie.’ He stopped once to say to + the footman, ‘She’ll never finish her book. She idles: ‘She’ being I. At + eleven he went out, and stood in the rain till four, but had the luck to + see a child run over at the level-crossing. By half-past four he had + knocked the bottom out of Christianity.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes looked bewildered. + </p> + <p> + “Aren’t you impressed? I was. I told him that he was on no account to + unsettle the vicar. Open that cupboard, one of those sixpenny books tells + Podge that he’s made of hard little black things, another that he’s made + of brown things, larger and squashy. There seems a discrepancy, but + anything is better for a thoughtful youth than to be made in the Garden of + Eden. Let us eliminate the poetic, at whatever cost to the probable.” When + for a moment she spoke more gravely. “Here he is at twenty, with nothing + to hold on by. I don’t know what’s to be done. I suppose it’s my fault. + But I’ve never had any bother over the Church of England; have you?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I go with my Church,” said Miss Pembroke, who hated this style + of conversation. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I think you should consult a + man.” + </p> + <p> + “Would Rickie help me?” + </p> + <p> + “Rickie would do anything he can.” And Mrs. Failing noted the half + official way in which she vouched for her lover. “But of course Rickie is + a little—complicated. I doubt whether Mr. Wonham would understand + him. He wants—doesn’t he?—some one who’s a little more + assertive and more accustomed to boys. Some one more like my brother.” + </p> + <p> + “Agnes!” she seized her by the arm. “Do you suppose that Mr. Pembroke + would undertake my Podge?” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. “His time is so filled up. He gets a boarding-house + next term. Besides—after all I don’t know what Herbert would do.” + </p> + <p> + “Morality. He would teach him morality. The Thirty-Nine Articles may come + of themselves, but if you have no morals you come to grief. Morality is + all I demand from Mr. Herbert Pembroke. He shall be excused the use of the + globes. You know, of course, that Stephen’s expelled from a public school? + He stole.” + </p> + <p> + The school was not a public one, and the expulsion, or rather request for + removal, had taken place when Stephen was fourteen. A violent spasm of + dishonesty—such as often heralds the approach of manhood—had + overcome him. He stole everything, especially what was difficult to steal, + and hid the plunder beneath a loose plank in the passage. He was betrayed + by the inclusion of a ham. This was the crisis of his career. His + benefactress was just then rather bored with him. He had stopped being a + pretty boy, and she rather doubted whether she would see him through. But + she was so raged with the letters of the schoolmaster, and so delighted + with those of the criminal, that she had him back and gave him a prize. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Agnes, “I didn’t know. I should be happy to speak to Herbert, + but, as I said, his time will be very full. But I know he has friends who + make a speciality of weakly or—or unusual boys.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear, I’ve tried it. Stephen kicked the weakly boys and robbed apples + with the unusual ones. He was expelled again.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes began to find Mrs. Failing rather tiresome. Wherever you trod on + her, she seemed to slip away from beneath your feet. Agnes liked to know + where she was and where other people were as well. She said: “My brother + thinks a great deal of home life. I daresay he’d think that Mr. Wonham is + best where he is—with you. You have been so kind to him. You”—she + paused—“have been to him both father and mother.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m too hot,” was Mrs. Failing’s reply. It seemed that Miss Pembroke had + at last touched a topic on which she was reticent. She rang the electric + bell,—it was only to tell the footman to take the reprints to Mr. + Wonham’s room,—and then murmuring something about work, proceeded + herself to the house. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Failing—” said Agnes, who had not expected such a speedy end + to their chat. + </p> + <p> + “Call me Aunt Emily. My dear?” + </p> + <p> + “Aunt Emily, what did you think of that story Rickie sent you?” + </p> + <p> + “It is bad,” said Mrs. Failing. “But. But. But.” Then she escaped, having + told the truth, and yet leaving a pleasurable impression behind her. + </p> + <p> + XII + </p> + <p> + The excursion to Salisbury was but a poor business—in fact, Rickie + never got there. They were not out of the drive before Mr. Wonham began + doing acrobatics. He showed Rickie how very quickly he could turn round in + his saddle and sit with his face to Aeneas’s tail. “I see,” said Rickie + coldly, and became almost cross when they arrived in this condition at the + gate behind the house, for he had to open it, and was afraid of falling. + As usual, he anchored just beyond the fastenings, and then had to turn + Dido, who seemed as long as a battleship. To his relief a man came + forward, and murmuring, “Worst gate in the parish,” pushed it wide and + held it respectfully. “Thank you,” cried Rickie; “many thanks.” But + Stephen, who was riding into the world back first, said majestically, “No, + no; it doesn’t count. You needn’t think it does. You make it worse by + touching your hat. Four hours and seven minutes! You’ll see me again.” The + man answered nothing. + </p> + <p> + “Eh, but I’ll hurt him,” he chanted, as he swung into position. “That was + Flea. Eh, but he’s forgotten my fists; eh, but I’ll hurt him.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” ventured Rickie. Last night, over cigarettes, he had been bored to + death by the story of Flea. The boy had a little reminded him of Gerald—the + Gerald of history, not the Gerald of romance. He was more genial, but + there was the same brutality, the same peevish insistence on the pound of + flesh. + </p> + <p> + “Hurt him till he learns.” + </p> + <p> + “Learns what?” + </p> + <p> + “Learns, of course,” retorted Stephen. Neither of them was very civil. + They did not dislike each other, but they each wanted to be somewhere else—exactly + the situation that Mrs. Failing had expected. + </p> + <p> + “He behaved badly,” said Rickie, “because he is poorer than we are, and + more ignorant. Less money has been spent on teaching him to behave.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’ll teach him for nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps his fists are stronger than yours!” + </p> + <p> + “They aren’t. I looked.” + </p> + <p> + After this conversation flagged. Rickie glanced back at Cadover, and + thought of the insipid day that lay before him. Generally he was attracted + by fresh people, and Stephen was almost fresh: they had been to him + symbols of the unknown, and all that they did was interesting. But now he + cared for the unknown no longer. He knew. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wilbraham passed them in his dog-cart, and lifted his hat to his + employer’s nephew. Stephen he ignored: he could not find him on the map. + </p> + <p> + “Good morning,” said Rickie. “What a lovely morning!” + </p> + <p> + “I say,” called the other, “another child dead!” Mr. Wilbraham, who had + seemed inclined to chat, whipped up his horse and left them. + </p> + <p> + “There goes an out and outer,” said Stephen; and then, as if introducing + an entirely new subject—“Don’t you think Flea Thompson treated me + disgracefully?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose he did. But I’m scarcely the person to sympathize.” The + allusion fell flat, and he had to explain it. “I should have done the same + myself,—promised to be away two hours, and stopped four.” + </p> + <p> + “Stopped-oh—oh, I understand. You being in love, you mean?” + </p> + <p> + He smiled and nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’ve no objection to Flea loving. He says he can’t help it. But as + long as my fists are stronger, he’s got to keep it in line.” + </p> + <p> + “In line?” + </p> + <p> + “A man like that, when he’s got a girl, thinks the rest can go to the + devil. He goes cutting his work and breaking his word. Wilbraham ought to + sack him. I promise you when I’ve a girl I’ll keep her in line, and if she + turns nasty, I’ll get another.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie smiled and said no more. But he was sorry that any one should start + life with such a creed—all the more sorry because the creed + caricatured his own. He too believed that life should be in a line—a + line of enormous length, full of countless interests and countless + figures, all well beloved. But woman was not to be “kept” to this line. + Rather did she advance it continually, like some triumphant general, + making each unit still more interesting, still more lovable, than it had + been before. He loved Agnes, not only for herself, but because she was + lighting up the human world. But he could scarcely explain this to an + inexperienced animal, nor did he make the attempt. + </p> + <p> + For a long time they proceeded in silence. The hill behind Cadover was in + harvest, and the horses moved regretfully between the sheaves. Stephen had + picked a grass leaf, and was blowing catcalls upon it. He blew very well, + and this morning all his soul went into the wail. For he was ill. He was + tortured with the feeling that he could not get away and do—do + something, instead of being civil to this anaemic prig. Four hours in the + rain was better than this: he had not wanted to fidget in the rain. But + now the air was like wine, and the stubble was smelling of wet, and over + his head white clouds trundled more slowly and more seldom through + broadening tracts of blue. There never had been such a morning, and he + shut up his eyes and called to it. And whenever he called, Rickie shut up + his eyes and winced. + </p> + <p> + At last the blade broke. “We don’t go quick, do we” he remarked, and + looked on the weedy track for another. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you wouldn’t let me keep you. If you were alone you would be + galloping or something of that sort.” + </p> + <p> + “I was told I must go your pace,” he said mournfully. “And you promised + Miss Pembroke not to hurry.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’ll disobey.” But he could not rise above a gentle trot, and even + that nearly jerked him out of the saddle. + </p> + <p> + “Sit like this,” said Stephen. “Can’t you see like this?” Rickie lurched + forward, and broke his thumb nail on the horse’s neck. It bled a little, + and had to be bound up. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you—awfully kind—no tighter, please—I’m simply + spoiling your day.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t think how a man can help riding. You’ve only to leave it to the + horse so!—so!—just as you leave it to water in swimming.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie left it to Dido, who stopped immediately. + </p> + <p> + “I said LEAVE it.” His voice rose irritably. “I didn’t say ‘die.’ Of + course she stops if you die. First you sit her as if you’re Sandow + exercising, and then you sit like a corpse. Can’t you tell her you’re + alive? That’s all she wants.” + </p> + <p> + In trying to convey the information, Rickie dropped his whip. Stephen + picked it up and rammed it into the belt of his own Norfolk jacket. He was + scarcely a fashionable horseman. He was not even graceful. But he rode as + a living man, though Rickie was too much bored to notice it. Not a muscle + in him was idle, not a muscle working hard. When he returned from the + gallop his limbs were still unsatisfied and his manners still irritable. + He did not know that he was ill: he knew nothing about himself at all. + </p> + <p> + “Like a howdah in the Zoo,” he grumbled. “Mother Failing will buy + elephants.” And he proceeded to criticize his benefactress. Rickie, keenly + alive to bad taste, tried to stop him, and gained instead a criticism of + religion. Stephen overthrew the Mosaic cosmogony. He pointed out the + discrepancies in the Gospels. He levelled his wit against the most + beautiful spire in the world, now rising against the southern sky. Between + whiles he went for a gallop. After a time Rickie stopped listening, and + simply went his way. For Dido was a perfect mount, and as indifferent to + the motions of Aeneas as if she was strolling in the Elysian fields. He + had had a bad night, and the strong air made him sleepy. The wind blew + from the Plain. Cadover and its valley had disappeared, and though they + had not climbed much and could not see far, there was a sense of infinite + space. The fields were enormous, like fields on the Continent, and the + brilliant sun showed up their colours well. The green of the turnips, the + gold of the harvest, and the brown of the newly turned clods, were each + contrasted with morsels of grey down. But the general effect was pale, or + rather silvery, for Wiltshire is not a county of heavy tints. Beneath + these colours lurked the unconquerable chalk, and wherever the soil was + poor it emerged. The grassy track, so gay with scabious and bedstraw, was + snow-white at the bottom of its ruts. A dazzling amphitheatre gleamed in + the flank of a distant hill, cut for some Olympian audience. And here and + there, whatever the surface crop, the earth broke into little embankments, + little ditches, little mounds: there had been no lack of drama to solace + the gods. + </p> + <p> + In Cadover, the perilous house, Agnes had already parted from Mrs. + Failing. His thoughts returned to her. Was she, the soul of truth, in + safety? Was her purity vexed by the lies and selfishness? Would she elude + the caprice which had, he vaguely knew, caused suffering before? Ah, the + frailty of joy! Ah, the myriads of longings that pass without fruition, + and the turf grows over them! Better men, women as noble—they had + died up here and their dust had been mingled, but only their dust. These + are morbid thoughts, but who dare contradict them? There is much good luck + in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, + playing or quarreling on the line, and some of us have Rickie’s + temperament, or his experiences, and admit it. + </p> + <p> + So he mused, that anxious little speck, and all the land seemed to comment + on his fears and on his love. + </p> + <p> + Their path lay upward, over a great bald skull, half grass, half stubble. + It seemed each moment there would be a splendid view. The view never came, + for none of the inclines were sharp enough, and they moved over the skull + for many minutes, scarcely shifting a landmark or altering the blue fringe + of the distance. The spire of Salisbury did alter, but very slightly, + rising and falling like the mercury in a thermometer. At the most it would + be half hidden; at the least the tip would show behind the swelling + barrier of earth. They passed two elder-trees—a great event. The + bare patch, said Stephen, was owing to the gallows. Rickie nodded. He had + lost all sense of incident. In this great solitude—more solitary + than any Alpine range—he and Agnes were floating alone and for ever, + between the shapeless earth and the shapeless clouds. An immense silence + seemed to move towards them. A lark stopped singing, and they were glad of + it. They were approaching the Throne of God. The silence touched them; the + earth and all danger dissolved, but ere they quite vanished Rickie heard + himself saying, “Is it exactly what we intended?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said a man’s voice; “it’s the old plan.” They were in another + valley. Its sides were thick with trees. Down it ran another stream and + another road: it, too, sheltered a string of villages. But all was richer, + larger, and more beautiful—the valley of the Avon below Amesbury. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been asleep!” said Rickie, in awestruck tones. + </p> + <p> + “Never!” said the other facetiously. “Pleasant dreams?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps—I’m really tired of apologizing to you. How long have you + been holding me on?” + </p> + <p> + “All in the day’s work.” He gave him back the reins. + </p> + <p> + “Where’s that round hill?” + </p> + <p> + “Gone where the good niggers go. I want a drink.” + </p> + <p> + This is Nature’s joke in Wiltshire—her one joke. You toil on windy + slopes, and feel very primeval. You are miles from your fellows, and lo! a + little valley full of elms and cottages. Before Rickie had waked up to it, + they had stopped by a thatched public-house, and Stephen was yelling like + a maniac for beer. + </p> + <p> + There was no occasion to yell. He was not very thirsty, and they were + quite ready to serve him. Nor need he have drunk in the saddle, with the + air of a warrior who carries important dispatches and has not the time to + dismount. A real soldier, bound on a similar errand, rode up to the inn, + and Stephen feared that he would yell louder, and was hostile. But they + made friends and treated each other, and slanged the proprietor and ragged + the pretty girls; while Rickie, as each wave of vulgarity burst over him, + sunk his head lower and lower, and wished that the earth would swallow him + up. He was only used to Cambridge, and to a very small corner of that. He + and his friends there believed in free speech. But they spoke freely about + generalities. They were scientific and philosophic. They would have shrunk + from the empirical freedom that results from a little beer. + </p> + <p> + That was what annoyed him as he rode down the new valley with two + chattering companions. He was more skilled than they were in the + principles of human existence, but he was not so indecently familiar with + the examples. A sordid village scandal—such as Stephen described as + a huge joke—sprang from certain defects in human nature, with which + he was theoretically acquainted. But the example! He blushed at it like a + maiden lady, in spite of its having a parallel in a beautiful idyll of + Theocritus. Was experience going to be such a splendid thing after all? + Were the outside of houses so very beautiful? + </p> + <p> + “That’s spicy!” the soldier was saying. “Got any more like that?” + </p> + <p> + “I’se got a pome,” said Stephen, and drew a piece of paper from his + pocket. The valley had broadened. Old Sarum rose before them, ugly and + majestic. + </p> + <p> + “Write this yourself?” he asked, chuckling. + </p> + <p> + “Rather,” said Stephen, lowering his head and kissing Aeneas between the + ears. + </p> + <p> + “But who’s old Em’ly?” Rickie winced and frowned. + </p> + <p> + “Now you’re asking. + </p> + <p> + “Old Em’ly she limps, And as—” + </p> + <p> + “I am so tired,” said Rickie. Why should he stand it any longer? + </p> + <p> + He would go home to the woman he loved. “Do you mind if I give up + Salisbury?” + </p> + <p> + “But we’ve seen nothing!” cried Stephen. + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t enjoy anything, I am so absurdly tired.” + </p> + <p> + “Left turn, then—all in the day’s work.” He bit at his moustache + angrily. + </p> + <p> + “Good gracious me, man!—of course I’m going back alone. I’m not + going to spoil your day. How could you think it of me?” + </p> + <p> + Stephen gave a loud sigh of relief. “If you do want to go home, here’s + your whip. Don’t fall off. Say to her you wanted it, or there might be + ructions.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Thank you for your kind care of me.” + </p> + <p> + “‘Old Em’ly she limps, And as—‘” + </p> + <p> + Soon he was out of earshot. Soon they were lost to view. Soon they were + out of his thoughts. He forgot the coarseness and the drinking and the + ingratitude. A few months ago he would not have forgotten so quickly, and + he might also have detected something else. But a lover is dogmatic. To + him the world shall be beautiful and pure. When it is not, he ignores it. + </p> + <p> + “He’s not tired,” said Stephen to the soldier; “he wants his girl.” And + they winked at each other, and cracked jokes over the eternal comedy of + love. They asked each other if they’d let a girl spoil a morning’s ride. + They both exhibited a profound cynicism. Stephen, who was quite without + ballast, described the household at Cadover: he should say that Rickie + would find Miss Pembroke kissing the footman. + </p> + <p> + “I say the footman’s kissing old Em’ly.” + </p> + <p> + “Jolly day,” said Stephen. His voice was suddenly constrained. He was not + sure whether he liked the soldier after all, nor whether he had been wise + in showing him his compositions. + </p> + <p> + “‘Old Em’ly she limps, And as—‘” + </p> + <p> + “All right, Thomas. That’ll do.” + </p> + <p> + “Old Em’ly—‘” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you’d dry up, like a good fellow. This is the lady’s horse, you + know, hang it, after all.” + </p> + <p> + “In-deed!” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you see—when a fellow’s on a horse, he can’t let another + fellow—kind of—don’t you know?” + </p> + <p> + The man did know. “There’s sense in that.” he said approvingly. Peace was + restored, and they would have reached Salisbury if they had not had some + more beer. It unloosed the soldier’s fancies, and again he spoke of old + Em’ly, and recited the poem, with Aristophanic variations. + </p> + <p> + “Jolly day,” repeated Stephen, with a straightening of the eyebrows and a + quick glance at the other’s body. He then warned him against the + variations. In consequence he was accused of being a member of the + Y.M.C.A. His blood boiled at this. He refuted the charge, and became great + friends with the soldier, for the third time. + </p> + <p> + “Any objection to ‘Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton’?” + </p> + <p> + “Rather not.” + </p> + <p> + The soldier sang “Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton.” It is really a work for + two voices, most of the sauciness disappearing when taken as a solo. Nor + is Mrs. Tackleton’s name Em’lv. + </p> + <p> + “I call it a jolly rotten song,” said Stephen crossly. “I won’t stand + being got at.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“P’r’aps y’like therold song. Lishen. + + “‘Of all the gulls that arsshmart, + There’s none line pretty—Em’ly; + For she’s the darling of merart’” + </pre> + <p> + “Now, that’s wrong.” He rode up close to the singer. + </p> + <p> + “Shright.” + </p> + <p> + “‘Tisn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s as my mother taught me.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll not alter from mother’s way.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen was baffled. Then he said, “How does your mother make it rhyme?” + </p> + <p> + “Wot?” + </p> + <p> + “Squat. You’re an ass, and I’m not. Poems want rhymes. ‘Alley’ comes next + line.” + </p> + <p> + He said “alley” was—welcome to come if it liked. + </p> + <p> + “It can’t. You want Sally. Sally—alley. Em’ly-alley doesn’t do.” + </p> + <p> + “Emily-femily!” cried the soldier, with an inspiration that was not his + when sober. “My mother taught me femily. + </p> + <p> + “‘For she’s the darling of merart, And she lives in my femily.’” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you’d best be careful, Thomas, and your mother too.” + </p> + <p> + “Your mother’s no better than she should be,” said Thomas vaguely. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I haven’t heard that before?” retorted the boy. The other + concluded he might now say anything. So he might—the name of old + Emily excepted. Stephen cared little about his benefactress’s honour, but + a great deal about his own. He had made Mrs. Failing into a test. For the + moment he would die for her, as a knight would die for a glove. He is not + to be distinguished from a hero. + </p> + <p> + Old Sarum was passed. They approached the most beautiful spire in the + world. “Lord! another of these large churches!” said the soldier. + Unfriendly to Gothic, he lifted both hands to his nose, and declared that + old Em’ly was buried there. He lay in the mud. His horse trotted back + towards Amesbury, Stephen had twisted him out of the saddle. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve done him!” he yelled, though no one was there to hear. He rose up in + his stirrups and shouted with joy. He flung his arms round Aeneas’s neck. + The elderly horse understood, capered, and bolted. It was a centaur that + dashed into Salisbury and scattered the people. In the stable he would not + dismount. “I’ve done him!” he yelled to the ostlers—apathetic men. + Stretching upwards, he clung to a beam. Aeneas moved on and he was left + hanging. Greatly did he incommode them by his exercises. He pulled up, he + circled, he kicked the other customers. At last he fell to the earth, + deliciously fatigued. His body worried him no longer. + </p> + <p> + He went, like the baby he was, to buy a white linen hat. There were + soldiers about, and he thought it would disguise him. Then he had a little + lunch to steady the beer. This day had turned out admirably. All the money + that should have fed Rickie he could spend on himself. Instead of toiling + over the Cathedral and seeing the stuffed penguins, he could stop the + whole thing in the cattle market. There he met and made some friends. He + watched the cheap-jacks, and saw how necessary it was to have a confident + manner. He spoke confidently himself about lambs, and people listened. He + spoke confidently about pigs, and they roared with laughter. He must learn + more about pigs. He witnessed a performance—not too namby-pamby—of + Punch and Judy. “Hullo, Podge!” cried a naughty little girl. He tried to + catch her, and failed. She was one of the Cadford children. For Salisbury + on market day, though it is not picturesque, is certainly representative, + and you read the names of half the Wiltshire villages upon the carriers’ + carts. He found, in Penny Farthing Street, the cart from Wintersbridge. It + would not start for several hours, but the passengers always used it as a + club, and sat in it every now and then during the day. No less than three + ladies were these now, staring at the shafts. One of them was Flea + Thompson’s girl. He asked her, quite politely, why her lover had broken + faith with him in the rain. She was silent. He warned her of approaching + vengeance. She was still silent, but another woman hoped that a gentleman + would not be hard on a poor person. Something in this annoyed him; it + wasn’t a question of gentility and poverty—it was a question of two + men. He determined to go back by Cadbury Rings where the shepherd would + now be. + </p> + <p> + He did. But this part must be treated lightly. He rode up to the culprit + with the air of a Saint George, spoke a few stern words from the saddle, + tethered his steed to a hurdle, and took off his coat. “Are you ready?” he + asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir,” said Flea, and flung him on his back. + </p> + <p> + “That’s not fair,” he protested. + </p> + <p> + The other did not reply, but flung him on his head. + </p> + <p> + “How on earth did you learn that?” + </p> + <p> + “By trying often,” said Flea. + </p> + <p> + Stephen sat on the ground, picking mud out of his forehead. “I meant it to + be fists,” he said gloomily. + </p> + <p> + “I know, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s jolly smart though, and—and I beg your pardon all round.” It + cost him a great deal to say this, but he was sure that it was the right + thing to say. He must acknowledge the better man. Whereas most people, if + they provoke a fight and are flung, say, “You cannot rob me of my moral + victory.” + </p> + <p> + There was nothing further to be done. He mounted again, not exactly + depressed, but feeling that this delightful world is extraordinarily + unreliable. He had never expected to fling the soldier, or to be flung by + Flea. “One nips or is nipped,” he thought, “and never knows beforehand. I + should not be surprised if many people had more in them than I suppose, + while others were just the other way round. I haven’t seen that sort of + thing in Ingersoll, but it’s quite important.” Then his thoughts turned to + a curious incident of long ago, when he had been “nipped”—as a + little boy. He was trespassing in those woods, when he met in a narrow + glade a flock of sheep. They had neither dog nor shepherd, and advanced + towards him silently. He was accustomed to sheep, but had never happened + to meet them in a wood before, and disliked it. He retired, slowly at + first, then fast; and the flock, in a dense mass, pressed after him. His + terror increased. He turned and screamed at their long white faces; and + still they came on, all stuck together, like some horrible jell—. If + once he got into them! Bellowing and screeching, he rushed into the + undergrowth, tore himself all over, and reached home in convulsions. Mr. + Failing, his only grown-up friend, was sympathetic, but quite stupid. “Pan + ovium custos,” he sympathetic, as he pulled out the thorns. “Why not?” + “Pan ovium custos.” Stephen learnt the meaning of the phrase at school, “A + pan of eggs for custard.” He still remembered how the other boys looked as + he peeped at them between his legs, awaiting the descending cane. + </p> + <p> + So he returned, full of pleasant disconnected thoughts. He had had a rare + good time. He liked every one—even that poor little Elliot—and + yet no one mattered. They were all out. On the landing he saw the + housemaid. He felt skittish and irresistible. Should he slip his arm round + her waist? Perhaps better not; she might box his ears. And he wanted to + smoke on the roof before dinner. So he only said, “Please will you stop + the boy blacking my brown boots,” and she with downcast eyes, answered, + “Yes, sir; I will indeed.” + </p> + <p> + His room was in the pediment. Classical architecture, like all things in + this world that attempt serenity, is bound to have its lapses into the + undignified, and Cadover lapsed hopelessly when it came to Stephen’s room. + It gave him one round window, to see through which he must lie upon his + stomach, one trapdoor opening upon the leads, three iron girders, three + beams, six buttresses, no circling, unless you count the walls, no walls + unless you count the ceiling and in its embarrassment presented him with + the gurgly cistern that supplied the bath water. Here he lived, absolutely + happy, and unaware that Mrs. Failing had poked him up here on purpose, to + prevent him from growing too bumptious. Here he worked and sang and + practised on the ocharoon. Here, in the crannies, he had constructed + shelves and cupboards and useless little drawers. He had only one picture—the + Demeter of Onidos—and she hung straight from the roof like a joint + of meat. Once she was in the drawing-room; but Mrs. Failing had got tired + of her, and decreed her removal and this degradation. Now she faced the + sunrise; and when the moon rose its light also fell on her, and trembled, + like light upon the sea. For she was never still, and if the draught + increased she would twist on her string, and would sway and tap upon the + rafters until Stephen woke up and said what he thought of her. “Want your + nose?” he would murmur. “Don’t you wish you may get it” Then he drew the + clothes over his ears, while above him, in the wind and the darkness, the + goddess continued her motions. + </p> + <p> + Today, as he entered, he trod on the pile of sixpenny reprints. Leighton + had brought them up. He looked at the portraits in their covers, and began + to think that these people were not everything. What a fate, to look like + Colonel Ingersoll, or to marry Mrs. Julia P. Chunk! The Demeter turned + towards him as he bathed, and in the cold water he sang— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “They aren’t beautiful, they aren’t modest; + I’d just as soon follow an old stone goddess,” + </pre> + <p> + and sprang upward through the skylight on to the roof. Years ago, when a + nurse was washing him, he had slipped from her soapy hands and got up + here. She implored him to remember that he was a little gentleman; but he + forgot the fact—if it was a fact—and not even the butler could + get him down. Mr. Failing, who was sitting alone in the garden too ill to + read, heard a shout, “Am I an acroterium?” He looked up and saw a naked + child poised on the summit of Cadover. “Yes,” he replied; “but they are + unfashionable. Go in,” and the vision had remained with him as something + peculiarly gracious. He felt that nonsense and beauty have close + connections,—closer connections than Art will allow,—and that + both would remain when his own heaviness and his own ugliness had + perished. Mrs. Failing found in his remains a sentence that puzzled her. + “I see the respectable mansion. I see the smug fortress of culture. The + doors are shut. The windows are shut. But on the roof the children go + dancing for ever.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen was a child no longer. He never stood on the pediment now, except + for a bet. He never, or scarcely ever, poured water down the chimneys. + When he caught the cat, he seldom dropped her into the housekeeper’s + bedroom. But still, when the weather was fair, he liked to come up after + bathing, and get dry in the sun. Today he brought with him a towel, a pipe + of tobacco, and Rickie’s story. He must get it done some time, and he was + tired of the six-penny reprints. The sloping gable was warm, and he lay + back on it with closed eyes, gasping for pleasure. Starlings criticized + him, snots fell on his clean body, and over him a little cloud was tinged + with the colours of evening. “Good! good!” he whispered. “Good, oh good!” + and opened the manuscript reluctantly. + </p> + <p> + What a production! Who was this girl? Where did she go to? Why so much + talk about trees? “I take it he wrote it when feeling bad,” he murmured, + and let it fall into the gutter. It fell face downwards, and on the back + he saw a neat little resume in Miss Pembroke’s handwriting, intended for + such as him. “Allegory. Man = modern civilization (in bad sense). Girl = + getting into touch with Nature.” + </p> + <p> + In touch with Nature! The girl was a tree! He lit his pipe and gazed at + the radiant earth. The foreground was hidden, but there was the village + with its elms, and the Roman Road, and Cadbury Rings. There, too, were + those woods, and little beech copses, crowning a waste of down. Not to + mention the air, or the sun, or water. Good, oh good! + </p> + <p> + In touch with Nature! What cant would the books think of next? His eyes + closed. He was sleepy. Good, oh good! Sighing into his pipe, he fell + asleep. + </p> + <p> + XIII + </p> + <p> + Glad as Agnes was when her lover returned for lunch, she was at the same + time rather dismayed: she knew that Mrs. Failing would not like her plans + altered. And her dismay was justified. Their hostess was a little stiff, + and asked whether Stephen had been obnoxious. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed he hasn’t. He spent the whole time looking after me.” + </p> + <p> + “From which I conclude he was more obnoxious than usual.” Rickie praised + him diligently. But his candid nature showed everything through. His aunt + soon saw that they had not got on. She had expected this—almost + planned it. Nevertheless she resented it, and her resentment was to fall + on him. + </p> + <p> + The storm gathered slowly, and many other things went to swell it. Weakly + people, if they are not careful, hate one another, and when the weakness + is hereditary the temptation increases. Elliots had never got on among + themselves. They talked of “The Family,” but they always turned outwards + to the health and beauty that lie so promiscuously about the world. + Rickie’s father had turned, for a time at all events, to his mother. + Rickie himself was turning to Agnes. And Mrs. Failing now was irritable, + and unfair to the nephew who was lame like her horrible brother and like + herself. She thought him invertebrate and conventional. She was envious of + his happiness. She did not trouble to understand his art. She longed to + shatter him, but knowing as she did that the human thunderbolt often + rebounds and strikes the wielder, she held her hand. + </p> + <p> + Agnes watched the approaching clouds. Rickie had warned her; now she began + to warn him. As the visit wore away she urged him to be pleasant to his + aunt, and so convert it into a success. + </p> + <p> + He replied, “Why need it be a success?”—a reply in the manner of + Ansell. + </p> + <p> + She laughed. “Oh, that’s so like you men—all theory! What about your + great theory of hating no one? As soon as it comes in useful you drop it.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t hate Aunt Emily. Honestly. But certainly I don’t want to be near + her or think about her. Don’t you think there are two great things in life + that we ought to aim at—truth and kindness? Let’s have both if we + can, but let’s be sure of having one or the other. My aunt gives up both + for the sake of being funny.” + </p> + <p> + “And Stephen Wonham,” pursued Agnes. “There’s another person you hate—or + don’t think about, if you prefer it put like that.” + </p> + <p> + “The truth is, I’m changing. I’m beginning to see that the world has many + people in it who don’t matter. I had time for them once. Not now.” There + was only one gate to the kingdom of heaven now. + </p> + <p> + Agnes surprised him by saying, “But the Wonham boy is evidently a part of + your aunt’s life. She laughs at him, but she is fond of him.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s that to do with it?” + </p> + <p> + “You ought to be pleasant to him on account of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Why on earth?” + </p> + <p> + She flushed a little. “I’m old-fashioned. One ought to consider one’s + hostess, and fall in with her life. After we leave it’s another thing. But + while we take her hospitality I think it’s our duty.” + </p> + <p> + Her good sense triumphed. Henceforth he tried to fall in with Aunt Emily’s + life. Aunt Emily watched him trying. The storm broke, as storms sometimes + do, on Sunday. + </p> + <p> + Sunday church was a function at Cadover, though a strange one. The pompous + landau rolled up to the house at a quarter to eleven. Then Mrs. Failing + said, “Why am I being hurried?” and after an interval descended the steps + in her ordinary clothes. She regarded the church as a sort of + sitting-room, and refused even to wear a bonnet there. The village was + shocked, but at the same time a little proud; it would point out the + carriage to strangers and gossip about the pale smiling lady who sat in + it, always alone, always late, her hair always draped in an expensive + shawl. + </p> + <p> + This Sunday, though late as usual, she was not alone. Miss Pembroke, en + grande toilette, sat by her side. Rickie, looking plain and devout, + perched opposite. And Stephen actually came too, murmuring that it would + be the Benedicite, which he had never minded. There was also the Litany, + which drove him into the air again, much to Mrs. Failing’s delight. She + enjoyed this sort of thing. It amused her when her Protege left the pew, + looking bored, athletic, and dishevelled, and groping most obviously for + his pipe. She liked to keep a thoroughbred pagan to shock people. “He’s + gone to worship Nature,” she whispered. Rickie did not look up. “Don’t you + think he’s charming?” He made no reply. + </p> + <p> + “Charming,” whispered Agnes over his head. + </p> + <p> + During the sermon she analysed her guests. Miss Pembroke—undistinguished, + unimaginative, tolerable. Rickie—intolerable. “And how pedantic!” + she mused. “He smells of the University library. If he was stupid in the + right way he would be a don.” She looked round the tiny church; at the + whitewashed pillars, the humble pavement, the window full of magenta + saints. There was the vicar’s wife. And Mrs. Wilbraham’s bonnet. Ugh! The + rest of the congregation were poor women, with flat, hopeless faces—she + saw them Sunday after Sunday, but did not know their names—diversified + with a few reluctant plough-boys, and the vile little school children row + upon row. “Ugh! what a hole,” thought Mrs. Failing, whose Christianity was + the type best described as “cathedral.” “What a hole for a cultured woman! + I don’t think it has blunted my sensations, though; I still see its + squalor as clearly as ever. And my nephew pretends he is worshipping. Pah! + the hypocrite.” Above her the vicar spoke of the danger of hurrying from + one dissipation to another. She treasured his words, and continued: “I + cannot stand smugness. It is the one, the unpardonable sin. Fresh air! The + fresh air that has made Stephen Wonham fresh and companionable and strong. + Even if it kills, I will let in the fresh air.” + </p> + <p> + Thus reasoned Mrs. Failing, in the facile vein of Ibsenism. She imagined + herself to be a cold-eyed Scandinavian heroine. Really she was an English + old lady, who did not mind giving other people a chill provided it was not + infectious. + </p> + <p> + Agnes, on the way back, noted that her hostess was a little snappish. But + one is so hungry after morning service, and either so hot or so cold, that + he would be a saint indeed who becomes a saint at once. Mrs. Failing, + after asserting vindictively that it was impossible to make a living out + of literature, was courteously left alone. Roast-beef and moselle might + yet work miracles, and Agnes still hoped for the introductions—the + introductions to certain editors and publishers—on which her whole + diplomacy was bent. Rickie would not push himself. It was his besetting + sin. Well for him that he would have a wife, and a loving wife, who knew + the value of enterprise. + </p> + <p> + Unfortunately lunch was a quarter of an hour late, and during that quarter + of an hour the aunt and the nephew quarrelled. She had been inveighing + against the morning service, and he quietly and deliberately replied, “If + organized religion is anything—and it is something to me—it + will not be wrecked by a harmonium and a dull sermon.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Failing frowned. “I envy you. It is a great thing to have no sense of + beauty.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I have a sense of beauty, which leads me astray if I am not + careful.” + </p> + <p> + “But this is a great relief to me. I thought the present day young man was + an agnostic! Isn’t agnosticism all the thing at Cambridge?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing is the ‘thing’ at Cambridge. If a few men are agnostic there, it + is for some grave reason, not because they are irritated with the way the + parson says his vowels.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes intervened. “Well, I side with Aunt Emily. I believe in ritual.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t, my dear, side with me. He will only say you have no sense of + religion either.” + </p> + <p> + “Excuse me,” said Rickie, perhaps he too was a little hungry,—“I + never suggested such a thing. I never would suggest such a thing. Why + cannot you understand my position? I almost feel it is that you won’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I try to understand your position night and day dear—what you mean, + what you like, why you came to Cadover, and why you stop here when my + presence is so obviously unpleasing to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Luncheon is served,” said Leighton, but he said it too late. They + discussed the beef and the moselle in silence. The air was heavy and + ominous. Even the Wonham boy was affected by it, shivered at times, choked + once, and hastened anew into the sun. He could not understand clever + people. + </p> + <p> + Agnes, in a brief anxious interview, advised the culprit to take a + solitary walk. She would stop near Aunt Emily, and pave the way for an + apology. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t worry too much. It doesn’t really matter.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose not, dear. But it seems a pity, considering we are so near the + end of our visit.” + </p> + <p> + “Rudeness and Grossness matter, and I’ve shown both, and already I’m + sorry, and I hope she’ll let me apologize. But from the selfish point of + view it doesn’t matter a straw. She’s no more to us than the Wonham boy or + the boot boy.” + </p> + <p> + “Which way will you walk?” + </p> + <p> + “I think to that entrenchment. Look at it.” They were sitting on the + steps. He stretched out his hand to Cadsbury Rings, and then let it rest + for a moment on her shoulder. “You’re changing me,” he said gently. “God + bless you for it.” + </p> + <p> + He enjoyed his walk. Cadford was a charming village and for a time he hung + over the bridge by the mill. So clear was the stream that it seemed not + water at all, but some invisible quintessence in which the happy minnows + and the weeds were vibrating. And he paused again at the Roman crossing, + and thought for a moment of the unknown child. The line curved suddenly: + certainly it was dangerous. Then he lifted his eyes to the down. The + entrenchment showed like the rim of a saucer, and over its narrow line + peeped the summit of the central tree. It looked interesting. He hurried + forward, with the wind behind him. + </p> + <p> + The Rings were curious rather than impressive. Neither embankment was over + twelve feet high, and the grass on them had not the exquisite green of Old + Sarum, but was grey and wiry. But Nature (if she arranges anything) had + arranged that from them, at all events, there should be a view. The whole + system of the country lay spread before Rickie, and he gained an idea of + it that he never got in his elaborate ride. He saw how all the water + converges at Salisbury; how Salisbury lies in a shallow basin, just at the + change of the soil. He saw to the north the Plain, and the stream of the + Cad flowing down from it, with a tributary that broke out suddenly, as the + chalk streams do: one village had clustered round the source and clothed + itself with trees. He saw Old Sarum, and hints of the Avon valley, and the + land above Stone Henge. And behind him he saw the great wood beginning + unobtrusively, as if the down too needed shaving; and into it the road to + London slipped, covering the bushes with white dust. Chalk made the dust + white, chalk made the water clear, chalk made the clean rolling outlines + of the land, and favoured the grass and the distant coronals of trees. + Here is the heart of our island: the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South + Downs radiate hence. The fibres of England unite in Wiltshire, and did we + condescend to worship her, here we should erect our national shrine. + </p> + <p> + People at that time were trying to think imperially, Rickie wondered how + they did it, for he could not imagine a place larger than England. And + other people talked of Italy, the spiritual fatherland of us all. Perhaps + Italy would prove marvellous. But at present he conceived it as something + exotic, to be admired and reverenced, but not to be loved like these + unostentatious fields. He drew out a book, it was natural for him to read + when he was happy, and to read out loud,—and for a little time his + voice disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book was + Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he had cherished greatly two + years before, and marked as “very good.” + </p> + <p> + “I never was attached to that great sect Whose doctrine is that each one + should select Out of the world a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, + though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion,—though it is the + code Of modern morals, and the beaten road Which those poor slaves with + weary footsteps tread Who travel to their home among the dead By the broad + highway of the world,—and so With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous + foe, The dreariest and the longest journey go.” + </p> + <p> + It was “very good”—fine poetry, and, in a sense, true. Yet he was + surprised that he had ever selected it so vehemently. This afternoon it + seemed a little inhuman. Half a mile off two lovers were keeping company + where all the villagers could see them. They cared for no one else; they + felt only the pressure of each other, and so progressed, silent and + oblivious, across the land. He felt them to be nearer the truth than + Shelley. Even if they suffered or quarrelled, they would have been nearer + the truth. He wondered whether they were Henry Adams and Jessica Thompson, + both of this parish, whose banns had been asked for the second time in the + church this morning. Why could he not marry on fifteen shillings a-week? + And be looked at them with respect, and wished that he was not a + cumbersome gentleman. + </p> + <p> + Presently he saw something less pleasant—his aunt’s pony carriage. + It had crossed the railway, and was advancing up the Roman road along by + the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, but someone waved to him. It + was Agnes. She waved continually, as much as to say, “Wait for us.” Mrs. + Failing herself raised the whip in a nonchalant way. Stephen Wonham was + following on foot, some way behind. He put the Shelley back into his + pocket and waited for them. When the carriage stopped by some hurdles he + went down from the embankment and helped them to dismount. He felt rather + nervous. + </p> + <p> + His aunt gave him one of her disquieting smiles, but said pleasantly + enough, “Aren’t the Rings a little immense? Agnes and I came here because + we wanted an antidote to the morning service.” + </p> + <p> + “Pang!” said the church bell suddenly; “pang! pang!” It sounded petty and + ludicrous. They all laughed. Rickie blushed, and Agnes, with a glance that + said “apologize,” darted away to the entrenchment, as though unable to + restrain her curiosity. + </p> + <p> + “The pony won’t move,” said Mrs. Failing. “Leave him for Stephen to tie + up. Will you walk me to the tree in the middle? Booh! I’m tired. Give me + your arm—unless you’re tired as well.” + </p> + <p> + “No. I came out partly in the hope of helping you.” + </p> + <p> + “How sweet of you.” She contrasted his blatant unselfishness with the + hardness of Stephen. Stephen never came out to help you. But if you got + hold of him he was some good. He didn’t wobble and bend at the critical + moment. Her fancy compared Rickie to the cracked church bell sending forth + its message of “Pang! pang!” to the countryside, and Stephen to the young + pagans who were said to lie under this field guarding their pagan gold. + </p> + <p> + “This place is full of ghosties,” she remarked; “have you seen any yet?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve kept on the outer rim so far.” + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go to the tree in the centre.” + </p> + <p> + “Here’s the path.” The bank of grass where he had sat was broken by a gap, + through which chariots had entered, and farm carts entered now. The track, + following the ancient track, led straight through turnips to a similar gap + in the second circle, and thence continued, through more turnips, to the + central tree. + </p> + <p> + “Pang!” said the bell, as they paused at the entrance. + </p> + <p> + “You needn’t unharness,” shouted Mrs. Failing, for Stephen was approaching + the carriage. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I will,” he retorted. + </p> + <p> + “You will, will you?” she murmured with a smile. “I wish your brother + wasn’t quite so uppish. Let’s get on. Doesn’t that church distract you?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s so faint here,” said Rickie. And it sounded fainter inside, though + the earthwork was neither thick nor tall; and the view, though not hidden, + was greatly diminished. He was reminded for a minute of that chalk pit + near Madingley, whose ramparts excluded the familiar world. Agnes was + here, as she had once been there. She stood on the farther barrier, + waiting to receive them when they had traversed the heart of the camp. + </p> + <p> + “Admire my mangel-wurzels,” said Mrs. Failing. “They are said to grow so + splendidly on account of the dead soldiers. Isn’t it a sweet thought? Need + I say it is your brother’s?” + </p> + <p> + “Wonham’s?” he suggested. It was the second time that she had made the + little slip. She nodded, and he asked her what kind of ghosties haunted + this curious field. + </p> + <p> + “The D.,” was her prompt reply. “He leans against the tree in the middle, + especially on Sunday afternoons and all the worshippers rise through the + turnips and dance round him.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, these were decent people,” he replied, looking downwards—“soldiers + and shepherds. They have no ghosts. They worshipped Mars or Pan-Erda + perhaps; not the devil.” + </p> + <p> + “Pang!” went the church, and was silent, for the afternoon service had + begun. They entered the second entrenchment, which was in height, breadth, + and composition, similar to the first, and excluded still more of the + view. His aunt continued friendly. Agnes stood watching them. + </p> + <p> + “Soldiers may seem decent in the past,” she continued, “but wait till they + turn into Tommies from Bulford Camp, who rob the chickens.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t mind Bulford Camp,” said Rickie, looking, though in vain, for + signs of its snowy tents. “The men there are the sons of the men here, and + have come back to the old country. War’s horrible, yet one loves all + continuity. And no one could mind a shepherd.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed! What about your brother—a shepherd if ever there was? Look + how he bores you! Don’t be so sentimental.” + </p> + <p> + “But—oh, you mean—” + </p> + <p> + “Your brother Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + He glanced at her nervously. He had never known her so queer before. + Perhaps it was some literary allusion that he had not caught; but her face + did not at that moment suggest literature. In the differential tones that + one uses to an old and infirm person he said “Stephen Wonham isn’t my + brother, Aunt Emily.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear, you’re that precise. One can’t say ‘half-brother’ every time.” + </p> + <p> + They approached the central tree. + </p> + <p> + “How you do puzzle me,” he said, dropping her arm and beginning to laugh. + “How could I have a half-brother?” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer. + </p> + <p> + Then a horror leapt straight at him, and he beat it back and said, “I will + not be frightened.” The tree in the centre revolved, the tree disappeared, + and he saw a room—the room where his father had lived in town. + “Gently,” he told himself, “gently.” Still laughing, he said, “I, with a + brother-younger it’s not possible.” The horror leapt again, and he + exclaimed, “It’s a foul lie!” + </p> + <p> + “My dear, my dear!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a foul lie! He wasn’t—I won’t stand—” + </p> + <p> + “My dear, before you say several noble things, remember that it’s worse + for him than for you—worse for your brother, for your half-brother, + for your younger brother.” + </p> + <p> + But he heard her no longer. He was gazing at the past, which he had + praised so recently, which gaped ever wider, like an unhallowed grave. + Turn where he would, it encircled him. It took visible form: it was this + double entrenchment of the Rings. His mouth went cold, and he knew that he + was going to faint among the dead. He started running, missed the exit, + stumbled on the inner barrier, fell into darkness— + </p> + <p> + “Get his head down,” said a voice. “Get the blood back into him. That’s + all he wants. Leave him to me. Elliot!”—the blood was returning—“Elliot, + wake up!” + </p> + <p> + He woke up. The earth he had dreaded lay close to his eyes, and seemed + beautiful. He saw the structure of the clods. A tiny beetle swung on the + grass blade. On his own neck a human hand pressed, guiding the blood back + to his brain. + </p> + <p> + There broke from him a cry, not of horror but of acceptance. For one short + moment he understood. “Stephen—” he began, and then he heard his own + name called: “Rickie! Rickie!” Agnes hurried from her post on the margin, + and, as if understanding also, caught him to her breast. + </p> + <p> + Stephen offered to help them further, but finding that he made things + worse, he stepped aside to let them pass and then sauntered inwards. The + whole field, with concentric circles, was visible, and the broad leaves of + the turnips rustled in the gathering wind. Miss Pembroke and Elliot were + moving towards the Cadover entrance. Mrs. Failing stood watching in her + turn on the opposite bank. He was not an inquisitive boy; but as he leant + against the tree he wondered what it was all about, and whether he would + ever know. + </p> + <p> + XIV + </p> + <p> + On the way back—at that very level-crossing where he had paused on + his upward route—Rickie stopped suddenly and told the girl why he + had fainted. Hitherto she had asked him in vain. His tone had gone from + him, and he told her harshly and brutally, so that she started away with a + horrified cry. Then his manner altered, and he exclaimed: “Will you mind? + Are you going to mind?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I mind,” she whispered. She turned from him, and saw up on the + sky-line two figures that seemed to be of enormous size. + </p> + <p> + “They’re watching us. They stand on the edge watching us. This country’s + so open—you—you can’t they watch us wherever we go. Of course + you mind.” + </p> + <p> + They heard the rumble of the train, and she pulled herself together. + “Come, dearest, we shall be run over next. We’re saying things that have + no sense.” But on the way back he repeated: “They can still see us. They + can see every inch of this road. They watch us for ever.” And when they + arrived at the steps there, sure enough, were still the two figures gazing + from the outer circle of the Rings. + </p> + <p> + She made him go to his room at once: he was almost hysterical. Leighton + brought out some tea for her, and she sat drinking it on the little + terrace. Of course she minded. + </p> + <p> + Again she was menaced by the abnormal. All had seemed so fair and so + simple, so in accordance with her ideas; and then, like a corpse, this + horror rose up to the surface. She saw the two figures descend and pause + while one of them harnessed the pony; she saw them drive downward, and + knew that before long she must face them and the world. She glanced at her + engagement ring. + </p> + <p> + When the carriage drove up Mrs. Failing dismounted, but did not speak. It + was Stephen who inquired after Rickie. She, scarcely knowing the sound of + her own voice, replied that he was a little tired. + </p> + <p> + “Go and put up the pony,” said Mrs. Failing rather sharply. + </p> + <p> + “Agnes, give me some tea.” + </p> + <p> + “It is rather strong,” said Agnes as the carriage drove off and left them + alone. Then she noticed that Mrs. Failing herself was agitated. Her lips + were trembling, and she saw the boy depart with manifest relief. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know,” she said hurriedly, as if talking against time—“Do + you know what upset Rickie?” + </p> + <p> + “I do indeed know.” + </p> + <p> + “Has he told any one else?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe not.” + </p> + <p> + “Agnes—have I been a fool?” + </p> + <p> + “You have been very unkind,” said the girl, and her eyes filled with + tears. + </p> + <p> + For a moment Mrs. Failing was annoyed. “Unkind? I do not see that at all. + I believe in looking facts in the face. Rickie must know his ghosts some + time. Why not this afternoon?” + </p> + <p> + She rose with quiet dignity, but her tears came faster. “That is not so. + You told him to hurt him. I cannot think what you did it for. I suppose + because he was rude to you after church. It is a mean, cowardly revenge. + </p> + <p> + “What—what if it’s a lie?” + </p> + <p> + “Then, Mrs. Failing, it is sickening of you. There is no other word. + Sickening. I am sorry—a nobody like myself—to speak like this. + How COULD you, oh, how could you demean yourself? Why, not even a poor + person—Her indignation was fine and genuine. But her tears fell no + longer. Nothing menaced her if they were not really brothers. + </p> + <p> + “It is not a lie, my clear; sit down. I will swear so much solemnly. It is + not a lie, but—” + </p> + <p> + Agnes waited. + </p> + <p> + “—we can call it a lie if we choose.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not so childish. You have said it, and we must all suffer. You have + had your fun: I conclude you did it for fun. You cannot go back. He—” + She pointed towards the stables, and could not finish her sentence. + </p> + <p> + “I have not been a fool twice.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes did not understand. + </p> + <p> + “My dense lady, can’t you follow? I have not told Stephen one single word, + neither before nor now.” + </p> + <p> + There was a long silence. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, Mrs. Failing was in an awkward position. + </p> + <p> + Rickie had irritated her, and, in her desire to shock him, she had + imperilled her own peace. She had felt so unconventional upon the + hillside, when she loosed the horror against him; but now it was darting + at her as well. Suppose the scandal came out. Stephen, who was absolutely + without delicacy, would tell it to the people as soon as tell them the + time. His paganism would be too assertive; it might even be in bad taste. + After all, she had a prominent position in the neighbourhood; she was + talked about, respected, looked up to. After all, she was growing old. And + therefore, though she had no true regard for Rickie, nor for Agnes, nor + for Stephen, nor for Stephen’s parents, in whose tragedy she had assisted, + yet she did feel that if the scandal revived it would disturb the harmony + of Cadover, and therefore tried to retrace her steps. It is easy to say + shocking things: it is so different to be connected with anything + shocking. Life and death were not involved, but comfort and discomfort + were. + </p> + <p> + The silence was broken by the sound of feet on the gravel. Agnes said + hastily, “Is that really true—that he knows nothing?” + </p> + <p> + “You, Rickie, and I are the only people alive that know. He realizes what + he is—with a precision that is sometimes alarming. Who he is, he + doesn’t know and doesn’t care. I suppose he would know when I’m dead. + There are papers.” + </p> + <p> + “Aunt Emily, before he comes, may I say to you I’m sorry I was so rude?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Failing had not disliked her courage. “My dear, you may. We’re all + off our hinges this Sunday. Sit down by me again.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes obeyed, and they awaited the arrival of Stephen. They were clever + enough to understand each other. The thing must be hushed up. The matron + must repair the consequences of her petulance. The girl must hide the + stain in her future husband’s family. Why not? Who was injured? What does + a grown-up man want with a grown brother? Rickie upstairs, how grateful he + would be to them for saving him. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m tired of you. Go and bathe in the sea.” + </p> + <p> + “All right.” + </p> + <p> + And the whole thing was settled. She liked no fuss, and so did he. He sat + down on the step to tighten his bootlaces. Then he would be ready. Mrs. + Failing laid two or three sovereigns on the step above him. Agnes tried to + make conversation, and said, with averted eyes, that the sea was a long + way off. + </p> + <p> + “The sea’s downhill. That’s all I know about it.” He swept up the money + with a word of pleasure: he was kept like a baby in such things. Then he + started off, but slowly, for he meant to walk till the morning. + </p> + <p> + “He will be gone days,” said Mrs. Failing. “The comedy is finished. Let us + come in.” + </p> + <p> + She went to her room. The storm that she had raised had shattered her. + Yet, because it was stilled for a moment, she resumed her old emancipated + manner, and spoke of it as a comedy. + </p> + <p> + As for Miss Pembroke, she pretended to be emancipated no longer. People + like “Stephen Wonham” were social thunderbolts, to be shunned at all + costs, or at almost all costs. Her joy was now unfeigned, and she hurried + upstairs to impart it to Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think we are rewarded if we do right, but we are punished if we + lie. It’s the fashion to laugh at poetic justice, but I do believe in half + of it. Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days it really + will come back to you.” These were the words of Mr. Failing. They were + also the opinions of Stewart Ansell, another unpractical person. Rickie + was trying to write to him when she entered with the good news. + </p> + <p> + “Dear, we’re saved! He doesn’t know, and he never is to know. I can’t tell + you how glad I am. All the time we saw them standing together up there, + she wasn’t telling him at all. She was keeping him out of the way, in case + you let it out. Oh, I like her! She may be unwise, but she is nice, + really. She said, ‘I’ve been a fool but I haven’t been a fool twice.’ You + must forgive her, Rickie. I’ve forgiven her, and she me; for at first I + was so angry with her. Oh, my darling boy, I am so glad!” + </p> + <p> + He was shivering all over, and could not reply. At last he said, “Why + hasn’t she told him?” + </p> + <p> + “Because she has come to her senses.” + </p> + <p> + “But she can’t behave to people like that. She must tell him.” + </p> + <p> + “Because he must be told such a real thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Such a real thing?” the girl echoed, screwing up her forehead. “But—but + you don’t mean you’re glad about it?” + </p> + <p> + His head bowed over the letter. “My God—no! But it’s a real thing. + She must tell him. I nearly told him myself—up there—when he + made me look at the ground, but you happened to prevent me.” + </p> + <p> + How Providence had watched over them! + </p> + <p> + “She won’t tell him. I know that much.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, Agnes, darling”—he drew her to the table “we must talk + together a little. If she won’t, then we ought to.” + </p> + <p> + “WE tell him?” cried the girl, white with horror. “Tell him now, when + everything has been comfortably arranged?” + </p> + <p> + “You see, darling”—he took hold of her hand—“what one must do + is to think the thing out and settle what’s right, I’m still all trembling + and stupid. I see it mixed up with other things. I want you to help me. It + seems to me that here and there in life we meet with a person or incident + that is symbolical. It’s nothing in itself, yet for the moment it stands + for some eternal principle. We accept it, at whatever costs, and we have + accepted life. But if we are frightened and reject it, the moment, so to + speak, passes; the symbol is never offered again. Is this nonsense? Once + before a symbol was offered to me—I shall not tell you how; but I + did accept it, and cherished it through much anxiety and repulsion, and in + the end I am rewarded. There will be no reward this time. I think, from + such a man—the son of such a man. But I want to do what is right.” + </p> + <p> + “Because doing right is its own reward,” said Agnes anxiously. + </p> + <p> + “I do not think that. I have seen few examples of it. Doing right is + simply doing right.” + </p> + <p> + “I think that all you say is wonderfully clever; but since you ask me, it + IS nonsense, dear Rickie, absolutely.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” he said humbly, and began to stroke her hand. “But all my + disgust; my indignation with my father, my love for—” He broke off; + he could not bear to mention the name of his mother. “I was trying to say, + I oughtn’t to follow these impulses too much. There are others things. + Truth. Our duty to acknowledge each man accurately, however vile he is. + And apart from ideals” (here she had won the battle), “and leaving ideals + aside, I couldn’t meet him and keep silent. It isn’t in me. I should blurt + it out.” + </p> + <p> + “But you won’t meet him!” she cried. “It’s all been arranged. We’ve sent + him to the sea. Isn’t it splendid? He’s gone. My own boy won’t be + fantastic, will he?” Then she fought the fantasy on its own ground. “And, + bye the bye, what you call the ‘symbolic moment’ is over. You had it up by + the Rings. You tried to tell him, I interrupted you. It’s not your fault. + You did all you could.” + </p> + <p> + She thought this excellent logic, and was surprised that he looked so + gloomy. “So he’s gone to the sea. For the present that does settle it. Has + Aunt Emily talked about him yet?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Ask her tomorrow if you wish to know. Ask her kindly. It would be so + dreadful if you did not part friends, and—” + </p> + <p> + “What’s that?” + </p> + <p> + It was Stephen calling up from the drive. He had come back. Agnes threw + out her hand in despair. + </p> + <p> + “Elliot!” the voice called. + </p> + <p> + They were facing each other, silent and motionless. Then Rickie advanced + to the window. The girl darted in front of him. He thought he had never + seen her so beautiful. She was stopping his advance quite frankly, with + widespread arms. + </p> + <p> + “Elliot!” + </p> + <p> + He moved forward—into what? He pretended to himself he would rather + see his brother before he answered; that it was easier to acknowledge him + thus. But at the back of his soul he knew that the woman had conquered, + and that he was moving forward to acknowledge her. “If he calls me again—” + he thought. + </p> + <p> + “Elliot!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if he calls me once again, I will answer him, vile as he is.” + </p> + <p> + He did not call again. + </p> + <p> + Stephen had really come back for some tobacco, but as he passed under the + windows he thought of the poor fellow who had been “nipped” (nothing + serious, said Mrs. Failing), and determined to shout good-bye to him. And + once or twice, as he followed the river into the darkness, he wondered + what it was like to be so weak,—not to ride, not to swim, not to + care for anything but books and a girl. + </p> + <p> + They embraced passionately. The danger had brought them very near to each + other. They both needed a home to confront the menacing tumultuous world. + And what weary years of work, of waiting, lay between them and that home! + Still holding her fast, he said, “I was writing to Ansell when you came + in.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you owe him a letter?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” He paused. “I was writing to tell him about this. He would help us. + He always picks out the important point.” + </p> + <p> + “Darling, I don’t like to say anything, and I know that Mr. Ansell would + keep a secret, but haven’t we picked out the important point for + ourselves?” + </p> + <p> + He released her and tore the letter up. + </p> + <p> + XV + </p> + <p> + The sense of purity is a puzzling and at times a fearful thing. It seems + so noble, and it starts as one with morality. But it is a dangerous guide, + and can lead us away not only from what is gracious, but also from what is + good. Agnes, in this tangle, had followed it blindly, partly because she + was a woman, and it meant more to her than it can ever mean to a man; + partly because, though dangerous, it is also obvious, and makes no demand + upon the intellect. She could not feel that Stephen had full human rights. + He was illicit, abnormal, worse than a man diseased. And Rickie + remembering whose son he was, gradually adopted her opinion. He, too, came + to be glad that his brother had passed from him untried, that the symbolic + moment had been rejected. Stephen was the fruit of sin; therefore he was + sinful, He, too, became a sexual snob. + </p> + <p> + And now he must hear the unsavoury details. That evening they sat in the + walled garden. Agues, according to arrangement, left him alone with his + aunt. He asked her, and was not answered. + </p> + <p> + “You are shocked,” she said in a hard, mocking voice, “It is very nice of + you to be shocked, and I do not wish to grieve you further. We will not + allude to it again. Let us all go on just as we are. The comedy is + finished.” + </p> + <p> + He could not tolerate this. His nerves were shattered, and all that was + good in him revolted as well. To the horror of Agnes, who was within + earshot, he replied, “You used to puzzle me, Aunt Emily, but I understand + you at last. You have forgotten what other people are like. Continual + selfishness leads to that. I am sure of it. I see now how you look at the + world. ‘Nice of me to be shocked!’ I want to go tomorrow, if I may.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, dear. The morning trains are the best.” And so the disastrous + visit ended. + </p> + <p> + As he walked back to the house he met a certain poor woman, whose child + Stephen had rescued at the level-crossing, and who had decided, after some + delay, that she must thank the kind gentleman in person. “He has got some + brute courage,” thought Rickie, “and it was decent of him not to boast + about it.” But he had labelled the boy as “Bad,” and it was convenient to + revert to his good qualities as seldom as possible. He preferred to brood + over his coarseness, his caddish ingratitude, his irreligion. Out of these + he constructed a repulsive figure, forgetting how slovenly his own + perceptions had been during the past week, how dogmatic and intolerant his + attitude to all that was not Love. + </p> + <p> + During the packing he was obliged to go up to the attic to find the Dryad + manuscript which had never been returned. Leighton came too, and for about + half an hour they hunted in the flickering light of a candle. It was a + strange, ghostly place, and Rickie was quite startled when a picture swung + towards him, and he saw the Demeter of Cnidus, shimmering and grey. + Leighton suggested the roof. Mr. Stephen sometimes left things on the + roof. So they climbed out of the skylight—the night was perfectly + still—and continued the search among the gables. Enormous stars hung + overhead, and the roof was bounded by chasms, impenetrable and black. “It + doesn’t matter,” said Rickie, suddenly convinced of the futility of all + that he did. “Oh, let us look properly,” said Leighton, a kindly, pliable + man, who had tried to shirk coming, but who was genuinely sympathetic now + that he had come. They were rewarded: the manuscript lay in a gutter, + charred and smudged. + </p> + <p> + The rest of the year was spent by Rickie partly in bed,—he had a + curious breakdown,—partly in the attempt to get his little stories + published. He had written eight or nine, and hoped they would make up a + book, and that the book might be called “Pan Pipes.” He was very energetic + over this; he liked to work, for some imperceptible bloom had passed from + the world, and he no longer found such acute pleasure in people. Mrs. + Failing’s old publishers, to whom the book was submitted, replied that, + greatly as they found themselves interested, they did not see their way to + making an offer at present. They were very polite, and singled out for + special praise “Andante Pastorale,” which Rickie had thought too + sentimental, but which Agnes had persuaded him to include. The stories + were sent to another publisher, who considered them for six weeks, and + then returned them. A fragment of red cotton, Placed by Agnes between the + leaves, had not shifted its position. + </p> + <p> + “Can’t you try something longer, Rickie?” she said; “I believe we’re on + the wrong track. Try an out—and—out love-story.” + </p> + <p> + “My notion just now,” he replied, “is to leave the passions on the + fringe.” She nodded, and tapped for the waiter: they had met in a London + restaurant. “I can’t soar; I can only indicate. That’s where the musicians + have the pull, for music has wings, and when she says ‘Tristan’ and he + says ‘Isolde,’ you are on the heights at once. What do people mean when + they call love music artificial?” + </p> + <p> + “I know what they mean, though I can’t exactly explain. Or couldn’t you + make your stories more obvious? I don’t see any harm in that. Uncle Willie + floundered hopelessly. He doesn’t read much, and he got muddled. I had to + explain, and then he was delighted. Of course, to write down to the public + would be quite another thing and horrible. You have certain ideas, and you + must express them. But couldn’t you express them more clearly?” + </p> + <p> + “You see—” He got no further than “you see.” + </p> + <p> + “The soul and the body. The soul’s what matters,” said Agnes, and tapped + for the waiter again. He looked at her admiringly, but felt that she was + not a perfect critic. Perhaps she was too perfect to be a critic. Actual + life might seem to her so real that she could not detect the union of + shadow and adamant that men call poetry. He would even go further and + acknowledge that she was not as clever as himself—and he was stupid + enough! She did not like discussing anything or reading solid books, and + she was a little angry with such women as did. It pleased him to make + these concessions, for they touched nothing in her that he valued. He + looked round the restaurant, which was in Soho and decided that she was + incomparable. + </p> + <p> + “At half-past two I call on the editor of the ‘Holborn.’ He’s got a stray + story to look at, and he’s written about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Rickie! Rickie! Why didn’t you put on a boiled shirt!” + </p> + <p> + He laughed, and teased her. “‘The soul’s what matters. We literary people + don’t care about dress.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you ought to care. And I believe you do. Can’t you change?” + </p> + <p> + “Too far.” He had rooms in South Kensington. “And I’ve forgot my + card-case. There’s for you!” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. “Naughty, naughty boy! Whatever will you do?” + </p> + <p> + “Send in my name, or ask for a bit of paper and write it. Hullo! that’s + Tilliard!” + </p> + <p> + Tilliard blushed, partly on account of the faux pas he had made last June, + partly on account of the restaurant. He explained how he came to be + pigging in Soho: it was so frightfully convenient and so frightfully + cheap. + </p> + <p> + “Just why Rickie brings me,” said Miss Pembroke. + </p> + <p> + “And I suppose you’re here to study life?” said Tilliard, sitting down. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said Rickie, gazing round at the waiters and the guests. + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t one want to see a good deal of life for writing? There’s life of + a sort in Soho,—Un peu de faisan, s’il vows plait.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes also grabbed at the waiter, and paid. She always did the paying, + Rickie muddled with his purse. + </p> + <p> + “I’m cramming,” pursued Tilliard, “and so naturally I come into contact + with very little at present. But later on I hope to see things.” He + blushed a little, for he was talking for Rickie’s edification. “It is most + frightfully important not to get a narrow or academic outlook, don’t you + think? A person like Ansell, who goes from Cambridge, home—home, + Cambridge—it must tell on him in time.” + </p> + <p> + “But Mr. Ansell is a philosopher.” + </p> + <p> + “A very kinky one,” said Tilliard abruptly. “Not my idea of a philosopher. + How goes his dissertation?” + </p> + <p> + “He never answers my letters,” replied Rickie. “He never would. I’ve heard + nothing since June.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a pity he sends in this year. There are so many good people in. He’d + have afar better chance if he waited.” + </p> + <p> + “So I said, but he wouldn’t wait. He’s so keen about this particular + subject.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” asked Agnes. + </p> + <p> + “About things being real, wasn’t it, Tilliard?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s near enough.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, good luck to him!” said the girl. “And good luck to you, Mr. + Tilliard! Later on, I hope, we’ll meet again.” + </p> + <p> + They parted. Tilliard liked her, though he did not feel that she was quite + in his couche sociale. His sister, for instance, would never have been + lured into a Soho restaurant—except for the experience of the thing. + Tilliard’s couche sociale permitted experiences. Provided his heart did + not go out to the poor and the unorthodox, he might stare at them as much + as he liked. It was seeing life. + </p> + <p> + Agnes put her lover safely into an omnibus at Cambridge Circus. She + shouted after him that his tie was rising over his collar, but he did not + hear her. For a moment she felt depressed, and pictured quite accurately + the effect that his appearance would have on the editor. The editor was a + tall neat man of forty, slow of speech, slow of soul, and extraordinarily + kind. He and Rickie sat over a fire, with an enormous table behind them + whereon stood many books waiting to be reviewed. + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry,” he said, and paused. + </p> + <p> + Rickie smiled feebly. + </p> + <p> + “Your story does not convince.” He tapped it. “I have read it with very + great pleasure. It convinces in parts, but it does not convince as a + whole; and stories, don’t you think, ought to convince as a whole?” + </p> + <p> + “They ought indeed,” said Rickie, and plunged into self-depreciation. But + the editor checked him. + </p> + <p> + “No—no. Please don’t talk like that. I can’t bear to hear any one + talk against imagination. There are countless openings for imagination,—for + the mysterious, for the supernatural, for all the things you are trying to + do, and which, I hope, you will succeed in doing. I’m not OBJECTING to + imagination; on the contrary, I’d advise you to cultivate it, to accent + it. Write a really good ghost story and we’d take it at once. Or”—he + suggested it as an alternative to imagination—“or you might get + inside life. It’s worth doing.” + </p> + <p> + “Life?” echoed Rickie anxiously. + </p> + <p> + He looked round the pleasant room, as if life might be fluttering there + like an imprisoned bird. Then he looked at the editor: perhaps he was + sitting inside life at this very moment. “See life, Mr. Elliot, and then + send us another story.” He held out his hand. “I am sorry I have to say + ‘No, thank you’; it’s so much nicer to say, ‘Yes, please.’” He laid his + hand on the young man’s sleeve, and added, “Well, the interview’s not been + so alarming after all, has it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think that either of us is a very alarming person,” was not + Rickie’s reply. It was what he thought out afterwards in the omnibus. His + reply was “Ow,” delivered with a slight giggle. + </p> + <p> + As he rumbled westward, his face was drawn, and his eyes moved quickly to + the right and left, as if he would discover something in the squalid + fashionable streets some bird on the wing, some radiant archway, the face + of some god beneath a beaver hat. He loved, he was loved, he had seen + death and other things; but the heart of all things was hidden. There was + a password and he could not learn it, nor could the kind editor of the + “Holborn” teach him. He sighed, and then sighed more piteously. For had he + not known the password once—known it and forgotten it already? But + at this point his fortunes become intimately connected with those of Mr. + Pembroke. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART 2 — SAWSTON + </h2> + <p> + XVI + </p> + <p> + In three years Mr. Pembroke had done much to solidify the day-boys at + Sawston School. If they were not solid, they were at all events curdling, + and his activities might reasonably turn elsewhere. He had served the + school for many years, and it was really time he should be entrusted with + a boarding-house. The headmaster, an impulsive man who darted about like a + minnow and gave his mother a great deal of trouble, agreed with him, and + also agreed with Mrs. Jackson when she said that Mr. Jackson had served + the school for many years and that it was really time he should be + entrusted with a boarding-house. Consequently, when Dunwood House fell + vacant the headmaster found himself in rather a difficult position. + </p> + <p> + Dunwood House was the largest and most lucrative of the boarding-houses. + It stood almost opposite the school buildings. Originally it had been a + villa residence—a red-brick villa, covered with creepers and crowned + with terracotta dragons. Mr. Annison, founder of its glory, had lived + here, and had had one or two boys to live with him. Times changed. The + fame of the bishops blazed brighter, the school increased, the one or two + boys became a dozen, and an addition was made to Dunwood House that more + than doubled its size. A huge new building, replete with every + convenience, was stuck on to its right flank. Dormitories, cubicles, + studies, a preparation-room, a dining-room, parquet floors, hot-air pipes—no + expense was spared, and the twelve boys roamed over it like princes. Baize + doors communicated on every floor with Mr. Annison’s part, and he, an + anxious gentleman, would stroll backwards and forwards, a little depressed + at the hygienic splendours, and conscious of some vanished intimacy. + Somehow he had known his boys better when they had all muddled together as + one family, and algebras lay strewn upon the drawing room chairs. As the + house filled, his interest in it decreased. When he retired—which he + did the same summer that Rickie left Cambridge—it had already passed + the summit of excellence and was beginning to decline. Its numbers were + still satisfactory, and for a little time it would subsist on its past + reputation. But that mysterious asset the tone had lowered, and it was + therefore of great importance that Mr. Annison’s successor should be a + first-class man. Mr. Coates, who came next in seniority, was passed over, + and rightly. The choice lay between Mr. Pembroke and Mr. Jackson, the one + an organizer, the other a humanist. Mr. Jackson was master of the Sixth, + and—with the exception of the headmaster, who was too busy to impart + knowledge—the only first-class intellect in the school. But he could + not or rather would not, keep order. He told his form that if it chose to + listen to him it would learn; if it didn’t, it wouldn’t. One half + listened. The other half made paper frogs, and bored holes in the raised + map of Italy with their penknives. When the penknives gritted he punished + them with undue severity, and then forgot to make them show the + punishments up. Yet out of this chaos two facts emerged. Half the boys got + scholarships at the University, and some of them—including several + of the paper-frog sort—remained friends with him throughout their + lives. Moreover, he was rich, and had a competent wife. His claim to + Dunwood House was stronger than one would have supposed. + </p> + <p> + The qualifications of Mr. Pembroke have already been indicated. They + prevailed—but under conditions. If things went wrong, he must + promise to resign. + </p> + <p> + “In the first place,” said the headmaster, “you are doing so splendidly + with the day-boys. Your attitude towards the parents is magnificent. I—don’t + know how to replace you there. Whereas, of course, the parents of a + boarder—” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said Mr. Pembroke. + </p> + <p> + The parent of a boarder, who only had to remove his son if he was + discontented with the school, was naturally in a more independent position + than the parent who had brought all his goods and chattels to Sawston, and + was renting a house there. + </p> + <p> + “Now the parents of boarders—this is my second point—practically + demand that the house-master should have a wife.” + </p> + <p> + “A most unreasonable demand,” said Mr. Pembroke. + </p> + <p> + “To my mind also a bright motherly matron is quite sufficient. But that is + what they demand. And that is why—do you see?—we HAVE to + regard your appointment as experimental. Possibly Miss Pembroke will be + able to help you. Or I don’t know whether if ever—” He left the + sentence unfinished. Two days later Mr. Pembroke proposed to Mrs. Orr. + </p> + <p> + He had always intended to marry when he could afford it; and once he had + been in love, violently in love, but had laid the passion aside, and told + it to wait till a more convenient season. This was, of course, the proper + thing to do, and prudence should have been rewarded. But when, after the + lapse of fifteen years, he went, as it were, to his spiritual larder and + took down Love from the top shelf to offer him to Mrs. Orr, he was rather + dismayed. Something had happened. Perhaps the god had flown; perhaps he + had been eaten by the rats. At all events, he was not there. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke was conscientious and romantic, and knew that marriage + without love is intolerable. On the other hand, he could not admit that + love had vanished from him. To admit this, would argue that he had + deteriorated. + </p> + <p> + Whereas he knew for a fact that he had improved, year by year. Each year + be grew more moral, more efficient, more learned, more genial. So how + could he fail to be more loving? He did not speak to himself as follows, + because he never spoke to himself; but the following notions moved in the + recesses of his mind: “It is not the fire of youth. But I am not sure that + I approve of the fire of youth. Look at my sister! Once she has suffered, + twice she has been most imprudent, and put me to great inconvenience + besides, for if she was stopping with me she would have done the + housekeeping. I rather suspect that it is a nobler, riper emotion that I + am laying at the feet of Mrs. Orr.” It never took him long to get muddled, + or to reverse cause and effect. In a short time he believed that he had + been pining for years, and only waiting for this good fortune to ask the + lady to share it with him. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Orr was quiet, clever, kindly, capable, and amusing and they were old + acquaintances. Altogether it was not surprising that he should ask her to + be his wife, nor very surprising that she should refuse. But she refused + with a violence that alarmed them both. He left her house declaring that + he had been insulted, and she, as soon as he left, passed from disgust + into tears. + </p> + <p> + He was much annoyed. There was a certain Miss Herriton who, though far + inferior to Mrs. Orr, would have done instead of her. But now it was + impossible. He could not go offering himself about Sawston. Having engaged + a matron who had the reputation for being bright and motherly, he moved + into Dunwood House and opened the Michaelmas term. Everything went wrong. + The cook left; the boys had a disease called roseola; Agnes, who was still + drunk with her engagement, was of no assistance, but kept flying up to + London to push Rickie’s fortunes; and, to crown everything, the matron was + too bright and not motherly enough: she neglected the little boys and was + overattentive to the big ones. She left abruptly, and the voice of Mrs. + Jackson arose, prophesying disaster. + </p> + <p> + Should he avert it by taking orders? Parents do not demand that a + house-master should be a clergyman, yet it reassures them when he is. And + he would have to take orders some time, if he hoped for a school of his + own. His religious convictions were ready to hand, but he spent several + uncomfortable days hunting up his religious enthusiasms. It was not unlike + his attempt to marry Mrs. Orr. But his piety was more genuine, and this + time he never came to the point. His sense of decency forbade him hurrying + into a Church that he reverenced. Moreover, he thought of another + solution: Agnes must marry Rickie in the Christmas holidays, and they must + come, both of them, to Sawston, she as housekeeper, he as + assistant-master. The girl was a good worker when once she was settled + down; and as for Rickie, he could easily be fitted in somewhere in the + school. He was not a good classic, but good enough to take the Lower + Fifth. He was no athlete, but boys might profitably note that he was a + perfect gentleman all the same. He had no experience, but he would gain + it. He had no decision, but he could simulate it. “Above all,” thought Mr. + Pembroke, “it will be something regular for him to do.” Of course this was + not “above all.” Dunwood House held that position. But Mr. Pembroke soon + came to think that it was, and believed that he was planning for Rickie, + just as he had believed he was pining for Mrs. Orr. + </p> + <p> + Agnes, when she got back from the lunch in Soho, was told of the plan. She + refused to give any opinion until she had seen her lover. A telegram was + sent to him, and next morning he arrived. He was very susceptible to the + weather, and perhaps it was unfortunate that the morning was foggy. His + train had been stopped outside Sawston Station, and there he had sat for + half an hour, listening to the unreal noises that came from the line, and + watching the shadowy figures that worked there. The gas was alight in the + great drawing-room, and in its depressing rays he and Agnes greeted each + other, and discussed the most momentous question of their lives. They + wanted to be married: there was no doubt of that. They wanted it, both of + them, dreadfully. But should they marry on these terms? + </p> + <p> + “I’d never thought of such a thing, you see. When the scholastic agencies + sent me circulars after the Tripos, I tore them up at once.” + </p> + <p> + “There are the holidays,” said Agnes. “You would have three months in the + year to yourself, and you could do your writing then.” + </p> + <p> + “But who’ll read what I’ve written?” and he told her about the editor of + the “Holborn.” + </p> + <p> + She became extremely grave. At the bottom of her heart she had always + mistrusted the little stories, and now people who knew agreed with her. + How could Rickie, or any one, make a living by pretending that Greek gods + were alive, or that young ladies could vanish into trees? A sparkling + society tale, full of verve and pathos, would have been another thing, and + the editor might have been convinced by it. + </p> + <p> + “But what does he mean?” Rickie was saying. “What does he mean by life?” + </p> + <p> + “I know what he means, but I can’t exactly explain. You ought to see life, + Rickie. I think he’s right there. And Mr. Tilliard was right when he said + one oughtn’t to be academic.” + </p> + <p> + He stood in the twilight that fell from the window, she in the twilight of + the gas. “I wonder what Ansell would say,” he murmured. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, poor Mr. Ansell!” + </p> + <p> + He was somewhat surprised. Why was Ansell poor? It was the first time the + epithet had been applied to him. + </p> + <p> + “But to change the conversation,” said Agnes. + </p> + <p> + “If we did marry, we might get to Italy at Easter and escape this horrible + fog.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Perhaps there—” Perhaps life would be there. He thought of + Renan, who declares that on the Acropolis at Athens beauty and wisdom do + exist, really exist, as external powers. He did not aspire to beauty or + wisdom, but he prayed to be delivered from the shadow of unreality that + had begun to darken the world. For it was as if some power had pronounced + against him—as if, by some heedless action, he had offended an + Olympian god. Like many another, he wondered whether the god might be + appeased by work—hard uncongenial work. Perhaps he had not worked + hard enough, or had enjoyed his work too much, and for that reason the + shadow was falling. + </p> + <p> + “—And above all, a schoolmaster has wonderful opportunities for + doing good; one mustn’t forget that.” + </p> + <p> + To do good! For what other reason are we here? Let us give up our refined + sensations, and our comforts, and our art, if thereby we can make other + people happier and better. The woman he loved had urged him to do good! + With a vehemence that surprised her, he exclaimed, “I’ll do it.” + </p> + <p> + “Think it over,” she cautioned, though she was greatly pleased. + </p> + <p> + “No; I think over things too much.” + </p> + <p> + The room grew brighter. A boy’s laughter floated in, and it seemed to him + that people were as important and vivid as they had been six months + before. Then he was at Cambridge, idling in the parsley meadows, and + weaving perishable garlands out of flowers. Now he was at Sawston, + preparing to work a beneficent machine. No man works for nothing, and + Rickie trusted that to him also benefits might accrue; that his wound + might heal as he laboured, and his eyes recapture the Holy Grail. + </p> + <p> + XVII + </p> + <p> + In practical matters Mr. Pembroke was often a generous man. He offered + Rickie a good salary, and insisted on paying Agnes as well. And as he + housed them for nothing, and as Rickie would also have a salary from the + school, the money question disappeared—if not forever, at all events + for the present. + </p> + <p> + “I can work you in,” he said. “Leave all that to me, and in a few days you + shall hear from the headmaster. He shall create a vacancy. And once in, we + stand or fall together. I am resolved on that.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie did not like the idea of being “worked in,” but he was determined + to raise no difficulties. It is so easy to be refined and high-minded when + we have nothing to do. But the active, useful man cannot be equally + particular. Rickie’s programme involved a change in values as well as a + change of occupation. + </p> + <p> + “Adopt a frankly intellectual attitude,” Mr. Pembroke continued. “I do not + advise you at present even to profess any interest in athletics or + organization. When the headmaster writes, he will probably ask whether you + are an all-round man. Boldly say no. A bold ‘no’ is at times the best. + Take your stand upon classics and general culture.” + </p> + <p> + Classics! A second in the Tripos. General culture. A smattering of English + Literature, and less than a smattering of French. + </p> + <p> + “That is how we begin. Then we get you a little post—say that of + librarian. And so on, until you are indispensable.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie laughed; the headmaster wrote, the reply was satisfactory, and in + due course the new life began. + </p> + <p> + Sawston was already familiar to him. But he knew it as an amateur, and + under an official gaze it grouped itself afresh. The school, a bland + Gothic building, now showed as a fortress of learning, whose outworks were + the boarding-houses. Those straggling roads were full of the houses of the + parents of the day-boys. These shops were in bounds, those out. How often + had he passed Dunwood House! He had once confused it with its rival, Cedar + View. Now he was to live there—perhaps for many years. On the left + of the entrance a large saffron drawing-room, full of cosy corners and + dumpy chairs: here the parents would be received. On the right of the + entrance a study, which he shared with Herbert: here the boys would be + caned—he hoped not often. In the hall a framed certificate praising + the drains, the bust of Hermes, and a carved teak monkey holding out a + salver. Some of the furniture had come from Shelthorpe, some had been + bought from Mr. Annison, some of it was new. But throughout he recognized + a certain decision of arrangement. Nothing in the house was accidental, or + there merely for its own sake. He contrasted it with his room at + Cambridge, which had been a jumble of things that he loved dearly and of + things that he did not love at all. Now these also had come to Dunwood + House, and had been distributed where each was seemly—Sir Percival + to the drawing-room, the photograph of Stockholm to the passage, his + chair, his inkpot, and the portrait of his mother to the study. And then + he contrasted it with the Ansells’ house, to which their resolute + ill-taste had given unity. He was extremely sensitive to the inside of a + house, holding it an organism that expressed the thoughts, conscious and + subconscious, of its inmates. He was equally sensitive to places. He would + compare Cambridge with Sawston, and either with a third type of existence, + to which, for want of a better name, he gave the name of “Wiltshire.” + </p> + <p> + It must not be thought that he is going to waste his time. These contrasts + and comparisons never took him long, and he never indulged in them until + the serious business of the day was over. And, as time passed, he never + indulged in them at all. The school returned at the end of January, before + he had been settled in a week. His health had improved, but not greatly, + and he was nervous at the prospect of confronting the assembled house. All + day long cabs had been driving up, full of boys in bowler hats too big for + them; and Agnes had been superintending the numbering of the said hats, + and the placing of them in cupboards, since they would not be wanted till + the end of the term. Each boy had, or should have had, a bag, so that he + need not unpack his box till the morrow, One boy had only a brown-paper + parcel, tied with hairy string, and Rickie heard the firm pleasant voice + say, “But you’ll bring a bag next term,” and the submissive, “Yes, Mrs. + Elliot,” of the reply. In the passage he ran against the head boy, who was + alarmingly like an undergraduate. They looked at each other suspiciously, + and parted. Two minutes later he ran into another boy, and then into + another, and began to wonder whether they were doing it on purpose, and if + so, whether he ought to mind. As the day wore on, the noises grew + louder-trampings of feet, breakdowns, jolly little squawks—and the + cubicles were assigned, and the bags unpacked, and the bathing + arrangements posted up, and Herbert kept on saying, “All this is informal—all + this is informal. We shall meet the house at eight fifteen.” + </p> + <p> + And so, at eight ten, Rickie put on his cap and gown,—hitherto + symbols of pupilage, now to be symbols of dignity,—the very cap and + gown that Widdrington had so recently hung upon the college fountain. + Herbert, similarly attired, was waiting for him in their private + dining-room, where also sat Agnes, ravenously devouring scrambled eggs. + “But you’ll wear your hoods,” she cried. Herbert considered, and them said + she was quite right. He fetched his white silk, Rickie the fragment of + rabbit’s wool that marks the degree of B.A. Thus attired, they proceeded + through the baize door. They were a little late, and the boys, who were + marshalled in the preparation room, were getting uproarious. One, + forgetting how far his voice carried, shouted, “Cave! Here comes the + Whelk.” And another young devil yelled, “The Whelk’s brought a pet with + him!” + </p> + <p> + “You mustn’t mind,” said Herbert kindly. “We masters make a point of never + minding nicknames—unless, of course, they are applied openly, in + which case a thousand lines is not too much.” Rickie assented, and they + entered the preparation room just as the prefects had established order. + </p> + <p> + Here Herbert took his seat on a high-legged chair, while Rickie, like a + queen-consort, sat near him on a chair with somewhat shorter legs. Each + chair had a desk attached to it, and Herbert flung up the lid of his, and + then looked round the preparation room with a quick frown, as if the + contents had surprised him. So impressed was Rickie that he peeped + sideways, but could only see a little blotting-paper in the desk. Then he + noticed that the boys were impressed too. Their chatter ceased. They + attended. + </p> + <p> + The room was almost full. The prefects, instead of lolling disdainfully in + the back row, were ranged like councillors beneath the central throne. + This was an innovation of Mr. Pembroke’s. Carruthers, the head boy, sat in + the middle, with his arm round Lloyd. It was Lloyd who had made the matron + too bright: he nearly lost his colours in consequence. These two were + grown up. Beside them sat Tewson, a saintly child in the spectacles, who + had risen to this height by reason of his immense learning. He, like the + others, was a school prefect. The house prefects, an inferior brand, were + beyond, and behind came the indistinguishable many. The faces all looked + alike as yet—except the face of one boy, who was inclined to cry. + </p> + <p> + “School,” said Mr. Pembroke, slowly closing the lid of the desk,—“school + is the world in miniature.” Then he paused, as a man well may who has made + such a remark. It is not, however, the intention of this work to quote an + opening address. Rickie, at all events, refused to be critical: Herbert’s + experience was far greater than his, and he must take his tone from him. + Nor could any one criticize the exhortations to be patriotic, athletic, + learned, and religious, that flowed like a four-part fugue from Mr. + Pembroke’s mouth. He was a practised speaker—that is to say, he held + his audience’s attention. He told them that this term, the second of his + reign, was THE term for Dunwood House; that it behooved every boy to + labour during it for his house’s honour, and, through the house, for the + honour of the school. Taking a wider range, he spoke of England, or rather + of Great Britain, and of her continental foes. Portraits of + empire-builders hung on the wall, and he pointed to them. He quoted + imperial poets. He showed how patriotism had broadened since the days of + Shakespeare, who, for all his genius, could only write of his country as— + </p> + <p> + “This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand + of war, This hazy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set + in the silver sea.” + </p> + <p> + And it seemed that only a short ladder lay between the preparation room + and the Anglo-Saxon hegemony of the globe. Then he paused, and in the + silence came “sob, sob, sob,” from a little boy, who was regretting a + villa in Guildford and his mother’s half acre of garden. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +The proceeding terminated with the broader patriotism of the school +anthem, recently composed by the organist. Words and tune were still a +matter for taste, and it was Mr. Pembroke (and he only because he had +the music) who gave the right intonation to + + “Perish each laggard! + Let it not be said + That Sawston such within her walls hath bred.” + </pre> + <p> + “Come, come,” he said pleasantly, as they ended with harmonies in the + style of Richard Strauss. “This will never do. We must grapple with the + anthem this term—you’re as tuneful as—as day-boys!” + </p> + <p> + Hearty laughter, and then the whole house filed past them and shook hands. + </p> + <p> + “But how did it impress you?” Herbert asked, as soon as they were back in + their own part. Agnes had provided them with a tray of food: the meals + were still anyhow, and she had to fly at once to see after the boys. + </p> + <p> + “I liked the look of them.” + </p> + <p> + “I meant rather, how did the house impress you as a house?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I thought,” said Rickie rather nervously. “It is not easy + to catch the spirit of a thing at once. I only saw a roomful of boys.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Rickie, don’t be so diffident. You are perfectly right. You only + did see a roomful of boys. As yet there’s nothing else to see. The house, + like the school, lacks tradition. Look at Winchester. Look at the + traditional rivalry between Eton and Harrow. Tradition is of incalculable + importance, if a school is to have any status. Why should Sawston be + without?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Tradition is of incalculable value. And I envy those schools that + have a natural connection with the past. Of course Sawston has a past, + though not of the kind that you quite want. The sons of poor tradesmen + went to it at first. So wouldn’t its traditions be more likely to linger + in the Commercial School?” he concluded nervously. + </p> + <p> + “You have a great deal to learn—a very great deal. Listen to me. Why + has Sawston no traditions?” His round, rather foolish, face assumed the + expression of a conspirator. Bending over the mutton, he whispered, “I can + tell you why. Owing to the day-boys. How can traditions flourish in such + soil? Picture the day-boy’s life—at home for meals, at home for + preparation, at home for sleep, running home with every fancied wrong. + There are day-boys in your class, and, mark my words, they will give you + ten times as much trouble as the boarders, late, slovenly, stopping away + at the slightest pretext. And then the letters from the parents! ‘Why has + my boy not been moved this term?’ ‘Why has my boy been moved this term?’ + ‘I am a dissenter, and do not wish my boy to subscribe to the school + mission.’ ‘Can you let my boy off early to water the garden?’ Remember + that I have been a day-boy house-master, and tried to infuse some esprit + de corps into them. It is practically impossible. They come as units, and + units they remain. Worse. They infect the boarders. Their pestilential, + critical, discontented attitude is spreading over the school. If I had my + own way—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped somewhat abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “Was that why you laughed at their singing?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all. Not at all. It is not my habit to set one section of the + school against the other.” + </p> + <p> + After a little they went the rounds. The boys were in bed now. + “Good-night!” called Herbert, standing in the corridor of the cubicles, + and from behind each of the green curtains came the sound of a voice + replying, “Good-night, sir!” “Good-night,” he observed into each + dormitory. + </p> + <p> + Then he went to the switch in the passage and plunged the whole house into + darkness. Rickie lingered behind him, strangely impressed. In the morning + those boys had been scattered over England, leading their own lives. Now, + for three months, they must change everything—see new faces, accept + new ideals. They, like himself, must enter a beneficent machine, and learn + the value of esprit de corps. Good luck attend them—good luck and a + happy release. For his heart would have them not in these cubicles and + dormitories, but each in his own dear home, amongst faces and things that + he knew. + </p> + <p> + Next morning, after chapel, he made the acquaintance of his class. Towards + that he felt very differently. Esprit de corps was not expected of it. It + was simply two dozen boys who were gathered together for the purpose of + learning Latin. His duties and difficulties would not lie here. He was not + required to provide it with an atmosphere. The scheme of work was already + mapped out, and he started gaily upon familiar words— + </p> + <p> + “Pan, ovium custos, tua si tibi Maenala curae Adsis, O Tegaee, favens.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think that beautiful?” he asked, and received the honest answer, + “No, sir; I don’t think I do.” He met Herbert in high spirits in the + quadrangle during the interval. But Herbert thought his enthusiasm rather + amateurish, and cautioned him. + </p> + <p> + “You must take care they don’t get out of hand. I approve of a lively + teacher, but discipline must be established first.” + </p> + <p> + “I felt myself a learner, not a teacher. If I’m wrong over a point, or + don’t know, I mean to tell them at once.” Herbert shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “It’s different if I was really a scholar. But I can’t pose as one, can I? + I know much more than the boys, but I know very little. Surely the honest + thing is to be myself to them. Let them accept or refuse me as that. + That’s the only attitude we shall any of us profit by in the end.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke was silent. Then he observed, “There is, as you say, a higher + attitude and a lower attitude. Yet here, as so often, cannot we find a + golden mean between them?” + </p> + <p> + “What’s that?” said a dreamy voice. They turned and saw a tall, spectacled + man, who greeted the newcomer kindly, and took hold of his arm. “What’s + that about the golden mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Jackson—Mr. Elliot: Mr. Elliot—Mr. Jackson,” said + Herbert, who did not seem quite pleased. “Rickie, have you a moment to + spare me?” + </p> + <p> + But the humanist spoke to the young man about the golden mean and the + pinchbeck mean, adding, “You know the Greeks aren’t broad church + clergymen. They really aren’t, in spite of much conflicting evidence. Boys + will regard Sophocles as a kind of enlightened bishop, and something tells + me that they are wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Jackson is a classical enthusiast,” said Herbert. “He makes the past + live. I want to talk to you about the humdrum present.” + </p> + <p> + “And I am warning him against the humdrum past. That’s another point, Mr. + Elliot. Impress on your class that many Greeks and most Romans were + frightfully stupid, and if they disbelieve you, read Ctesiphon with them, + or Valerius Flaccus. Whatever is that noise?” + </p> + <p> + “It comes from your class-room, I think,” snapped the other master. + </p> + <p> + “So it does. Ah, yes. I expect they are putting your little Tewson into + the waste-paper basket.” + </p> + <p> + “I always lock my class-room in the interval—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “—and carry the key in my pocket.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah. But, Mr. Elliot, I am a cousin of Widdrington’s. He wrote to me about + you. I am so glad. Will you, first of all, come to supper next Sunday?” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid,” put in Herbert, “that we poor housemasters must deny + ourselves festivities in term time.” + </p> + <p> + “But mayn’t he come once, just once?” + </p> + <p> + “May, my dear Jackson! My brother-in-law is not a baby. He decides for + himself.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie naturally refused. As soon as they were out of hearing, Herbert + said, “This is a little unfortunate. Who is Mr. Widdrington?” + </p> + <p> + “I knew him at Cambridge.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me explain how we stand,” he continued, after a pause. + </p> + <p> + “Jackson is the worst of the reactionaries here, while I—why should + I conceal it?—have thrown in my lot with the party of progress. You + will see how we suffer from him at the masters’ meetings. He has no talent + for organization, and yet he is always inflicting his ideas on others. It + was like his impertinence to dictate to you what authors you should read, + and meanwhile the sixth-form room like a bear-garden, and a school prefect + being put into the waste-paper basket. My good Rickie, there’s nothing to + smile at. How is the school to go on with a man like that? It would be a + case of ‘quick march,’ if it was not for his brilliant intellect. That’s + why I say it’s a little unfortunate. You will have very little in common, + you and he.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie did not answer. He was very fond of Widdrington, who was a quaint, + sensitive person. And he could not help being attracted by Mr. Jackson, + whose welcome contrasted pleasantly with the official breeziness of his + other colleagues. He wondered, too, whether it is so very reactionary to + contemplate the antique. + </p> + <p> + “It is true that I vote Conservative,” pursued Mr. Pembroke, apparently + confronting some objector. “But why? Because the Conservatives, rather + than the Liberals, stand for progress. One must not be misled by + catch-words.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t you want to ask me something?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes. You found a boy in your form called Varden?” + </p> + <p> + “Varden? Yes; there is.” + </p> + <p> + “Drop on him heavily. He has broken the statutes of the school. He is + attending as a day-boy. The statutes provide that a boy must reside with + his parents or guardians. He does neither. It must be stopped. You must + tell the headmaster.” + </p> + <p> + “Where does the boy live?” + </p> + <p> + “At a certain Mrs. Orr’s, who has no connection with the school of any + kind. It must be stopped. He must either enter a boarding-house or go.” + </p> + <p> + “But why should I tell?” said Rickie. He remembered the boy, an + unattractive person with protruding ears, “It is the business of his + house-master.” + </p> + <p> + “House-master—exactly. Here we come back again. Who is now the + day-boys’ house-master? Jackson once again—as if anything was + Jackson’s business! I handed the house back last term in a most + flourishing condition. It has already gone to rack and ruin for the second + time. To return to Varden. I have unearthed a put-up job. Mrs. Jackson and + Mrs. Orr are friends. Do you see? It all works round.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. It does—or might.” + </p> + <p> + “The headmaster will never sanction it when it’s put to him plainly.” + </p> + <p> + “But why should I put it?” said Rickie, twisting the ribbons of his gown + round his fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Because you’re the boy’s form-master.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that a reason?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it is.” + </p> + <p> + “I only wondered whether—” He did not like to say that he wondered + whether he need do it his first morning. + </p> + <p> + “By some means or other you must find out—of course you know + already, but you must find out from the boy. I know—I have it! + Where’s his health certificate?” + </p> + <p> + “He had forgotten it.” + </p> + <p> + “Just like them. Well, when he brings it, it will be signed by Mrs. Orr, + and you must look at it and say, ‘Orr—Orr—Mrs. Orr?’ or + something to that effect, and then the whole thing will come naturally + out.” + </p> + <p> + The bell rang, and they went in for the hour of school that concluded the + morning. Varden brought his health certificate—a pompous document + asserting that he had not suffered from roseola or kindred ailments in the + holidays—and for a long time Rickie sat with it before him, spread + open upon his desk. He did not quite like the job. It suggested intrigue, + and he had come to Sawston not to intrigue but to labour. Doubtless + Herbert was right, and Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Orr were wrong. But why could + they not have it out among themselves? Then he thought, “I am a coward, + and that’s why I’m raising these objections,” called the boy up to him, + and it did all come out naturally, more or less. Hitherto Varden had lived + with his mother; but she had left Sawston at Christmas, and now he would + live with Mrs. Orr. “Mr. Jackson, sir, said it would be all right.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes,” said Rickie; “quite so.” He remembered Herbert’s dictum: + “Masters must present a united front. If they do not—the deluge.” He + sent the boy back to his seat, and after school took the compromising + health certificate to the headmaster. The headmaster was at that time + easily excited by a breach of the constitution. “Parents or guardians,” he + reputed—“parents or guardians,” and flew with those words on his + lips to Mr. Jackson. To say that Rickie was a cat’s-paw is to put it too + strongly. Herbert was strictly honourable, and never pushed him into an + illegal or really dangerous position; but there is no doubt that on this + and on many other occasions he had to do things that he would not + otherwise have done. There was always some diplomatic corner that had to + be turned, always something that he had to say or not to say. As the term + wore on he lost his independence—almost without knowing it. He had + much to learn about boys, and he learnt not by direct observation—for + which he believed he was unfitted—but by sedulous imitation of the + more experienced masters. Originally he had intended to be friends with + his pupils, and Mr. Pembroke commended the intention highly; but you + cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in + the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, for “personal + intercourse,” substituted the safer “personal influence,” and gave his + junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in which the boy does give + himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master, + intact, commends or corrects them. Originally Rickie had meant to help + boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at + Cambridge he had numbered this among life’s duties. But here is a subject + in which we must inevitably speak as one human being to another, not as + one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for this reason the + elder school-master could suggest nothing but a few formulae. Formulae, + like kindly traps, were not in Rickie’s line, so he abandoned these + subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what was easy. + In the house he did as Herbert did, and referred all doubtful subjects to + him. In his form, oddly enough, he became a martinet. It is so much + simpler to be severe. He grasped the school regulations, and insisted on + prompt obedience to them. He adopted the doctrine of collective + responsibility. When one boy was late, he punished the whole form. “I + can’t help it,” he would say, as if he was a power of nature. As a teacher + he was rather dull. He curbed his own enthusiasms, finding that they + distracted his attention, and that while he throbbed to the music of + Virgil the boys in the back row were getting unruly. But on the whole he + liked his form work: he knew why he was there, and Herbert did not + overshadow him so completely. + </p> + <p> + What was amiss with Herbert? He had known that something was amiss, and + had entered into partnership with open eyes. The man was kind and + unselfish; more than that he was truly charitable, and it was a real + pleasure to him to give—pleasure to others. Certainly he might talk + too much about it afterwards; but it was the doing, not the talking, that + he really valued, and benefactors of this sort are not too common. He was, + moreover, diligent and conscientious: his heart was in his work, and his + adherence to the Church of England no mere matter of form. He was capable + of affection: he was usually courteous and tolerant. Then what was amiss? + Why, in spite of all these qualities, should Rickie feel that there was + something wrong with him—nay, that he was wrong as a whole, and that + if the Spirit of Humanity should ever hold a judgment he would assuredly + be classed among the goats? The answer at first sight appeared a graceless + one—it was that Herbert was stupid. Not stupid in the ordinary sense—he + had a business-like brain, and acquired knowledge easily—but stupid + in the important sense: his whole life was coloured by a contempt of the + intellect. That he had a tolerable intellect of his own was not the point: + it is in what we value, not in what we have, that the test of us resides. + Now, Rickie’s intellect was not remarkable. He came to his worthier + results rather by imagination and instinct than by logic. An argument + confused him, and he could with difficulty follow it even on paper. But he + saw in this no reason for satisfaction, and tried to make such use of his + brain as he could, just as a weak athlete might lovingly exercise his + body. Like a weak athlete, too, he loved to watch the exploits, or rather + the efforts, of others—their efforts not so much to acquire + knowledge as to dispel a little of the darkness by which we and all our + acquisitions are surrounded. Cambridge had taught him this, and he knew, + if for no other reason, that his time there had not been in vain. And + Herbert’s contempt for such efforts revolted him. He saw that for all his + fine talk about a spiritual life he had but one test for things—success: + success for the body in this life or for the soul in the life to come. And + for this reason Humanity, and perhaps such other tribunals as there may + be, would assuredly reject him. + </p> + <p> + XVIII + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile he was a husband. Perhaps his union should have been emphasized + before. The crown of life had been attained, the vague yearnings, the + misread impulses, had found accomplishment at last. Never again must he + feel lonely, or as one who stands out of the broad highway of the world + and fears, like poor Shelley, to undertake the longest journey. So he + reasoned, and at first took the accomplishment for granted. But as the + term passed he knew that behind the yearning there remained a yearning, + behind the drawn veil a veil that he could not draw. His wedding had been + no mighty landmark: he would often wonder whether such and such a speech + or incident came after it or before. Since that meeting in the Soho + restaurant there had been so much to do—clothes to buy, presents to + thank for, a brief visit to a Training College, a honeymoon as brief. In + such a bustle, what spiritual union could take place? Surely the dust + would settle soon: in Italy, at Easter, he might perceive the infinities + of love. But love had shown him its infinities already. Neither by + marriage nor by any other device can men insure themselves a vision; and + Rickie’s had been granted him three years before, when he had seen his + wife and a dead man clasped in each other’s arms. She was never to be so + real to him again. + </p> + <p> + She ran about the house looking handsomer than ever. Her cheerful voice + gave orders to the servants. As he sat in the study correcting + compositions, she would dart in and give him a kiss. “Dear girl—” he + would murmur, with a glance at the rings on her hand. The tone of their + marriage life was soon set. It was to be a frank good-fellowship, and + before long he found it difficult to speak in a deeper key. + </p> + <p> + One evening he made the effort. There had been more beauty than was usual + at Sawston. The air was pure and quiet. Tomorrow the fog might be here, + but today one said, “It is like the country.” Arm in arm they strolled in + the side-garden, stopping at times to notice the crocuses, or to wonder + when the daffodils would flower. Suddenly he tightened his pressure, and + said, “Darling, why don’t you still wear ear-rings?” + </p> + <p> + “Ear-rings?” She laughed. “My taste has improved, perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + So after all they never mentioned Gerald’s name. But he hoped it was still + dear to her. He did not want her to forget the greatest moment in her + life. His love desired not ownership but confidence, and to a love so pure + it does not seem terrible to come second. + </p> + <p> + He valued emotion—not for itself, but because it is the only final + path to intimacy. She, ever robust and practical, always discouraged him. + She was not cold; she would willingly embrace him. But she hated being + upset, and would laugh or thrust him off when his voice grew serious. In + this she reminded him of his mother. But his mother—he had never + concealed it from himself—had glories to which his wife would never + attain: glories that had unfolded against a life of horror—a life + even more horrible than he had guessed. He thought of her often during + these earlier months. Did she bless his union, so different to her own? + Did she love his wife? He tried to speak of her to Agnes, but again she + was reluctant. And perhaps it was this aversion to acknowledge the dead, + whose images alone have immortality, that made her own image somewhat + transient, so that when he left her no mystic influence remained, and only + by an effort could he realize that God had united them forever. + </p> + <p> + They conversed and differed healthily upon other topics. A rifle corps was + to be formed: she hoped that the boys would have proper uniforms, instead + of shooting in their old clothes, as Mr. Jackson had suggested. There was + Tewson; could nothing be done about him? He would slink away from the + other prefects and go with boys of his own age. There was Lloyd: he would + not learn the school anthem, saying that it hurt his throat. And above all + there was Varden, who, to Rickie’s bewilderment, was now a member of + Dunwood House. + </p> + <p> + “He had to go somewhere,” said Agnes. “Lucky for his mother that we had a + vacancy.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—but when I meet Mrs. Orr—I can’t help feeling ashamed.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mrs. Orr! Who cares for her? Her teeth are drawn. If she chooses to + insinuate that we planned it, let her. Hers was rank dishonesty. She + attempted to set up a boarding-house.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Orr, who was quite rich, had attempted no such thing. She had taken + the boy out of charity, and without a thought of being unconstitutional. + But in had come this officious “Limpet” and upset the headmaster, and she + was scolded, and Mrs. Varden was scolded, and Mr. Jackson was scolded, and + the boy was scolded and placed with Mr. Pembroke, whom she revered less + than any man in the world. Naturally enough, she considered it a further + attempt of the authorities to snub the day-boys, for whose advantage the + school had been founded. She and Mrs. Jackson discussed the subject at + their tea-parties, and the latter lady was sure that no good, no good of + any kind, would come to Dunwood House from such ill-gotten plunder. + </p> + <p> + “We say, ‘Let them talk,’” persisted Rickie, “but I never did like letting + people talk. We are right and they are wrong, but I wish the thing could + have been done more quietly. The headmaster does get so excited. He has + given a gang of foolish people their opportunity. I don’t like being + branded as the day-boy’s foe, when I think how much I would have given to + be a day-boy myself. My father found me a nuisance, and put me through the + mill, and I can never forget it particularly the evenings.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s very little bullying here,” said Agnes. + </p> + <p> + “There was very little bullying at my school. There was simply the + atmosphere of unkindness, which no discipline can dispel. It’s not what + people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Physical pain doesn’t hurt—at least not what I call hurt—if a + man hits you by accident or play. But just a little tap, when you know it + comes from hatred, is too terrible. Boys do hate each other: I remember + it, and see it again. They can make strong isolated friendships, but of + general good-fellowship they haven’t a notion.” + </p> + <p> + “All I know is there’s very little bullying here.” + </p> + <p> + “You see, the notion of good-fellowship develops late: you can just see + its beginning here among the prefects: up at Cambridge it flourishes + amazingly. That’s why I pity people who don’t go up to Cambridge: not + because a University is smart, but because those are the magic years, and—with + luck—you see up there what you couldn’t see before and mayn’t ever + see again. + </p> + <p> + “Aren’t these the magic years?” the lady demanded. + </p> + <p> + He laughed and hit at her. “I’m getting somewhat involved. But hear me, O + Agnes, for I am practical. I approve of our public schools. Long may they, + flourish. But I do not approve of the boarding-house system. It isn’t an + inevitable adjunct—” + </p> + <p> + “Good gracious me!” she shrieked. “Have you gone mad?” + </p> + <p> + “Silence, madam. Don’t betray me to Herbert, or I’ll give us the sack. But + seriously, what is the good of, throwing boys so much together? Isn’t it + building their lives on a wrong basis? They don’t understand each other. I + wish they did, but they don’t. They don’t realize that human beings are + simply marvellous. When they do, the whole of life changes, and you get + the true thing. But don’t pretend you’ve got it before you have. + Patriotism and esprit de corps are all very well, but masters a little + forget that they must grow from sentiment. They cannot create one. + Cannot-cannot—cannot. I never cared a straw for England until I + cared for Englishmen, and boys can’t love the school when they hate each + other. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now conclude my address. And most of + it is copied out of Mr. Ansell.” + </p> + <p> + The truth is, he was suddenly ashamed. He had been carried away on the + flood of his old emotions. Cambridge and all that it meant had stood + before him passionately clear, and beside it stood his mother and the + sweet family life which nurses up a boy until he can salute his equals. He + was ashamed, for he remembered his new resolution—to work without + criticizing, to throw himself vigorously into the machine, not to mind if + he was pinched now and then by the elaborate wheels. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ansell!” cried his wife, laughing somewhat shrilly. “Aha! Now I + understand. It’s just the kind of thing poor Mr. Ansell would say. Well, + I’m brutal. I believe it does Varden good to have his ears pulled now and + then, and I don’t care whether they pull them in play or not. Boys ought + to rough it, or they never grow up into men, and your mother would have + agreed with me. Oh yes; and you’re all wrong about patriotism. It can, + can, create a sentiment.” + </p> + <p> + She was unusually precise, and had followed his thoughts with an attention + that was also unusual. He wondered whether she was not right, and + regretted that she proceeded to say, “My dear boy, you mustn’t talk these + heresies inside Dunwood House! You sound just like one of that reactionary + Jackson set, who want to fling the school back a hundred years and have + nothing but day-boys all dressed anyhow.” + </p> + <p> + “The Jackson set have their points.” + </p> + <p> + “You’d better join it.” + </p> + <p> + “The Dunwood House set has its points.” For Rickie suffered from the + Primal Curse, which is not—as the Authorized Version suggests—the + knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of good-and-evil. + </p> + <p> + “Then stick to the Dunwood House set.” + </p> + <p> + “I do, and shall.” Again he was ashamed. Why would he see the other side + of things? He rebuked his soul, not unsuccessfully, and then they returned + to the subject of Varden. + </p> + <p> + “I’m certain he suffers,” said he, for she would do nothing but laugh. + “Each boy who passes pulls his ears—very funny, no doubt; but every + day they stick out more and get redder, and this afternoon, when he didn’t + know he was being watched, he was holding his head and moaning. I hate the + look about his eyes.” + </p> + <p> + “I hate the whole boy. Nasty weedy thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’m a nasty weedy thing, if it comes to that.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you aren’t,” she cried, kissing him. But he led her back to the + subject. Could nothing be suggested? He drew up some new rules—alterations + in the times of going to bed, and so on—the effect of which would be + to provide fewer opportunities for the pulling of Varden’s ears. The rules + were submitted to Herbert, who sympathized with weakliness more than did + his sister, and gave them his careful consideration. But unfortunately + they collided with other rules, and on a closer examination he found that + they also ran contrary to the fundamentals on which the government of + Dunwood House was based. So nothing was done. Agnes was rather pleased, + and took to teasing her husband about Varden. At last he asked her to + stop. He felt uneasy about the boy—almost superstitious. His first + morning’s work had brought sixty pounds a year to their hotel. + </p> + <p> + XIX + </p> + <p> + They did not get to Italy at Easter. Herbert had the offer of some private + pupils, and needed Rickie’s help. It seemed unreasonable to leave England + when money was to be made in it, so they went to Ilfracombe instead. They + spent three weeks among the natural advantages and unnatural disadvantages + of that resort. It was out of the season, and they encamped in a huge + hotel, which took them at a reduction. By a disastrous chance the Jacksons + were down there too, and a good deal of constrained civility had to pass + between the two families. Constrained it was not in Mr. Jackson’s case. At + all times he was ready to talk, and as long as they kept off the school it + was pleasant enough. But he was very indiscreet, and feminine tact had + often to intervene. “Go away, dear ladies,” he would then observe. “You + think you see life because you see the chasms in it. Yet all the chasms + are full of female skeletons.” The ladies smiled anxiously. To Rickie he + was friendly and even intimate. They had long talks on the deserted + Capstone, while their wives sat reading in the Winter Garden and Mr. + Pembroke kept an eye upon the tutored youths. “Once I had tutored youths,” + said Mr. Jackson, “but I lost them all by letting them paddle with my + nieces. It is so impossible to remember what is proper.” And sooner or + later their talk gravitated towards his central passion—the + Fragments of Sophocles. Some day (“never,” said Herbert) he would edit + them. At present they were merely in his blood. With the zeal of a scholar + and the imagination of a poet he reconstructed lost dramas—Niobe, + Phaedra, Philoctetes against Troy, whose names, but for an accident, would + have thrilled the world. “Is it worth it?” he cried. “Had we better be + planting potatoes?” And then: “We had; but this is the second best.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes did not approve of these colloquies. Mr. Jackson was not a buffoon, + but he behaved like one, which is what matters; and from the Winter Garden + she could see people laughing at him, and at her husband, who got excited + too. She hinted once or twice, but no notice was taken, and at last she + said rather sharply, “Now, you’re not to, Rickie. I won’t have it.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s a type that suits me. He knows people I know, or would like to have + known. He was a friend of Tony Failing’s. It is so hard to realize that a + man connected with one was great. Uncle Tony seems to have been. He loved + poetry and music and pictures, and everything tempted him to live in a + kind of cultured paradise, with the door shut upon squalor. But to have + more decent people in the world—he sacrificed everything to that. He + would have ‘smashed the whole beauty-shop’ if it would help him. I really + couldn’t go as far as that. I don’t think one need go as far—pictures + might have to be smashed, but not music or poetry; surely they help—and + Jackson doesn’t think so either.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I won’t have it, and that’s enough.” She laughed, for her voice had + a little been that of the professional scold. “You see we must hang + together. He’s in the reactionary camp.” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn’t know it. He doesn’t know that he is in any camp at all.” + </p> + <p> + “His wife is, which comes to the same.” + </p> + <p> + “Still, it’s the holidays—” He and Mr. Jackson had drifted apart in + the term, chiefly owing to the affair of Varden. “We were to have the + holidays to ourselves, you know.” And following some line of thought, he + continued, “He cheers one up. He does believe in poetry. Smart, + sentimental books do seem absolutely absurd to him, and gods and fairies + far nearer to reality. He tries to express all modern life in the terms of + Greek mythology, because the Greeks looked very straight at things, and + Demeter or Aphrodite are thinner veils than ‘The survival of the fittest’, + or ‘A marriage has been arranged,’ and other draperies of modern + journalese.” + </p> + <p> + “And do you know what that means?” + </p> + <p> + “It means that poetry, not prose, lies at the core.” + </p> + <p> + “No. I can tell you what it means—balder-dash.” + </p> + <p> + His mouth fell. She was sweeping away the cobwebs with a vengeance. “I + hope you’re wrong,” he replied, “for those are the lines on which I’ve + been writing, however badly, for the last two years.” + </p> + <p> + “But you write stories, not poems.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at his watch. “Lessons again. One never has a moment’s peace.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor Rickie. You shall have a real holiday in the summer.” And she called + after him to say, “Remember, dear, about Mr. Jackson. Don’t go talking so + much to him.” + </p> + <p> + Rather arbitrary. Her tone had been a little arbitrary of late. But what + did it matter? Mr. Jackson was not a friend, and he must risk the chance + of offending Widdrington. After the lesson he wrote to Ansell, whom he had + not seen since June, asking him to come down to Ilfracombe, if only for a + day. On reading the letter over, its tone displeased him. It was quite + pathetic: it sounded like a cry from prison. “I can’t send him such + nonsense,” he thought, and wrote again. But phrase it as he would the + letter always suggested that he was unhappy. “What’s wrong?” he wondered. + “I could write anything I wanted to him once.” So he scrawled “Come!” on a + post-card. But even this seemed too serious. The post-card followed the + letters, and Agnes found them all in the waste-paper basket. + </p> + <p> + Then she said, “I’ve been thinking—oughtn’t you to ask Mr. Ansell + over? A breath of sea air would do the poor thing good.” + </p> + <p> + There was no difficulty now. He wrote at once, “My dear Stewart, We both + so much wish you could come over.” But the invitation was refused. A + little uneasy he wrote again, using the dialect of their past intimacy. + The effect of this letter was not pathetic but jaunty, and he felt a keen + regret as soon as it slipped into the box. It was a relief to receive no + reply. + </p> + <p> + He brooded a good deal over this painful yet intangible episode. Was the + pain all of his own creating? or had it been produced by something + external? And he got the answer that brooding always gives—it was + both. He was morbid, and had been so since his visit to Cadover—quicker + to register discomfort than joy. But, none the less, Ansell was definitely + brutal, and Agnes definitely jealous. Brutality he could understand, alien + as it was to himself. Jealousy, equally alien, was a harder matter. Let + husband and wife be as sun and moon, or as moon and sun. Shall they + therefore not give greeting to the stars? He was willing to grant that the + love that inspired her might be higher than his own. Yet did it not + exclude them both from much that is gracious? That dream of his when he + rode on the Wiltshire expanses—a curious dream: the lark silent, the + earth dissolving. And he awoke from it into a valley full of men. + </p> + <p> + She was jealous in many ways—sometimes in an open humorous fashion, + sometimes more subtly, never content till “we” had extended our patronage, + and, if possible, our pity. She began to patronize and pity Ansell, and + most sincerely trusted that he would get his fellowship. Otherwise what + was the poor fellow to do? Ridiculous as it may seem, she was even jealous + of Nature. One day her husband escaped from Ilfracombe to Morthoe, and + came back ecstatic over its fangs of slate, piercing an oily sea. “Sounds + like an hippopotamus,” she said peevishly. And when they returned to + Sawston through the Virgilian counties, she disliked him looking out of + the windows, for all the world as if Nature was some dangerous woman. + </p> + <p> + He resumed his duties with a feeling that he had never left them. Again he + confronted the assembled house. This term was again the term; school still + the world in miniature. The music of the four-part fugue entered into him + more deeply, and he began to hum its little phrases. The same routine, the + same diplomacies, the same old sense of only half knowing boys or men—he + returned to it all: and all that changed was the cloud of unreality, which + ever brooded a little more densely than before. He spoke to his wife about + this, he spoke to her about everything, and she was alarmed, and wanted + him to see a doctor. But he explained that it was nothing of any practical + importance, nothing that interfered with his work or his appetite, nothing + more than a feeling that the cow was not really there. She laughed, and + “how is the cow today?” soon passed into a domestic joke. + </p> + <p> + XX + </p> + <p> + Ansell was in his favourite haunt—the reading-room of the British + Museum. In that book-encircled space he always could find peace. He loved + to see the volumes rising tier above tier into the misty dome. He loved + the chairs that glide so noiselessly, and the radiating desks, and the + central area, where the catalogue shelves curve, round the + superintendent’s throne. There he knew that his life was not ignoble. It + was worth while to grow old and dusty seeking for truth though truth is + unattainable, restating questions that have been stated at the beginning + of the world. Failure would await him, but not disillusionment. It was + worth while reading books, and writing a book or two which few would read, + and no one, perhaps, endorse. He was not a hero, and he knew it. His + father and sister, by their steady goodness, had made this life possible. + But, all the same, it was not the life of a spoilt child. + </p> + <p> + In the next chair to him sat Widdrington, engaged in his historical + research. His desk was edged with enormous volumes, and every few moments + an assistant brought him more. They rose like a wall against Ansell. + Towards the end of the morning a gap was made, and through it they held + the following conversation. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been stopping with my cousin at Sawston.” + </p> + <p> + “M’m.” + </p> + <p> + “It was quite exciting. The air rang with battle. About two-thirds of the + masters have lost their heads, and are trying to produce a gimcrack copy + of Eton. Last term, you know, with a great deal of puffing and blowing, + they fixed the numbers of the school. This term they want to create a new + boarding-house.” + </p> + <p> + “They are very welcome.” + </p> + <p> + “But the more boarding-houses they create, the less room they leave for + day-boys. The local mothers are frantic, and so is my queer cousin. I + never knew him so excited over sub-Hellenic things. There was an + indignation meeting at his house. He is supposed to look after the + day-boys’ interests, but no one thought he would—least of all the + people who gave him the post. The speeches were most eloquent. They argued + that the school was founded for day-boys, and that it’s intolerable to + handicap them. One poor lady cried, ‘Here’s my Harold in the school, and + my Toddie coming on. As likely as not I shall be told there is no vacancy + for him. Then what am I to do? If I go, what’s to become of Harold; and if + I stop, what’s to become of Toddie?’ I must say I was touched. Family life + is more real than national life—at least I’ve ordered all these + books to prove it is—and I fancy that the bust of Euripides agreed + with me, and was sorry for the hot-faced mothers. Jackson will do what he + can. He didn’t quite like to state the naked truth-which is, that + boardinghouses pay. He explained it to me afterwards: they are the only, + future open to a stupid master. It’s easy enough to be a beak when you’re + young and athletic, and can offer the latest University smattering. The + difficulty is to keep your place when you get old and stiff, and younger + smatterers are pushing up behind you. Crawl into a boarding-house and + you’re safe. A master’s life is frightfully tragic. Jackson’s fairly right + himself, because he has got a first-class intellect. But I met a poor + brute who was hired as an athlete. He has missed his shot at a + boarding-house, and there’s nothing in the world for him to do but to + trundle down the hill.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell yawned. + </p> + <p> + “I saw Rickie too. Once I dined there.” + </p> + <p> + Another yawn. + </p> + <p> + “My cousin thinks Mrs. Elliot one of the most horrible women he has ever + seen. He calls her ‘Medusa in Arcady.’ She’s so pleasant, too. But + certainly it was a very stony meal.” + </p> + <p> + “What kind of stoniness” + </p> + <p> + “No one stopped talking for a moment.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the real kind,” said Ansell moodily. “The only kind.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I,” he continued, “am inclined to compare her to an electric light. + Click! she’s on. Click! she’s off. No waste. No flicker.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish she’d fuse.” + </p> + <p> + “She’ll never fuse—unless anything was to happen at the main.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean by the main?” said Ansell, who always pursued a metaphor + relentlessly. + </p> + <p> + Widdrington did not know what he meant, and suggested that Ansell should + visit Sawston to see whether one could know. + </p> + <p> + “It is no good me going. I should not find Mrs. Elliot: she has no real + existence.” + </p> + <p> + “Rickie has.” + </p> + <p> + “I very much doubt it. I had two letters from Ilfracombe last April, and I + very much doubt that the man who wrote them can exist.” Bending downwards + he began to adorn the manuscript of his dissertation with a square, and + inside that a circle, and inside that another square. It was his second + dissertation: the first had failed. + </p> + <p> + “I think he exists: he is so unhappy.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell nodded. “How did you know he was unhappy?” + </p> + <p> + “Because he was always talking.” After a pause he added, “What clever + young men we are!” + </p> + <p> + “Aren’t we? I expect we shall get asked in marriage soon. I say, + Widdrington, shall we—?” + </p> + <p> + “Accept? Of course. It is not young manly to say no.” + </p> + <p> + “I meant shall we ever do a more tremendous thing,—fuse Mrs. + Elliot.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Widdrington promptly. “We shall never do that in all our + lives.” He added, “I think you might go down to Sawston, though.” + </p> + <p> + “I have already refused or ignored three invitations.” + </p> + <p> + “So I gathered.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s the good of it?” said Ansell through his teeth. “I will not put up + with little things. I would rather be rude than to listen to twaddle from + a man I’ve known. + </p> + <p> + “You might go down to Sawston, just for a night, to see him.” + </p> + <p> + “I saw him last month—at least, so Tilliard informs me. He says that + we all three lunched together, that Rickie paid, and that the conversation + was most interesting.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I contend that he does exist, and that if you go—oh, I can’t + be clever any longer. You really must go, man. I’m certain he’s miserable + and lonely. Dunwood House reeks of commerce and snobbery and all the + things he hated most. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t make any friends. + He is so odd, too. In this day-boy row that has just started he’s gone for + my cousin. Would you believe it? Quite spitefully. It made quite a + difficulty when I wanted to dine. It isn’t like him either the sentiments + or the behaviour. I’m sure he’s not himself. Pembroke used to look after + the day-boys, and so he can’t very well take the lead against them, and + perhaps Rickie’s doing his dirty work—and has overdone it, as decent + people generally do. He’s even altering to talk to. Yet he’s not been + married a year. Pembroke and that wife simply run him. I don’t see why + they should, and no more do you; and that’s why I want you to go to + Sawston, if only for one night.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell shook his head, and looked up at the dome as other men look at the + sky. In it the great arc lamps sputtered and flared, for the month was + again November. Then he lowered his eyes from the cold violet radiance to + the books. + </p> + <p> + “No, Widdrington; no. We don’t go to see people because they are happy or + unhappy. We go when we can talk to them. I cannot talk to Rickie, + therefore I will not waste my time at Sawston.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you’re right,” said Widdrington softly. “But we are bloodless + brutes. I wonder whether-If we were different people—something might + be done to save him. That is the curse of being a little intellectual. You + and our sort have always seen too clearly. We stand aside—and + meanwhile he turns into stone. Two philosophic youths repining in the + British Museum! What have we done? What shall we ever do? Just drift and + criticize, while people who know what they want snatch it away from us and + laugh.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you are that sort. I’m not. When the moment comes I shall hit out + like any ploughboy. Don’t believe those lies about intellectual people. + They’re only written to soothe the majority. Do you suppose, with the + world as it is, that it’s an easy matter to keep quiet? Do you suppose + that I didn’t want to rescue him from that ghastly woman? Action! + Nothing’s easier than action; as fools testify. But I want to act + rightly.” + </p> + <p> + “The superintendent is looking at us. I must get back to my work.” + </p> + <p> + “You think this all nonsense,” said Ansell, detaining him. “Please + remember that if I do act, you are bound to help me.” + </p> + <p> + Widdrington looked a little grave. He was no anarchist. A few plaintive + cries against Mrs. Elliot were all that he prepared to emit. + </p> + <p> + “There’s no mystery,” continued Ansell. “I haven’t the shadow of a plan in + my head. I know not only Rickie but the whole of his history: you remember + the day near Madingley. Nothing in either helps me: I’m just watching.” + </p> + <p> + “But what for?” + </p> + <p> + “For the Spirit of Life.” + </p> + <p> + Widdrington was surprised. It was a phrase unknown to their philosophy. + They had trespassed into poetry. + </p> + <p> + “You can’t fight Medusa with anything else. If you ask me what the Spirit + of Life is, or to what it is attached, I can’t tell you. I only tell you, + watch for it. Myself I’ve found it in books. Some people find it out of + doors or in each other. Never mind. It’s the same spirit, and I trust + myself to know it anywhere, and to use it rightly.” + </p> + <p> + But at this point the superintendent sent a message. + </p> + <p> + Widdrington then suggested a stroll in the galleries. It was foggy: they + needed fresh air. He loved and admired his friend, but today he could not + grasp him. The world as Ansell saw it seemed such a fantastic place, + governed by brand-new laws. What more could one do than to see Rickie as + often as possible, to invite his confidence, to offer him spiritual + support? And Mrs. Elliot—what power could “fuse” a respectable + woman? + </p> + <p> + Ansell consented to the stroll, but, as usual, only breathed depression. + The comfort of books deserted him among those marble goddesses and gods. + The eye of an artist finds pleasure in texture and poise, but he could + only think of the vanished incense and deserted temples beside an + unfurrowed sea. + </p> + <p> + “Let us go,” he said. “I do not like carved stones.” + </p> + <p> + “You are too particular,” said Widdrington. “You are always expecting to + meet living people. One never does. I am content with the Parthenon + frieze.” And he moved along a few yards of it, while Ansell followed, + conscious only of its pathos. + </p> + <p> + “There’s Tilliard,” he observed. “Shall we kill him?” + </p> + <p> + “Please,” said Widdrington, and as he spoke Tilliard joined them. He + brought them news. That morning he had heard from Rickie: Mrs. Elliot was + expecting a child. + </p> + <p> + “A child?” said Ansell, suddenly bewildered. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I forgot,” interposed Widdrington. “My cousin did tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “You forgot! Well, after all, I forgot that it might be, We are indeed + young men.” He leant against the pedestal of Ilissus and remembered their + talk about the Spirit of Life. In his ignorance of what a child means he + wondered whether the opportunity he sought lay here. + </p> + <p> + “I am very glad,” said Tilliard, not without intention. “A child will draw + them even closer together. I like to see young people wrapped up in their + child.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I must be getting back to my dissertation,” said Ansell. He + left the Parthenon to pass by the monuments of our more reticent beliefs—the + temple of the Ephesian Artemis, the statue of the Cnidian Demeter. Honest, + he knew that here were powers he could not cope with, nor, as yet, + understand. + </p> + <p> + XXI + </p> + <p> + The mists that had gathered round Rickie seemed to be breaking. He had + found light neither in work for which he was unfitted nor in a woman who + had ceased to respect him, and whom he was ceasing to love. Though he + called himself fickle and took all the blame of their marriage on his own + shoulders, there remained in Agnes certain terrible faults of heart and + head, and no self-reproach would diminish them. The glamour of wedlock had + faded; indeed, he saw now that it had faded even before wedlock, and that + during the final months he had shut his eyes and pretended it was still + there. But now the mists were breaking. + </p> + <p> + That November the supreme event approached. He saw it with Nature’s eyes. + It dawned on him, as on Ansell, that personal love and marriage only cover + one side of the shield, and that on the other is graven the epic of birth. + In the midst of lessons he would grow dreamy, as one who spies a new + symbol for the universe, a fresh circle within the square. Within the + square shall be a circle, within the circle another square, until the + visual eye is baffled. Here is meaning of a kind. His mother had forgotten + herself in him. He would forget himself in his son. + </p> + <p> + He was at his duties when the news arrived—taking preparation. Boys + are marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes; perhaps + they will attain to a woman’s tenderness. Though they despised Rickie, and + had suffered under Agnes’s meanness, their one thought this term was to be + gentle and to give no trouble. + </p> + <p> + “Rickie—one moment—” + </p> + <p> + His face grew ashen. He followed Herbert into the passage, closing the + door of the preparation room behind him. “Oh, is she safe?” he whispered. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes,” said Herbert; but there sounded in his answer a sombre hostile + note. + </p> + <p> + “Our boy?” + </p> + <p> + “Girl—a girl, dear Rickie; a little daughter. She—she is in + many ways a healthy child. She will live—oh yes.” A flash of horror + passed over his face. He hurried into the preparation room, lifted the lid + of his desk, glanced mechanically at the boys, and came out again. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Lewin appeared through the door that led into their own part of the + house. + </p> + <p> + “Both going on well!” she cried; but her voice also was grave, + exasperated. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he gasped. “It’s something you daren’t tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “Only this”—stuttered Herbert. “You mustn’t mind when you see—she’s + lame.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Lewin disappeared. “Lame! but not as lame as I am?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my dear boy, worse. Don’t—oh, be a man in this. Come away from + the preparation room. Remember she’ll live—in many ways healthy—only + just this one defect.” + </p> + <p> + The horror of that week never passed away from him. To the end of his life + he remembered the excuses—the consolations that the child would + live; suffered very little, if at all; would walk with crutches; would + certainly live. God was more merciful. A window was opened too wide on a + draughty day—after a short, painless illness his daughter died. But + the lesson he had learnt so glibly at Cambridge should be heeded now; no + child should ever be born to him again. + </p> + <p> + XXII + </p> + <p> + That same term there took place at Dunwood House another event. With their + private tragedy it seemed to have no connection; but in time Rickie + perceived it as a bitter comment. Its developments were unforeseen and + lasting. It was perhaps the most terrible thing he had to bear. + </p> + <p> + Varden had now been a boarder for ten months. His health had broken in the + previous term,—partly, it is to be feared, as the result of the + indifferent food—and during the summer holidays he was attacked by a + series of agonizing earaches. His mother, a feeble person, wished to keep + him at home, but Herbert dissuaded her. Soon after the death of the child + there arose at Dunwood House one of those waves of hostility of which no + boy knows the origin nor any master can calculate the course. Varden had + never been popular—there was no reason why he should be—but he + had never been seriously bullied hitherto. One evening nearly the whole + house set on him. The prefects absented themselves, the bigger boys stood + round and the lesser boys, to whom power was delegated, flung him down, + and rubbed his face under the desks, and wrenched at his ears. The noise + penetrated the baize doors, and Herbert swept through and punished the + whole house, including Varden, whom it would not do to leave out. The poor + man was horrified. He approved of a little healthy roughness, but this was + pure brutalization. What had come over his boys? Were they not gentlemen’s + sons? He would not admit that if you herd together human beings before + they can understand each other the great god Pan is angry, and will in the + end evade your regulations and drive them mad. That night the victim was + screaming with pain, and the doctor next day spoke of an operation. The + suspense lasted a whole week. Comment was made in the local papers, and + the reputation not only of the house but of the school was imperilled. “If + only I had known,” repeated Herbert—“if only I had known I would + have arranged it all differently. He should have had a cubicle.” The boy + did not die, but he left Sawston, never to return. + </p> + <p> + The day before his departure Rickie sat with him some time, and tried to + talk in a way that was not pedantic. In his own sorrow, which he could + share with no one, least of all with his wife, he was still alive to the + sorrows of others. He still fought against apathy, though he was losing + the battle. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t lose heart,” he told him. “The world isn’t all going to be like + this. There are temptations and trials, of course, but nothing at all of + the kind you have had here.” + </p> + <p> + “But school is the world in miniature, is it not, sir?” asked the boy, + hoping to please one master by echoing what had been told him by another. + He was always on the lookout for sympathy—: it was one of the things + that had contributed to his downfall. + </p> + <p> + “I never noticed that myself. I was unhappy at school, and in the world + people can be very happy.” + </p> + <p> + Varden sighed and rolled about his eyes. “Are the fellows sorry for what + they did to me?” he asked in an affected voice. “I am sure I forgive them + from the bottom of my heart. We ought to forgive our enemies, oughtn’t we, + sir?” + </p> + <p> + “But they aren’t your enemies. If you meet in five years’ time you may + find each other splendid fellows.” + </p> + <p> + The boy would not admit this. He had been reading some revivalistic + literature. “We ought to forgive our enemies,” he repeated; “and however + wicked they are, we ought not to wish them evil. When I was ill, and death + seemed nearest, I had many kind letters on this subject.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie knew about these “many kind letters.” Varden had induced the silly + nurse to write to people—people of all sorts, people that he + scarcely knew or did not know at all—detailing his misfortune, and + asking for spiritual aid and sympathy. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry for them,” he pursued. “I would not like to be like them.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie sighed. He saw that a year at Dunwood House had produced a + sanctimonious prig. “Don’t think about them, Varden. Think about anything + beautiful—say, music. You like music. Be happy. It’s your duty. You + can’t be good until you’ve had a little happiness. Then perhaps you will + think less about forgiving people and more about loving them.” + </p> + <p> + “I love them already, sir.” And Rickie, in desperation, asked if he might + look at the many kind letters. + </p> + <p> + Permission was gladly given. A neat bundle was produced, and for about + twenty minutes the master perused it, while the invalid kept watch on his + face. Rooks cawed out in the playing-fields, and close under the window + there was the sound of delightful, good-tempered laughter. A boy is no + devil, whatever boys may be. The letters were chilly productions, somewhat + clerical in tone, by whomsoever written. Varden, because he was ill at the + time, had been taken seriously. The writers declared that his illness was + fulfilling some mysterious purpose: suffering engendered spiritual growth: + he was showing signs of this already. They consented to pray for him, some + majestically, others shyly. But they all consented with one exception, who + worded his refusal as follows:— + </p> + <p> + Dear A.C. Varden,— + </p> + <p> + I ought to say that I never remember seeing you. I am sorry that you are + ill, and hope you are wrong about it. Why did you not write before, for I + could have helped you then? When they pulled your ear, you ought to have + gone like this (here was a rough sketch). I could not undertake praying, + but would think of you instead, if that would do. I am twenty-two in + April, built rather heavy, ordinary broad face, with eyes, etc. I write + all this because you have mixed me with some one else, for I am not + married, and do not want to be. I cannot think of you always, but will + promise a quarter of an hour daily (say 7.00-7.15 A.M.), and might come to + see you when you are better—that is, if you are a kid, and you read + like one. I have been otter-hunting— + </p> + <p> + Yours sincerely, + </p> + <p> + Stephen Wonham + </p> + <p> + XXIII + </p> + <p> + Riekie went straight from Varden to his wife, who lay on the sofa in her + bedroom. There was now a wide gulf between them. She, like the world she + had created for him, was unreal. + </p> + <p> + “Agnes, darling,” he began, stroking her hand, “such an awkward little + thing has happened.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it, dear? Just wait till I’ve added up this hook.” + </p> + <p> + She had got over the tragedy: she got over everything. + </p> + <p> + When she was at leisure he told her. Hitherto they had seldom mentioned + Stephen. He was classed among the unprofitable dead. + </p> + <p> + She was more sympathetic than he expected. “Dear Rickie,” she murmured + with averted eyes. “How tiresome for you.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish that Varden had stopped with Mrs. Orr.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he leaves us for good tomorrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. And I made him answer the letter and apologize. They had never + met. It was some confusion with a man in the Church Army, living at a + place called Codford. I asked the nurse. It is all explained.” + </p> + <p> + “There the matter ends.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so—if matters ever end.” + </p> + <p> + “If, by ill-luck, the person does call. I will just see him and say that + the boy has gone.” + </p> + <p> + “You, or I. I have got over all nonsense by this time. He’s absolutely + nothing to me now.” He took up the tradesman’s book and played with it + idly. On its crimson cover was stamped a grotesque sheep. How stale and + stupid their life had become! + </p> + <p> + “Don’t talk like that, though,” she said uneasily. “Think how disastrous + it would be if you made a slip in speaking to him.” + </p> + <p> + “Would it? It would have been disastrous once. But I expect, as a matter + of fact, that Aunt Emily has made the slip already.” + </p> + <p> + His wife was displeased. “You need not talk in that cynical way. I credit + Aunt Emily with better feeling. When I was there she did mention the + matter, but only once. She, and I, and all who have any sense of decency, + know better than to make slips, or to think of making them.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes kept up what she called “the family connection.” She had been once + alone to Cadover, and also corresponded with Mrs. Failing. She had never + told Rickie anything about her visit nor had he ever asked her. But, from + this moment, the whole subject was reopened. + </p> + <p> + “Most certainly he knows nothing,” she continued. “Why, he does not even + realize that Varden lives in our house! We are perfectly safe—unless + Aunt Emily were to die. Perhaps then—but we are perfectly safe for + the present.” + </p> + <p> + “When she did mention the matter, what did she say?” + </p> + <p> + “We had a long talk,” said Agnes quietly. “She told me nothing new—nothing + new about the past, I mean. But we had a long talk about the present. I + think” and her voice grew displeased again—“that you have been both + wrong and foolish in refusing to make up your quarrel with Aunt Emily.” + </p> + <p> + “Wrong and wise, I should say.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t to be expected that she—so much older and so sensitive—can + make the first step. But I know she’d he glad to see you.” + </p> + <p> + “As far as I can remember that final scene in the garden, I accused her of + ‘forgetting what other people were like.’ She’ll never pardon me for + saying that.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes was silent. To her the phrase was meaningless. Yet Rickie was + correct: Mrs. Failing had resented it more than anything. + </p> + <p> + “At all events,” she suggested, “you might go and see her.” + </p> + <p> + “No, dear. Thank you, no.” + </p> + <p> + “She is, after all—” She was going to say “your father’s sister,” + but the expression was scarcely a happy one, and she turned it into, “She + is, after all, growing old and lonely.” + </p> + <p> + “So are we all!” he cried, with a lapse of tone that was now + characteristic in him. + </p> + <p> + “She oughtn’t to be so isolated from her proper relatives.” + </p> + <p> + There was a moment’s silence. Still playing with the book, he remarked, + “You forget, she’s got her favourite nephew.” + </p> + <p> + A bright red flush spread over her cheeks. “What is the matter with you + this afternoon?” she asked. “I should think you’d better go for a walk.” + </p> + <p> + “Before I go, tell me what is the matter with you.” He also flushed. “Why + do you want me to make it up with my aunt?” + </p> + <p> + “Because it’s right and proper.” + </p> + <p> + “So? Or because she is old?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand,” she retorted. But her eyes dropped. His sudden + suspicion was true: she was legacy hunting. + </p> + <p> + “Agnes, dear Agnes,” he began with passing tenderness, “how can you think + of such things? You behave like a poor person. We don’t want any money + from Aunt Emily, or from any one else. It isn’t virtue that makes me say + it: we are not tempted in that way: we have as much as we want already.” + </p> + <p> + “For the present,” she answered, still looking aside. + </p> + <p> + “There isn’t any future,” he cried in a gust of despair. + </p> + <p> + “Rickie, what do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + What did he mean? He meant that the relations between them were fixed—that + there would never be an influx of interest, nor even of passion. To the + end of life they would go on beating time, and this was enough for her. + She was content with the daily round, the common task, performed + indifferently. But he had dreamt of another helpmate, and of other things. + </p> + <p> + “We don’t want money—why, we don’t even spend any on travelling. + I’ve invested all my salary and more. As far as human foresight goes, we + shall never want money.” And his thoughts went out to the tiny grave. “You + spoke of ‘right and proper,’ but the right and proper thing for my aunt to + do is to leave every penny she’s got to Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + Her lip quivered, and for one moment he thought that she was going to cry. + “What am I to do with you?” she said. “You talk like a person in poetry.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll put it in prose. He’s lived with her for twenty years, and he ought + to be paid for it.” + </p> + <p> + Poor Agnes! Indeed, what was she to do? The first moment she set foot in + Cadover she had thought, “Oh, here is money. We must try and get it.” + Being a lady, she never mentioned the thought to her husband, but she + concluded that it would occur to him too. And now, though it had occurred + to him at last, he would not even write his aunt a little note. + </p> + <p> + He was to try her yet further. While they argued this point he flashed out + with, “I ought to have told him that day when he called up to our room. + There’s where I went wrong first.” + </p> + <p> + “Rickie!” + </p> + <p> + “In those days I was sentimental. I minded. For two pins I’d write to him + this afternoon. Why shouldn’t he know he’s my brother? What’s all this + ridiculous mystery?” + </p> + <p> + She became incoherent. + </p> + <p> + “But WHY not? A reason why he shouldn’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “A reason why he SHOULD know,” she retorted. “I never heard such rubbish! + Give me a reason why he should know.” + </p> + <p> + “Because the lie we acted has ruined our lives.” + </p> + <p> + She looked in bewilderment at the well-appointed room. + </p> + <p> + “It’s been like a poison we won’t acknowledge. How many times have you + thought of my brother? I’ve thought of him every day—not in love; + don’t misunderstand; only as a medicine I shirked. Down in what they call + the subconscious self he has been hurting me.” His voice broke. “Oh, my + darling, we acted a lie then, and this letter reminds us of it and gives + us one more chance. I have to say ‘we’ lied. I should be lying again if I + took quite all the blame. Let us ask God’s forgiveness together. Then let + us write, as coldly as you please, to Stephen, and tell him he is my + father’s son.” + </p> + <p> + Her reply need not be quoted. It was the last time he attempted intimacy. + And the remainder of their conversation, though long and stormy, is also + best forgotten. + </p> + <p> + Thus the first effect of Varden’s letter was to make them quarrel. They + had not openly disagreed before. In the evening he kissed her and said, + “How absurd I was to get angry about things that happened last year. I + will certainly not write to the person.” She returned the kiss. But he + knew that they had destroyed the habit of reverence, and would quarrel + again. On his rounds he looked in at Varden and asked nonchalantly for the + letter. He carried it off to his room. It was unwise of him, for his + nerves were already unstrung, and the man he had tried to bury was + stirring ominously. In the silence he examined the handwriting till he + felt that a living creature was with him, whereas he, because his child + had died, was dead. He perceived more clearly the cruelty of Nature, to + whom our refinement and piety are but as bubbles, hurrying downwards on + the turbid waters. They break, and the stream continues. His father, as a + final insult, had brought into the world a man unlike all the rest of + them, a man dowered with coarse kindliness and rustic strength, a kind of + cynical ploughboy, against whom their own misery and weakness might stand + more vividly relieved. “Born an Elliot—born a gentleman.” So the + vile phrase ran. But here was an Elliot whose badness was not even + gentlemanly. For that Stephen was bad inherently he never doubted for a + moment and he would have children: he, not Rickie, would contribute to the + stream; he, through his remote posterity, might mingled with the unknown + sea. + </p> + <p> + Thus musing he lay down to sleep, feeling diseased in body and soul. It + was no wonder that the night was the most terrible he had ever known. He + revisited Cambridge, and his name was a grey ghost over the door. Then + there recurred the voice of a gentle shadowy woman, Mrs. Aberdeen, “It + doesn’t seem hardly right.” Those had been her words, her only complaint + against the mysteries of change and death. She bowed her head and laboured + to make her “gentlemen” comfortable. She was labouring still. As he lay in + bed he asked God to grant him her wisdom; that he might keep sorrow within + due bounds; that he might abstain from extreme hatred and envy of Stephen. + It was seldom that he prayed so definitely, or ventured to obtrude his + private wishes. Religion was to him a service, a mystic communion with + good; not a means of getting what he wanted on the earth. But tonight, + through suffering, he was humbled, and became like Mrs. Aberdeen. Hour + after hour he awaited sleep and tried to endure the faces that frothed in + the gloom—his aunt’s, his father’s, and, worst of all, the + triumphant face of his brother. Once he struck at it, and awoke, having + hurt his hand on the wall. Then he prayed hysterically for pardon and + rest. + </p> + <p> + Yet again did he awake, and from a more mysterious dream. He heard his + mother crying. She was crying quite distinctly in the darkened room. He + whispered, “Never mind, my darling, never mind,” and a voice echoed, + “Never mind—come away—let them die out—let them die + out.” He lit a candle, and the room was empty. Then, hurrying to the + window, he saw above mean houses the frosty glories of Orion. + </p> + <p> + Henceforward he deteriorates. Let those who censure him suggest what he + should do. He has lost the work that he loved, his friends, and his child. + He remained conscientious and decent, but the spiritual part of him + proceeded towards ruin. + </p> + <p> + XXIV + </p> + <p> + The coming months, though full of degradation and anxiety, were to bring + him nothing so terrible as that night. It was the crisis of this agony. He + was an outcast and a failure. But he was not again forced to contemplate + these facts so clearly. Varden left in the morning, carrying the fatal + letter with him. The whole house was relieved. The good angel was with the + boys again, or else (as Herbert preferred to think) they had learnt a + lesson, and were more humane in consequence. At all events, the disastrous + term concluded quietly. + </p> + <p> + In the Christmas holidays the two masters made an abortive attempt to + visit Italy, and at Easter there was talk of a cruise in the Aegean. + Herbert actually went, and enjoyed Athens and Delphi. The Elliots paid a + few visits together in England. They returned to Sawston about ten days + before school opened, to find that Widdrington was again stopping with the + Jacksons. Intercourse was painful, for the two families were scarcely on + speaking terms; nor did the triumphant scaffoldings of the new + boarding-house make things easier. (The party of progress had carried the + day.) Widdrington was by nature touchy, but on this occasion he refused to + take offence, and often dropped in to see them. His manner was friendly + but critical. They agreed he was a nuisance. Then Agnes left, very + abruptly, to see Mrs. Failing, and while she was away Rickie had a little + stealthy intercourse. + </p> + <p> + Her absence, convenient as it was, puzzled him. Mrs. Silt, half goose, + half stormy-petrel, had recently paid a flying visit to Cadover, and + thence had flown, without an invitation, to Sawston. Generally she was not + a welcome guest. On this occasion Agnes had welcomed her, and—so + Rickie thought—had made her promise not to tell him something that + she knew. The ladies had talked mysteriously. “Mr. Silt would be one with + you there,” said Mrs. Silt. Could there be any connection between the two + visits? + </p> + <p> + Agnes’s letters told him nothing: they never did. She was too clumsy or + too cautious to express herself on paper. A drive to Stonehenge; an anthem + in the Cathedral; Aunt Emily’s love. And when he met her at Waterloo he + learnt nothing (if there was anything to learn) from her face. + </p> + <p> + “How did you enjoy yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “Thoroughly.” + </p> + <p> + “Were you and she alone?” + </p> + <p> + “Sometimes. Sometimes other people.” + </p> + <p> + “Will Uncle Tony’s Essays be published?” + </p> + <p> + Here she was more communicative. The book was at last in proof. Aunt Emily + had written a charming introduction; but she was so idle, she never + finished things off. + </p> + <p> + They got into an omnibus for the Army and Navy Stores: she wanted to do + some shopping before going down to Sawston. + </p> + <p> + “Did you read any of the Essays?” + </p> + <p> + “Every one. Delightful. Couldn’t put them down. Now and then he spoilt + them by statistics—but you should read his descriptions of Nature. + He agrees with you: says the hills and trees are alive! Aunt Emily called + you his spiritual heir, which I thought nice of her. We both so lamented + that you have stopped writing.” She quoted fragments of the Essays as they + went up in the Stores’ lift. + </p> + <p> + “What else did you talk about?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve told you all my news. Now for yours. Let’s have tea first.” + </p> + <p> + They sat down in the corridor amid ladies in every stage of fatigue—haggard + ladies, scarlet ladies, ladies with parcels that twisted from every finger + like joints of meat. Gentlemen were scarcer, but all were of the + sub-fashionable type, to which Rickie himself now belonged. + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t done anything,” he said feebly. “Ate, read, been rude to + tradespeople, talked to Widdrington. Herbert arrived this morning. He has + brought a most beautiful photograph of the Parthenon.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Widdrington?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “What did you talk about?” + </p> + <p> + She might have heard every word. It was only the feeling of pleasure that + he wished to conceal. Even when we love people, we desire to keep some + corner secret from them, however small: it is a human right: it is + personality. She began to cross-question him, but they were interrupted. A + young lady at an adjacent table suddenly rose and cried, “Yes, it is you. + I thought so from your walk.” It was Maud Ansell. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do come and join us!” he cried. “Let me introduce my wife.” Maud + bowed quite stiffly, but Agnes, taking it for ill-breeding, was not + offended. + </p> + <p> + “Then I will come!” she continued in shrill, pleasant tones, adroitly + poising her tea things on either hand, and transferring them to the + Elliots’ table. “Why haven’t you ever come to us, pray?” + </p> + <p> + “I think you didn’t ask me!” + </p> + <p> + “You weren’t to be asked.” She sprawled forward with a wagging finger. But + her eyes had the honesty of her brother’s. “Don’t you remember the day you + left us? Father said, ‘Now, Mr. Elliot—’ Or did he call you + ‘Elliot’? How one does forget. Anyhow, father said you weren’t to wait for + an invitation, and you said, ‘No, I won’t.’ Ours is a fair-sized house,”—she + turned somewhat haughtily to Agnes,—“and the second spare room, on + account of a harp that hangs on the wall, is always reserved for Stewart’s + friends.” + </p> + <p> + “How is Mr. Ansell, your brother?” Maud’s face fell. “Hadn’t you heard?” + she said in awe-struck tones. + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “He hasn’t got his fellowship. It’s the second time he’s failed. That + means he will never get one. He will never be a don, nor live in Cambridge + and that, as we had hoped.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, poor, poor fellow!” said Mrs. Elliot with a remorse that was sincere, + though her congratulations would not have been. “I am so very sorry.” + </p> + <p> + But Maud turned to Rickie. “Mr. Elliot, you might know. Tell me. What is + wrong with Stewart’s philosophy? What ought he to put in, or to alter, so + as to succeed?” + </p> + <p> + Agnes, who knew better than this, smiled. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said Rickie sadly. They were none of them so clever, after + all. + </p> + <p> + “Hegel,” she continued vindictively. “They say he’s read too much Hegel. + But they never tell him what to read instead. Their own stuffy books, I + suppose. Look here—no, that’s the ‘Windsor.’” After a little groping + she produced a copy of “Mind,” and handed it round as if it was a + geological specimen. “Inside that there’s a paragraph written about + something Stewart’s written about before, and there it says he’s read too + much Hegel, and it seems now that that’s been the trouble all along.” Her + voice trembled. “I call it most unfair, and the fellowship’s gone to a man + who has counted the petals on an anemone.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie had no inclination to smile. + </p> + <p> + “I wish Stewart had tried Oxford instead.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t wish it!” + </p> + <p> + “You say that,” she continued hotly, “and then you never come to see him, + though you knew you were not to wait for an invitation.” + </p> + <p> + “If it comes to that, Miss Ansell,” retorted Rickie, in the laughing tones + that one adopts on such occasions, “Stewart won’t come to me, though he + has had an invitation.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” chimed in Agnes, “we ask Mr. Ansell again and again, and he will + have none of us.” + </p> + <p> + Maud looked at her with a flashing eye. “My brother is a very peculiar + person, and we ladies can’t understand him. But I know one thing, and + that’s that he has a reason all round for what he does. Look here, I must + be getting on. Waiter! Wai-ai-aiter! Bill, please. Separately, of course. + Call the Army and Navy cheap! I know better!” + </p> + <p> + “How does the drapery department compare?” said Agnes sweetly. + </p> + <p> + The girl gave a sharp choking sound, gathered up her parcels, and left + them. Rickie was too much disgusted with his wife to speak. + </p> + <p> + “Appalling person!” she gasped. “It was naughty of me, but I couldn’t help + it. What a dreadful fate for a clever man! To fail in life completely, and + then to be thrown back on a family like that!” + </p> + <p> + “Maud is a snob and a Philistine. But, in her case, something emerges.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced at him, but proceeded in her suavest tones, “Do let us make + one great united attempt to get Mr. Ansell to Sawston.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “What a changeable friend you are! When we were engaged you were always + talking about him.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you finish your tea, and then we will buy the linoleum for the + cubicles.” + </p> + <p> + But she returned to the subject again, not only on that day but throughout + the term. Could nothing be done for poor Mr. Ansell? It seemed that she + could not rest until all that he had once held dear was humiliated. In + this she strayed outside her nature: she was unpractical. And those who + stray outside their nature invite disaster. Rickie, goaded by her, wrote + to his friend again. The letter was in all ways unlike his old self. + Ansell did not answer it. But he did write to Mr. Jackson, with whom he + was not acquainted. + </p> + <p> + “Dear Mr. Jackson,— + </p> + <p> + “I understand from Widdrington that you have a large house. I would like + to tell you how convenient it would be for me to come and stop in it. June + suits me best.— + </p> + <p> + “Yours truly, + </p> + <p> + “Stewart Ansell” + </p> + <p> + To which Mr. Jackson replied that not only in June but during the whole + year his house was at the disposal of Mr. Ansell and of any one who + resembled him. + </p> + <p> + But Agnes continued her life, cheerfully beating time. She, too, knew that + her marriage was a failure, and in her spare moments regretted it. She + wished that her husband was handsomer, more successful, more dictatorial. + But she would think, “No, no; one mustn’t grumble. It can’t be helped.” + Ansell was wrong in sup-posing she might ever leave Rickie. Spiritual + apathy prevented her. Nor would she ever be tempted by a jollier man. Here + criticism would willingly alter its tone. For Agnes also has her tragedy. + She belonged to the type—not necessarily an elevated one—that + loves once and once only. Her love for Gerald had not been a noble + passion: no imagination transfigured it. But such as it was, it sprang to + embrace him, and he carried it away with him when he died. Les amours gui + suivrent sont moins involuntaires: by an effort of the will she had warmed + herself for Rickie. + </p> + <p> + She is not conscious of her tragedy, and therefore only the gods need weep + at it. But it is fair to remember that hitherto she moves as one from whom + the inner life has been withdrawn. + </p> + <p> + XXV + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid,” said Agnes, unfolding a letter that she had received in the + morning, “that things go far from satisfactorily at Cadover.” + </p> + <p> + The three were alone at supper. It was the June of Rickie’s second year at + Sawston. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed?” said Herbert, who took a friendly interest. “In what way? + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember us talking of Stephen—Stephen Wonham, who by an odd + coincidence—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Who wrote last year to that miserable failure Varden. I do.” + </p> + <p> + “It is about him.” + </p> + <p> + “I did not like the tone of his letter.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes had made her first move. She waited for her husband to reply to it. + But he, though full of a painful curiosity, would not speak. She moved + again. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think, Herbert, that Aunt Emily, much as I like her, is the kind + of person to bring a young man up. At all events the results have been + disastrous this time.” + </p> + <p> + “What has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “A tangle of things.” She lowered her voice. “Drink.” + </p> + <p> + “Dear! Really! Was Mrs. Failing fond of him?” + </p> + <p> + “She used to be. She let him live at Cadover ever since he was a little + boy. Naturally that cannot continue.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie never spoke. + </p> + <p> + “And now he has taken to be violent and rude,” she went on. + </p> + <p> + “In short, a beggar on horseback. Who is he? Has he got relatives?” + </p> + <p> + “She has always been both father and mother to him. Now it must all come + to an end. I blame her—and she blames herself—for not being + severe enough. He has grown up without fixed principles. He has always + followed his inclinations, and one knows the result of that.” + </p> + <p> + Herbert assented. “To me Mrs. Failing’s course is perfectly plain. She has + a certain responsibility. She must pay the youth’s passage to one of the + colonies, start him handsomely in some business, and then break off all + communications.” + </p> + <p> + “How funny! It is exactly what she is going to do.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall then consider that she has behaved in a thoroughly honourable + manner.” He held out his plate for gooseberries. “His letter to Varden was + neither helpful nor sympathetic, and, if written at all, it ought to have + been both. I am not in the least surprised to learn that he has turned out + badly. When you write next, would you tell her how sorry I am?” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed I will. Two years ago, when she was already a little anxious, she + did so wish you could undertake him. + </p> + <p> + “I could not alter a grown man.” But in his heart he thought he could, and + smiled at his sister amiably. “Terrible, isn’t it?” he remarked to Rickie. + Rickie, who was trying not to mind anything, assented. And an onlooker + would have supposed them a dispassionate trio, who were sorry both for + Mrs. Failing and for the beggar who would bestride her horses’ backs no + longer. A new topic was introduced by the arrival of the evening post. + </p> + <p> + Herbert took up all the letters, as he often did. + </p> + <p> + “Jackson?” he exclaimed. “What does the fellow want?” He read, and his + tone was mollified, “‘Dear Mr. Pembroke,—Could you, Mrs. Elliot, and + Mr. Elliot come to supper with us on Saturday next? I should not merely be + pleased, I should be grateful. My wife is writing formally to Mrs. Elliot’—(Here, + Agnes, take your letter),—but I venture to write as well, and to add + my more uncouth entreaties.’—An olive-branch. It is time! But + (ridiculous person!) does he think that we can leave the House deserted + and all go out pleasuring in term time?—Rickie, a letter for you.” + </p> + <p> + “Mine’s the formal invitation,” said Agnes. “How very odd! Mr. Ansell will + be there. Surely we asked him here! Did you know he knew the Jacksons?” + </p> + <p> + “This makes refusal very difficult,” said Herbert, who was anxious to + accept. “At all events, Rickie ought to go.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not want to go,” said Rickie, slowly opening his own letter. “As + Agnes says, Ansell has refused to come to us. I cannot put myself out for + him.” + </p> + <p> + “Who’s yours from?” she demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Silt,” replied Herbert, who had seen the handwriting. “I trust she + does not want to pay us a visit this term, with the examinations impending + and all the machinery at full pressure. Though, Rickie, you will have to + accept the Jacksons’ invitation.” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot possibly go. I have been too rude; with Widdrington we always + meet here. I’ll stop with the boys—” His voice caught suddenly. He + had opened Mrs. Silt’s letter. + </p> + <p> + “The Silts are not ill, I hope?” + </p> + <p> + “No. But, I say,”—he looked at his wife,—“I do think this is + going too far. Really, Agnes.” + </p> + <p> + “What has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “It is going too far,” he repeated. He was nerving himself for another + battle. “I cannot stand this sort of thing. There are limits.” + </p> + <p> + He laid the letter down. It was Herbert who picked it up, and read: “Aunt + Emily has just written to us. We are so glad that her troubles are over, + in spite of the expense. It never does to live apart from one’s own + relatives so much as she has done up to now. He goes next Saturday to + Canada. What you told her about him just turned the scale. She has asked + us—” + </p> + <p> + “No, it’s too much,” he interrupted. “What I told her—told her about + him—no, I will have it out at last. Agnes!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said his wife, raising her eyes from Mrs. Jackson’s formal + invitation. + </p> + <p> + “It’s you—it’s you. I never mentioned him to her. Why, I’ve never + seen her or written to her since. I accuse you.” + </p> + <p> + Then Herbert overbore him, and he collapsed. He was asked what he meant. + Why was he so excited? Of what did he accuse his wife. Each time he spoke + more feebly, and before long the brother and sister were laughing at him. + He felt bewildered, like a boy who knows that he is right but cannot put + his case correctly. He repeated, “I’ve never mentioned him to her. It’s a + libel. Never in my life.” And they cried, “My dear Rickie, what an absurd + fuss!” Then his brain cleared. His eye fell on the letter that his wife + had received from his aunt, and he reopened the battle. + </p> + <p> + “Agnes, give me that letter, if you please.” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Jackson’s?” + </p> + <p> + “My aunt’s.” + </p> + <p> + She put her hand on it, and looked at him doubtfully. She saw that she had + failed to bully him. + </p> + <p> + “My aunt’s letter,” he repeated, rising to his feet and bending over the + table towards her. + </p> + <p> + “Why, dear?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, why indeed?” echoed Herbert. He too had bullied Rickie, but from a + purer motive: he had tried to stamp out a dissension between husband and + wife. It was not the first time he had intervened. + </p> + <p> + “The letter. For this reason: it will show me what you have done. I + believe you have ruined Stephen. You have worked at it for two years. You + have put words into my mouth to ‘turn the scale’ against him. He goes to + Canada—and all the world thinks it is owing to me. As I said before—I + advise you to stop smiling—you have gone a little too far.” + </p> + <p> + They were all on their feet now, standing round the little table. Agnes + said nothing, but the fingers of her delicate hand tightened upon the + letter. When her husband snatched at it she resisted, and with the effect + of a harlequinade everything went on the floor—lamb, mint sauce, + gooseberries, lemonade, whisky. At once they were swamped in + domesticities. She rang the bell for the servant, cries arose, dusters + were brought, broken crockery (a wedding present) picked up from the + carpet; while he stood wrathfully at the window, regarding the obscured + sun’s decline. + </p> + <p> + “I MUST see her letter,” he repeated, when the agitation was over. He was + too angry to be diverted from his purpose. Only slight emotions are + thwarted by an interlude of farce. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve had enough of this quarrelling,” she retorted. “You know that the + Silts are inaccurate. I think you might have given me the benefit of the + doubt. If you will know—have you forgotten that ride you took with + him?” + </p> + <p> + “I—” he was again bewildered. “The ride where I dreamt—” + </p> + <p> + “The ride where you turned back because you could not listen to a + disgraceful poem?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + “The poem was Aunt Emily. He read it to you and a stray soldier. + Afterwards you told me. You said, ‘Really it is shocking, his ingratitude. + She ought to know about it’ She does know, and I should be glad of an + apology.” + </p> + <p> + He had said something of the sort in a fit of irritation. Mrs. Silt was + right—he had helped to turn the scale. + </p> + <p> + “Whatever I said, you knew what I meant. You knew I’d sooner cut my tongue + out than have it used against him. Even then.” He sighed. Had he ruined + his brother? A curious tenderness came over him, and passed when he + remembered his own dead child. “We have ruined him, then. Have you any + objection to ‘we’? We have disinherited him.” + </p> + <p> + “I decide against you,” interposed Herbert. “I have now heard both sides + of this deplorable affair. You are talking most criminal nonsense. + ‘Disinherit!’ Sentimental twaddle. It’s been clear to me from the first + that Mrs. Failing has been imposed upon by the Wonham man, a person with + no legal claim on her, and any one who exposes him performs a public duty—” + </p> + <p> + “—And gets money.” + </p> + <p> + “Money?” He was always uneasy at the word. “Who mentioned money?” + </p> + <p> + “Just understand me, Herbert, and of what it is that I accuse my wife.” + Tears came into his eyes. “It is not that I like the Wonham man, or think + that he isn’t a drunkard and worse. He’s too awful in every way. But he + ought to have my aunt’s money, because he’s lived all his life with her, + and is her nephew as much as I am. You see, my father went wrong.” He + stopped, amazed at himself. How easy it had been to say! He was withering + up: the power to care about this stupid secret had died. + </p> + <p> + When Herbert understood, his first thought was for Dunwood House. + </p> + <p> + “Why have I never been told?” was his first remark. + </p> + <p> + “We settled to tell no one,” said Agnes. “Rickie, in his anxiety to prove + me a liar, has broken his promise.” + </p> + <p> + “I ought to have been told,” said Herbert, his anger increasing. “Had I + known, I could have averted this deplorable scene.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me conclude it,” said Rickie, again collapsing and leaving the + dining-room. His impulse was to go straight to Cadover and make a + business-like statement of the position to Stephen. Then the man would be + armed, and perhaps fight the two women successfully, But he resisted the + impulse. Why should he help one power of evil against another? Let them go + intertwined to destruction. To enrich his brother would be as bad as + enriching himself. If their aunt’s money ever did come to him, he would + refuse to accept it. That was the easiest and most dignified course. He + troubled himself no longer with justice or pity, and the next day he asked + his wife’s pardon for his behaviour. + </p> + <p> + In the dining-room the conversation continued. Agnes, without much + difficulty, gained her brother as an ally. She acknowledged that she had + been wrong in not telling him, and he then declared that she had been + right on every other point. She slurred a little over the incident of her + treachery, for Herbert was sometimes clearsighted over details, though + easily muddled in a general survey. Mrs. Failing had had plenty of direct + causes of complaint, and she dwelt on these. She dealt, too, on the very + handsome way in which the young man, “though he knew nothing, had never + asked to know,” was being treated by his aunt. + </p> + <p> + “‘Handsome’ is the word,” said Herbert. “I hope not indulgently. He does + not deserve indulgence.” + </p> + <p> + And she knew that he, like herself, could remember money, and that it lent + an acknowledged halo to her cause. + </p> + <p> + “It is not a savoury subject,” he continued, with sudden stiffness. “I + understand why Rickie is so hysterical. My impulse”—he laid his hand + on her shoulder—“is to abandon it at once. But if I am to be of any + use to you, I must hear it all. There are moments when we must look facts + in the face.” + </p> + <p> + She did not shrink from the subject as much as he thought, as much as she + herself could have wished. Two years before, it had filled her with a + physical loathing. But by now she had accustomed herself to it. + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid, Bertie boy, there is nothing else to bear, I have tried to + find out again and again, but Aunt Emily will not tell me. I suppose it is + natural. She wants to shield the Elliot name. She only told us in a fit of + temper; then we all agreed to keep it to ourselves; then Rickie again + mismanaged her, and ever since she has refused to let us know any + details.” + </p> + <p> + “A most unsatisfactory position.” “So I feel.” She sat down again with a + sigh. Mrs. Failing had been a great trial to her orderly mind. “She is an + odd woman. She is always laughing. She actually finds it amusing that we + know no more.” + </p> + <p> + “They are an odd family.” + </p> + <p> + “They are indeed.” + </p> + <p> + Herbert, with unusual sweetness, bent down and kissed her. + </p> + <p> + She thanked him. + </p> + <p> + Their tenderness soon passed. They exchanged it with averted eyes. It + embarrassed them. There are moments for all of us when we seem obliged to + speak in a new unprofitable tongue. One might fancy a seraph, vexed with + our normal language, who touches the pious to blasphemy, the blasphemous + to piety. The seraph passes, and we proceed unaltered—conscious, + however, that we have not been ourselves, and that we may fail in this + function yet again. So Agnes and Herbert, as they proceeded to discuss the + Jackson’s supper-party, had an uneasy memory of spiritual deserts, + spiritual streams. + </p> + <p> + XXVI + </p> + <p> + Poor Mr. Ansell was actually sitting in the garden of Dunwood House. It + was Sunday morning. The air was full of roasting beef. The sound of a + manly hymn, taken very fast, floated over the road from the school chapel. + He frowned, for he was reading a book, the Essays of Anthony Eustace + Failing. + </p> + <p> + He was here on account of this book—at least so he told himself. It + had just been published, and the Jacksons were sure that Mr. Elliot would + have a copy. For a book one may go anywhere. It would not have been + logical to enter Dunwood House for the purpose of seeing Rickie, when + Rickie had not come to supper yesterday to see him. He was at Sawston to + assure himself of his friend’s grave. With quiet eyes he had intended to + view the sods, with unfaltering fingers to inscribe the epitaph. Love + remained. But in high matters he was practical. He knew that it would be + useless to reveal it. + </p> + <p> + “Morning!” said a voice behind him. + </p> + <p> + He saw no reason to reply to this superfluous statement, and went on with + his reading. + </p> + <p> + “Morning!” said the voice again. + </p> + <p> + As for the Essays, the thought was somewhat old-fashioned, and he picked + many holes in it; nor was he anything but bored by the prospect of the + brotherhood of man. However, Mr. Failing stuck to his guns, such as they + were, and fired from them several good remarks. Very notable was his + distinction between coarseness and vulgarity (coarseness, revealing + something; vulgarity, concealing something), and his avowed preference for + coarseness. Vulgarity, to him, had been the primal curse, the shoddy + reticence that prevents man opening his heart to man, the power that makes + against equality. From it sprang all the things that he hated—class + shibboleths, ladies, lidies, the game laws, the Conservative party—all + the things that accent the divergencies rather than the similarities in + human nature. Whereas coarseness—But at this point Herbert Pembroke + had scrawled with a blue pencil: “Childish. One reads no further.” + </p> + <p> + “Morning!” repeated the voice. + </p> + <p> + Ansell read further, for here was the book of a man who had tried, however + unsuccessfully, to practice what he preached. Mrs. Failing, in her + Introduction, described with delicate irony his difficulties as a + landlord; but she did not record the love in which his name was held. Nor + could her irony touch him when he cried: “Attain the practical through the + unpractical. There is no other road.” Ansell was inclined to think that + the unpractical is its own reward, but he respected those who attempted to + journey beyond it. We must all of us go over the mountains. There is + certainly no other road. + </p> + <p> + “Nice morning!” said the voice. + </p> + <p> + It was not a nice morning, so Ansell felt bound to speak. He answered: + “No. Why?” A clod of earth immediately struck him on the back. He turned + round indignantly, for he hated physical rudeness. A square man of ruddy + aspect was pacing the gravel path, his hands deep in his pockets. He was + very angry. Then he saw that the clod of earth nourished a blue lobelia, + and that a wound of corresponding size appeared on the pie-shaped bed. He + was not so angry. “I expect they will mind it,” he reflected. Last night, + at the Jacksons’, Agnes had displayed a brisk pity that made him wish to + wring her neck. Maude had not exaggerated. Mr. Pembroke had patronized + through a sorrowful voice and large round eyes. Till he met these people + he had never been told that his career was a failure. Apparently it was. + They would never have been civil to him if it had been a success, if they + or theirs had anything to fear from him. + </p> + <p> + In many ways Ansell was a conceited man; but he was never proud of being + right. He had foreseen Rickie’s catastrophe from the first, but derived + from this no consolation. In many ways he was pedantic; but his pedantry + lay close to the vineyards of life—far closer than that fetich + Experience of the innumerable tea-cups. He had a great many facts to + learn, and before he died he learnt a suitable quantity. But he never + forgot that the holiness of the heart’s imagination can alone classify + these facts—can alone decide which is an exception, which an + example. “How unpractical it all is!” That was his comment on Dunwood + House. “How unbusiness-like! They live together without love. They work + without conviction. They seek money without requiring it. They die, and + nothing will have happened, either for themselves or for others.” It is a + comment that the academic mind will often make when first confronted with + the world. + </p> + <p> + But he was becoming illogical. The clod of earth had disturbed him. + Brushing the dirt off his back, he returned to the book. What a curious + affair was the essay on “Gaps”! Solitude, star-crowned, pacing the fields + of England, has a dialogue with Seclusion. He, poor little man, lives in + the choicest scenery—among rocks, forests, emerald lawns, azure + lakes. To keep people out he has built round his domain a high wall, on + which is graven his motto—“Procul este profani.” But he cannot enjoy + himself. His only pleasure is in mocking the absent Profane. They are in + his mind night and day. Their blemishes and stupidities form the subject + of his great poem, “In the Heart of Nature.” Then Solitude tells him that + so it always will be until he makes a gap in the wall, and permits his + seclusion to be the sport of circumstance. He obeys. The Profane invade + him; but for short intervals they wander elsewhere, and during those + intervals the heart of Nature is revealed to him. + </p> + <p> + This dialogue had really been suggested to Mr. Failing by a talk with his + brother-in-law. It also touched Ansell. He looked at the man who had + thrown the clod, and was now pacing with obvious youth and impudence upon + the lawn. “Shall I improve my soul at his expense?” he thought. “I suppose + I had better.” In friendly tones he remarked, “Were you waiting for Mr. + Pembroke?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the young man. “Why?” + </p> + <p> + Ansell, after a moment’s admiration, flung the Essays at him. They hit him + in the back. The next moment he lay on his own back in the lobelia pie. + </p> + <p> + “But it hurts!” he gasped, in the tones of a puzzled civilization. “What + you do hurts!” For the young man was nicking him over the shins with the + rim of the book cover. “Little brute-ee—ow!” + </p> + <p> + “Then say Pax!” + </p> + <p> + Something revolted in Ansell. Why should he say Pax? Freeing his hand, he + caught the little brute under the chin, and was again knocked into the + lobelias by a blow on the mouth. + </p> + <p> + “Say Pax!” he repeated, pressing the philosopher’s skull into the mould; + and he added, with an anxiety that was somehow not offensive, “I do advise + you. You’d really better.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell swallowed a little blood. He tried to move, and he could not. He + looked carefully into the young man’s eyes and into the palm of his right + hand, which at present swung unclenched, and he said “Pax!” + </p> + <p> + “Shake hands!” said the other, helping him up. There was nothing Ansell + loathed so much as the hearty Britisher; but he shook hands, and they + stared at each other awkwardly. With civil murmurs they picked the little + blue flowers off each other’s clothes. Ansell was trying to remember why + they had quarrelled, and the young man was wondering why he had not + guarded his chin properly. In the distance a hymn swung off— + </p> + <p> + “Fight the good. Fight with. All thy. Might.” + </p> + <p> + They would be across from the chapel soon. + </p> + <p> + “Your book, sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, sir—yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Why!” cried the young man—“why, it’s ‘What We Want’! At least the + binding’s exactly the same.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s called ‘Essays,’” said Ansell. + </p> + <p> + “Then that’s it. Mrs. Failing, you see, she wouldn’t call it that, because + three W’s, you see, in a row, she said, are vulgar, and sound like + Tolstoy, if you’ve heard of him.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell confessed to an acquaintance, and then said, “Do you think ‘What We + Want’ vulgar?” He was not at all interested, but he desired to escape from + the atmosphere of pugilistic courtesy, more painful to him than blows + themselves. + </p> + <p> + “It IS the same book,” said the other—“same title, same binding.” He + weighed it like a brick in his muddy hands. + </p> + <p> + “Open it to see if the inside corresponds,” said Ansell, swallowing a + laugh and a little more blood with it. + </p> + <p> + With a liberal allowance of thumb-marks, he turned the pages over and + read, “‘the rural silence that is not a poet’s luxury but a practical need + for all men.’ Yes, it is the same book.” Smiling pleasantly over the + discovery, he handed it back to the owner. + </p> + <p> + “And is it true?” + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon?” + </p> + <p> + “Is it true that rural silence is a practical need?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t ask me!” + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever tried it?” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Rural silence.” + </p> + <p> + “A field with no noise in it, I suppose you mean. I don’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell smiled, but a slight fire in the man’s eye checked him. After all, + this was a person who could knock one down. Moreover, there was no reason + why he should be teased. He had it in him to retort “No. Why?” He was not + stupid in essentials. He was irritable—in Ansell’s eyes a frequent + sign of grace. Sitting down on the upturned seat, he remarked, “I like the + book in many ways. I don’t think ‘What We Want’ would have been a vulgar + title. But I don’t intend to spoil myself on the chance of mending the + world, which is what the creed amounts to. Nor am I keen on rural + silences.” + </p> + <p> + “Curse!” he said thoughtfully, sucking at an empty pipe. + </p> + <p> + “Tobacco?” + </p> + <p> + “Please.” + </p> + <p> + “Rickie’s is invariably—filthy.” + </p> + <p> + “Who says I know Rickie?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you know his aunt. It’s a possible link. Be gentle with Rickie. + Don’t knock him down if he doesn’t think it’s a nice morning.” + </p> + <p> + The other was silent. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know him well?” + </p> + <p> + “Kind of.” He was not inclined to talk. The wish to smoke was very violent + in him, and Ansell noticed how he gazed at the wreaths that ascended from + bowl and stem, and how, when the stem was in his mouth, he bit it. He gave + the idea of an animal with just enough soul to contemplate its own bliss. + United with refinement, such a type was common in Greece. It is not common + today, and Ansell was surprised to find it in a friend of Rickie’s. + Rickie, if he could even “kind of know” such a creature, must be stirring + in his grave. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know his wife too?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes. In a way I know Agnes. But thank you for this tobacco. Last night + I nearly died. I have no money.” + </p> + <p> + “Take the whole pouch—do.” + </p> + <p> + After a moment’s hesitation he did. “Fight the good” had scarcely ended, + so quickly had their intimacy grown. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you’re a friend of Rickie’s?” + </p> + <p> + Ansell was tempted to reply, “I don’t know him at all.” But it seemed no + moment for the severer truths, so he said, “I knew him well at Cambridge, + but I have seen very little of him since.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it true that his baby was lame?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe so.” + </p> + <p> + His teeth closed on his pipe. Chapel was over. The organist was prancing + through the voluntary, and the first ripple of boys had already reached + Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters would be here too, and Ansell, + who was becoming interested, hurried the conversation forward. + </p> + <p> + “Have you come far?” + </p> + <p> + “From Wiltshire. Do you know Wiltshire?” And for the first time there came + into his face the shadow of a sentiment, the passing tribute to some + mystery. “It’s a good country. I live in one of the finest valleys out of + Salisbury Plain. I mean, I lived.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you been dismissed from Cadover, without a penny in your pocket?” + </p> + <p> + He was alarmed at this. Such knowledge seemed simply diabolical. Ansell + explained that if his boots were chalky, if his clothes had obviously been + slept in, if he knew Mrs. Failing, if he knew Wiltshire, and if he could + buy no tobacco—then the deduction was possible. “You do just + attend,” he murmured. + </p> + <p> + The house was filling with boys, and Ansell saw, to his regret, the head + of Agnes over the thuyia hedge that separated the small front garden from + the side lawn where he was sitting. After a few minutes it was followed by + the heads of Rickie and Mr. Pembroke. All the heads were turned the other + way. But they would find his card in the hall, and if the man had left any + message they would find that too. “What are you?” he demanded. “Who are + you—your name—I don’t care about that. But it interests me to + class people, and up to now I have failed with you.” + </p> + <p> + “I—” He stopped. Ansell reflected that there are worse answers. “I + really don’t know what I am. Used to think I was something special, but + strikes me now I feel much like other chaps. Used to look down on the + labourers. Used to take for granted I was a gentleman, but really I don’t + know where I do belong.” + </p> + <p> + “One belongs to the place one sleeps in and to the people one eats with.” + </p> + <p> + “As often as not I sleep out of doors and eat by myself, so that doesn’t + get you any further.” + </p> + <p> + A silence, akin to poetry, invaded Ansell. Was it only a pose to like this + man, or was he really wonderful? He was not romantic, for Romance is a + figure with outstretched hands, yearning for the unattainable. Certain + figures of the Greeks, to whom we continually return, suggested him a + little. One expected nothing of him—no purity of phrase nor swift + edged thought. Yet the conviction grew that he had been back somewhere—back + to some table of the gods, spread in a field where there is no noise, and + that he belonged for ever to the guests with whom he had eaten. Meanwhile + he was simple and frank, and what he could tell he would tell to any one. + He had not the suburban reticence. Ansell asked him, “Why did Mrs. Failing + turn you out of Cadover? I should like to hear that too.” + </p> + <p> + “Because she was tired of me. Because, again, I couldn’t keep quiet over + the farm hands. I ask you, is it right?” He became incoherent. Ansell + caught, “And they grow old—they don’t play games—it ends they + can’t play.” An illustration emerged. “Take a kitten—if you fool + about with her, she goes on playing well into a cat.” + </p> + <p> + “But Mrs. Failing minded no mice being caught.” + </p> + <p> + “Mice?” said the young man blankly. “What I was going to say is, that some + one was jealous of my being at Cadover. I’ll mention no names, but I fancy + it was Mrs. Silt. I’m sorry for her if it was. Anyhow, she set Mrs. + Failing against me. It came on the top of other things—and out I + went.” + </p> + <p> + “What did Mrs. Silt, whose name I don’t mention, say?” + </p> + <p> + He looked guilty. “I don’t know. Easy enough to find something to say. The + point is that she said something. You know, Mr.—I don’t know your + name, mine’s Wonham, but I’m more grateful than I can put it over this + tobacco. I mean, you ought to know there is another side to this quarrel. + It’s wrong, but it’s there.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell told him not to be uneasy: he lad already guessed that there might + be another side. But he could not make out why Mr. Wonham should have come + straight from the aunt to the nephew. They were now sitting on the + upturned seat. “What We Want,” a good deal shattered, lay between them. + </p> + <p> + “On account of above-mentioned reasons, there was a row. I don’t know—you + can guess the style of thing. She wanted to treat me to the colonies, and + had up the parson to talk soft-sawder and make out that a boundless + continent was the place for a lad like me. I said, ‘I can’t run up to the + Rings without getting tired, nor gallop a horse out of this view without + tiring it, so what is the point of a boundless continent?’ Then I saw that + she was frightened of me, and bluffed a bit more, and in the end I was + nipped. She caught me—just like her! when I had nothing on but + flannels, and was coming into the house, having licked the Cadchurch team. + She stood up in the doorway between those stone pilasters and said, ‘No! + Never again!’ and behind her was Wilbraham, whom I tried to turn out, and + the gardener, and poor old Leighton, who hates being hurt. She said, + ‘There’s a hundred pounds for you at the London bank, and as much more in + December. Go!’ I said, ‘Keep your—money, and tell me whose son I + am.’ I didn’t care really. I only said it on the off-chance of hurting + her. Sure enough, she caught on to the doorhandle (being lame) and said, + ‘I can’t—I promised—I don’t really want to,’ and Wilbraham did + stare. Then—she’s very queer—she burst out laughing, and went + for the packet after all, and we heard her laugh through the window as she + got it. She rolled it at me down the steps, and she says, ‘A leaf out of + the eternal comedy for you, Stephen,’ or something of that sort. I opened + it as I walked down the drive, she laughing always and catching on to the + handle of the front door. Of course it wasn’t comic at all. But down in + the village there were both cricket teams, already a little tight, and the + mad plumber shouting ‘Rights of Man!’ They knew I was turned out. We did + have a row, and kept it up too. They daren’t touch Wilbraham’s windows, + but there isn’t much glass left up at Cadover. When you start, it’s worth + going on, but in the end I had to cut. They subscribed a bob here and a + bob there, and these are Flea Thompson’s Sundays. I sent a line to + Leighton not to forward my own things: I don’t fancy them. They aren’t + really mine.” He did not mention his great symbolic act, performed, it is + to be feared, when he was rather drunk and the friendly policeman was + looking the other way. He had cast all his flannels into the little + millpond, and then waded himself through the dark cold water to the new + clothes on the other side. Some one had flung his pipe and his packet + after him. The packet had fallen short. For this reason it was wet when he + handed it to Ansell, and ink that had been dry for twenty-three years had + begun to run again. + </p> + <p> + “I wondered if you’re right about the hundred pounds,” said Ansell + gravely. “It is pleasant to be proud, but it is unpleasant to die in the + night through not having any tobacco.” + </p> + <p> + “But I’m not proud. Look how I’ve taken your pouch! The hundred pounds was—well, + can’t you see yourself, it was quite different? It was, so to speak, + inconvenient for me to take the hundred pounds. Or look again how I took a + shilling from a boy who earns nine bob a-week! Proves pretty conclusively + I’m not proud.” + </p> + <p> + Ansell saw it was useless to argue. He perceived, beneath the slatternly + use of words, the man, buttoned up in them, just as his body was buttoned + up in a shoddy suit,—and he wondered more than ever that such a man + should know the Elliots. He looked at the face, which was frank, proud, + and beautiful, if truth is beauty. Of mercy or tact such a face knew + little. It might be coarse, but it had in it nothing vulgar or wantonly + cruel. “May I read these papers?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Of course. Oh yes; didn’t I say? I’m Rickie’s half-brother, come here to + tell him the news. He doesn’t know. There it is, put shortly for you. I + was saying, though, that I bolted in the dark, slept in the rifle-butts + above Salisbury, the sheds where they keep the cardboard men, you know, + never locked up as they ought to be. I turned the whole place upside down + to teach them.” + </p> + <p> + “Here is your packet again,” said Ansell. “Thank you. How interesting!” He + rose from the seat and turned towards Dunwood House. He looked at the + bow-windows, the cheap picturesque gables, the terracotta dragons clawing + a dirty sky. He listened to the clink of plates and to the voice of Mr. + Pembroke taking one of his innumerable roll-calls. He looked at the bed of + lobelias. How interesting! What else was there to say? + </p> + <p> + “One must be the son of some one,” remarked Stephen. And that was all he + had to say. To him those names on the moistened paper were mere + antiquities. He was neither proud of them nor ashamed. A man must have + parents, or he cannot enter the delightful world. A man, if he has a + brother, may reasonably visit him, for they may have interests in common. + He continued his narrative, how in the night he had heard the clocks, how + at daybreak, instead of entering the city, he had struck eastward to save + money,—while Ansell still looked at the house and found that all his + imagination and knowledge could lead him no farther than this: how + interesting! + </p> + <p> + “—And what do you think of that for a holy horror?” + </p> + <p> + “For a what?” said Ansell, his thoughts far away. + </p> + <p> + “This man I am telling you about, who gave me a lift towards Andover, who + said I was a blot on God’s earth.” + </p> + <p> + One o’clock struck. It was strange that neither of them had had any + summons from the house. + </p> + <p> + “He said I ought to be ashamed of myself. He said, ‘I’ll not be the means + of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady.’ I told him not to be a + fool. I said I knew what I was about. Rickie and Agnes are properly + educated, which leads people to look at things straight, and not go + screaming about blots. A man like me, with just a little reading at odd + hours—I’ve got so far, and Rickie has been through Cambridge.” + </p> + <p> + “And Mrs. Elliot?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, she won’t mind, and I told the man so; but he kept on saying, ‘I’ll + not be the means of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady,’ until + I got out of his rotten cart.” His eye watched the man a Nonconformist, + driving away over God’s earth. “I caught the train by running. I got to + Waterloo at—” + </p> + <p> + Here the parlour-maid fluttered towards them, Would Mr. Wonham come in? + Mrs. Elliot would be glad to see him now. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Elliot?” cried Ansell. “Not Mr. Elliot?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s all the same,” said Stephen, and moved towards the house. + </p> + <p> + “You see, I only left my name. They don’t know why I’ve come.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps Mr. Elliot sees me meanwhile?” + </p> + <p> + The parlour-maid looked blank. Mr. Elliot had not said so. He had been + with Mrs. Elliot and Mr. Pembroke in the study. Now the gentlemen had gone + upstairs. + </p> + <p> + “All right, I can wait.” After all, Rickie was treating him as he had + treated Rickie, as one in the grave, to whom it is futile to make any + loving motion. Gone upstairs—to brush his hair for dinner! The irony + of the situation appealed to him strongly. It reminded him of the Greek + Drama, where the actors know so little and the spectators so much. + </p> + <p> + “But, by the bye,” he called after Stephen, “I think I ought to tell you—don’t—” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t—” Then he was silent. He had been tempted to explain + everything, to tell the fellow how things stood, that he must avoid this + if he wanted to attain that; that he must break the news to Rickie gently; + that he must have at least one battle royal with Agnes. But it was + contrary to his own spirit to coach people: he held the human soul to be a + very delicate thing, which can receive eternal damage from a little + patronage. Stephen must go into the house simply as himself, for thus + alone would he remain there. + </p> + <p> + “I ought to knock my pipe out? Was that it?” “By no means. Go in, your + pipe and you.” + </p> + <p> + He hesitated, torn between propriety and desire. Then he followed the + parlour-maid into the house smoking. As he entered the dinner-bell rang, + and there was the sound of rushing feet, which died away into shuffling + and silence. Through the window of the boys’ dining-hall came the + colourless voice of Rickie—“‘Benedictus benedicat.’” + </p> + <p> + Ansell prepared himself to witness the second act of the drama; forgetting + that all this world, and not part of it, is a stage. + </p> + <p> + XXVII + </p> + <p> + The parlour-maid took Mr. Wonham to the study. He had been in the + drawing-room before, but had got bored, and so had strolled out into the + garden. Now he was in better spirits, as a man ought to be who has knocked + down a man. As he passed through the hall he sparred at the teak monkey, + and hung his cap on the bust of Hermes. And he greeted Mrs. Elliot with a + pleasant clap of laughter. “Oh, I’ve come with the most tremendous news!” + he cried. + </p> + <p> + She bowed, but did not shake hands, which rather surprised him. But he + never troubled over “details.” He seldom watched people, and never thought + that they were watching him. Nor could he guess how much it meant to her + that he should enter her presence smoking. Had she not said once at + Cadover, “Oh, please smoke; I love the smell of a pipe”? + </p> + <p> + “Would you sit down? Exactly there, please.” She placed him at a large + table, opposite an inkpot and a pad of blotting-paper. + </p> + <p> + “Will you tell your ‘tremendous news’ to me? My brother and my husband are + giving the boys their dinner.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said Stephen, who had had neither time nor money for breakfast in + London. + </p> + <p> + “I told them not to wait for me.” + </p> + <p> + So he came to the point at once. He trusted this handsome woman. His + strength and his youth called to hers, expecting no prudish response. + “It’s very odd. It is that I’m Rickie’s brother. I’ve just found out. I’ve + come to tell you all.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + He felt in his pocket for the papers. “Half-brother I ought to have said.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m illegitimate. Legally speaking, that is, I’ve been turned out of + Cadover. I haven’t a penny. I—” + </p> + <p> + “There is no occasion to inflict the details.” Her face, which had been an + even brown, began to flush slowly in the centre of the cheeks. The colour + spread till all that he saw of her was suffused, and she turned away. He + thought he had shocked her, and so did she. Neither knew that the body can + be insincere and express not the emotions we feel but those that we should + like to feel. In reality she was quite calm, and her dislike of him had + nothing emotional in it as yet. + </p> + <p> + “You see—” he began. He was determined to tell the fidgety story, + for the sooner it was over the sooner they would have something to eat. + Delicacy he lacked, and his sympathies were limited. But such as they + were, they rang true: he put no decorous phantom between him and his + desires. + </p> + <p> + “I do see. I have seen for two years.” She sat down at the head of the + table, where there was another ink-pot. Into this she dipped a pen. “I + have seen everything, Mr. Wonham—who you are, how you have behaved + at Cadover, how you must have treated Mrs. Failing yesterday; and now”—her + voice became very grave—“I see why you have come here, penniless. + Before you speak, we know what you will say.” + </p> + <p> + His mouth fell open, and he laughed so merrily that it might have given + her a warning. But she was thinking how to follow up her first success. + “And I thought I was bringing tremendous news!” he cried. “I only twisted + it out of Mrs. Failing last night. And Rickie knows too?” + </p> + <p> + “We have known for two years.” + </p> + <p> + “But come, by the bye,—if you’ve known for two years, how is it you + didn’t—” The laugh died out of his eyes. “You aren’t ashamed?” he + asked, half rising from his chair. “You aren’t like the man towards + Andover?” + </p> + <p> + “Please, please sit down,” said Agnes, in the even tones she used when + speaking to the servants; “let us not discuss side issues. I am a horribly + direct person, Mr. Wonham. I go always straight to the point.” She opened + a chequebook. “I am afraid I shall shock you. For how much?” + </p> + <p> + He was not attending. + </p> + <p> + “There is the paper we suggest you shall sign.” She pushed towards him a + pseudo-legal document, just composed by Herbert. + </p> + <p> + “In consideration of the sum of..., I agree to perpetual silence—to + restrain from libellous...never to molest the said Frederick Elliot by + intruding—‘” + </p> + <p> + His brain was not quick. He read the document over twice, and he could + still say, “But what’s that cheque for?” + </p> + <p> + “It is my husband’s. He signed for you as soon as we heard you were here. + We guessed you had come to be silenced. Here is his signature. But he has + left the filling in for me. For how much? I will cross it, shall I? You + will just have started a banking account, if I understand Mrs. Failing + rightly. It is not quite accurate to say you are penniless: I heard from + her just before you returned from your cricket. She allows you two hundred + a-year, I think. But this additional sum—shall I date the cheque + Saturday or for tomorrow?” + </p> + <p> + At last he found words. Knocking his pipe out on the table, he said + slowly, “Here’s a very bad mistake.” + </p> + <p> + “It is quite possible,” retorted Agnes. She was glad she had taken the + offensive, instead of waiting till he began his blackmailing, as had been + the advice of Rickie. Aunt Emily had said that very spring, “One’s only + hope with Stephen is to start bullying first.” Here he was, quite + bewildered, smearing the pipe-ashes with his thumb. He asked to read the + document again. “A stamp and all!” he remarked. + </p> + <p> + They had anticipated that his claim would exceed two pounds. + </p> + <p> + “I see. All right. It takes a fool a minute. Never mind. I’ve made a bad + mistake.” + </p> + <p> + “You refuse?” she exclaimed, for he was standing at the door. “Then do + your worst! We defy you!” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right, Mrs. Elliot,” he said roughly. “I don’t want a scene + with you, nor yet with your husband. We’ll say no more about it. It’s all + right. I mean no harm.” + </p> + <p> + “But your signature then! You must sign—you—” + </p> + <p> + He pushed past her, and said as he reached for his cap, “There, that’s all + right. It’s my mistake. I’m sorry.” He spoke like a farmer who has failed + to sell a sheep. His manner was utterly prosaic, and up to the last she + thought he had not understood her. “But it’s money we offer you,” she + informed him, and then darted back to the study, believing for one + terrible moment that he had picked up the blank cheque. When she returned + to the hall he had gone. He was walking down the road rather quickly. At + the corner he cleared his throat, spat into the gutter, and disappeared. + </p> + <p> + “There’s an odd finish,” she thought. She was puzzled, and determined to + recast the interview a little when she related it to Rickie. She had not + succeeded, for the paper was still unsigned. But she had so cowed Stephen + that he would probably rest content with his two hundred a-year, and never + come troubling them again. Clever management, for one knew him to be + rapacious: she had heard tales of him lending to the poor and exacting + repayment to the uttermost farthing. He had also stolen at school. + Moderately triumphant, she hurried into the side-garden: she had just + remembered Ansell: she, not Rickie, had received his card. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mr. Ansell!” she exclaimed, awaking him from some day-dream. “Haven’t + either Rickie or Herbert been out to you? Now, do come into dinner, to + show you aren’t offended. You will find all of us assembled in the boys’ + dining-hall.” + </p> + <p> + To her annoyance he accepted. + </p> + <p> + “That is, if the Jacksons are not expecting you.” + </p> + <p> + The Jacksons did not matter. If he might brush his clothes and bathe his + lip, he would like to come. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, what has happened to you? And oh, my pretty lobelias!” + </p> + <p> + He replied, “A momentary contact with reality,” and she, who did not look + for sense in his remarks, hurried away to the dining-hall to announce him. + </p> + <p> + The dining-hall was not unlike the preparation room. There was the same + parquet floor, and dado of shiny pitchpine. On its walls also were + imperial portraits, and over the harmonium to which they sang the evening + hymns was spread the Union Jack. Sunday dinner, the most pompous meal of + the week, was in progress. Her brother sat at the head of the high table, + her husband at the head of the second. To each he gave a reassuring nod + and went to her own seat, which was among the junior boys. The beef was + being carried out; she stopped it. “Mr. Ansell is coming,” she called. + “Herbert there is more room by you; sit up straight, boys.” The boys sat + up straight, and a respectful hush spread over the room. + </p> + <p> + “Here he is!” called Rickie cheerfully, taking his cue from his wife. “Oh, + this is splendid!” Ansell came in. “I’m so glad you managed this. I + couldn’t leave these wretches last night!” The boys tittered suitably. The + atmosphere seemed normal. Even Herbert, though longing to hear what had + happened to the blackmailer, gave adequate greeting to their guest: “Come + in, Mr. Ansell; come here. Take us as you find us!” + </p> + <p> + “I understood,” said Stewart, “that I should find you all. Mrs. Elliot + told me I should. On that understanding I came.” + </p> + <p> + It was at once evident that something had gone wrong. + </p> + <p> + Ansell looked round the room carefully. Then clearing his throat and + ruffling his hair, he began—“I cannot see the man with whom I have + talked, intimately, for an hour, in your garden.” + </p> + <p> + The worst of it was they were all so far from him and from each other, + each at the end of a tableful of inquisitive boys. The two masters looked + at Agnes for information, for her reassuring nod had not told them much. + She looked hopelessly back. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot see this man,” repeated Ansell, who remained by the harmonium in + the midst of astonished waitresses. “Is he to be given no lunch?” + </p> + <p> + Herbert broke the silence by fresh greetings. Rickie knew that the contest + was lost, and that his friend had sided with the enemy. It was the kind of + thing he would do. One must face the catastrophe quietly and with dignity. + Perhaps Ansell would have turned on his heel, and left behind him only + vague suspicions, if Mrs. Elliot had not tried to talk him down. “Man,” + she cried—“what man? Oh, I know—terrible bore! Did he get hold + of you?”—thus committing their first blunder, and causing Ansell to + say to Rickie, “Have you seen your brother?” + </p> + <p> + “I have not.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you been told he was here?” + </p> + <p> + Rickie’s answer was inaudible. + </p> + <p> + “Have you been told you have a brother?” + </p> + <p> + “Let us continue this conversation later.” + </p> + <p> + “Continue it? My dear man, how can we until you know what I’m talking + about? You must think me mad; but I tell you solemnly that you have a + brother of whom you’ve never heard, and that he was in this house ten + minutes ago.” He paused impressively. “Your wife has happened to see him + first. Being neither serious nor truthful, she is keeping you apart, + telling him some lie and not telling you a word.” + </p> + <p> + There was a murmur of alarm. One of the prefects rose, and Ansell set his + back to the wall, quite ready for a battle. For two years he had waited + for his opportunity. He would hit out at Mrs. Elliot like any ploughboy + now that it had come. Rickie said: “There is a slight misunderstanding. I, + like my wife, have known what there is to know for two years”—a + dignified rebuff, but their second blunder. + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” said Agnes. “Now I think Mr. Ansell had better go.” + </p> + <p> + “Go?” exploded Ansell. “I’ve everything to say yet. I beg your pardon, + Mrs. Elliot, I am concerned with you no longer. This man”—he turned + to the avenue of faces—“this man who teaches you has a brother. He + has known of him two years and been ashamed. He has—oh—oh—how + it fits together! Rickie, it’s you, not Mrs. Silt, who must have sent + tales of him to your aunt. It’s you who’ve turned him out of Cadover. It’s + you who’ve ordered him to be ruined today.” + </p> + <p> + Now Herbert arose. “Out of my sight, sir! But have it from me first that + Rickie and his aunt have both behaved most generously. No, no, Agnes, I’ll + not be interrupted. Garbled versions must not get about. If the Wonham man + is not satisfied now, he must be insatiable. He cannot levy blackmail on + us for ever. Sir, I give you two minutes; then you will be expelled by + force.” + </p> + <p> + “Two minutes!” sang Ansell. “I can say a great deal in that.” He put one + foot on a chair and held his arms over the quivering room. He seemed + transfigured into a Hebrew prophet passionate for satire and the truth. + “Oh, keep quiet for two minutes,” he cried, “and I’ll tell you something + you’ll be glad to hear. You’re a little afraid Stephen may come back. + Don’t be afraid. I bring good news. You’ll never see him nor any one like + him again. I must speak very plainly, for you are all three fools. I don’t + want you to say afterwards, ‘Poor Mr. Ansell tried to be clever.’ + Generally I don’t mind, but I should mind today. Please listen. Stephen is + a bully; he drinks; he knocks one down; but he would sooner die than take + money from people he did not love. Perhaps he will die, for he has nothing + but a few pence that the poor gave him and some tobacco which, to my + eternal glory, he accepted from me. Please listen again. Why did he come + here? Because he thought you would love him, and was ready to love you. + But I tell you, don’t be afraid. He would sooner die now than say you were + his brother. Please listen again—” + </p> + <p> + “Now, Stewart, don’t go on like that,” said Rickie bitterly. “It’s easy + enough to preach when you are an outsider. You would be more charitable if + such a thing had happened to yourself. Easy enough to be unconventional + when you haven’t suffered and know nothing of the facts. You love anything + out of the way, anything queer, that doesn’t often happen, and so you get + excited over this. It’s useless, my dear man; you have hurt me, but you + will never upset me. As soon as you stop this ridiculous scene we will + finish our dinner. Spread this scandal; add to it. I’m too old to mind + such nonsense. I cannot help my father’s disgrace, on the one hand; nor, + on the other, will I have anything to do with his blackguard of a son.” + </p> + <p> + So the secret was given to the world. Agnes might colour at his speech; + Herbert might calculate the effect of it on the entries for Dunwood House; + but he cared for none of these things. Thank God! he was withered up at + last. + </p> + <p> + “Please listen again,” resumed Ansell. “Please correct two slight + mistakes: firstly, Stephen is one of the greatest people I have ever met; + secondly, he’s not your father’s son. He’s the son of your mother.” + </p> + <p> + It was Rickie, not Ansell, who was carried from the hall, and it was + Herbert who pronounced the blessing— + </p> + <p> + “Benedicto benedicatur.” + </p> + <p> + A profound stillness succeeded the storm, and the boys, slipping away from + their meal, told the news to the rest of the school, or put it in the + letters they were writing home. + </p> + <p> + XXVIII + </p> + <p> + The soul has her own currency. She mints her spiritual coinage and stamps + it with the image of some beloved face. With it she pays her debts, with + it she reckons, saying, “This man has worth, this man is worthless.” And + in time she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a thing unalterable, + divine. But the soul can also have her bankruptcies. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps she will be the richer in the end. In her agony she learns to + reckon clearly. Fair as the coin may have been, it was not accurate; and + though she knew it not, there were treasures that it could not buy. The + face, however beloved, was mortal, and as liable as the soul herself to + err. We do but shift responsibility by making a standard of the dead. + </p> + <p> + There is, indeed, another coinage that bears on it not man’s image but + God’s. It is incorruptible, and the soul may trust it safely; it will + serve her beyond the stars. But it cannot give us friends, or the embrace + of a lover, or the touch of children, for with our fellow mortals it has + no concern. It cannot even give the joys we call trivial—fine + weather, the pleasures of meat and drink, bathing and the hot sand + afterwards, running, dreamless sleep. Have we learnt the true discipline + of a bankruptcy if we turn to such coinage as this? Will it really profit + us so much if we save our souls and lose the whole world? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PART3" id="link2H_PART3"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART 3 — WILTSHIRE + </h2> + <p> + XXIX + </p> + <p> + Robert—there is no occasion to mention his surname: he was a young + farmer of some education who tried to coax the aged soil of Wiltshire + scientifically—came to Cadover on business and fell in love with + Mrs. Elliot. She was there on her bridal visit, and he, an obscure nobody, + was received by Mrs. Failing into the house and treated as her social + equal. He was good-looking in a bucolic way, and people sometimes mistook + him for a gentleman until they saw his hands. He discovered this, and one + of the slow, gentle jokes he played on society was to talk upon some + cultured subject with his hands behind his back and then suddenly reveal + them. “Do you go in for boating?” the lady would ask; and then he + explained that those particular weals are made by the handles of the + plough. Upon which she became extremely interested, but found an early + opportunity of talking to some one else. + </p> + <p> + He played this joke on Mrs. Elliot the first evening, not knowing that she + observed him as he entered the room. He walked heavily, lifting his feet + as if the carpet was furrowed, and he had no evening clothes. Every one + tried to put him at his ease, but she rather suspected that he was there + already, and envied him. They were introduced, and spoke of Byron, who was + still fashionable. Out came his hands—the only rough hands in the + drawing-room, the only hands that had ever worked. She was filled with + some strange approval, and liked him. + </p> + <p> + After dinner they met again, to speak not of Byron but of manure. The + other people were so clever and so amusing that it relieved her to listen + to a man who told her three times not to buy artificial manure ready made, + but, if she would use it, to make it herself at the last moment. Because + the ammonia evaporated. Here were two packets of powder. Did they smell? + No. Mix them together and pour some coffee—An appalling smell at + once burst forth, and every one began to cough and cry. This was good for + the earth when she felt sour, for he knew when the earth was ill. He knew, + too, when she was hungry he spoke of her tantrums—the strange + unscientific element in her that will baffle the scientist to the end of + time. “Study away, Mrs. Elliot,” he told her; “read all the books you can + get hold of; but when it comes to the point, stroll out with a pipe in + your mouth and do a bit of guessing.” As he talked, the earth became a + living being—or rather a being with a living skin,—and manure + no longer dirty stuff, but a symbol of regeneration and of the birth of + life from life. “So it goes on for ever!” she cried excitedly. He replied: + “Not for ever. In time the fire at the centre will cool, and nothing can + go on then.” + </p> + <p> + He advanced into love with open eyes, slowly, heavily, just as he had + advanced across the drawing room carpet. But this time the bride did not + observe his tread. She was listening to her husband, and trying not to be + so stupid. When he was close to her—so close that it was difficult + not to take her in his arms—he spoke to Mr. Failing, and was at once + turned out of Cadover. + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Failing, as he walked down the drive with his hand + on his guest’s shoulder. “I had no notion you were that sort. Any one who + behaves like that has to stop at the farm.” + </p> + <p> + “Any one?” + </p> + <p> + “Any one.” He sighed heavily, not for any personal grievance, but because + he saw how unruly, how barbaric, is the soul of man. After all, this man + was more civilized than most. + </p> + <p> + “Are you angry with me, sir?” He called him “sir,” not because he was + richer or cleverer or smarter, not because he had helped to educate him + and had lent him money, but for a reason more profound—for the + reason that there are gradations in heaven. + </p> + <p> + “I did think you—that a man like you wouldn’t risk making people + unhappy. My sister-in-law—I don’t say this to stop you loving her; + something else must do that—my sister-in-law, as far as I know, + doesn’t care for you one little bit. If you had said anything, if she had + guessed that a chance person was in—this fearful state, you would + simply—have opened hell. A woman of her sort would have lost all—” + </p> + <p> + “I knew that.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Failing removed his hand. He was displeased. + </p> + <p> + “But something here,” said Robert incoherently. “This here.” He struck + himself heavily on the heart. “This here, doing something so unusual, + makes it not matter what she loses—I—” After a silence he + asked, “Have I quite followed you, sir, in that business of the + brotherhood of man?” + </p> + <p> + “How do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought love was to bring it about.” + </p> + <p> + “Love of another man’s wife? Sensual love? You have understood nothing—nothing.” + Then he was ashamed, and cried, “I understand nothing myself.” For he + remembered that sensual and spiritual are not easy words to use; that + there are, perhaps, not two Aphrodites, but one Aphrodite with a Janus + face. “I only understand that you must try to forget her.” + </p> + <p> + “I will not try.” + </p> + <p> + “Promise me just this, then—not to do anything crooked.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m straight. No boasting, but I couldn’t do a crooked thing—No, + not if I tried.” + </p> + <p> + And so appallingly straight was he in after years, that Mr. Failing wished + that he had phrased the promise differently. + </p> + <p> + Robert simply waited. He told himself that it was hopeless; but something + deeper than himself declared that there was hope. He gave up drink, and + kept himself in all ways clean, for he wanted to be worthy of her when the + time came. Women seemed fond of him, and caused him to reflect with + pleasure, “They do run after me. There must be something in me. Good. I’d + be done for if there wasn’t.” For six years he turned up the earth of + Wiltshire, and read books for the sake of his mind, and talked to + gentlemen for the sake of their patois, and each year he rode to Cadover + to take off his hat to Mrs. Elliot, and, perhaps, to speak to her about + the crops. Mr. Failing was generally present, and it struck neither man + that those dull little visits were so many words out of which a lonely + woman might build sentences. Then Robert went to London on business. He + chanced to see Mr. Elliot with a strange lady. The time had come. + </p> + <p> + He became diplomatic, and called at Mr. Elliot’s rooms to find things out. + For if Mrs. Elliot was happier than he could ever make her, he would + withdraw, and love her in renunciation. But if he could make her happier, + he would love her in fulfilment. Mr. Elliot admitted him as a friend of + his brother-in-law’s, and felt very broad-minded as he did so. Robert, + however, was a success. The youngish men there found him interesting, and + liked to shock him with tales of naughty London and naughtier Paris. They + spoke of “experience” and “sensations” and “seeing life,” and when a smile + ploughed over his face, concluded that his prudery was vanquished. He saw + that they were much less vicious than they supposed: one boy had obviously + read his sensations in a book. But he could pardon vice. What he could not + pardon was triviality, and he hoped that no decent woman could pardon it + either. There grew up in him a cold, steady anger against these silly + people who thought it advanced to be shocking, and who described, as + something particularly choice and educational, things that he had + understood and fought against for years. He inquired after Mrs. Elliot, + and a boy tittered. It seemed that she “did not know,” that she lived in a + remote suburb, taking care of a skinny baby. “I shall call some time or + other,” said Robert. “Do,” said Mr. Elliot, smiling. And next time he saw + his wife he congratulated her on her rustic admirer. + </p> + <p> + She had suffered terribly. She had asked for bread, and had been given not + even a stone. People talk of hungering for the ideal, but there is another + hunger, quite as divine, for facts. She had asked for facts and had been + given “views,” “emotional standpoints,” “attitudes towards life.” To a + woman who believed that facts are beautiful, that the living world is + beautiful beyond the laws of beauty, that manure is neither gross nor + ludicrous, that a fire, not eternal, glows at the heart of the earth, it + was intolerable to be put off with what the Elliots called “philosophy,” + and, if she refused, to be told that she had no sense of humour. “Tarrying + into the Elliot family.” It had sounded so splendid, for she was a + penniless child with nothing to offer, and the Elliots held their heads + high. For what reason? What had they ever done, except say sarcastic + things, and limp, and be refined? Mr. Failing suffered too, but she + suffered more, inasmuch as Frederick was more impossible than Emily. He + did not like her, he practically lived apart, he was not even faithful or + polite. These were grave faults, but they were human ones: she could even + imagine them in a man she loved. What she could never love was a + dilettante. + </p> + <p> + Robert brought her an armful of sweet-peas. He laid it on the table, put + his hands behind his back, and kept them there till the end of the visit. + She knew quite well why he had come, and though she also knew that he + would fail, she loved him too much to snub him or to stare in virtuous + indignation. “Why have you come?” she asked gravely, “and why have you + brought me so many flowers?” + </p> + <p> + “My garden is full of them,” he answered. “Sweetpeas need picking down. + And, generally speaking, flowers are plentiful in July.” + </p> + <p> + She broke his present into bunches—so much for the drawing-room, so + much for the nursery, so much for the kitchen and her husband’s room: he + would be down for the night. The most beautiful she would keep for + herself. Presently he said, “Your husband is no good. I’ve watched him for + a week. I’m thirty, and not what you call hasty, as I used to be, or + thinking that nothing matters like the French. No. I’m a plain Britisher, + yet—I—I’ve begun wrong end, Mrs. Elliot; I should have said + that I’ve thought chiefly of you for six years, and that though I talk + here so respectfully, if I once unhooked my hands—” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. Then she said with great sweetness, “Thank you; I am + glad you love me,” and rang the bell. + </p> + <p> + “What have you done that for?” he cried. + </p> + <p> + “Because you must now leave the house, and never enter it again.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t go alone,” and he began to get furious. + </p> + <p> + Her voice was still sweet, but strength lay in it too, as she said, “You + either go now with my thanks and blessing, or else you go with the police. + I am Mrs. Elliot. We need not discuss Mr. Elliot. I am Mrs. Elliot, and if + you make one step towards me I give you in charge.” + </p> + <p> + But the maid answered the bell not of the drawing-room, but of the front + door. They were joined by Mr. Elliot, who held out his hand with much + urbanity. It was not taken. He looked quickly at his wife, and said, “Am I + de trop?” There was a long silence. At last she said, “Frederick, turn + this man out.” + </p> + <p> + “My love, why?” + </p> + <p> + Robert said that he loved her. + </p> + <p> + “Then I am de trop,” said Mr. Elliot, smoothing out his gloves. He would + give these sodden barbarians a lesson. “My hansom is waiting at the door. + Pray make use of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t!” she cried, almost affectionately. “Dear Frederick, it isn’t a + play. Just tell this man to go, or send for the police.” + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary; it is French comedy of the best type. Don’t you agree, + sir, that the police would be an inartistic error?” He was perfectly calm + and collected, whereas they were in a pitiable state. + </p> + <p> + “Turn him out at once!” she cried. “He has insulted your wife. Save me, + save me!” She clung to her husband and wept. “He was going I had managed + him—he would never have known—” Mr. Elliot repulsed her. + </p> + <p> + “If you don’t feel inclined to start at once,” he said with easy civility, + “Let us have a little tea. My dear sir, do forgive me for not shooting + you. Nous avons change tout cela. Please don’t look so nervous. Please do + unclasp your hands—” + </p> + <p> + He was alone. + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right,” he exclaimed, and strolled to the door. The hansom was + disappearing round the corner. “That’s all right,” he repeated in more + quavering tones as he returned to the drawing-room and saw that it was + littered with sweet-peas. Their colour got on his nerves—magenta, + crimson; magenta, crimson. He tried to pick them up, and they escaped. He + trod them underfoot, and they multiplied and danced in the triumph of + summer like a thousand butterflies. The train had left when he got to the + station. He followed on to London, and there he lost all traces. At + midnight he began to realize that his wife could never belong to him + again. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Failing had a letter from Stockholm. It was never known what impulse + sent them there. “I am sorry about it all, but it was the only way.” The + letter censured the law of England, “which obliges us to behave like this, + or else we should never get married. I shall come back to face things: she + will not come back till she is my wife. He must bring an action soon, or + else we shall try one against him. It seems all very unconventional, but + it is not really, it is only a difficult start. We are not like you or + your wife: we want to be just ordinary people, and make the farm pay, and + not be noticed all our lives.” + </p> + <p> + And they were capable of living as they wanted. The class difference, + which so intrigued Mrs. Failing, meant very little to them. It was there, + but so were other things. + </p> + <p> + They both cared for work and living in the open, and for not speaking + unless they had got something to say. Their love of beauty, like their + love for each other, was not dependent on detail: it grew not from the + nerves but from the soul. + </p> + <p> + “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars + And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of + the wren, And the tree toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest, And the + running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven.” + </p> + <p> + They had never read these lines, and would have thought them nonsense if + they had. They did not dissect—indeed they could not. But she, at + all events, divined that more than perfect health and perfect weather, + more than personal love, had gone to the making of those seventeen days. + </p> + <p> + “Ordinary people!” cried Mrs. Failing on hearing the letter. At that time + she was young and daring. “Why, they’re divine! They’re forces of Nature! + They’re as ordinary as volcanoes. We all knew my brother was disgusting, + and wanted him to be blown to pieces, but we never thought it would + happen. Do look at the thing bravely, and say, as I do, that they are + guiltless in the sight of God.” + </p> + <p> + “I think they are,” replied her husband. “But they are not guiltless in + the sight of man.” + </p> + <p> + “You conventional!” she exclaimed in disgust. “What they have done means + misery not only for themselves but for others. For your brother, though + you will not think of him. For the little boy—did you think of him? + And perhaps for another child, who will have the whole world against him + if it knows. They have sinned against society, and you do not diminish the + misery by proving that society is bad or foolish. It is the saddest truth + I have yet perceived that the Beloved Republic”—here she took up a + book—“of which Swinburne speaks”—she put the book down—“will + not be brought about by love alone. It will approach with no flourish of + trumpets, and have no declaration of independence. Self-sacrifice and—worse + still—self-mutilation are the things that sometimes help it most, + and that is why we should start for Stockholm this evening.” He waited for + her indignation to subside, and then continued. “I don’t know whether it + can be hushed up. I don’t yet know whether it ought to be hushed up. But + we ought to provide the opportunity. There is no scandal yet. If we go, it + is just possible there never will be any. We must talk over the whole + thing and—” + </p> + <p> + “—And lie!” interrupted Mrs. Failing, who hated travel. + </p> + <p> + “—And see how to avoid the greatest unhappiness.” + </p> + <p> + There was to be no scandal. By the time they arrived Robert had been + drowned. Mrs. Elliot described how they had gone swimming, and how, “since + he always lived inland,” the great waves had tired him. They had raced for + the open sea. + </p> + <p> + “What are your plans?” he asked. “I bring you a message from Frederick.” + </p> + <p> + “I heard him call,” she continued, “but I thought he was laughing. When I + turned, it was too late. He put his hands behind his back and sank. For he + would only have drowned me with him. I should have done the same.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Failing was thrilled, and kissed her. But Mr. Failing knew that life + does not continue heroic for long, and he gave her the message from her + husband: Would she come back to him? + </p> + <p> + To his intense astonishment—at first to his regret—she + replied, “I will think about it. If I loved him the very least bit I + should say no. If I had anything to do with my life I should say no. But + it is simply a question of beating time till I die. Nothing that is coming + matters. I may as well sit in his drawing-room and dust his furniture, + since he has suggested it.” + </p> + <p> + And Mr. Elliot, though he made certain stipulations, was positively glad + to see her. People had begun to laugh at him, and to say that his wife had + run away. She had not. She had been with his sister in Sweden. In a half + miraculous way the matter was hushed up. Even the Silts only scented + “something strange.” When Stephen was born, it was abroad. When he came to + England, it was as the child of a friend of Mr. Failing’s. Mrs. Elliot + returned unsuspected to her husband. + </p> + <p> + But though things can be hushed up, there is no such thing as beating + time; and as the years passed she realized her terrible mistake. When her + lover sank, eluding her last embrace, she thought, as Agnes was to think + after her, that her soul had sunk with him, and that never again should + she be capable of earthly love. Nothing mattered. She might as well go and + be useful to her husband and to the little boy who looked exactly like + him, and who, she thought, was exactly like him in disposition. Then + Stephen was born, and altered her life. She could still love people + passionately; she still drew strength from the heroic past. Yet, to keep + to her bond, she must see this son only as a stranger. She was protected + be the conventions, and must pay them their fee. And a curious thing + happened. Her second child drew her towards her first. She began to love + Rickie also, and to be more than useful to him. And as her love revived, + so did her capacity for suffering. Life, more important, grew more bitter. + She minded her husband more, not less; and when at last he died, and she + saw a glorious autumn, beautiful with the voices of boys who should call + her mother, the end came for her as well, before she could remember the + grave in the alien north and the dust that would never return to the dear + fields that had given it. + </p> + <p> + XXX + </p> + <p> + Stephen, the son of these people, had one instinct that troubled him. At + night—especially out of doors—it seemed rather strange that he + was alive. The dry grass pricked his cheek, the fields were invisible and + mute, and here was he, throwing stones at the darkness or smoking a pipe. + The stones vanished, the pipe would burn out. But he would be here in the + morning when the sun rose, and he would bathe, and run in the mist. He was + proud of his good circulation, and in the morning it seemed quite natural. + But at night, why should there be this difference between him and the + acres of land that cooled all round him until the sun returned? What lucky + chance had heated him up, and sent him, warm and lovable, into a passive + world? He had other instincts, but these gave him no trouble. He simply + gratified each as it occurred, provided he could do so without grave + injury to his fellows. But the instinct to wonder at the night was not to + be thus appeased. At first he had lived under the care of Mr. Failing the + only person to whom his mother spoke freely, the only person who had + treated her neither as a criminal nor as a pioneer. In their rare but + intimate conversations she had asked him to educate her son. “I will teach + him Latin,” he answered. “The rest such a boy must remember.” Latin, at + all events, was a failure: who could attend to Virgil when the sound of + the thresher arose, and you knew that the stack was decreasing and that + rats rushed more plentifully each moment to their doom? But he was fond of + Mr. Failing, and cried when he died. Mrs. Elliot, a pleasant woman, died + soon after. + </p> + <p> + There was something fatal in the order of these deaths. Mr. Failing had + made no provision for the boy in his will: his wife had promised to see to + this. Then came Mr. Elliot’s death, and, before the new home was created, + the sudden death of Mrs. Elliot. She also left Stephen no money: she had + none to leave. Chance threw him into the power of Mrs. Failing. “Let + things go on as they are,” she thought. “I will take care of this pretty + little boy, and the ugly little boy can live with the Silts. After my + death—well, the papers will be found after my death, and they can + meet then. I like the idea of their mutual ignorance. It is amusing.” + </p> + <p> + He was then twelve. With a few brief intervals of school, he lived in + Wiltshire until he was driven out. Life had two distinct sides—the + drawing-room and the other. In the drawing-room people talked a good deal, + laughing as they talked. Being clever, they did not care for animals: one + man had never seen a hedgehog. In the other life people talked and laughed + separately, or even did neither. On the whole, in spite of the wet and + gamekeepers, this life was preferable. He knew where he was. He glanced at + the boy, or later at the man, and behaved accordingly. There was no law—the + policeman was negligible. Nothing bound him but his own word, and he gave + that sparingly. + </p> + <p> + It is impossible to be romantic when you have your heart’s desire, and + such a boy disappointed Mrs. Failing greatly. His parents had met for one + brief embrace, had found one little interval between the power of the + rulers of this world and the power of death. He was the child of poetry + and of rebellion, and poetry should run in his veins. But he lived too + near the things he loved to seem poetical. Parted from them, he might yet + satisfy her, and stretch out his hands with a pagan’s yearning. As it was, + he only rode her horses, and trespassed, and bathed, and worked, for no + obvious reason, upon her fields. Affection she did not believe in, and + made no attempt to mould him; and he, for his part, was very content to + harden untouched into a man. His parents had given him excellent gifts—health, + sturdy limbs, and a face not ugly,—gifts that his habits confirmed. + They had also given him a cloudless spirit—the spirit of the + seventeen days in which he was created. But they had not given him the + spirit of their sit years of waiting, and love for one person was never to + be the greatest thing he knew. + </p> + <p> + “Philosophy” had postponed the quarrel between them. Incurious about his + personal origin, he had a certain interest in our eternal problems. The + interest never became a passion: it sprang out of his physical growth, and + was soon merged in it again. Or, as he put it himself, “I must get fixed + up before starting.” He was soon fixed up as a materialist. Then he tore + up the sixpenny reprints, and never amused Mrs. Failing so much again. + </p> + <p> + About the time he fixed himself up, he took to drink. He knew of no reason + against it. The instinct was in him, and it hurt nobody. Here, as + elsewhere, his motions were decided, and he passed at once from roaring + jollity to silence. For those who live on the fuddled borderland, who + crawl home by the railings and maunder repentance in the morning, he had a + biting contempt. A man must take his tumble and his headache. He was, in + fact, as little disgusting as is conceivable; and hitherto he had not + strained his constitution or his will. Nor did he get drunk as often as + Agnes suggested. The real quarrel gathered elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + Presentable people have run wild in their youth. But the hour comes when + they turn from their boorish company to higher things. This hour never + came for Stephen. Somewhat a bully by nature, he kept where his powers + would tell, and continued to quarrel and play with the men he had known as + boys. He prolonged their youth unduly. “They won’t settle down,” said Mr. + Wilbraham to his wife. “They’re wanting things. It’s the germ of a Trades + Union. I shall get rid of a few of the worst.” Then Stephen rushed up to + Mrs. Failing and worried her. “It wasn’t fair. So-and-so was a good sort. + He did his work. Keen about it? No. Why should he be? Why should he be + keen about somebody else’s land? But keen enough. And very keen on + football.” She laughed, and said a word about So-and-so to Mr. Wilbraham. + Mr. Wilbraham blazed up. “How could the farm go on without discipline? How + could there be discipline if Mr. Stephen interfered? Mr. Stephen liked + power. He spoke to the men like one of themselves, and pretended it was + all equality, but he took care to come out top. Natural, of course, that, + being a gentleman, he should. But not natural for a gentleman to loiter + all day with poor people and learn their work, and put wrong notions into + their heads, and carry their newfangled grievances to Mrs. Failing. Which + partly accounted for the deficit on the past year.” She rebuked Stephen. + Then he lost his temper, was rude to her, and insulted Mr. Wilbraham. + </p> + <p> + The worst days of Mr. Failing’s rule seemed to be returning. And Stephen + had a practical experience, and also a taste for battle, that her husband + had never possessed. He drew up a list of grievances, some absurd, others + fundamental. No newspapers in the reading-room, you could put a plate + under the Thompsons’ door, no level cricket-pitch, no allotments and no + time to work in them, Mrs. Wilbraham’s knife-boy underpaid. “Aren’t you a + little unwise?” she asked coldly. “I am more bored than you think over the + farm.” She was wanting to correct the proofs of the book and rewrite the + prefatory memoir. In her irritation she wrote to Agnes. Agnes replied + sympathetically, and Mrs. Failing, clever as she was, fell into the power + of the younger woman. They discussed him at first as a wretch of a boy; + then he got drunk and somehow it seemed more criminal. All that she needed + now was a personal grievance, which Agnes casually supplied. Though + vindictive, she was determined to treat him well, and thought with + satisfaction of our distant colonies. But he burst into an odd passion: he + would sooner starve than leave England. “Why?” she asked. “Are you in + love?” He picked up a lump of the chalk-they were by the arbour—and + made no answer. The vicar murmured, “It is not like going abroad—Greater + Britain—blood is thicker than water—” A lump of chalk broke + her drawing-room window on the Saturday. + </p> + <p> + Thus Stephen left Wiltshire, half-blackguard, half-martyr. Do not brand + him as a socialist. He had no quarrel with society, nor any particular + belief in people because they are poor. He only held the creed of “here am + I and there are you,” and therefore class distinctions were trivial things + to him, and life no decorous scheme, but a personal combat or a personal + truce. For the same reason ancestry also was trivial, and a man not the + dearer because the same woman was mother to them both. Yet it seemed worth + while to go to Sawston with the news. Perhaps nothing would come of it; + perhaps friendly intercourse, and a home while he looked around. + </p> + <p> + When they wronged him he walked quietly away. He never thought of + allotting the blame, nor or appealing to Ansell, who still sat brooding in + the side-garden. He only knew that educated people could be horrible, and + that a clean liver must never enter Dunwood House again. The air seemed + stuffy. He spat in the gutter. Was it yesterday he had lain in the + rifle-butts over Salisbury? Slightly aggrieved, he wondered why he was not + back there now. “I ought to have written first,” he reflected. “Here is my + money gone. I cannot move. The Elliots have, as it were, practically + robbed me.” That was the only grudge he retained against them. Their + suspicions and insults were to him as the curses of a tramp whom he passed + by the wayside. They were dirty people, not his sort. He summed up the + complicated tragedy as a “take in.” + </p> + <p> + While Rickie was being carried upstairs, and while Ansell (had he known + it) was dashing about the streets for him, he lay under a railway arch + trying to settle his plans. He must pay back the friends who had given him + shillings and clothes. He thought of Flea, whose Sundays he was spoiling—poor + Flea, who ought to be in them now, shining before his girl. “I daresay + he’ll be ashamed and not go to see her, and then she’ll take the other + man.” He was also very hungry. That worm Mrs. Elliot would be through her + lunch by now. Trying his braces round him, and tearing up those old wet + documents, he stepped forth to make money. A villainous young brute he + looked: his clothes were dirty, and he had lost the spring of the morning. + Touching the walls, frowning, talking to himself at times, he slouched + disconsolately northwards; no wonder that some tawdry girls screamed at + him, or that matrons averted their eyes as they hurried to afternoon + church. He wandered from one suburb to another, till he was among people + more villainous than himself, who bought his tobacco from him and sold him + food. Again the neighbourhood “went up,” and families, instead of sitting + on their doorsteps, would sit behind thick muslin curtains. Again it would + “go down” into a more avowed despair. Far into the night he wandered, + until he came to a solemn river majestic as a stream in hell. Therein were + gathered the waters of Central England—those that flow off Hindhead, + off the Chilterns, off Wiltshire north of the Plain. Therein they were + made intolerable ere they reached the sea. But the waters he had known + escaped. Their course lay southward into the Avon by forests and beautiful + fields, even swift, even pure, until they mirrored the tower of + Christchurch and greeted the ramparts of the Isle of Wight. Of these he + thought for a moment as he crossed the black river and entered the heart + of the modern world. Here he found employment. He was not hampered by + genteel traditions, and, as it was near quarter-day, managed to get taken + on at a furniture warehouse. He moved people from the suburbs to London, + from London to the suburbs, from one suburb to another. His companions + were hurried and querulous. In particular, he loathed the foreman, a pious + humbug who allowed no swearing, but indulged in something far more + degraded—the Cockney repartee. The London intellect, so pert and + shallow, like a stream that never reaches the ocean, disgusted him almost + as much as the London physique, which for all its dexterity is not + permanent, and seldom continues into the third generation. His father, had + he known it, had felt the same; for between Mr. Elliot and the foreman the + gulf was social, not spiritual: both spent their lives in trying to be + clever. And Tony Failing had once put the thing into words: “There’s no + such thing as a Londoner. He’s only a country man on the road to + sterility.” + </p> + <p> + At the end of ten days he had saved scarcely anything. Once he passed the + bank where a hundred pounds lay ready for him, but it was still + inconvenient for him to take them. Then duty sent him to a suburb not very + far from Sawston. In the evening a man who was driving a trap asked him to + hold it, and by mistake tipped him a sovereign. Stephen called after him; + but the man had a woman with him and wanted to show off, and though he had + meant to tip a shilling, and could not afford that, he shouted back that + his sovereign was as good as any one’s, and that if Stephen did not think + so he could do various things and go to various places. On the action of + this man much depends. Stephen changed the sovereign into a postal order, + and sent it off to the people at Cadford. It did not pay them back, but it + paid them something, and he felt that his soul was free. + </p> + <p> + A few shillings remained in his pocket. They would have paid his fare + towards Wiltshire, a good county; but what should he do there? Who would + employ him? Today the journey did not seem worth while. “Tomorrow, + perhaps,” he thought, and determined to spend the money on pleasure of + another kind. Two-pence went for a ride on an electric tram. From the top + he saw the sun descend—a disc with a dark red edge. The same sun was + descending over Salisbury intolerably bright. Out of the golden haze the + spire would be piercing, like a purple needle; then mists arose from the + Avon and the other streams. Lamps flickered, but in the outer purity the + villages were already slumbering. Salisbury is only a Gothic upstart + beside these. For generations they have come down to her to buy or to + worship, and have found in her the reasonable crisis of their lives; but + generations before she was built they were clinging to the soil, and + renewing it with sheep and dogs and men, who found the crisis of their + lives upon Stonehenge. The blood of these men ran in Stephen; the vigour + they had won for him was as yet untarnished; out on those downs they had + united with rough women to make the thing he spoke of as “himself”; the + last of them has rescued a woman of a different kind from streets and + houses such as these. As the sun descended he got off the tram with a + smile of expectation. A public-house lay opposite, and a boy in a dirty + uniform was already lighting its enormous lamp. His lips parted, and he + went in. + </p> + <p> + Two hours later, when Rickie and Herbert were going the rounds, a brick + came crashing at the study window. Herbert peered into the garden, and a + hooligan slipped by him into the house, wrecked the hall, lurched up the + stairs, fell against the banisters, balanced for a moment on his spine, + and slid over. Herbert called for the police. Rickie, who was upon the + landing, caught the man by the knees and saved his life. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” cried Agnes, emerging. + </p> + <p> + “It’s Stephen come back,” was the answer. “Hullo, Stephen!” + </p> + <p> + XXXI + </p> + <p> + Hither had Rickie moved in ten days—from disgust to penitence, from + penitence to longing from a life of horror to a new life, in which he + still surprised himself by unexpected words. Hullo, Stephen! For the son + of his mother had come back, to forgive him, as she would have done, to + live with him, as she had planned. + </p> + <p> + “He’s drunk this time,” said Agnes wearily. She too had altered: the + scandal was ageing her, and Ansell came to the house daily. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo, Stephen!” + </p> + <p> + But Stephen was now insensible. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, you live here—” + </p> + <p> + “Good gracious me!” interposed Herbert. “My advice is, that we all go to + bed. The less said the better while our nerves are in this state. Very + well, Rickie. Of course, Wonham sleeps the night if you wish.” They + carried the drunken mass into the spare room. A mass of scandal it seemed + to one of them, a symbol of redemption to the other. Neither acknowledged + it a man, who would answer them back after a few hours’ rest. + </p> + <p> + “Ansell thought he would never forgive me,” said Rickie. “For once he’s + wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “Come to bed now, I think.” And as Rickie laid his hand on the sleeper’s + hair, he added, “You won’t do anything foolish, will you? You are still in + a morbid state. Your poor mother—Pardon me, dear boy; it is my turn + to speak out. You thought it was your father, and minded. It is your + mother. Surely you ought to mind more?” + </p> + <p> + “I have been too far back,” said Rickie gently. “Ansell took me on a + journey that was even new to him. We got behind right and wrong, to a + place where only one thing matters—that the Beloved should rise from + the dead.” + </p> + <p> + “But you won’t do anything rash?” + </p> + <p> + “Why should I?” + </p> + <p> + “Remember poor Agnes,” he stammered. “I—I am the first to + acknowledge that we might have pursued a different policy. But we are + committed to it now. It makes no difference whose son he is. I mean, he is + the same person. You and I and my sister stand or fall together. It was + our agreement from the first. I hope—No more of these distressing + scenes with her, there’s a dear fellow. I assure you they make my heart + bleed.” + </p> + <p> + “Things will quiet down now.” + </p> + <p> + “To bed now; I insist upon that much.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said Rickie, and when they were in the passage, locked the + door from the outside. “We want no more muddles,” he explained. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke was left examining the hall. The bust of Hermes was broken. + So was the pot of the palm. He could not go to bed without once more + sounding Rickie. “You’ll do nothing rash,” he called. “The notion of him + living here was, of course, a passing impulse. We three have adopted a + common policy.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, you go away!” called a voice that was almost flippant. “I never did + belong to that great sect whose doctrine is that each one should select—at + least, I’m not going to belong to it any longer. Go away to bed.” + </p> + <p> + “A good night’s rest is what you need,” threatened Herbert, and retired, + not to find one for himself. + </p> + <p> + But Rickie slept. The guilt of months and the remorse of the last ten days + had alike departed. He had thought that his life was poisoned, and lo! it + was purified. He had cursed his mother, and Ansell had replied, “You may + be right, but you stand too near to settle. Step backwards. Pretend that + it happened to me. Do you want me to curse my mother? Now, step forward + and see whether anything has changed.” Something had changed. He had + journeyed—as on rare occasions a man must—till he stood behind + right and wrong. On the banks of the grey torrent of life, love is the + only flower. A little way up the stream and a little way down had Rickie + glanced, and he knew that she whom he loved had risen from the dead, and + might rise again. “Come away—let them die out—let them die + out.” Surely that dream was a vision! To-night also he hurried to the + window—to remember, with a smile, that Orion is not among the stars + of June. + </p> + <p> + “Let me die out. She will continue,” he murmured, and in making plans for + Stephen’s happiness, fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + Next morning after breakfast he announced that his brother must live at + Dunwood House. They were awed by the very moderation of his tone. “There’s + nothing else to be done. Cadover’s hopeless, and a boy of those tendencies + can’t go drifting. There is also the question of a profession for him, and + his allowance.” + </p> + <p> + “We have to thank Mr. Ansell for this,” was all that Agnes could say; and + “I foresee disaster,” was the contribution of Herbert. + </p> + <p> + “There’s plenty of money about,” Rickie continued. “Quite a man’s-worth + too much. It has been one of our absurdities. Don’t look so sad, Herbert. + I’m sorry for you people, but he’s sure to let us down easy.” For his + experience of drunkards and of Stephen was small. + </p> + <p> + He supposed that he had come without malice to renew the offer of ten days + ago. + </p> + <p> + “It is the end of Dunwood House.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie nodded, and hoped not. Agnes, who was not looking well, began to + cry. “Oh, it is too bad,” she complained, “when I’ve saved you from him + all these years.” But he could not pity her, nor even sympathize with her + wounded delicacy. The time for such nonsense was over. He would take his + share of the blame: it was cant to assume it all. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps he was over-hard. He did not realize how large his share was, nor + how his very virtues were to blame for her deterioration. “If I had a + girl, I’d keep her in line,” is not the remark of a fool nor of a cad. + Rickie had not kept his wife in line. He had shown her all the workings of + his soul, mistaking this for love; and in consequence she was the worse + woman after two years of marriage, and he, on this morning of freedom, was + harder upon her than he need have been. + </p> + <p> + The spare room bell rang. Herbert had a painful struggle between curiosity + and duty, for the bell for chapel was ringing also, and he must go through + the drizzle to school. He promised to come up in the interval, Rickie, who + had rapped his head that Sunday on the edge of the table, was still + forbidden to work. Before him a quiet morning lay. Secure of his victory, + he took the portrait of their mother in his hand and walked leisurely + upstairs. The bell continued to ring. + </p> + <p> + “See about his breakfast,” he called to Agnes, who replied, “Very well.” + The handle of the spare room door was moving slowly. “I’m coming,” he + cried. The handle was still. He unlocked and entered, his heart full of + charity. + </p> + <p> + But within stood a man who probably owned the world. + </p> + <p> + Rickie scarcely knew him; last night he had seemed so colorless, no + negligible. In a few hours he had recaptured motion and passion and the + imprint of the sunlight and the wind. He stood, not consciously heroic, + with arms that dangled from broad stooping shoulders, and feet that played + with a hassock on the carpet. But his hair was beautiful against the grey + sky, and his eyes, recalling the sky unclouded, shot past the intruder as + if to some worthier vision. So intent was their gaze that Rickie himself + glanced backwards, only to see the neat passage and the banisters at the + top of the stairs. Then the lips beat together twice, and out burst a + torrent of amazing words. + </p> + <p> + “Add it all up, and let me know how much. I’d sooner have died. It never + took me that way before. I must have broken pounds’ worth. If you’ll not + tell the police, I promise you shan’t lose, Mr. Elliot, I swear. But it + may be months before I send it. Everything is to be new. You’ve not to be + a penny out of pocket, do you see? Do let me go, this once again.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s the trouble?” asked Rickie, as if they had been friends for years. + “My dear man, we’ve other things to talk about. Gracious me, what a fuss! + If you’d smashed the whole house I wouldn’t mind, so long as you came + back.” + </p> + <p> + “I’d sooner have died,” gulped Stephen. + </p> + <p> + “You did nearly! It was I who caught you. Never mind yesterday’s rag. What + can you manage for breakfast?” + </p> + <p> + The face grew more angry and more puzzled. “Yesterday wasn’t a rag,” he + said without focusing his eyes. “I was drunk, but naturally meant it.” + </p> + <p> + “Meant what?” + </p> + <p> + “To smash you. Bad liquor did what Mrs. Elliot couldn’t. I’ve put myself + in the wrong. You’ve got me.” + </p> + <p> + It was a poor beginning. + </p> + <p> + “As I have got you,” said Rickie, controlling himself, “I want to have a + talk with you. There has been a ghastly mistake.” + </p> + <p> + But Stephen, with a countryman’s persistency, continued on his own line. + He meant to be civil, but Rickie went cold round the mouth. For he had not + even been angry with them. Until he was drunk, they had been dirty people—not + his sort. Then the trivial injury recurred, and he had reeled to smash + them as he passed. “And I will pay for everything,” was his refrain, with + which the sighing of raindrops mingled. “You shan’t lose a penny, if only + you let me free.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll pay for my coffin if you talk like that any longer! Will you, one, + forgive my frightful behaviour; two, live with me?” For his only hope was + in a cheerful precision. + </p> + <p> + Stephen grew more agitated. He thought it was some trick. + </p> + <p> + “I was saying I made an unspeakable mistake. Ansell put me right, but it + was too late to find you. Don’t think I got off easily. Ansell doesn’t + spare one. And you’ve got to forgive me, to share my life, to share my + money.—I’ve brought you this photograph—I want it to be the + first thing you accept from me—you have the greater right—I + know all the story now. You know who it is?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes; but I don’t want to drag all that in.” + </p> + <p> + “It is only her wish if we live together. She was planning it when she + died.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t follow—because—to share your life? Did you know I + called here last Sunday week?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. But then I only knew half. I thought you were my father’s son.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen’s anger and bewilderment were increasing. He stuttered. “What—what’s + the odds if you did?” + </p> + <p> + “I hated my father,” said Rickie. “I loved my mother.” And never had the + phrases seemed so destitute of meaning. + </p> + <p> + “Last Sunday week,” interrupted Stephen, his voice suddenly rising, “I + came to call on you. Not as this or that’s son. Not to fall on your neck. + Nor to live here. Nor—damn your dirty little mind! I meant to say I + didn’t come for money. Sorry. Sorry. I simply came as I was, and I haven’t + altered since.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—yet our mother—for me she has risen from the dead since + then—I know I was wrong—” + </p> + <p> + “And where do I come in?” He kicked the hassock. “I haven’t risen from the + dead. I haven’t altered since last Sunday week. I’m—” He stuttered + again. He could not quite explain what he was. “The man towards Andover—after + all, he was having principles. But you’ve—” His voice broke. “I mind + it—I’m—I don’t alter—blackguard one week—live here + the next—I keep to one or the other—you’ve hurt something most + badly in me that I didn’t know was there.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t let us talk,” said Rickie. “It gets worse every minute. Simply say + you forgive me; shake hands, and have done with it.” + </p> + <p> + “That I won’t. That I couldn’t. In fact, I don’t know what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + Then Rickie began a new appeal—not to pity, for now he was in no + mood to whimper. For all its pathos, there was something heroic in this + meeting. “I warn you to stop here with me, Stephen. No one else in the + world will look after you. As far as I know, you have never been really + unhappy yet or suffered, as you should do, from your faults. Last night + you nearly killed yourself with drink. Never mind why I’m willing to cure + you. I am willing, and I warn you to give me the chance. Forgive me or + not, as you choose. I care for other things more.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked at him at last, faintly approving. The offer was + ridiculous, but it did treat him as a man. + </p> + <p> + “Let me tell you of a fault of mine, and how I was punished for it,” + continued Rickie. “Two years ago I behaved badly to you, up at the Rings. + No, even a few days before that. We went for a ride, and I thought too + much of other matters, and did not try to understand you. Then came the + Rings, and in the evening, when you called up to me most kindly, I never + answered. But the ride was the beginning. Ever since then I have taken the + world at second-hand. I have bothered less and less to look it in the face—until + not only you, but every one else has turned unreal. Never Ansell: he kept + away, and somehow saved himself. But every one else. Do you remember in + one of Tony Failing’s books, ‘Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after + many days it really does come back to you’? This had been true of my life; + it will be equally true of a drunkard’s, and I warn you to stop with me.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t stop after that cheque,” said Stephen more gently. “But I do + remember the ride. I was a bit bored myself.” + </p> + <p> + Agnes, who had not been seeing to the breakfast, chose this moment to call + from the passage. “Of course he can’t stop,” she exclaimed. “For better or + worse, it’s settled. We’ve none of us altered since last Sunday week.” + </p> + <p> + “There you’re right, Mrs. Elliot!” he shouted, starting out of the + temperate past. “We haven’t altered.” With a rare flash of insight he + turned on Rickie. “I see your game. You don’t care about ME drinking, or + to shake MY hand. It’s some one else you want to cure—as it were, + that old photograph. You talk to me, but all the time you look at the + photograph.” He snatched it up. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve my own ideas of good manners, and to look friends between the eyes + is one of them; and this”—he tore the photograph across “and this”—he + tore it again—“and these—” He flung the pieces at the man, who + had sunk into a chair. “For my part, I’m off.” + </p> + <p> + Then Rickie was heroic no longer. Turning round in his chair, he covered + his face. The man was right. He did not love him, even as he had never + hated him. In either passion he had degraded him to be a symbol for the + vanished past. The man was right, and would have been lovable. He longed + to be back riding over those windy fields, to be back in those mystic + circles, beneath pure sky. Then they could have watched and helped and + taught each other, until the word was a reality, and the past not a torn + photograph, but Demeter the goddess rejoicing in the spring. Ah, if he had + seized those high opportunities! For they led to the highest of all, the + symbolic moment, which, if a man accepts, he has accepted life. + </p> + <p> + The voice of Agnes, which had lured him then (“For my sake,” she had + whispered), pealed over him now in triumph. Abruptly it broke into sobs + that had the effect of rain. He started up. The anger had died out of + Stephen’s face, not for a subtle reason but because here was a woman, near + him, and unhappy. + </p> + <p> + She tried to apologize, and brought on a fresh burst of tears. Something + had upset her. They heard her locking the door of her room. From that + moment their intercourse was changed. + </p> + <p> + “Why does she keep crying today?” mused Rickie, as if he spoke to some + mutual friend. + </p> + <p> + “I can make a guess,” said Stephen, and his heavy face flushed. + </p> + <p> + “Did you insult her?” he asked feebly. + </p> + <p> + “But who’s Gerald?” + </p> + <p> + Rickie raised his hand to his mouth. + </p> + <p> + “She looked at me as if she knew me, and then gasps ‘Gerald,’ and started + crying.” + </p> + <p> + “Gerald is the name of some one she once knew.” + </p> + <p> + “So I thought.” There was a long silence, in which they could hear a + piteous gulping cough. “Where is he now?” asked Stephen. + </p> + <p> + “Dead.” + </p> + <p> + “And then you—?” + </p> + <p> + Rickie nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Bad, this sort of thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t know of this particular thing. She acted as if she had forgotten + him. Perhaps she had, and you woke him up. There are queer tricks in the + world. She is overstrained. She has probably been plotting ever since you + burst in last night.” + </p> + <p> + “Against me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen stood irresolute. “I suppose you and she pulled together?” He said + at last. + </p> + <p> + “Get away from us, man! I mind losing you. Yet it’s as well you don’t + stop.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, THAT’S out of the question,” said Stephen, brushing his cap. + </p> + <p> + “If you’ve guessed anything, I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention it. I’ve + no right to ask, but I’d be obliged.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded, and walked slowly along the landing and down the stairs. Rickie + accompanied him, and even opened the front door. It was as if Agnes had + absorbed the passion out of both of them. The suburb was now wrapped in a + cloud, not of its own making. Sigh after sigh passed along its streets to + break against dripping walls. The school, the houses were hidden, and all + civilization seemed in abeyance. Only the simplest sounds, the simplest + desires emerged. They agreed that this weather was strange after such a + sunset. + </p> + <p> + “That’s a collie,” said Stephen, listening. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you’d have some breakfast before starting.” + </p> + <p> + “No food, thanks. But you know” He paused. “It’s all been a muddle, and + I’ve no objection to your coming along with me.” + </p> + <p> + The cloud descended lower. + </p> + <p> + “Come with me as a man,” said Stephen, already out in the mist. “Not as a + brother; who cares what people did years back? We’re alive together, and + the rest is cant. Here am I, Rickie, and there are you, a fair wreck. + They’ve no use for you here,—never had any, if the truth was known,—and + they’ve only made you beastly. This house, so to speak, has the rot. It’s + common-sense that you should come.” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, wait a minute. What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Wait’s what we won’t do,” said Stephen at the gate. + </p> + <p> + “I must ask—” + </p> + <p> + He did wait for a minute, and sobs were heard, faint, hopeless, + vindictive. Then he trudged away, and Rickie soon lost his colour and his + form. But a voice persisted, saying, “Come, I do mean it. Come; I will + take care of you, I can manage you.” + </p> + <p> + The words were kind; yet it was not for their sake that Rickie plunged + into the impalpable cloud. In the voice he had found a surer guarantee. + Habits and sex may change with the new generation, features may alter with + the play of a private passion, but a voice is apart from these. It lies + nearer to the racial essence and perhaps to the divine; it can, at all + events, overleap one grave. + </p> + <p> + XXXII + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke did not receive a clear account of what had happened when he + returned for the interval. His sister—he told her frankly—was + concealing something from him. She could make no reply. Had she gone mad, + she wondered. Hitherto she had pretended to love her husband. Why choose + such a moment for the truth? + </p> + <p> + “But I understand Rickie’s position,” he told her. “It is an unbalanced + position, yet I understand it; I noted its approach while he was ill. He + imagines himself his brother’s keeper. Therefore we must make concessions. + We must negotiate.” The negotiations were still progressing in November, + the month during which this story draws to its close. + </p> + <p> + “I understand his position,” he then told her. “It is both weak and + defiant. He is still with those Ansells. Read this letter, which thanks me + for his little stories. We sent them last month, you remember—such + of them as we could find. It seems that he fills up his time by writing: + he has already written a book.” + </p> + <p> + She only gave him half her attention, for a beautiful wreath had just + arrived from the florist’s. She was taking it up to the cemetery: today + her child had been dead a year. + </p> + <p> + “On the other hand, he has altered his will. Fortunately, he cannot alter + much. But I fear that what is not settled on you, will go. Should I read + what I wrote on this point, and also my minutes of the interview with old + Mr. Ansell, and the copy of my correspondence with Stephen Wonham?” + </p> + <p> + But her fly was announced. While he put the wreath in for her, she ran for + a moment upstairs. A few tears had come to her eyes. A scandalous divorce + would have been more bearable than this withdrawal. People asked, “Why did + her husband leave her?” and the answer came, “Oh, nothing particular; he + only couldn’t stand her; she lied and taught him to lie; she kept him from + the work that suited him, from his friends, from his brother,—in a + word, she tried to run him, which a man won’t pardon.” A few tears; not + many. To her, life never showed itself as a classic drama, in which, by + trying to advance our fortunes, we shatter them. She had turned Stephen + out of Wiltshire, and he fell like a thunderbolt on Sawston and on + herself. In trying to gain Mrs. Failing’s money she had probably lost + money which would have been her own. But irony is a subtle teacher, and + she was not the woman to learn from such lessons as these. Her suffering + was more direct. Three men had wronged her; therefore she hated them, and, + if she could, would do them harm. + </p> + <p> + “These negotiations are quite useless,” she told Herbert when she came + downstairs. “We had much better bide our time. Tell me just about Stephen + Wonham, though.” + </p> + <p> + He drew her into the study again. “Wonham is or was in Scotland, learning + to farm with connections of the Ansells: I believe the money is to go + towards setting him up. Apparently he is a hard worker. He also drinks!” + </p> + <p> + She nodded and smiled. “More than he did?” + </p> + <p> + “My informant, Mr. Tilliard—oh, I ought not to have mentioned his + name. He is one of the better sort of Rickie’s Cambridge friends, and has + been dreadfully grieved at the collapse, but he does not want to be mixed + up in it. This autumn he was up in the Lowlands, close by, and very kindly + made a few unobtrusive inquiries for me. The man is becoming an habitual + drunkard.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled again. Stephen had evoked her secret, and she hated him more + for that than for anything else that he had done. The poise of his + shoulders that morning—it was no more—had recalled Gerald. + </p> + <p> + If only she had not been so tired! He had reminded her of the greatest + thing she had known, and to her cloudy mind this seemed degradation. She + had turned to him as to her lover; with a look, which a man of his type + understood, she had asked for his pity; for one terrible moment she had + desired to be held in his arms. Even Herbert was surprised when she said, + “I’m glad he drinks. I hope he’ll kill himself. A man like that ought + never to have been born.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps the sins of the parents are visited on the children,” said + Herbert, taking her to the carriage. “Yet it is not for us to decide.” + </p> + <p> + “I feel sure he will be punished. What right has he—” She broke off. + What right had he to our common humanity? It was a hard lesson for any one + to learn. For Agnes it was impossible. Stephen was illicit, abnormal, + worse than a man diseased. Yet she had turned to him: he had drawn out the + truth. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, don’t cry,” said her brother, drawing up the windows. “I have + great hopes of Mr. Tilliard—the Silts have written—Mrs. + Failing will do what she can—” + </p> + <p> + As she drove to the cemetery, her bitterness turned against Ansell, who + had kept her husband alive in the days after Stephen’s expulsion. If he + had not been there, Rickie would have renounced his mother and his brother + and all the outer world, troubling no one. The mystic, inherent in him, + would have prevailed. So Ansell himself had told her. And Ansell, too, had + sheltered the fugitives and given them money, and saved them from the + ludicrous checks that so often stop young men. But when she reached the + cemetery, and stood beside the tiny grave, all her bitterness, all her + hatred were turned against Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “But he’ll come back in the end,” she thought. “A wife has only to wait. + What are his friends beside me? They too will marry. I have only to wait. + His book, like all that he has done, will fail. His brother is drinking + himself away. Poor aimless Rickie! I have only to keep civil. He will come + back in the end.” + </p> + <p> + She had moved, and found herself close to the grave of Gerald. The flowers + she had planted after his death were dead, and she had not liked to renew + them. There lay the athlete, and his dust was as the little child’s whom + she had brought into the world with such hope, with such pain. + </p> + <p> + XXXIII + </p> + <p> + That same day Rickie, feeling neither poor nor aimless, left the Ansells’ + for a night’s visit to Cadover. His aunt had invited him—why, he + could not think, nor could he think why he should refuse the invitation. + She could not annoy him now, and he was not vindictive. In the dell near + Madingley he had cried, “I hate no one,” in his ignorance. Now, with full + knowledge, he hated no one again. The weather was pleasant, the county + attractive, and he was ready for a little change. + </p> + <p> + Maud and Stewart saw him off. Stephen, who was down for the holiday, had + been left with his chin on the luncheon table. He had wanted to come also. + Rickie pointed out that you cannot visit where you have broken the + windows. There was an argument—there generally was—and now the + young man had turned sulky. + </p> + <p> + “Let him do what he likes,” said Ansell. “He knows more than we do. He + knows everything.” + </p> + <p> + “Is he to get drunk?” Rickie asked. + </p> + <p> + “Most certainly.” + </p> + <p> + “And to go where he isn’t asked?” + </p> + <p> + Maud, though liking a little spirit in a man, declared this to be + impossible. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I wish you joy!” Rickie called, as the train moved away. “He means + mischief this evening. He told me piously that he felt it beating up. + Good-bye!” + </p> + <p> + “But we’ll wait for you to pass,” they cried. For the Salisbury train + always backed out of the station and then returned, and the Ansell family, + including Stewart, took an incredible pleasure in seeing it do this. + </p> + <p> + The carriage was empty. Rickie settled himself down for his little + journey. First he looked at the coloured photographs. Then he read the + directions for obtaining luncheon-baskets, and felt the texture of the + cushions. Through the windows a signal-box interested him. Then he saw the + ugly little town that was now his home, and up its chief street the + Ansells’ memorable facade. The spirit of a genial comedy dwelt there. It + was so absurd, so kindly. The house was divided against itself and yet + stood. Metaphysics, commerce, social aspirations—all lived together + in harmony. Mr. Ansell had done much, but one was tempted to believe in a + more capricious power—the power that abstains from “nipping.” “One + nips or is nipped, and never knows beforehand,” quoted Rickie, and opened + the poems of Shelley, a man less foolish than you supposed. How pleasant + it was to read! If business worried him, if Stephen was noisy or Ansell + perverse, there still remained this paradise of books. It seemed as if he + had read nothing for two years. Then the train stopped for the shunting, + and he heard protests from minor officials who were working on the line. + They complained that some one who didn’t ought to, had mounted on the + footboard of the carriage. Stephen’s face appeared, convulsed with + laughter. With the action of a swimmer he dived in through the open + window, and fell comfortably on Rickie’s luggage and Rickie. He declared + it was the finest joke ever known. Rickie was not so sure. “You’ll be run + over next,” he said. “What did you do that for?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m coming with you,” he giggled, rolling all that he could on to the + dusty floor. + </p> + <p> + “Now, Stephen, this is too bad. Get up. We went into the whole question + yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “I know; and I settled we wouldn’t go into it again, spoiling my holiday.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it’s execrable taste.” + </p> + <p> + Now he was waving to the Ansells, and showing them a piece of soap: it was + all his luggage, and even that he abandoned, for he flung it at Stewart’s + lofty brow. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t think what you’ve done it for. You know how strongly I felt.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen replied that he should stop in the village; meet Rickie at the + lodge gates; that kind of thing. + </p> + <p> + “It’s execrable taste,” he repeated, trying to keep grave. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you did all you could,” he exclaimed with sudden sympathy. “Leaving + me talking to old Ansell, you might have thought you’d got your way. I’ve + as much taste as most chaps, but, hang it! your aunt isn’t the German + Emperor. She doesn’t own Wiltshire.” + </p> + <p> + “You ass!” sputtered Rickie, who had taken to laugh at nonsense again. + </p> + <p> + “No, she isn’t,” he repeated, blowing a kiss out of the window to maidens. + “Why, we started for Wiltshire on the wet morning!” + </p> + <p> + “When Stewart found us at Sawston railway station?” He smiled happily. “I + never thought we should pull through.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, we DIDN’T. We never did what we meant. It’s nonsense that I + couldn’t have managed you alone. I’ve a notion. Slip out after your dinner + this evening, and we’ll get thundering tight together.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve a notion I won’t.” + </p> + <p> + “It’d do you no end of good. You’ll get to know people—shepherds, + carters—” He waved his arms vaguely, indicating democracy. “Then + you’ll sing.” + </p> + <p> + “And then?” + </p> + <p> + “Plop.” + </p> + <p> + “Precisely.” + </p> + <p> + “But I’ll catch you,” promised Stephen. “We shall carry you up the hill to + bed. In the morning you wake, have your row with old Em’ly, she kicks you + out, we meet—we’ll meet at the Rings!” He danced up and down the + carriage. Some one in the next carriage punched at the partition, and when + this happens, all lads with mettle know that they must punch the partition + back. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you. I’ve a notion I won’t,” said Rickie when the noise had + subsided—subsided for a moment only, for the following conversation + took place to an accompaniment of dust and bangs. “Except as regards the + Rings. We will meet there.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’ll get tight by myself.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you won’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I will. I swore to do something special this evening. I feel like + it.” + </p> + <p> + “In that case, I get out at the next station.” He was laughing, but quite + determined. Stephen had grown too dictatorial of late. The Ansells spoilt + him. “It’s bad enough having you there at all. Having you there drunk is + impossible. I’d sooner not visit my aunt than think, when I sat with her, + that you’re down in the village teaching her labourers to be as beastly as + yourself. Go if you will. But not with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Why shouldn’t I have a good time while I’m young, if I don’t harm any + one?” said Stephen defiantly. + </p> + <p> + “Need we discuss self.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I can stop myself any minute I choose. I just say ‘I won’t’ to you or + any other fool, and I don’t.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie knew that the boast was true. He continued, “There is also a thing + called Morality. You may learn in the Bible, and also from the Greeks, + that your body is a temple.” + </p> + <p> + “So you said in your longest letter.” + </p> + <p> + “Probably I wrote like a prig, for the reason that I have never been + tempted in this way; but surely it is wrong that your body should escape + you.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t follow,” he retorted, punching. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t right, even for a little time, to forget that you exist.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you’ve never been tempted to go to sleep?” + </p> + <p> + Just then the train passed through a coppice in which the grey undergrowth + looked no more alive than firewood. Yet every twig in it was waiting for + the spring. Rickie knew that the analogy was false, but argument confused + him, and he gave up this line of attack also. + </p> + <p> + “Do be more careful over life. If your body escapes you in one thing, why + not in more? A man will have other temptations.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean women,” said Stephen quietly, pausing for a moment in this game. + “But that’s absolutely different. That would be harming some one else.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that the only thing that keeps you straight?” + </p> + <p> + “What else should?” And he looked not into Rickie, but past him, with the + wondering eyes of a child. Rickie nodded, and referred himself to the + window. + </p> + <p> + He observed that the country was smoother and more plastic. The woods had + gone, and under a pale-blue sky long contours of earth were flowing, and + merging, rising a little to bear some coronal of beeches, parting a little + to disclose some green valley, where cottages stood under elms or beside + translucent waters. It was Wiltshire at last. The train had entered the + chalk. At last it slackened at a wayside platform. Without speaking he + opened the door. + </p> + <p> + “What’s that for?” + </p> + <p> + “To go back.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen had forgotten the threat. He said that this was not playing the + game. + </p> + <p> + “Surely!” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t have you going back.” + </p> + <p> + “Promise to behave decently then.” + </p> + <p> + He was seized and pulled away from the door. + </p> + <p> + “We change at Salisbury,” he remarked. “There is an hour to wait. You will + find me troublesome.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t fair,” exploded Stephen. “It’s a lowdown trick. How can I let + you go back?” + </p> + <p> + “Promise, then.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, yes, yes. Y.M.C.A. But for this occasion only.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no. For the rest of your holiday.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. Very well. I promise.” + </p> + <p> + “For the rest of your life?” + </p> + <p> + Somehow it pleased him that Stephen should bang him crossly with his elbow + and say, “No. Get out. You’ve gone too far.” So had the train. The porter + at the end of the wayside platform slammed the door, and they proceeded + toward Salisbury through the slowly modulating downs. Rickie pretended to + read. Over the book he watched his brother’s face, and wondered how bad + temper could be consistent with a mind so radiant. In spite of his + obstinacy and conceit, Stephen was an easy person to live with. He never + fidgeted or nursed hidden grievances, or indulged in a shoddy pride. + Though he spent Rickie’s money as slowly as he could, he asked for it + without apology: “You must put it down against me,” he would say. In time—it + was still very vague—he would rent or purchase a farm. There is no + formula in which we may sum up decent people. So Ansell had preached, and + had of course proceeded to offer a formula: “They must be serious, they + must be truthful.” Serious not in the sense of glum; but they must be + convinced that our life is a state of some importance, and our earth not a + place to beat time on. Of so much Stephen was convinced: he showed it in + his work, in his play, in his self-respect, and above all—though the + fact is hard to face-in his sacred passion for alcohol. Drink, today, is + an unlovely thing. Between us and the heights of Cithaeron the river of + sin now flows. Yet the cries still call from the mountain, and granted a + man has responded to them, it is better he respond with the candour of the + Greek. + </p> + <p> + “I shall stop at the Thompsons’ now,” said the disappointed reveller. + “Prayers.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie did not press his triumph, but it was a happy moment, partly + because of the triumph, partly because he was sure that his brother must + care for him. Stephen was too selfish to give up any pleasure without + grave reasons. He was certain that he had been right to disentangle + himself from Sawston, and to ignore the threats and tears that still + tempted him to return. Here there was real work for him to do. Moreover, + though he sought no reward, it had come. His health was better, his brain + sound, his life washed clean, not by the waters of sentiment, but by the + efforts of a fellow-man. Stephen was man first, brother afterwards. Herein + lay his brutality and also his virtue. “Look me in the face. Don’t hang on + me clothes that don’t belong—as you did on your wife, giving her + saint’s robes, whereas she was simply a woman of her own sort, who needed + careful watching. Tear up the photographs. Here am I, and there are you. + The rest is cant.” The rest was not cant, and perhaps Stephen would + confess as much in time. But Rickie needed a tonic, and a man, not a + brother, must hold it to his lips. + </p> + <p> + “I see the old spire,” he called, and then added, “I don’t mind seeing it + again.” + </p> + <p> + “No one does, as far as I know. People have come from the other side of + the world to see it again.” + </p> + <p> + “Pious people. But I don’t hold with bishops.” He was young enough to be + uneasy. The cathedral, a fount of superstition, must find no place in his + life. At the age of twenty he had settled things. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got my own philosophy,” he once told Ansell, “and I don’t care a + straw about yours.” Ansell’s mirth had annoyed him not a little. And it + was strange that one so settled should feel his heart leap up at the sight + of an old spire. “I regard it as a public building,” he told Rickie, who + agreed. “It’s useful, too, as a landmark.” His attitude today was + defensive. It was part of a subtle change that Rickie had noted in him + since his return from Scotland. His face gave hints of a new maturity. + “You can see the old spire from the Ridgeway,” he said, suddenly laying a + hand on Rickie’s knee, “before rain as clearly as any telegraph post.” + </p> + <p> + “How far is the Ridgeway?” + </p> + <p> + “Seventeen miles.” + </p> + <p> + “Which direction?” + </p> + <p> + “North, naturally. North again from that you see Devizes, the vale of + Pewsey, and the other downs. Also towards Bath. It is something of a view. + You ought to get on the Ridgeway.” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t have time for that.” + </p> + <p> + “Or Beacon Hill. Or let’s do Stonehenge.” + </p> + <p> + “If it’s fine, I suggest the Rings.” + </p> + <p> + “It will be fine.” Then he murmured the names of villages. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you could live here,” said Rickie kindly. “I believe you love + these particular acres more than the whole world.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen replied that this was not the case: he was only used to them. He + wished they were driving out, instead of waiting for the Cadchurch train. + </p> + <p> + They had advanced into Salisbury, and the cathedral, a public building, + was grey against a tender sky. Rickie suggested that, while waiting for + the train, they should visit it. He spoke of the incomparable north porch. + “I’ve never been inside it, and I never will. Sorry to shock you, Rickie, + but I must tell you plainly. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in anything.” + </p> + <p> + “I do,” said Rickie. + </p> + <p> + “When a man dies, it’s as if he’s never been,” he asserted. The train drew + up in Salisbury station. Here a little incident took place which caused + them to alter their plans. + </p> + <p> + They found outside the station a trap driven by a small boy, who had come + in from Cadford to fetch some wire-netting. “That’ll do us,” said Stephen, + and called to the boy, “If I pay your railway-ticket back, and if I give + you sixpence as well, will you let us drive back in the trap?” The boy + said no. “It will be all right,” said Rickie. “I am Mrs. Failing’s + nephew.” The boy shook his head. “And you know Mr. Wonham?” The boy + couldn’t say he didn’t. “Then what’s your objection? Why? What is it? Why + not?” But Stephen leant against the time-tables and spoke of other + matters. + </p> + <p> + Presently the boy said, “Did you say you’d pay my railway-ticket back, Mr. + Wonham?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said a bystander. “Didn’t you hear him?” + </p> + <p> + “I heard him right enough.” + </p> + <p> + Now Stephen laid his hand on the splash-board, saying, “What I want, + though, is this trap here of yours, see, to drive in back myself;” and as + he spoke the bystander followed him in canon, “What he wants, though, is + that there trap of yours, see, to drive hisself back in.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve no objection,” said the boy, as if deeply offended. For a time he + sat motionless, and then got down, remarking, “I won’t rob you of your + sixpence.” + </p> + <p> + “Silly little fool,” snapped Rickie, as they drove through the town. + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked surprised. “What’s wrong with the boy? He had to think it + over. No one had asked him to do such a thing before. Next time he’d let + us have the trap quick enough.” + </p> + <p> + “Not if he had driven in for a cabbage instead of wire-netting.” + </p> + <p> + “He never would drive in for a cabbage.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie shuffled his feet. But his irritation passed. He saw that the + little incident had been a quiet challenge to the civilization that he had + known. “Organize.” “Systematize.” “Fill up every moment,” “Induce esprit + de corps.” He reviewed the watchwords of the last two years, and found + that they ignored personal contest, personal truces, personal love. By + following them Sawston School had lost its quiet usefulness and become a + frothy sea, wherein plunged Dunwood House, that unnecessary ship. Humbled, + he turned to Stephen and said, “No, you’re right. Nothing is wrong with + the boy. He was honestly thinking it out.” But Stephen had forgotten the + incident, or else he was not inclined to talk about it. His assertive fit + was over. + </p> + <p> + The direct road from Salisbury to Cadover is extremely dull. The city—which + God intended to keep by the river; did she not move there, being thirsty, + in the reign of William Rufus?—the city had strayed out of her own + plain, climbed up her slopes, and tumbled over them in ugly cataracts of + brick. The cataracts are still short, and doubtless they meet or create + some commercial need. But instead of looking towards the cathedral, as all + the city should, they look outwards at a pagan entrenchment, as the city + should not. They neglect the poise of the earth, and the sentiments she + has decreed. They are the modern spirit. + </p> + <p> + Through them the road descends into an unobtrusive country where, + nevertheless, the power of the earth grows stronger. Streams do divide. + Distances do still exist. It is easier to know the men in your valley than + those who live in the next, across a waste of down. It is easier to know + men well. The country is not paradise, and can show the vices that grieve + a good man everywhere. But there is room in it, and leisure. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” said Rickie as the twilight fell, “this kind of thing is + going on all over England.” Perhaps he meant that towns are after all + excrescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying to find one another, have + lost themselves. But he got no response, and expected none. Turning round + in his seat, he watched the winter sun slide out of a quiet sky. The + horizon was primrose, and the earth against it gave momentary hints of + purple. All faded: no pageant would conclude the gracious day, and when he + turned eastward the night was already established. + </p> + <p> + “Those verlands—” said Stephen, scarcely above his breath. + </p> + <p> + “What are verlands?” + </p> + <p> + He pointed at the dusk, and said, “Our name for a kind of field.” Then he + drove his whip into its socket, and seemed to swallow something. Rickie, + straining his eyes for verlands, could only see a tumbling wilderness of + brown. + </p> + <p> + “Are there many local words?” + </p> + <p> + “There have been.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose they die out.” + </p> + <p> + The conversation turned curiously. In the tone of one who replies, he + said, “I expect that some time or other I shall marry.” + </p> + <p> + “I expect you will,” said Rickie, and wondered a little why the reply + seemed not abrupt. “Would we see the Rings in the daytime from here?” + </p> + <p> + “(We do see them.) But Mrs. Failing once said no decent woman would have + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you agree to that?” + </p> + <p> + “Drive a little, will you?” + </p> + <p> + The horse went slowly forward into the wilderness, that turned from brown + to black. Then a luminous glimmer surrounded them, and the air grew + cooler: the road was descending between parapets of chalk. + </p> + <p> + “But, Rickie, mightn’t I find a girl—naturally not refined—and + be happy with her in my own way? I would tell her straight I was nothing + much—faithful, of course, but that she should never have all my + thoughts. Out of no disrespect to her, but because all one’s thoughts + can’t belong to any single person.” + </p> + <p> + While he spoke even the road vanished, and invisible water came gurgling + through the wheel-spokes. The horse had chosen the ford. “You can’t own + people. At least a fellow can’t. It may be different for a poet. (Let the + horse drink.) And I want to marry some one, and don’t yet know who she is, + which a poet again will tell you is disgusting. Does it disgust you? Being + nothing much, surely I’d better go gently. For it’s something rather + outside that makes one marry, if you follow me: not exactly oneself. + (Don’t hurry the horse.) We want to marry, and yet—I can’t explain. + I fancy I’ll go wading: this is our stream.” + </p> + <p> + Romantic love is greater than this. There are men and women—we know + it from history—who have been born into the world for each other, + and for no one else, who have accomplished the longest journey locked in + each other’s arms. But romantic love is also the code of modern morals, + and, for this reason, popular. Eternal union, eternal ownership—these + are tempting baits for the average man. He swallows them, will not confess + his mistake, and—perhaps to cover it—cries “dirty cynic” at + such a man as Stephen. + </p> + <p> + Rickie watched the black earth unite to the black sky. But the sky + overhead grew clearer, and in it twinkled the Plough and the central + stars. He thought of his brother’s future and of his own past, and of how + much truth might lie in that antithesis of Ansell’s: “A man wants to love + mankind, a woman wants to love one man.” At all events, he and his wife + had illustrated it, and perhaps the conflict, so tragic in their own case, + was elsewhere the salt of the world. Meanwhile Stephen called from the + water for matches: there was some trick with paper which Mr. Failing had + showed him, and which he would show Rickie now, instead of talking + nonsense. Bending down, he illuminated the dimpled surface of the ford. + “Quite a current.” he said, and his face flickered out in the darkness. + “Yes, give me the loose paper, quick! Crumple it into a ball.” + </p> + <p> + Rickie obeyed, though intent on the transfigured face. He believed that a + new spirit dwelt there, expelling the crudities of youth. He saw steadier + eyes, and the sign of manhood set like a bar of gold upon steadier lips. + Some faces are knit by beauty, or by intellect, or by a great passion: had + Stephen’s waited for the touch of the years? + </p> + <p> + But they played as boys who continued the nonsense of the railway + carriage. The paper caught fire from the match, and spread into a rose of + flame. “Now gently with me,” said Stephen, and they laid it flowerlike on + the stream. Gravel and tremulous weeds leapt into sight, and then the + flower sailed into deep water, and up leapt the two arches of a bridge. + “It’ll strike!” they cried; “no, it won’t; it’s chosen the left,” and one + arch became a fairy tunnel, dropping diamonds. Then it vanished for + Rickie; but Stephen, who knelt in the water, declared that it was still + afloat, far through the arch, burning as if it would burn forever. + </p> + <p> + XXXIV + </p> + <p> + The carriage that Mrs. Failing had sent to meet her nephew returned from + Cadchurch station empty. She was preparing for a solitary dinner when he + somehow arrived, full of apologies, but more sedate than she had expected. + She cut his explanations short. “Never mind how you got here. You are + here, and I am quite pleased to see you.” He changed his clothes and they + proceeded to the dining-room. + </p> + <p> + There was a bright fire, but the curtains were not drawn. Mr. Failing had + believed that windows with the night behind are more beautiful than any + pictures, and his widow had kept to the custom. It was brave of her to + persevere, lumps of chalk having come out of the night last June. For some + obscure reason—not so obscure to Rickie—she had preserved them + as mementoes of an episode. Seeing them in a row on the mantelpiece, he + expected that their first topic would be Stephen. But they never mentioned + him, though he was latent in all that they said. + </p> + <p> + It was of Mr. Failing that they spoke. The Essays had been a success. She + was really pleased. The book was brought in at her request, and between + the courses she read it aloud to her nephew, in her soft yet unsympathetic + voice. Then she sent for the press notices—after all no one despises + them—and read their comments on her introduction. She wielded a + graceful pen, was apt, adequate, suggestive, indispensable, unnecessary. + So the meal passed pleasantly away, for no one could so well combine the + formal with the unconventional, and it only seemed charming when papers + littered her stately table. + </p> + <p> + “My man wrote very nicely,” she observed. “Now, you read me something out + of him that you like. Read ‘The True Patriot.’” + </p> + <p> + He took the book and found: “Let us love one another. Let our children, + physical and spiritual, love one another. It is all that we can do. + Perhaps the earth will neglect our love. Perhaps she will confirm it, and + suffer some rallying-point, spire, mound, for the new generations to + cherish.” + </p> + <p> + “He wrote that when he was young. Later on he doubted whether we had + better love one another, or whether the earth will confirm anything. He + died a most unhappy man.” + </p> + <p> + He could not help saying, “Not knowing that the earth had confirmed him.” + </p> + <p> + “Has she? It is quite possible. We meet so seldom in these days, she and + I. Do you see much of the earth?” + </p> + <p> + “A little.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you expect that she will confirm you?” + </p> + <p> + “It is quite possible.” + </p> + <p> + “Beware of her, Rickie, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “I think not.” + </p> + <p> + “Beware of her, surely. Going back to her really is going back—throwing + away the artificiality which (though you young people won’t confess it) is + the only good thing in life. Don’t pretend you are simple. Once I + pretended. Don’t pretend that you care for anything but for clever talk + such as this, and for books.” + </p> + <p> + “The talk,” said Leighton afterwards, “certainly was clever. But it meant + something, all the same.” He heard no more, for his mistress told him to + retire. + </p> + <p> + “And my nephew, this being so, make up your quarrel with your wife.” She + stretched out her hand to him with real feeling. “It is easier now than it + will be later. Poor lady, she has written to me foolishly and often, but, + on the whole, I side with her against you. She would grant you all that + you fought for—all the people, all the theories. I have it, in her + writing, that she will never interfere with your life again.” + </p> + <p> + “She cannot help interfering,” said Rickie, with his eyes on the black + windows. “She despises me. Besides, I do not love her.” + </p> + <p> + “I know, my dear. Nor she you. I am not being sentimental. I say once + more, beware of the earth. We are conventional people, and conventions—if + you will but see it—are majestic in their way, and will claim us in + the end. We do not live for great passions or for great memories, or for + anything great.” + </p> + <p> + He threw up his head. “We do.” + </p> + <p> + “Now listen to me. I am serious and friendly tonight, as you must have + observed. I have asked you here partly to amuse myself—you belong to + my March Past—but also to give you good advice. There has been a + volcano—a phenomenon which I too once greatly admired. The eruption + is over. Let the conventions do their work now, and clear the rubbish + away. My age is fifty-nine, and I tell you solemnly that the important + things in life are little things, and that people are not important at + all. Go back to your wife.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her, and was filled with pity. He knew that he would never be + frightened of her again. Only because she was serious and friendly did he + trouble himself to reply. “There is one little fact I should like to tell + you, as confuting your theory. The idea of a story—a long story—had + been in my head for a year. As a dream to amuse myself—the kind of + amusement you would recommend for the future. I should have had time to + write it, but the people round me coloured my life, and so it never seemed + worth while. For the story is not likely to pay. Then came the volcano. A + few days after it was over I lay in bed looking out upon a world of + rubbish. Two men I know—one intellectual, the other very much the + reverse—burst into the room. They said, ‘What happened to your short + stories? They weren’t good, but where are they? Why have you stopped + writing? Why haven’t you been to Italy? You must write. You must go. + Because to write, to go, is you.’ Well, I have written, and yesterday we + sent the long story out on its rounds. The men do not like it, for + different reasons. But it mattered very much to them that I should write + it, and so it got written. As I told you, this is only one fact; other + facts, I trust, have happened in the last five months. But I mention it to + prove that people are important, and therefore, however much it + inconveniences my wife, I will not go back to her.” + </p> + <p> + “And Italy?” asked Mrs. Failing. + </p> + <p> + This question he avoided. Italy must wait. Now that he had the time, he + had not the money. + </p> + <p> + “Or what is the long story about, then?” + </p> + <p> + “About a man and a woman who meet and are happy.” + </p> + <p> + “Somewhat of a tour de force, I conclude.” + </p> + <p> + He frowned. “In literature we needn’t intrude our own limitations. I’m not + so silly as to think that all marriages turn out like mine. My character + is to blame for our catastrophe, not marriage.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear, I too have married; marriage is to blame.” + </p> + <p> + But here again he seemed to know better. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she said, leaving the table and moving with her dessert to the + mantelpiece, “so you are abandoning marriage and taking to literature. And + are happy.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Because, as we used to say at Cambridge, the cow is there. The world is + real again. This is a room, that a window, outside is the night.” + </p> + <p> + “Go on.” + </p> + <p> + He pointed to the floor. “The day is straight below, shining through other + windows into other rooms.” + </p> + <p> + “You are very odd,” she said after a pause, “and I do not like you at all. + There you sit, eating my biscuits, and all the time you know that the + earth is round. Who taught you? I am going to bed now, and all the night, + you tell me, you and I and the biscuits go plunging eastwards, until we + reach the sun. But breakfast will be at nine as usual. Good-night.” + </p> + <p> + She rang the bell twice, and her maid came with her candle and her + walking-stick: it was her habit of late to go to her room as soon as + dinner was over, for she had no one to sit up with. Rickie was impressed + by her loneliness, and also by the mixture in her of insight and + obtuseness. She was so quick, so clear-headed, so imaginative even. But + all the same, she had forgotten what people were like. Finding life dull, + she had dropped lies into it, as a chemist drops a new element into a + solution, hoping that life would thereby sparkle or turn some beautiful + colour. She loved to mislead others, and in the end her private view of + false and true was obscured, and she misled herself. How she must have + enjoyed their errors over Stephen! But her own error had been greater, + inasmuch as it was spiritual entirely. + </p> + <p> + Leighton came in with some coffee. Feeling it unnecessary to light the + drawing-room lamp for one small young man, he persuaded Rickie to say he + preferred the dining-room. So Rickie sat down by the fire playing with one + of the lumps of chalk. His thoughts went back to the ford, from which they + had scarcely wandered. Still he heard the horse in the dark drinking, + still he saw the mystic rose, and the tunnel dropping diamonds. He had + driven away alone, believing the earth had confirmed him. He stood behind + things at last, and knew that conventions are not majestic, and that they + will not claim us in the end. + </p> + <p> + As he mused, the chalk slipped from his fingers, and fell on the + coffee-cup, which broke. The china, said Leighton, was expensive. He + believed it was impossible to match it now. Each cup was different. It was + a harlequin set. The saucer, without the cup, was therefore useless. Would + Mr. Elliot please explain to Mrs. Failing how it happened. + </p> + <p> + Rickie promised he would explain. + </p> + <p> + He had left Stephen preparing to bathe, and had heard him working + up-stream like an animal, splashing in the shallows, breathing heavily as + he swam the pools; at times reeds snapped, or clods of earth were pulled + in. By the fire he remembered it was again November. “Should you like a + walk?” he asked Leighton, and told him who stopped in the village tonight. + Leighton was pleased. At nine o’clock the two young men left the house, + under a sky that was still only bright in the zenith. “It will rain + tomorrow,” Leighton said. + </p> + <p> + “My brother says, fine tomorrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Fine tomorrow,” Leighton echoed. + </p> + <p> + “Now which do you mean?” asked Rickie, laughing. + </p> + <p> + Since the plumes of the fir-trees touched over the drive, only a very + little light penetrated. It was clearer outside the lodge gate, and + bubbles of air, which Wiltshire seemed to have travelled from an immense + distance, broke gently and separately on his face. They paused on the + bridge. He asked whether the little fish and the bright green weeds were + here now as well as in the summer. The footman had not noticed. Over the + bridge they came to the cross-roads, of which one led to Salisbury and the + other up through the string of villages to the railway station. The road + in front was only the Roman road, the one that went on to the downs. + Turning to the left, they were in Cadford. + </p> + <p> + “He will be with the Thompsons,” said Rickie, looking up at dark eaves. + “Perhaps he’s in bed already.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps he will be at The Antelope.” + </p> + <p> + “No. Tonight he is with the Thompsons.” + </p> + <p> + “With the Thompsons.” After a dozen paces he said, “The Thompsons have + gone away.” + </p> + <p> + “Where? Why?” + </p> + <p> + “They were turned out by Mr. Wilbraham on account of our broken windows.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you sure?” + </p> + <p> + “Five families were turned out.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s bad for Stephen,” said Rickie, after a pause. “He was looking + forward—oh, it’s monstrous in any case!” + </p> + <p> + “But the Thompsons have gone to London,” said Leighton. “Why, that family—they + say it’s been in the valley hundreds of years, and never got beyond + shepherding. To various parts of London.” + </p> + <p> + “Let us try The Antelope, then.” + </p> + <p> + “Let us try The Antelope.” + </p> + <p> + The inn lay up in the village. Rickie hastened his pace. This tyranny was + monstrous. Some men of the age of undergraduates had broken windows, and + therefore they and their families were to be ruined. The fools who govern + us find it easier to be severe. It saves them trouble to say, “The + innocent must suffer with the guilty.” It even gives them a thrill of + pride. Against all this wicked nonsense, against the Wilbrahams and + Pembrokes who try to rule our world Stephen would fight till he died. + Stephen was a hero. He was a law to himself, and rightly. He was great + enough to despise our small moralities. He was attaining love. This + evening Rickie caught Ansell’s enthusiasm, and felt it worth while to + sacrifice everything for such a man. + </p> + <p> + “The Antelope,” said Leighton. “Those lights under the greatest elm.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you please ask if he’s there, and if he’d come for a turn with me. + I don’t think I’ll go in.” + </p> + <p> + Leighton opened the door. They saw a little room, blue with tobacco-smoke. + Flanking the fire were deep settles hiding all but the legs of the men who + lounged in them. Between the settles stood a table, covered with mugs and + glasses. The scene was picturesque—fairer than the cutglass palaces + of the town. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, he’s there,” he called, and after a moment’s hesitation came out. + </p> + <p> + “Would he come?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I shouldn’t say so,” replied Leighton, with a furtive glance. He knew + that Rickie was a milksop. “First night, you know, sir, among old + friends.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know,” said Rickie. “But he might like a turn down the village. It + looks stuffy inside there, and poor fun probably to watch others + drinking.” + </p> + <p> + Leighton shut the door. + </p> + <p> + “What was that he called after you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nothing. A man when he’s drunk—he says the worst he’s ever + heard. At least, so they say.” + </p> + <p> + “A man when he’s drunk?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Sir.” + </p> + <p> + “But Stephen isn’t drinking?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no.” + </p> + <p> + “He couldn’t be. If he broke a promise—I don’t pretend he’s a saint. + I don’t want him one. But it isn’t in him to break a promise.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir; I understand.” + </p> + <p> + “In the train he promised me not to drink—nothing theatrical: just a + promise for these few days.” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir.” “‘No, sir,’” stamped Rickie. “‘Yes! no! yes!’ Can’t you speak + out? Is he drunk or isn’t he?” + </p> + <p> + Leighton, justly exasperated, cried, “He can’t stand, and I’ve told you so + again and again.” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen!” shouted Rickie, darting up the steps. Heat and the smell of + beer awaited him, and he spoke more furiously than he had intended. “Is + there any one here who’s sober?” he cried. The landlord looked over the + bar angrily, and asked him what he meant. He pointed to the deep settles. + “Inside there he’s drunk. Tell him he’s broken his word, and I will not go + with him to the Rings.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well. You won’t go with him to the Rings,” said the landlord, + stepping forward and slamming the door in his face. + </p> + <p> + In the room he was only angry, but out in the cool air he remembered that + Stephen was a law to himself. He had chosen to break his word, and would + break it again. Nothing else bound him. To yield to temptation is not + fatal for most of us. But it was the end of everything for a hero. + </p> + <p> + “He’s suddenly ruined!” he cried, not yet remembering himself. For a + little he stood by the elm-tree, clutching the ridges of its bark. Even so + would he wrestle tomorrow, and Stephen, imperturbable, reply, “My body is + my own.” Or worse still, he might wrestle with a pliant Stephen who + promised him glibly again. While he prayed for a miracle to convert his + brother, it struck him that he must pray for himself. For he, too, was + ruined. + </p> + <p> + “Why, what’s the matter?” asked Leighton. “Stephen’s only being with + friends. Mr. Elliot, sir, don’t break down. Nothing’s happened bad. No + one’s died yet, or even hurt themselves.” Ever kind, he took hold of + Rickie’s arm, and, pitying such a nervous fellow, set out with him for + home. The shoulders of Orion rose behind them over the topmost boughs of + the elm. From the bridge the whole constellation was visible, and Rickie + said, “May God receive me and pardon me for trusting the earth.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Mr. Elliot, what have you done that’s wrong?” + </p> + <p> + “Gone bankrupt, Leighton, for the second time. Pretended again that people + were real. May God have mercy on me!” + </p> + <p> + Leighton dropped his arm. Though he did not understand, a chill of disgust + passed over him, and he said, “I will go back to The Antelope. I will help + them put Stephen to bed.” + </p> + <p> + “Do. I will wait for you here.” Then he leant against the parapet and + prayed passionately, for he knew that the conventions would claim him + soon. God was beyond them, but ah, how far beyond, and to be reached after + what degradation! At the end of this childish detour his wife awaited him, + not less surely because she was only his wife in name. He was too weak. + Books and friends were not enough. Little by little she would claim him + and corrupt him and make him what he had been; and the woman he loved + would die out, in drunkenness, in debauchery, and her strength would be + dissipated by a man, her beauty defiled in a man. She would not continue. + That mystic rose and the face it illumined meant nothing. The stream—he + was above it now—meant nothing, though it burst from the pure turf + and ran for ever to the sea. The bather, the shoulders of Orion-they all + meant nothing, and were going nowhere. The whole affair was a ridiculous + dream. + </p> + <p> + Leighton returned, saying, “Haven’t you seen Stephen? They say he followed + us: he can still walk: I told you he wasn’t so bad.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think he passed me. Ought one to look?” He wandered a little + along the Roman road. Again nothing mattered. At the level-crossing he + leant on the gate to watch a slow goods train pass. In the glare of the + engine he saw that his brother had come this way, perhaps through some + sodden memory of the Rings, and now lay drunk over the rails. Wearily he + did a man’s duty. There was time to raise him up and push him into safety. + It is also a man’s duty to save his own life, and therefore he tried. The + train went over his knees. He died up in Cadover, whispering, “You have + been right,” to Mrs. Failing. + </p> + <p> + She wrote of him to Mrs. Lewin afterwards as “one who has failed in all he + undertook; one of the thousands whose dust returns to the dust, + accomplishing nothing in the interval. Agnes and I buried him to the sound + of our cracked bell, and pretended that he had once been alive. The other, + who was always honest, kept away.” + </p> + <p> + XXXV + </p> + <p> + From the window they looked over a sober valley, whose sides were not too + sloping to be ploughed, and whose trend was followed by a grass-grown + track. It was late on Sunday afternoon, and the valley was deserted except + for one labourer, who was coasting slowly downward on a rosy bicycle. The + air was very quiet. A jay screamed up in the woods behind, but the + ring-doves, who roost early, were already silent. Since the window opened + westward, the room was flooded with light, and Stephen, finding it hot, + was working in his shirtsleeves. + </p> + <p> + “You guarantee they’ll sell?” he asked, with a pen between his teeth. He + was tidying up a pile of manuscripts. + </p> + <p> + “I guarantee that the world will be the gainer,” said Mr. Pembroke, now a + clergyman, who sat beside him at the table with an expression of refined + disapproval on his face. + </p> + <p> + “I’d got the idea that the long story had its points, but that these + shorter things didn’t—what’s the word?” + </p> + <p> + “‘Convince’ is probably the word you want. But that type of criticism is + quite a thing of the past. Have you seen the illustrated American + edition?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t remember.” + </p> + <p> + “Might I send you a copy? I think you ought to possess one.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you.” His eye wandered. The bicycle had disappeared into some + trees, and thither, through a cloudless sky, the sun was also descending. + </p> + <p> + “Is all quite plain?” said Mr. Pembroke. “Submit these ten stories to the + magazines, and make your own terms with the editors. Then—I have + your word for it—you will join forces with me; and the four stories + in my possession, together with yours, should make up a volume, which we + might well call ‘Pan Pipes.’” + </p> + <p> + “Are you sure `Pan Pipes’ haven’t been used up already?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke clenched his teeth. He had been bearing with this sort of + thing for nearly an hour. “If that is the case, we can select another. A + title is easy to come by. But that is the idea it must suggest. The + stories, as I have twice explained to you, all centre round a Nature + theme. Pan, being the god of—” + </p> + <p> + “I know that,” said Stephen impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “—Being the god of—” + </p> + <p> + “All right. Let’s get furrard. I’ve learnt that.” + </p> + <p> + It was years since the schoolmaster had been interrupted, and he could not + stand it. “Very well,” he said. “I bow to your superior knowledge of the + classics. Let us proceed.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes the introduction. There must be one. It was the introduction with + all those wrong details that sold the other book.” + </p> + <p> + “You overwhelm me. I never penned the memoir with that intention.” + </p> + <p> + “If you won’t do one, Mrs. Keynes must!” + </p> + <p> + “My sister leads a busy life. I could not ask her. I will do it myself + since you insist.” + </p> + <p> + “And the binding?” + </p> + <p> + “The binding,” said Mr. Pembroke coldly, “must really be left to the + discretion of the publisher. We cannot be concerned with such details. Our + task is purely literary.” His attention wandered. He began to fidget, and + finally bent down and looked under the table. “What have we here?” he + asked. + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked also, and for a moment they smiled at each other over the + prostrate figure of a child, who was cuddling Mr. Pembroke’s boots. “She’s + after the blacking,” he explained. “If we left her there, she’d lick them + brown.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed. Is that so very safe?” + </p> + <p> + “It never did me any harm. Come up! Your tongue’s dirty.” + </p> + <p> + “Can I—” She was understood to ask whether she could clean her + tongue on a lollie. + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” said Mr. Pembroke. “Lollipops don’t clean little girls’ + tongues.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, they do,” he retorted. “But she won’t get one.” He lifted her on his + knee, and rasped her tongue with his handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + “Dear little thing,” said the visitor perfunctorily. The child began to + squall, and kicked her father in the stomach. Stephen regarded her + quietly. “You tried to hurt me,” he said. “Hurting doesn’t count. Trying + to hurt counts. Go and clean your tongue yourself. Get off my knee.” Tears + of another sort came into her eyes, but she obeyed him. “How’s the great + Bertie?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you. My nephew is perfectly well. How came you to hear of his + existence?” + </p> + <p> + “Through the Silts, of course. It isn’t five miles to Cadover.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke raised his eyes mournfully. “I cannot conceive how the poor + Silts go on in that great house. Whatever she intended, it could not have + been that. The house, the farm, the money,—everything down to the + personal articles that belong to Mr. Failing, and should have reverted to + his family!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s legal. Interstate succession.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not dispute it. But it is a lesson to one to make a will. Mrs. + Keynes and myself were electrified.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ll do there. They offered me the agency, but—” He looked down + the cultivated slopes. His manners were growing rough, for he saw few + gentlemen now, and he was either incoherent or else alarmingly direct. + “However, if Lawrie Silt’s a Cockney like his father, and if my next is a + boy and like me—” A shy beautiful look came into his eyes, and + passed unnoticed. “They’ll do,” he repeated. “They turned out Wilbraham + and built new cottages, and bridged the railway, and made other necessary + alterations.” There was a moment’s silence. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke took out his watch. “I wonder if I might have the trap? I + mustn’t miss my train, must I? It is good of you to have granted me an + interview. It is all quite plain?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “A case of half and half-division of profits.” + </p> + <p> + “Half and half?” said the young farmer slowly. “What do you take me for? + Half and half, when I provide ten of the stories and you only four?” + </p> + <p> + “I—I—” stammered Mr. Pembroke. + </p> + <p> + “I consider you did me over the long story, and I’m damned if you do me + over the short ones!” + </p> + <p> + “Hush! if you please, hush!—if only for your little girl’s sake.” + </p> + <p> + He lifted a clerical palm. + </p> + <p> + “You did me,” his voice drove, “and all the thirty-nine Articles won’t + stop me saying so. That long story was meant to be mine. I got it written. + You’ve done me out of every penny it fetched. It’s dedicated to me—flat + out—and you even crossed out the dedication and tidied me out of the + introduction. Listen to me, Pembroke. You’ve done people all your life—I + think without knowing it, but that won’t comfort us. A wretched devil at + your school once wrote to me, and he’d been done. Sham food, sham + religion, sham straight talks—and when he broke down, you said it + was the world in miniature.” He snatched at him roughly. “But I’ll show + you the world.” He twisted him round like a baby, and through the open + door they saw only the quiet valley, but in it a rivulet that would in + time bring its waters to the sea. “Look even at that—and up behind + where the Plain begins and you get on the solid chalk—think of us + riding some night when you’re ordering your hot bottle—that’s the + world, and there’s no miniature world. There’s one world, Pembroke, and + you can’t tidy men out of it. They answer you back do you hear?—they + answer back if you do them. If you tell a man this way that four sheep + equal ten, he answers back you’re a liar.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pembroke was speechless, and—such is human nature—he + chiefly resented the allusion to the hot bottle; an unmanly luxury in + which he never indulged; contenting himself with nightsocks. “Enough—there + is no witness present—as you have doubtless observed.” But there + was. For a little voice cried, “Oh, mummy, they’re fighting—such fun—” + and feet went pattering up the stairs. “Enough. You talk of ‘doing,’ but + what about the money out of which you ‘did’ my sister? What about this + picture”—he pointed to a faded photograph of Stockholm—“which + you caused to be filched from the walls of my house? What about—enough! + Let us conclude this disheartening scene. You object to my terms. Name + yours. I shall accept them. It is futile to reason with one who is the + worse for drink.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen was quiet at once. “Steady on!” he said gently. “Steady on in that + direction. Take one-third for your four stories and the introduction, and + I will keep two-thirds for myself.” Then he went to harness the horse, + while Mr. Pembroke, watching his broad back, desired to bury a knife in + it. The desire passed, partly because it was unclerical, partly because he + had no knife, and partly because he soon blurred over what had happened. + To him all criticism was “rudeness”: he never heeded it, for he never + needed it: he was never wrong. All his life he had ordered little human + beings about, and now he was equally magisterial to big ones: Stephen was + a fifth-form lout whom, owing to some flaw in the regulations, he could + not send up to the headmaster to be caned. + </p> + <p> + This attitude makes for tranquillity. Before long he felt merely an + injured martyr. His brain cleared. He stood deep in thought before the + only other picture that the bare room boasted—the Demeter of Cnidus. + Outside the sun was sinking, and its last rays fell upon the immortal + features and the shattered knees. Sweet-peas offered their fragrance, and + with it there entered those more mysterious scents that come from no one + flower or clod of earth, but from the whole bosom of evening. He tried not + to be cynical. But in his heart he could not regret that tragedy, already + half-forgotten, conventionalized, indistinct. Of course death is a + terrible thing. Yet death is merciful when it weeds out a failure. If we + look deep enough, it is all for the best. He stared at the picture and + nodded. + </p> + <p> + Stephen, who had met his visitor at the station, had intended to drive him + back there. But after their spurt of temper he sent him with the boy. He + remained in the doorway, glad that he was going to make money, glad that + he had been angry; while the glow of the clear sky deepened, and the + silence was perfected, and the scents of the night grew stronger. Old + vagrancies awoke, and he resolved that, dearly as he loved his house, he + would not enter it again till dawn. “Goodnight!” he called, and then the + child came running, and he whispered, “Quick, then! Bring me a rug.” + “Good-night,” he repeated, and a pleasant voice called through an upper + window, “Why good-night?” He did not answer until the child was wrapped up + in his arms. + </p> + <p> + “It is time that she learnt to sleep out,” he cried. “If you want me, + we’re out on the hillside, where I used to be.” + </p> + <p> + The voice protested, saying this and that. + </p> + <p> + “Stewart’s in the house,” said the man, “and it cannot matter, and I am + going anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you wouldn’t take her. Promise you + won’t say foolish things to her. Don’t—I wish you’d come up for a + minute—” + </p> + <p> + The child, whose face was laid against his, felt the muscles in it harden. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t tell her foolish things about yourself—things that aren’t any + longer true. Don’t worry her with old dead dreadfulness. To please me—don’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Just tonight I won’t, then.” + </p> + <p> + “Stevie, dear, please me more—don’t take her with you.” + </p> + <p> + At this he laughed impertinently. “I suppose I’m being kept in line,” she + called, and, though he could not see her, she stretched her arms towards + him. For a time he stood motionless, under her window, musing on his happy + tangible life. Then his breath quickened, and he wondered why he was here, + and why he should hold a warm child in his arms. “It’s time we were + starting,” he whispered, and showed the sky, whose orange was already + fading into green. “Wish everything goodnight.” + </p> + <p> + “Good-night, dear mummy,” she said sleepily. “Goodnight, dear house. + Good-night, you pictures—long picture—stone lady. I see you + through the window—your faces are pink.” + </p> + <p> + The twilight descended. He rested his lips on her hair, and carried her, + without speaking, until he reached the open down. He had often slept here + himself, alone, and on his wedding-night, and he knew that the turf was + dry, and that if you laid your face to it you would smell the thyme. For a + moment the earth aroused her, and she began to chatter. “My prayers—” + she said anxiously. He gave her one hand, and she was asleep before her + fingers had nestled in its palm. Their touch made him pensive, and again + he marvelled why he, the accident, was here. He was alive and had created + life. By whose authority? Though he could not phrase it, he believed that + he guided the future of our race, and that, century after century, his + thoughts and his passions would triumph in England. The dead who had + evoked him, the unborn whom he would evoke he governed the paths between + them. By whose authority? + </p> + <p> + Out in the west lay Cadover and the fields of his earlier youth, and over + them descended the crescent moon. His eyes followed her decline, and + against her final radiance he saw, or thought he saw, the outline of the + Rings. He had always been grateful, as people who understood him knew. But + this evening his gratitude seemed a gift of small account. The ear was + deaf, and what thanks of his could reach it? The body was dust, and in + what ecstasy of his could it share? The spirit had fled, in agony and + loneliness, never to know that it bequeathed him salvation. + </p> + <p> + He filled his pipe, and then sat pressing the unlit tobacco with his + thumb. “What am I to do?” he thought. “Can he notice the things he gave + me? A parson would know. But what’s a man like me to do, who works all his + life out of doors?” As he wondered, the silence of the night was broken. + The whistle of Mr. Pembroke’s train came faintly, and a lurid spot passed + over the land—passed, and the silence returned. One thing remained + that a man of his sort might do. He bent down reverently and saluted the + child; to whom he had given the name of their mother. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Longest Journey, by E. M. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Longest Journey + +Author: E. M. Forster + +Posting Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #2604] +Release Date: April, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONGEST JOURNEY *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + + +THE LONGEST JOURNEY + + +By E. M. Forster + + + + +PART 1 -- CAMBRIDGE + + +I + +"The cow is there," said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it out +over the carpet. No one spoke. He waited till the end of the match fell +off. Then he said again, "She is there, the cow. There, now." + +"You have not proved it," said a voice. + +"I have proved it to myself." + +"I have proved to myself that she isn't," said the voice. "The cow is +not there." Ansell frowned and lit another match. + +"She's there for me," he declared. "I don't care whether she's there for +you or not. Whether I'm in Cambridge or Iceland or dead, the cow will be +there." + +It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects. Do +they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or have they a +real existence of their own? It is all very interesting, but at the same +time it is difficult. Hence the cow. She seemed to make things +easier. She was so familiar, so solid, that surely the truths that she +illustrated would in time become familiar and solid also. Is the cow +there or not? This was better than deciding between objectivity and +subjectivity. So at Oxford, just at the same time, one was asking, "What +do our rooms look like in the vac.?" + +"Look here, Ansell. I'm there--in the meadow--the cow's there. You're +there--the cow's there. Do you agree so far?" "Well?" + +"Well, if you go, the cow stops; but if I go, the cow goes. Then what +will happen if you stop and I go?" + +Several voices cried out that this was quibbling. + +"I know it is," said the speaker brightly, and silence descended again, +while they tried honestly to think the matter out. + +Rickie, on whose carpet the matches were being dropped, did not like to +join in the discussion. It was too difficult for him. He could not even +quibble. If he spoke, he should simply make himself a fool. He preferred +to listen, and to watch the tobacco-smoke stealing out past the +window-seat into the tranquil October air. He could see the court too, +and the college cat teasing the college tortoise, and the kitchen-men +with supper-trays upon their heads. Hot food for one--that must be for +the geographical don, who never came in for Hall; cold food for three, +apparently at half-a-crown a head, for some one he did not know; hot +food, a la carte--obviously for the ladies haunting the next staircase; +cold food for two, at two shillings--going to Ansell's rooms for himself +and Ansell, and as it passed under the lamp he saw that it was meringues +again. Then the bedmakers began to arrive, chatting to each other +pleasantly, and he could hear Ansell's bedmaker say, "Oh dang!" when +she found she had to lay Ansell's tablecloth; for there was not a breath +stirring. The great elms were motionless, and seemed still in the glory +of midsummer, for the darkness hid the yellow blotches on their leaves, +and their outlines were still rounded against the tender sky. Those elms +were Dryads--so Rickie believed or pretended, and the line between the +two is subtler than we admit. At all events they were lady trees, and +had for generations fooled the college statutes by their residence in +the haunts of youth. + +But what about the cow? He returned to her with a start, for this would +never do. He also would try to think the matter out. Was she there or +not? The cow. There or not. He strained his eyes into the night. + +Either way it was attractive. If she was there, other cows were there +too. The darkness of Europe was dotted with them, and in the far East +their flanks were shining in the rising sun. Great herds of them stood +browsing in pastures where no man came nor need ever come, or plashed +knee-deep by the brink of impassable rivers. And this, moreover, was the +view of Ansell. Yet Tilliard's view had a good deal in it. One might do +worse than follow Tilliard, and suppose the cow not to be there unless +oneself was there to see her. A cowless world, then, stretched round +him on every side. Yet he had only to peep into a field, and, click! it +would at once become radiant with bovine life. + +Suddenly he realized that this, again, would never do. As usual, he had +missed the whole point, and was overlaying philosophy with gross and +senseless details. For if the cow was not there, the world and the +fields were not there either. And what would Ansell care about sunlit +flanks or impassable streams? Rickie rebuked his own groveling soul, and +turned his eyes away from the night, which had led him to such absurd +conclusions. + +The fire was dancing, and the shadow of Ansell, who stood close up to +it, seemed to dominate the little room. He was still talking, or rather +jerking, and he was still lighting matches and dropping their ends upon +the carpet. Now and then he would make a motion with his feet as if he +were running quickly backward upstairs, and would tread on the edge +of the fender, so that the fire-irons went flying and the buttered-bun +dishes crashed against each other in the hearth. The other philosophers +were crouched in odd shapes on the sofa and table and chairs, and one, +who was a little bored, had crawled to the piano and was timidly trying +the Prelude to Rhinegold with his knee upon the soft pedal. The air was +heavy with good tobacco-smoke and the pleasant warmth of tea, and as +Rickie became more sleepy the events of the day seemed to float one by +one before his acquiescent eyes. In the morning he had read Theocritus, +whom he believed to be the greatest of Greek poets; he had lunched with +a merry don and had tasted Zwieback biscuits; then he had walked with +people he liked, and had walked just long enough; and now his room was +full of other people whom he liked, and when they left he would go and +have supper with Ansell, whom he liked as well as any one. A year ago +he had known none of these joys. He had crept cold and friendless +and ignorant out of a great public school, preparing for a silent and +solitary journey, and praying as a highest favour that he might be left +alone. Cambridge had not answered his prayer. She had taken and soothed +him, and warmed him, and had laughed at him a little, saying that he +must not be so tragic yet awhile, for his boyhood had been but a dusty +corridor that led to the spacious halls of youth. In one year he had +made many friends and learnt much, and he might learn even more if he +could but concentrate his attention on that cow. + +The fire had died down, and in the gloom the man by the piano ventured +to ask what would happen if an objective cow had a subjective calf. +Ansell gave an angry sigh, and at that moment there was a tap on the +door. + +"Come in!" said Rickie. + +The door opened. A tall young woman stood framed in the light that fell +from the passage. + +"Ladies!" whispered every-one in great agitation. + +"Yes?" he said nervously, limping towards the door (he was rather lame). +"Yes? Please come in. Can I be any good--" + +"Wicked boy!" exclaimed the young lady, advancing a gloved finger into +the room. "Wicked, wicked boy!" + +He clasped his head with his hands. + +"Agnes! Oh how perfectly awful!" + +"Wicked, intolerable boy!" She turned on the electric light. The +philosophers were revealed with unpleasing suddenness. "My goodness, +a tea-party! Oh really, Rickie, you are too bad! I say again: wicked, +abominable, intolerable boy! I'll have you horsewhipped. If you +please"--she turned to the symposium, which had now risen to its feet +"If you please, he asks me and my brother for the week-end. We +accept. At the station, no Rickie. We drive to where his old lodgings +were--Trumpery Road or some such name--and he's left them. I'm furious, +and before I can stop my brother, he's paid off the cab and there we are +stranded. I've walked--walked for miles. Pray can you tell me what is to +be done with Rickie?" + +"He must indeed be horsewhipped," said Tilliard pleasantly. Then he made +a bolt for the door. + +"Tilliard--do stop--let me introduce Miss Pembroke--don't all go!" For +his friends were flying from his visitor like mists before the sun. +"Oh, Agnes, I am so sorry; I've nothing to say. I simply forgot you were +coming, and everything about you." + +"Thank you, thank you! And how soon will you remember to ask where +Herbert is?" + +"Where is he, then?" + +"I shall not tell you." + +"But didn't he walk with you?" + +"I shall not tell, Rickie. It's part of your punishment. You are not +really sorry yet. I shall punish you again later." + +She was quite right. Rickie was not as much upset as he ought to have +been. He was sorry that he had forgotten, and that he had caused his +visitors inconvenience. But he did not feel profoundly degraded, as a +young man should who has acted discourteously to a young lady. Had he +acted discourteously to his bedmaker or his gyp, he would have minded +just as much, which was not polite of him. + +"First, I'll go and get food. Do sit down and rest. Oh, let me +introduce--" + +Ansell was now the sole remnant of the discussion party. He still stood +on the hearthrug with a burnt match in his hand. Miss Pembroke's arrival +had never disturbed him. + +"Let me introduce Mr. Ansell--Miss Pembroke." + +There came an awful moment--a moment when he almost regretted that +he had a clever friend. Ansell remained absolutely motionless, moving +neither hand nor head. Such behaviour is so unknown that Miss Pembroke +did not realize what had happened, and kept her own hand stretched out +longer than is maidenly. + +"Coming to supper?" asked Ansell in low, grave tones. + +"I don't think so," said Rickie helplessly. + +Ansell departed without another word. + +"Don't mind us," said Miss Pembroke pleasantly. "Why shouldn't you keep +your engagement with your friend? Herbert's finding lodgings,--that's +why he's not here,--and they're sure to be able to give us some dinner. +What jolly rooms you've got!" + +"Oh no--not a bit. I say, I am sorry. I am sorry. I am most awfully +sorry." + +"What about?" + +"Ansell" Then he burst forth. "Ansell isn't a gentleman. His father's a +draper. His uncles are farmers. He's here because he's so clever--just +on account of his brains. Now, sit down. He isn't a gentleman at all." +And he hurried off to order some dinner. + +"What a snob the boy is getting!" thought Agnes, a good deal mollified. +It never struck her that those could be the words of affection--that +Rickie would never have spoken them about a person whom he disliked. +Nor did it strike her that Ansell's humble birth scarcely explained +the quality of his rudeness. She was willing to find life full of +trivialities. Six months ago and she might have minded; but now--she +cared not what men might do unto her, for she had her own splendid +lover, who could have knocked all these unhealthy undergraduates into +a cocked-hat. She dared not tell Gerald a word of what had happened: he +might have come up from wherever he was and half killed Ansell. And she +determined not to tell her brother either, for her nature was kindly, +and it pleased her to pass things over. + +She took off her gloves, and then she took off her ear-rings and began +to admire them. These ear-rings were a freak of hers--her only freak. +She had always wanted some, and the day Gerald asked her to marry him +she went to a shop and had her ears pierced. In some wonderful way she +knew that it was right. And he had given her the rings--little gold +knobs, copied, the jeweller told them, from something prehistoric and +he had kissed the spots of blood on her handkerchief. Herbert, as usual, +had been shocked. + +"I can't help it," she cried, springing up. "I'm not like other girls." +She began to pace about Rickie's room, for she hated to keep quiet. +There was nothing much to see in it. The pictures were not attractive, +nor did they attract her--school groups, Watts' "Sir Percival," a +dog running after a rabbit, a man running after a maid, a cheap brown +Madonna in a cheap green frame--in short, a collection where one +mediocrity was generally cancelled by another. Over the door there hung +a long photograph of a city with waterways, which Agnes, who had never +been to Venice, took to be Venice, but which people who had been to +Stockholm knew to be Stockholm. Rickie's mother, looking rather sweet, +was standing on the mantelpiece. Some more pictures had just arrived +from the framers and were leaning with their faces to the wall, but she +did not bother to turn them round. On the table were dirty teacups, a +flat chocolate cake, and Omar Khayyam, with an Oswego biscuit between +his pages. Also a vase filled with the crimson leaves of autumn. This +made her smile. + +Then she saw her host's shoes: he had left them lying on the sofa. +Rickie was slightly deformed, and so the shoes were not the same size, +and one of them had a thick heel to help him towards an even walk. +"Ugh!" she exclaimed, and removed them gingerly to the bedroom. There +she saw other shoes and boots and pumps, a whole row of them, all +deformed. "Ugh! Poor boy! It is too bad. Why shouldn't he be like other +people? This hereditary business is too awful." She shut the door with +a sigh. Then she recalled the perfect form of Gerald, his athletic walk, +the poise of his shoulders, his arms stretched forward to receive her. +Gradually she was comforted. + +"I beg your pardon, miss, but might I ask how many to lay?" It was the +bedmaker, Mrs. Aberdeen. + +"Three, I think," said Agnes, smiling pleasantly. "Mr. Elliot'll be back +in a minute. He has gone to order dinner. + +"Thank you, miss." + +"Plenty of teacups to wash up!" + +"But teacups is easy washing, particularly Mr. Elliot's." + +"Why are his so easy?" + +"Because no nasty corners in them to hold the dirt. Mr. Anderson--he's +below-has crinkly noctagons, and one wouldn't believe the difference. +It was I bought these for Mr. Elliot. His one thought is to save one +trouble. I never seed such a thoughtful gentleman. The world, I say, +will be the better for him." She took the teacups into the gyp room, and +then returned with the tablecloth, and added, "if he's spared." + +"I'm afraid he isn't strong," said Agnes. + +"Oh, miss, his nose! I don't know what he'd say if he knew I mentioned +his nose, but really I must speak to someone, and he has neither father +nor mother. His nose! It poured twice with blood in the Long." + +"Yes?" + +"It's a thing that ought to be known. I assure you, that little room!... +And in any case, Mr. Elliot's a gentleman that can ill afford to lose +it. Luckily his friends were up; and I always say they're more like +brothers than anything else." + +"Nice for him. He has no real brothers." + +"Oh, Mr. Hornblower, he is a merry gentleman, and Mr. Tilliard too! +And Mr. Elliot himself likes his romp at times. Why, it's the merriest +staircase in the buildings! Last night the bedmaker from W said to +me,'What are you doing to my gentlemen? Here's Mr. Ansell come back 'ot +with his collar flopping.' I said, 'And a good thing.' Some bedders keep +their gentlemen just so; but surely, miss, the world being what it is, +the longer one is able to laugh in it the better." + +Bedmakers have to be comic and dishonest. It is expected of them. In a +picture of university life it is their only function. So when we meet +one who has the face of a lady, and feelings of which a lady might be +proud, we pass her by. + +"Yes?" said Miss Pembroke, and then their talk was stopped by the +arrival of her brother. + +"It is too bad!" he exclaimed. "It is really too bad." + +"Now, Bertie boy, Bertie boy! I'll have no peevishness." + +"I am not peevish, Agnes, but I have a full right to be. Pray, why did +he not meet us? Why did he not provide rooms? And pray, why did you +leave me to do all the settling? All the lodgings I knew are full, and +our bedrooms look into a mews. I cannot help it. And then--look here! +It really is too bad." He held up his foot like a wounded dog. It was +dripping with water. + +"Oho! This explains the peevishness. Off with it at once. It'll be +another of your colds." + +"I really think I had better." He sat down by the fire and daintily +unlaced his boot. "I notice a great change in university tone. I can +never remember swaggering three abreast along the pavement and charging +inoffensive visitors into a gutter when I was an undergraduate. One of +the men, too, wore an Eton tie. But the others, I should say, came from +very queer schools, if they came from any schools at all." + +Mr. Pembroke was nearly twenty years older than his sister, and had +never been as handsome. But he was not at all the person to knock into +a gutter, for though not in orders, he had the air of being on the verge +of them, and his features, as well as his clothes, had the clerical +cut. In his presence conversation became pure and colourless and full +of understatements, and--just as if he was a real clergyman--neither +men nor boys ever forgot that he was there. He had observed this, and it +pleased him very much. His conscience permitted him to enter the Church +whenever his profession, which was the scholastic, should demand it. + +"No gutter in the world's as wet as this," said Agnes, who had peeled +off her brother's sock, and was now toasting it at the embers on a pair +of tongs. + +"Surely you know the running water by the edge of the Trumpington road? +It's turned on occasionally to clear away the refuse--a most primitive +idea. When I was up we had a joke about it, and called it the 'Pem.'" + +"How complimentary!" + +"You foolish girl,--not after me, of course. We called it the 'Pem' +because it is close to Pembroke College. I remember--" He smiled a +little, and twiddled his toes. Then he remembered the bedmaker, and +said, "My sock is now dry. My sock, please." + +"Your sock is sopping. No, you don't!" She twitched the tongs away from +him. Mrs. Aberdeen, without speaking, fetched a pair of Rickie's socks +and a pair of Rickie's shoes. + +"Thank you; ah, thank you. I am sure Mr. Elliot would allow it." + +Then he said in French to his sister, "Has there been the slightest sign +of Frederick?" + +"Now, do call him Rickie, and talk English. I found him here. He had +forgotten about us, and was very sorry. Now he's gone to get some +dinner, and I can't think why he isn't back." + +Mrs. Aberdeen left them. + +"He wants pulling up sharply. There is nothing original in +absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower +classes have no nous. However can I wear such deformities?" For he had +been madly trying to cram a right-hand foot into a left-hand shoe. + +"Don't!" said Agnes hastily. "Don't touch the poor fellow's things." The +sight of the smart, stubby patent leather made her almost feel faint. +She had known Rickie for many years, but it seemed so dreadful and so +different now that he was a man. It was her first great contact with the +abnormal, and unknown fibres of her being rose in revolt against it. She +frowned when she heard his uneven tread upon the stairs. + +"Agnes--before he arrives--you ought never to have left me and gone +to his rooms alone. A most elementary transgression. Imagine the +unpleasantness if you had found him with friends. If Gerald--" + +Rickie by now had got into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost his +head, and when his turn came--he had had to wait--he had yielded his +place to those behind, saying that he didn't matter. And he had wasted +more precious time buying bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes +were not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and chaotic hospitality +the meal got under way. All the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. +Aberdeen's virtues were not practical. The fish seemed never to have +been alive, the meat had no kick, and the cork of the college +claret slid forth silently, as if ashamed of the contents. Agnes was +particularly pleasant. But her brother could not recover himself. He +still remembered their desolate arrival, and he could feel the waters of +the Pem eating into his instep. + +"Rickie," cried the lady, "are you aware that you haven't congratulated +me on my engagement?" + +Rickie laughed nervously, and said, "Why no! No more I have." + +"Say something pretty, then." + +"I hope you'll be very happy," he mumbled. "But I don't know anything +about marriage." + +"Oh, you awful boy! Herbert, isn't he just the same? But you do know +something about Gerald, so don't be so chilly and cautious. I've just +realized, looking at those groups, that you must have been at school +together. Did you come much across him?" + +"Very little," he answered, and sounded shy. He got up hastily, and +began to muddle with the coffee. + +"But he was in the same house. Surely that's a house group?" + +"He was a prefect." He made his coffee on the simple system. One had a +brown pot, into which the boiling stuff was poured. Just before serving +one put in a drop of cold water, and the idea was that the grounds fell +to the bottom. + +"Wasn't he a kind of athletic marvel? Couldn't he knock any boy or +master down?" + +"Yes." + +"If he had wanted to," said Mr. Pembroke, who had not spoken for some +time. + +"If he had wanted to," echoed Rickie. "I do hope, Agnes, you'll be most +awfully happy. I don't know anything about the army, but I should think +it must be most awfully interesting." + +Mr. Pembroke laughed faintly. + +"Yes, Rickie. The army is a most interesting profession,--the profession +of Wellington and Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most interesting +profession, as you observe. A profession that may mean death--death, +rather than dishonour." + +"That's nice," said Rickie, speaking to himself. "Any profession +may mean dishonour, but one isn't allowed to die instead. The army's +different. If a soldier makes a mess, it's thought rather decent of +him, isn't it, if he blows out his brains? In the other professions it +somehow seems cowardly." + +"I am not competent to pronounce," said Mr. Pembroke, who was not +accustomed to have his schoolroom satire commented on. "I merely know +that the army is the finest profession in the world. Which reminds me, +Rickie--have you been thinking about yours?" + +"No." + +"Not at all?" + +"No." + +"Now, Herbert, don't bother him. Have another meringue." + +"But, Rickie, my dear boy, you're twenty. It's time you thought. The +Tripos is the beginning of life, not the end. In less than two years you +will have got your B.A. What are you going to do with it?" + +"I don't know." + +"You're M.A., aren't you?" asked Agnes; but her brother proceeded-- + +"I have seen so many promising, brilliant lives wrecked simply on +account of this--not settling soon enough. My dear boy, you must think. +Consult your tastes if possible--but think. You have not a moment to +lose. The Bar, like your father?" + +"Oh, I wouldn't like that at all." + +"I don't mention the Church." + +"Oh, Rickie, do be a clergyman!" said Miss Pembroke. "You'd be simply +killing in a wide-awake." + +He looked at his guests hopelessly. Their kindness and competence +overwhelmed him. "I wish I could talk to them as I talk to myself," he +thought. "I'm not such an ass when I talk to myself. I don't believe, +for instance, that quite all I thought about the cow was rot." Aloud he +said, "I've sometimes wondered about writing." + +"Writing?" said Mr. Pembroke, with the tone of one who gives everything +its trial. "Well, what about writing? What kind of writing?" + +"I rather like,"--he suppressed something in his throat,--"I rather like +trying to write little stories." + +"Why, I made sure it was poetry!" said Agnes. "You're just the boy for +poetry." + +"I had no idea you wrote. Would you let me see something? Then I could +judge." + +The author shook his head. "I don't show it to any one. It isn't +anything. I just try because it amuses me." + +"What is it about?" + +"Silly nonsense." + +"Are you ever going to show it to any one?" + +"I don't think so." + +Mr. Pembroke did not reply, firstly, because the meringue he was eating +was, after all, Rickie's; secondly, because it was gluey and stuck his +jaws together. Agnes observed that the writing was really a very good +idea: there was Rickie's aunt,--she could push him. + +"Aunt Emily never pushes any one; she says they always rebound and crush +her." + +"I only had the pleasure of seeing your aunt once. I should have thought +her a quite uncrushable person. But she would be sure to help you." + +"I couldn't show her anything. She'd think them even sillier than they +are." + +"Always running yourself down! There speaks the artist!" + +"I'm not modest," he said anxiously. "I just know they're bad." + +Mr. Pembroke's teeth were clear of meringue, and he could refrain no +longer. "My dear Rickie, your father and mother are dead, and you often +say your aunt takes no interest in you. Therefore your life depends on +yourself. Think it over carefully, but settle, and having once settled, +stick. If you think that this writing is practicable, and that you +could make your living by it--that you could, if needs be, support a +wife--then by all means write. But you must work. Work and drudge. Begin +at the bottom of the ladder and work upwards." + +Rickie's head drooped. Any metaphor silenced him. He never thought of +replying that art is not a ladder--with a curate, as it were, on the +first rung, a rector on the second, and a bishop, still nearer heaven, +at the top. He never retorted that the artist is not a bricklayer at +all, but a horseman, whose business it is to catch Pegasus at once, +not to practise for him by mounting tamer colts. This is hard, hot, and +generally ungraceful work, but it is not drudgery. For drudgery is not +art, and cannot lead to it. + +"Of course I don't really think about writing," he said, as he poured +the cold water into the coffee. "Even if my things ever were decent, I +don't think the magazines would take them, and the magazines are one's +only chance. I read somewhere, too, that Marie Corelli's about the only +person who makes a thing out of literature. I'm certain it wouldn't pay +me." + +"I never mentioned the word 'pay,'" said Mr. Pembroke uneasily. + +"You must not consider money. There are ideals too." + +"I have no ideals." + +"Rickie!" she exclaimed. "Horrible boy!" + +"No, Agnes, I have no ideals." Then he got very red, for it was a phrase +he had caught from Ansell, and he could not remember what came next. + +"The person who has no ideals," she exclaimed, "is to be pitied." + +"I think so too," said Mr. Pembroke, sipping his coffee. "Life without +an ideal would be like the sky without the sun." + +Rickie looked towards the night, wherein there now twinkled innumerable +stars--gods and heroes, virgins and brides, to whom the Greeks have +given their names. + +"Life without an ideal--" repeated Mr. Pembroke, and then stopped, for +his mouth was full of coffee grounds. The same affliction had overtaken +Agnes. After a little jocose laughter they departed to their lodgings, +and Rickie, having seen them as far as the porter's lodge, hurried, +singing as he went, to Ansell's room, burst open the door, and said, +"Look here! Whatever do you mean by it?" + +"By what?" Ansell was sitting alone with a piece of paper in front of +him. On it was a diagram--a circle inside a square, inside which was +again a square. + +"By being so rude. You're no gentleman, and I told her so." He slammed +him on the head with a sofa cushion. "I'm certain one ought to be +polite, even to people who aren't saved." ("Not saved" was a phrase they +applied just then to those whom they did not like or intimately +know.) "And I believe she is saved. I never knew any one so always +good-tempered and kind. She's been kind to me ever since I knew her. I +wish you'd heard her trying to stop her brother: you'd have certainly +come round. Not but what he was only being nice as well. But she is +really nice. And I thought she came into the room so beautifully. Do you +know--oh, of course, you despise music--but Anderson was playing Wagner, +and he'd just got to the part where they sing + + 'Rheingold! + 'Rheingold! + +and the sun strikes into the waters, and the music, which up to then has +so often been in E flat--" + +"Goes into D sharp. I have not understood a single word, partly because +you talk as if your mouth was full of plums, partly because I don't know +whom you're talking about." "Miss Pembroke--whom you saw." + +"I saw no one." + +"Who came in?" + +"No one came in." + +"You're an ass!" shrieked Rickie. "She came in. You saw her come in. She +and her brother have been to dinner." + +"You only think so. They were not really there." + +"But they stop till Monday." + +"You only think that they are stopping." + +"But--oh, look here, shut up! The girl like an empress--" + +"I saw no empress, nor any girl, nor have you seen them." + +"Ansell, don't rag." + +"Elliot, I never rag, and you know it. She was not really there." + +There was a moment's silence. Then Rickie exclaimed, "I've got you. You +say--or was it Tilliard?--no, YOU say that the cow's there. Well--there +these people are, then. Got you. Yah!" + +"Did it never strike you that phenomena may be of two kinds: ONE, those +which have a real existence, such as the cow; TWO, those which are +the subjective product of a diseased imagination, and which, to our +destruction, we invest with the semblance of reality? If this never +struck you, let it strike you now." + +Rickie spoke again, but received no answer. He paced a little up and +down the sombre roam. Then he sat on the edge of the table and watched +his clever friend draw within the square a circle, and within the +circle a square, and inside that another circle, and inside that another +square. + +"Why will you do that?" + +No answer. + +"Are they real?" + +"The inside one is--the one in the middle of everything, that there's +never room enough to draw." + + + +II + +A little this side of Madingley, to the left of the road, there is a +secluded dell, paved with grass and planted with fir-trees. It could not +have been worth a visit twenty years ago, for then it was only a scar +of chalk, and it is not worth a visit at the present day, for the trees +have grown too thick and choked it. But when Rickie was up, it chanced +to be the brief season of its romance, a season as brief for a chalk-pit +as a man--its divine interval between the bareness of boyhood and the +stuffiness of age. Rickie had discovered it in his second term, when the +January snows had melted and left fiords and lagoons of clearest water +between the inequalities of the floor. The place looked as big as +Switzerland or Norway--as indeed for the moment it was--and he came upon +it at a time when his life too was beginning to expand. Accordingly the +dell became for him a kind of church--a church where indeed you could +do anything you liked, but where anything you did would be transfigured. +Like the ancient Greeks, he could even laugh at his holy place and +leave it no less holy. He chatted gaily about it, and about the pleasant +thoughts with which it inspired him; he took his friends there; he even +took people whom he did not like. "Procul este, profani!" exclaimed a +delighted aesthete on being introduced to it. But this was never to be +the attitude of Rickie. He did not love the vulgar herd, but he knew +that his own vulgarity would be greater if he forbade it ingress, and +that it was not by preciosity that he would attain to the intimate +spirit of the dell. Indeed, if he had agreed with the aesthete, he +would possibly not have introduced him. If the dell was to bear any +inscription, he would have liked it to be "This way to Heaven," painted +on a sign-post by the high-road, and he did not realize till later years +that the number of visitors would not thereby have sensibly increased. + +On the blessed Monday that the Pembrokes left, he walked out here with +three friends. It was a day when the sky seemed enormous. One cloud, +as large as a continent, was voyaging near the sun, whilst other clouds +seemed anchored to the horizon, too lazy or too happy to move. The sky +itself was of the palest blue, paling to white where it approached the +earth; and the earth, brown, wet, and odorous, was engaged beneath it on +its yearly duty of decay. Rickie was open to the complexities of autumn; +he felt extremely tiny--extremely tiny and extremely important; and +perhaps the combination is as fair as any that exists. He hoped that all +his life he would never be peevish or unkind. + +"Elliot is in a dangerous state," said Ansell. They had reached the +dell, and had stood for some time in silence, each leaning against a +tree. It was too wet to sit down. + +"How's that?" asked Rickie, who had not known he was in any state at +all. He shut up Keats, whom he thought he had been reading, and slipped +him back into his coat-pocket. Scarcely ever was he without a book. + +"He's trying to like people." + +"Then he's done for," said Widdrington. "He's dead." + +"He's trying to like Hornblower." + +The others gave shrill agonized cries. + +"He wants to bind the college together. He wants to link us to the beefy +set." + +"I do like Hornblower," he protested. "I don't try." + +"And Hornblower tries to like you." + +"That part doesn't matter." + +"But he does try to like you. He tries not to despise you. It is +altogether a most public-spirited affair." + +"Tilliard started them," said Widdrington. "Tilliard thinks it such a +pity the college should be split into sets." + +"Oh, Tilliard!" said Ansell, with much irritation. "But what can you +expect from a person who's eternally beautiful? The other night we had +been discussing a long time, and suddenly the light was turned on. Every +one else looked a sight, as they ought. But there was Tilliard, sitting +neatly on a little chair, like an undersized god, with not a curl +crooked. I should say he will get into the Foreign Office." + +"Why are most of us so ugly?" laughed Rickie. + +"It's merely a sign of our salvation--merely another sign that the +college is split." + +"The college isn't split," cried Rickie, who got excited on this subject +with unfailing regularity. "The college is, and has been, and always +will be, one. What you call the beefy set aren't a set at all. They're +just the rowing people, and naturally they chiefly see each other; but +they're always nice to me or to any one. Of course, they think us rather +asses, but it's quite in a pleasant way." + +"That's my whole objection," said Ansell. "What right have they to +think us asses in a pleasant way? Why don't they hate us? What right has +Hornblower to smack me on the back when I've been rude to him?" + +"Well, what right have you to be rude to him?" + +"Because I hate him. You think it is so splendid to hate no one. I tell +you it is a crime. You want to love every one equally, and that's worse +than impossible it's wrong. When you denounce sets, you're really trying +to destroy friendship." + +"I maintain," said Rickie--it was a verb he clung to, in the hope that +it would lend stability to what followed--"I maintain that one can like +many more people than one supposes." + +"And I maintain that you hate many more people than you pretend." + +"I hate no one," he exclaimed with extraordinary vehemence, and the dell +re-echoed that it hated no one. + +"We are obliged to believe you," said Widdrington, smiling a little "but +we are sorry about it." + +"Not even your father?" asked Ansell. + +Rickie was silent. + +"Not even your father?" + +The cloud above extended a great promontory across the sun. It only lay +there for a moment, yet that was enough to summon the lurking coldness +from the earth. + +"Does he hate his father?" said Widdrington, who had not known. "Oh, +good!" + +"But his father's dead. He will say it doesn't count." + +"Still, it's something. Do you hate yours?" + +Ansell did not reply. Rickie said: "I say, I wonder whether one ought to +talk like this?" + +"About hating dead people?" + +"Yes--" + +"Did you hate your mother?" asked Widdrington. + +Rickie turned crimson. + +"I don't see Hornblower's such a rotter," remarked the other man, whose +name was James. + +"James, you are diplomatic," said Ansell. "You are trying to tide over +an awkward moment. You can go." + +Widdrington was crimson too. In his wish to be sprightly he had used +words without thinking of their meanings. Suddenly he realized that +"father" and "mother" really meant father and mother--people whom he had +himself at home. He was very uncomfortable, and thought Rickie had been +rather queer. He too tried to revert to Hornblower, but Ansell would not +let him. The sun came out, and struck on the white ramparts of the dell. +Rickie looked straight at it. Then he said abruptly-- + +"I think I want to talk." + +"I think you do," replied Ansell. + +"Shouldn't I be rather a fool if I went through Cambridge without +talking? It's said never to come so easy again. All the people are dead +too. I can't see why I shouldn't tell you most things about my birth and +parentage and education." + +"Talk away. If you bore us, we have books." + +With this invitation Rickie began to relate his history. The reader who +has no book will be obliged to listen to it. + +Some people spend their lives in a suburb, and not for any urgent +reason. This had been the fate of Rickie. He had opened his eyes +to filmy heavens, and taken his first walk on asphalt. He had seen +civilization as a row of semi-detached villas, and society as a state in +which men do not know the men who live next door. He had himself become +part of the grey monotony that surrounds all cities. There was no +necessity for this--it was only rather convenient to his father. + +Mr. Elliot was a barrister. In appearance he resembled his son, being +weakly and lame, with hollow little cheeks, a broad white band of +forehead, and stiff impoverished hair. His voice, which he did not +transmit, was very suave, with a fine command of cynical intonation. +By altering it ever so little he could make people wince, especially if +they were simple or poor. Nor did he transmit his eyes. Their peculiar +flatness, as if the soul looked through dirty window-panes, the +unkindness of them, the cowardice, the fear in them, were to trouble the +world no longer. + +He married a girl whose voice was beautiful. There was no caress in +it yet all who heard it were soothed, as though the world held some +unexpected blessing. She called to her dogs one night over invisible +waters, and he, a tourist up on the bridge, thought "that is +extraordinarily adequate." In time he discovered that her figure, face, +and thoughts were adequate also, and as she was not impossible socially, +he married her. "I have taken a plunge," he told his family. The family, +hostile at first, had not a word to say when the woman was introduced +to them; and his sister declared that the plunge had been taken from the +opposite bank. + +Things only went right for a little time. Though beautiful without and +within, Mrs. Elliot had not the gift of making her home beautiful; and +one day, when she bought a carpet for the dining-room that clashed, he +laughed gently, said he "really couldn't," and departed. Departure is +perhaps too strong a word. In Mrs. Elliot's mouth it became, "My husband +has to sleep more in town." He often came down to see them, nearly +always unexpectedly, and occasionally they went to see him. "Father's +house," as Rickie called it, only had three rooms, but these were full +of books and pictures and flowers; and the flowers, instead of being +squashed down into the vases as they were in mummy's house, rose +gracefully from frames of lead which lay coiled at the bottom, as +doubtless the sea serpent has to lie, coiled at the bottom of the sea. +Once he was let to lift a frame out--only once, for he dropped some +water on a creton. "I think he's going to have taste," said Mr. Elliot +languidly. "It is quite possible," his wife replied. She had not taken +off her hat and gloves, nor even pulled up her veil. Mr. Elliot laughed, +and soon afterwards another lady came in, and they--went away. + +"Why does father always laugh?" asked Rickie in the evening when he and +his mother were sitting in the nursery. + +"It is a way of your father's." + +"Why does he always laugh at me? Am I so funny?" Then after a pause, +"You have no sense of humour, have you, mummy?" + +Mrs. Elliot, who was raising a thread of cotton to her lips, held it +suspended in amazement. + +"You told him so this afternoon. But I have seen you laugh." He nodded +wisely. "I have seen you laugh ever so often. One day you were laughing +alone all down in the sweet peas." + +"Was I?" + +"Yes. Were you laughing at me?" + +"I was not thinking about you. Cotton, please--a reel of No. 50 white +from my chest of drawers. Left hand drawer. Now which is your left +hand?" + +"The side my pocket is." + +"And if you had no pocket?" + +"The side my bad foot is." + +"I meant you to say, 'the side my heart is,'" said Mrs. Elliot, holding +up the duster between them. "Most of us--I mean all of us--can feel on +one side a little watch, that never stops ticking. So even if you had no +bad foot you would still know which is the left. No. 50 white, please. +No; I'll get it myself." For she had remembered that the dark passage +frightened him. + +These were the outlines. Rickie filled them in with the slowness and the +accuracy of a child. He was never told anything, but he discovered for +himself that his father and mother did not love each other, and that his +mother was lovable. He discovered that Mr. Elliot had dubbed him Rickie +because he was rickety, that he took pleasure in alluding to his son's +deformity, and was sorry that it was not more serious than his own. Mr. +Elliot had not one scrap of genius. He gathered the pictures and the +books and the flower-supports mechanically, not in any impulse of love. +He passed for a cultured man because he knew how to select, and he +passed for an unconventional man because he did not select quite like +other people. In reality he never did or said or thought one single +thing that had the slightest beauty or value. And in time Rickie +discovered this as well. + +The boy grew up in great loneliness. He worshipped his mother, and she +was fond of him. But she was dignified and reticent, and pathos, like +tattle, was disgusting to her. She was afraid of intimacy, in case it +led to confidences and tears, and so all her life she held her son at a +little distance. Her kindness and unselfishness knew no limits, but if +he tried to be dramatic and thank her, she told him not to be a little +goose. And so the only person he came to know at all was himself. +He would play Halma against himself. He would conduct solitary +conversations, in which one part of him asked and another part answered. +It was an exciting game, and concluded with the formula: "Good-bye. +Thank you. I am glad to have met you. I hope before long we shall enjoy +another chat." And then perhaps he would sob for loneliness, for he +would see real people--real brothers, real friends--doing in warm life +the things he had pretended. "Shall I ever have a friend?" he demanded +at the age of twelve. "I don't see how. They walk too fast. And a +brother I shall never have." + +("No loss," interrupted Widdrington. + +"But I shall never have one, and so I quite want one, even now.") + +When he was thirteen Mr. Elliot entered on his illness. The pretty rooms +in town would not do for an invalid, and so he came back to his home. +One of the first consequences was that Rickie was sent to a public +school. Mrs. Elliot did what she could, but she had no hold whatever +over her husband. + +"He worries me," he declared. "He's a joke of which I have got tired." + +"Would it be possible to send him to a private tutor's?" + +"No," said Mr. Elliot, who had all the money. "Coddling." + +"I agree that boys ought to rough it; but when a boy is lame and very +delicate, he roughs it sufficiently if he leaves home. Rickie can't play +games. He doesn't make friends. He isn't brilliant. Thinking it over, I +feel that as it's like this, we can't ever hope to give him the ordinary +education. Perhaps you could think it over too." No. + +"I am sure that things are best for him as they are. The day-school +knocks quite as many corners off him as he can stand. He hates it, but +it is good for him. A public school will not be good for him. It is too +rough. Instead of getting manly and hard, he will--" + +"My head, please." + +Rickie departed in a state of bewildered misery, which was scarcely ever +to grow clearer. + +Each holiday he found his father more irritable, and a little weaker. +Mrs. Elliot was quickly growing old. She had to manage the servants, to +hush the neighbouring children, to answer the correspondence, to paper +and re-paper the rooms--and all for the sake of a man whom she did not +like, and who did not conceal his dislike for her. One day she found +Rickie tearful, and said rather crossly, "Well, what is it this time?" + +He replied, "Oh, mummy, I've seen your wrinkles your grey hair--I'm +unhappy." + +Sudden tenderness overcame her, and she cried, "My darling, what does it +matter? Whatever does it matter now?" + +He had never known her so emotional. Yet even better did he remember +another incident. Hearing high voices from his father's room, he went +upstairs in the hope that the sound of his tread might stop them. Mrs. +Elliot burst open the door, and seeing him, exclaimed, "My dear! If you +please, he's hit me." She tried to laugh it off, but a few hours later +he saw the bruise which the stick of the invalid had raised upon his +mother's hand. + +God alone knows how far we are in the grip of our bodies. He alone can +judge how far the cruelty of Mr. Elliot was the outcome of extenuating +circumstances. But Mrs. Elliot could accurately judge of its extent. + +At last he died. Rickie was now fifteen, and got off a whole week's +school for the funeral. His mother was rather strange. She was much +happier, she looked younger, and her mourning was as unobtrusive as +convention permitted. All this he had expected. But she seemed to +be watching him, and to be extremely anxious for his opinion on any, +subject--more especially on his father. Why? At last he saw that she was +trying to establish confidence between them. But confidence cannot be +established in a moment. They were both shy. The habit of years was +upon them, and they alluded to the death of Mr. Elliot as an irreparable +loss. + +"Now that your father has gone, things will be very different." + +"Shall we be poorer, mother?" No. + +"Oh!" + +"But naturally things will be very different." + +"Yes, naturally." + +"For instance, your poor father liked being near London, but I almost +think we might move. Would you like that?" + +"Of course, mummy." He looked down at the ground. He was not accustomed +to being consulted, and it bewildered him. + +"Perhaps you might like quite a different life better?" + +He giggled. + +"It's a little difficult for me," said Mrs. Elliot, pacing vigorously up +and down the room, and more and more did her black dress seem a mockery. +"In some ways you ought to be consulted: nearly all the money is left to +you, as you must hear some time or other. But in other ways you're only +a boy. What am I to do?" + +"I don't know," he replied, appearing more helpless and unhelpful than +he really was. + +"For instance, would you like me to arrange things exactly as I like?" + +"Oh do!" he exclaimed, thinking this a most brilliant suggestion. + +"The very nicest thing of all." And he added, in his half-pedantic, +half-pleasing way, "I shall be as wax in your hands, mamma." + +She smiled. "Very well, darling. You shall be." And she pressed him +lovingly, as though she would mould him into something beautiful. + +For the next few days great preparations were in the air. She went to +see his father's sister, the gifted and vivacious Aunt Emily. They were +to live in the country--somewhere right in the country, with grass and +trees up to the door, and birds singing everywhere, and a tutor. For he +was not to go back to school. Unbelievable! He was never to go back to +school, and the head-master had written saying that he regretted the +step, but that possibly it was a wise one. + +It was raw weather, and Mrs. Elliot watched over him with ceaseless +tenderness. It seemed as if she could not do too much to shield him and +to draw him nearer to her. + +"Put on your greatcoat, dearest," she said to him. + +"I don't think I want it," answered Rickie, remembering that he was now +fifteen. + +"The wind is bitter. You ought to put it on." + +"But it's so heavy." + +"Do put it on, dear." + +He was not very often irritable or rude, but he answered, "Oh, I shan't +catch cold. I do wish you wouldn't keep on bothering." He did not +catch cold, but while he was out his mother died. She only survived +her husband eleven days, a coincidence which was recorded on their +tombstone. + +Such, in substance, was the story which Rickie told his friends as +they stood together in the shelter of the dell. The green bank at the +entrance hid the road and the world, and now, as in spring, they could +see nothing but snow-white ramparts and the evergreen foliage of the +firs. Only from time to time would a beech leaf flutter in from the +woods above, to comment on the waning year, and the warmth and radiance +of the sun would vanish behind a passing cloud. + +About the greatcoat he did not tell them, for he could not have spoken +of it without tears. + + + +III + +Mr. Ansell, a provincial draper of moderate prosperity, ought by rights +to have been classed not with the cow, but with those phenomena that are +not really there. But his son, with pardonable illogicality, excepted +him. He never suspected that his father might be the subjective product +of a diseased imagination. From his earliest years he had taken him for +granted, as a most undeniable and lovable fact. To be born one thing and +grow up another--Ansell had accomplished this without weakening one +of the ties that bound him to his home. The rooms above the shop still +seemed as comfortable, the garden behind it as gracious, as they +had seemed fifteen years before, when he would sit behind Miss +Appleblossom's central throne, and she, like some allegorical figure, +would send the change and receipted bills spinning away from her in +little boxwood balls. At first the young man had attributed these happy +relations to his own tact. But in time he perceived that the tact was +all on the side of his father. Mr. Ansell was not merely a man of some +education; he had what no education can bring--the power of detecting +what is important. Like many fathers, he had spared no expense over his +boy,--he had borrowed money to start him at a rapacious and fashionable +private school; he had sent him to tutors; he had sent him to Cambridge. +But he knew that all this was not the important thing. The important +thing was freedom. The boy must use his education as he chose, and if he +paid his father back it would certainly not be in his own coin. So when +Stewart said, "At Cambridge, can I read for the Moral Science Tripos?" +Mr. Ansell had only replied, "This philosophy--do you say that it lies +behind everything?" + +"Yes, I think so. It tries to discover what is good and true." + +"Then, my boy, you had better read as much of it as you can." + +And a year later: "I'd like to take up this philosophy seriously, but I +don't feel justified." + +"Why not?" + +"Because it brings in no return. I think I'm a great philosopher, but +then all philosophers think that, though they don't dare to say so. But, +however great I am. I shan't earn money. Perhaps I shan't ever be able +to keep myself. I shan't even get a good social position. You've only +to say one word, and I'll work for the Civil Service. I'm good enough to +get in high." + +Mr. Ansell liked money and social position. But he knew that there is +a more important thing, and replied, "You must take up this philosophy +seriously, I think." + +"Another thing--there are the girls." + +"There is enough money now to get Mary and Maud as good husbands as they +deserve." And Mary and Maud took the same view. It was in this plebeian +household that Rickie spent part of the Christmas vacation. His own +home, such as it was, was with the Silts, needy cousins of his father's, +and combined to a peculiar degree the restrictions of hospitality with +the discomforts of a boarding-house. Such pleasure as he had outside +Cambridge was in the homes of his friends, and it was a particular joy +and honour to visit Ansell, who, though as free from social snobbishness +as most of us will ever manage to be, was rather careful when he drove +up to the facade of his shop. + +"I like our new lettering," he said thoughtfully. The words "Stewart +Ansell" were repeated again and again along the High Street--curly gold +letters that seemed to float in tanks of glazed chocolate. + +"Rather!" said Rickie. But he wondered whether one of the bonds that +kept the Ansell family united might not be their complete absence of +taste--a surer bond by far than the identity of it. And he wondered this +again when he sat at tea opposite a long row of crayons--Stewart as a +baby, Stewart as a small boy with large feet, Stewart as a larger boy +with smaller feet, Mary reading a book whose leaves were as thick as +eiderdowns. And yet again did he wonder it when he woke with a gasp in +the night to find a harp in luminous paint throbbing and glowering at +him from the adjacent wall. "Watch and pray" was written on the harp, +and until Rickie hung a towel over it the exhortation was partially +successful. + +It was a very happy visit. Miss Appleblosssom--who now acted as +housekeeper--had met him before, during her never-forgotten expedition +to Cambridge, and her admiration of University life was as shrill and +as genuine now as it had been then. The girls at first were a little +aggressive, for on his arrival he had been tired, and Maud had taken it +for haughtiness, and said he was looking down on them. But this passed. +They did not fall in love with him, nor he with them, but a morning was +spent very pleasantly in snow-balling in the back garden. Ansell was +rather different to what he was in Cambridge, but to Rickie not less +attractive. And there was a curious charm in the hum of the shop, which +swelled into a roar if one opened the partition door on a market-day. + +"Listen to your money!" said Rickie. "I wish I could hear mine. I wish +my money was alive." + +"I don't understand." + +"Mine's dead money. It's come to me through about six dead +people--silently." + +"Getting a little smaller and a little more respectable each time, on +account of the death-duties." + +"It needed to get respectable." + +"Why? Did your people, too, once keep a shop?" + +"Oh, not as bad as that! They only swindled. About a hundred years ago +an Elliot did something shady and founded the fortunes of our house." + +"I never knew any one so relentless to his ancestors. You make up for +your soapiness towards the living." + +"You'd be relentless if you'd heard the Silts, as I have, talk about 'a +fortune, small perhaps, but unsoiled by trade!' Of course Aunt Emily is +rather different. Oh, goodness me! I've forgotten my aunt. She lives not +so far. I shall have to call on her." + +Accordingly he wrote to Mrs. Failing, and said he should like to pay his +respects. He told her about the Ansells, and so worded the letter that +she might reasonably have sent an invitation to his friend. + +She replied that she was looking forward to their tete-a-tete. + +"You mustn't go round by the trains," said Mr. Ansell. "It means +changing at Salisbury. By the road it's no great way. Stewart shall +drive you over Salisbury Plain, and fetch you too." + +"There's too much snow," said Ansell. + +"Then the girls shall take you in their sledge." + +"That I will," said Maud, who was not unwilling to see the inside of +Cadover. But Rickie went round by the trains. + +"We have all missed you," said Ansell, when he returned. "There is a +general feeling that you are no nuisance, and had better stop till the +end of the vac." + +This he could not do. He was bound for Christmas to the Silts--"as a +REAL guest," Mrs. Silt had written, underlining the word "real" twice. +And after Christmas he must go to the Pembrokes. + +"These are no reasons. The only real reason for doing a thing is because +you want to do it. I think the talk about 'engagements' is cant." + +"I think perhaps it is," said Rickie. But he went. Never had the turkey +been so athletic, or the plum-pudding tied into its cloth so tightly. +Yet he knew that both these symbols of hilarity had cost money, and +it went to his heart when Mr. Silt said in a hungry voice, "Have you +thought at all of what you want to be? No? Well, why should you? You +have no need to be anything." And at dessert: "I wonder who Cadover goes +to? I expect money will follow money. It always does." It was with a +guilty feeling of relief that he left for the Pembrokes'. + +The Pembrokes lived in an adjacent suburb, or rather "sububurb,"--the +tract called Sawston, celebrated for its public school. Their style of +life, however, was not particularly suburban. Their house was small and +its name was Shelthorpe, but it had an air about it which suggested a +certain amount of money and a certain amount of taste. There were decent +water-colours in the drawing-room. Madonnas of acknowledged merit hung +upon the stairs. A replica of the Hermes of Praxiteles--of course only +the bust--stood in the hall with a real palm behind it. Agnes, in her +slap-dash way, was a good housekeeper, and kept the pretty things well +dusted. It was she who insisted on the strip of brown holland that led +diagonally from the front door to the door of Herbert's study: boys' +grubby feet should not go treading on her Indian square. It was she who +always cleaned the picture-frames and washed the bust and the leaves of +the palm. In short, if a house could speak--and sometimes it does speak +more clearly than the people who live in it--the house of the Pembrokes +would have said, "I am not quite like other houses, yet I am perfectly +comfortable. I contain works of art and a microscope and books. But I do +not live for any of these things or suffer them to disarrange me. I live +for myself and for the greater houses that shall come after me. Yet in +me neither the cry of money nor the cry for money shall ever be heard." + +Mr. Pembroke was at the station. He did better as a host than as a +guest, and welcomed the young man with real friendliness. + +"We were all coming, but Gerald has strained his ankle slightly, +and wants to keep quiet, as he is playing next week in a match. And, +needless to say, that explains the absence of my sister." + +"Gerald Dawes?" + +"Yes; he's with us. I'm so glad you'll meet again." + +"So am I," said Rickie with extreme awkwardness. "Does he remember me?" + +"Vividly." + +Vivid also was Rickie's remembrance of him. + +"A splendid fellow," asserted Mr. Pembroke. + +"I hope that Agnes is well." + +"Thank you, yes; she is well. And I think you're looking more like other +people yourself." + +"I've been having a very good time with a friend." + +"Indeed. That's right. Who was that?" + +Rickie had a young man's reticence. He generally spoke of "a friend," +"a person I know," "a place I was at." When the book of life is opening, +our readings are secret, and we are unwilling to give chapter and verse. +Mr. Pembroke, who was half way through the volume, and had skipped or +forgotten the earlier pages, could not understand Rickie's hesitation, +nor why with such awkwardness he should pronounce the harmless +dissyllable "Ansell." + +"Ansell? Wasn't that the pleasant fellow who asked us to lunch?" + +"No. That was Anderson, who keeps below. You didn't see Ansell. The ones +who came to breakfast were Tilliard and Hornblower." + +"Of course. And since then you have been with the Silts. How are they?" + +"Very well, thank you. They want to be remembered to you." + +The Pembrokes had formerly lived near the Elliots, and had shown great +kindness to Rickie when his parents died. They were thus rather in the +position of family friends. + +"Please remember us when you write." He added, almost roguishly, "The +Silts are kindness itself. All the same, it must be just a little--dull, +we thought, and we thought that you might like a change. And of course +we are delighted to have you besides. That goes without saying." + +"It's very good of you," said Rickie, who had accepted the invitation +because he felt he ought to. + +"Not a bit. And you mustn't expect us to be otherwise than quiet on the +holidays. There is a library of a sort, as you know, and you will find +Gerald a splendid fellow." + +"Will they be married soon?" + +"Oh no!" whispered Mr. Pembroke, shutting his eyes, as if Rickie had +made some terrible faux pas. "It will be a very long engagement. He must +make his way first. I have seen such endless misery result from people +marrying before they have made their way." + +"Yes. That is so," said Rickie despondently, thinking of the Silts. + +"It's a sad unpalatable truth," said Mr. Pembroke, thinking that the +despondency might be personal, "but one must accept it. My sister and +Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted it, though naturally it has +been a little pill." + +Their cab lurched round the corner as he spoke, and the two patients +came in sight. Agnes was leaning over the creosoted garden-gate, and +behind her there stood a young man who had the figure of a Greek athlete +and the face of an English one. He was fair and cleanshaven, and his +colourless hair was cut rather short. The sun was in his eyes, and they, +like his mouth, seemed scarcely more than slits in his healthy skin. +Just where he began to be beautiful the clothes started. Round his neck +went an up-and-down collar and a mauve-and-gold tie, and the rest of his +limbs were hidden by a grey lounge suit, carefully creased in the right +places. + +"Lovely! Lovely!" cried Agnes, banging on the gate, "Your train must +have been to the minute." + +"Hullo!" said the athlete, and vomited with the greeting a cloud of +tobacco-smoke. It must have been imprisoned in his mouth some time, for +no pipe was visible. + +"Hullo!" returned Rickie, laughing violently. They shook hands. + +"Where are you going, Rickie?" asked Agnes. "You aren't grubby. Why +don't you stop? Gerald, get the large wicker-chair. Herbert has letters, +but we can sit here till lunch. It's like spring." + +The garden of Shelthorpe was nearly all in front an unusual and pleasant +arrangement. The front gate and the servants' entrance were both at the +side, and in the remaining space the gardener had contrived a little +lawn where one could sit concealed from the road by a fence, from the +neighbour by a fence, from the house by a tree, and from the path by a +bush. + +"This is the lovers' bower," observed Agnes, sitting down on the bench. +Rickie stood by her till the chair arrived. + +"Are you smoking before lunch?" asked Mr. Dawes. + +"No, thank you. I hardly ever smoke." + +"No vices. Aren't you at Cambridge now?" + +"Yes." + +"What's your college?" + +Rickie told him. + +"Do you know Carruthers?" + +"Rather!" + +"I mean A. P. Carruthers, who got his socker blue." + +"Rather! He's secretary to the college musical society." + +"A. P. Carruthers?" + +"Yes." + +Mr. Dawes seemed offended. He tapped on his teeth, and remarked that the +weather bad no business to be so warm in winter. "But it was fiendish +before Christmas," said Agnes. + +He frowned, and asked, "Do you know a man called Gerrish?" + +"No." + +"Ah." + +"Do you know James?" + +"Never heard of him." + +"He's my year too. He got a blue for hockey his second term." + +"I know nothing about the 'Varsity." + +Rickie winced at the abbreviation "'Varsity." It was at that time the +proper thing to speak of "the University." + +"I haven't the time," pursued Mr. Dawes. + +"No, no," said Rickie politely. + +"I had the chance of being an Undergrad, myself, and, by Jove, I'm +thankful I didn't!" + +"Why?" asked Agnes, for there was a pause. + +"Puts you back in your profession. Men who go there first, before the +Army, start hopelessly behind. The same with the Stock Exchange or +Painting. I know men in both, and they've never caught up the time they +lost in the 'Varsity--unless, of course, you turn parson." + +"I love Cambridge," said she. "All those glorious buildings, and every +one so happy and running in and out of each other's rooms all day long." + +"That might make an Undergrad happy, but I beg leave to state it +wouldn't me. I haven't four years to throw away for the sake of being +called a 'Varsity man and hobnobbing with Lords." + +Rickie was prepared to find his old schoolfellow ungrammatical and +bumptious, but he was not prepared to find him peevish. Athletes, he +believed, were simple, straightforward people, cruel and brutal if you +like, but never petty. They knocked you down and hurt you, and then went +on their way rejoicing. For this, Rickie thought, there is something to +be said: he had escaped the sin of despising the physically strong--a +sin against which the physically weak must guard. But here was Dawes +returning again and again to the subject of the University, full of +transparent jealousy and petty spite, nagging, nagging, nagging, like +a maiden lady who has not been invited to a tea-party. Rickie wondered +whether, after all, Ansell and the extremists might not be right, and +bodily beauty and strength be signs of the soul's damnation. + +He glanced at Agnes. She was writing down some orderings for the +tradespeople on a piece of paper. Her handsome face was intent on the +work. The bench on which she and Gerald were sitting had no back, but +she sat as straight as a dart. He, though strong enough to sit straight, +did not take the trouble. + +"Why don't they talk to each other?" thought Rickie. + +"Gerald, give this paper to the cook." + +"I can give it to the other slavey, can't I?" + +"She'd be dressing." + +"Well, there's Herbert." + +"He's busy. Oh, you know where the kitchen is. Take it to the cook." + +He disappeared slowly behind the tree. + +"What do you think of him?" she immediately asked. He murmured civilly. + +"Has he changed since he was a schoolboy?" + +"In a way." + +"Do tell me all about him. Why won't you?" + +She might have seen a flash of horror pass over Rickie's face. The +horror disappeared, for, thank God, he was now a man, whom civilization +protects. But he and Gerald had met, as it were, behind the scenes, +before our decorous drama opens, and there the elder boy had done things +to him--absurd things, not worth chronicling separately. An apple-pie +bed is nothing; pinches, kicks, boxed ears, twisted arms, pulled hair, +ghosts at night, inky books, befouled photographs, amount to very little +by themselves. But let them be united and continuous, and you have a +hell that no grown-up devil can devise. Between Rickie and Gerald there +lay a shadow that darkens life more often than we suppose. The bully and +his victim never quite forget their first relations. They meet in clubs +and country houses, and clap one another on the back; but in both the +memory is green of a more strenuous day, when they were boys together. + +He tried to say, "He was the right kind of boy, and I was the wrong +kind." But Cambridge would not let him smooth the situation over by +self-belittlement. If he had been the wrong kind of boy, Gerald had been +a worse kind. He murmured, "We are different, very," and Miss Pembroke, +perhaps suspecting something, asked no more. But she kept to the subject +of Mr. Dawes, humorously depreciating her lover and discussing him +without reverence. Rickie laughed, but felt uncomfortable. When people +were engaged, he felt that they should be outside criticism. Yet here he +was criticizing. He could not help it. He was dragged in. + +"I hope his ankle is better." + +"Never was bad. He's always fussing over something." + +"He plays next week in a match, I think Herbert says." + +"I dare say he does." + +"Shall we be going?" + +"Pray go if you like. I shall stop at home. I've had enough of cold +feet." + +It was all very colourless and odd. + +Gerald returned, saying, "I can't stand your cook. What's she want to +ask me questions for? I can't stand talking to servants. I say, 'If I +speak to you, well and good'--and it's another thing besides if she were +pretty." + +"Well, I hope our ugly cook will have lunch ready in a minute," said +Agnes. "We're frightfully unpunctual this morning, and I daren't say +anything, because it was the same yesterday, and if I complain again +they might leave. Poor Rickie must be starved." + +"Why, the Silts gave me all these sandwiches and I've never eaten them. +They always stuff one." + +"And you thought you'd better, eh?" said Mr. Dawes, "in case you weren't +stuffed here." + +Miss Pembroke, who house-kept somewhat economically, looked annoyed. + +The voice of Mr. Pembroke was now heard calling from the house, +"Frederick! Frederick! My dear boy, pardon me. It was an important +letter about the Church Defence, otherwise--. Come in and see your +room." + +He was glad to quit the little lawn. He had learnt too much there. It +was dreadful: they did not love each other. More dreadful even than the +case of his father and mother, for they, until they married, had got on +pretty well. But this man was already rude and brutal and cold: he was +still the school bully who twisted up the arms of little boys, and ran +pins into them at chapel, and struck them in the stomach when they were +swinging on the horizontal bar. Poor Agnes; why ever had she done it? +Ought not somebody to interfere? + +He had forgotten his sandwiches, and went back to get them. + +Gerald and Agnes were locked in each other's arms. + +He only looked for a moment, but the sight burnt into his brain. The +man's grip was the stronger. He had drawn the woman on to his knee, +was pressing her, with all his strength, against him. Already her hands +slipped off him, and she whispered, "Don't you hurt--" Her face had no +expression. It stared at the intruder and never saw him. Then her lover +kissed it, and immediately it shone with mysterious beauty, like some +star. + +Rickie limped away without the sandwiches, crimson and afraid. He +thought, "Do such things actually happen?" and he seemed to be looking +down coloured valleys. Brighter they glowed, till gods of pure flame +were born in them, and then he was looking at pinnacles of virgin snow. +While Mr. Pembroke talked, the riot of fair images increased. + +They invaded his being and lit lamps at unsuspected shrines. Their +orchestra commenced in that suburban house, where he had to stand aside +for the maid to carry in the luncheon. Music flowed past him like +a river. He stood at the springs of creation and heard the primeval +monotony. Then an obscure instrument gave out a little phrase. + +The river continued unheeding. The phrase was repeated and a listener +might know it was a fragment of the Tune of tunes. Nobler instruments +accepted it, the clarionet protected, the brass encouraged, and it rose +to the surface to the whisper of violins. In full unison was Love born, +flame of the flame, flushing the dark river beneath him and the virgin +snows above. His wings were infinite, his youth eternal; the sun was +a jewel on his finger as he passed it in benediction over the world. +Creation, no longer monotonous, acclaimed him, in widening melody, in +brighter radiances. Was Love a column of fire? Was he a torrent of song? +Was he greater than either--the touch of a man on a woman? + +It was the merest accident that Rickie had not been disgusted. But this +he could not know. + +Mr. Pembroke, when he called the two dawdlers into lunch, was aware of a +hand on his arm and a voice that murmured, "Don't--they may be happy." + +He stared, and struck the gong. To its music they approached, priest and +high priestess. + +"Rickie, can I give these sandwiches to the boot boy?" said the one. "He +would love them." + +"The gong! Be quick! The gong!" + +"Are you smoking before lunch?" said the other. + +But they had got into heaven, and nothing could get them out of it. +Others might think them surly or prosaic. He knew. He could remember +every word they spoke. He would treasure every motion, every glance of +either, and so in time to come, when the gates of heaven had shut, some +faint radiance, some echo of wisdom might remain with him outside. + +As a matter of fact, he saw them very little during his visit. He +checked himself because he was unworthy. What right had he to pry, even +in the spirit, upon their bliss? It was no crime to have seen them +on the lawn. It would be a crime to go to it again. He tried to keep +himself and his thoughts away, not because he was ascetic, but because +they would not like it if they knew. This behaviour of his suited them +admirably. And when any gracious little thing occurred to them--any +little thing that his sympathy had contrived and allowed--they put it +down to chance or to each other. + +So the lovers fall into the background. They are part of the distant +sunrise, and only the mountains speak to them. Rickie talks to Mr. +Pembroke, amidst the unlit valleys of our over-habitable world. + + + +IV + +Sawston School had been founded by a tradesman in the seventeenth +century. It was then a tiny grammar-school in a tiny town, and the City +Company who governed it had to drive half a day through the woods and +heath on the occasion of their annual visit. In the twentieth century +they still drove, but only from the railway station; and found +themselves not in a tiny town, nor yet in a large one, but amongst +innumerable residences, detached and semi-detached, which had gathered +round the school. For the intentions of the founder had been altered, or +at all events amplified, instead of educating the "poore of my home," +he now educated the upper classes of England. The change had taken place +not so very far back. Till the nineteenth century the grammar-school was +still composed of day scholars from the neighbourhood. Then two things +happened. Firstly, the school's property rose in value, and it became +rich. Secondly, for no obvious reason, it suddenly emitted a quantity +of bishops. The bishops, like the stars from a Roman candle, were +all colours, and flew in all directions, some high, some low, some to +distant colonies, one into the Church of Rome. But many a father traced +their course in the papers; many a mother wondered whether her son, if +properly ignited, might not burn as bright; many a family moved to the +place where living and education were so cheap, where day-boys were not +looked down upon, and where the orthodox and the up-to-date were said to +be combined. The school doubled its numbers. It built new class-rooms, +laboratories and a gymnasium. It dropped the prefix "Grammar." It coaxed +the sons of the local tradesmen into a new foundation, the "Commercial +School," built a couple of miles away. And it started boarding-houses. +It had not the gracious antiquity of Eton or Winchester, nor, on the +other hand, had it a conscious policy like Lancing, Wellington, and +other purely modern foundations. Where tradition served, it clung to +them. Where new departures seemed desirable, they were made. It aimed +at producing the average Englishman, and, to a very great extent, it +succeeded. + +Here Mr. Pembroke passed his happy and industrious life. His technical +position was that of master to a form low down on the Modern Side. But +his work lay elsewhere. He organized. If no organization existed, +he would create one. If one did exist, he would modify it. "An +organization," he would say, "is after all not an end in itself. It must +contribute to a movement." When one good custom seemed likely to +corrupt the school, he was ready with another; he believed that without +innumerable customs there was no safety, either for boys or men. + +Perhaps he is right, and always will be right. Perhaps each of us +would go to ruin if for one short hour we acted as we thought fit, and +attempted the service of perfect freedom. The school caps, with their +elaborate symbolism, were his; his the many-tinted bathing-drawers, +that showed how far a boy could swim; his the hierarchy of jerseys and +blazers. It was he who instituted Bounds, and call, and the two sorts +of exercise-paper, and the three sorts of caning, and "The Sawtonian," a +bi-terminal magazine. His plump finger was in every pie. The dome of +his skull, mild but impressive, shone at every master's meeting. He was +generally acknowledged to be the coming man. + +His last achievement had been the organization of the day-boys. They had +been left too much to themselves, and were weak in esprit de corps; +they were apt to regard home, not school, as the most important thing +in their lives. Moreover, they got out of their parents' hands; they did +their preparation any time and some times anyhow. They shirked games, +they were out at all hours, they ate what they should not, they smoked, +they bicycled on the asphalt. Now all was over. Like boarders, they +were to be in at 7:15 P.M., and were not allowed out after unless with +a written order from their parent or guardian; they, too, must work at +fixed hours in the evening, and before breakfast next morning from 7 to +8. Games were compulsory. They must not go to parties in term time. +They must keep to bounds. Of course the reform was not complete. It +was impossible to control the dieting, though, on a printed circular, +day-parents were implored to provide simple food. And it is also +believed that some mothers disobeyed the rule about preparation, and +allowed their sons to do all the work over-night and have a longer +sleep in the morning. But the gulf between day-boys and boarders was +considerably lessened, and grew still narrower when the day-boys too +were organized into a House with house-master and colours of their own. +"Through the House," said Mr. Pembroke, "one learns patriotism for +the school, just as through the school one learns patriotism for the +country. Our only course, therefore, is to organize the day-boys into +a House." The headmaster agreed, as he often did, and the new community +was formed. Mr. Pembroke, to avoid the tongues of malice, had refused +the post of house-master for himself, saying to Mr. Jackson, who taught +the sixth, "You keep too much in the background. Here is a chance for +you." But this was a failure. Mr. Jackson, a scholar and a student, +neither felt nor conveyed any enthusiasm, and when confronted with his +House, would say, "Well, I don't know what we're all here for. Now I +should think you'd better go home to your mothers." He returned to his +background, and next term Mr. Pembroke was to take his place. + +Such were the themes on which Mr. Pembroke discoursed to Rickie's civil +ear. He showed him the school, and the library, and the subterranean +hall where the day-boys might leave their coats and caps, and where, on +festal occasions, they supped. He showed him Mr. Jackson's pretty house, +and whispered, "Were it not for his brilliant intellect, it would be a +case of Quickmarch!" He showed him the racquet-court, happily completed, +and the chapel, unhappily still in need of funds. Rickie was impressed, +but then he was impressed by everything. Of course a House of day-boys +seemed a little shadowy after Agnes and Gerald, but he imparted some +reality even to that. + +"The racquet-court," said Mr. Pembroke, "is most gratifying. We never +expected to manage it this year. But before the Easter holidays every +boy received a subscription card, and was given to understand that he +must collect thirty shillings. You will scarcely believe me, but they +nearly all responded. Next term there was a dinner in the great school, +and all who had collected, not thirty shillings, but as much as a +pound, were invited to it--for naturally one was not precise for a few +shillings, the response being the really valuable thing. Practically the +whole school had to come." + +"They must enjoy the court tremendously." + +"Ah, it isn't used very much. Racquets, as I daresay you know, is rather +an expensive game. Only the wealthier boys play--and I'm sorry to say +that it is not of our wealthier boys that we are always the proudest. +But the point is that no public school can be called first-class until +it has one. They are building them right and left." + +"And now you must finish the chapel?" + +"Now we must complete the chapel." He paused reverently, and said, "And +here is a fragment of the original building." Rickie at once had a rush +of sympathy. He, too, looked with reverence at the morsel of Jacobean +brickwork, ruddy and beautiful amidst the machine-squared stones of the +modern apse. The two men, who had so little in common, were thrilled +with patriotism. They rejoiced that their country was great, noble, and +old. + +"Thank God I'm English," said Rickie suddenly. + +"Thank Him indeed," said Mr. Pembroke, laying a hand on his back. + +"We've been nearly as great as the Greeks, I do believe. Greater, I'm +sure, than the Italians, though they did get closer to beauty. Greater +than the French, though we do take all their ideas. I can't help +thinking that England is immense. English literature certainly." + +Mr. Pembroke removed his hand. He found such patriotism somewhat craven. +Genuine patriotism comes only from the heart. It knows no parleying with +reason. English ladies will declare abroad that there are no fogs in +London, and Mr. Pembroke, though he would not go to this, was only +restrained by the certainty of being found out. On this occasion +he remarked that the Greeks lacked spiritual insight, and had a low +conception of woman. + +"As to women--oh! there they were dreadful," said Rickie, leaning his +hand on the chapel. "I realize that more and more. But as to spiritual +insight, I don't quite like to say; and I find Plato too difficult, but +I know men who don't, and I fancy they mightn't agree with you." + +"Far be it from me to disparage Plato. And for philosophy as a whole I +have the greatest respect. But it is the crown of a man's education, +not the foundation. Myself, I read it with the utmost profit, but I have +known endless trouble result from boys who attempt it too soon, before +they were set." + +"But if those boys had died first," cried Rickie with sudden vehemence, +"without knowing what there is to know--" + +"Or isn't to know!" said Mr. Pembroke sarcastically. + +"Or what there isn't to know. Exactly. That's it." + +"My dear Rickie, what do you mean? If an old friend may be frank, you +are talking great rubbish." And, with a few well-worn formulae, he +propped up the young man's orthodoxy. The props were unnecessary. Rickie +had his own equilibrium. Neither the Revivalism that assails a boy at +about the age of fifteen, nor the scepticism that meets him five years +later, could sway him from his allegiance to the church into which he +had been born. But his equilibrium was personal, and the secret of it +useless to others. He desired that each man should find his own. + +"What does philosophy do?" the propper continued. "Does it make a man +happier in life? Does it make him die more peacefully? I fancy that in +the long-run Herbert Spencer will get no further than the rest of us. +Ah, Rickie! I wish you could move among the school boys, and see their +healthy contempt for all they cannot touch!" Here he was going too far, +and had to add, "Their spiritual capacities, of course, are another +matter." Then he remembered the Greeks, and said, "Which proves my +original statement." + +Submissive signs, as of one propped, appeared in Rickie's face. +Mr. Pembroke then questioned him about the men who found Plato not +difficult. But here he kept silence, patting the school chapel gently, +and presently the conversation turned to topics with which they were +both more competent to deal. + +"Does Agnes take much interest in the school?" + +"Not as much as she did. It is the result of her engagement. If our +naughty soldier had not carried her off, she might have made an ideal +schoolmaster's wife. I often chaff him about it, for he a little +despises the intellectual professions. Natural, perfectly natural. How +can a man who faces death feel as we do towards mensa or tupto?" + +"Perfectly true. Absolutely true." + +Mr. Pembroke remarked to himself that Frederick was improving. + +"If a man shoots straight and hits straight and speaks straight, if his +heart is in the right place, if he has the instincts of a Christian +and a gentleman--then I, at all events, ask no better husband for my +sister." + +"How could you get a better?" he cried. "Do you remember the thing in +'The Clouds'?" And he quoted, as well as he could, from the invitation +of the Dikaios Logos, the description of the young Athenian, perfect in +body, placid in mind, who neglects his work at the Bar and trains all +day among the woods and meadows, with a garland on his head and a friend +to set the pace; the scent of new leaves is upon them; they rejoice in +the freshness of spring; over their heads the plane-tree whispers to the +elm, perhaps the most glorious invitation to the brainless life that has +ever been given. + +"Yes, yes," said Mr. Pembroke, who did not want a brother-in-law out of +Aristophanes. Nor had he got one, for Mr. Dawes would not have bothered +over the garland or noticed the spring, and would have complained that +the friend ran too slowly or too fast. + +"And as for her--!" But he could think of no classical parallel for +Agnes. She slipped between examples. A kindly Medea, a Cleopatra with a +sense of duty--these suggested her a little. She was not born in Greece, +but came overseas to it--a dark, intelligent princess. With all her +splendour, there were hints of splendour still hidden--hints of an +older, richer, and more mysterious land. He smiled at the idea of her +being "not there." Ansell, clever as he was, had made a bad blunder. She +had more reality than any other woman in the world. + +Mr. Pembroke looked pleased at this boyish enthusiasm. He was fond of +his sister, though he knew her to be full of faults. "Yes, I envy her," +he said. "She has found a worthy helpmeet for life's journey, I do +believe. And though they chafe at the long engagement, it is a blessing +in disguise. They learn to know each other thoroughly before contracting +more intimate ties." + +Rickie did not assent. The length of the engagement seemed to him +unspeakably cruel. Here were two people who loved each other, and they +could not marry for years because they had no beastly money. Not all +Herbert's pious skill could make this out a blessing. It was bad enough +being "so rich" at the Silts; here he was more ashamed of it than ever. +In a few weeks he would come of age and his money be his own. What a +pity things were so crookedly arranged. He did not want money, or at all +events he did not want so much. + +"Suppose," he meditated, for he became much worried over this,--"suppose +I had a hundred pounds a year less than I shall have. Well, I should +still have enough. I don't want anything but food, lodging, clothes, +and now and then a railway fare. I haven't any tastes. I don't collect +anything or play games. Books are nice to have, but after all there is +Mudie's, or if it comes to that, the Free Library. Oh, my profession! I +forgot I shall have a profession. Well, that will leave me with more to +spare than ever." And he supposed away till he lost touch with the world +and with what it permits, and committed an unpardonable sin. + +It happened towards the end of his visit--another airless day of that +mild January. Mr. Dawes was playing against a scratch team of cads, and +had to go down to the ground in the morning to settle something. Rickie +proposed to come too. + +Hitherto he had been no nuisance. "You will be frightfully bored," said +Agnes, observing the cloud on her lover's face. "And Gerald walks like a +maniac." + +"I had a little thought of the Museum this morning," said Mr. Pembroke. +"It is very strong in flint arrow-heads." + +"Ah, that's your line, Rickie. I do envy you and Herbert the way you +enjoy the past." + +"I almost think I'll go with Dawes, if he'll have me. I can walk quite +fast just to the ground and back. Arrowheads are wonderful, but I don't +really enjoy them yet, though I hope I shall in time." + +Mr. Pembroke was offended, but Rickie held firm. + +In a quarter of an hour he was back at the house alone, nearly crying. + +"Oh, did the wretch go too fast?" called Miss Pembroke from her bedroom +window. + +"I went too fast for him." He spoke quite sharply, and before he had +time to say he was sorry and didn't mean exactly that, the window had +shut. + +"They've quarrelled," she thought. "Whatever about?" + +She soon heard. Gerald returned in a cold stormy temper. Rickie had +offered him money. + +"My dear fellow don't be so cross. The child's mad." + +"If it was, I'd forgive that. But I can't stand unhealthiness." + +"Now, Gerald, that's where I hate you. You don't know what it is to pity +the weak." + +"Woman's job. So you wish I'd taken a hundred pounds a year from him. +Did you ever hear such blasted cheek? Marry us--he, you, and me--a +hundred pounds down and as much annual--he, of course, to pry into all +we did, and we to kowtow and eat dirt-pie to him. If that's Mr. Rickety +Elliot's idea of a soldier and an Englishman, it isn't mine, and I wish +I'd had a horse-whip." + +She was roaring with laughter. "You're babies, a pair of you, and you're +the worst. Why couldn't you let the little silly down gently? There he +was puffing and sniffing under my window, and I thought he'd insulted +you. Why didn't you accept?" + +"Accept?" he thundered. + +"It would have taken the nonsense out of him for ever. Why, he was only +talking out of a book." + +"More fool he." + +"Well, don't be angry with a fool. He means no harm. He muddles all day +with poetry and old dead people, and then tries to bring it into life. +It's too funny for words." + +Gerald repeated that he could not stand unhealthiness. + +"I don't call that exactly unhealthy." + +"I do. And why he could give the money's worse." + +"What do you mean?" + +He became shy. "I hadn't meant to tell you. It's not quite for a lady." +For, like most men who are rather animal, he was intellectually a prude. +"He says he can't ever marry, owing to his foot. It wouldn't be fair to +posterity. His grandfather was crocked, his father too, and he's as bad. +He thinks that it's hereditary, and may get worse next generation. He's +discussed it all over with other Undergrads. A bright lot they must be. +He daren't risk having any children. Hence the hundred quid." + +She stopped laughing. "Oh, little beast, if he said all that!" + +He was encouraged to proceed. Hitherto he had not talked about their +school days. Now he told her everything,--the "barley-sugar," as he +called it, the pins in chapel, and how one afternoon he had tied him +head-downward on to a tree trunk and then ran away--of course only for a +moment. + +For this she scolded him well. But she had a thrill of joy when she +thought of the weak boy in the clutches of the strong one. + + + +V + +Gerald died that afternoon. He was broken up in the football match. +Rickie and Mr. Pembroke were on the ground when the accident took place. +It was no good torturing him by a drive to the hospital, and he was +merely carried to the little pavilion and laid upon the floor. A doctor +came, and so did a clergyman, but it seemed better to leave him for the +last few minutes with Agnes, who had ridden down on her bicycle. + +It was a strange lamentable interview. The girl was so accustomed to +health, that for a time she could not understand. It must be a joke that +he chose to lie there in the dust, with a rug over him and his knees +bent up towards his chin. His arms were as she knew them, and their +admirable muscles showed clear and clean beneath the jersey. The face, +too, though a little flushed, was uninjured: it must be some curious +joke. + +"Gerald, what have you been doing?" + +He replied, "I can't see you. It's too dark." + +"Oh, I'll soon alter that," she said in her old brisk way. She opened +the pavilion door. The people who were standing by it moved aside. She +saw a deserted meadow, steaming and grey, and beyond it slateroofed +cottages, row beside row, climbing a shapeless hill. Towards London the +sky was yellow. "There. That's better." She sat down by him again, and +drew his hand into her own. "Now we are all right, aren't we?" + +"Where are you?" + +This time she could not reply. + +"What is it? Where am I going?" + +"Wasn't the rector here?" said she after a silence. + +"He explained heaven, and thinks that I--but--I couldn't tell a parson; +but I don't seem to have any use for any of the things there." + +"We are Christians," said Agnes shyly. "Dear love, we don't talk about +these things, but we believe them. I think that you will get well and +be as strong again as ever; but, in any case, there is a spiritual life, +and we know that some day you and I--" + +"I shan't do as a spirit," he interrupted, sighing pitifully. "I want +you as I am, and it cannot be managed. The rector had to say so. I +want--I don't want to talk. I can't see you. Shut that door." + +She obeyed, and crept into his arms. Only this time her grasp was the +stronger. Her heart beat louder and louder as the sound of his grew more +faint. He was crying like a little frightened child, and her lips were +wet with his tears. "Bear it bravely," she told him. + +"I can't," he whispered. "It isn't to be done. I can't see you," and +passed from her trembling with open eyes. + +She rode home on her bicycle, leaving the others to follow. Some ladies +who did not know what had happened bowed and smiled as she passed, and +she returned their salute. + +"Oh, miss, is it true?" cried the cook, her face streaming with tears. + +Agnes nodded. Presumably it was true. Letters had just arrived: one +was for Gerald from his mother. Life, which had given them no warning, +seemed to make no comment now. The incident was outside nature, and +would surely pass away like a dream. She felt slightly irritable, and +the grief of the servants annoyed her. + +They sobbed. "Ah, look at his marks! Ah, little he thought--little he +thought!" In the brown holland strip by the front door a heavy football +boot had left its impress. They had not liked Gerald, but he was a man, +they were women, he had died. Their mistress ordered them to leave her. + +For many minutes she sat at the foot of the stairs, rubbing her eyes. An +obscure spiritual crisis was going on. + +Should she weep like the servants? Or should she bear up and trust in +the consoler Time? Was the death of a man so terrible after all? As she +invited herself to apathy there were steps on the gravel, and Rickie +Elliot burst in. He was splashed with mud, his breath was gone, and +his hair fell wildly over his meagre face. She thought, "These are the +people who are left alive!" From the bottom of her soul she hated him. + +"I came to see what you're doing," he cried. + +"Resting." + +He knelt beside her, and she said, "Would you please go away?" + +"Yes, dear Agnes, of course; but I must see first that you mind." Her +breath caught. Her eves moved to the treads, going outwards, so firmly, +so irretrievably. + +He panted, "It's the worst thing that can ever happen to you in all +your life, and you've got to mind it you've got to mind it. They'll come +saying, 'Bear up trust to time.' No, no; they're wrong. Mind it." + +Through all her misery she knew that this boy was greater than they +supposed. He rose to his feet, and with intense conviction cried: "But +I know--I understand. It's your death as well as his. He's gone, Agnes, +and his arms will never hold you again. In God's name, mind such a +thing, and don't sit fencing with your soul. Don't stop being great; +that's the one crime he'll never forgive you." + +She faltered, "Who--who forgives?" + +"Gerald." + +At the sound of his name she slid forward, and all her dishonesty left +her. She acknowledged that life's meaning had vanished. Bending down, +she kissed the footprint. "How can he forgive me?" she sobbed. "Where +has he gone to? You could never dream such an awful thing. He couldn't +see me though I opened the door--wide--plenty of light; and then he +could not remember the things that should comfort him. He wasn't a--he +wasn't ever a great reader, and he couldn't remember the things. The +rector tried, and he couldn't--I came, and I couldn't--" She could not +speak for tears. Rickie did not check her. He let her accuse herself, +and fate, and Herbert, who had postponed their marriage. She might have +been a wife six months; but Herbert had spoken of self-control and of +all life before them. He let her kiss the footprints till their marks +gave way to the marks of her lips. She moaned. "He is gone--where is +he?" and then he replied quite quietly, "He is in heaven." + +She begged him not to comfort her; she could not bear it. + +"I did not come to comfort you. I came to see that you mind. He is in +heaven, Agnes. The greatest thing is over." + +Her hatred was lulled. She murmured, "Dear Rickie!" and held up her hand +to him. Through her tears his meagre face showed as a seraph's who spoke +the truth and forbade her to juggle with her soul. "Dear Rickie--but for +the rest of my life what am I to do?" + +"Anything--if you remember that the greatest thing is over." + +"I don't know you," she said tremulously. "You have grown up in a +moment. You never talked to us, and yet you understand it all. Tell me +again--I can only trust you--where he is." + +"He is in heaven." + +"You are sure?" + +It puzzled her that Rickie, who could scarcely tell you the time without +a saving clause, should be so certain about immortality. + + + +VI + +He did not stop for the funeral. Mr. Pembroke thought that he had a bad +effect on Agnes, and prevented her from acquiescing in the tragedy as +rapidly as she might have done. As he expressed it, "one must not court +sorrow," and he hinted to the young man that they desired to be alone. + +Rickie went back to the Silts. + +He was only there a few days. As soon as term opened he returned to +Cambridge, for which he longed passionately. The journey thither was now +familiar to him, and he took pleasure in each landmark. The fair valley +of Tewin Water, the cutting into Hitchin where the train traverses the +chalk, Baldock Church, Royston with its promise of downs, were nothing +in themselves, but dear as stages in the pilgrimage towards the abode +of peace. On the platform he met friends. They had all had pleasant +vacations: it was a happy world. The atmosphere alters. + +Cambridge, according to her custom, welcomed her sons with open drains. +Pettycury was up, so was Trinity Street, and navvies peeped out of +King's Parade. Here it was gas, there electric light, but everywhere +something, and always a smell. It was also the day that the wheels fell +off the station tram, and Rickie, who was naturally inside, was among +the passengers who "sustained no injury but a shock, and had as hearty a +laugh over the mishap afterwards as any one." + +Tilliard fled into a hansom, cursing himself for having tried to do the +thing cheaply. Hornblower also swept past yelling derisively, with his +luggage neatly piled above his head. "Let's get out and walk," muttered +Ansell. But Rickie was succouring a distressed female--Mrs. Aberdeen. + +"Oh, Mrs. Aberdeen, I never saw you: I am so glad to see you--I am so +very glad." Mrs. Aberdeen was cold. She did not like being spoken to +outside the college, and was also distrait about her basket. Hitherto +no genteel eye had even seen inside it, but in the collision its little +calico veil fell off, and there was revealed--nothing. The basket was +empty, and never would hold anything illegal. All the same she was +distrait, and "We shall meet later, sir, I dessy," was all the greeting +Rickie got from her. + +"Now what kind of a life has Mrs. Aberdeen?" he exclaimed, as he and +Ansell pursued the Station Road. "Here these bedders come and make us +comfortable. We owe an enormous amount to them, their wages are absurd, +and we know nothing about them. Off they go to Barnwell, and then their +lives are hidden. I just know that Mrs. Aberdeen has a husband, but +that's all. She never will talk about him. Now I do so want to fill in +her life. I see one-half of it. What's the other half? She may have a +real jolly house, in good taste, with a little garden and books, and +pictures. Or, again, she mayn't. But in any case one ought to know. I +know she'd dislike it, but she oughtn't to dislike. After all, bedders +are to blame for the present lamentable state of things, just as much as +gentlefolk. She ought to want me to come. She ought to introduce me to +her husband." + +They had reached the corner of Hills Road. Ansell spoke for the first +time. He said, "Ugh!" + +"Drains?" + +"Yes. A spiritual cesspool." + +Rickie laughed. + +"I expected it from your letter." + +"The one you never answered?" + +"I answer none of your letters. You are quite hopeless by now. You can +go to the bad. But I refuse to accompany you. I refuse to believe that +every human being is a moving wonder of supreme interest and tragedy and +beauty--which was what the letter in question amounted to. You'll find +plenty who will believe it. It's a very popular view among people +who are too idle to think; it saves them the trouble of detecting the +beautiful from the ugly, the interesting from the dull, the tragic from +the melodramatic. You had just come from Sawston, and were apparently +carried away by the fact that Miss Pembroke had the usual amount of arms +and legs." + +Rickie was silent. He had told his friend how he felt, but not what had +happened. Ansell could discuss love and death admirably, but somehow he +would not understand lovers or a dying man, and in the letter there had +been scant allusion to these concrete facts. Would Cambridge understand +them either? He watched some dons who were peeping into an excavation, +and throwing up their hands with humorous gestures of despair. These +men would lecture next week on Catiline's conspiracy, on Luther, on +Evolution, on Catullus. They dealt with so much and they had experienced +so little. Was it possible he would ever come to think Cambridge narrow? +In his short life Rickie had known two sudden deaths, and that is enough +to disarrange any placid outlook on the world. He knew once for all +that we are all of us bubbles on an extremely rough sea. Into this sea +humanity has built, as it were, some little breakwaters--scientific +knowledge, civilized restraint--so that the bubbles do not break so +frequently or so soon. But the sea has not altered, and it was only a +chance that he, Ansell, Tilliard, and Mrs. Aberdeen had not all been +killed in the tram. + +They waited for the other tram by the Roman Catholic Church, whose +florid bulk was already receding into twilight. It is the first big +building that the incoming visitor sees. "Oh, here come the colleges!" +cries the Protestant parent, and then learns that it was built by a +Papist who made a fortune out of movable eyes for dolls. "Built out of +doll's eyes to contain idols"--that, at all events, is the legend and +the joke. It watches over the apostate city, taller by many a yard than +anything within, and asserting, however wildly, that here is eternity, +stability, and bubbles unbreakable upon a windless sea. + +A costly hymn tune announced five o'clock, and in the distance the more +lovable note of St. Mary's could be heard, speaking from the heart of +the town. Then the tram arrived--the slow stuffy tram that plies every +twenty minutes between the unknown and the marketplace--and took them +past the desecrated grounds of Downing, past Addenbrookes Hospital, girt +like a Venetian palace with a mantling canal, past the Fitz William, +towering upon immense substructions like any Roman temple, right up to +the gates of one's own college, which looked like nothing else in the +world. The porters were glad to see them, but wished it had been a +hansom. "Our luggage," explained Rickie, "comes in the hotel omnibus, if +you would kindly pay a shilling for mine." Ansell turned aside to some +large lighted windows, the abode of a hospitable don, and from other +windows there floated familiar voices and the familiar mistakes in a +Beethoven sonata. The college, though small, was civilized, and proud of +its civilization. It was not sufficient glory to be a Blue there, nor +an additional glory to get drunk. Many a maiden lady who had read +that Cambridge men were sad dogs, was surprised and perhaps a little +disappointed at the reasonable life which greeted her. Miss Appleblossom +in particular had had a tremendous shock. The sight of young fellows +making tea and drinking water had made her wonder whether this was +Cambridge College at all. "It is so," she exclaimed afterwards. "It is +just as I say; and what's more, I wouldn't have it otherwise; Stewart +says it's as easy as easy to get into the swim, and not at all +expensive." The direction of the swim was determined a little by the +genius of the place--for places have a genius, though the less we talk +about it the better--and a good deal by the tutors and resident fellows, +who treated with rare dexterity the products that came up yearly +from the public schools. They taught the perky boy that he was not +everything, and the limp boy that he might be something. They even +welcomed those boys who were neither limp nor perky, but odd--those boys +who had never been at a public school at all, and such do not find a +welcome everywhere. And they did everything with ease--one might almost +say with nonchalance, so that the boys noticed nothing, and received +education, often for the first time in their lives. + +But Rickie turned to none of these friends, for just then he loved his +rooms better than any person. They were all he really possessed in the +world, the only place he could call his own. Over the door was his name, +and through the paint, like a grey ghost, he could still read the name +of his predecessor. With a sigh of joy he entered the perishable home +that was his for a couple of years. There was a beautiful fire, and +the kettle boiled at once. He made tea on the hearth-rug and ate the +biscuits which Mrs. Aberdeen had brought for him up from Anderson's. +"Gentlemen," she said, "must learn to give and take." He sighed again +and again, like one who had escaped from danger. With his head on the +fender and all his limbs relaxed, he felt almost as safe as he felt once +when his mother killed a ghost in the passage by carrying him through +it in her arms. There was no ghost now; he was frightened at reality; he +was frightened at the splendours and horrors of the world. + +A letter from Miss Pembroke was on the table. He did not hurry to open +it, for she, and all that she did, was overwhelming. She wrote like +the Sibyl; her sorrowful face moved over the stars and shattered their +harmonies; last night he saw her with the eyes of Blake, a virgin widow, +tall, veiled, consecrated, with her hands stretched out against an +everlasting wind. Why should she write? Her letters were not for the +likes of him, nor to be read in rooms like his. + +"We are not leaving Sawston," she wrote. "I saw how selfish it was of +me to risk spoiling Herbert's career. I shall get used to any place. +Now that he is gone, nothing of that sort can matter. Every one has been +most kind, but you have comforted me most, though you did not mean to. I +cannot think how you did it, or understood so much. I still think of you +as a little boy with a lame leg,--I know you will let me say this,--and +yet when it came to the point you knew more than people who have been +all their lives with sorrow and death." + +Rickie burnt this letter, which he ought not to have done, for it was +one of the few tributes Miss Pembroke ever paid to imagination. But +he felt that it did not belong to him: words so sincere should be for +Gerald alone. The smoke rushed up the chimney, and he indulged in a +vision. He saw it reach the outer air and beat against the low ceiling +of clouds. The clouds were too strong for it; but in them was one chink, +revealing one star, and through this the smoke escaped into the light +of stars innumerable. Then--but then the vision failed, and the voice of +science whispered that all smoke remains on earth in the form of smuts, +and is troublesome to Mrs. Aberdeen. + +"I am jolly unpractical," he mused. "And what is the point of it when +real things are so wonderful? Who wants visions in a world that has +Agnes and Gerald?" He turned on the electric light and pulled open +the table-drawer. There, among spoons and corks and string, he found a +fragment of a little story that he had tried to write last term. It was +called "The Bay of the Fifteen Islets," and the action took place on St. +John's Eve off the coast of Sicily. A party of tourists land on one of +the islands. Suddenly the boatmen become uneasy, and say that the island +is not generally there. It is an extra one, and they had better have tea +on one of the ordinaries. "Pooh, volcanic!" says the leading tourist, +and the ladies say how interesting. The island begins to rock, and so +do the minds of its visitors. They start and quarrel and jabber. Fingers +burst up through the sand-black fingers of sea devils. The island tilts. +The tourists go mad. But just before the catastrophe one man, integer +vitae scelerisque purus, sees the truth. Here are no devils. Other +muscles, other minds, are pulling the island to its subterranean home. +Through the advancing wall of waters he sees no grisly faces, no +ghastly medieval limbs, but--But what nonsense! When real things are so +wonderful, what is the point of pretending? + +And so Rickie deflected his enthusiasms. Hitherto they had played on +gods and heroes, on the infinite and the impossible, on virtue and +beauty and strength. Now, with a steadier radiance, they transfigured a +man who was dead and a woman who was still alive. + + + +VII + +Love, say orderly people, can be fallen into by two methods: (1) through +the desires, (2) through the imagination. And if the orderly people are +English, they add that (1) is the inferior method, and characteristic +of the South. It is inferior. Yet those who pursue it at all events +know what they want; they are not puzzling to themselves or ludicrous +to others; they do not take the wings of the morning and fly into the +uttermost parts of the sea before walking to the registry office; they +cannot breed a tragedy quite like Rickie's. + +He is, of course, absurdly young--not twenty-one and he will be engaged +to be married at twenty-three. He has no knowledge of the world; for +example, he thinks that if you do not want money you can give it to +friends who do. He believes in humanity because he knows a dozen decent +people. He believes in women because he has loved his mother. And his +friends are as young and as ignorant as himself. They are full of the +wine of life. But they have not tasted the cup--let us call it the +teacup--of experience, which has made men of Mr. Pembroke's type what +they are. Oh, that teacup! To be taken at prayers, at friendship, at +love, till we are quite sane, efficient, quite experienced, and quite +useless to God or man. We must drink it, or we shall die. But we need +not drink it always. Here is our problem and our salvation. There comes +a moment--God knows when--at which we can say, "I will experience no +longer. I will create. I will be an experience." But to do this we must +be both acute and heroic. For it is not easy, after accepting six cups +of tea, to throw the seventh in the face of the hostess. And to Rickie +this moment has not, as yet, been offered. + +Ansell, at the end of his third year, got a first in the Moral Science +Tripos. Being a scholar, he kept his rooms in college, and at once +began to work for a Fellowship. Rickie got a creditable second in the +Classical Tripos, Part I., and retired to sallow lodgings in Mill bane, +carrying with him the degree of B.A. and a small exhibition, which was +quite as much as he deserved. For Part II. he read Greek Archaeology, +and got a second. All this means that Ansell was much cleverer than +Rickie. As for the cow, she was still going strong, though turning a +little academic as the years passed over her. + +"We are bound to get narrow," sighed Rickie. He and his friend were +lying in a meadow during their last summer term. In his incurable love +for flowers he had plaited two garlands of buttercups and cow-parsley, +and Ansell's lean Jewish face was framed in one of them. "Cambridge is +wonderful, but--but it's so tiny. You have no idea--at least, I think +you have no idea--how the great world looks down on it." + +"I read the letters in the papers." + +"It's a bad look-out." + +"How?" + +"Cambridge has lost touch with the times." + +"Was she ever intended to touch them?" + +"She satisfies," said Rickie mysteriously, "neither the professions, nor +the public schools, nor the great thinking mass of men and women. There +is a general feeling that her day is over, and naturally one feels +pretty sick." + +"Do you still write short stories?" + +"Because your English has gone to the devil. You think and talk in +Journalese. Define a great thinking mass." + +Rickie sat up and adjusted his floral crown. + +"Estimate the worth of a general feeling." + +Silence. + +"And thirdly, where is the great world?" + +"Oh that--!" + +"Yes. That," exclaimed Ansell, rising from his couch in violent +excitement. "Where is it? How do you set about finding it? How long does +it take to get there? What does it think? What does it do? What does +it want? Oblige me with specimens of its art and literature." Silence. +"Till you do, my opinions will be as follows: There is no great world at +all, only a little earth, for ever isolated from the rest of the little +solar system. The earth is full of tiny societies, and Cambridge is one +of them. All the societies are narrow, but some are good and some are +bad--just as one house is beautiful inside and another ugly. Observe the +metaphor of the houses: I am coming back to it. The good societies say, +`I tell you to do this because I am Cambridge.' The bad ones say, `I +tell you to do that because I am the great world, not because I am +'Peckham,' or `Billingsgate,' or `Park Lane,' but `because I am the +great world.' They lie. And fools like you listen to them, and believe +that they are a thing which does not exist and never has existed, and +confuse 'great,' which has no meaning whatever, with 'good,' which means +salvation. Look at this great wreath: it'll be dead tomorrow. Look +at that good flower: it'll come up again next year. Now for the other +metaphor. To compare the world to Cambridge is like comparing the +outsides of houses with the inside of a house. No intellectual effort is +needed, no moral result is attained. You only have to say, 'Oh, what +a difference!' and then come indoors again and exhibit your broadened +mind." + +"I never shall come indoors again," said Rickie. "That's the whole +point." And his voice began to quiver. "It's well enough for those +who'll get a Fellowship, but in a few weeks I shall go down. In a few +years it'll be as if I've never been up. It matters very much to me what +the world is like. I can't answer your questions about it; and that's +no loss to you, but so much the worse for me. And then you've got a +house--not a metaphorical one, but a house with father and sisters. I +haven't, and never shall have. There'll never again be a home for me +like Cambridge. I shall only look at the outside of homes. According to +your metaphor, I shall live in the street, and it matters very much to +me what I find there." + +"You'll live in another house right enough," said Ansell, rather +uneasily. "Only take care you pick out a decent one. I can't think +why you flop about so helplessly, like a bit of seaweed. In four years +you've taken as much root as any one." + +"Where?" + +"I should say you've been fortunate in your friends." + +"Oh--that!" But he was not cynical--or cynical in a very tender way. +He was thinking of the irony of friendship--so strong it is, and so +fragile. We fly together, like straws in an eddy, to part in the open +stream. Nature has no use for us: she has cut her stuff differently. +Dutiful sons, loving husbands, responsible fathers these are what she +wants, and if we are friends it must be in our spare time. Abram and +Sarai were sorrowful, yet their seed became as sand of the sea, and +distracts the politics of Europe at this moment. But a few verses of +poetry is all that survives of David and Jonathan. + +"I wish we were labelled," said Rickie. He wished that all the +confidence and mutual knowledge that is born in such a place as +Cambridge could be organized. People went down into the world saying, +"We know and like each other; we shan't forget." But they did forget, +for man is so made that he cannot remember long without a symbol; he +wished there was a society, a kind of friendship office, where the +marriage of true minds could be registered. + +"Why labels?" + +"To know each other again." + +"I have taught you pessimism splendidly." He looked at his watch. + +"What time?" + +"Not twelve." + +Rickie got up. + +"Why go?" He stretched out his hand and caught hold of Rickie's ankle. + +"I've got that Miss Pembroke to lunch--that girl whom you say never's +there." + +"Then why go? All this week you have pretended Miss Pembroke awaited +you. Wednesday--Miss Pembroke to lunch. Thursday--Miss Pembroke to tea. +Now again--and you didn't even invite her." + +"To Cambridge, no. But the Hall man they're stopping with has so many +engagements that she and her friend can often come to me, I'm glad to +say. I don't think I ever told you much, but over two years ago the man +she was going to marry was killed at football. She nearly died of grief. +This visit to Cambridge is almost the first amusement she has felt up to +taking. Oh, they go back tomorrow! Give me breakfast tomorrow." + +"All right." + +"But I shall see you this evening. I shall be round at your paper on +Schopenhauer. Lemme go." + +"Don't go," he said idly. "It's much better for you to talk to me." + +"Lemme go, Stewart." + +"It's amusing that you're so feeble. You--simply--can't--get--away. I +wish I wanted to bully you." + +Rickie laughed, and suddenly over balanced into the grass. Ansell, with +unusual playfulness, held him prisoner. They lay there for few minutes, +talking and ragging aimlessly. Then Rickie seized his opportunity and +jerked away. + +"Go, go!" yawned the other. But he was a little vexed, for he was a +young man with great capacity for pleasure, and it pleased him that +morning to be with his friend. The thought of two ladies waiting lunch +did not deter him; stupid women, why shouldn't they wait? Why should +they interfere with their betters? With his ear on the ground he +listened to Rickie's departing steps, and thought, "He wastes a lot of +time keeping engagements. Why will he be pleasant to fools?" And then +he thought, "Why has he turned so unhappy? It isn't as it he's a +philosopher, or tries to solve the riddle of existence. And he's got +money of his own." Thus thinking, he fell asleep. + +Meanwhile Rickie hurried away from him, and slackened and stopped, and +hurried again. He was due at the Union in ten minutes, but he could not +bring himself there. He dared not meet Miss Pembroke: he loved her. + +The devil must have planned it. They had started so gloriously; she had +been a goddess both in joy and sorrow. She was a goddess still. But +he had dethroned the god whom once he had glorified equally. Slowly, +slowly, the image of Gerald had faded. That was the first step. Rickie +had thought, "No matter. He will be bright again. Just now all the +radiance chances to be in her." And on her he had fixed his eyes. He +thought of her awake. He entertained her willingly in dreams. He found +her in poetry and music and in the sunset. She made him kind and strong. +She made him clever. Through her he kept Cambridge in its proper place, +and lived as a citizen of the great world. But one night he dreamt +that she lay in his arms. This displeased him. He determined to think a +little about Gerald instead. Then the fabric collapsed. + +It was hard on Rickie thus to meet the devil. He did not deserve it, for +he was comparatively civilized, and knew that there was nothing shameful +in love. But to love this woman! If only it had been any one else! Love +in return--that he could expect from no one, being too ugly and too +unattractive. But the love he offered would not then have been vile. +The insult to Miss Pembroke, who was consecrated, and whom he had +consecrated, who could still see Gerald, and always would see him, +shining on his everlasting throne this was the crime from the devil, +the crime that no penance would ever purge. She knew nothing. She never +would know. But the crime was registered in heaven. + +He had been tempted to confide in Ansell. But to what purpose? He would +say, "I love Miss Pembroke." and Stewart would reply, "You ass." And +then. "I'm never going to tell her." "You ass," again. After all, it +was not a practical question; Agnes would never hear of his fall. If +his friend had been, as he expressed it, "labelled"; if he had been +a father, or still better a brother, one might tell him of the +discreditable passion. But why irritate him for no reason? Thinking "I +am always angling for sympathy; I must stop myself," he hurried onward +to the Union. + +He found his guests half way up the stairs, reading the advertisements +of coaches for the Long Vacation. He heard Mrs. Lewin say, "I wonder +what he'll end by doing." A little overacting his part, he apologized +nonchalantly for his lateness. + +"It's always the same," cried Agnes. "Last time he forgot I was coming +altogether." She wore a flowered muslin--something indescribably liquid +and cool. It reminded him a little of those swift piercing streams, +neither blue nor green, that gush out of the dolomites. Her face +was clear and brown, like the face of a mountaineer; her hair was so +plentiful that it seemed banked up above it; and her little toque, +though it answered the note of the dress, was almost ludicrous, poised +on so much natural glory. When she moved, the sunlight flashed on her +ear-rings. + +He led them up to the luncheon-room. By now he was conscious of his +limitations as a host, and never attempted to entertain ladies in his +lodgings. Moreover, the Union seemed less intimate. It had a faint +flavour of a London club; it marked the undergraduate's nearest approach +to the great world. Amid its waiters and serviettes one felt impersonal, +and able to conceal the private emotions. Rickie felt that if Miss +Pembroke knew one thing about him, she knew everything. During this +visit he took her to no place that he greatly loved. + +"Sit down, ladies. Fall to. I'm sorry. I was out towards Coton with a +dreadful friend." + +Mrs. Lewin pushed up her veil. She was a typical May-term chaperon, +always pleasant, always hungry, and always tired. Year after year she +came up to Cambridge in a tight silk dress, and year after year she +nearly died of it. Her feet hurt, her limbs were cramped in a canoe, +black spots danced before her eyes from eating too much mayonnaise. But +still she came, if not as a mother as an aunt, if not as an aunt as a +friend. Still she ascended the roof of King's, still she counted the +balls of Clare, still she was on the point of grasping the organization +of the May races. "And who is your friend?" she asked. + +"His name is Ansell." + +"Well, now, did I see him two years ago--as a bedmaker in something they +did at the Foot Lights? Oh, how I roared." + +"You didn't see Mr. Ansell at the Foot Lights," said Agnes, smiling. + +"How do you know?" asked Rickie. + +"He'd scarcely be so frivolous." + +"Do you remember seeing him?" + +"For a moment." + +What a memory she had! And how splendidly during that moment she had +behaved! + +"Isn't he marvellously clever?" + +"I believe so." + +"Oh, give me clever people!" cried Mrs. Lewin. "They are kindness itself +at the Hall, but I assure you I am depressed at times. One cannot talk +bump-rowing for ever." + +"I never hear about him, Rickie; but isn't he really your greatest +friend?" + +"I don't go in for greatest friends." + +"Do you mean you like us all equally?" + +"All differently, those of you I like." + +"Ah, you've caught it!" cried Mrs. Lewin. "Mr. Elliot gave it you there +well." + +Agnes laughed, and, her elbows on the table, regarded them both through +her fingers--a habit of hers. Then she said, "Can't we see the great Mr. +Ansell?" + +"Oh, let's. Or would he frighten me?" + +"He would frighten you," said Rickie. "He's a trifle weird." + +"My good Rickie, if you knew the deathly dullness of Sawston--every +one saying the proper thing at the proper time, I so proper, Herbert +so proper! Why, weirdness is the one thing I long for! Do arrange +something." + +"I'm afraid there's no opportunity. Ansell goes some vast bicycle ride +this afternoon; this evening you're tied up at the Hall; and tomorrow +you go." + +"But there's breakfast tomorrow," said Agnes. "Look here, Rickie, bring +Mr. Ansell to breakfast with us at Buoys." + +Mrs. Lewin seconded the invitation. + +"Bad luck again," said Rickie boldly; "I'm already fixed up for +breakfast. I'll tell him of your very kind intention." + +"Let's have him alone," murmured Agnes. + +"My dear girl, I should die through the floor! Oh, it'll be all right +about breakfast. I rather think we shall get asked this evening by that +shy man who has the pretty rooms in Trinity." + +"Oh, very well. Where is it you breakfast, Rickie?" + +He faltered. "To Ansell's, it is--" It seemed as if he was making some +great admission. So self-conscious was he, that he thought the two women +exchanged glances. Had Agnes already explored that part of him that did +not belong to her? Would another chance step reveal the part that did? +He asked them abruptly what they would like to do after lunch. + +"Anything," said Mrs. Lewin,--"anything in the world." + +A walk? A boat? Ely? A drive? Some objection was raised to each. "To +tell the truth," she said at last, "I do feel a wee bit tired, and what +occurs to me is this. You and Agnes shall leave me here and have no more +bother. I shall be perfectly happy snoozling in one of these delightful +drawing-room chairs. Do what you like, and then pick me up after it." + +"Alas, it's against regulations," said Rickie. "The Union won't trust +lady visitors on its premises alone." + +"But who's to know I'm alone? With a lot of men in the drawing-room, +how's each to know that I'm not with the others?" + +"That would shock Rickie," said Agnes, laughing. "He's frightfully +high-principled." + +"No, I'm not," said Rickie, thinking of his recent shiftiness over +breakfast. + +"Then come for a walk with me. I want exercise. Some connection of ours +was once rector of Madingley. I shall walk out and see the church." + +Mrs. Lewin was accordingly left in the Union. + +"This is jolly!" Agnes exclaimed as she strode along the somewhat +depressing road that leads out of Cambridge past the observatory. "Do I +go too fast?" + +"No, thank you. I get stronger every year. If it wasn't for the look of +the thing, I should be quite happy." + +"But you don't care for the look of the thing. It's only ignorant people +who do that, surely." + +"Perhaps. I care. I like people who are well-made and beautiful. They +are of some use in the world. I understand why they are there. I cannot +understand why the ugly and crippled are there, however healthy they +may feel inside. Don't you know how Turner spoils his pictures by +introducing a man like a bolster in the foreground? Well, in actual life +every landscape is spoilt by men of worse shapes still." + +"You sound like a bolster with the stuffing out." They laughed. She +always blew his cobwebs away like this, with a puff of humorous mountain +air. Just now the associations he attached to her were various--she +reminded him of a heroine of Meredith's--but a heroine at the end of the +book. All had been written about her. She had played her mighty part, +and knew that it was over. He and he alone was not content, and wrote +for her daily a trivial and impossible sequel. + +Last time they had talked about Gerald. But that was some six months +ago, when things felt easier. Today Gerald was the faintest blur. +Fortunately the conversation turned to Mr. Pembroke and to education. +Did women lose a lot by not knowing Greek? "A heap," said Rickie, +roughly. But modern languages? Thus they got to Germany, which he had +visited last Easter with Ansell; and thence to the German Emperor, and +what a to-do he made; and from him to our own king (still Prince of +Wales), who had lived while an undergraduate at Madingley Hall. Here it +was. And all the time he thought, "It is hard on her. She has no right +to be walking with me. She would be ill with disgust if she knew. It is +hard on her to be loved." + +They looked at the Hall, and went inside the pretty little church. Some +Arundel prints hung upon the pillars, and Agnes expressed the opinion +that pictures inside a place of worship were a pity. Rickie did not +agree with this. He said again that nothing beautiful was ever to be +regretted. + +"You're cracked on beauty," she whispered--they were still inside the +church. "Do hurry up and write something." + +"Something beautiful?" + +"I believe you can. I'm going to lecture you seriously all the way home. +Take care that you don't waste your life." + +They continued the conversation outside. "But I've got to hate my own +writing. I believe that most people come to that stage--not so early +though. What I write is too silly. It can't happen. For instance, a +stupid vulgar man is engaged to a lovely young lady. He wants her to +live in the towns, but she only cares for woods. She shocks him this way +and that, but gradually he tames her, and makes her nearly as dull as +he is. One day she has a last explosion--over the snobby wedding +presents--and flies out of the drawing-room window, shouting, 'Freedom +and truth!' Near the house is a little dell full of fir-trees, and she +runs into it. He comes there the next moment. But she's gone." + +"Awfully exciting. Where?" + +"Oh Lord, she's a Dryad!" cried Rickie, in great disgust. "She's turned +into a tree." + +"Rickie, it's very good indeed. The kind of thing has something in it. +Of course you get it all through Greek and Latin. How upset the man must +be when he sees the girl turn." + +"He doesn't see her. He never guesses. Such a man could never see a +Dryad." + +"So you describe how she turns just before he comes up?" + +"No. Indeed I don't ever say that she does turn. I don't use the word +'Dryad' once." + +"I think you ought to put that part plainly. Otherwise, with such an +original story, people might miss the point. Have you had any luck with +it?" + +"Magazines? I haven't tried. I know what the stuff's worth. You see, a +year or two ago I had a great idea of getting into touch with Nature, +just as the Greeks were in touch; and seeing England so beautiful, I +used to pretend that her trees and coppices and summer fields of parsley +were alive. It's funny enough now, but it wasn't funny then, for I got +in such a state that I believed, actually believed, that Fauns lived in +a certain double hedgerow near the Cog Magogs, and one evening I walked +a mile sooner than go through it alone." + +"Good gracious!" She laid her hand on his shoulder. + +He moved to the other side of the road. "It's all right now. I've +changed those follies for others. But while I had them I began to write, +and even now I keep on writing, though I know better. I've got quite a +pile of little stories, all harping on this ridiculous idea of getting +into touch with Nature." + +"I wish you weren't so modest. It's simply splendid as an idea. +Though--but tell me about the Dryad who was engaged to be married. What +was she like?" + +"I can show you the dell in which the young person disappeared. We pass +it on the right in a moment." + +"It does seem a pity that you don't make something of your talents. It +seems such a waste to write little stories and never publish them. You +must have enough for a book. Life is so full in our days that short +stories are the very thing; they get read by people who'd never tackle a +novel. For example, at our Dorcas we tried to read out a long affair +by Henry James--Herbert saw it recommended in 'The Times.' There was no +doubt it was very good, but one simply couldn't remember from one week +to another what had happened. So now our aim is to get something that +just lasts the hour. I take you seriously, Rickie, and that is why I am +so offensive. You are too modest. People who think they can do nothing +so often do nothing. I want you to plunge." + +It thrilled him like a trumpet-blast. She took him seriously. Could he +but thank her for her divine affability! But the words would stick in +his throat, or worse still would bring other words along with them. His +breath came quickly, for he seldom spoke of his writing, and no one, not +even Ansell, had advised him to plunge. + +"But do you really think that I could take up literature?" + +"Why not? You can try. Even if you fail, you can try. Of course we think +you tremendously clever; and I met one of your dons at tea, and he said +that your degree was not in the least a proof of your abilities: he said +that you knocked up and got flurried in examinations. Oh!"--her cheek +flushed,--"I wish I was a man. The whole world lies before them. They +can do anything. They aren't cooped up with servants and tea parties and +twaddle. But where's this dell where the Dryad disappeared?" + +"We've passed it." He had meant to pass it. It was too beautiful. All +he had read, all he had hoped for, all he had loved, seemed to quiver +in its enchanted air. It was perilous. He dared not enter it with such a +woman. + +"How long ago?" She turned back. "I don't want to miss the dell. Here +it must be," she added after a few moments, and sprang up the green bank +that hid the entrance from the road. "Oh, what a jolly place!" + +"Go right in if you want to see it," said Rickie, and did not offer to +go with her. She stood for a moment looking at the view, for a few steps +will increase a view in Cambridgeshire. The wind blew her dress against +her. Then, like a cataract again, she vanished pure and cool into the +dell. + +The young man thought of her feelings no longer. His heart throbbed +louder and louder, and seemed to shake him to pieces. "Rickie!" + +She was calling from the dell. For an answer he sat down where he was, +on the dust-bespattered margin. She could call as loud as she liked. The +devil had done much, but he should not take him to her. + +"Rickie!"--and it came with the tones of an angel. He drove his fingers +into his ears, and invoked the name of Gerald. But there was no sign, +neither angry motion in the air nor hint of January mist. June--fields +of June, sky of June, songs of June. Grass of June beneath him, grass of +June over the tragedy he had deemed immortal. A bird called out of the +dell: "Rickie!" + +A bird flew into the dell. + +"Did you take me for the Dryad?" she asked. She was sitting down with +his head on her lap. He had laid it there for a moment before he went +out to die, and she had not let him take it away. + +"I prayed you might not be a woman," he whispered. + +"Darling, I am very much a woman. I do not vanish into groves and trees. +I thought you would never come." + +"Did you expect--?" + +"I hoped. I called hoping." + +Inside the dell it was neither June nor January. The chalk walls barred +out the seasons, and the fir-trees did not seem to feel their passage. +Only from time to time the odours of summer slipped in from the wood +above, to comment on the waxing year. She bent down to touch him with +her lips. + +He started, and cried passionately, "Never forget that your greatest +thing is over. I have forgotten: I am too weak. You shall never forget. +What I said to you then is greater than what I say to you now. What he +gave you then is greater than anything you will get from me." + +She was frightened. Again she had the sense of something abnormal. Then +she said, "What is all this nonsense?" and folded him in her arms. + + + +VIII + +Ansell stood looking at his breakfast-table, which was laid for four +instead of two. His bedmaker, equally peevish, explained how it had +happened. Last night, at one in the morning, the porter had been awoke +with a note for the kitchens, and in that note Mr. Elliot said that all +these things were to be sent to Mr. Ansell's. + +"The fools have sent the original order as well. Here's the lemon-sole +for two. I can't move for food." + +"The note being ambiguous, the Kitchens judged best to send it all." +She spoke of the kitchens in a half-respectful, half-pitying way, much +as one speaks of Parliament. + +"Who's to pay for it?" He peeped into the new dishes. Kidneys entombed +in an omelette, hot roast chicken in watery gravy, a glazed but pallid +pie. + +"And who's to wash it up?" said the bedmaker to her help outside. + +Ansell had disputed late last night concerning Schopenhauer, and was a +little cross and tired. He bounced over to Tilliard, who kept opposite. +Tilliard was eating gooseberry jam. + +"Did Elliot ask you to breakfast with me?" + +"No," said Tilliard mildly. + +"Well, you'd better come, and bring every one you know." + +So Tilliard came, bearing himself a little formally, for he was not +very intimate with his neighbour. Out of the window they called to +Widdrington. But he laid his hand on his stomach, thus indicating it was +too late. + +"Who's to pay for it?" repeated Ansell, as a man appeared from the +Buttery carrying coffee on a bright tin tray. + +"College coffee! How nice!" remarked Tilliard, who was cutting the pie. +"But before term ends you must come and try my new machine. My sister +gave it me. There is a bulb at the top, and as the water boils--" + +"He might have counter-ordered the lemon-sole. That's Rickie all over. +Violently economical, and then loses his head, and all the things go +bad." + +"Give them to the bedder while they're hot." This was done. She accepted +them dispassionately, with the air of one who lives without nourishment. +Tilliard continued to describe his sister's coffee machine. + +"What's that?" They could hear panting and rustling on the stairs. + +"It sounds like a lady," said Tilliard fearfully. He slipped the piece +of pie back. It fell into position like a brick. + +"Is it here? Am I right? Is it here?" The door opened and in came Mrs. +Lewin. "Oh horrors! I've made a mistake." + +"That's all right," said Ansell awkwardly. + +"I wanted Mr. Elliot. Where are they?" + +"We expect Mr. Elliot every-moment," said Tilliard. + +"Don't tell me I'm right," cried Mrs. Lewin, "and that you're the +terrifying Mr. Ansell." And, with obvious relief, she wrung Tilliard +warmly by the hand. + +"I'm Ansell," said Ansell, looking very uncouth and grim. + +"How stupid of me not to know it," she gasped, and would have gone on to +I know not what, but the door opened again. It was Rickie. + +"Here's Miss Pembroke," he said. "I am going to marry her." + +There was a profound silence. + +"We oughtn't to have done things like this," said Agnes, turning to Mrs. +Lewin. "We have no right to take Mr. Ansell by surprise. It is Rickie's +fault. He was that obstinate. He would bring us. He ought to be +horsewhipped." + +"He ought, indeed," said Tilliard pleasantly, and bolted. Not till he +gained his room did he realize that he had been less apt than usual. As +for Ansell, the first thing he said was, "Why didn't you counter-order +the lemon-sole?" + +In such a situation Mrs. Lewin was of priceless value. She led the way +to the table, observing, "I quite agree with Miss Pembroke. I loathe +surprises. Never shall I forget my horror when the knife-boy painted the +dove's cage with the dove inside. He did it as a surprise. Poor Parsival +nearly died. His feathers were bright green!" + +"Well, give me the lemon-soles," said Rickie. "I like them." + +"The bedder's got them." + +"Well, there you are! What's there to be annoyed about?" + +"And while the cage was drying we put him among the bantams. They had +been the greatest allies. But I suppose they took him for a parrot or a +hawk, or something that bantams hate for while his cage was drying they +picked out his feathers, and PICKED and PICKED out his feathers, till he +was perfectly bald. 'Hugo, look,' said I. 'This is the end of Parsival. +Let me have no more surprises.' He burst into tears." + +Thus did Mrs. Lewin create an atmosphere. At first it seemed unreal, +but gradually they got used to it, and breathed scarcely anything else +throughout the meal. In such an atmosphere everything seemed of small +and equal value, and the engagement of Rickie and Agnes like the +feathers of Parsival, fluttered lightly to the ground. Ansell was +generally silent. He was no match for these two quite clever women. Only +once was there a hitch. + +They had been talking gaily enough about the betrothal when Ansell +suddenly interrupted with, "When is the marriage?" + +"Mr. Ansell," said Agnes, blushing, "I wish you hadn't asked that. That +part's dreadful. Not for years, as far as we can see." + +But Rickie had not seen as far. He had not talked to her of this at +all. Last night they had spoken only of love. He exclaimed, "Oh, +Agnes-don't!" Mrs. Lewin laughed roguishly. + +"Why this delay?" asked Ansell. + +Agnes looked at Rickie, who replied, "I must get money, worse luck." + +"I thought you'd got money." + +He hesitated, and then said, "I must get my foot on the ladder, then." + +Ansell began with, "On which ladder?" but Mrs. Lewin, using the +privilege of her sex, exclaimed, "Not another word. If there's a thing I +abominate, it is plans. My head goes whirling at once." What she really +abominated was questions, and she saw that Ansell was turning serious. +To appease him, she put on her clever manner and asked him about +Germany. How had it impressed him? Were we so totally unfitted to +repel invasion? Was not German scholarship overestimated? He replied +discourteously, but he did reply; and if she could have stopped him +thinking, her triumph would have been complete. + +When they rose to go, Agnes held Ansell's hand for a moment in her own. + +"Good-bye," she said. "It was very unconventional of us to come as we +did, but I don't think any of us are conventional people." + +He only replied, "Good-bye." The ladies started off. Rickie lingered +behind to whisper, "I would have it so. I would have you begin square +together. I can't talk yet--I've loved her for years--can't think what +she's done it for. I'm going to write short stories. I shall start this +afternoon. She declares there may be something in me." + +As soon as he had left, Tilliard burst in, white with agitation, and +crying, "Did you see my awful faux pas--about the horsewhip? What shall +I do? I must call on Elliot. Or had I better write?" + +"Miss Pembroke will not mind," said Ansell gravely. "She is +unconventional." He knelt in an arm-chair and hid his face in the back. + +"It was like a bomb," said Tilliard. + +"It was meant to be." + +"I do feel a fool. What must she think?" + +"Never mind, Tilliard. You've not been as big a fool as myself. At all +events, you told her he must be horsewhipped." + +Tilliard hummed a little tune. He hated anything nasty, and there was +nastiness in Ansell. "What did you tell her?" he asked. + +"Nothing." + +"What do you think of it?" + +"I think: Damn those women." + +"Ah, yes. One hates one's friends to get engaged. It makes one feel so +old: I think that is one of the reasons. The brother just above me has +lately married, and my sister was quite sick about it, though the thing +was suitable in every way." + +"Damn THESE women, then," said Ansell, bouncing round in the chair. +"Damn these particular women." + +"They looked and spoke like ladies." + +"Exactly. Their diplomacy was ladylike. Their lies were ladylike. +They've caught Elliot in a most ladylike way. I saw it all during the +one moment we were natural. Generally we were clattering after the +married one, whom--like a fool--I took for a fool. But for one moment we +were natural, and during that moment Miss Pembroke told a lie, and made +Rickie believe it was the truth." + +"What did she say?" + +"She said `we see' instead of 'I see.'" + +Tilliard burst into laughter. This jaundiced young philosopher, with his +kinky view of life, was too much for him. + +"She said 'we see,'" repeated Ansell, "instead of 'I see,' and she made +him believe that it was the truth. She caught him and makes him believe +that he caught her. She came to see me and makes him think that it is +his idea. That is what I mean when I say that she is a lady." + +"You are too subtle for me. My dull eyes could only see two happy +people." + +"I never said they weren't happy." + +"Then, my dear Ansell, why are you so cut up? It's beastly when a friend +marries,--and I grant he's rather young,--but I should say it's the best +thing for him. A decent woman--and you have proved not one thing against +her--a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting +slack. She'll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie, +I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,"--his voice grew +sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell's conceit, "and, really, you +talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil visit to +your rooms, and you see nothing but dark plots and challenges to war." + +"War!" cried Ansell, crashing his fists together. "It's war, then!" + +"Oh, what a lot of tommy-rot," said Tilliard. "Can't a man and woman get +engaged? My dear boy--excuse me talking like this--what on earth is it +to do with us?" + +"We're his friends, and I hope we always shall be, but we shan't keep +his friendship by fighting. We're bound to fall into the background. +Wife first, friends some way after. You may resent the order, but it is +ordained by nature." + +"The point is, not what's ordained by nature or any other fool, but +what's right." + +"You are hopelessly unpractical," said Tilliard, turning away. "And let +me remind you that you've already given away your case by acknowledging +that they're happy." + +"She is happy because she has conquered; he is happy because he has +at last hung all the world's beauty on to a single peg. He was always +trying to do it. He used to call the peg humanity. Will either of these +happinesses last? His can't. Hers only for a time. I fight this woman +not only because she fights me, but because I foresee the most appalling +catastrophe. She wants Rickie, partly to replace another man whom she +lost two years ago, partly to make something out of him. He is to write. +In time she will get sick of this. He won't get famous. She will only +see how thin he is and how lame. She will long for a jollier husband, +and I don't blame her. And, having made him thoroughly miserable and +degraded, she will bolt--if she can do it like a lady." + +Such were the opinions of Stewart Ansell. + + + +IX + +Seven letters written in June:-- + + +Cambridge + +Dear Rickie, + +I would rather write, and you can guess what kind of letter this is +when I say it is a fair copy: I have been making rough drafts all +the morning. When I talk I get angry, and also at times try to be +clever--two reasons why I fail to get attention paid to me. This is a +letter of the prudent sort. If it makes you break off the engagement, +its work is done. You are not a person who ought to marry at all. You +are unfitted in body: that we once discussed. You are also unfitted in +soul: you want and you need to like many people, and a man of that sort +ought not to marry. "You never were attached to that great sect" who +can like one person only, and if you try to enter it you will find +destruction. I have read in books and I cannot afford to despise books, +they are all that I have to go by--that men and women desire different +things. Man wants to love mankind; woman wants to love one man. When she +has him her work is over. She is the emissary of Nature, and Nature's +bidding has been fulfilled. But man does not care a damn for Nature--or +at least only a very little damn. He cares for a hundred things besides, +and the more civilized he is the more he will care for these other +hundred things, and demand not only--a wife and children, but also +friends, and work, and spiritual freedom. + +I believe you to be extraordinarily civilized.--Yours ever, + +S.A. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, Sawston + +Dear Ansell, + +But I'm in love--a detail you've forgotten. I can't listen to English +Essays. The wretched Agnes may be an "emissary of Nature," but I only +grinned when I read it. I may be extraordinarily civilized, but I don't +feel so; I'm in love, and I've found a woman to love me, and I mean +to have the hundred other things as well. She wants me to have +them--friends and work, and spiritual freedom, and everything. You +and your books miss this, because your books are too sedate. Read +poetry--not only Shelley. Understand Beatrice, and Clara Middleton, and +Brunhilde in the first scene of Gotterdammerung. Understand Goethe when +he says "the eternal feminine leads us on," and don't write another +English Essay.--Yours ever affectionately, + +R.E. + + +Cambridge + +Dear Rickie: + +What am I to say? "Understand Xanthippe, and Mrs. Bennet, and Elsa in +the question scene of Lohengrin"? "Understand Euripides when he says the +eternal feminine leads us a pretty dance"? I shall say nothing of the +sort. The allusions in this English Essay shall not be literary. My +personal objections to Miss Pembroke are as follows:--(1) She is not +serious. (2) She is not truthful. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road Sawston + +My Dear Stewart, + +You couldn't know. I didn't know for a moment. But this letter of yours +is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me yet--more +wonderful (I don't exaggerate) than the moment when Agnes promised to +marry me. I always knew you liked me, but I never knew how much until +this letter. Up to now I think we have been too much like the strong +heroes in books who feel so much and say so little, and feel all the +more for saying so little. Now that's over and we shall never be that +kind of an ass again. We've hit--by accident--upon something permanent. +You've written to me, "I hate the woman who will be your wife," and +I write back, "Hate her. Can't I love you both?" She will never come +between us, Stewart (She wouldn't wish to, but that's by the way), +because our friendship has now passed beyond intervention. No third +person could break it. We couldn't ourselves, I fancy. We may quarrel +and argue till one of us dies, but the thing is registered. I only wish, +dear man, you could be happier. For me, it's as if a light was suddenly +held behind the world. + +R.E. + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, Sawston + +Dear Mrs. Lewin,-- + +The time goes flying, but I am getting to learn my wonderful boy. We +speak a great deal about his work. He has just finished a curious thing +called "Nemi"--about a Roman ship that is actually sunk in some lake. I +cannot think how he describes the things, when he has never seen them. +If, as I hope, he goes to Italy next year, he should turn out something +really good. Meanwhile we are hunting for a publisher. Herbert believes +that a collection of short stories is hard to get published. It is, +after all, better to write one long one. + +But you must not think we only talk books. What we say on other topics +cannot so easily be repeated! Oh, Mrs Lewin, he is a dear, and dearer +than ever now that we have him at Sawston. Herbert, in a quiet way, +has been making inquiries about those Cambridge friends of his. Nothing +against them, but they seem to be terribly eccentric. None of them +are good at games, and they spend all their spare time thinking and +discussing. They discuss what one knows and what one never will know and +what one had much better not know. Herbert says it is because they have +not got enough to do.--Ever your grateful and affectionate friend, + +Agnes Pembroke + + +Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road Sawston + +Dear Mr. Silt,-- + +Thank you for the congratulations, which I have handed over to the +delighted Rickie. + +(The congratulations were really addressed to Agnes--a social blunder +which Mr. Pembroke deftly corrects.) + +I am sorry that the rumor reached you that I was not pleased. Anything +pleases me that promises my sister's happiness, and I have known your +cousin nearly as long as you have. It will be a very long engagement, +for he must make his way first. The dear boy is not nearly as wealthy as +he supposed; having no tastes, and hardly any expenses, he used to talk +as if he were a millionaire. He must at least double his income before +he can dream of more intimate ties. This has been a bitter pill, but I +am glad to say that they have accepted it bravely. + +Hoping that you and Mrs. Silt will profit by your week at Margate.-I +remain, yours very sincerely, + +Herbert Pembroke + + +Cadover, Wilts. + +Dear Miss Pembroke,--Agnes-- + +I hear that you are going to marry my nephew. I have no idea what he is +like, and wonder whether you would bring him that I may find out. Isn't +September rather a nice month? You might have to go to Stone Henge, but +with that exception would be left unmolested. I do hope you will manage +the visit. We met once at Mrs. Lewin's, and I have a very clear +recollection of you.--Believe me, yours sincerely, + +Emily Failing + + + +X + +The rain tilted a little from the south-west. For the most part it fell +from a grey cloud silently, but now and then the tilt increased, and +a kind of sigh passed over the country as the drops lashed the walls, +trees, shepherds, and other motionless objects that stood in their +slanting career. At times the cloud would descend and visibly embrace +the earth, to which it had only sent messages; and the earth itself +would bring forth clouds--clouds of a whiter breed--which formed in +shallow valleys and followed the courses of the streams. It seemed the +beginning of life. Again God said, "Shall we divide the waters from the +land or not? Was not the firmament labour and glory sufficient?" At all +events it was the beginning of life pastoral, behind which imagination +cannot travel. + +Yet complicated people were getting wet--not only the shepherds. For +instance, the piano-tuner was sopping. So was the vicar's wife. So were +the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his Battleston car. Gallantry, +charity, and art pursued their various missions, perspiring and muddy, +while out on the slopes beyond them stood the eternal man and the +eternal dog, guarding eternal sheep until the world is vegetarian. + +Inside an arbour--which faced east, and thus avoided the bad +weather--there sat a complicated person who was dry. She looked at the +drenched world with a pleased expression, and would smile when a cloud +would lay down on the village, or when the rain sighed louder than usual +against her solid shelter. Ink, paperclips, and foolscap paper were +on the table before her, and she could also reach an umbrella, a +waterproof, a walking-stick, and an electric bell. Her age was between +elderly and old, and her forehead was wrinkled with an expression of +slight but perpetual pain. But the lines round her mouth indicated that +she had laughed a great deal during her life, just as the clean tight +skin round her eyes perhaps indicated that she had not often cried. She +was dressed in brown silk. A brown silk shawl lay most becomingly over +her beautiful hair. + +After long thought she wrote on the paper in front of her, "The subject +of this memoir first saw the light at Wolverhampton on May the 14th, +1842." She laid down her pen and said "Ugh!" A robin hopped in and she +welcomed him. A sparrow followed and she stamped her foot. She watched +some thick white water which was sliding like a snake down the gutter +of the gravel path. It had just appeared. It must have escaped from a +hollow in the chalk up behind. The earth could absorb no longer. The +lady did not think of all this, for she hated questions of whence and +wherefore, and the ways of the earth ("our dull stepmother") bored her +unspeakably. But the water, just the snake of water, was amusing, and +she flung her golosh at it to dam it up. Then she wrote feverishly, "The +subject of this memoir first saw the light in the middle of the night. +It was twenty to eleven. His pa was a parson, but he was not his pa's +son, and never went to heaven." There was the sound of a train, and +presently white smoke appeared, rising laboriously through the heavy +air. It distracted her, and for about a quarter of an hour she sat +perfectly still, doing nothing. At last she pushed the spoilt paper +aside, took afresh piece, and was beginning to write, "On May the 14th, +1842," when there was a crunch on the gravel, and a furious voice said, +"I am sorry for Flea Thompson." + +"I daresay I am sorry for him too," said the lady; her voice was languid +and pleasant. "Who is he?" + +"Flea's a liar, and the next time we meet he'll be a football." Off +slipped a sodden ulster. He hung it up angrily upon a peg: the arbour +provided several. + +"But who is he, and why has he that disastrous name?" + +"Flea? Fleance. All the Thompsons are named out of Shakespeare. He +grazes the Rings." + +"Ah, I see. A pet lamb." + +"Lamb! Shepherd!" + +"One of my Shepherds?" + +"The last time I go with his sheep. But not the last time he sees me. I +am sorry for him. He dodged me today." + +"Do you mean to say"--she became animated--"that you have been out in +the wet keeping the sheep of Flea Thompson?" + +"I had to." He blew on his fingers and took off his cap. Water trickled +over his unshaven cheeks. His hair was so wet that it seemed worked upon +his scalp in bronze. + +"Get away, bad dog!" screamed the lady, for he had given himself a shake +and spattered her dress with water. He was a powerful boy of twenty, +admirably muscular, but rather too broad for his height. People called +him "Podge" until they were dissuaded. Then they called him "Stephen" or +"Mr. Wonham." Then he said, "You can call me Podge if you like." + +"As for Flea--!" he began tempestuously. He sat down by her, and with +much heavy breathing told the story,--"Flea has a girl at Wintersbridge, +and I had to go with his sheep while he went to see her. Two hours. We +agreed. Half an hour to go, an hour to kiss his girl, and half an hour +back--and he had my bike. Four hours! Four hours and seven minutes I was +on the Rings, with a fool of a dog, and sheep doing all they knew to get +the turnips." + +"My farm is a mystery to me," said the lady, stroking her fingers. + +"Some day you must really take me to see it. It must be like a Gilbert +and Sullivan opera, with a chorus of agitated employers. How is it that +I have escaped? Why have I never been summoned to milk the cows, or flay +the pigs, or drive the young bullocks to the pasture?" + +He looked at her with astonishingly blue eyes--the only dry things he +had about him. He could not see into her: she would have puzzled an +older and clever man. He may have seen round her. + +"A thing of beauty you are not. But I sometimes think you are a joy for +ever." + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"Oh, you understand right enough," she exclaimed irritably, and then +smiled, for he was conceited, and did not like being told that he was +not a thing of beauty. "Large and steady feet," she continued, "have +this disadvantage--you can knock down a man, but you will never knock +down a woman." + +"I don't know what you mean. I'm not likely--" + +"Oh, never mind--never, never mind. I was being funny. I repent. Tell me +about the sheep. Why did you go with them?" + +"I did tell you. I had to." + +"But why?" + +"He had to see his girl." + +"But why?" + +His eyes shot past her again. It was so obvious that the man had to see +his girl. For two hours though--not for four hours seven minutes. + +"Did you have any lunch?" + +"I don't hold with regular meals." + +"Did you have a book?" + +"I don't hold with books in the open. None of the older men read." + +"Did you commune with yourself, or don't you hold with that?" + +"Oh Lord, don't ask me!" + +"You distress me. You rob the Pastoral of its lingering romance. Is +there no poetry and no thought in England? Is there no one, in all these +downs, who warbles with eager thought the Doric lay?" + +"Chaps sing to themselves at times, if you mean that." + +"I dream of Arcady. I open my eyes. Wiltshire. Of Amaryllis: Flea +Thompson's girl. Of the pensive shepherd, twitching his mantle blue: you +in an ulster. Aren't you sorry for me?" + +"May I put in a pipe?" + +"By all means put a pipe in. In return, tell me of what you were +thinking for the four hours and the seven minutes." + +He laughed shyly. "You do ask a man such questions." + +"Did you simply waste the time?" + +"I suppose so." + +"I thought that Colonel Robert Ingersoll says you must be strenuous." + +At the sound of this name he whisked open a little cupboard, and +declaring, "I haven't a moment to spare," took out of it a pile of +"Clarion" and other reprints, adorned as to their covers with bald or +bearded apostles of humanity. Selecting a bald one, he began at once +to read, occasionally exclaiming, "That's got them," "That's knocked +Genesis," with similar ejaculations of an aspiring mind. She glanced +at the pile. Reran, minus the style. Darwin, minus the modesty. A +comic edition of the book of Job, by "Excelsior," Pittsburgh, Pa. "The +Beginning of Life," with diagrams. "Angel or Ape?" by Mrs. Julia P. +Chunk. She was amused, and wondered idly what was passing within his +narrow but not uninteresting brain. Did he suppose that he was going to +"find out"? She had tried once herself, but had since subsided into a +sprightly orthodoxy. Why didn't he read poetry, instead of wasting his +time between books like these and country like that? + +The cloud parted, and the increase of light made her look up. Over the +valley she saw a grave sullen down, and on its flanks a little brown +smudge--her sheep, together with her shepherd, Fleance Thompson, +returned to his duties at last. A trickle of water came through the +arbour roof. She shrieked in dismay. + +"That's all right," said her companion, moving her chair, but still +keeping his place in his book. + +She dried up the spot on the manuscript. Then she wrote: "Anthony +Eustace Failing, the subject of this memoir, was born at Wolverhampton." +But she wrote no more. She was fidgety. Another drop fell from the roof. +Likewise an earwig. She wished she had not been so playful in flinging +her golosh into the path. The boy who was overthrowing religion breathed +somewhat heavily as he did so. Another earwig. She touched the electric +bell. + +"I'm going in," she observed. "It's far too wet." Again the cloud parted +and caused her to add, "Weren't you rather kind to Flea?" But he was +deep in the book. He read like a poor person, with lips apart and a +finger that followed the print. At times he scratched his ear, or ran +his tongue along a straggling blonde moustache. His face had after all a +certain beauty: at all events the colouring was regal--a steady crimson +from throat to forehead: the sun and the winds had worked on him daily +ever since he was born. "The face of a strong man," thought the lady. +"Let him thank his stars he isn't a silent strong man, or I'd turn +him into the gutter." Suddenly it struck her that he was like an Irish +terrier. He worried infinity as if it was a bone. Gnashing his teeth, +he tried to carry the eternal subtleties by violence. As a man he often +bored her, for he was always saying and doing the same things. But as +a philosopher he really was a joy for ever, an inexhaustible buffoon. +Taking up her pen, she began to caricature him. She drew a rabbit-warren +where rabbits were at play in four dimensions. Before she had introduced +the principal figure, she was interrupted by the footman. He had come up +from the house to answer the bell. On seeing her he uttered a respectful +cry. + +"Madam! Are you here? I am very sorry. I looked for you everywhere. Mr. +Elliot and Miss Pembroke arrived nearly an hour ago." + +"Oh dear, oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Failing. "Take these papers. Where's +the umbrella? Mr. Stephen will hold it over me. You hurry back and +apologize. Are they happy?" + +"Miss Pembroke inquired after you, madam." + +"Have they had tea?" + +"Yes, madam." + +"Leighton!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I believe you knew she was here all the time. You didn't want to wet +your pretty skin." + +"You must not call me 'she' to the servants," said Mrs. Failing as they +walked away, she limping with a stick, he holding a great umbrella over +her. "I will not have it." Then more pleasantly, "And don't tell him +he lies. We all lie. I knew quite well they were coming by the four-six +train. I saw it pass." + +"That reminds me. Another child run over at the Roman crossing. +Whish--bang--dead." + +"Oh my foot! Oh my foot, my foot!" said Mrs. Failing, and paused to take +breath. + +"Bad?" he asked callously. + +Leighton, with bowed head, passed them with the manuscript and +disappeared among the laurels. The twinge of pain, which had been +slight, passed away, and they proceeded, descending a green airless +corridor which opened into the gravel drive. + +"Isn't it odd," said Mrs. Failing, "that the Greeks should be +enthusiastic about laurels--that Apollo should pursue any one who could +possibly turn into such a frightful plant? What do you make of Rickie?" + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"Shall I lend you his story to read?" + +He made no reply. + +"Don't you think, Stephen, that a person in your precarious position +ought to be civil to my relatives?" + +"Sorry, Mrs. Failing. I meant to be civil. I only hadn't--anything to +say." + +She a laughed. "Are you a dear boy? I sometimes wonder; or are you a +brute?" + +Again he had nothing to say. Then she laughed more mischievously, and +said-- + +"How can you be either, when you are a philosopher? Would you mind +telling me--I am so anxious to learn--what happens to people when they +die?" + +"Don't ask ME." He knew by bitter experience that she was making fun of +him. + +"Oh, but I do ask you. Those paper books of yours are so up-to-date. +For instance, what has happened to the child you say was killed on the +line?" + +The rain increased. The drops pattered hard on the leaves, and outside +the corridor men and women were struggling, however stupidly, with the +facts of life. Inside it they wrangled. She teased the boy, and laughed +at his theories, and proved that no man can be an agnostic who has a +sense of humour. Suddenly she stopped, not through any skill of his, but +because she had remembered some words of Bacon: "The true atheist is he +whose hands are cauterized by holy things." She thought of her distant +youth. The world was not so humorous then, but it had been more +important. For a moment she respected her companion, and determined to +vex him no more. + +They left the shelter of the laurels, crossed the broad drive, and were +inside the house at last. She had got quite wet, for the weather would +not let her play the simple life with impunity. As for him, he seemed a +piece of the wet. + +"Look here," she cried, as he hurried up to his attic, "don't shave!" + +He was delighted with the permission. + +"I have an idea that Miss Pembroke is of the type that pretends to be +unconventional and really isn't. I want to see how she takes it. Don't +shave." + +In the drawing-room she could hear the guests conversing in the subdued +tones of those who have not been welcomed. Having changed her dress and +glanced at the poems of Milton, she went to them, with uplifted hands of +apology and horror. + +"But I must have tea," she announced, when they had assured her that +they understood. "Otherwise I shall start by being cross. Agnes, stop +me. Give me tea." + +Agnes, looking pleased, moved to the table and served her hostess. +Rickie followed with a pagoda of sandwiches and little cakes. + +"I feel twenty-seven years younger. Rickie, you are so like your father. +I feel it is twenty-seven years ago, and that he is bringing your mother +to see me for the first time. It is curious--almost terrible--to see +history repeating itself." + +The remark was not tactful. + +"I remember that visit well," she continued thoughtfully, "I suppose it +was a wonderful visit, though we none of us knew it at the time. We all +fell in love with your mother. I wish she would have fallen in love with +us. She couldn't bear me, could she?" + +"I never heard her say so, Aunt Emily." + +"No; she wouldn't. I am sure your father said so, though. My dear boy, +don't look so shocked. Your father and I hated each other. He said so, +I said so, I say so; say so too. Then we shall start fair.--Just a +cocoanut cake.--Agnes, don't you agree that it's always best to speak +out?" + +"Oh, rather, Mrs. Failing. But I'm shockingly straightforward." + +"So am I," said the lady. "I like to get down to the bedrock.--Hullo! +Slippers? Slippers in the drawingroom?" + +A young man had come in silently. Agnes observed with a feeling of +regret that he had not shaved. Rickie, after a moment's hesitation, +remembered who it was, and shook hands with him. "You've grown since I +saw you last." + +He showed his teeth amiably. + +"How long was that?" asked Mrs. Failing. + +"Three years, wasn't it? Came over from the Ansells--friends." + +"How disgraceful, Rickie! Why don't you come and see me oftener?" + +He could not retort that she never asked him. + +"Agnes will make you come. Oh, let me introduce Mr. Wonham--Miss +Pembroke." + +"I am deputy hostess," said Agnes. "May I give you some tea?" + +"Thank you, but I have had a little beer." + +"It is one of the shepherds," said Mrs. Failing, in low tones. + +Agnes smiled rather wildly. Mrs. Lewin had warned her that Cadover +was an extraordinary place, and that one must never be astonished at +anything. A shepherd in the drawing-room! No harm. Still one ought +to know whether it was a shepherd or not. At all events he was in +gentleman's clothing. She was anxious not to start with a blunder, and +therefore did not talk to the young fellow, but tried to gather what he +was from the demeanour of Rickie. + +"I am sure, Mrs. Failing, that you need not talk of 'making' people come +to Cadover. There will be no difficulty, I should say." + +"Thank you, my dear. Do you know who once said those exact words to me?" + +"Who?" + +"Rickie's mother." + +"Did she really?" + +"My sister-in-law was a dear. You will have heard Rickie's praises, but +now you must hear mine. I never knew a woman who was so unselfish and +yet had such capacities for life." + +"Does one generally exclude the other?" asked Rickie. + +"Unselfish people, as a rule, are deathly dull. They have no colour. +They think of other people because it is easier. They give money because +they are too stupid or too idle to spend it properly on themselves. +That was the beauty of your mother--she gave away, but she also spent on +herself, or tried to." + +The light faded out of the drawing-room, in spite of it being September +and only half-past six. From her low chair Agnes could see the trees by +the drive, black against a blackening sky. That drive was half a mile +long, and she was praising its gravelled surface when Rickie called in a +voice of alarm, "I say, when did our train arrive?" + +"Four-six." + +"I said so." + +"It arrived at four-six on the time-table," said Mr. Wonham. "I want to +know when it got to the station?" + +"I tell you again it was punctual. I tell you I looked at my watch. I +can do no more." + +Agnes was amazed. Was Rickie mad? A minute ago and they were boring each +other over dogs. What had happened? + +"Now, now! Quarrelling already?" asked Mrs. Failing. + +The footman, bringing a lamp, lit up two angry faces. + +"He says--" + +"He says--" + +"He says we ran over a child." + +"So you did. You ran over a child in the village at four-seven by my +watch. Your train was late. You couldn't have got to the station till +four-ten." + +"I don't believe it. We had passed the village by four-seven. Agnes, +hadn't we passed the village? It must have been an express that ran over +the child." + +"Now is it likely"--he appealed to the practical world--"is it likely +that the company would run a stopping train and then an express three +minutes after it?" + +"A child--" said Rickie. "I can't believe that the train killed a +child." He thought of their journey. They were alone in the carriage. +As the train slackened speed he had caught her for a moment in his arms. +The rain beat on the windows, but they were in heaven. + +"You've got to believe it," said the other, and proceeded to "rub it +in." His healthy, irritable face drew close to Rickie's. "Two children +were kicking and screaming on the Roman crossing. Your train, being +late, came down on them. One of them was pulled off the line, but the +other was caught. How will you get out of that?" + +"And how will you get out of it?" cried Mrs. Failing, turning the tables +on him. "Where's the child now? What has happened to its soul? You must +know, Agnes, that this young gentleman is a philosopher." + +"Oh, drop all that," said Mr. Wonham, suddenly collapsing. + +"Drop it? Where? On my nice carpet?" + +"I hate philosophy," remarked Agnes, trying to turn the subject, for she +saw that it made Rickie unhappy. + +"So do I. But I daren't say so before Stephen. He despises us women." + +"No, I don't," said the victim, swaying to and fro on the window-sill, +whither he had retreated. + +"Yes, he does. He won't even trouble to answer us. Stephen! Podge! +Answer me. What has happened to the child's soul?" + +He flung open the window and leant from them into the dusk. They heard +him mutter something about a bridge. + +"What did I tell you? He won't answer my question." + +The delightful moment was approaching when the boy would lose his +temper: she knew it by a certain tremor in his heels. + +"There wants a bridge," he exploded. "A bridge instead of all this +rotten talk and the level-crossing. It wouldn't break you to build a +two-arch bridge. Then the child's soul, as you call it--well, nothing +would have happened to the child at all." + +A gust of night air entered, accompanied by rain. The flowers in the +vases rustled, and the flame of the lamp shot up and smoked the glass. +Slightly irritated, she ordered him to close the window. + + + +XI + +Cadover was not a large house. But it is the largest house with which +this story has dealings, and must always be thought of with respect. It +was built about the year 1800, and favoured the architecture of ancient +Rome--chiefly by means of five lank pilasters, which stretched from the +top of it to the bottom. Between the pilasters was the glass front door, +to the right of them the drawing room windows, to the left of them the +windows of the dining-room, above them a triangular area, which the +better-class servants knew as a "pendiment," and which had in its middle +a small round hole, according to the usage of Palladio. The classical +note was also sustained by eight grey steps which led from the building +down into the drive, and by an attempt at a formal garden on the +adjoining lawn. The lawn ended in a Ha-ha ("Ha! ha! who shall regard +it?"), and thence the bare land sloped down into the village. The main +garden (walled) was to the left as one faced the house, while to the +right was that laurel avenue, leading up to Mrs. Failing's arbour. + +It was a comfortable but not very attractive place, and, to a certain +type of mind, its situation was not attractive either. From the +distance it showed as a grey box, huddled against evergreens. There +was no mystery about it. You saw it for miles. Its hill had none of the +beetling romance of Devonshire, none of the subtle contours that prelude +a cottage in Kent, but profferred its burden crudely, on a huge bare +palm. "There's Cadover," visitors would say. "How small it still looks. +We shall be late for lunch." And the view from the windows, though +extensive, would not have been accepted by the Royal Academy. A valley, +containing a stream, a road, a railway; over the valley fields of barley +and wurzel, divided by no pretty hedges, and passing into a great and +formless down--this was the outlook, desolate at all times, and almost +terrifying beneath a cloudy sky. The down was called "Cadbury Range" +("Cocoa Squares" if you were young and funny), because high upon +it--one cannot say "on the top," there being scarcely any tops +in Wiltshire--because high upon it there stood a double circle of +entrenchments. A bank of grass enclosed a ring of turnips, which +enclosed a second bank of grass, which enclosed more turnips, and in +the middle of the pattern grew one small tree. British? Roman? Saxon? +Danish? The competent reader will decide. The Thompson family knew it +to be far older than the Franco-German war. It was the property of +Government. It was full of gold and dead soldiers who had fought with +the soldiers on Castle Rings and been beaten. The road to Londinium, +having forded the stream and crossed the valley road and the railway, +passed up by these entrenchments. The road to London lay half a mile to +the right of them. + +To complete this survey one must mention the church and the farm, both +of which lay over the stream in Cadford. Between them they ruled the +village, one claiming the souls of the labourers, the other their +bodies. If a man desired other religion or other employment he must +leave. The church lay up by the railway, the farm was down by the water +meadows. The vicar, a gentle charitable man scarcely realized his power, +and never tried to abuse it. Mr. Wilbraham, the agent, was of another +mould. He knew his place, and kept others to theirs: all society seemed +spread before him like a map. The line between the county and the local, +the line between the labourer and the artisan--he knew them all, and +strengthened them with no uncertain touch. Everything with him was +graduated--carefully graduated civility towards his superior, towards +his inferiors carefully graduated incivility. So--for he was a +thoughtful person--so alone, declared he, could things be kept together. + +Perhaps the Comic Muse, to whom so much is now attributed, had caused +his estate to be left to Mr. Failing. Mr. Failing was the author of some +brilliant books on socialism,--that was why his wife married him--and +for twenty-five years he reigned up at Cadover and tried to put his +theories into practice. He believed that things could be kept together +by accenting the similarities, not the differences of men. "We are all +much more alike than we confess," was one of his favourite speeches. As +a speech it sounded very well, and his wife had applauded; but when it +resulted in hard work, evenings in the reading-rooms, mixed-parties, and +long unobtrusive talks with dull people, she got bored. In her piquant +way she declared that she was not going to love her husband, and +succeeded. He took it quietly, but his brilliancy decreased. His health +grew worse, and he knew that when he died there was no one to carry on +his work. He felt, besides, that he had done very little. Toil as he +would, he had not a practical mind, and could never dispense with Mr. +Wilbraham. For all his tact, he would often stretch out the hand of +brotherhood too soon, or withhold it when it would have been accepted. +Most people misunderstood him, or only understood him when he was dead. +In after years his reign became a golden age; but he counted a few +disciples in his life-time, a few young labourers and tenant farmers, +who swore tempestuously that he was not really a fool. This, he told +himself, was as much as he deserved. + +Cadover was inherited by his widow. She tried to sell it; she tried to +let it; but she asked too much, and as it was neither a pretty place nor +fertile, it was left on her hands. With many a groan she settled down +to banishment. Wiltshire people, she declared, were the stupidest in +England. She told them so to their faces, which made them no brighter. +And their county was worthy of them: no distinction in it--no +style--simply land. + +But her wrath passed, or remained only as a graceful fretfulness. She +made the house comfortable, and abandoned the farm to Mr. Wilbraham. +With a good deal of care she selected a small circle of acquaintances, +and had them to stop in the summer months. In the winter she would go to +town and frequent the salons of the literary. As her lameness increased +she moved about less, and at the time of her nephew's visit seldom left +the place that had been forced upon her as a home. Just now she +was busy. A prominent politician had quoted her husband. The young +generation asked, "Who is this Mr. Failing?" and the publishers wrote, +"Now is the time." She was collecting some essays and penning an +introductory memoir. + +Rickie admired his aunt, but did not care for her. She reminded him too +much of his father. She had the same affliction, the same heartlessness, +the same habit of taking life with a laugh--as if life is a pill! He +also felt that she had neglected him. He would not have asked much: as +for "prospects," they never entered his head, but she was his only near +relative, and a little kindness and hospitality during the lonely years +would have made incalculable difference. Now that he was happier and +could bring her Agnes, she had asked him to stop at once. The sun as it +rose next morning spoke to him of a new life. He too had a purpose and +a value in the world at last. Leaning out of the window, he gazed at the +earth washed clean and heard through the pure air the distant noises of +the farm. + +But that day nothing was to remain divine but the weather. His aunt, for +reasons of her own, decreed that he should go for a ride with the Wonham +boy. They were to look at Old Sarum, proceed thence to Salisbury, lunch +there, see the sights, call on a certain canon for tea, and return to +Cadover in the evening. The arrangement suited no one. He did not want +to ride, but to be with Agnes; nor did Agnes want to be parted from him, +nor Stephen to go with him. But the clearer the wishes of her guests +became, the more determined was Mrs. Failing to disregard them. She +smoothed away every difficulty, she converted every objection into a +reason, and she ordered the horses for half-past nine. + +"It is a bore," he grumbled as he sat in their little private +sitting-room, breaking his finger-nails upon the coachman's gaiters. "I +can't ride. I shall fall off. We should have been so happy here. It's +just like Aunt Emily. Can't you imagine her saying afterwards, 'Lovers +are absurd. I made a point of keeping them apart,' and then everybody +laughing." + +With a pretty foretaste of the future, Agnes knelt before him and did +the gaiters up. "Who is this Mr. Wonham, by the bye?" + +"I don't know. Some connection of Mr. Failing's, I think." + +"Does he live here?" + +"He used to be at school or something. He seems to have grown into a +tiresome person." + +"I suppose that Mrs. Failing has adopted him." + +"I suppose so. I believe that she has been quite kind. I do hope she'll +be kind to you this morning. I hate leaving you with her." + +"Why, you say she likes me." + +"Yes, but that wouldn't prevent--you see she doesn't mind what she says +or what she repeats if it amuses her. If she thought it really funny, +for instance, to break off our engagement, she'd try." + +"Dear boy, what a frightful remark! But it would be funnier for us to +see her trying. Whatever could she do?" + +He kissed the hands that were still busy with the fastenings. "Nothing. +I can't see one thing. We simply lie open to each other, you and I. +There isn't one new corner in either of us that she could reveal. +It's only that I always have in this house the most awful feeling of +insecurity." + +"Why?" + +"If any one says or does a foolish thing it's always here. All the +family breezes have started here. It's a kind of focus for aimed and +aimless scandal. You know, when my father and mother had their special +quarrel, my aunt was mixed up in it,--I never knew how or how much--but +you may be sure she didn't calm things down, unless she found things +more entertaining calm." + +"Rickie! Rickie!" cried the lady from the garden, "Your riding-master's +impatient." + +"We really oughtn't to talk of her like this here," whispered Agnes. +"It's a horrible habit." + +"The habit of the country, Agnes. Ugh, this gossip!" Suddenly he flung +his arms over her. "Dear--dear--let's beware of I don't know what--of +nothing at all perhaps." + +"Oh, buck up!" yelled the irritable Stephen. "Which am I to +shorten--left stirrup or right?" + +"Left!" shouted Agnes. + +"How many holes?" + +They hurried down. On the way she said: "I'm glad of the warning. Now +I'm prepared. Your aunt will get nothing out of me." + +Her betrothed tried to mount with the wrong foot according to his +invariable custom. She also had to pick up his whip. At last they +started, the boy showing off pretty consistently, and she was left alone +with her hostess. + +"Dido is quiet as a lamb," said Mrs. Failing, "and Stephen is a good +fielder. What a blessing it is to have cleared out the men. What shall +you and I do this heavenly morning?" + +"I'm game for anything." + +"Have you quite unpacked?" + +"Yes." + +"Any letters to write?" No. + +"Then let's go to my arbour. No, we won't. It gets the morning sun, and +it'll be too hot today." Already she regretted clearing out the men. On +such a morning she would have liked to drive, but her third animal had +gone lame. She feared, too, that Miss Pembroke was going to bore her. +However, they did go to the arbour. In languid tones she pointed out the +various objects of interest. + +"There's the Cad, which goes into the something, which goes into the +Avon. Cadbury Rings opposite, Cadchurch to the extreme left: you can't +see it. You were there last night. It is famous for the drunken parson +and the railway-station. Then Cad Dauntsey. Then Cadford, that side of +the stream, connected with Cadover, this. Observe the fertility of the +Wiltshire mind." + +"A terrible lot of Cads," said Agnes brightly. + +Mrs. Failing divided her guests into those who made this joke and those +who did not. The latter class was very small. + +"The vicar of Cadford--not the nice drunkard--declares the name is +really 'Chadford,' and he worried on till I put up a window to St. Chad +in our church. His Cambridge wife pronounces it 'Hyadford.' I could +smack them both. How do you like Podge? Ah! you jump; I meant you to. +How do you like Podge Wonham?" + +"Very nice," said Agnes, laughing. + +"Nice! He is a hero." + +There was a long interval of silence. Each lady looked, without much +interest, at the view. Mrs. Failing's attitude towards Nature was +severely aesthetic--an attitude more sterile than the severely +practical. She applied the test of beauty to shadow and odour and sound; +they never filled her with reverence or excitement; she never knew them +as a resistless trinity that may intoxicate the worshipper with joy. If +she liked a ploughed field, it was only as a spot of colour--not also as +a hint of the endless strength of the earth. And today she could approve +of one cloud, but object to its fellow. As for Miss Pembroke, she was +not approving or objecting at all. "A hero?" she queried, when the +interval had passed. Her voice was indifferent, as if she had been +thinking of other things. + +"A hero? Yes. Didn't you notice how heroic he was?" + +"I don't think I did." + +"Not at dinner? Ah, Agnes, always look out for heroism at dinner. It is +their great time. They live up to the stiffness of their shirt fronts. +Do you mean to say that you never noticed how he set down Rickie?" + +"Oh, that about poetry!" said Agnes, laughing. "Rickie would not mind it +for a moment. But why do you single out that as heroic?" + +"To snub people! to set them down! to be rude to them! to make them feel +small! Surely that's the lifework of a hero?" + +"I shouldn't have said that. And as a matter of fact Mr. Wonham was +wrong over the poetry. I made Rickie look it up afterwards." + +"But of course. A hero always is wrong." + +"To me," she persisted, rather gently, "a hero has always been a strong +wonderful being, who champions--" + +"Ah, wait till you are the dragon! I have been a dragon most of my life, +I think. A dragon that wants nothing but a peaceful cave. Then in +comes the strong, wonderful, delightful being, and gains a princess +by piercing my hide. No, seriously, my dear Agnes, the chief +characteristics of a hero are infinite disregard for the feelings of +others, plus general inability to understand them." + +"But surely Mr. Wonham--" + +"Yes; aren't we being unkind to the poor boy. Ought we to go on +talking?" + +Agnes waited, remembering the warnings of Rickie, and thinking that +anything she said might perhaps be repeated. + +"Though even if he was here he wouldn't understand what we are saying." + +"Wouldn't understand?" + +Mrs. Failing gave the least flicker of an eye towards her companion. +"Did you take him for clever?" + +"I don't think I took him for anything." She smiled. "I have been +thinking of other things, and another boy." + +"But do think for a moment of Stephen. I will describe how he spent +yesterday. He rose at eight. From eight to eleven he sang. The song was +called, 'Father's boots will soon fit Willie.' He stopped once to say to +the footman, 'She'll never finish her book. She idles: 'She' being I. At +eleven he went out, and stood in the rain till four, but had the luck +to see a child run over at the level-crossing. By half-past four he had +knocked the bottom out of Christianity." + +Agnes looked bewildered. + +"Aren't you impressed? I was. I told him that he was on no account to +unsettle the vicar. Open that cupboard, one of those sixpenny books +tells Podge that he's made of hard little black things, another +that he's made of brown things, larger and squashy. There seems a +discrepancy, but anything is better for a thoughtful youth than to be +made in the Garden of Eden. Let us eliminate the poetic, at whatever +cost to the probable." When for a moment she spoke more gravely. "Here +he is at twenty, with nothing to hold on by. I don't know what's to be +done. I suppose it's my fault. But I've never had any bother over the +Church of England; have you?" + +"Of course I go with my Church," said Miss Pembroke, who hated this +style of conversation. "I don't know, I'm sure. I think you should +consult a man." + +"Would Rickie help me?" + +"Rickie would do anything he can." And Mrs. Failing noted the half +official way in which she vouched for her lover. "But of course Rickie +is a little--complicated. I doubt whether Mr. Wonham would understand +him. He wants--doesn't he?--some one who's a little more assertive and +more accustomed to boys. Some one more like my brother." + +"Agnes!" she seized her by the arm. "Do you suppose that Mr. Pembroke +would undertake my Podge?" + +She shook her head. "His time is so filled up. He gets a boarding-house +next term. Besides--after all I don't know what Herbert would do." + +"Morality. He would teach him morality. The Thirty-Nine Articles +may come of themselves, but if you have no morals you come to grief. +Morality is all I demand from Mr. Herbert Pembroke. He shall be excused +the use of the globes. You know, of course, that Stephen's expelled from +a public school? He stole." + +The school was not a public one, and the expulsion, or rather request +for removal, had taken place when Stephen was fourteen. A violent +spasm of dishonesty--such as often heralds the approach of manhood--had +overcome him. He stole everything, especially what was difficult to +steal, and hid the plunder beneath a loose plank in the passage. He was +betrayed by the inclusion of a ham. This was the crisis of his career. +His benefactress was just then rather bored with him. He had stopped +being a pretty boy, and she rather doubted whether she would see him +through. But she was so raged with the letters of the schoolmaster, and +so delighted with those of the criminal, that she had him back and gave +him a prize. + +"No," said Agnes, "I didn't know. I should be happy to speak to Herbert, +but, as I said, his time will be very full. But I know he has friends +who make a speciality of weakly or--or unusual boys." + +"My dear, I've tried it. Stephen kicked the weakly boys and robbed +apples with the unusual ones. He was expelled again." + +Agnes began to find Mrs. Failing rather tiresome. Wherever you trod on +her, she seemed to slip away from beneath your feet. Agnes liked to know +where she was and where other people were as well. She said: "My brother +thinks a great deal of home life. I daresay he'd think that Mr. Wonham +is best where he is--with you. You have been so kind to him. You"--she +paused--"have been to him both father and mother." + +"I'm too hot," was Mrs. Failing's reply. It seemed that Miss Pembroke +had at last touched a topic on which she was reticent. She rang the +electric bell,--it was only to tell the footman to take the reprints to +Mr. Wonham's room,--and then murmuring something about work, proceeded +herself to the house. + +"Mrs. Failing--" said Agnes, who had not expected such a speedy end to +their chat. + +"Call me Aunt Emily. My dear?" + +"Aunt Emily, what did you think of that story Rickie sent you?" + +"It is bad," said Mrs. Failing. "But. But. But." Then she escaped, +having told the truth, and yet leaving a pleasurable impression behind +her. + + + +XII + +The excursion to Salisbury was but a poor business--in fact, Rickie +never got there. They were not out of the drive before Mr. Wonham began +doing acrobatics. He showed Rickie how very quickly he could turn round +in his saddle and sit with his face to Aeneas's tail. "I see," said +Rickie coldly, and became almost cross when they arrived in this +condition at the gate behind the house, for he had to open it, and was +afraid of falling. As usual, he anchored just beyond the fastenings, and +then had to turn Dido, who seemed as long as a battleship. To his relief +a man came forward, and murmuring, "Worst gate in the parish," pushed it +wide and held it respectfully. "Thank you," cried Rickie; "many +thanks." But Stephen, who was riding into the world back first, said +majestically, "No, no; it doesn't count. You needn't think it does. You +make it worse by touching your hat. Four hours and seven minutes! You'll +see me again." The man answered nothing. + +"Eh, but I'll hurt him," he chanted, as he swung into position. "That +was Flea. Eh, but he's forgotten my fists; eh, but I'll hurt him." + +"Why?" ventured Rickie. Last night, over cigarettes, he had been bored +to death by the story of Flea. The boy had a little reminded him of +Gerald--the Gerald of history, not the Gerald of romance. He was more +genial, but there was the same brutality, the same peevish insistence on +the pound of flesh. + +"Hurt him till he learns." + +"Learns what?" + +"Learns, of course," retorted Stephen. Neither of them was very civil. +They did not dislike each other, but they each wanted to be somewhere +else--exactly the situation that Mrs. Failing had expected. + +"He behaved badly," said Rickie, "because he is poorer than we are, and +more ignorant. Less money has been spent on teaching him to behave." + +"Well, I'll teach him for nothing." + +"Perhaps his fists are stronger than yours!" + +"They aren't. I looked." + +After this conversation flagged. Rickie glanced back at Cadover, +and thought of the insipid day that lay before him. Generally he was +attracted by fresh people, and Stephen was almost fresh: they had been +to him symbols of the unknown, and all that they did was interesting. +But now he cared for the unknown no longer. He knew. + +Mr. Wilbraham passed them in his dog-cart, and lifted his hat to his +employer's nephew. Stephen he ignored: he could not find him on the map. + +"Good morning," said Rickie. "What a lovely morning!" + +"I say," called the other, "another child dead!" Mr. Wilbraham, who had +seemed inclined to chat, whipped up his horse and left them. + +"There goes an out and outer," said Stephen; and then, as if introducing +an entirely new subject--"Don't you think Flea Thompson treated me +disgracefully?" + +"I suppose he did. But I'm scarcely the person to sympathize." The +allusion fell flat, and he had to explain it. "I should have done the +same myself,--promised to be away two hours, and stopped four." + +"Stopped-oh--oh, I understand. You being in love, you mean?" + +He smiled and nodded. + +"Oh, I've no objection to Flea loving. He says he can't help it. But as +long as my fists are stronger, he's got to keep it in line." + +"In line?" + +"A man like that, when he's got a girl, thinks the rest can go to the +devil. He goes cutting his work and breaking his word. Wilbraham ought +to sack him. I promise you when I've a girl I'll keep her in line, and +if she turns nasty, I'll get another." + +Rickie smiled and said no more. But he was sorry that any one should +start life with such a creed--all the more sorry because the creed +caricatured his own. He too believed that life should be in a line--a +line of enormous length, full of countless interests and countless +figures, all well beloved. But woman was not to be "kept" to this line. +Rather did she advance it continually, like some triumphant general, +making each unit still more interesting, still more lovable, than it had +been before. He loved Agnes, not only for herself, but because she was +lighting up the human world. But he could scarcely explain this to an +inexperienced animal, nor did he make the attempt. + +For a long time they proceeded in silence. The hill behind Cadover +was in harvest, and the horses moved regretfully between the sheaves. +Stephen had picked a grass leaf, and was blowing catcalls upon it. He +blew very well, and this morning all his soul went into the wail. For he +was ill. He was tortured with the feeling that he could not get away +and do--do something, instead of being civil to this anaemic prig. Four +hours in the rain was better than this: he had not wanted to fidget in +the rain. But now the air was like wine, and the stubble was smelling of +wet, and over his head white clouds trundled more slowly and more seldom +through broadening tracts of blue. There never had been such a morning, +and he shut up his eyes and called to it. And whenever he called, Rickie +shut up his eyes and winced. + +At last the blade broke. "We don't go quick, do we" he remarked, and +looked on the weedy track for another. + +"I wish you wouldn't let me keep you. If you were alone you would be +galloping or something of that sort." + +"I was told I must go your pace," he said mournfully. "And you promised +Miss Pembroke not to hurry." + +"Well, I'll disobey." But he could not rise above a gentle trot, and +even that nearly jerked him out of the saddle. + +"Sit like this," said Stephen. "Can't you see like this?" Rickie lurched +forward, and broke his thumb nail on the horse's neck. It bled a little, +and had to be bound up. + +"Thank you--awfully kind--no tighter, please--I'm simply spoiling your +day." + +"I can't think how a man can help riding. You've only to leave it to the +horse so!--so!--just as you leave it to water in swimming." + +Rickie left it to Dido, who stopped immediately. + +"I said LEAVE it." His voice rose irritably. "I didn't say 'die.' Of +course she stops if you die. First you sit her as if you're Sandow +exercising, and then you sit like a corpse. Can't you tell her you're +alive? That's all she wants." + +In trying to convey the information, Rickie dropped his whip. Stephen +picked it up and rammed it into the belt of his own Norfolk jacket. He +was scarcely a fashionable horseman. He was not even graceful. But he +rode as a living man, though Rickie was too much bored to notice it. Not +a muscle in him was idle, not a muscle working hard. When he returned +from the gallop his limbs were still unsatisfied and his manners still +irritable. He did not know that he was ill: he knew nothing about +himself at all. + +"Like a howdah in the Zoo," he grumbled. "Mother Failing will buy +elephants." And he proceeded to criticize his benefactress. Rickie, +keenly alive to bad taste, tried to stop him, and gained instead a +criticism of religion. Stephen overthrew the Mosaic cosmogony. He +pointed out the discrepancies in the Gospels. He levelled his wit +against the most beautiful spire in the world, now rising against the +southern sky. Between whiles he went for a gallop. After a time Rickie +stopped listening, and simply went his way. For Dido was a perfect +mount, and as indifferent to the motions of Aeneas as if she was +strolling in the Elysian fields. He had had a bad night, and the strong +air made him sleepy. The wind blew from the Plain. Cadover and its +valley had disappeared, and though they had not climbed much and could +not see far, there was a sense of infinite space. The fields were +enormous, like fields on the Continent, and the brilliant sun showed up +their colours well. The green of the turnips, the gold of the harvest, +and the brown of the newly turned clods, were each contrasted with +morsels of grey down. But the general effect was pale, or rather +silvery, for Wiltshire is not a county of heavy tints. Beneath these +colours lurked the unconquerable chalk, and wherever the soil was poor +it emerged. The grassy track, so gay with scabious and bedstraw, was +snow-white at the bottom of its ruts. A dazzling amphitheatre gleamed +in the flank of a distant hill, cut for some Olympian audience. And +here and there, whatever the surface crop, the earth broke into little +embankments, little ditches, little mounds: there had been no lack of +drama to solace the gods. + +In Cadover, the perilous house, Agnes had already parted from Mrs. +Failing. His thoughts returned to her. Was she, the soul of truth, in +safety? Was her purity vexed by the lies and selfishness? Would she +elude the caprice which had, he vaguely knew, caused suffering before? +Ah, the frailty of joy! Ah, the myriads of longings that pass without +fruition, and the turf grows over them! Better men, women as noble--they +had died up here and their dust had been mingled, but only their dust. +These are morbid thoughts, but who dare contradict them? There is much +good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We +are children, playing or quarreling on the line, and some of us have +Rickie's temperament, or his experiences, and admit it. + +So he mused, that anxious little speck, and all the land seemed to +comment on his fears and on his love. + +Their path lay upward, over a great bald skull, half grass, half +stubble. It seemed each moment there would be a splendid view. The view +never came, for none of the inclines were sharp enough, and they +moved over the skull for many minutes, scarcely shifting a landmark or +altering the blue fringe of the distance. The spire of Salisbury did +alter, but very slightly, rising and falling like the mercury in a +thermometer. At the most it would be half hidden; at the least the +tip would show behind the swelling barrier of earth. They passed two +elder-trees--a great event. The bare patch, said Stephen, was owing to +the gallows. Rickie nodded. He had lost all sense of incident. In this +great solitude--more solitary than any Alpine range--he and Agnes +were floating alone and for ever, between the shapeless earth and the +shapeless clouds. An immense silence seemed to move towards them. A lark +stopped singing, and they were glad of it. They were approaching the +Throne of God. The silence touched them; the earth and all danger +dissolved, but ere they quite vanished Rickie heard himself saying, "Is +it exactly what we intended?" + +"Yes," said a man's voice; "it's the old plan." They were in another +valley. Its sides were thick with trees. Down it ran another stream +and another road: it, too, sheltered a string of villages. But all +was richer, larger, and more beautiful--the valley of the Avon below +Amesbury. + +"I've been asleep!" said Rickie, in awestruck tones. + +"Never!" said the other facetiously. "Pleasant dreams?" + +"Perhaps--I'm really tired of apologizing to you. How long have you been +holding me on?" + +"All in the day's work." He gave him back the reins. + +"Where's that round hill?" + +"Gone where the good niggers go. I want a drink." + +This is Nature's joke in Wiltshire--her one joke. You toil on windy +slopes, and feel very primeval. You are miles from your fellows, and lo! +a little valley full of elms and cottages. Before Rickie had waked up to +it, they had stopped by a thatched public-house, and Stephen was yelling +like a maniac for beer. + +There was no occasion to yell. He was not very thirsty, and they were +quite ready to serve him. Nor need he have drunk in the saddle, with the +air of a warrior who carries important dispatches and has not the time +to dismount. A real soldier, bound on a similar errand, rode up to the +inn, and Stephen feared that he would yell louder, and was hostile. But +they made friends and treated each other, and slanged the proprietor and +ragged the pretty girls; while Rickie, as each wave of vulgarity burst +over him, sunk his head lower and lower, and wished that the earth +would swallow him up. He was only used to Cambridge, and to a very small +corner of that. He and his friends there believed in free speech. +But they spoke freely about generalities. They were scientific and +philosophic. They would have shrunk from the empirical freedom that +results from a little beer. + +That was what annoyed him as he rode down the new valley with two +chattering companions. He was more skilled than they were in the +principles of human existence, but he was not so indecently familiar +with the examples. A sordid village scandal--such as Stephen described +as a huge joke--sprang from certain defects in human nature, with which +he was theoretically acquainted. But the example! He blushed at it like +a maiden lady, in spite of its having a parallel in a beautiful idyll of +Theocritus. Was experience going to be such a splendid thing after all? +Were the outside of houses so very beautiful? + +"That's spicy!" the soldier was saying. "Got any more like that?" + +"I'se got a pome," said Stephen, and drew a piece of paper from his +pocket. The valley had broadened. Old Sarum rose before them, ugly and +majestic. + +"Write this yourself?" he asked, chuckling. + +"Rather," said Stephen, lowering his head and kissing Aeneas between the +ears. + +"But who's old Em'ly?" Rickie winced and frowned. + +"Now you're asking. + +"Old Em'ly she limps, And as--" + +"I am so tired," said Rickie. Why should he stand it any longer? + +He would go home to the woman he loved. "Do you mind if I give up +Salisbury?" + +"But we've seen nothing!" cried Stephen. + +"I shouldn't enjoy anything, I am so absurdly tired." + +"Left turn, then--all in the day's work." He bit at his moustache +angrily. + +"Good gracious me, man!--of course I'm going back alone. I'm not going +to spoil your day. How could you think it of me?" + +Stephen gave a loud sigh of relief. "If you do want to go home, here's +your whip. Don't fall off. Say to her you wanted it, or there might be +ructions." + +"Certainly. Thank you for your kind care of me." + +"'Old Em'ly she limps, And as--'" + +Soon he was out of earshot. Soon they were lost to view. Soon they were +out of his thoughts. He forgot the coarseness and the drinking and the +ingratitude. A few months ago he would not have forgotten so quickly, +and he might also have detected something else. But a lover is dogmatic. +To him the world shall be beautiful and pure. When it is not, he ignores +it. + +"He's not tired," said Stephen to the soldier; "he wants his girl." And +they winked at each other, and cracked jokes over the eternal comedy of +love. They asked each other if they'd let a girl spoil a morning's ride. +They both exhibited a profound cynicism. Stephen, who was quite without +ballast, described the household at Cadover: he should say that Rickie +would find Miss Pembroke kissing the footman. + +"I say the footman's kissing old Em'ly." + +"Jolly day," said Stephen. His voice was suddenly constrained. He was +not sure whether he liked the soldier after all, nor whether he had been +wise in showing him his compositions. + +"'Old Em'ly she limps, And as--'" + +"All right, Thomas. That'll do." + +"Old Em'ly--'" + +"I wish you'd dry up, like a good fellow. This is the lady's horse, you +know, hang it, after all." + +"In-deed!" + +"Don't you see--when a fellow's on a horse, he can't let another +fellow--kind of--don't you know?" + +The man did know. "There's sense in that." he said approvingly. Peace +was restored, and they would have reached Salisbury if they had not had +some more beer. It unloosed the soldier's fancies, and again he spoke of +old Em'ly, and recited the poem, with Aristophanic variations. + +"Jolly day," repeated Stephen, with a straightening of the eyebrows +and a quick glance at the other's body. He then warned him against +the variations. In consequence he was accused of being a member of the +Y.M.C.A. His blood boiled at this. He refuted the charge, and became +great friends with the soldier, for the third time. + +"Any objection to 'Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton'?" + +"Rather not." + +The soldier sang "Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton." It is really a work +for two voices, most of the sauciness disappearing when taken as a solo. +Nor is Mrs. Tackleton's name Em'lv. + +"I call it a jolly rotten song," said Stephen crossly. "I won't stand +being got at." + +"P'r'aps y'like therold song. Lishen. + + "'Of all the gulls that arsshmart, + There's none line pretty--Em'ly; + For she's the darling of merart'" + +"Now, that's wrong." He rode up close to the singer. + +"Shright." + +"'Tisn't." + +"It's as my mother taught me." + +"I don't care." + +"I'll not alter from mother's way." + +Stephen was baffled. Then he said, "How does your mother make it rhyme?" + +"Wot?" + +"Squat. You're an ass, and I'm not. Poems want rhymes. 'Alley' comes +next line." + +He said "alley" was--welcome to come if it liked. + +"It can't. You want Sally. Sally--alley. Em'ly-alley doesn't do." + +"Emily-femily!" cried the soldier, with an inspiration that was not his +when sober. "My mother taught me femily. + +"'For she's the darling of merart, And she lives in my femily.'" + +"Well, you'd best be careful, Thomas, and your mother too." + +"Your mother's no better than she should be," said Thomas vaguely. + +"Do you think I haven't heard that before?" retorted the boy. The other +concluded he might now say anything. So he might--the name of old Emily +excepted. Stephen cared little about his benefactress's honour, but a +great deal about his own. He had made Mrs. Failing into a test. For the +moment he would die for her, as a knight would die for a glove. He is +not to be distinguished from a hero. + +Old Sarum was passed. They approached the most beautiful spire in +the world. "Lord! another of these large churches!" said the soldier. +Unfriendly to Gothic, he lifted both hands to his nose, and declared +that old Em'ly was buried there. He lay in the mud. His horse trotted +back towards Amesbury, Stephen had twisted him out of the saddle. + +"I've done him!" he yelled, though no one was there to hear. He rose up +in his stirrups and shouted with joy. He flung his arms round Aeneas's +neck. The elderly horse understood, capered, and bolted. It was a +centaur that dashed into Salisbury and scattered the people. In +the stable he would not dismount. "I've done him!" he yelled to the +ostlers--apathetic men. Stretching upwards, he clung to a beam. Aeneas +moved on and he was left hanging. Greatly did he incommode them by his +exercises. He pulled up, he circled, he kicked the other customers. At +last he fell to the earth, deliciously fatigued. His body worried him no +longer. + +He went, like the baby he was, to buy a white linen hat. There were +soldiers about, and he thought it would disguise him. Then he had a +little lunch to steady the beer. This day had turned out admirably. All +the money that should have fed Rickie he could spend on himself. Instead +of toiling over the Cathedral and seeing the stuffed penguins, he could +stop the whole thing in the cattle market. There he met and made some +friends. He watched the cheap-jacks, and saw how necessary it was to +have a confident manner. He spoke confidently himself about lambs, and +people listened. He spoke confidently about pigs, and they roared with +laughter. He must learn more about pigs. He witnessed a performance--not +too namby-pamby--of Punch and Judy. "Hullo, Podge!" cried a naughty +little girl. He tried to catch her, and failed. She was one of the +Cadford children. For Salisbury on market day, though it is not +picturesque, is certainly representative, and you read the names of +half the Wiltshire villages upon the carriers' carts. He found, in Penny +Farthing Street, the cart from Wintersbridge. It would not start for +several hours, but the passengers always used it as a club, and sat in +it every now and then during the day. No less than three ladies were +these now, staring at the shafts. One of them was Flea Thompson's girl. +He asked her, quite politely, why her lover had broken faith with him +in the rain. She was silent. He warned her of approaching vengeance. She +was still silent, but another woman hoped that a gentleman would not +be hard on a poor person. Something in this annoyed him; it wasn't a +question of gentility and poverty--it was a question of two men. He +determined to go back by Cadbury Rings where the shepherd would now be. + +He did. But this part must be treated lightly. He rode up to the culprit +with the air of a Saint George, spoke a few stern words from the saddle, +tethered his steed to a hurdle, and took off his coat. "Are you ready?" +he asked. + +"Yes, sir," said Flea, and flung him on his back. + +"That's not fair," he protested. + +The other did not reply, but flung him on his head. + +"How on earth did you learn that?" + +"By trying often," said Flea. + +Stephen sat on the ground, picking mud out of his forehead. "I meant it +to be fists," he said gloomily. + +"I know, sir." + +"It's jolly smart though, and--and I beg your pardon all round." It +cost him a great deal to say this, but he was sure that it was the right +thing to say. He must acknowledge the better man. Whereas most people, +if they provoke a fight and are flung, say, "You cannot rob me of my +moral victory." + +There was nothing further to be done. He mounted again, not exactly +depressed, but feeling that this delightful world is extraordinarily +unreliable. He had never expected to fling the soldier, or to be +flung by Flea. "One nips or is nipped," he thought, "and never knows +beforehand. I should not be surprised if many people had more in them +than I suppose, while others were just the other way round. I haven't +seen that sort of thing in Ingersoll, but it's quite important." Then +his thoughts turned to a curious incident of long ago, when he had been +"nipped"--as a little boy. He was trespassing in those woods, when +he met in a narrow glade a flock of sheep. They had neither dog nor +shepherd, and advanced towards him silently. He was accustomed to sheep, +but had never happened to meet them in a wood before, and disliked it. +He retired, slowly at first, then fast; and the flock, in a dense mass, +pressed after him. His terror increased. He turned and screamed at their +long white faces; and still they came on, all stuck together, like some +horrible jell--. If once he got into them! Bellowing and screeching, he +rushed into the undergrowth, tore himself all over, and reached home in +convulsions. Mr. Failing, his only grown-up friend, was sympathetic, but +quite stupid. "Pan ovium custos," he sympathetic, as he pulled out the +thorns. "Why not?" "Pan ovium custos." Stephen learnt the meaning of the +phrase at school, "A pan of eggs for custard." He still remembered how +the other boys looked as he peeped at them between his legs, awaiting +the descending cane. + +So he returned, full of pleasant disconnected thoughts. He had had a +rare good time. He liked every one--even that poor little Elliot--and +yet no one mattered. They were all out. On the landing he saw the +housemaid. He felt skittish and irresistible. Should he slip his arm +round her waist? Perhaps better not; she might box his ears. And he +wanted to smoke on the roof before dinner. So he only said, "Please will +you stop the boy blacking my brown boots," and she with downcast eyes, +answered, "Yes, sir; I will indeed." + +His room was in the pediment. Classical architecture, like all things in +this world that attempt serenity, is bound to have its lapses into the +undignified, and Cadover lapsed hopelessly when it came to Stephen's +room. It gave him one round window, to see through which he must lie +upon his stomach, one trapdoor opening upon the leads, three iron +girders, three beams, six buttresses, no circling, unless you count the +walls, no walls unless you count the ceiling and in its embarrassment +presented him with the gurgly cistern that supplied the bath water. Here +he lived, absolutely happy, and unaware that Mrs. Failing had poked him +up here on purpose, to prevent him from growing too bumptious. Here he +worked and sang and practised on the ocharoon. Here, in the crannies, he +had constructed shelves and cupboards and useless little drawers. He had +only one picture--the Demeter of Onidos--and she hung straight from the +roof like a joint of meat. Once she was in the drawing-room; but +Mrs. Failing had got tired of her, and decreed her removal and this +degradation. Now she faced the sunrise; and when the moon rose its light +also fell on her, and trembled, like light upon the sea. For she was +never still, and if the draught increased she would twist on her string, +and would sway and tap upon the rafters until Stephen woke up and said +what he thought of her. "Want your nose?" he would murmur. "Don't you +wish you may get it" Then he drew the clothes over his ears, while above +him, in the wind and the darkness, the goddess continued her motions. + +Today, as he entered, he trod on the pile of sixpenny reprints. Leighton +had brought them up. He looked at the portraits in their covers, and +began to think that these people were not everything. What a fate, +to look like Colonel Ingersoll, or to marry Mrs. Julia P. Chunk! The +Demeter turned towards him as he bathed, and in the cold water he sang-- + + "They aren't beautiful, they aren't modest; + I'd just as soon follow an old stone goddess," + +and sprang upward through the skylight on to the roof. Years ago, when +a nurse was washing him, he had slipped from her soapy hands and got up +here. She implored him to remember that he was a little gentleman; but +he forgot the fact--if it was a fact--and not even the butler could get +him down. Mr. Failing, who was sitting alone in the garden too ill to +read, heard a shout, "Am I an acroterium?" He looked up and saw a naked +child poised on the summit of Cadover. "Yes," he replied; "but they are +unfashionable. Go in," and the vision had remained with him as something +peculiarly gracious. He felt that nonsense and beauty have close +connections,--closer connections than Art will allow,--and that both +would remain when his own heaviness and his own ugliness had perished. +Mrs. Failing found in his remains a sentence that puzzled her. "I see +the respectable mansion. I see the smug fortress of culture. The doors +are shut. The windows are shut. But on the roof the children go dancing +for ever." + +Stephen was a child no longer. He never stood on the pediment now, +except for a bet. He never, or scarcely ever, poured water down the +chimneys. When he caught the cat, he seldom dropped her into the +housekeeper's bedroom. But still, when the weather was fair, he liked to +come up after bathing, and get dry in the sun. Today he brought with him +a towel, a pipe of tobacco, and Rickie's story. He must get it done some +time, and he was tired of the six-penny reprints. The sloping gable +was warm, and he lay back on it with closed eyes, gasping for pleasure. +Starlings criticized him, snots fell on his clean body, and over him a +little cloud was tinged with the colours of evening. "Good! good!" he +whispered. "Good, oh good!" and opened the manuscript reluctantly. + +What a production! Who was this girl? Where did she go to? Why so much +talk about trees? "I take it he wrote it when feeling bad," he murmured, +and let it fall into the gutter. It fell face downwards, and on the back +he saw a neat little resume in Miss Pembroke's handwriting, intended for +such as him. "Allegory. Man = modern civilization (in bad sense). Girl = +getting into touch with Nature." + +In touch with Nature! The girl was a tree! He lit his pipe and gazed at +the radiant earth. The foreground was hidden, but there was the village +with its elms, and the Roman Road, and Cadbury Rings. There, too, were +those woods, and little beech copses, crowning a waste of down. Not to +mention the air, or the sun, or water. Good, oh good! + +In touch with Nature! What cant would the books think of next? His eyes +closed. He was sleepy. Good, oh good! Sighing into his pipe, he fell +asleep. + + + +XIII + +Glad as Agnes was when her lover returned for lunch, she was at the +same time rather dismayed: she knew that Mrs. Failing would not like her +plans altered. And her dismay was justified. Their hostess was a little +stiff, and asked whether Stephen had been obnoxious. + +"Indeed he hasn't. He spent the whole time looking after me." + +"From which I conclude he was more obnoxious than usual." Rickie praised +him diligently. But his candid nature showed everything through. His +aunt soon saw that they had not got on. She had expected this--almost +planned it. Nevertheless she resented it, and her resentment was to fall +on him. + +The storm gathered slowly, and many other things went to swell it. +Weakly people, if they are not careful, hate one another, and when the +weakness is hereditary the temptation increases. Elliots had never got +on among themselves. They talked of "The Family," but they always turned +outwards to the health and beauty that lie so promiscuously about the +world. Rickie's father had turned, for a time at all events, to his +mother. Rickie himself was turning to Agnes. And Mrs. Failing now was +irritable, and unfair to the nephew who was lame like her horrible +brother and like herself. She thought him invertebrate and conventional. +She was envious of his happiness. She did not trouble to understand his +art. She longed to shatter him, but knowing as she did that the human +thunderbolt often rebounds and strikes the wielder, she held her hand. + +Agnes watched the approaching clouds. Rickie had warned her; now she +began to warn him. As the visit wore away she urged him to be pleasant +to his aunt, and so convert it into a success. + +He replied, "Why need it be a success?"--a reply in the manner of +Ansell. + +She laughed. "Oh, that's so like you men--all theory! What about your +great theory of hating no one? As soon as it comes in useful you drop +it." + +"I don't hate Aunt Emily. Honestly. But certainly I don't want to be +near her or think about her. Don't you think there are two great things +in life that we ought to aim at--truth and kindness? Let's have both if +we can, but let's be sure of having one or the other. My aunt gives up +both for the sake of being funny." + +"And Stephen Wonham," pursued Agnes. "There's another person you +hate--or don't think about, if you prefer it put like that." + +"The truth is, I'm changing. I'm beginning to see that the world has +many people in it who don't matter. I had time for them once. Not now." +There was only one gate to the kingdom of heaven now. + +Agnes surprised him by saying, "But the Wonham boy is evidently a part +of your aunt's life. She laughs at him, but she is fond of him." + +"What's that to do with it?" + +"You ought to be pleasant to him on account of it." + +"Why on earth?" + +She flushed a little. "I'm old-fashioned. One ought to consider one's +hostess, and fall in with her life. After we leave it's another thing. +But while we take her hospitality I think it's our duty." + +Her good sense triumphed. Henceforth he tried to fall in with Aunt +Emily's life. Aunt Emily watched him trying. The storm broke, as storms +sometimes do, on Sunday. + +Sunday church was a function at Cadover, though a strange one. The +pompous landau rolled up to the house at a quarter to eleven. Then Mrs. +Failing said, "Why am I being hurried?" and after an interval descended +the steps in her ordinary clothes. She regarded the church as a sort of +sitting-room, and refused even to wear a bonnet there. The village was +shocked, but at the same time a little proud; it would point out the +carriage to strangers and gossip about the pale smiling lady who sat in +it, always alone, always late, her hair always draped in an expensive +shawl. + +This Sunday, though late as usual, she was not alone. Miss Pembroke, +en grande toilette, sat by her side. Rickie, looking plain and devout, +perched opposite. And Stephen actually came too, murmuring that it would +be the Benedicite, which he had never minded. There was also the Litany, +which drove him into the air again, much to Mrs. Failing's delight. She +enjoyed this sort of thing. It amused her when her Protege left the pew, +looking bored, athletic, and dishevelled, and groping most obviously for +his pipe. She liked to keep a thoroughbred pagan to shock people. "He's +gone to worship Nature," she whispered. Rickie did not look up. "Don't +you think he's charming?" He made no reply. + +"Charming," whispered Agnes over his head. + +During the sermon she analysed her guests. Miss +Pembroke--undistinguished, unimaginative, tolerable. +Rickie--intolerable. "And how pedantic!" she mused. "He smells of the +University library. If he was stupid in the right way he would be a +don." She looked round the tiny church; at the whitewashed pillars, +the humble pavement, the window full of magenta saints. There was +the vicar's wife. And Mrs. Wilbraham's bonnet. Ugh! The rest of the +congregation were poor women, with flat, hopeless faces--she saw them +Sunday after Sunday, but did not know their names--diversified with a +few reluctant plough-boys, and the vile little school children row upon +row. "Ugh! what a hole," thought Mrs. Failing, whose Christianity was +the type best described as "cathedral." "What a hole for a cultured +woman! I don't think it has blunted my sensations, though; I still +see its squalor as clearly as ever. And my nephew pretends he is +worshipping. Pah! the hypocrite." Above her the vicar spoke of the +danger of hurrying from one dissipation to another. She treasured his +words, and continued: "I cannot stand smugness. It is the one, the +unpardonable sin. Fresh air! The fresh air that has made Stephen Wonham +fresh and companionable and strong. Even if it kills, I will let in the +fresh air." + +Thus reasoned Mrs. Failing, in the facile vein of Ibsenism. She imagined +herself to be a cold-eyed Scandinavian heroine. Really she was an +English old lady, who did not mind giving other people a chill provided +it was not infectious. + +Agnes, on the way back, noted that her hostess was a little snappish. +But one is so hungry after morning service, and either so hot or so +cold, that he would be a saint indeed who becomes a saint at once. Mrs. +Failing, after asserting vindictively that it was impossible to make +a living out of literature, was courteously left alone. Roast-beef +and moselle might yet work miracles, and Agnes still hoped for the +introductions--the introductions to certain editors and publishers--on +which her whole diplomacy was bent. Rickie would not push himself. It +was his besetting sin. Well for him that he would have a wife, and a +loving wife, who knew the value of enterprise. + +Unfortunately lunch was a quarter of an hour late, and during that +quarter of an hour the aunt and the nephew quarrelled. She had been +inveighing against the morning service, and he quietly and deliberately +replied, "If organized religion is anything--and it is something to +me--it will not be wrecked by a harmonium and a dull sermon." + +Mrs. Failing frowned. "I envy you. It is a great thing to have no sense +of beauty." + +"I think I have a sense of beauty, which leads me astray if I am not +careful." + +"But this is a great relief to me. I thought the present day young man +was an agnostic! Isn't agnosticism all the thing at Cambridge?" + +"Nothing is the 'thing' at Cambridge. If a few men are agnostic there, +it is for some grave reason, not because they are irritated with the way +the parson says his vowels." + +Agnes intervened. "Well, I side with Aunt Emily. I believe in ritual." + +"Don't, my dear, side with me. He will only say you have no sense of +religion either." + +"Excuse me," said Rickie, perhaps he too was a little hungry,--"I never +suggested such a thing. I never would suggest such a thing. Why cannot +you understand my position? I almost feel it is that you won't." + +"I try to understand your position night and day dear--what you mean, +what you like, why you came to Cadover, and why you stop here when my +presence is so obviously unpleasing to you." + +"Luncheon is served," said Leighton, but he said it too late. They +discussed the beef and the moselle in silence. The air was heavy and +ominous. Even the Wonham boy was affected by it, shivered at times, +choked once, and hastened anew into the sun. He could not understand +clever people. + +Agnes, in a brief anxious interview, advised the culprit to take a +solitary walk. She would stop near Aunt Emily, and pave the way for an +apology. + +"Don't worry too much. It doesn't really matter." + +"I suppose not, dear. But it seems a pity, considering we are so near +the end of our visit." + +"Rudeness and Grossness matter, and I've shown both, and already I'm +sorry, and I hope she'll let me apologize. But from the selfish point of +view it doesn't matter a straw. She's no more to us than the Wonham boy +or the boot boy." + +"Which way will you walk?" + +"I think to that entrenchment. Look at it." They were sitting on the +steps. He stretched out his hand to Cadsbury Rings, and then let it rest +for a moment on her shoulder. "You're changing me," he said gently. "God +bless you for it." + +He enjoyed his walk. Cadford was a charming village and for a time he +hung over the bridge by the mill. So clear was the stream that it seemed +not water at all, but some invisible quintessence in which the happy +minnows and the weeds were vibrating. And he paused again at the Roman +crossing, and thought for a moment of the unknown child. The line curved +suddenly: certainly it was dangerous. Then he lifted his eyes to the +down. The entrenchment showed like the rim of a saucer, and over +its narrow line peeped the summit of the central tree. It looked +interesting. He hurried forward, with the wind behind him. + +The Rings were curious rather than impressive. Neither embankment was +over twelve feet high, and the grass on them had not the exquisite +green of Old Sarum, but was grey and wiry. But Nature (if she arranges +anything) had arranged that from them, at all events, there should be a +view. The whole system of the country lay spread before Rickie, and he +gained an idea of it that he never got in his elaborate ride. He saw how +all the water converges at Salisbury; how Salisbury lies in a shallow +basin, just at the change of the soil. He saw to the north the Plain, +and the stream of the Cad flowing down from it, with a tributary that +broke out suddenly, as the chalk streams do: one village had clustered +round the source and clothed itself with trees. He saw Old Sarum, and +hints of the Avon valley, and the land above Stone Henge. And behind him +he saw the great wood beginning unobtrusively, as if the down too needed +shaving; and into it the road to London slipped, covering the bushes +with white dust. Chalk made the dust white, chalk made the water clear, +chalk made the clean rolling outlines of the land, and favoured the +grass and the distant coronals of trees. Here is the heart of our +island: the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South Downs radiate hence. +The fibres of England unite in Wiltshire, and did we condescend to +worship her, here we should erect our national shrine. + +People at that time were trying to think imperially, Rickie wondered how +they did it, for he could not imagine a place larger than England. +And other people talked of Italy, the spiritual fatherland of us all. +Perhaps Italy would prove marvellous. But at present he conceived it as +something exotic, to be admired and reverenced, but not to be loved like +these unostentatious fields. He drew out a book, it was natural for him +to read when he was happy, and to read out loud,--and for a little time +his voice disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book was +Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he had cherished greatly two +years before, and marked as "very good." + +"I never was attached to that great sect Whose doctrine is that each one +should select Out of the world a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, +though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion,--though it is the code +Of modern morals, and the beaten road Which those poor slaves with weary +footsteps tread Who travel to their home among the dead By the broad +highway of the world,--and so With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous +foe, The dreariest and the longest journey go." + +It was "very good"--fine poetry, and, in a sense, true. Yet he was +surprised that he had ever selected it so vehemently. This afternoon it +seemed a little inhuman. Half a mile off two lovers were keeping company +where all the villagers could see them. They cared for no one else; +they felt only the pressure of each other, and so progressed, silent +and oblivious, across the land. He felt them to be nearer the truth +than Shelley. Even if they suffered or quarrelled, they would have been +nearer the truth. He wondered whether they were Henry Adams and Jessica +Thompson, both of this parish, whose banns had been asked for the second +time in the church this morning. Why could he not marry on fifteen +shillings a-week? And be looked at them with respect, and wished that he +was not a cumbersome gentleman. + +Presently he saw something less pleasant--his aunt's pony carriage. It +had crossed the railway, and was advancing up the Roman road along by +the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, but someone waved to him. +It was Agnes. She waved continually, as much as to say, "Wait for us." +Mrs. Failing herself raised the whip in a nonchalant way. Stephen Wonham +was following on foot, some way behind. He put the Shelley back into his +pocket and waited for them. When the carriage stopped by some hurdles +he went down from the embankment and helped them to dismount. He felt +rather nervous. + +His aunt gave him one of her disquieting smiles, but said pleasantly +enough, "Aren't the Rings a little immense? Agnes and I came here +because we wanted an antidote to the morning service." + +"Pang!" said the church bell suddenly; "pang! pang!" It sounded petty +and ludicrous. They all laughed. Rickie blushed, and Agnes, with a +glance that said "apologize," darted away to the entrenchment, as though +unable to restrain her curiosity. + +"The pony won't move," said Mrs. Failing. "Leave him for Stephen to tie +up. Will you walk me to the tree in the middle? Booh! I'm tired. Give me +your arm--unless you're tired as well." + +"No. I came out partly in the hope of helping you." + +"How sweet of you." She contrasted his blatant unselfishness with the +hardness of Stephen. Stephen never came out to help you. But if you got +hold of him he was some good. He didn't wobble and bend at the critical +moment. Her fancy compared Rickie to the cracked church bell sending +forth its message of "Pang! pang!" to the countryside, and Stephen to +the young pagans who were said to lie under this field guarding their +pagan gold. + +"This place is full of ghosties," she remarked; "have you seen any yet?" + +"I've kept on the outer rim so far." + +"Let's go to the tree in the centre." + +"Here's the path." The bank of grass where he had sat was broken by a +gap, through which chariots had entered, and farm carts entered now. The +track, following the ancient track, led straight through turnips to a +similar gap in the second circle, and thence continued, through more +turnips, to the central tree. + +"Pang!" said the bell, as they paused at the entrance. + +"You needn't unharness," shouted Mrs. Failing, for Stephen was +approaching the carriage. + +"Yes, I will," he retorted. + +"You will, will you?" she murmured with a smile. "I wish your brother +wasn't quite so uppish. Let's get on. Doesn't that church distract you?" + +"It's so faint here," said Rickie. And it sounded fainter inside, though +the earthwork was neither thick nor tall; and the view, though not +hidden, was greatly diminished. He was reminded for a minute of that +chalk pit near Madingley, whose ramparts excluded the familiar world. +Agnes was here, as she had once been there. She stood on the farther +barrier, waiting to receive them when they had traversed the heart of +the camp. + +"Admire my mangel-wurzels," said Mrs. Failing. "They are said to grow +so splendidly on account of the dead soldiers. Isn't it a sweet thought? +Need I say it is your brother's?" + +"Wonham's?" he suggested. It was the second time that she had made the +little slip. She nodded, and he asked her what kind of ghosties haunted +this curious field. + +"The D.," was her prompt reply. "He leans against the tree in the +middle, especially on Sunday afternoons and all the worshippers rise +through the turnips and dance round him." + +"Oh, these were decent people," he replied, looking downwards--"soldiers +and shepherds. They have no ghosts. They worshipped Mars or Pan-Erda +perhaps; not the devil." + +"Pang!" went the church, and was silent, for the afternoon service +had begun. They entered the second entrenchment, which was in height, +breadth, and composition, similar to the first, and excluded still more +of the view. His aunt continued friendly. Agnes stood watching them. + +"Soldiers may seem decent in the past," she continued, "but wait till +they turn into Tommies from Bulford Camp, who rob the chickens." + +"I don't mind Bulford Camp," said Rickie, looking, though in vain, for +signs of its snowy tents. "The men there are the sons of the men here, +and have come back to the old country. War's horrible, yet one loves all +continuity. And no one could mind a shepherd." + +"Indeed! What about your brother--a shepherd if ever there was? Look how +he bores you! Don't be so sentimental." + +"But--oh, you mean--" + +"Your brother Stephen." + +He glanced at her nervously. He had never known her so queer before. +Perhaps it was some literary allusion that he had not caught; but her +face did not at that moment suggest literature. In the differential +tones that one uses to an old and infirm person he said "Stephen Wonham +isn't my brother, Aunt Emily." + +"My dear, you're that precise. One can't say 'half-brother' every time." + +They approached the central tree. + +"How you do puzzle me," he said, dropping her arm and beginning to +laugh. "How could I have a half-brother?" + +She made no answer. + +Then a horror leapt straight at him, and he beat it back and said, +"I will not be frightened." The tree in the centre revolved, the tree +disappeared, and he saw a room--the room where his father had lived in +town. "Gently," he told himself, "gently." Still laughing, he said, "I, +with a brother-younger it's not possible." The horror leapt again, and +he exclaimed, "It's a foul lie!" + +"My dear, my dear!" + +"It's a foul lie! He wasn't--I won't stand--" + +"My dear, before you say several noble things, remember that it's worse +for him than for you--worse for your brother, for your half-brother, for +your younger brother." + +But he heard her no longer. He was gazing at the past, which he had +praised so recently, which gaped ever wider, like an unhallowed grave. +Turn where he would, it encircled him. It took visible form: it was this +double entrenchment of the Rings. His mouth went cold, and he knew that +he was going to faint among the dead. He started running, missed the +exit, stumbled on the inner barrier, fell into darkness-- + +"Get his head down," said a voice. "Get the blood back into him. +That's all he wants. Leave him to me. Elliot!"--the blood was +returning--"Elliot, wake up!" + +He woke up. The earth he had dreaded lay close to his eyes, and seemed +beautiful. He saw the structure of the clods. A tiny beetle swung on +the grass blade. On his own neck a human hand pressed, guiding the blood +back to his brain. + +There broke from him a cry, not of horror but of acceptance. For one +short moment he understood. "Stephen--" he began, and then he heard his +own name called: "Rickie! Rickie!" Agnes hurried from her post on the +margin, and, as if understanding also, caught him to her breast. + +Stephen offered to help them further, but finding that he made things +worse, he stepped aside to let them pass and then sauntered inwards. The +whole field, with concentric circles, was visible, and the broad leaves +of the turnips rustled in the gathering wind. Miss Pembroke and Elliot +were moving towards the Cadover entrance. Mrs. Failing stood watching in +her turn on the opposite bank. He was not an inquisitive boy; but as he +leant against the tree he wondered what it was all about, and whether he +would ever know. + + + +XIV + +On the way back--at that very level-crossing where he had paused on +his upward route--Rickie stopped suddenly and told the girl why he had +fainted. Hitherto she had asked him in vain. His tone had gone from him, +and he told her harshly and brutally, so that she started away with +a horrified cry. Then his manner altered, and he exclaimed: "Will you +mind? Are you going to mind?" + +"Of course I mind," she whispered. She turned from him, and saw up on +the sky-line two figures that seemed to be of enormous size. + +"They're watching us. They stand on the edge watching us. This country's +so open--you--you can't they watch us wherever we go. Of course you +mind." + +They heard the rumble of the train, and she pulled herself together. +"Come, dearest, we shall be run over next. We're saying things that have +no sense." But on the way back he repeated: "They can still see us. They +can see every inch of this road. They watch us for ever." And when they +arrived at the steps there, sure enough, were still the two figures +gazing from the outer circle of the Rings. + +She made him go to his room at once: he was almost hysterical. Leighton +brought out some tea for her, and she sat drinking it on the little +terrace. Of course she minded. + +Again she was menaced by the abnormal. All had seemed so fair and so +simple, so in accordance with her ideas; and then, like a corpse, this +horror rose up to the surface. She saw the two figures descend and pause +while one of them harnessed the pony; she saw them drive downward, and +knew that before long she must face them and the world. She glanced at +her engagement ring. + +When the carriage drove up Mrs. Failing dismounted, but did not speak. +It was Stephen who inquired after Rickie. She, scarcely knowing the +sound of her own voice, replied that he was a little tired. + +"Go and put up the pony," said Mrs. Failing rather sharply. + +"Agnes, give me some tea." + +"It is rather strong," said Agnes as the carriage drove off and left +them alone. Then she noticed that Mrs. Failing herself was agitated. Her +lips were trembling, and she saw the boy depart with manifest relief. + +"Do you know," she said hurriedly, as if talking against time--"Do you +know what upset Rickie?" + +"I do indeed know." + +"Has he told any one else?" + +"I believe not." + +"Agnes--have I been a fool?" + +"You have been very unkind," said the girl, and her eyes filled with +tears. + +For a moment Mrs. Failing was annoyed. "Unkind? I do not see that at +all. I believe in looking facts in the face. Rickie must know his ghosts +some time. Why not this afternoon?" + +She rose with quiet dignity, but her tears came faster. "That is not so. +You told him to hurt him. I cannot think what you did it for. I suppose +because he was rude to you after church. It is a mean, cowardly revenge. + +"What--what if it's a lie?" + +"Then, Mrs. Failing, it is sickening of you. There is no other word. +Sickening. I am sorry--a nobody like myself--to speak like this. How +COULD you, oh, how could you demean yourself? Why, not even a poor +person--Her indignation was fine and genuine. But her tears fell no +longer. Nothing menaced her if they were not really brothers. + +"It is not a lie, my clear; sit down. I will swear so much solemnly. It +is not a lie, but--" + +Agnes waited. + +"--we can call it a lie if we choose." + +"I am not so childish. You have said it, and we must all suffer. You +have had your fun: I conclude you did it for fun. You cannot go +back. He--" She pointed towards the stables, and could not finish her +sentence. + +"I have not been a fool twice." + +Agnes did not understand. + +"My dense lady, can't you follow? I have not told Stephen one single +word, neither before nor now." + +There was a long silence. + +Indeed, Mrs. Failing was in an awkward position. + +Rickie had irritated her, and, in her desire to shock him, she had +imperilled her own peace. She had felt so unconventional upon the +hillside, when she loosed the horror against him; but now it was +darting at her as well. Suppose the scandal came out. Stephen, who was +absolutely without delicacy, would tell it to the people as soon as tell +them the time. His paganism would be too assertive; it might even be in +bad taste. After all, she had a prominent position in the neighbourhood; +she was talked about, respected, looked up to. After all, she was +growing old. And therefore, though she had no true regard for Rickie, +nor for Agnes, nor for Stephen, nor for Stephen's parents, in whose +tragedy she had assisted, yet she did feel that if the scandal revived +it would disturb the harmony of Cadover, and therefore tried to retrace +her steps. It is easy to say shocking things: it is so different to be +connected with anything shocking. Life and death were not involved, but +comfort and discomfort were. + +The silence was broken by the sound of feet on the gravel. Agnes said +hastily, "Is that really true--that he knows nothing?" + +"You, Rickie, and I are the only people alive that know. He realizes +what he is--with a precision that is sometimes alarming. Who he is, he +doesn't know and doesn't care. I suppose he would know when I'm dead. +There are papers." + +"Aunt Emily, before he comes, may I say to you I'm sorry I was so rude?" + +Mrs. Failing had not disliked her courage. "My dear, you may. We're all +off our hinges this Sunday. Sit down by me again." + +Agnes obeyed, and they awaited the arrival of Stephen. They were clever +enough to understand each other. The thing must be hushed up. The matron +must repair the consequences of her petulance. The girl must hide the +stain in her future husband's family. Why not? Who was injured? What +does a grown-up man want with a grown brother? Rickie upstairs, how +grateful he would be to them for saving him. + +"Stephen!" + +"Yes." + +"I'm tired of you. Go and bathe in the sea." + +"All right." + +And the whole thing was settled. She liked no fuss, and so did he. He +sat down on the step to tighten his bootlaces. Then he would be ready. +Mrs. Failing laid two or three sovereigns on the step above him. Agnes +tried to make conversation, and said, with averted eyes, that the sea +was a long way off. + +"The sea's downhill. That's all I know about it." He swept up the money +with a word of pleasure: he was kept like a baby in such things. Then he +started off, but slowly, for he meant to walk till the morning. + +"He will be gone days," said Mrs. Failing. "The comedy is finished. Let +us come in." + +She went to her room. The storm that she had raised had shattered +her. Yet, because it was stilled for a moment, she resumed her old +emancipated manner, and spoke of it as a comedy. + +As for Miss Pembroke, she pretended to be emancipated no longer. People +like "Stephen Wonham" were social thunderbolts, to be shunned at all +costs, or at almost all costs. Her joy was now unfeigned, and she +hurried upstairs to impart it to Rickie. + +"I don't think we are rewarded if we do right, but we are punished if +we lie. It's the fashion to laugh at poetic justice, but I do believe +in half of it. Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days it +really will come back to you." These were the words of Mr. Failing. They +were also the opinions of Stewart Ansell, another unpractical person. +Rickie was trying to write to him when she entered with the good news. + +"Dear, we're saved! He doesn't know, and he never is to know. I can't +tell you how glad I am. All the time we saw them standing together up +there, she wasn't telling him at all. She was keeping him out of the +way, in case you let it out. Oh, I like her! She may be unwise, but she +is nice, really. She said, 'I've been a fool but I haven't been a fool +twice.' You must forgive her, Rickie. I've forgiven her, and she me; for +at first I was so angry with her. Oh, my darling boy, I am so glad!" + +He was shivering all over, and could not reply. At last he said, "Why +hasn't she told him?" + +"Because she has come to her senses." + +"But she can't behave to people like that. She must tell him." + +"Because he must be told such a real thing." + +"Such a real thing?" the girl echoed, screwing up her forehead. +"But--but you don't mean you're glad about it?" + +His head bowed over the letter. "My God--no! But it's a real thing. She +must tell him. I nearly told him myself--up there--when he made me look +at the ground, but you happened to prevent me." + +How Providence had watched over them! + +"She won't tell him. I know that much." + +"Then, Agnes, darling"--he drew her to the table "we must talk together +a little. If she won't, then we ought to." + +"WE tell him?" cried the girl, white with horror. "Tell him now, when +everything has been comfortably arranged?" + +"You see, darling"--he took hold of her hand--"what one must do is to +think the thing out and settle what's right, I'm still all trembling and +stupid. I see it mixed up with other things. I want you to help me. +It seems to me that here and there in life we meet with a person or +incident that is symbolical. It's nothing in itself, yet for the moment +it stands for some eternal principle. We accept it, at whatever costs, +and we have accepted life. But if we are frightened and reject it, the +moment, so to speak, passes; the symbol is never offered again. Is this +nonsense? Once before a symbol was offered to me--I shall not tell you +how; but I did accept it, and cherished it through much anxiety and +repulsion, and in the end I am rewarded. There will be no reward this +time. I think, from such a man--the son of such a man. But I want to do +what is right." + +"Because doing right is its own reward," said Agnes anxiously. + +"I do not think that. I have seen few examples of it. Doing right is +simply doing right." + +"I think that all you say is wonderfully clever; but since you ask me, +it IS nonsense, dear Rickie, absolutely." + +"Thank you," he said humbly, and began to stroke her hand. "But all my +disgust; my indignation with my father, my love for--" He broke off; he +could not bear to mention the name of his mother. "I was trying to say, +I oughtn't to follow these impulses too much. There are others things. +Truth. Our duty to acknowledge each man accurately, however vile he +is. And apart from ideals" (here she had won the battle), "and leaving +ideals aside, I couldn't meet him and keep silent. It isn't in me. I +should blurt it out." + +"But you won't meet him!" she cried. "It's all been arranged. We've +sent him to the sea. Isn't it splendid? He's gone. My own boy won't +be fantastic, will he?" Then she fought the fantasy on its own ground. +"And, bye the bye, what you call the 'symbolic moment' is over. You had +it up by the Rings. You tried to tell him, I interrupted you. It's not +your fault. You did all you could." + +She thought this excellent logic, and was surprised that he looked so +gloomy. "So he's gone to the sea. For the present that does settle it. +Has Aunt Emily talked about him yet?" + +"No. Ask her tomorrow if you wish to know. Ask her kindly. It would be +so dreadful if you did not part friends, and--" + +"What's that?" + +It was Stephen calling up from the drive. He had come back. Agnes threw +out her hand in despair. + +"Elliot!" the voice called. + +They were facing each other, silent and motionless. Then Rickie advanced +to the window. The girl darted in front of him. He thought he had never +seen her so beautiful. She was stopping his advance quite frankly, with +widespread arms. + +"Elliot!" + +He moved forward--into what? He pretended to himself he would rather see +his brother before he answered; that it was easier to acknowledge him +thus. But at the back of his soul he knew that the woman had conquered, +and that he was moving forward to acknowledge her. "If he calls me +again--" he thought. + +"Elliot!" + +"Well, if he calls me once again, I will answer him, vile as he is." + +He did not call again. + +Stephen had really come back for some tobacco, but as he passed under +the windows he thought of the poor fellow who had been "nipped" (nothing +serious, said Mrs. Failing), and determined to shout good-bye to him. +And once or twice, as he followed the river into the darkness, he +wondered what it was like to be so weak,--not to ride, not to swim, not +to care for anything but books and a girl. + +They embraced passionately. The danger had brought them very near to +each other. They both needed a home to confront the menacing tumultuous +world. And what weary years of work, of waiting, lay between them and +that home! Still holding her fast, he said, "I was writing to Ansell +when you came in." + +"Do you owe him a letter?" + +"No." He paused. "I was writing to tell him about this. He would help +us. He always picks out the important point." + +"Darling, I don't like to say anything, and I know that Mr. Ansell +would keep a secret, but haven't we picked out the important point for +ourselves?" + +He released her and tore the letter up. + + + +XV + +The sense of purity is a puzzling and at times a fearful thing. It seems +so noble, and it starts as one with morality. But it is a dangerous +guide, and can lead us away not only from what is gracious, but also +from what is good. Agnes, in this tangle, had followed it blindly, +partly because she was a woman, and it meant more to her than it +can ever mean to a man; partly because, though dangerous, it is also +obvious, and makes no demand upon the intellect. She could not feel that +Stephen had full human rights. He was illicit, abnormal, worse than a +man diseased. And Rickie remembering whose son he was, gradually adopted +her opinion. He, too, came to be glad that his brother had passed from +him untried, that the symbolic moment had been rejected. Stephen was the +fruit of sin; therefore he was sinful, He, too, became a sexual snob. + +And now he must hear the unsavoury details. That evening they sat in the +walled garden. Agues, according to arrangement, left him alone with his +aunt. He asked her, and was not answered. + +"You are shocked," she said in a hard, mocking voice, "It is very nice +of you to be shocked, and I do not wish to grieve you further. We will +not allude to it again. Let us all go on just as we are. The comedy is +finished." + +He could not tolerate this. His nerves were shattered, and all that was +good in him revolted as well. To the horror of Agnes, who was within +earshot, he replied, "You used to puzzle me, Aunt Emily, but I +understand you at last. You have forgotten what other people are like. +Continual selfishness leads to that. I am sure of it. I see now how you +look at the world. 'Nice of me to be shocked!' I want to go tomorrow, if +I may." + +"Certainly, dear. The morning trains are the best." And so the +disastrous visit ended. + +As he walked back to the house he met a certain poor woman, whose child +Stephen had rescued at the level-crossing, and who had decided, after +some delay, that she must thank the kind gentleman in person. "He has +got some brute courage," thought Rickie, "and it was decent of him not +to boast about it." But he had labelled the boy as "Bad," and it was +convenient to revert to his good qualities as seldom as possible. He +preferred to brood over his coarseness, his caddish ingratitude, his +irreligion. Out of these he constructed a repulsive figure, forgetting +how slovenly his own perceptions had been during the past week, how +dogmatic and intolerant his attitude to all that was not Love. + +During the packing he was obliged to go up to the attic to find the +Dryad manuscript which had never been returned. Leighton came too, and +for about half an hour they hunted in the flickering light of a candle. +It was a strange, ghostly place, and Rickie was quite startled when a +picture swung towards him, and he saw the Demeter of Cnidus, shimmering +and grey. Leighton suggested the roof. Mr. Stephen sometimes left +things on the roof. So they climbed out of the skylight--the night was +perfectly still--and continued the search among the gables. Enormous +stars hung overhead, and the roof was bounded by chasms, impenetrable +and black. "It doesn't matter," said Rickie, suddenly convinced of the +futility of all that he did. "Oh, let us look properly," said Leighton, +a kindly, pliable man, who had tried to shirk coming, but who was +genuinely sympathetic now that he had come. They were rewarded: the +manuscript lay in a gutter, charred and smudged. + +The rest of the year was spent by Rickie partly in bed,--he had a +curious breakdown,--partly in the attempt to get his little stories +published. He had written eight or nine, and hoped they would make up +a book, and that the book might be called "Pan Pipes." He was very +energetic over this; he liked to work, for some imperceptible bloom had +passed from the world, and he no longer found such acute pleasure in +people. Mrs. Failing's old publishers, to whom the book was submitted, +replied that, greatly as they found themselves interested, they did not +see their way to making an offer at present. They were very polite, and +singled out for special praise "Andante Pastorale," which Rickie had +thought too sentimental, but which Agnes had persuaded him to include. +The stories were sent to another publisher, who considered them for six +weeks, and then returned them. A fragment of red cotton, Placed by Agnes +between the leaves, had not shifted its position. + +"Can't you try something longer, Rickie?" she said; "I believe we're on +the wrong track. Try an out--and--out love-story." + +"My notion just now," he replied, "is to leave the passions on the +fringe." She nodded, and tapped for the waiter: they had met in a +London restaurant. "I can't soar; I can only indicate. That's where +the musicians have the pull, for music has wings, and when she says +'Tristan' and he says 'Isolde,' you are on the heights at once. What do +people mean when they call love music artificial?" + +"I know what they mean, though I can't exactly explain. Or couldn't +you make your stories more obvious? I don't see any harm in that. Uncle +Willie floundered hopelessly. He doesn't read much, and he got muddled. +I had to explain, and then he was delighted. Of course, to write down to +the public would be quite another thing and horrible. You have certain +ideas, and you must express them. But couldn't you express them more +clearly?" + +"You see--" He got no further than "you see." + +"The soul and the body. The soul's what matters," said Agnes, and tapped +for the waiter again. He looked at her admiringly, but felt that she was +not a perfect critic. Perhaps she was too perfect to be a critic. Actual +life might seem to her so real that she could not detect the union of +shadow and adamant that men call poetry. He would even go further and +acknowledge that she was not as clever as himself--and he was stupid +enough! She did not like discussing anything or reading solid books, and +she was a little angry with such women as did. It pleased him to make +these concessions, for they touched nothing in her that he valued. He +looked round the restaurant, which was in Soho and decided that she was +incomparable. + +"At half-past two I call on the editor of the 'Holborn.' He's got a +stray story to look at, and he's written about it." + +"Oh, Rickie! Rickie! Why didn't you put on a boiled shirt!" + +He laughed, and teased her. "'The soul's what matters. We literary +people don't care about dress." + +"Well, you ought to care. And I believe you do. Can't you change?" + +"Too far." He had rooms in South Kensington. "And I've forgot my +card-case. There's for you!" + +She shook her head. "Naughty, naughty boy! Whatever will you do?" + +"Send in my name, or ask for a bit of paper and write it. Hullo! that's +Tilliard!" + +Tilliard blushed, partly on account of the faux pas he had made last +June, partly on account of the restaurant. He explained how he came to +be pigging in Soho: it was so frightfully convenient and so frightfully +cheap. + +"Just why Rickie brings me," said Miss Pembroke. + +"And I suppose you're here to study life?" said Tilliard, sitting down. + +"I don't know," said Rickie, gazing round at the waiters and the guests. + +"Doesn't one want to see a good deal of life for writing? There's life +of a sort in Soho,--Un peu de faisan, s'il vows plait." + +Agnes also grabbed at the waiter, and paid. She always did the paying, +Rickie muddled with his purse. + +"I'm cramming," pursued Tilliard, "and so naturally I come into contact +with very little at present. But later on I hope to see things." He +blushed a little, for he was talking for Rickie's edification. "It is +most frightfully important not to get a narrow or academic outlook, +don't you think? A person like Ansell, who goes from Cambridge, +home--home, Cambridge--it must tell on him in time." + +"But Mr. Ansell is a philosopher." + +"A very kinky one," said Tilliard abruptly. "Not my idea of a +philosopher. How goes his dissertation?" + +"He never answers my letters," replied Rickie. "He never would. I've +heard nothing since June." + +"It's a pity he sends in this year. There are so many good people in. +He'd have afar better chance if he waited." + +"So I said, but he wouldn't wait. He's so keen about this particular +subject." + +"What is it?" asked Agnes. + +"About things being real, wasn't it, Tilliard?" + +"That's near enough." + +"Well, good luck to him!" said the girl. "And good luck to you, Mr. +Tilliard! Later on, I hope, we'll meet again." + +They parted. Tilliard liked her, though he did not feel that she was +quite in his couche sociale. His sister, for instance, would never have +been lured into a Soho restaurant--except for the experience of the +thing. Tilliard's couche sociale permitted experiences. Provided his +heart did not go out to the poor and the unorthodox, he might stare at +them as much as he liked. It was seeing life. + +Agnes put her lover safely into an omnibus at Cambridge Circus. She +shouted after him that his tie was rising over his collar, but he +did not hear her. For a moment she felt depressed, and pictured quite +accurately the effect that his appearance would have on the editor. The +editor was a tall neat man of forty, slow of speech, slow of soul, and +extraordinarily kind. He and Rickie sat over a fire, with an enormous +table behind them whereon stood many books waiting to be reviewed. + +"I'm sorry," he said, and paused. + +Rickie smiled feebly. + +"Your story does not convince." He tapped it. "I have read it with very +great pleasure. It convinces in parts, but it does not convince as a +whole; and stories, don't you think, ought to convince as a whole?" + +"They ought indeed," said Rickie, and plunged into self-depreciation. +But the editor checked him. + +"No--no. Please don't talk like that. I can't bear to hear any one talk +against imagination. There are countless openings for imagination,--for +the mysterious, for the supernatural, for all the things you are trying +to do, and which, I hope, you will succeed in doing. I'm not OBJECTING +to imagination; on the contrary, I'd advise you to cultivate it, to +accent it. Write a really good ghost story and we'd take it at once. +Or"--he suggested it as an alternative to imagination--"or you might get +inside life. It's worth doing." + +"Life?" echoed Rickie anxiously. + +He looked round the pleasant room, as if life might be fluttering there +like an imprisoned bird. Then he looked at the editor: perhaps he was +sitting inside life at this very moment. "See life, Mr. Elliot, and then +send us another story." He held out his hand. "I am sorry I have to say +'No, thank you'; it's so much nicer to say, 'Yes, please.'" He laid his +hand on the young man's sleeve, and added, "Well, the interview's not +been so alarming after all, has it?" + +"I don't think that either of us is a very alarming person," was not +Rickie's reply. It was what he thought out afterwards in the omnibus. +His reply was "Ow," delivered with a slight giggle. + +As he rumbled westward, his face was drawn, and his eyes moved quickly +to the right and left, as if he would discover something in the squalid +fashionable streets some bird on the wing, some radiant archway, the +face of some god beneath a beaver hat. He loved, he was loved, he had +seen death and other things; but the heart of all things was hidden. +There was a password and he could not learn it, nor could the kind +editor of the "Holborn" teach him. He sighed, and then sighed more +piteously. For had he not known the password once--known it and +forgotten it already? But at this point his fortunes become intimately +connected with those of Mr. Pembroke. + + + + +PART 2 -- SAWSTON + + +XVI + +In three years Mr. Pembroke had done much to solidify the day-boys +at Sawston School. If they were not solid, they were at all events +curdling, and his activities might reasonably turn elsewhere. He had +served the school for many years, and it was really time he should be +entrusted with a boarding-house. The headmaster, an impulsive man who +darted about like a minnow and gave his mother a great deal of trouble, +agreed with him, and also agreed with Mrs. Jackson when she said that +Mr. Jackson had served the school for many years and that it was really +time he should be entrusted with a boarding-house. Consequently, when +Dunwood House fell vacant the headmaster found himself in rather a +difficult position. + +Dunwood House was the largest and most lucrative of the boarding-houses. +It stood almost opposite the school buildings. Originally it had been +a villa residence--a red-brick villa, covered with creepers and crowned +with terracotta dragons. Mr. Annison, founder of its glory, had lived +here, and had had one or two boys to live with him. Times changed. The +fame of the bishops blazed brighter, the school increased, the one or +two boys became a dozen, and an addition was made to Dunwood House that +more than doubled its size. A huge new building, replete with every +convenience, was stuck on to its right flank. Dormitories, cubicles, +studies, a preparation-room, a dining-room, parquet floors, hot-air +pipes--no expense was spared, and the twelve boys roamed over it like +princes. Baize doors communicated on every floor with Mr. Annison's +part, and he, an anxious gentleman, would stroll backwards and forwards, +a little depressed at the hygienic splendours, and conscious of some +vanished intimacy. Somehow he had known his boys better when they had +all muddled together as one family, and algebras lay strewn upon the +drawing room chairs. As the house filled, his interest in it decreased. +When he retired--which he did the same summer that Rickie left +Cambridge--it had already passed the summit of excellence and was +beginning to decline. Its numbers were still satisfactory, and for a +little time it would subsist on its past reputation. But that mysterious +asset the tone had lowered, and it was therefore of great importance +that Mr. Annison's successor should be a first-class man. Mr. Coates, +who came next in seniority, was passed over, and rightly. The choice lay +between Mr. Pembroke and Mr. Jackson, the one an organizer, the other a +humanist. Mr. Jackson was master of the Sixth, and--with the exception +of the headmaster, who was too busy to impart knowledge--the only +first-class intellect in the school. But he could not or rather would +not, keep order. He told his form that if it chose to listen to him it +would learn; if it didn't, it wouldn't. One half listened. The other +half made paper frogs, and bored holes in the raised map of Italy with +their penknives. When the penknives gritted he punished them with undue +severity, and then forgot to make them show the punishments up. Yet out +of this chaos two facts emerged. Half the boys got scholarships at +the University, and some of them--including several of the paper-frog +sort--remained friends with him throughout their lives. Moreover, he was +rich, and had a competent wife. His claim to Dunwood House was stronger +than one would have supposed. + +The qualifications of Mr. Pembroke have already been indicated. They +prevailed--but under conditions. If things went wrong, he must promise +to resign. + +"In the first place," said the headmaster, "you are doing so splendidly +with the day-boys. Your attitude towards the parents is magnificent. +I--don't know how to replace you there. Whereas, of course, the parents +of a boarder--" + +"Of course," said Mr. Pembroke. + +The parent of a boarder, who only had to remove his son if he was +discontented with the school, was naturally in a more independent +position than the parent who had brought all his goods and chattels to +Sawston, and was renting a house there. + +"Now the parents of boarders--this is my second point--practically +demand that the house-master should have a wife." + +"A most unreasonable demand," said Mr. Pembroke. + +"To my mind also a bright motherly matron is quite sufficient. But that +is what they demand. And that is why--do you see?--we HAVE to regard +your appointment as experimental. Possibly Miss Pembroke will be able +to help you. Or I don't know whether if ever--" He left the sentence +unfinished. Two days later Mr. Pembroke proposed to Mrs. Orr. + +He had always intended to marry when he could afford it; and once he +had been in love, violently in love, but had laid the passion aside, and +told it to wait till a more convenient season. This was, of course, the +proper thing to do, and prudence should have been rewarded. But when, +after the lapse of fifteen years, he went, as it were, to his spiritual +larder and took down Love from the top shelf to offer him to Mrs. Orr, +he was rather dismayed. Something had happened. Perhaps the god had +flown; perhaps he had been eaten by the rats. At all events, he was not +there. + +Mr. Pembroke was conscientious and romantic, and knew that marriage +without love is intolerable. On the other hand, he could not admit +that love had vanished from him. To admit this, would argue that he had +deteriorated. + +Whereas he knew for a fact that he had improved, year by year. Each year +be grew more moral, more efficient, more learned, more genial. So how +could he fail to be more loving? He did not speak to himself as follows, +because he never spoke to himself; but the following notions moved in +the recesses of his mind: "It is not the fire of youth. But I am not +sure that I approve of the fire of youth. Look at my sister! Once she +has suffered, twice she has been most imprudent, and put me to great +inconvenience besides, for if she was stopping with me she would have +done the housekeeping. I rather suspect that it is a nobler, riper +emotion that I am laying at the feet of Mrs. Orr." It never took him +long to get muddled, or to reverse cause and effect. In a short time he +believed that he had been pining for years, and only waiting for this +good fortune to ask the lady to share it with him. + +Mrs. Orr was quiet, clever, kindly, capable, and amusing and they were +old acquaintances. Altogether it was not surprising that he should ask +her to be his wife, nor very surprising that she should refuse. But +she refused with a violence that alarmed them both. He left her house +declaring that he had been insulted, and she, as soon as he left, passed +from disgust into tears. + +He was much annoyed. There was a certain Miss Herriton who, though far +inferior to Mrs. Orr, would have done instead of her. But now it was +impossible. He could not go offering himself about Sawston. Having +engaged a matron who had the reputation for being bright and motherly, +he moved into Dunwood House and opened the Michaelmas term. Everything +went wrong. The cook left; the boys had a disease called roseola; Agnes, +who was still drunk with her engagement, was of no assistance, but kept +flying up to London to push Rickie's fortunes; and, to crown everything, +the matron was too bright and not motherly enough: she neglected the +little boys and was overattentive to the big ones. She left abruptly, +and the voice of Mrs. Jackson arose, prophesying disaster. + +Should he avert it by taking orders? Parents do not demand that a +house-master should be a clergyman, yet it reassures them when he is. +And he would have to take orders some time, if he hoped for a school +of his own. His religious convictions were ready to hand, but he spent +several uncomfortable days hunting up his religious enthusiasms. It +was not unlike his attempt to marry Mrs. Orr. But his piety was more +genuine, and this time he never came to the point. His sense of decency +forbade him hurrying into a Church that he reverenced. Moreover, he +thought of another solution: Agnes must marry Rickie in the Christmas +holidays, and they must come, both of them, to Sawston, she as +housekeeper, he as assistant-master. The girl was a good worker when +once she was settled down; and as for Rickie, he could easily be fitted +in somewhere in the school. He was not a good classic, but good enough +to take the Lower Fifth. He was no athlete, but boys might profitably +note that he was a perfect gentleman all the same. He had no experience, +but he would gain it. He had no decision, but he could simulate it. +"Above all," thought Mr. Pembroke, "it will be something regular for +him to do." Of course this was not "above all." Dunwood House held that +position. But Mr. Pembroke soon came to think that it was, and believed +that he was planning for Rickie, just as he had believed he was pining +for Mrs. Orr. + +Agnes, when she got back from the lunch in Soho, was told of the plan. +She refused to give any opinion until she had seen her lover. A telegram +was sent to him, and next morning he arrived. He was very susceptible to +the weather, and perhaps it was unfortunate that the morning was foggy. +His train had been stopped outside Sawston Station, and there he had +sat for half an hour, listening to the unreal noises that came from the +line, and watching the shadowy figures that worked there. The gas was +alight in the great drawing-room, and in its depressing rays he and +Agnes greeted each other, and discussed the most momentous question of +their lives. They wanted to be married: there was no doubt of that. +They wanted it, both of them, dreadfully. But should they marry on these +terms? + +"I'd never thought of such a thing, you see. When the scholastic +agencies sent me circulars after the Tripos, I tore them up at once." + +"There are the holidays," said Agnes. "You would have three months in +the year to yourself, and you could do your writing then." + +"But who'll read what I've written?" and he told her about the editor of +the "Holborn." + +She became extremely grave. At the bottom of her heart she had always +mistrusted the little stories, and now people who knew agreed with her. +How could Rickie, or any one, make a living by pretending that Greek +gods were alive, or that young ladies could vanish into trees? A +sparkling society tale, full of verve and pathos, would have been +another thing, and the editor might have been convinced by it. + +"But what does he mean?" Rickie was saying. "What does he mean by life?" + +"I know what he means, but I can't exactly explain. You ought to see +life, Rickie. I think he's right there. And Mr. Tilliard was right when +he said one oughtn't to be academic." + +He stood in the twilight that fell from the window, she in the twilight +of the gas. "I wonder what Ansell would say," he murmured. + +"Oh, poor Mr. Ansell!" + +He was somewhat surprised. Why was Ansell poor? It was the first time +the epithet had been applied to him. + +"But to change the conversation," said Agnes. + +"If we did marry, we might get to Italy at Easter and escape this +horrible fog." + +"Yes. Perhaps there--" Perhaps life would be there. He thought of Renan, +who declares that on the Acropolis at Athens beauty and wisdom do exist, +really exist, as external powers. He did not aspire to beauty or wisdom, +but he prayed to be delivered from the shadow of unreality that had +begun to darken the world. For it was as if some power had pronounced +against him--as if, by some heedless action, he had offended an Olympian +god. Like many another, he wondered whether the god might be appeased by +work--hard uncongenial work. Perhaps he had not worked hard enough, +or had enjoyed his work too much, and for that reason the shadow was +falling. + +"--And above all, a schoolmaster has wonderful opportunities for doing +good; one mustn't forget that." + +To do good! For what other reason are we here? Let us give up our +refined sensations, and our comforts, and our art, if thereby we can +make other people happier and better. The woman he loved had urged him +to do good! With a vehemence that surprised her, he exclaimed, "I'll do +it." + +"Think it over," she cautioned, though she was greatly pleased. + +"No; I think over things too much." + +The room grew brighter. A boy's laughter floated in, and it seemed to +him that people were as important and vivid as they had been six months +before. Then he was at Cambridge, idling in the parsley meadows, and +weaving perishable garlands out of flowers. Now he was at Sawston, +preparing to work a beneficent machine. No man works for nothing, and +Rickie trusted that to him also benefits might accrue; that his wound +might heal as he laboured, and his eyes recapture the Holy Grail. + + + +XVII + +In practical matters Mr. Pembroke was often a generous man. He offered +Rickie a good salary, and insisted on paying Agnes as well. And as he +housed them for nothing, and as Rickie would also have a salary from the +school, the money question disappeared--if not forever, at all events +for the present. + +"I can work you in," he said. "Leave all that to me, and in a few days +you shall hear from the headmaster. He shall create a vacancy. And once +in, we stand or fall together. I am resolved on that." + +Rickie did not like the idea of being "worked in," but he was determined +to raise no difficulties. It is so easy to be refined and high-minded +when we have nothing to do. But the active, useful man cannot be equally +particular. Rickie's programme involved a change in values as well as a +change of occupation. + +"Adopt a frankly intellectual attitude," Mr. Pembroke continued. "I do +not advise you at present even to profess any interest in athletics or +organization. When the headmaster writes, he will probably ask whether +you are an all-round man. Boldly say no. A bold 'no' is at times the +best. Take your stand upon classics and general culture." + +Classics! A second in the Tripos. General culture. A smattering of +English Literature, and less than a smattering of French. + +"That is how we begin. Then we get you a little post--say that of +librarian. And so on, until you are indispensable." + +Rickie laughed; the headmaster wrote, the reply was satisfactory, and in +due course the new life began. + +Sawston was already familiar to him. But he knew it as an amateur, and +under an official gaze it grouped itself afresh. The school, a bland +Gothic building, now showed as a fortress of learning, whose outworks +were the boarding-houses. Those straggling roads were full of the houses +of the parents of the day-boys. These shops were in bounds, those out. +How often had he passed Dunwood House! He had once confused it with its +rival, Cedar View. Now he was to live there--perhaps for many years. +On the left of the entrance a large saffron drawing-room, full of cosy +corners and dumpy chairs: here the parents would be received. On the +right of the entrance a study, which he shared with Herbert: here +the boys would be caned--he hoped not often. In the hall a framed +certificate praising the drains, the bust of Hermes, and a carved +teak monkey holding out a salver. Some of the furniture had come from +Shelthorpe, some had been bought from Mr. Annison, some of it was new. +But throughout he recognized a certain decision of arrangement. Nothing +in the house was accidental, or there merely for its own sake. He +contrasted it with his room at Cambridge, which had been a jumble of +things that he loved dearly and of things that he did not love at all. +Now these also had come to Dunwood House, and had been distributed where +each was seemly--Sir Percival to the drawing-room, the photograph of +Stockholm to the passage, his chair, his inkpot, and the portrait of his +mother to the study. And then he contrasted it with the Ansells' house, +to which their resolute ill-taste had given unity. He was extremely +sensitive to the inside of a house, holding it an organism that +expressed the thoughts, conscious and subconscious, of its inmates. +He was equally sensitive to places. He would compare Cambridge with +Sawston, and either with a third type of existence, to which, for want +of a better name, he gave the name of "Wiltshire." + +It must not be thought that he is going to waste his time. These +contrasts and comparisons never took him long, and he never indulged +in them until the serious business of the day was over. And, as time +passed, he never indulged in them at all. The school returned at the +end of January, before he had been settled in a week. His health +had improved, but not greatly, and he was nervous at the prospect of +confronting the assembled house. All day long cabs had been driving +up, full of boys in bowler hats too big for them; and Agnes had been +superintending the numbering of the said hats, and the placing of them +in cupboards, since they would not be wanted till the end of the term. +Each boy had, or should have had, a bag, so that he need not unpack his +box till the morrow, One boy had only a brown-paper parcel, tied with +hairy string, and Rickie heard the firm pleasant voice say, "But you'll +bring a bag next term," and the submissive, "Yes, Mrs. Elliot," of the +reply. In the passage he ran against the head boy, who was alarmingly +like an undergraduate. They looked at each other suspiciously, and +parted. Two minutes later he ran into another boy, and then into +another, and began to wonder whether they were doing it on purpose, and +if so, whether he ought to mind. As the day wore on, the noises grew +louder-trampings of feet, breakdowns, jolly little squawks--and +the cubicles were assigned, and the bags unpacked, and the bathing +arrangements posted up, and Herbert kept on saying, "All this is +informal--all this is informal. We shall meet the house at eight +fifteen." + +And so, at eight ten, Rickie put on his cap and gown,--hitherto symbols +of pupilage, now to be symbols of dignity,--the very cap and gown that +Widdrington had so recently hung upon the college fountain. Herbert, +similarly attired, was waiting for him in their private dining-room, +where also sat Agnes, ravenously devouring scrambled eggs. "But you'll +wear your hoods," she cried. Herbert considered, and them said she was +quite right. He fetched his white silk, Rickie the fragment of rabbit's +wool that marks the degree of B.A. Thus attired, they proceeded +through the baize door. They were a little late, and the boys, who +were marshalled in the preparation room, were getting uproarious. One, +forgetting how far his voice carried, shouted, "Cave! Here comes the +Whelk." And another young devil yelled, "The Whelk's brought a pet with +him!" + +"You mustn't mind," said Herbert kindly. "We masters make a point of +never minding nicknames--unless, of course, they are applied openly, in +which case a thousand lines is not too much." Rickie assented, and they +entered the preparation room just as the prefects had established order. + +Here Herbert took his seat on a high-legged chair, while Rickie, like a +queen-consort, sat near him on a chair with somewhat shorter legs. Each +chair had a desk attached to it, and Herbert flung up the lid of his, +and then looked round the preparation room with a quick frown, as if +the contents had surprised him. So impressed was Rickie that he peeped +sideways, but could only see a little blotting-paper in the desk. Then +he noticed that the boys were impressed too. Their chatter ceased. They +attended. + +The room was almost full. The prefects, instead of lolling disdainfully +in the back row, were ranged like councillors beneath the central +throne. This was an innovation of Mr. Pembroke's. Carruthers, the head +boy, sat in the middle, with his arm round Lloyd. It was Lloyd who had +made the matron too bright: he nearly lost his colours in consequence. +These two were grown up. Beside them sat Tewson, a saintly child in +the spectacles, who had risen to this height by reason of his immense +learning. He, like the others, was a school prefect. The house prefects, +an inferior brand, were beyond, and behind came the indistinguishable +many. The faces all looked alike as yet--except the face of one boy, who +was inclined to cry. + +"School," said Mr. Pembroke, slowly closing the lid of the +desk,--"school is the world in miniature." Then he paused, as a man well +may who has made such a remark. It is not, however, the intention of +this work to quote an opening address. Rickie, at all events, refused to +be critical: Herbert's experience was far greater than his, and he must +take his tone from him. Nor could any one criticize the exhortations +to be patriotic, athletic, learned, and religious, that flowed like +a four-part fugue from Mr. Pembroke's mouth. He was a practised +speaker--that is to say, he held his audience's attention. He told them +that this term, the second of his reign, was THE term for Dunwood House; +that it behooved every boy to labour during it for his house's honour, +and, through the house, for the honour of the school. Taking a wider +range, he spoke of England, or rather of Great Britain, and of her +continental foes. Portraits of empire-builders hung on the wall, and he +pointed to them. He quoted imperial poets. He showed how patriotism had +broadened since the days of Shakespeare, who, for all his genius, could +only write of his country as-- + +"This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the +hand of war, This hazy breed of men, this little world, This precious +stone set in the silver sea." + +And it seemed that only a short ladder lay between the preparation room +and the Anglo-Saxon hegemony of the globe. Then he paused, and in the +silence came "sob, sob, sob," from a little boy, who was regretting a +villa in Guildford and his mother's half acre of garden. + +The proceeding terminated with the broader patriotism of the school +anthem, recently composed by the organist. Words and tune were still a +matter for taste, and it was Mr. Pembroke (and he only because he had +the music) who gave the right intonation to + + "Perish each laggard! + Let it not be said + That Sawston such within her walls hath bred." + +"Come, come," he said pleasantly, as they ended with harmonies in the +style of Richard Strauss. "This will never do. We must grapple with the +anthem this term--you're as tuneful as--as day-boys!" + +Hearty laughter, and then the whole house filed past them and shook +hands. + +"But how did it impress you?" Herbert asked, as soon as they were back +in their own part. Agnes had provided them with a tray of food: the +meals were still anyhow, and she had to fly at once to see after the +boys. + +"I liked the look of them." + +"I meant rather, how did the house impress you as a house?" + +"I don't think I thought," said Rickie rather nervously. "It is not easy +to catch the spirit of a thing at once. I only saw a roomful of boys." + +"My dear Rickie, don't be so diffident. You are perfectly right. You +only did see a roomful of boys. As yet there's nothing else to see. The +house, like the school, lacks tradition. Look at Winchester. Look at +the traditional rivalry between Eton and Harrow. Tradition is of +incalculable importance, if a school is to have any status. Why should +Sawston be without?" + +"Yes. Tradition is of incalculable value. And I envy those schools that +have a natural connection with the past. Of course Sawston has a past, +though not of the kind that you quite want. The sons of poor tradesmen +went to it at first. So wouldn't its traditions be more likely to linger +in the Commercial School?" he concluded nervously. + +"You have a great deal to learn--a very great deal. Listen to me. Why +has Sawston no traditions?" His round, rather foolish, face assumed the +expression of a conspirator. Bending over the mutton, he whispered, "I +can tell you why. Owing to the day-boys. How can traditions flourish in +such soil? Picture the day-boy's life--at home for meals, at home for +preparation, at home for sleep, running home with every fancied wrong. +There are day-boys in your class, and, mark my words, they will give you +ten times as much trouble as the boarders, late, slovenly, stopping away +at the slightest pretext. And then the letters from the parents! 'Why +has my boy not been moved this term?' 'Why has my boy been moved this +term?' 'I am a dissenter, and do not wish my boy to subscribe to the +school mission.' 'Can you let my boy off early to water the garden?' +Remember that I have been a day-boy house-master, and tried to infuse +some esprit de corps into them. It is practically impossible. They come +as units, and units they remain. Worse. They infect the boarders. Their +pestilential, critical, discontented attitude is spreading over the +school. If I had my own way--" + +He stopped somewhat abruptly. + +"Was that why you laughed at their singing?" + +"Not at all. Not at all. It is not my habit to set one section of the +school against the other." + +After a little they went the rounds. The boys were in bed now. +"Good-night!" called Herbert, standing in the corridor of the cubicles, +and from behind each of the green curtains came the sound of a voice +replying, "Good-night, sir!" "Good-night," he observed into each +dormitory. + +Then he went to the switch in the passage and plunged the whole house +into darkness. Rickie lingered behind him, strangely impressed. In the +morning those boys had been scattered over England, leading their own +lives. Now, for three months, they must change everything--see new +faces, accept new ideals. They, like himself, must enter a beneficent +machine, and learn the value of esprit de corps. Good luck attend +them--good luck and a happy release. For his heart would have them +not in these cubicles and dormitories, but each in his own dear home, +amongst faces and things that he knew. + +Next morning, after chapel, he made the acquaintance of his class. +Towards that he felt very differently. Esprit de corps was not expected +of it. It was simply two dozen boys who were gathered together for the +purpose of learning Latin. His duties and difficulties would not lie +here. He was not required to provide it with an atmosphere. The scheme +of work was already mapped out, and he started gaily upon familiar +words-- + +"Pan, ovium custos, tua si tibi Maenala curae Adsis, O Tegaee, favens." + +"Do you think that beautiful?" he asked, and received the honest answer, +"No, sir; I don't think I do." He met Herbert in high spirits in the +quadrangle during the interval. But Herbert thought his enthusiasm +rather amateurish, and cautioned him. + +"You must take care they don't get out of hand. I approve of a lively +teacher, but discipline must be established first." + +"I felt myself a learner, not a teacher. If I'm wrong over a point, or +don't know, I mean to tell them at once." Herbert shook his head. + +"It's different if I was really a scholar. But I can't pose as one, can +I? I know much more than the boys, but I know very little. Surely the +honest thing is to be myself to them. Let them accept or refuse me as +that. That's the only attitude we shall any of us profit by in the end." + +Mr. Pembroke was silent. Then he observed, "There is, as you say, a +higher attitude and a lower attitude. Yet here, as so often, cannot we +find a golden mean between them?" + +"What's that?" said a dreamy voice. They turned and saw a tall, +spectacled man, who greeted the newcomer kindly, and took hold of his +arm. "What's that about the golden mean?" + +"Mr. Jackson--Mr. Elliot: Mr. Elliot--Mr. Jackson," said Herbert, who +did not seem quite pleased. "Rickie, have you a moment to spare me?" + +But the humanist spoke to the young man about the golden mean and +the pinchbeck mean, adding, "You know the Greeks aren't broad church +clergymen. They really aren't, in spite of much conflicting evidence. +Boys will regard Sophocles as a kind of enlightened bishop, and +something tells me that they are wrong." + +"Mr. Jackson is a classical enthusiast," said Herbert. "He makes the +past live. I want to talk to you about the humdrum present." + +"And I am warning him against the humdrum past. That's another point, +Mr. Elliot. Impress on your class that many Greeks and most Romans were +frightfully stupid, and if they disbelieve you, read Ctesiphon with +them, or Valerius Flaccus. Whatever is that noise?" + +"It comes from your class-room, I think," snapped the other master. + +"So it does. Ah, yes. I expect they are putting your little Tewson into +the waste-paper basket." + +"I always lock my class-room in the interval--" + +"Yes?" + +"--and carry the key in my pocket." + +"Ah. But, Mr. Elliot, I am a cousin of Widdrington's. He wrote to me +about you. I am so glad. Will you, first of all, come to supper next +Sunday?" + +"I am afraid," put in Herbert, "that we poor housemasters must deny +ourselves festivities in term time." + +"But mayn't he come once, just once?" + +"May, my dear Jackson! My brother-in-law is not a baby. He decides for +himself." + +Rickie naturally refused. As soon as they were out of hearing, Herbert +said, "This is a little unfortunate. Who is Mr. Widdrington?" + +"I knew him at Cambridge." + +"Let me explain how we stand," he continued, after a pause. + +"Jackson is the worst of the reactionaries here, while I--why should I +conceal it?--have thrown in my lot with the party of progress. You will +see how we suffer from him at the masters' meetings. He has no talent +for organization, and yet he is always inflicting his ideas on others. +It was like his impertinence to dictate to you what authors you should +read, and meanwhile the sixth-form room like a bear-garden, and a school +prefect being put into the waste-paper basket. My good Rickie, there's +nothing to smile at. How is the school to go on with a man like that? +It would be a case of 'quick march,' if it was not for his brilliant +intellect. That's why I say it's a little unfortunate. You will have +very little in common, you and he." + +Rickie did not answer. He was very fond of Widdrington, who was a +quaint, sensitive person. And he could not help being attracted by +Mr. Jackson, whose welcome contrasted pleasantly with the official +breeziness of his other colleagues. He wondered, too, whether it is so +very reactionary to contemplate the antique. + +"It is true that I vote Conservative," pursued Mr. Pembroke, apparently +confronting some objector. "But why? Because the Conservatives, rather +than the Liberals, stand for progress. One must not be misled by +catch-words." + +"Didn't you want to ask me something?" + +"Ah, yes. You found a boy in your form called Varden?" + +"Varden? Yes; there is." + +"Drop on him heavily. He has broken the statutes of the school. He is +attending as a day-boy. The statutes provide that a boy must reside with +his parents or guardians. He does neither. It must be stopped. You must +tell the headmaster." + +"Where does the boy live?" + +"At a certain Mrs. Orr's, who has no connection with the school of any +kind. It must be stopped. He must either enter a boarding-house or go." + +"But why should I tell?" said Rickie. He remembered the boy, an +unattractive person with protruding ears, "It is the business of his +house-master." + +"House-master--exactly. Here we come back again. Who is now the +day-boys' house-master? Jackson once again--as if anything was Jackson's +business! I handed the house back last term in a most flourishing +condition. It has already gone to rack and ruin for the second time. To +return to Varden. I have unearthed a put-up job. Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. +Orr are friends. Do you see? It all works round." + +"I see. It does--or might." + +"The headmaster will never sanction it when it's put to him plainly." + +"But why should I put it?" said Rickie, twisting the ribbons of his gown +round his fingers. + +"Because you're the boy's form-master." + +"Is that a reason?" + +"Of course it is." + +"I only wondered whether--" He did not like to say that he wondered +whether he need do it his first morning. + +"By some means or other you must find out--of course you know already, +but you must find out from the boy. I know--I have it! Where's his +health certificate?" + +"He had forgotten it." + +"Just like them. Well, when he brings it, it will be signed by Mrs. Orr, +and you must look at it and say, 'Orr--Orr--Mrs. Orr?' or something to +that effect, and then the whole thing will come naturally out." + +The bell rang, and they went in for the hour of school that concluded +the morning. Varden brought his health certificate--a pompous document +asserting that he had not suffered from roseola or kindred ailments in +the holidays--and for a long time Rickie sat with it before him, +spread open upon his desk. He did not quite like the job. It suggested +intrigue, and he had come to Sawston not to intrigue but to labour. +Doubtless Herbert was right, and Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Orr were wrong. +But why could they not have it out among themselves? Then he thought, +"I am a coward, and that's why I'm raising these objections," called the +boy up to him, and it did all come out naturally, more or less. Hitherto +Varden had lived with his mother; but she had left Sawston at Christmas, +and now he would live with Mrs. Orr. "Mr. Jackson, sir, said it would be +all right." + +"Yes, yes," said Rickie; "quite so." He remembered Herbert's dictum: +"Masters must present a united front. If they do not--the deluge." He +sent the boy back to his seat, and after school took the compromising +health certificate to the headmaster. The headmaster was at that time +easily excited by a breach of the constitution. "Parents or guardians," +he reputed--"parents or guardians," and flew with those words on his +lips to Mr. Jackson. To say that Rickie was a cat's-paw is to put it too +strongly. Herbert was strictly honourable, and never pushed him into an +illegal or really dangerous position; but there is no doubt that on +this and on many other occasions he had to do things that he would not +otherwise have done. There was always some diplomatic corner that had +to be turned, always something that he had to say or not to say. As the +term wore on he lost his independence--almost without knowing it. He had +much to learn about boys, and he learnt not by direct observation--for +which he believed he was unfitted--but by sedulous imitation of the more +experienced masters. Originally he had intended to be friends with his +pupils, and Mr. Pembroke commended the intention highly; but you cannot +be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in +the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, for "personal +intercourse," substituted the safer "personal influence," and gave his +junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in which the boy does give +himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master, +intact, commends or corrects them. Originally Rickie had meant to help +boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at +Cambridge he had numbered this among life's duties. But here is a +subject in which we must inevitably speak as one human being to another, +not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for this +reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a few formulae. +Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie's line, so he abandoned +these subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what +was easy. In the house he did as Herbert did, and referred all doubtful +subjects to him. In his form, oddly enough, he became a martinet. It +is so much simpler to be severe. He grasped the school regulations, +and insisted on prompt obedience to them. He adopted the doctrine of +collective responsibility. When one boy was late, he punished the whole +form. "I can't help it," he would say, as if he was a power of nature. +As a teacher he was rather dull. He curbed his own enthusiasms, finding +that they distracted his attention, and that while he throbbed to the +music of Virgil the boys in the back row were getting unruly. But on the +whole he liked his form work: he knew why he was there, and Herbert did +not overshadow him so completely. + +What was amiss with Herbert? He had known that something was amiss, +and had entered into partnership with open eyes. The man was kind and +unselfish; more than that he was truly charitable, and it was a real +pleasure to him to give--pleasure to others. Certainly he might talk too +much about it afterwards; but it was the doing, not the talking, that he +really valued, and benefactors of this sort are not too common. He was, +moreover, diligent and conscientious: his heart was in his work, and +his adherence to the Church of England no mere matter of form. He was +capable of affection: he was usually courteous and tolerant. Then what +was amiss? Why, in spite of all these qualities, should Rickie feel that +there was something wrong with him--nay, that he was wrong as a whole, +and that if the Spirit of Humanity should ever hold a judgment he would +assuredly be classed among the goats? The answer at first sight appeared +a graceless one--it was that Herbert was stupid. Not stupid in the +ordinary sense--he had a business-like brain, and acquired knowledge +easily--but stupid in the important sense: his whole life was coloured +by a contempt of the intellect. That he had a tolerable intellect of his +own was not the point: it is in what we value, not in what we have, that +the test of us resides. Now, Rickie's intellect was not remarkable. He +came to his worthier results rather by imagination and instinct than by +logic. An argument confused him, and he could with difficulty follow it +even on paper. But he saw in this no reason for satisfaction, and tried +to make such use of his brain as he could, just as a weak athlete might +lovingly exercise his body. Like a weak athlete, too, he loved to watch +the exploits, or rather the efforts, of others--their efforts not so +much to acquire knowledge as to dispel a little of the darkness by which +we and all our acquisitions are surrounded. Cambridge had taught him +this, and he knew, if for no other reason, that his time there had not +been in vain. And Herbert's contempt for such efforts revolted him. He +saw that for all his fine talk about a spiritual life he had but one +test for things--success: success for the body in this life or for the +soul in the life to come. And for this reason Humanity, and perhaps such +other tribunals as there may be, would assuredly reject him. + + + +XVIII + +Meanwhile he was a husband. Perhaps his union should have been +emphasized before. The crown of life had been attained, the vague +yearnings, the misread impulses, had found accomplishment at last. Never +again must he feel lonely, or as one who stands out of the broad highway +of the world and fears, like poor Shelley, to undertake the longest +journey. So he reasoned, and at first took the accomplishment for +granted. But as the term passed he knew that behind the yearning there +remained a yearning, behind the drawn veil a veil that he could not +draw. His wedding had been no mighty landmark: he would often wonder +whether such and such a speech or incident came after it or before. +Since that meeting in the Soho restaurant there had been so much to +do--clothes to buy, presents to thank for, a brief visit to a Training +College, a honeymoon as brief. In such a bustle, what spiritual union +could take place? Surely the dust would settle soon: in Italy, at +Easter, he might perceive the infinities of love. But love had shown him +its infinities already. Neither by marriage nor by any other device can +men insure themselves a vision; and Rickie's had been granted him three +years before, when he had seen his wife and a dead man clasped in each +other's arms. She was never to be so real to him again. + +She ran about the house looking handsomer than ever. Her cheerful +voice gave orders to the servants. As he sat in the study correcting +compositions, she would dart in and give him a kiss. "Dear girl--" he +would murmur, with a glance at the rings on her hand. The tone of their +marriage life was soon set. It was to be a frank good-fellowship, and +before long he found it difficult to speak in a deeper key. + +One evening he made the effort. There had been more beauty than was +usual at Sawston. The air was pure and quiet. Tomorrow the fog might +be here, but today one said, "It is like the country." Arm in arm they +strolled in the side-garden, stopping at times to notice the crocuses, +or to wonder when the daffodils would flower. Suddenly he tightened his +pressure, and said, "Darling, why don't you still wear ear-rings?" + +"Ear-rings?" She laughed. "My taste has improved, perhaps." + +So after all they never mentioned Gerald's name. But he hoped it was +still dear to her. He did not want her to forget the greatest moment in +her life. His love desired not ownership but confidence, and to a love +so pure it does not seem terrible to come second. + +He valued emotion--not for itself, but because it is the only final path +to intimacy. She, ever robust and practical, always discouraged him. +She was not cold; she would willingly embrace him. But she hated being +upset, and would laugh or thrust him off when his voice grew serious. +In this she reminded him of his mother. But his mother--he had never +concealed it from himself--had glories to which his wife would never +attain: glories that had unfolded against a life of horror--a life even +more horrible than he had guessed. He thought of her often during these +earlier months. Did she bless his union, so different to her own? Did +she love his wife? He tried to speak of her to Agnes, but again she was +reluctant. And perhaps it was this aversion to acknowledge the dead, +whose images alone have immortality, that made her own image somewhat +transient, so that when he left her no mystic influence remained, and +only by an effort could he realize that God had united them forever. + +They conversed and differed healthily upon other topics. A rifle corps +was to be formed: she hoped that the boys would have proper uniforms, +instead of shooting in their old clothes, as Mr. Jackson had suggested. +There was Tewson; could nothing be done about him? He would slink away +from the other prefects and go with boys of his own age. There was +Lloyd: he would not learn the school anthem, saying that it hurt his +throat. And above all there was Varden, who, to Rickie's bewilderment, +was now a member of Dunwood House. + +"He had to go somewhere," said Agnes. "Lucky for his mother that we had +a vacancy." + +"Yes--but when I meet Mrs. Orr--I can't help feeling ashamed." + +"Oh, Mrs. Orr! Who cares for her? Her teeth are drawn. If she chooses +to insinuate that we planned it, let her. Hers was rank dishonesty. She +attempted to set up a boarding-house." + +Mrs. Orr, who was quite rich, had attempted no such thing. She had taken +the boy out of charity, and without a thought of being unconstitutional. +But in had come this officious "Limpet" and upset the headmaster, +and she was scolded, and Mrs. Varden was scolded, and Mr. Jackson was +scolded, and the boy was scolded and placed with Mr. Pembroke, whom she +revered less than any man in the world. Naturally enough, she considered +it a further attempt of the authorities to snub the day-boys, for whose +advantage the school had been founded. She and Mrs. Jackson discussed +the subject at their tea-parties, and the latter lady was sure that +no good, no good of any kind, would come to Dunwood House from such +ill-gotten plunder. + +"We say, 'Let them talk,'" persisted Rickie, "but I never did like +letting people talk. We are right and they are wrong, but I wish the +thing could have been done more quietly. The headmaster does get so +excited. He has given a gang of foolish people their opportunity. I +don't like being branded as the day-boy's foe, when I think how much I +would have given to be a day-boy myself. My father found me a nuisance, +and put me through the mill, and I can never forget it particularly the +evenings." + +"There's very little bullying here," said Agnes. + +"There was very little bullying at my school. There was simply the +atmosphere of unkindness, which no discipline can dispel. It's not what +people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts." + +"I don't understand." + +"Physical pain doesn't hurt--at least not what I call hurt--if a man +hits you by accident or play. But just a little tap, when you know it +comes from hatred, is too terrible. Boys do hate each other: I remember +it, and see it again. They can make strong isolated friendships, but of +general good-fellowship they haven't a notion." + +"All I know is there's very little bullying here." + +"You see, the notion of good-fellowship develops late: you can just see +its beginning here among the prefects: up at Cambridge it flourishes +amazingly. That's why I pity people who don't go up to Cambridge: not +because a University is smart, but because those are the magic years, +and--with luck--you see up there what you couldn't see before and mayn't +ever see again. + +"Aren't these the magic years?" the lady demanded. + +He laughed and hit at her. "I'm getting somewhat involved. But hear me, +O Agnes, for I am practical. I approve of our public schools. Long may +they, flourish. But I do not approve of the boarding-house system. It +isn't an inevitable adjunct--" + +"Good gracious me!" she shrieked. "Have you gone mad?" + +"Silence, madam. Don't betray me to Herbert, or I'll give us the sack. +But seriously, what is the good of, throwing boys so much together? +Isn't it building their lives on a wrong basis? They don't understand +each other. I wish they did, but they don't. They don't realize that +human beings are simply marvellous. When they do, the whole of life +changes, and you get the true thing. But don't pretend you've got it +before you have. Patriotism and esprit de corps are all very well, but +masters a little forget that they must grow from sentiment. They cannot +create one. Cannot-cannot--cannot. I never cared a straw for England +until I cared for Englishmen, and boys can't love the school when they +hate each other. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now conclude my address. +And most of it is copied out of Mr. Ansell." + +The truth is, he was suddenly ashamed. He had been carried away on the +flood of his old emotions. Cambridge and all that it meant had stood +before him passionately clear, and beside it stood his mother and the +sweet family life which nurses up a boy until he can salute his equals. +He was ashamed, for he remembered his new resolution--to work without +criticizing, to throw himself vigorously into the machine, not to mind +if he was pinched now and then by the elaborate wheels. + +"Mr. Ansell!" cried his wife, laughing somewhat shrilly. "Aha! Now I +understand. It's just the kind of thing poor Mr. Ansell would say. Well, +I'm brutal. I believe it does Varden good to have his ears pulled now +and then, and I don't care whether they pull them in play or not. Boys +ought to rough it, or they never grow up into men, and your mother would +have agreed with me. Oh yes; and you're all wrong about patriotism. It +can, can, create a sentiment." + +She was unusually precise, and had followed his thoughts with an +attention that was also unusual. He wondered whether she was not right, +and regretted that she proceeded to say, "My dear boy, you mustn't talk +these heresies inside Dunwood House! You sound just like one of that +reactionary Jackson set, who want to fling the school back a hundred +years and have nothing but day-boys all dressed anyhow." + +"The Jackson set have their points." + +"You'd better join it." + +"The Dunwood House set has its points." For Rickie suffered from the +Primal Curse, which is not--as the Authorized Version suggests--the +knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of good-and-evil. + +"Then stick to the Dunwood House set." + +"I do, and shall." Again he was ashamed. Why would he see the other +side of things? He rebuked his soul, not unsuccessfully, and then they +returned to the subject of Varden. + +"I'm certain he suffers," said he, for she would do nothing but laugh. +"Each boy who passes pulls his ears--very funny, no doubt; but every day +they stick out more and get redder, and this afternoon, when he didn't +know he was being watched, he was holding his head and moaning. I hate +the look about his eyes." + +"I hate the whole boy. Nasty weedy thing." + +"Well, I'm a nasty weedy thing, if it comes to that." + +"No, you aren't," she cried, kissing him. But he led her back to +the subject. Could nothing be suggested? He drew up some new +rules--alterations in the times of going to bed, and so on--the effect +of which would be to provide fewer opportunities for the pulling of +Varden's ears. The rules were submitted to Herbert, who sympathized +with weakliness more than did his sister, and gave them his careful +consideration. But unfortunately they collided with other rules, and +on a closer examination he found that they also ran contrary to the +fundamentals on which the government of Dunwood House was based. So +nothing was done. Agnes was rather pleased, and took to teasing her +husband about Varden. At last he asked her to stop. He felt uneasy about +the boy--almost superstitious. His first morning's work had brought +sixty pounds a year to their hotel. + + + +XIX + +They did not get to Italy at Easter. Herbert had the offer of some +private pupils, and needed Rickie's help. It seemed unreasonable +to leave England when money was to be made in it, so they went to +Ilfracombe instead. They spent three weeks among the natural advantages +and unnatural disadvantages of that resort. It was out of the season, +and they encamped in a huge hotel, which took them at a reduction. By a +disastrous chance the Jacksons were down there too, and a good deal of +constrained civility had to pass between the two families. Constrained +it was not in Mr. Jackson's case. At all times he was ready to talk, and +as long as they kept off the school it was pleasant enough. But he was +very indiscreet, and feminine tact had often to intervene. "Go away, +dear ladies," he would then observe. "You think you see life because you +see the chasms in it. Yet all the chasms are full of female skeletons." +The ladies smiled anxiously. To Rickie he was friendly and even +intimate. They had long talks on the deserted Capstone, while their +wives sat reading in the Winter Garden and Mr. Pembroke kept an eye upon +the tutored youths. "Once I had tutored youths," said Mr. Jackson, +"but I lost them all by letting them paddle with my nieces. It is so +impossible to remember what is proper." And sooner or later their talk +gravitated towards his central passion--the Fragments of Sophocles. Some +day ("never," said Herbert) he would edit them. At present they were +merely in his blood. With the zeal of a scholar and the imagination of +a poet he reconstructed lost dramas--Niobe, Phaedra, Philoctetes against +Troy, whose names, but for an accident, would have thrilled the world. +"Is it worth it?" he cried. "Had we better be planting potatoes?" And +then: "We had; but this is the second best." + +Agnes did not approve of these colloquies. Mr. Jackson was not a +buffoon, but he behaved like one, which is what matters; and from the +Winter Garden she could see people laughing at him, and at her husband, +who got excited too. She hinted once or twice, but no notice was taken, +and at last she said rather sharply, "Now, you're not to, Rickie. I +won't have it." + +"He's a type that suits me. He knows people I know, or would like to +have known. He was a friend of Tony Failing's. It is so hard to realize +that a man connected with one was great. Uncle Tony seems to have been. +He loved poetry and music and pictures, and everything tempted him to +live in a kind of cultured paradise, with the door shut upon squalor. +But to have more decent people in the world--he sacrificed everything +to that. He would have 'smashed the whole beauty-shop' if it would help +him. I really couldn't go as far as that. I don't think one need go as +far--pictures might have to be smashed, but not music or poetry; surely +they help--and Jackson doesn't think so either." + +"Well, I won't have it, and that's enough." She laughed, for her voice +had a little been that of the professional scold. "You see we must hang +together. He's in the reactionary camp." + +"He doesn't know it. He doesn't know that he is in any camp at all." + +"His wife is, which comes to the same." + +"Still, it's the holidays--" He and Mr. Jackson had drifted apart in +the term, chiefly owing to the affair of Varden. "We were to have the +holidays to ourselves, you know." And following some line of thought, +he continued, "He cheers one up. He does believe in poetry. Smart, +sentimental books do seem absolutely absurd to him, and gods and fairies +far nearer to reality. He tries to express all modern life in the terms +of Greek mythology, because the Greeks looked very straight at things, +and Demeter or Aphrodite are thinner veils than 'The survival of the +fittest', or 'A marriage has been arranged,' and other draperies of +modern journalese." + +"And do you know what that means?" + +"It means that poetry, not prose, lies at the core." + +"No. I can tell you what it means--balder-dash." + +His mouth fell. She was sweeping away the cobwebs with a vengeance. "I +hope you're wrong," he replied, "for those are the lines on which I've +been writing, however badly, for the last two years." + +"But you write stories, not poems." + +He looked at his watch. "Lessons again. One never has a moment's peace." + +"Poor Rickie. You shall have a real holiday in the summer." And she +called after him to say, "Remember, dear, about Mr. Jackson. Don't go +talking so much to him." + +Rather arbitrary. Her tone had been a little arbitrary of late. But what +did it matter? Mr. Jackson was not a friend, and he must risk the chance +of offending Widdrington. After the lesson he wrote to Ansell, whom he +had not seen since June, asking him to come down to Ilfracombe, if only +for a day. On reading the letter over, its tone displeased him. It was +quite pathetic: it sounded like a cry from prison. "I can't send him +such nonsense," he thought, and wrote again. But phrase it as he would +the letter always suggested that he was unhappy. "What's wrong?" he +wondered. "I could write anything I wanted to him once." So he scrawled +"Come!" on a post-card. But even this seemed too serious. The post-card +followed the letters, and Agnes found them all in the waste-paper +basket. + +Then she said, "I've been thinking--oughtn't you to ask Mr. Ansell over? +A breath of sea air would do the poor thing good." + +There was no difficulty now. He wrote at once, "My dear Stewart, We both +so much wish you could come over." But the invitation was refused. A +little uneasy he wrote again, using the dialect of their past intimacy. +The effect of this letter was not pathetic but jaunty, and he felt +a keen regret as soon as it slipped into the box. It was a relief to +receive no reply. + +He brooded a good deal over this painful yet intangible episode. Was +the pain all of his own creating? or had it been produced by something +external? And he got the answer that brooding always gives--it was both. +He was morbid, and had been so since his visit to Cadover--quicker to +register discomfort than joy. But, none the less, Ansell was definitely +brutal, and Agnes definitely jealous. Brutality he could understand, +alien as it was to himself. Jealousy, equally alien, was a harder +matter. Let husband and wife be as sun and moon, or as moon and sun. +Shall they therefore not give greeting to the stars? He was willing to +grant that the love that inspired her might be higher than his own. Yet +did it not exclude them both from much that is gracious? That dream of +his when he rode on the Wiltshire expanses--a curious dream: the lark +silent, the earth dissolving. And he awoke from it into a valley full of +men. + +She was jealous in many ways--sometimes in an open humorous fashion, +sometimes more subtly, never content till "we" had extended our +patronage, and, if possible, our pity. She began to patronize and pity +Ansell, and most sincerely trusted that he would get his fellowship. +Otherwise what was the poor fellow to do? Ridiculous as it may seem, she +was even jealous of Nature. One day her husband escaped from Ilfracombe +to Morthoe, and came back ecstatic over its fangs of slate, piercing an +oily sea. "Sounds like an hippopotamus," she said peevishly. And when +they returned to Sawston through the Virgilian counties, she disliked +him looking out of the windows, for all the world as if Nature was some +dangerous woman. + +He resumed his duties with a feeling that he had never left them. Again +he confronted the assembled house. This term was again the term; school +still the world in miniature. The music of the four-part fugue entered +into him more deeply, and he began to hum its little phrases. The same +routine, the same diplomacies, the same old sense of only half knowing +boys or men--he returned to it all: and all that changed was the cloud +of unreality, which ever brooded a little more densely than before. He +spoke to his wife about this, he spoke to her about everything, and she +was alarmed, and wanted him to see a doctor. But he explained that it +was nothing of any practical importance, nothing that interfered with +his work or his appetite, nothing more than a feeling that the cow was +not really there. She laughed, and "how is the cow today?" soon passed +into a domestic joke. + + + +XX + +Ansell was in his favourite haunt--the reading-room of the British +Museum. In that book-encircled space he always could find peace. He +loved to see the volumes rising tier above tier into the misty dome. He +loved the chairs that glide so noiselessly, and the radiating desks, +and the central area, where the catalogue shelves curve, round the +superintendent's throne. There he knew that his life was not ignoble. It +was worth while to grow old and dusty seeking for truth though truth is +unattainable, restating questions that have been stated at the beginning +of the world. Failure would await him, but not disillusionment. It was +worth while reading books, and writing a book or two which few would +read, and no one, perhaps, endorse. He was not a hero, and he knew it. +His father and sister, by their steady goodness, had made this life +possible. But, all the same, it was not the life of a spoilt child. + +In the next chair to him sat Widdrington, engaged in his historical +research. His desk was edged with enormous volumes, and every few +moments an assistant brought him more. They rose like a wall against +Ansell. Towards the end of the morning a gap was made, and through it +they held the following conversation. + +"I've been stopping with my cousin at Sawston." + +"M'm." + +"It was quite exciting. The air rang with battle. About two-thirds of +the masters have lost their heads, and are trying to produce a gimcrack +copy of Eton. Last term, you know, with a great deal of puffing and +blowing, they fixed the numbers of the school. This term they want to +create a new boarding-house." + +"They are very welcome." + +"But the more boarding-houses they create, the less room they leave for +day-boys. The local mothers are frantic, and so is my queer cousin. +I never knew him so excited over sub-Hellenic things. There was an +indignation meeting at his house. He is supposed to look after the +day-boys' interests, but no one thought he would--least of all the +people who gave him the post. The speeches were most eloquent. +They argued that the school was founded for day-boys, and that it's +intolerable to handicap them. One poor lady cried, 'Here's my Harold in +the school, and my Toddie coming on. As likely as not I shall be told +there is no vacancy for him. Then what am I to do? If I go, what's to +become of Harold; and if I stop, what's to become of Toddie?' I must +say I was touched. Family life is more real than national life--at least +I've ordered all these books to prove it is--and I fancy that the bust +of Euripides agreed with me, and was sorry for the hot-faced mothers. +Jackson will do what he can. He didn't quite like to state the +naked truth-which is, that boardinghouses pay. He explained it to me +afterwards: they are the only, future open to a stupid master. It's easy +enough to be a beak when you're young and athletic, and can offer the +latest University smattering. The difficulty is to keep your place when +you get old and stiff, and younger smatterers are pushing up behind +you. Crawl into a boarding-house and you're safe. A master's life is +frightfully tragic. Jackson's fairly right himself, because he has got +a first-class intellect. But I met a poor brute who was hired as an +athlete. He has missed his shot at a boarding-house, and there's nothing +in the world for him to do but to trundle down the hill." + +Ansell yawned. + +"I saw Rickie too. Once I dined there." + +Another yawn. + +"My cousin thinks Mrs. Elliot one of the most horrible women he has +ever seen. He calls her 'Medusa in Arcady.' She's so pleasant, too. But +certainly it was a very stony meal." + +"What kind of stoniness" + +"No one stopped talking for a moment." + +"That's the real kind," said Ansell moodily. "The only kind." + +"Well, I," he continued, "am inclined to compare her to an electric +light. Click! she's on. Click! she's off. No waste. No flicker." + +"I wish she'd fuse." + +"She'll never fuse--unless anything was to happen at the main." + +"What do you mean by the main?" said Ansell, who always pursued a +metaphor relentlessly. + +Widdrington did not know what he meant, and suggested that Ansell should +visit Sawston to see whether one could know. + +"It is no good me going. I should not find Mrs. Elliot: she has no real +existence." + +"Rickie has." + +"I very much doubt it. I had two letters from Ilfracombe last April, +and I very much doubt that the man who wrote them can exist." Bending +downwards he began to adorn the manuscript of his dissertation with a +square, and inside that a circle, and inside that another square. It was +his second dissertation: the first had failed. + +"I think he exists: he is so unhappy." + +Ansell nodded. "How did you know he was unhappy?" + +"Because he was always talking." After a pause he added, "What clever +young men we are!" + +"Aren't we? I expect we shall get asked in marriage soon. I say, +Widdrington, shall we--?" + +"Accept? Of course. It is not young manly to say no." + +"I meant shall we ever do a more tremendous thing,--fuse Mrs. Elliot." + +"No," said Widdrington promptly. "We shall never do that in all our +lives." He added, "I think you might go down to Sawston, though." + +"I have already refused or ignored three invitations." + +"So I gathered." + +"What's the good of it?" said Ansell through his teeth. "I will not put +up with little things. I would rather be rude than to listen to twaddle +from a man I've known. + +"You might go down to Sawston, just for a night, to see him." + +"I saw him last month--at least, so Tilliard informs me. He says that we +all three lunched together, that Rickie paid, and that the conversation +was most interesting." + +"Well, I contend that he does exist, and that if you go--oh, I can't be +clever any longer. You really must go, man. I'm certain he's miserable +and lonely. Dunwood House reeks of commerce and snobbery and all the +things he hated most. He doesn't do anything. He doesn't make any +friends. He is so odd, too. In this day-boy row that has just started +he's gone for my cousin. Would you believe it? Quite spitefully. It made +quite a difficulty when I wanted to dine. It isn't like him either the +sentiments or the behaviour. I'm sure he's not himself. Pembroke used to +look after the day-boys, and so he can't very well take the lead against +them, and perhaps Rickie's doing his dirty work--and has overdone it, as +decent people generally do. He's even altering to talk to. Yet he's not +been married a year. Pembroke and that wife simply run him. I don't see +why they should, and no more do you; and that's why I want you to go to +Sawston, if only for one night." + +Ansell shook his head, and looked up at the dome as other men look at +the sky. In it the great arc lamps sputtered and flared, for the month +was again November. Then he lowered his eyes from the cold violet +radiance to the books. + +"No, Widdrington; no. We don't go to see people because they are happy +or unhappy. We go when we can talk to them. I cannot talk to Rickie, +therefore I will not waste my time at Sawston." + +"I think you're right," said Widdrington softly. "But we are bloodless +brutes. I wonder whether-If we were different people--something might be +done to save him. That is the curse of being a little intellectual. You +and our sort have always seen too clearly. We stand aside--and meanwhile +he turns into stone. Two philosophic youths repining in the British +Museum! What have we done? What shall we ever do? Just drift and +criticize, while people who know what they want snatch it away from us +and laugh." + +"Perhaps you are that sort. I'm not. When the moment comes I shall hit +out like any ploughboy. Don't believe those lies about intellectual +people. They're only written to soothe the majority. Do you suppose, +with the world as it is, that it's an easy matter to keep quiet? Do +you suppose that I didn't want to rescue him from that ghastly woman? +Action! Nothing's easier than action; as fools testify. But I want to +act rightly." + +"The superintendent is looking at us. I must get back to my work." + +"You think this all nonsense," said Ansell, detaining him. "Please +remember that if I do act, you are bound to help me." + +Widdrington looked a little grave. He was no anarchist. A few plaintive +cries against Mrs. Elliot were all that he prepared to emit. + +"There's no mystery," continued Ansell. "I haven't the shadow of a plan +in my head. I know not only Rickie but the whole of his history: you +remember the day near Madingley. Nothing in either helps me: I'm just +watching." + +"But what for?" + +"For the Spirit of Life." + +Widdrington was surprised. It was a phrase unknown to their philosophy. +They had trespassed into poetry. + +"You can't fight Medusa with anything else. If you ask me what the +Spirit of Life is, or to what it is attached, I can't tell you. I only +tell you, watch for it. Myself I've found it in books. Some people find +it out of doors or in each other. Never mind. It's the same spirit, and +I trust myself to know it anywhere, and to use it rightly." + +But at this point the superintendent sent a message. + +Widdrington then suggested a stroll in the galleries. It was foggy: they +needed fresh air. He loved and admired his friend, but today he could +not grasp him. The world as Ansell saw it seemed such a fantastic place, +governed by brand-new laws. What more could one do than to see Rickie +as often as possible, to invite his confidence, to offer him spiritual +support? And Mrs. Elliot--what power could "fuse" a respectable woman? + +Ansell consented to the stroll, but, as usual, only breathed depression. +The comfort of books deserted him among those marble goddesses and gods. +The eye of an artist finds pleasure in texture and poise, but he could +only think of the vanished incense and deserted temples beside an +unfurrowed sea. + +"Let us go," he said. "I do not like carved stones." + +"You are too particular," said Widdrington. "You are always expecting +to meet living people. One never does. I am content with the Parthenon +frieze." And he moved along a few yards of it, while Ansell followed, +conscious only of its pathos. + +"There's Tilliard," he observed. "Shall we kill him?" + +"Please," said Widdrington, and as he spoke Tilliard joined them. He +brought them news. That morning he had heard from Rickie: Mrs. Elliot +was expecting a child. + +"A child?" said Ansell, suddenly bewildered. + +"Oh, I forgot," interposed Widdrington. "My cousin did tell me." + +"You forgot! Well, after all, I forgot that it might be, We are indeed +young men." He leant against the pedestal of Ilissus and remembered +their talk about the Spirit of Life. In his ignorance of what a child +means he wondered whether the opportunity he sought lay here. + +"I am very glad," said Tilliard, not without intention. "A child will +draw them even closer together. I like to see young people wrapped up in +their child." + +"I suppose I must be getting back to my dissertation," said Ansell. +He left the Parthenon to pass by the monuments of our more reticent +beliefs--the temple of the Ephesian Artemis, the statue of the Cnidian +Demeter. Honest, he knew that here were powers he could not cope with, +nor, as yet, understand. + + +XXI + +The mists that had gathered round Rickie seemed to be breaking. He had +found light neither in work for which he was unfitted nor in a woman who +had ceased to respect him, and whom he was ceasing to love. Though he +called himself fickle and took all the blame of their marriage on his +own shoulders, there remained in Agnes certain terrible faults of heart +and head, and no self-reproach would diminish them. The glamour of +wedlock had faded; indeed, he saw now that it had faded even before +wedlock, and that during the final months he had shut his eyes and +pretended it was still there. But now the mists were breaking. + +That November the supreme event approached. He saw it with Nature's +eyes. It dawned on him, as on Ansell, that personal love and marriage +only cover one side of the shield, and that on the other is graven the +epic of birth. In the midst of lessons he would grow dreamy, as one who +spies a new symbol for the universe, a fresh circle within the square. +Within the square shall be a circle, within the circle another square, +until the visual eye is baffled. Here is meaning of a kind. His mother +had forgotten herself in him. He would forget himself in his son. + +He was at his duties when the news arrived--taking preparation. Boys are +marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes; perhaps +they will attain to a woman's tenderness. Though they despised Rickie, +and had suffered under Agnes's meanness, their one thought this term was +to be gentle and to give no trouble. + +"Rickie--one moment--" + +His face grew ashen. He followed Herbert into the passage, closing +the door of the preparation room behind him. "Oh, is she safe?" he +whispered. + +"Yes, yes," said Herbert; but there sounded in his answer a sombre +hostile note. + +"Our boy?" + +"Girl--a girl, dear Rickie; a little daughter. She--she is in many ways +a healthy child. She will live--oh yes." A flash of horror passed over +his face. He hurried into the preparation room, lifted the lid of his +desk, glanced mechanically at the boys, and came out again. + +Mrs. Lewin appeared through the door that led into their own part of the +house. + +"Both going on well!" she cried; but her voice also was grave, +exasperated. + +"What is it?" he gasped. "It's something you daren't tell me." + +"Only this"--stuttered Herbert. "You mustn't mind when you see--she's +lame." + +Mrs. Lewin disappeared. "Lame! but not as lame as I am?" + +"Oh, my dear boy, worse. Don't--oh, be a man in this. Come away from the +preparation room. Remember she'll live--in many ways healthy--only just +this one defect." + +The horror of that week never passed away from him. To the end of his +life he remembered the excuses--the consolations that the child would +live; suffered very little, if at all; would walk with crutches; would +certainly live. God was more merciful. A window was opened too wide on a +draughty day--after a short, painless illness his daughter died. But +the lesson he had learnt so glibly at Cambridge should be heeded now; no +child should ever be born to him again. + + + +XXII + +That same term there took place at Dunwood House another event. With +their private tragedy it seemed to have no connection; but in time +Rickie perceived it as a bitter comment. Its developments were +unforeseen and lasting. It was perhaps the most terrible thing he had to +bear. + +Varden had now been a boarder for ten months. His health had broken in +the previous term,--partly, it is to be feared, as the result of the +indifferent food--and during the summer holidays he was attacked by a +series of agonizing earaches. His mother, a feeble person, wished to +keep him at home, but Herbert dissuaded her. Soon after the death of the +child there arose at Dunwood House one of those waves of hostility of +which no boy knows the origin nor any master can calculate the course. +Varden had never been popular--there was no reason why he should be--but +he had never been seriously bullied hitherto. One evening nearly the +whole house set on him. The prefects absented themselves, the bigger +boys stood round and the lesser boys, to whom power was delegated, flung +him down, and rubbed his face under the desks, and wrenched at his ears. +The noise penetrated the baize doors, and Herbert swept through and +punished the whole house, including Varden, whom it would not do to +leave out. The poor man was horrified. He approved of a little healthy +roughness, but this was pure brutalization. What had come over his boys? +Were they not gentlemen's sons? He would not admit that if you herd +together human beings before they can understand each other the great +god Pan is angry, and will in the end evade your regulations and drive +them mad. That night the victim was screaming with pain, and the doctor +next day spoke of an operation. The suspense lasted a whole week. +Comment was made in the local papers, and the reputation not only of the +house but of the school was imperilled. "If only I had known," repeated +Herbert--"if only I had known I would have arranged it all differently. +He should have had a cubicle." The boy did not die, but he left Sawston, +never to return. + +The day before his departure Rickie sat with him some time, and tried to +talk in a way that was not pedantic. In his own sorrow, which he could +share with no one, least of all with his wife, he was still alive to the +sorrows of others. He still fought against apathy, though he was losing +the battle. + +"Don't lose heart," he told him. "The world isn't all going to be like +this. There are temptations and trials, of course, but nothing at all of +the kind you have had here." + +"But school is the world in miniature, is it not, sir?" asked the +boy, hoping to please one master by echoing what had been told him by +another. He was always on the lookout for sympathy--: it was one of the +things that had contributed to his downfall. + +"I never noticed that myself. I was unhappy at school, and in the world +people can be very happy." + +Varden sighed and rolled about his eyes. "Are the fellows sorry for what +they did to me?" he asked in an affected voice. "I am sure I forgive +them from the bottom of my heart. We ought to forgive our enemies, +oughtn't we, sir?" + +"But they aren't your enemies. If you meet in five years' time you may +find each other splendid fellows." + +The boy would not admit this. He had been reading some revivalistic +literature. "We ought to forgive our enemies," he repeated; "and however +wicked they are, we ought not to wish them evil. When I was ill, and +death seemed nearest, I had many kind letters on this subject." + +Rickie knew about these "many kind letters." Varden had induced the +silly nurse to write to people--people of all sorts, people that he +scarcely knew or did not know at all--detailing his misfortune, and +asking for spiritual aid and sympathy. + +"I am sorry for them," he pursued. "I would not like to be like them." + +Rickie sighed. He saw that a year at Dunwood House had produced a +sanctimonious prig. "Don't think about them, Varden. Think about +anything beautiful--say, music. You like music. Be happy. It's your +duty. You can't be good until you've had a little happiness. Then +perhaps you will think less about forgiving people and more about loving +them." + +"I love them already, sir." And Rickie, in desperation, asked if he +might look at the many kind letters. + +Permission was gladly given. A neat bundle was produced, and for about +twenty minutes the master perused it, while the invalid kept watch on +his face. Rooks cawed out in the playing-fields, and close under the +window there was the sound of delightful, good-tempered laughter. A boy +is no devil, whatever boys may be. The letters were chilly productions, +somewhat clerical in tone, by whomsoever written. Varden, because he was +ill at the time, had been taken seriously. The writers declared that +his illness was fulfilling some mysterious purpose: suffering engendered +spiritual growth: he was showing signs of this already. They consented +to pray for him, some majestically, others shyly. But they all consented +with one exception, who worded his refusal as follows:-- + +Dear A.C. Varden,-- + +I ought to say that I never remember seeing you. I am sorry that you are +ill, and hope you are wrong about it. Why did you not write before, for +I could have helped you then? When they pulled your ear, you ought to +have gone like this (here was a rough sketch). I could not undertake +praying, but would think of you instead, if that would do. I am +twenty-two in April, built rather heavy, ordinary broad face, with eyes, +etc. I write all this because you have mixed me with some one else, for +I am not married, and do not want to be. I cannot think of you always, +but will promise a quarter of an hour daily (say 7.00-7.15 A.M.), and +might come to see you when you are better--that is, if you are a kid, +and you read like one. I have been otter-hunting-- + +Yours sincerely, + +Stephen Wonham + + + +XXIII + +Riekie went straight from Varden to his wife, who lay on the sofa in her +bedroom. There was now a wide gulf between them. She, like the world she +had created for him, was unreal. + +"Agnes, darling," he began, stroking her hand, "such an awkward little +thing has happened." + +"What is it, dear? Just wait till I've added up this hook." + +She had got over the tragedy: she got over everything. + +When she was at leisure he told her. Hitherto they had seldom mentioned +Stephen. He was classed among the unprofitable dead. + +She was more sympathetic than he expected. "Dear Rickie," she murmured +with averted eyes. "How tiresome for you." + +"I wish that Varden had stopped with Mrs. Orr." + +"Well, he leaves us for good tomorrow." + +"Yes, yes. And I made him answer the letter and apologize. They had +never met. It was some confusion with a man in the Church Army, living +at a place called Codford. I asked the nurse. It is all explained." + +"There the matter ends." + +"I suppose so--if matters ever end." + +"If, by ill-luck, the person does call. I will just see him and say that +the boy has gone." + +"You, or I. I have got over all nonsense by this time. He's absolutely +nothing to me now." He took up the tradesman's book and played with it +idly. On its crimson cover was stamped a grotesque sheep. How stale and +stupid their life had become! + +"Don't talk like that, though," she said uneasily. "Think how disastrous +it would be if you made a slip in speaking to him." + +"Would it? It would have been disastrous once. But I expect, as a matter +of fact, that Aunt Emily has made the slip already." + +His wife was displeased. "You need not talk in that cynical way. I +credit Aunt Emily with better feeling. When I was there she did mention +the matter, but only once. She, and I, and all who have any sense of +decency, know better than to make slips, or to think of making them." + +Agnes kept up what she called "the family connection." She had been once +alone to Cadover, and also corresponded with Mrs. Failing. She had never +told Rickie anything about her visit nor had he ever asked her. But, +from this moment, the whole subject was reopened. + +"Most certainly he knows nothing," she continued. "Why, he does not even +realize that Varden lives in our house! We are perfectly safe--unless +Aunt Emily were to die. Perhaps then--but we are perfectly safe for the +present." + +"When she did mention the matter, what did she say?" + +"We had a long talk," said Agnes quietly. "She told me nothing +new--nothing new about the past, I mean. But we had a long talk about +the present. I think" and her voice grew displeased again--"that you +have been both wrong and foolish in refusing to make up your quarrel +with Aunt Emily." + +"Wrong and wise, I should say." + +"It isn't to be expected that she--so much older and so sensitive--can +make the first step. But I know she'd he glad to see you." + +"As far as I can remember that final scene in the garden, I accused her +of 'forgetting what other people were like.' She'll never pardon me for +saying that." + +Agnes was silent. To her the phrase was meaningless. Yet Rickie was +correct: Mrs. Failing had resented it more than anything. + +"At all events," she suggested, "you might go and see her." + +"No, dear. Thank you, no." + +"She is, after all--" She was going to say "your father's sister," but +the expression was scarcely a happy one, and she turned it into, "She +is, after all, growing old and lonely." + +"So are we all!" he cried, with a lapse of tone that was now +characteristic in him. + +"She oughtn't to be so isolated from her proper relatives." + +There was a moment's silence. Still playing with the book, he remarked, +"You forget, she's got her favourite nephew." + +A bright red flush spread over her cheeks. "What is the matter with you +this afternoon?" she asked. "I should think you'd better go for a walk." + +"Before I go, tell me what is the matter with you." He also flushed. +"Why do you want me to make it up with my aunt?" + +"Because it's right and proper." + +"So? Or because she is old?" + +"I don't understand," she retorted. But her eyes dropped. His sudden +suspicion was true: she was legacy hunting. + +"Agnes, dear Agnes," he began with passing tenderness, "how can you +think of such things? You behave like a poor person. We don't want any +money from Aunt Emily, or from any one else. It isn't virtue that makes +me say it: we are not tempted in that way: we have as much as we want +already." + +"For the present," she answered, still looking aside. + +"There isn't any future," he cried in a gust of despair. + +"Rickie, what do you mean?" + +What did he mean? He meant that the relations between them were +fixed--that there would never be an influx of interest, nor even of +passion. To the end of life they would go on beating time, and this was +enough for her. She was content with the daily round, the common task, +performed indifferently. But he had dreamt of another helpmate, and of +other things. + +"We don't want money--why, we don't even spend any on travelling. I've +invested all my salary and more. As far as human foresight goes, we +shall never want money." And his thoughts went out to the tiny grave. +"You spoke of 'right and proper,' but the right and proper thing for my +aunt to do is to leave every penny she's got to Stephen." + +Her lip quivered, and for one moment he thought that she was going to +cry. "What am I to do with you?" she said. "You talk like a person in +poetry." + +"I'll put it in prose. He's lived with her for twenty years, and he +ought to be paid for it." + +Poor Agnes! Indeed, what was she to do? The first moment she set foot +in Cadover she had thought, "Oh, here is money. We must try and get it." +Being a lady, she never mentioned the thought to her husband, but +she concluded that it would occur to him too. And now, though it had +occurred to him at last, he would not even write his aunt a little note. + +He was to try her yet further. While they argued this point he flashed +out with, "I ought to have told him that day when he called up to our +room. There's where I went wrong first." + +"Rickie!" + +"In those days I was sentimental. I minded. For two pins I'd write to +him this afternoon. Why shouldn't he know he's my brother? What's all +this ridiculous mystery?" + +She became incoherent. + +"But WHY not? A reason why he shouldn't know." + +"A reason why he SHOULD know," she retorted. "I never heard such +rubbish! Give me a reason why he should know." + +"Because the lie we acted has ruined our lives." + +She looked in bewilderment at the well-appointed room. + +"It's been like a poison we won't acknowledge. How many times have you +thought of my brother? I've thought of him every day--not in love; don't +misunderstand; only as a medicine I shirked. Down in what they call +the subconscious self he has been hurting me." His voice broke. "Oh, my +darling, we acted a lie then, and this letter reminds us of it and gives +us one more chance. I have to say 'we' lied. I should be lying again if +I took quite all the blame. Let us ask God's forgiveness together. Then +let us write, as coldly as you please, to Stephen, and tell him he is my +father's son." + +Her reply need not be quoted. It was the last time he attempted +intimacy. And the remainder of their conversation, though long and +stormy, is also best forgotten. + +Thus the first effect of Varden's letter was to make them quarrel. They +had not openly disagreed before. In the evening he kissed her and said, +"How absurd I was to get angry about things that happened last year. I +will certainly not write to the person." She returned the kiss. But he +knew that they had destroyed the habit of reverence, and would quarrel +again. On his rounds he looked in at Varden and asked nonchalantly for +the letter. He carried it off to his room. It was unwise of him, for +his nerves were already unstrung, and the man he had tried to bury was +stirring ominously. In the silence he examined the handwriting till he +felt that a living creature was with him, whereas he, because his child +had died, was dead. He perceived more clearly the cruelty of Nature, to +whom our refinement and piety are but as bubbles, hurrying downwards on +the turbid waters. They break, and the stream continues. His father, as +a final insult, had brought into the world a man unlike all the rest of +them, a man dowered with coarse kindliness and rustic strength, a kind +of cynical ploughboy, against whom their own misery and weakness might +stand more vividly relieved. "Born an Elliot--born a gentleman." So +the vile phrase ran. But here was an Elliot whose badness was not even +gentlemanly. For that Stephen was bad inherently he never doubted for a +moment and he would have children: he, not Rickie, would contribute to +the stream; he, through his remote posterity, might mingled with the +unknown sea. + +Thus musing he lay down to sleep, feeling diseased in body and soul. It +was no wonder that the night was the most terrible he had ever known. He +revisited Cambridge, and his name was a grey ghost over the door. Then +there recurred the voice of a gentle shadowy woman, Mrs. Aberdeen, "It +doesn't seem hardly right." Those had been her words, her only complaint +against the mysteries of change and death. She bowed her head and +laboured to make her "gentlemen" comfortable. She was labouring still. +As he lay in bed he asked God to grant him her wisdom; that he might +keep sorrow within due bounds; that he might abstain from extreme hatred +and envy of Stephen. It was seldom that he prayed so definitely, or +ventured to obtrude his private wishes. Religion was to him a service, a +mystic communion with good; not a means of getting what he wanted on the +earth. But tonight, through suffering, he was humbled, and became like +Mrs. Aberdeen. Hour after hour he awaited sleep and tried to endure the +faces that frothed in the gloom--his aunt's, his father's, and, worst +of all, the triumphant face of his brother. Once he struck at it, and +awoke, having hurt his hand on the wall. Then he prayed hysterically for +pardon and rest. + +Yet again did he awake, and from a more mysterious dream. He heard his +mother crying. She was crying quite distinctly in the darkened room. +He whispered, "Never mind, my darling, never mind," and a voice echoed, +"Never mind--come away--let them die out--let them die out." He lit a +candle, and the room was empty. Then, hurrying to the window, he saw +above mean houses the frosty glories of Orion. + +Henceforward he deteriorates. Let those who censure him suggest what +he should do. He has lost the work that he loved, his friends, and his +child. He remained conscientious and decent, but the spiritual part of +him proceeded towards ruin. + + + +XXIV + +The coming months, though full of degradation and anxiety, were to bring +him nothing so terrible as that night. It was the crisis of this +agony. He was an outcast and a failure. But he was not again forced to +contemplate these facts so clearly. Varden left in the morning, carrying +the fatal letter with him. The whole house was relieved. The good angel +was with the boys again, or else (as Herbert preferred to think) they +had learnt a lesson, and were more humane in consequence. At all events, +the disastrous term concluded quietly. + +In the Christmas holidays the two masters made an abortive attempt to +visit Italy, and at Easter there was talk of a cruise in the Aegean. +Herbert actually went, and enjoyed Athens and Delphi. The Elliots paid a +few visits together in England. They returned to Sawston about ten days +before school opened, to find that Widdrington was again stopping +with the Jacksons. Intercourse was painful, for the two families were +scarcely on speaking terms; nor did the triumphant scaffoldings of +the new boarding-house make things easier. (The party of progress had +carried the day.) Widdrington was by nature touchy, but on this occasion +he refused to take offence, and often dropped in to see them. His manner +was friendly but critical. They agreed he was a nuisance. Then Agnes +left, very abruptly, to see Mrs. Failing, and while she was away Rickie +had a little stealthy intercourse. + +Her absence, convenient as it was, puzzled him. Mrs. Silt, half goose, +half stormy-petrel, had recently paid a flying visit to Cadover, and +thence had flown, without an invitation, to Sawston. Generally she was +not a welcome guest. On this occasion Agnes had welcomed her, and--so +Rickie thought--had made her promise not to tell him something that she +knew. The ladies had talked mysteriously. "Mr. Silt would be one with +you there," said Mrs. Silt. Could there be any connection between the +two visits? + +Agnes's letters told him nothing: they never did. She was too clumsy +or too cautious to express herself on paper. A drive to Stonehenge; +an anthem in the Cathedral; Aunt Emily's love. And when he met her at +Waterloo he learnt nothing (if there was anything to learn) from her +face. + +"How did you enjoy yourself?" + +"Thoroughly." + +"Were you and she alone?" + +"Sometimes. Sometimes other people." + +"Will Uncle Tony's Essays be published?" + +Here she was more communicative. The book was at last in proof. Aunt +Emily had written a charming introduction; but she was so idle, she +never finished things off. + +They got into an omnibus for the Army and Navy Stores: she wanted to do +some shopping before going down to Sawston. + +"Did you read any of the Essays?" + +"Every one. Delightful. Couldn't put them down. Now and then he spoilt +them by statistics--but you should read his descriptions of Nature. He +agrees with you: says the hills and trees are alive! Aunt Emily called +you his spiritual heir, which I thought nice of her. We both so lamented +that you have stopped writing." She quoted fragments of the Essays as +they went up in the Stores' lift. + +"What else did you talk about?" + +"I've told you all my news. Now for yours. Let's have tea first." + +They sat down in the corridor amid ladies in every stage of +fatigue--haggard ladies, scarlet ladies, ladies with parcels that +twisted from every finger like joints of meat. Gentlemen were scarcer, +but all were of the sub-fashionable type, to which Rickie himself now +belonged. + +"I haven't done anything," he said feebly. "Ate, read, been rude to +tradespeople, talked to Widdrington. Herbert arrived this morning. He +has brought a most beautiful photograph of the Parthenon." + +"Mr. Widdrington?" + +"Yes." + +"What did you talk about?" + +She might have heard every word. It was only the feeling of pleasure +that he wished to conceal. Even when we love people, we desire to keep +some corner secret from them, however small: it is a human right: it is +personality. She began to cross-question him, but they were interrupted. +A young lady at an adjacent table suddenly rose and cried, "Yes, it is +you. I thought so from your walk." It was Maud Ansell. + +"Oh, do come and join us!" he cried. "Let me introduce my wife." Maud +bowed quite stiffly, but Agnes, taking it for ill-breeding, was not +offended. + +"Then I will come!" she continued in shrill, pleasant tones, adroitly +poising her tea things on either hand, and transferring them to the +Elliots' table. "Why haven't you ever come to us, pray?" + +"I think you didn't ask me!" + +"You weren't to be asked." She sprawled forward with a wagging finger. +But her eyes had the honesty of her brother's. "Don't you remember the +day you left us? Father said, 'Now, Mr. Elliot--' Or did he call you +'Elliot'? How one does forget. Anyhow, father said you weren't to wait +for an invitation, and you said, 'No, I won't.' Ours is a fair-sized +house,"--she turned somewhat haughtily to Agnes,--"and the second spare +room, on account of a harp that hangs on the wall, is always reserved +for Stewart's friends." + + +"How is Mr. Ansell, your brother?" Maud's face fell. "Hadn't you heard?" +she said in awe-struck tones. + +"No." + +"He hasn't got his fellowship. It's the second time he's failed. +That means he will never get one. He will never be a don, nor live in +Cambridge and that, as we had hoped." + +"Oh, poor, poor fellow!" said Mrs. Elliot with a remorse that was +sincere, though her congratulations would not have been. "I am so very +sorry." + +But Maud turned to Rickie. "Mr. Elliot, you might know. Tell me. What is +wrong with Stewart's philosophy? What ought he to put in, or to alter, +so as to succeed?" + +Agnes, who knew better than this, smiled. + +"I don't know," said Rickie sadly. They were none of them so clever, +after all. + +"Hegel," she continued vindictively. "They say he's read too much Hegel. +But they never tell him what to read instead. Their own stuffy books, +I suppose. Look here--no, that's the 'Windsor.'" After a little groping +she produced a copy of "Mind," and handed it round as if it was a +geological specimen. "Inside that there's a paragraph written about +something Stewart's written about before, and there it says he's read +too much Hegel, and it seems now that that's been the trouble all +along." Her voice trembled. "I call it most unfair, and the fellowship's +gone to a man who has counted the petals on an anemone." + +Rickie had no inclination to smile. + +"I wish Stewart had tried Oxford instead." + +"I don't wish it!" + +"You say that," she continued hotly, "and then you never come to see +him, though you knew you were not to wait for an invitation." + +"If it comes to that, Miss Ansell," retorted Rickie, in the laughing +tones that one adopts on such occasions, "Stewart won't come to me, +though he has had an invitation." + +"Yes," chimed in Agnes, "we ask Mr. Ansell again and again, and he will +have none of us." + +Maud looked at her with a flashing eye. "My brother is a very peculiar +person, and we ladies can't understand him. But I know one thing, and +that's that he has a reason all round for what he does. Look here, I +must be getting on. Waiter! Wai-ai-aiter! Bill, please. Separately, of +course. Call the Army and Navy cheap! I know better!" + +"How does the drapery department compare?" said Agnes sweetly. + +The girl gave a sharp choking sound, gathered up her parcels, and left +them. Rickie was too much disgusted with his wife to speak. + +"Appalling person!" she gasped. "It was naughty of me, but I couldn't +help it. What a dreadful fate for a clever man! To fail in life +completely, and then to be thrown back on a family like that!" + +"Maud is a snob and a Philistine. But, in her case, something emerges." + +She glanced at him, but proceeded in her suavest tones, "Do let us make +one great united attempt to get Mr. Ansell to Sawston." + +"No." + +"What a changeable friend you are! When we were engaged you were always +talking about him." + +"Would you finish your tea, and then we will buy the linoleum for the +cubicles." + +But she returned to the subject again, not only on that day but +throughout the term. Could nothing be done for poor Mr. Ansell? It +seemed that she could not rest until all that he had once held dear was +humiliated. In this she strayed outside her nature: she was unpractical. +And those who stray outside their nature invite disaster. Rickie, goaded +by her, wrote to his friend again. The letter was in all ways unlike +his old self. Ansell did not answer it. But he did write to Mr. Jackson, +with whom he was not acquainted. + +"Dear Mr. Jackson,-- + +"I understand from Widdrington that you have a large house. I would like +to tell you how convenient it would be for me to come and stop in it. +June suits me best.-- + +"Yours truly, + +"Stewart Ansell" + + +To which Mr. Jackson replied that not only in June but during the whole +year his house was at the disposal of Mr. Ansell and of any one who +resembled him. + +But Agnes continued her life, cheerfully beating time. She, too, knew +that her marriage was a failure, and in her spare moments regretted +it. She wished that her husband was handsomer, more successful, more +dictatorial. But she would think, "No, no; one mustn't grumble. It can't +be helped." Ansell was wrong in sup-posing she might ever leave Rickie. +Spiritual apathy prevented her. Nor would she ever be tempted by a +jollier man. Here criticism would willingly alter its tone. For Agnes +also has her tragedy. She belonged to the type--not necessarily an +elevated one--that loves once and once only. Her love for Gerald had +not been a noble passion: no imagination transfigured it. But such as it +was, it sprang to embrace him, and he carried it away with him when he +died. Les amours gui suivrent sont moins involuntaires: by an effort of +the will she had warmed herself for Rickie. + +She is not conscious of her tragedy, and therefore only the gods need +weep at it. But it is fair to remember that hitherto she moves as one +from whom the inner life has been withdrawn. + + + +XXV + +"I am afraid," said Agnes, unfolding a letter that she had received in +the morning, "that things go far from satisfactorily at Cadover." + +The three were alone at supper. It was the June of Rickie's second year +at Sawston. + +"Indeed?" said Herbert, who took a friendly interest. "In what way? + +"Do you remember us talking of Stephen--Stephen Wonham, who by an odd +coincidence--" + +"Yes. Who wrote last year to that miserable failure Varden. I do." + +"It is about him." + +"I did not like the tone of his letter." + +Agnes had made her first move. She waited for her husband to reply to +it. But he, though full of a painful curiosity, would not speak. She +moved again. + +"I don't think, Herbert, that Aunt Emily, much as I like her, is the +kind of person to bring a young man up. At all events the results have +been disastrous this time." + +"What has happened?" + +"A tangle of things." She lowered her voice. "Drink." + +"Dear! Really! Was Mrs. Failing fond of him?" + +"She used to be. She let him live at Cadover ever since he was a little +boy. Naturally that cannot continue." + +Rickie never spoke. + +"And now he has taken to be violent and rude," she went on. + +"In short, a beggar on horseback. Who is he? Has he got relatives?" + +"She has always been both father and mother to him. Now it must all come +to an end. I blame her--and she blames herself--for not being severe +enough. He has grown up without fixed principles. He has always followed +his inclinations, and one knows the result of that." + +Herbert assented. "To me Mrs. Failing's course is perfectly plain. She +has a certain responsibility. She must pay the youth's passage to one of +the colonies, start him handsomely in some business, and then break off +all communications." + +"How funny! It is exactly what she is going to do." + +"I shall then consider that she has behaved in a thoroughly honourable +manner." He held out his plate for gooseberries. "His letter to Varden +was neither helpful nor sympathetic, and, if written at all, it ought +to have been both. I am not in the least surprised to learn that he has +turned out badly. When you write next, would you tell her how sorry I +am?" + +"Indeed I will. Two years ago, when she was already a little anxious, +she did so wish you could undertake him. + +"I could not alter a grown man." But in his heart he thought he could, +and smiled at his sister amiably. "Terrible, isn't it?" he remarked to +Rickie. Rickie, who was trying not to mind anything, assented. And an +onlooker would have supposed them a dispassionate trio, who were sorry +both for Mrs. Failing and for the beggar who would bestride her horses' +backs no longer. A new topic was introduced by the arrival of the +evening post. + +Herbert took up all the letters, as he often did. + +"Jackson?" he exclaimed. "What does the fellow want?" He read, and his +tone was mollified, "'Dear Mr. Pembroke,--Could you, Mrs. Elliot, and +Mr. Elliot come to supper with us on Saturday next? I should not merely +be pleased, I should be grateful. My wife is writing formally to Mrs. +Elliot'--(Here, Agnes, take your letter),--but I venture to write as +well, and to add my more uncouth entreaties.'--An olive-branch. It is +time! But (ridiculous person!) does he think that we can leave the House +deserted and all go out pleasuring in term time?--Rickie, a letter for +you." + +"Mine's the formal invitation," said Agnes. "How very odd! Mr. Ansell +will be there. Surely we asked him here! Did you know he knew the +Jacksons?" + +"This makes refusal very difficult," said Herbert, who was anxious to +accept. "At all events, Rickie ought to go." + +"I do not want to go," said Rickie, slowly opening his own letter. "As +Agnes says, Ansell has refused to come to us. I cannot put myself out +for him." + +"Who's yours from?" she demanded. + +"Mrs. Silt," replied Herbert, who had seen the handwriting. "I trust +she does not want to pay us a visit this term, with the examinations +impending and all the machinery at full pressure. Though, Rickie, you +will have to accept the Jacksons' invitation." + +"I cannot possibly go. I have been too rude; with Widdrington we always +meet here. I'll stop with the boys--" His voice caught suddenly. He had +opened Mrs. Silt's letter. + +"The Silts are not ill, I hope?" + +"No. But, I say,"--he looked at his wife,--"I do think this is going too +far. Really, Agnes." + +"What has happened?" + +"It is going too far," he repeated. He was nerving himself for another +battle. "I cannot stand this sort of thing. There are limits." + +He laid the letter down. It was Herbert who picked it up, and read: +"Aunt Emily has just written to us. We are so glad that her troubles are +over, in spite of the expense. It never does to live apart from one's +own relatives so much as she has done up to now. He goes next Saturday +to Canada. What you told her about him just turned the scale. She has +asked us--" + +"No, it's too much," he interrupted. "What I told her--told her about +him--no, I will have it out at last. Agnes!" + +"Yes?" said his wife, raising her eyes from Mrs. Jackson's formal +invitation. + +"It's you--it's you. I never mentioned him to her. Why, I've never seen +her or written to her since. I accuse you." + +Then Herbert overbore him, and he collapsed. He was asked what he meant. +Why was he so excited? Of what did he accuse his wife. Each time he +spoke more feebly, and before long the brother and sister were laughing +at him. He felt bewildered, like a boy who knows that he is right but +cannot put his case correctly. He repeated, "I've never mentioned him to +her. It's a libel. Never in my life." And they cried, "My dear Rickie, +what an absurd fuss!" Then his brain cleared. His eye fell on the letter +that his wife had received from his aunt, and he reopened the battle. + +"Agnes, give me that letter, if you please." + +"Mrs. Jackson's?" + +"My aunt's." + +She put her hand on it, and looked at him doubtfully. She saw that she +had failed to bully him. + +"My aunt's letter," he repeated, rising to his feet and bending over the +table towards her. + +"Why, dear?" + +"Yes, why indeed?" echoed Herbert. He too had bullied Rickie, but from a +purer motive: he had tried to stamp out a dissension between husband and +wife. It was not the first time he had intervened. + +"The letter. For this reason: it will show me what you have done. I +believe you have ruined Stephen. You have worked at it for two years. +You have put words into my mouth to 'turn the scale' against him. He +goes to Canada--and all the world thinks it is owing to me. As I said +before--I advise you to stop smiling--you have gone a little too far." + +They were all on their feet now, standing round the little table. Agnes +said nothing, but the fingers of her delicate hand tightened upon the +letter. When her husband snatched at it she resisted, and with the +effect of a harlequinade everything went on the floor--lamb, mint +sauce, gooseberries, lemonade, whisky. At once they were swamped in +domesticities. She rang the bell for the servant, cries arose, dusters +were brought, broken crockery (a wedding present) picked up from the +carpet; while he stood wrathfully at the window, regarding the obscured +sun's decline. + +"I MUST see her letter," he repeated, when the agitation was over. He +was too angry to be diverted from his purpose. Only slight emotions are +thwarted by an interlude of farce. + +"I've had enough of this quarrelling," she retorted. "You know that the +Silts are inaccurate. I think you might have given me the benefit of +the doubt. If you will know--have you forgotten that ride you took with +him?" + +"I--" he was again bewildered. "The ride where I dreamt--" + +"The ride where you turned back because you could not listen to a +disgraceful poem?" + +"I don't understand." + +"The poem was Aunt Emily. He read it to you and a stray soldier. +Afterwards you told me. You said, 'Really it is shocking, his +ingratitude. She ought to know about it' She does know, and I should be +glad of an apology." + +He had said something of the sort in a fit of irritation. Mrs. Silt was +right--he had helped to turn the scale. + +"Whatever I said, you knew what I meant. You knew I'd sooner cut my +tongue out than have it used against him. Even then." He sighed. Had he +ruined his brother? A curious tenderness came over him, and passed when +he remembered his own dead child. "We have ruined him, then. Have you +any objection to 'we'? We have disinherited him." + +"I decide against you," interposed Herbert. "I have now heard both +sides of this deplorable affair. You are talking most criminal nonsense. +'Disinherit!' Sentimental twaddle. It's been clear to me from the first +that Mrs. Failing has been imposed upon by the Wonham man, a person with +no legal claim on her, and any one who exposes him performs a public +duty--" + +"--And gets money." + +"Money?" He was always uneasy at the word. "Who mentioned money?" + +"Just understand me, Herbert, and of what it is that I accuse my wife." +Tears came into his eyes. "It is not that I like the Wonham man, or +think that he isn't a drunkard and worse. He's too awful in every way. +But he ought to have my aunt's money, because he's lived all his life +with her, and is her nephew as much as I am. You see, my father went +wrong." He stopped, amazed at himself. How easy it had been to say! He +was withering up: the power to care about this stupid secret had died. + +When Herbert understood, his first thought was for Dunwood House. + +"Why have I never been told?" was his first remark. + +"We settled to tell no one," said Agnes. "Rickie, in his anxiety to +prove me a liar, has broken his promise." + +"I ought to have been told," said Herbert, his anger increasing. "Had I +known, I could have averted this deplorable scene." + +"Let me conclude it," said Rickie, again collapsing and leaving the +dining-room. His impulse was to go straight to Cadover and make a +business-like statement of the position to Stephen. Then the man would +be armed, and perhaps fight the two women successfully, But he resisted +the impulse. Why should he help one power of evil against another? Let +them go intertwined to destruction. To enrich his brother would be as +bad as enriching himself. If their aunt's money ever did come to him, +he would refuse to accept it. That was the easiest and most dignified +course. He troubled himself no longer with justice or pity, and the next +day he asked his wife's pardon for his behaviour. + +In the dining-room the conversation continued. Agnes, without much +difficulty, gained her brother as an ally. She acknowledged that she had +been wrong in not telling him, and he then declared that she had been +right on every other point. She slurred a little over the incident of +her treachery, for Herbert was sometimes clearsighted over details, +though easily muddled in a general survey. Mrs. Failing had had plenty +of direct causes of complaint, and she dwelt on these. She dealt, +too, on the very handsome way in which the young man, "though he knew +nothing, had never asked to know," was being treated by his aunt. + +"'Handsome' is the word," said Herbert. "I hope not indulgently. He does +not deserve indulgence." + +And she knew that he, like herself, could remember money, and that it +lent an acknowledged halo to her cause. + +"It is not a savoury subject," he continued, with sudden stiffness. "I +understand why Rickie is so hysterical. My impulse"--he laid his hand on +her shoulder--"is to abandon it at once. But if I am to be of any use +to you, I must hear it all. There are moments when we must look facts in +the face." + +She did not shrink from the subject as much as he thought, as much as +she herself could have wished. Two years before, it had filled her with +a physical loathing. But by now she had accustomed herself to it. + +"I am afraid, Bertie boy, there is nothing else to bear, I have tried to +find out again and again, but Aunt Emily will not tell me. I suppose it +is natural. She wants to shield the Elliot name. She only told us in a +fit of temper; then we all agreed to keep it to ourselves; then Rickie +again mismanaged her, and ever since she has refused to let us know any +details." + +"A most unsatisfactory position." "So I feel." She sat down again with +a sigh. Mrs. Failing had been a great trial to her orderly mind. "She is +an odd woman. She is always laughing. She actually finds it amusing that +we know no more." + +"They are an odd family." + +"They are indeed." + +Herbert, with unusual sweetness, bent down and kissed her. + +She thanked him. + +Their tenderness soon passed. They exchanged it with averted eyes. It +embarrassed them. There are moments for all of us when we seem obliged +to speak in a new unprofitable tongue. One might fancy a seraph, vexed +with our normal language, who touches the pious to blasphemy, +the blasphemous to piety. The seraph passes, and we proceed +unaltered--conscious, however, that we have not been ourselves, and that +we may fail in this function yet again. So Agnes and Herbert, as they +proceeded to discuss the Jackson's supper-party, had an uneasy memory of +spiritual deserts, spiritual streams. + + + +XXVI + +Poor Mr. Ansell was actually sitting in the garden of Dunwood House. It +was Sunday morning. The air was full of roasting beef. The sound of +a manly hymn, taken very fast, floated over the road from the school +chapel. He frowned, for he was reading a book, the Essays of Anthony +Eustace Failing. + +He was here on account of this book--at least so he told himself. It had +just been published, and the Jacksons were sure that Mr. Elliot would +have a copy. For a book one may go anywhere. It would not have been +logical to enter Dunwood House for the purpose of seeing Rickie, when +Rickie had not come to supper yesterday to see him. He was at Sawston to +assure himself of his friend's grave. With quiet eyes he had intended +to view the sods, with unfaltering fingers to inscribe the epitaph. Love +remained. But in high matters he was practical. He knew that it would be +useless to reveal it. + +"Morning!" said a voice behind him. + +He saw no reason to reply to this superfluous statement, and went on +with his reading. + +"Morning!" said the voice again. + +As for the Essays, the thought was somewhat old-fashioned, and he picked +many holes in it; nor was he anything but bored by the prospect of the +brotherhood of man. However, Mr. Failing stuck to his guns, such as they +were, and fired from them several good remarks. Very notable was his +distinction between coarseness and vulgarity (coarseness, revealing +something; vulgarity, concealing something), and his avowed preference +for coarseness. Vulgarity, to him, had been the primal curse, the shoddy +reticence that prevents man opening his heart to man, the power +that makes against equality. From it sprang all the things that +he hated--class shibboleths, ladies, lidies, the game laws, the +Conservative party--all the things that accent the divergencies rather +than the similarities in human nature. Whereas coarseness--But at this +point Herbert Pembroke had scrawled with a blue pencil: "Childish. One +reads no further." + +"Morning!" repeated the voice. + +Ansell read further, for here was the book of a man who had tried, +however unsuccessfully, to practice what he preached. Mrs. Failing, in +her Introduction, described with delicate irony his difficulties as a +landlord; but she did not record the love in which his name was held. +Nor could her irony touch him when he cried: "Attain the practical +through the unpractical. There is no other road." Ansell was inclined to +think that the unpractical is its own reward, but he respected those who +attempted to journey beyond it. We must all of us go over the mountains. +There is certainly no other road. + +"Nice morning!" said the voice. + +It was not a nice morning, so Ansell felt bound to speak. He answered: +"No. Why?" A clod of earth immediately struck him on the back. He turned +round indignantly, for he hated physical rudeness. A square man of ruddy +aspect was pacing the gravel path, his hands deep in his pockets. He was +very angry. Then he saw that the clod of earth nourished a blue lobelia, +and that a wound of corresponding size appeared on the pie-shaped bed. +He was not so angry. "I expect they will mind it," he reflected. Last +night, at the Jacksons', Agnes had displayed a brisk pity that made +him wish to wring her neck. Maude had not exaggerated. Mr. Pembroke had +patronized through a sorrowful voice and large round eyes. Till he +met these people he had never been told that his career was a failure. +Apparently it was. They would never have been civil to him if it had +been a success, if they or theirs had anything to fear from him. + +In many ways Ansell was a conceited man; but he was never proud of being +right. He had foreseen Rickie's catastrophe from the first, but derived +from this no consolation. In many ways he was pedantic; but his +pedantry lay close to the vineyards of life--far closer than that fetich +Experience of the innumerable tea-cups. He had a great many facts to +learn, and before he died he learnt a suitable quantity. But he never +forgot that the holiness of the heart's imagination can alone classify +these facts--can alone decide which is an exception, which an example. +"How unpractical it all is!" That was his comment on Dunwood House. +"How unbusiness-like! They live together without love. They work without +conviction. They seek money without requiring it. They die, and nothing +will have happened, either for themselves or for others." It is a +comment that the academic mind will often make when first confronted +with the world. + +But he was becoming illogical. The clod of earth had disturbed him. +Brushing the dirt off his back, he returned to the book. What a curious +affair was the essay on "Gaps"! Solitude, star-crowned, pacing the +fields of England, has a dialogue with Seclusion. He, poor little man, +lives in the choicest scenery--among rocks, forests, emerald lawns, +azure lakes. To keep people out he has built round his domain a high +wall, on which is graven his motto--"Procul este profani." But he cannot +enjoy himself. His only pleasure is in mocking the absent Profane. They +are in his mind night and day. Their blemishes and stupidities form the +subject of his great poem, "In the Heart of Nature." Then Solitude tells +him that so it always will be until he makes a gap in the wall, and +permits his seclusion to be the sport of circumstance. He obeys. The +Profane invade him; but for short intervals they wander elsewhere, and +during those intervals the heart of Nature is revealed to him. + +This dialogue had really been suggested to Mr. Failing by a talk with +his brother-in-law. It also touched Ansell. He looked at the man who +had thrown the clod, and was now pacing with obvious youth and impudence +upon the lawn. "Shall I improve my soul at his expense?" he thought. "I +suppose I had better." In friendly tones he remarked, "Were you waiting +for Mr. Pembroke?" + +"No," said the young man. "Why?" + +Ansell, after a moment's admiration, flung the Essays at him. They hit +him in the back. The next moment he lay on his own back in the lobelia +pie. + +"But it hurts!" he gasped, in the tones of a puzzled civilization. "What +you do hurts!" For the young man was nicking him over the shins with the +rim of the book cover. "Little brute-ee--ow!" + +"Then say Pax!" + +Something revolted in Ansell. Why should he say Pax? Freeing his hand, +he caught the little brute under the chin, and was again knocked into +the lobelias by a blow on the mouth. + +"Say Pax!" he repeated, pressing the philosopher's skull into the mould; +and he added, with an anxiety that was somehow not offensive, "I do +advise you. You'd really better." + +Ansell swallowed a little blood. He tried to move, and he could not. +He looked carefully into the young man's eyes and into the palm of his +right hand, which at present swung unclenched, and he said "Pax!" + +"Shake hands!" said the other, helping him up. There was nothing Ansell +loathed so much as the hearty Britisher; but he shook hands, and they +stared at each other awkwardly. With civil murmurs they picked the +little blue flowers off each other's clothes. Ansell was trying to +remember why they had quarrelled, and the young man was wondering why he +had not guarded his chin properly. In the distance a hymn swung off-- + +"Fight the good. Fight with. All thy. Might." + +They would be across from the chapel soon. + +"Your book, sir?" + +"Thank you, sir--yes." + +"Why!" cried the young man--"why, it's 'What We Want'! At least the +binding's exactly the same." + +"It's called 'Essays,'" said Ansell. + +"Then that's it. Mrs. Failing, you see, she wouldn't call it that, +because three W's, you see, in a row, she said, are vulgar, and sound +like Tolstoy, if you've heard of him." + +Ansell confessed to an acquaintance, and then said, "Do you think 'What +We Want' vulgar?" He was not at all interested, but he desired to escape +from the atmosphere of pugilistic courtesy, more painful to him than +blows themselves. + +"It IS the same book," said the other--"same title, same binding." He +weighed it like a brick in his muddy hands. + +"Open it to see if the inside corresponds," said Ansell, swallowing a +laugh and a little more blood with it. + +With a liberal allowance of thumb-marks, he turned the pages over and +read, "'the rural silence that is not a poet's luxury but a practical +need for all men.' Yes, it is the same book." Smiling pleasantly over +the discovery, he handed it back to the owner. + +"And is it true?" + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"Is it true that rural silence is a practical need?" + +"Don't ask me!" + +"Have you ever tried it?" + +"What?" + +"Rural silence." + +"A field with no noise in it, I suppose you mean. I don't understand." + +Ansell smiled, but a slight fire in the man's eye checked him. After +all, this was a person who could knock one down. Moreover, there was no +reason why he should be teased. He had it in him to retort "No. Why?" +He was not stupid in essentials. He was irritable--in Ansell's eyes a +frequent sign of grace. Sitting down on the upturned seat, he remarked, +"I like the book in many ways. I don't think 'What We Want' would have +been a vulgar title. But I don't intend to spoil myself on the chance of +mending the world, which is what the creed amounts to. Nor am I keen on +rural silences." + +"Curse!" he said thoughtfully, sucking at an empty pipe. + +"Tobacco?" + +"Please." + +"Rickie's is invariably--filthy." + +"Who says I know Rickie?" + +"Well, you know his aunt. It's a possible link. Be gentle with Rickie. +Don't knock him down if he doesn't think it's a nice morning." + +The other was silent. + +"Do you know him well?" + +"Kind of." He was not inclined to talk. The wish to smoke was very +violent in him, and Ansell noticed how he gazed at the wreaths that +ascended from bowl and stem, and how, when the stem was in his mouth, +he bit it. He gave the idea of an animal with just enough soul to +contemplate its own bliss. United with refinement, such a type was +common in Greece. It is not common today, and Ansell was surprised to +find it in a friend of Rickie's. Rickie, if he could even "kind of know" +such a creature, must be stirring in his grave. + +"Do you know his wife too?" + +"Oh yes. In a way I know Agnes. But thank you for this tobacco. Last +night I nearly died. I have no money." + +"Take the whole pouch--do." + +After a moment's hesitation he did. "Fight the good" had scarcely ended, +so quickly had their intimacy grown. + +"I suppose you're a friend of Rickie's?" + +Ansell was tempted to reply, "I don't know him at all." But it seemed +no moment for the severer truths, so he said, "I knew him well at +Cambridge, but I have seen very little of him since." + +"Is it true that his baby was lame?" + +"I believe so." + +His teeth closed on his pipe. Chapel was over. The organist was prancing +through the voluntary, and the first ripple of boys had already reached +Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters would be here too, and +Ansell, who was becoming interested, hurried the conversation forward. + +"Have you come far?" + +"From Wiltshire. Do you know Wiltshire?" And for the first time there +came into his face the shadow of a sentiment, the passing tribute to +some mystery. "It's a good country. I live in one of the finest valleys +out of Salisbury Plain. I mean, I lived." + +"Have you been dismissed from Cadover, without a penny in your pocket?" + +He was alarmed at this. Such knowledge seemed simply diabolical. Ansell +explained that if his boots were chalky, if his clothes had obviously +been slept in, if he knew Mrs. Failing, if he knew Wiltshire, and if +he could buy no tobacco--then the deduction was possible. "You do just +attend," he murmured. + +The house was filling with boys, and Ansell saw, to his regret, the head +of Agnes over the thuyia hedge that separated the small front garden +from the side lawn where he was sitting. After a few minutes it was +followed by the heads of Rickie and Mr. Pembroke. All the heads were +turned the other way. But they would find his card in the hall, and if +the man had left any message they would find that too. "What are you?" +he demanded. "Who are you--your name--I don't care about that. But it +interests me to class people, and up to now I have failed with you." + +"I--" He stopped. Ansell reflected that there are worse answers. "I +really don't know what I am. Used to think I was something special, but +strikes me now I feel much like other chaps. Used to look down on the +labourers. Used to take for granted I was a gentleman, but really I +don't know where I do belong." + +"One belongs to the place one sleeps in and to the people one eats +with." + +"As often as not I sleep out of doors and eat by myself, so that doesn't +get you any further." + +A silence, akin to poetry, invaded Ansell. Was it only a pose to like +this man, or was he really wonderful? He was not romantic, for Romance +is a figure with outstretched hands, yearning for the unattainable. +Certain figures of the Greeks, to whom we continually return, suggested +him a little. One expected nothing of him--no purity of phrase nor +swift edged thought. Yet the conviction grew that he had been back +somewhere--back to some table of the gods, spread in a field where there +is no noise, and that he belonged for ever to the guests with whom he +had eaten. Meanwhile he was simple and frank, and what he could tell he +would tell to any one. He had not the suburban reticence. Ansell asked +him, "Why did Mrs. Failing turn you out of Cadover? I should like to +hear that too." + +"Because she was tired of me. Because, again, I couldn't keep quiet over +the farm hands. I ask you, is it right?" He became incoherent. Ansell +caught, "And they grow old--they don't play games--it ends they can't +play." An illustration emerged. "Take a kitten--if you fool about with +her, she goes on playing well into a cat." + +"But Mrs. Failing minded no mice being caught." + +"Mice?" said the young man blankly. "What I was going to say is, that +some one was jealous of my being at Cadover. I'll mention no names, but +I fancy it was Mrs. Silt. I'm sorry for her if it was. Anyhow, she set +Mrs. Failing against me. It came on the top of other things--and out I +went." + +"What did Mrs. Silt, whose name I don't mention, say?" + +He looked guilty. "I don't know. Easy enough to find something to say. +The point is that she said something. You know, Mr.--I don't know your +name, mine's Wonham, but I'm more grateful than I can put it over +this tobacco. I mean, you ought to know there is another side to this +quarrel. It's wrong, but it's there." + +Ansell told him not to be uneasy: he lad already guessed that there +might be another side. But he could not make out why Mr. Wonham should +have come straight from the aunt to the nephew. They were now sitting +on the upturned seat. "What We Want," a good deal shattered, lay between +them. + +"On account of above-mentioned reasons, there was a row. I don't +know--you can guess the style of thing. She wanted to treat me to the +colonies, and had up the parson to talk soft-sawder and make out that +a boundless continent was the place for a lad like me. I said, 'I can't +run up to the Rings without getting tired, nor gallop a horse out +of this view without tiring it, so what is the point of a boundless +continent?' Then I saw that she was frightened of me, and bluffed a bit +more, and in the end I was nipped. She caught me--just like her! when +I had nothing on but flannels, and was coming into the house, having +licked the Cadchurch team. She stood up in the doorway between those +stone pilasters and said, 'No! Never again!' and behind her was +Wilbraham, whom I tried to turn out, and the gardener, and poor old +Leighton, who hates being hurt. She said, 'There's a hundred pounds for +you at the London bank, and as much more in December. Go!' I said, 'Keep +your--money, and tell me whose son I am.' I didn't care really. I only +said it on the off-chance of hurting her. Sure enough, she caught on +to the doorhandle (being lame) and said, 'I can't--I promised--I don't +really want to,' and Wilbraham did stare. Then--she's very queer--she +burst out laughing, and went for the packet after all, and we heard her +laugh through the window as she got it. She rolled it at me down +the steps, and she says, 'A leaf out of the eternal comedy for you, +Stephen,' or something of that sort. I opened it as I walked down the +drive, she laughing always and catching on to the handle of the front +door. Of course it wasn't comic at all. But down in the village there +were both cricket teams, already a little tight, and the mad plumber +shouting 'Rights of Man!' They knew I was turned out. We did have a row, +and kept it up too. They daren't touch Wilbraham's windows, but there +isn't much glass left up at Cadover. When you start, it's worth going +on, but in the end I had to cut. They subscribed a bob here and a bob +there, and these are Flea Thompson's Sundays. I sent a line to Leighton +not to forward my own things: I don't fancy them. They aren't really +mine." He did not mention his great symbolic act, performed, it is to be +feared, when he was rather drunk and the friendly policeman was looking +the other way. He had cast all his flannels into the little millpond, +and then waded himself through the dark cold water to the new clothes +on the other side. Some one had flung his pipe and his packet after him. +The packet had fallen short. For this reason it was wet when he handed +it to Ansell, and ink that had been dry for twenty-three years had begun +to run again. + +"I wondered if you're right about the hundred pounds," said Ansell +gravely. "It is pleasant to be proud, but it is unpleasant to die in the +night through not having any tobacco." + +"But I'm not proud. Look how I've taken your pouch! The hundred pounds +was--well, can't you see yourself, it was quite different? It was, so to +speak, inconvenient for me to take the hundred pounds. Or look again how +I took a shilling from a boy who earns nine bob a-week! Proves pretty +conclusively I'm not proud." + +Ansell saw it was useless to argue. He perceived, beneath the slatternly +use of words, the man, buttoned up in them, just as his body was +buttoned up in a shoddy suit,--and he wondered more than ever that such +a man should know the Elliots. He looked at the face, which was frank, +proud, and beautiful, if truth is beauty. Of mercy or tact such a face +knew little. It might be coarse, but it had in it nothing vulgar or +wantonly cruel. "May I read these papers?" he said. + +"Of course. Oh yes; didn't I say? I'm Rickie's half-brother, come here +to tell him the news. He doesn't know. There it is, put shortly for +you. I was saying, though, that I bolted in the dark, slept in the +rifle-butts above Salisbury, the sheds where they keep the cardboard +men, you know, never locked up as they ought to be. I turned the whole +place upside down to teach them." + +"Here is your packet again," said Ansell. "Thank you. How interesting!" +He rose from the seat and turned towards Dunwood House. He looked at +the bow-windows, the cheap picturesque gables, the terracotta dragons +clawing a dirty sky. He listened to the clink of plates and to the voice +of Mr. Pembroke taking one of his innumerable roll-calls. He looked at +the bed of lobelias. How interesting! What else was there to say? + +"One must be the son of some one," remarked Stephen. And that was all +he had to say. To him those names on the moistened paper were mere +antiquities. He was neither proud of them nor ashamed. A man must have +parents, or he cannot enter the delightful world. A man, if he has +a brother, may reasonably visit him, for they may have interests in +common. He continued his narrative, how in the night he had heard the +clocks, how at daybreak, instead of entering the city, he had struck +eastward to save money,--while Ansell still looked at the house and +found that all his imagination and knowledge could lead him no farther +than this: how interesting! + +"--And what do you think of that for a holy horror?" + +"For a what?" said Ansell, his thoughts far away. + +"This man I am telling you about, who gave me a lift towards Andover, +who said I was a blot on God's earth." + +One o'clock struck. It was strange that neither of them had had any +summons from the house. + +"He said I ought to be ashamed of myself. He said, 'I'll not be the +means of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady.' I told him +not to be a fool. I said I knew what I was about. Rickie and Agnes are +properly educated, which leads people to look at things straight, and +not go screaming about blots. A man like me, with just a little reading +at odd hours--I've got so far, and Rickie has been through Cambridge." + +"And Mrs. Elliot?" + +"Oh, she won't mind, and I told the man so; but he kept on saying, 'I'll +not be the means of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady,' +until I got out of his rotten cart." His eye watched the man a +Nonconformist, driving away over God's earth. "I caught the train by +running. I got to Waterloo at--" + +Here the parlour-maid fluttered towards them, Would Mr. Wonham come in? +Mrs. Elliot would be glad to see him now. + +"Mrs. Elliot?" cried Ansell. "Not Mr. Elliot?" + +"It's all the same," said Stephen, and moved towards the house. + +"You see, I only left my name. They don't know why I've come." + +"Perhaps Mr. Elliot sees me meanwhile?" + +The parlour-maid looked blank. Mr. Elliot had not said so. He had been +with Mrs. Elliot and Mr. Pembroke in the study. Now the gentlemen had +gone upstairs. + +"All right, I can wait." After all, Rickie was treating him as he had +treated Rickie, as one in the grave, to whom it is futile to make any +loving motion. Gone upstairs--to brush his hair for dinner! The irony +of the situation appealed to him strongly. It reminded him of the Greek +Drama, where the actors know so little and the spectators so much. + +"But, by the bye," he called after Stephen, "I think I ought to tell +you--don't--" + +"What is it?" + +"Don't--" Then he was silent. He had been tempted to explain everything, +to tell the fellow how things stood, that he must avoid this if he +wanted to attain that; that he must break the news to Rickie gently; +that he must have at least one battle royal with Agnes. But it was +contrary to his own spirit to coach people: he held the human soul to +be a very delicate thing, which can receive eternal damage from a little +patronage. Stephen must go into the house simply as himself, for thus +alone would he remain there. + +"I ought to knock my pipe out? Was that it?" "By no means. Go in, your +pipe and you." + +He hesitated, torn between propriety and desire. Then he followed the +parlour-maid into the house smoking. As he entered the dinner-bell rang, +and there was the sound of rushing feet, which died away into shuffling +and silence. Through the window of the boys' dining-hall came the +colourless voice of Rickie--"'Benedictus benedicat.'" + +Ansell prepared himself to witness the second act of the drama; +forgetting that all this world, and not part of it, is a stage. + + + +XXVII + +The parlour-maid took Mr. Wonham to the study. He had been in the +drawing-room before, but had got bored, and so had strolled out into +the garden. Now he was in better spirits, as a man ought to be who has +knocked down a man. As he passed through the hall he sparred at the +teak monkey, and hung his cap on the bust of Hermes. And he greeted Mrs. +Elliot with a pleasant clap of laughter. "Oh, I've come with the most +tremendous news!" he cried. + +She bowed, but did not shake hands, which rather surprised him. But +he never troubled over "details." He seldom watched people, and never +thought that they were watching him. Nor could he guess how much it +meant to her that he should enter her presence smoking. Had she not +said once at Cadover, "Oh, please smoke; I love the smell of a pipe"? + +"Would you sit down? Exactly there, please." She placed him at a large +table, opposite an inkpot and a pad of blotting-paper. + +"Will you tell your 'tremendous news' to me? My brother and my husband +are giving the boys their dinner." + +"Ah!" said Stephen, who had had neither time nor money for breakfast in +London. + +"I told them not to wait for me." + +So he came to the point at once. He trusted this handsome woman. His +strength and his youth called to hers, expecting no prudish response. +"It's very odd. It is that I'm Rickie's brother. I've just found out. +I've come to tell you all." + +"Yes?" + +He felt in his pocket for the papers. "Half-brother I ought to have +said." + +"Yes?" + +"I'm illegitimate. Legally speaking, that is, I've been turned out of +Cadover. I haven't a penny. I--" + +"There is no occasion to inflict the details." Her face, which had been +an even brown, began to flush slowly in the centre of the cheeks. The +colour spread till all that he saw of her was suffused, and she turned +away. He thought he had shocked her, and so did she. Neither knew that +the body can be insincere and express not the emotions we feel but those +that we should like to feel. In reality she was quite calm, and her +dislike of him had nothing emotional in it as yet. + +"You see--" he began. He was determined to tell the fidgety story, for +the sooner it was over the sooner they would have something to eat. +Delicacy he lacked, and his sympathies were limited. But such as they +were, they rang true: he put no decorous phantom between him and his +desires. + +"I do see. I have seen for two years." She sat down at the head of the +table, where there was another ink-pot. Into this she dipped a pen. "I +have seen everything, Mr. Wonham--who you are, how you have behaved at +Cadover, how you must have treated Mrs. Failing yesterday; and now"--her +voice became very grave--"I see why you have come here, penniless. +Before you speak, we know what you will say." + +His mouth fell open, and he laughed so merrily that it might have given +her a warning. But she was thinking how to follow up her first success. +"And I thought I was bringing tremendous news!" he cried. "I only +twisted it out of Mrs. Failing last night. And Rickie knows too?" + +"We have known for two years." + +"But come, by the bye,--if you've known for two years, how is it you +didn't--" The laugh died out of his eyes. "You aren't ashamed?" he +asked, half rising from his chair. "You aren't like the man towards +Andover?" + +"Please, please sit down," said Agnes, in the even tones she used +when speaking to the servants; "let us not discuss side issues. I am a +horribly direct person, Mr. Wonham. I go always straight to the point." +She opened a chequebook. "I am afraid I shall shock you. For how much?" + +He was not attending. + +"There is the paper we suggest you shall sign." She pushed towards him a +pseudo-legal document, just composed by Herbert. + +"In consideration of the sum of..., I agree to perpetual silence--to +restrain from libellous...never to molest the said Frederick Elliot by +intruding--'" + +His brain was not quick. He read the document over twice, and he could +still say, "But what's that cheque for?" + +"It is my husband's. He signed for you as soon as we heard you were +here. We guessed you had come to be silenced. Here is his signature. But +he has left the filling in for me. For how much? I will cross it, shall +I? You will just have started a banking account, if I understand Mrs. +Failing rightly. It is not quite accurate to say you are penniless: I +heard from her just before you returned from your cricket. She allows +you two hundred a-year, I think. But this additional sum--shall I date +the cheque Saturday or for tomorrow?" + +At last he found words. Knocking his pipe out on the table, he said +slowly, "Here's a very bad mistake." + +"It is quite possible," retorted Agnes. She was glad she had taken the +offensive, instead of waiting till he began his blackmailing, as had +been the advice of Rickie. Aunt Emily had said that very spring, "One's +only hope with Stephen is to start bullying first." Here he was, quite +bewildered, smearing the pipe-ashes with his thumb. He asked to read the +document again. "A stamp and all!" he remarked. + +They had anticipated that his claim would exceed two pounds. + +"I see. All right. It takes a fool a minute. Never mind. I've made a bad +mistake." + +"You refuse?" she exclaimed, for he was standing at the door. "Then do +your worst! We defy you!" + +"That's all right, Mrs. Elliot," he said roughly. "I don't want a scene +with you, nor yet with your husband. We'll say no more about it. It's +all right. I mean no harm." + +"But your signature then! You must sign--you--" + +He pushed past her, and said as he reached for his cap, "There, that's +all right. It's my mistake. I'm sorry." He spoke like a farmer who has +failed to sell a sheep. His manner was utterly prosaic, and up to the +last she thought he had not understood her. "But it's money we offer +you," she informed him, and then darted back to the study, believing +for one terrible moment that he had picked up the blank cheque. When she +returned to the hall he had gone. He was walking down the road rather +quickly. At the corner he cleared his throat, spat into the gutter, and +disappeared. + +"There's an odd finish," she thought. She was puzzled, and determined to +recast the interview a little when she related it to Rickie. She had +not succeeded, for the paper was still unsigned. But she had so cowed +Stephen that he would probably rest content with his two hundred a-year, +and never come troubling them again. Clever management, for one knew +him to be rapacious: she had heard tales of him lending to the poor +and exacting repayment to the uttermost farthing. He had also stolen at +school. Moderately triumphant, she hurried into the side-garden: she had +just remembered Ansell: she, not Rickie, had received his card. + +"Oh, Mr. Ansell!" she exclaimed, awaking him from some day-dream. +"Haven't either Rickie or Herbert been out to you? Now, do come into +dinner, to show you aren't offended. You will find all of us assembled +in the boys' dining-hall." + +To her annoyance he accepted. + +"That is, if the Jacksons are not expecting you." + +The Jacksons did not matter. If he might brush his clothes and bathe his +lip, he would like to come. + +"Oh, what has happened to you? And oh, my pretty lobelias!" + +He replied, "A momentary contact with reality," and she, who did not +look for sense in his remarks, hurried away to the dining-hall to +announce him. + +The dining-hall was not unlike the preparation room. There was the +same parquet floor, and dado of shiny pitchpine. On its walls also +were imperial portraits, and over the harmonium to which they sang the +evening hymns was spread the Union Jack. Sunday dinner, the most pompous +meal of the week, was in progress. Her brother sat at the head of the +high table, her husband at the head of the second. To each he gave a +reassuring nod and went to her own seat, which was among the junior +boys. The beef was being carried out; she stopped it. "Mr. Ansell +is coming," she called. "Herbert there is more room by you; sit up +straight, boys." The boys sat up straight, and a respectful hush spread +over the room. + +"Here he is!" called Rickie cheerfully, taking his cue from his wife. +"Oh, this is splendid!" Ansell came in. "I'm so glad you managed this. +I couldn't leave these wretches last night!" The boys tittered suitably. +The atmosphere seemed normal. Even Herbert, though longing to hear what +had happened to the blackmailer, gave adequate greeting to their guest: +"Come in, Mr. Ansell; come here. Take us as you find us!" + +"I understood," said Stewart, "that I should find you all. Mrs. Elliot +told me I should. On that understanding I came." + +It was at once evident that something had gone wrong. + +Ansell looked round the room carefully. Then clearing his throat and +ruffling his hair, he began--"I cannot see the man with whom I have +talked, intimately, for an hour, in your garden." + +The worst of it was they were all so far from him and from each other, +each at the end of a tableful of inquisitive boys. The two masters +looked at Agnes for information, for her reassuring nod had not told +them much. She looked hopelessly back. + +"I cannot see this man," repeated Ansell, who remained by the harmonium +in the midst of astonished waitresses. "Is he to be given no lunch?" + +Herbert broke the silence by fresh greetings. Rickie knew that the +contest was lost, and that his friend had sided with the enemy. It was +the kind of thing he would do. One must face the catastrophe quietly +and with dignity. Perhaps Ansell would have turned on his heel, and left +behind him only vague suspicions, if Mrs. Elliot had not tried to talk +him down. "Man," she cried--"what man? Oh, I know--terrible bore! Did +he get hold of you?"--thus committing their first blunder, and causing +Ansell to say to Rickie, "Have you seen your brother?" + +"I have not." + +"Have you been told he was here?" + +Rickie's answer was inaudible. + +"Have you been told you have a brother?" + +"Let us continue this conversation later." + +"Continue it? My dear man, how can we until you know what I'm talking +about? You must think me mad; but I tell you solemnly that you have a +brother of whom you've never heard, and that he was in this house ten +minutes ago." He paused impressively. "Your wife has happened to see +him first. Being neither serious nor truthful, she is keeping you apart, +telling him some lie and not telling you a word." + +There was a murmur of alarm. One of the prefects rose, and Ansell set +his back to the wall, quite ready for a battle. For two years he had +waited for his opportunity. He would hit out at Mrs. Elliot like +any ploughboy now that it had come. Rickie said: "There is a slight +misunderstanding. I, like my wife, have known what there is to know for +two years"--a dignified rebuff, but their second blunder. + +"Exactly," said Agnes. "Now I think Mr. Ansell had better go." + +"Go?" exploded Ansell. "I've everything to say yet. I beg your pardon, +Mrs. Elliot, I am concerned with you no longer. This man"--he turned +to the avenue of faces--"this man who teaches you has a brother. He has +known of him two years and been ashamed. He has--oh--oh--how it fits +together! Rickie, it's you, not Mrs. Silt, who must have sent tales of +him to your aunt. It's you who've turned him out of Cadover. It's you +who've ordered him to be ruined today." + +Now Herbert arose. "Out of my sight, sir! But have it from me first that +Rickie and his aunt have both behaved most generously. No, no, Agnes, +I'll not be interrupted. Garbled versions must not get about. If the +Wonham man is not satisfied now, he must be insatiable. He cannot levy +blackmail on us for ever. Sir, I give you two minutes; then you will be +expelled by force." + +"Two minutes!" sang Ansell. "I can say a great deal in that." He put +one foot on a chair and held his arms over the quivering room. He seemed +transfigured into a Hebrew prophet passionate for satire and the truth. +"Oh, keep quiet for two minutes," he cried, "and I'll tell you something +you'll be glad to hear. You're a little afraid Stephen may come back. +Don't be afraid. I bring good news. You'll never see him nor any one +like him again. I must speak very plainly, for you are all three +fools. I don't want you to say afterwards, 'Poor Mr. Ansell tried to be +clever.' Generally I don't mind, but I should mind today. Please listen. +Stephen is a bully; he drinks; he knocks one down; but he would sooner +die than take money from people he did not love. Perhaps he will die, +for he has nothing but a few pence that the poor gave him and some +tobacco which, to my eternal glory, he accepted from me. Please listen +again. Why did he come here? Because he thought you would love him, and +was ready to love you. But I tell you, don't be afraid. He would sooner +die now than say you were his brother. Please listen again--" + +"Now, Stewart, don't go on like that," said Rickie bitterly. "It's easy +enough to preach when you are an outsider. You would be more +charitable if such a thing had happened to yourself. Easy enough to be +unconventional when you haven't suffered and know nothing of the facts. +You love anything out of the way, anything queer, that doesn't often +happen, and so you get excited over this. It's useless, my dear man; +you have hurt me, but you will never upset me. As soon as you stop this +ridiculous scene we will finish our dinner. Spread this scandal; add +to it. I'm too old to mind such nonsense. I cannot help my father's +disgrace, on the one hand; nor, on the other, will I have anything to do +with his blackguard of a son." + +So the secret was given to the world. Agnes might colour at his speech; +Herbert might calculate the effect of it on the entries for Dunwood +House; but he cared for none of these things. Thank God! he was withered +up at last. + +"Please listen again," resumed Ansell. "Please correct two slight +mistakes: firstly, Stephen is one of the greatest people I have ever +met; secondly, he's not your father's son. He's the son of your mother." + +It was Rickie, not Ansell, who was carried from the hall, and it was +Herbert who pronounced the blessing-- + +"Benedicto benedicatur." + +A profound stillness succeeded the storm, and the boys, slipping away +from their meal, told the news to the rest of the school, or put it in +the letters they were writing home. + + + +XXVIII + +The soul has her own currency. She mints her spiritual coinage and +stamps it with the image of some beloved face. With it she pays her +debts, with it she reckons, saying, "This man has worth, this man is +worthless." And in time she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a +thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can also have her bankruptcies. + +Perhaps she will be the richer in the end. In her agony she learns to +reckon clearly. Fair as the coin may have been, it was not accurate; and +though she knew it not, there were treasures that it could not buy. The +face, however beloved, was mortal, and as liable as the soul herself to +err. We do but shift responsibility by making a standard of the dead. + +There is, indeed, another coinage that bears on it not man's image but +God's. It is incorruptible, and the soul may trust it safely; it will +serve her beyond the stars. But it cannot give us friends, or the +embrace of a lover, or the touch of children, for with our fellow +mortals it has no concern. It cannot even give the joys we call +trivial--fine weather, the pleasures of meat and drink, bathing and the +hot sand afterwards, running, dreamless sleep. Have we learnt the true +discipline of a bankruptcy if we turn to such coinage as this? Will it +really profit us so much if we save our souls and lose the whole world? + + + + +PART 3 -- WILTSHIRE + +XXIX + +Robert--there is no occasion to mention his surname: he was a young +farmer of some education who tried to coax the aged soil of Wiltshire +scientifically--came to Cadover on business and fell in love with Mrs. +Elliot. She was there on her bridal visit, and he, an obscure nobody, +was received by Mrs. Failing into the house and treated as her social +equal. He was good-looking in a bucolic way, and people sometimes +mistook him for a gentleman until they saw his hands. He discovered +this, and one of the slow, gentle jokes he played on society was to +talk upon some cultured subject with his hands behind his back and then +suddenly reveal them. "Do you go in for boating?" the lady would ask; +and then he explained that those particular weals are made by the +handles of the plough. Upon which she became extremely interested, but +found an early opportunity of talking to some one else. + +He played this joke on Mrs. Elliot the first evening, not knowing that +she observed him as he entered the room. He walked heavily, lifting his +feet as if the carpet was furrowed, and he had no evening clothes. Every +one tried to put him at his ease, but she rather suspected that he was +there already, and envied him. They were introduced, and spoke of Byron, +who was still fashionable. Out came his hands--the only rough hands in +the drawing-room, the only hands that had ever worked. She was filled +with some strange approval, and liked him. + +After dinner they met again, to speak not of Byron but of manure. The +other people were so clever and so amusing that it relieved her to +listen to a man who told her three times not to buy artificial manure +ready made, but, if she would use it, to make it herself at the last +moment. Because the ammonia evaporated. Here were two packets of powder. +Did they smell? No. Mix them together and pour some coffee--An appalling +smell at once burst forth, and every one began to cough and cry. This +was good for the earth when she felt sour, for he knew when the earth +was ill. He knew, too, when she was hungry he spoke of her tantrums--the +strange unscientific element in her that will baffle the scientist to +the end of time. "Study away, Mrs. Elliot," he told her; "read all the +books you can get hold of; but when it comes to the point, stroll out +with a pipe in your mouth and do a bit of guessing." As he talked, the +earth became a living being--or rather a being with a living skin,--and +manure no longer dirty stuff, but a symbol of regeneration and of the +birth of life from life. "So it goes on for ever!" she cried excitedly. +He replied: "Not for ever. In time the fire at the centre will cool, and +nothing can go on then." + +He advanced into love with open eyes, slowly, heavily, just as he had +advanced across the drawing room carpet. But this time the bride did not +observe his tread. She was listening to her husband, and trying not to +be so stupid. When he was close to her--so close that it was difficult +not to take her in his arms--he spoke to Mr. Failing, and was at once +turned out of Cadover. + +"I'm sorry," said Mr. Failing, as he walked down the drive with his hand +on his guest's shoulder. "I had no notion you were that sort. Any one +who behaves like that has to stop at the farm." + +"Any one?" + +"Any one." He sighed heavily, not for any personal grievance, but +because he saw how unruly, how barbaric, is the soul of man. After all, +this man was more civilized than most. + +"Are you angry with me, sir?" He called him "sir," not because he was +richer or cleverer or smarter, not because he had helped to educate him +and had lent him money, but for a reason more profound--for the reason +that there are gradations in heaven. + +"I did think you--that a man like you wouldn't risk making people +unhappy. My sister-in-law--I don't say this to stop you loving her; +something else must do that--my sister-in-law, as far as I know, doesn't +care for you one little bit. If you had said anything, if she had +guessed that a chance person was in--this fearful state, you would +simply--have opened hell. A woman of her sort would have lost all--" + +"I knew that." + +Mr. Failing removed his hand. He was displeased. + +"But something here," said Robert incoherently. "This here." He struck +himself heavily on the heart. "This here, doing something so unusual, +makes it not matter what she loses--I--" After a silence he asked, "Have +I quite followed you, sir, in that business of the brotherhood of man?" + +"How do you mean?" + +"I thought love was to bring it about." + +"Love of another man's wife? Sensual love? You have understood +nothing--nothing." Then he was ashamed, and cried, "I understand nothing +myself." For he remembered that sensual and spiritual are not easy words +to use; that there are, perhaps, not two Aphrodites, but one Aphrodite +with a Janus face. "I only understand that you must try to forget her." + +"I will not try." + +"Promise me just this, then--not to do anything crooked." + +"I'm straight. No boasting, but I couldn't do a crooked thing--No, not +if I tried." + +And so appallingly straight was he in after years, that Mr. Failing +wished that he had phrased the promise differently. + +Robert simply waited. He told himself that it was hopeless; but +something deeper than himself declared that there was hope. He gave up +drink, and kept himself in all ways clean, for he wanted to be worthy +of her when the time came. Women seemed fond of him, and caused him to +reflect with pleasure, "They do run after me. There must be something in +me. Good. I'd be done for if there wasn't." For six years he turned up +the earth of Wiltshire, and read books for the sake of his mind, and +talked to gentlemen for the sake of their patois, and each year he rode +to Cadover to take off his hat to Mrs. Elliot, and, perhaps, to speak +to her about the crops. Mr. Failing was generally present, and it struck +neither man that those dull little visits were so many words out of +which a lonely woman might build sentences. Then Robert went to London +on business. He chanced to see Mr. Elliot with a strange lady. The time +had come. + +He became diplomatic, and called at Mr. Elliot's rooms to find things +out. For if Mrs. Elliot was happier than he could ever make her, he +would withdraw, and love her in renunciation. But if he could make her +happier, he would love her in fulfilment. Mr. Elliot admitted him as a +friend of his brother-in-law's, and felt very broad-minded as he did +so. Robert, however, was a success. The youngish men there found him +interesting, and liked to shock him with tales of naughty London and +naughtier Paris. They spoke of "experience" and "sensations" and "seeing +life," and when a smile ploughed over his face, concluded that his +prudery was vanquished. He saw that they were much less vicious than +they supposed: one boy had obviously read his sensations in a book. But +he could pardon vice. What he could not pardon was triviality, and he +hoped that no decent woman could pardon it either. There grew up in him +a cold, steady anger against these silly people who thought it advanced +to be shocking, and who described, as something particularly choice and +educational, things that he had understood and fought against for years. +He inquired after Mrs. Elliot, and a boy tittered. It seemed that she +"did not know," that she lived in a remote suburb, taking care of a +skinny baby. "I shall call some time or other," said Robert. "Do," said +Mr. Elliot, smiling. And next time he saw his wife he congratulated her +on her rustic admirer. + +She had suffered terribly. She had asked for bread, and had been given +not even a stone. People talk of hungering for the ideal, but there is +another hunger, quite as divine, for facts. She had asked for facts +and had been given "views," "emotional standpoints," "attitudes towards +life." To a woman who believed that facts are beautiful, that the living +world is beautiful beyond the laws of beauty, that manure is neither +gross nor ludicrous, that a fire, not eternal, glows at the heart of +the earth, it was intolerable to be put off with what the Elliots called +"philosophy," and, if she refused, to be told that she had no sense of +humour. "Tarrying into the Elliot family." It had sounded so splendid, +for she was a penniless child with nothing to offer, and the Elliots +held their heads high. For what reason? What had they ever done, except +say sarcastic things, and limp, and be refined? Mr. Failing suffered +too, but she suffered more, inasmuch as Frederick was more impossible +than Emily. He did not like her, he practically lived apart, he was not +even faithful or polite. These were grave faults, but they were human +ones: she could even imagine them in a man she loved. What she could +never love was a dilettante. + +Robert brought her an armful of sweet-peas. He laid it on the table, +put his hands behind his back, and kept them there till the end of the +visit. She knew quite well why he had come, and though she also knew +that he would fail, she loved him too much to snub him or to stare in +virtuous indignation. "Why have you come?" she asked gravely, "and why +have you brought me so many flowers?" + +"My garden is full of them," he answered. "Sweetpeas need picking down. +And, generally speaking, flowers are plentiful in July." + +She broke his present into bunches--so much for the drawing-room, so +much for the nursery, so much for the kitchen and her husband's room: +he would be down for the night. The most beautiful she would keep for +herself. Presently he said, "Your husband is no good. I've watched him +for a week. I'm thirty, and not what you call hasty, as I used to be, +or thinking that nothing matters like the French. No. I'm a plain +Britisher, yet--I--I've begun wrong end, Mrs. Elliot; I should have said +that I've thought chiefly of you for six years, and that though I talk +here so respectfully, if I once unhooked my hands--" + +There was a pause. Then she said with great sweetness, "Thank you; I am +glad you love me," and rang the bell. + +"What have you done that for?" he cried. + +"Because you must now leave the house, and never enter it again." + +"I don't go alone," and he began to get furious. + +Her voice was still sweet, but strength lay in it too, as she said, +"You either go now with my thanks and blessing, or else you go with +the police. I am Mrs. Elliot. We need not discuss Mr. Elliot. I am Mrs. +Elliot, and if you make one step towards me I give you in charge." + +But the maid answered the bell not of the drawing-room, but of the front +door. They were joined by Mr. Elliot, who held out his hand with much +urbanity. It was not taken. He looked quickly at his wife, and said, "Am +I de trop?" There was a long silence. At last she said, "Frederick, turn +this man out." + +"My love, why?" + +Robert said that he loved her. + +"Then I am de trop," said Mr. Elliot, smoothing out his gloves. He would +give these sodden barbarians a lesson. "My hansom is waiting at the +door. Pray make use of it." + +"Don't!" she cried, almost affectionately. "Dear Frederick, it isn't a +play. Just tell this man to go, or send for the police." + +"On the contrary; it is French comedy of the best type. Don't you agree, +sir, that the police would be an inartistic error?" He was perfectly +calm and collected, whereas they were in a pitiable state. + +"Turn him out at once!" she cried. "He has insulted your wife. Save me, +save me!" She clung to her husband and wept. "He was going I had managed +him--he would never have known--" Mr. Elliot repulsed her. + +"If you don't feel inclined to start at once," he said with easy +civility, "Let us have a little tea. My dear sir, do forgive me for not +shooting you. Nous avons change tout cela. Please don't look so nervous. +Please do unclasp your hands--" + +He was alone. + +"That's all right," he exclaimed, and strolled to the door. The hansom +was disappearing round the corner. "That's all right," he repeated in +more quavering tones as he returned to the drawing-room and saw that it +was littered with sweet-peas. Their colour got on his nerves--magenta, +crimson; magenta, crimson. He tried to pick them up, and they escaped. +He trod them underfoot, and they multiplied and danced in the triumph +of summer like a thousand butterflies. The train had left when he got to +the station. He followed on to London, and there he lost all traces. +At midnight he began to realize that his wife could never belong to him +again. + +Mr. Failing had a letter from Stockholm. It was never known what impulse +sent them there. "I am sorry about it all, but it was the only way." +The letter censured the law of England, "which obliges us to behave like +this, or else we should never get married. I shall come back to face +things: she will not come back till she is my wife. He must bring an +action soon, or else we shall try one against him. It seems all very +unconventional, but it is not really, it is only a difficult start. We +are not like you or your wife: we want to be just ordinary people, and +make the farm pay, and not be noticed all our lives." + +And they were capable of living as they wanted. The class difference, +which so intrigued Mrs. Failing, meant very little to them. It was +there, but so were other things. + +They both cared for work and living in the open, and for not speaking +unless they had got something to say. Their love of beauty, like their +love for each other, was not dependent on detail: it grew not from the +nerves but from the soul. + +"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars +And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of +the wren, And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the +running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven." + +They had never read these lines, and would have thought them nonsense if +they had. They did not dissect--indeed they could not. But she, at all +events, divined that more than perfect health and perfect weather, more +than personal love, had gone to the making of those seventeen days. + +"Ordinary people!" cried Mrs. Failing on hearing the letter. At that +time she was young and daring. "Why, they're divine! They're forces of +Nature! They're as ordinary as volcanoes. We all knew my brother was +disgusting, and wanted him to be blown to pieces, but we never thought +it would happen. Do look at the thing bravely, and say, as I do, that +they are guiltless in the sight of God." + +"I think they are," replied her husband. "But they are not guiltless in +the sight of man." + +"You conventional!" she exclaimed in disgust. "What they have done means +misery not only for themselves but for others. For your brother, though +you will not think of him. For the little boy--did you think of him? And +perhaps for another child, who will have the whole world against him if +it knows. They have sinned against society, and you do not diminish +the misery by proving that society is bad or foolish. It is the saddest +truth I have yet perceived that the Beloved Republic"--here she took up +a book--"of which Swinburne speaks"--she put the book down--"will not +be brought about by love alone. It will approach with no flourish +of trumpets, and have no declaration of independence. Self-sacrifice +and--worse still--self-mutilation are the things that sometimes help it +most, and that is why we should start for Stockholm this evening." He +waited for her indignation to subside, and then continued. "I don't know +whether it can be hushed up. I don't yet know whether it ought to be +hushed up. But we ought to provide the opportunity. There is no scandal +yet. If we go, it is just possible there never will be any. We must talk +over the whole thing and--" + +"--And lie!" interrupted Mrs. Failing, who hated travel. + +"--And see how to avoid the greatest unhappiness." + +There was to be no scandal. By the time they arrived Robert had been +drowned. Mrs. Elliot described how they had gone swimming, and how, +"since he always lived inland," the great waves had tired him. They had +raced for the open sea. + +"What are your plans?" he asked. "I bring you a message from Frederick." + +"I heard him call," she continued, "but I thought he was laughing. When +I turned, it was too late. He put his hands behind his back and sank. +For he would only have drowned me with him. I should have done the +same." + +Mrs. Failing was thrilled, and kissed her. But Mr. Failing knew that +life does not continue heroic for long, and he gave her the message from +her husband: Would she come back to him? + +To his intense astonishment--at first to his regret--she replied, "I +will think about it. If I loved him the very least bit I should say no. +If I had anything to do with my life I should say no. But it is simply +a question of beating time till I die. Nothing that is coming matters. I +may as well sit in his drawing-room and dust his furniture, since he has +suggested it." + +And Mr. Elliot, though he made certain stipulations, was positively glad +to see her. People had begun to laugh at him, and to say that his wife +had run away. She had not. She had been with his sister in Sweden. In +a half miraculous way the matter was hushed up. Even the Silts only +scented "something strange." When Stephen was born, it was abroad. When +he came to England, it was as the child of a friend of Mr. Failing's. +Mrs. Elliot returned unsuspected to her husband. + +But though things can be hushed up, there is no such thing as beating +time; and as the years passed she realized her terrible mistake. When +her lover sank, eluding her last embrace, she thought, as Agnes was to +think after her, that her soul had sunk with him, and that never again +should she be capable of earthly love. Nothing mattered. She might as +well go and be useful to her husband and to the little boy who looked +exactly like him, and who, she thought, was exactly like him in +disposition. Then Stephen was born, and altered her life. She could +still love people passionately; she still drew strength from the heroic +past. Yet, to keep to her bond, she must see this son only as a +stranger. She was protected be the conventions, and must pay them their +fee. And a curious thing happened. Her second child drew her towards her +first. She began to love Rickie also, and to be more than useful to him. +And as her love revived, so did her capacity for suffering. Life, more +important, grew more bitter. She minded her husband more, not less; and +when at last he died, and she saw a glorious autumn, beautiful with the +voices of boys who should call her mother, the end came for her as well, +before she could remember the grave in the alien north and the dust that +would never return to the dear fields that had given it. + + + +XXX + +Stephen, the son of these people, had one instinct that troubled him. +At night--especially out of doors--it seemed rather strange that he was +alive. The dry grass pricked his cheek, the fields were invisible and +mute, and here was he, throwing stones at the darkness or smoking a +pipe. The stones vanished, the pipe would burn out. But he would be here +in the morning when the sun rose, and he would bathe, and run in the +mist. He was proud of his good circulation, and in the morning it seemed +quite natural. But at night, why should there be this difference between +him and the acres of land that cooled all round him until the sun +returned? What lucky chance had heated him up, and sent him, warm and +lovable, into a passive world? He had other instincts, but these gave +him no trouble. He simply gratified each as it occurred, provided he +could do so without grave injury to his fellows. But the instinct to +wonder at the night was not to be thus appeased. At first he had lived +under the care of Mr. Failing the only person to whom his mother spoke +freely, the only person who had treated her neither as a criminal nor as +a pioneer. In their rare but intimate conversations she had asked him to +educate her son. "I will teach him Latin," he answered. "The rest such +a boy must remember." Latin, at all events, was a failure: who could +attend to Virgil when the sound of the thresher arose, and you knew +that the stack was decreasing and that rats rushed more plentifully each +moment to their doom? But he was fond of Mr. Failing, and cried when he +died. Mrs. Elliot, a pleasant woman, died soon after. + +There was something fatal in the order of these deaths. Mr. Failing had +made no provision for the boy in his will: his wife had promised to +see to this. Then came Mr. Elliot's death, and, before the new home +was created, the sudden death of Mrs. Elliot. She also left Stephen no +money: she had none to leave. Chance threw him into the power of Mrs. +Failing. "Let things go on as they are," she thought. "I will take care +of this pretty little boy, and the ugly little boy can live with the +Silts. After my death--well, the papers will be found after my death, +and they can meet then. I like the idea of their mutual ignorance. It is +amusing." + +He was then twelve. With a few brief intervals of school, he lived in +Wiltshire until he was driven out. Life had two distinct sides--the +drawing-room and the other. In the drawing-room people talked a good +deal, laughing as they talked. Being clever, they did not care for +animals: one man had never seen a hedgehog. In the other life people +talked and laughed separately, or even did neither. On the whole, in +spite of the wet and gamekeepers, this life was preferable. He knew +where he was. He glanced at the boy, or later at the man, and behaved +accordingly. There was no law--the policeman was negligible. Nothing +bound him but his own word, and he gave that sparingly. + +It is impossible to be romantic when you have your heart's desire, and +such a boy disappointed Mrs. Failing greatly. His parents had met for +one brief embrace, had found one little interval between the power of +the rulers of this world and the power of death. He was the child of +poetry and of rebellion, and poetry should run in his veins. But he +lived too near the things he loved to seem poetical. Parted from them, +he might yet satisfy her, and stretch out his hands with a pagan's +yearning. As it was, he only rode her horses, and trespassed, and +bathed, and worked, for no obvious reason, upon her fields. Affection +she did not believe in, and made no attempt to mould him; and he, for +his part, was very content to harden untouched into a man. His parents +had given him excellent gifts--health, sturdy limbs, and a face not +ugly,--gifts that his habits confirmed. They had also given him a +cloudless spirit--the spirit of the seventeen days in which he was +created. But they had not given him the spirit of their sit years of +waiting, and love for one person was never to be the greatest thing he +knew. + +"Philosophy" had postponed the quarrel between them. Incurious about his +personal origin, he had a certain interest in our eternal problems. The +interest never became a passion: it sprang out of his physical growth, +and was soon merged in it again. Or, as he put it himself, "I must get +fixed up before starting." He was soon fixed up as a materialist. Then +he tore up the sixpenny reprints, and never amused Mrs. Failing so much +again. + +About the time he fixed himself up, he took to drink. He knew of no +reason against it. The instinct was in him, and it hurt nobody. Here, as +elsewhere, his motions were decided, and he passed at once from roaring +jollity to silence. For those who live on the fuddled borderland, who +crawl home by the railings and maunder repentance in the morning, he had +a biting contempt. A man must take his tumble and his headache. He was, +in fact, as little disgusting as is conceivable; and hitherto he had not +strained his constitution or his will. Nor did he get drunk as often as +Agnes suggested. The real quarrel gathered elsewhere. + + +Presentable people have run wild in their youth. But the hour comes when +they turn from their boorish company to higher things. This hour never +came for Stephen. Somewhat a bully by nature, he kept where his powers +would tell, and continued to quarrel and play with the men he had known +as boys. He prolonged their youth unduly. "They won't settle down," said +Mr. Wilbraham to his wife. "They're wanting things. It's the germ of +a Trades Union. I shall get rid of a few of the worst." Then Stephen +rushed up to Mrs. Failing and worried her. "It wasn't fair. So-and-so +was a good sort. He did his work. Keen about it? No. Why should he be? +Why should he be keen about somebody else's land? But keen enough. And +very keen on football." She laughed, and said a word about So-and-so +to Mr. Wilbraham. Mr. Wilbraham blazed up. "How could the farm go +on without discipline? How could there be discipline if Mr. Stephen +interfered? Mr. Stephen liked power. He spoke to the men like one of +themselves, and pretended it was all equality, but he took care to come +out top. Natural, of course, that, being a gentleman, he should. But +not natural for a gentleman to loiter all day with poor people and learn +their work, and put wrong notions into their heads, and carry their +newfangled grievances to Mrs. Failing. Which partly accounted for the +deficit on the past year." She rebuked Stephen. Then he lost his temper, +was rude to her, and insulted Mr. Wilbraham. + +The worst days of Mr. Failing's rule seemed to be returning. And Stephen +had a practical experience, and also a taste for battle, that her +husband had never possessed. He drew up a list of grievances, some +absurd, others fundamental. No newspapers in the reading-room, you +could put a plate under the Thompsons' door, no level cricket-pitch, +no allotments and no time to work in them, Mrs. Wilbraham's knife-boy +underpaid. "Aren't you a little unwise?" she asked coldly. "I am more +bored than you think over the farm." She was wanting to correct the +proofs of the book and rewrite the prefatory memoir. In her irritation +she wrote to Agnes. Agnes replied sympathetically, and Mrs. Failing, +clever as she was, fell into the power of the younger woman. They +discussed him at first as a wretch of a boy; then he got drunk and +somehow it seemed more criminal. All that she needed now was a personal +grievance, which Agnes casually supplied. Though vindictive, she was +determined to treat him well, and thought with satisfaction of our +distant colonies. But he burst into an odd passion: he would sooner +starve than leave England. "Why?" she asked. "Are you in love?" He +picked up a lump of the chalk-they were by the arbour--and made no +answer. The vicar murmured, "It is not like going abroad--Greater +Britain--blood is thicker than water--" A lump of chalk broke her +drawing-room window on the Saturday. + +Thus Stephen left Wiltshire, half-blackguard, half-martyr. Do not brand +him as a socialist. He had no quarrel with society, nor any particular +belief in people because they are poor. He only held the creed of "here +am I and there are you," and therefore class distinctions were trivial +things to him, and life no decorous scheme, but a personal combat or a +personal truce. For the same reason ancestry also was trivial, and a man +not the dearer because the same woman was mother to them both. Yet it +seemed worth while to go to Sawston with the news. Perhaps nothing would +come of it; perhaps friendly intercourse, and a home while he looked +around. + +When they wronged him he walked quietly away. He never thought of +allotting the blame, nor or appealing to Ansell, who still sat brooding +in the side-garden. He only knew that educated people could be horrible, +and that a clean liver must never enter Dunwood House again. The air +seemed stuffy. He spat in the gutter. Was it yesterday he had lain in +the rifle-butts over Salisbury? Slightly aggrieved, he wondered why he +was not back there now. "I ought to have written first," he reflected. +"Here is my money gone. I cannot move. The Elliots have, as it were, +practically robbed me." That was the only grudge he retained against +them. Their suspicions and insults were to him as the curses of a tramp +whom he passed by the wayside. They were dirty people, not his sort. He +summed up the complicated tragedy as a "take in." + +While Rickie was being carried upstairs, and while Ansell (had he known +it) was dashing about the streets for him, he lay under a railway arch +trying to settle his plans. He must pay back the friends who had given +him shillings and clothes. He thought of Flea, whose Sundays he was +spoiling--poor Flea, who ought to be in them now, shining before his +girl. "I daresay he'll be ashamed and not go to see her, and then she'll +take the other man." He was also very hungry. That worm Mrs. Elliot +would be through her lunch by now. Trying his braces round him, and +tearing up those old wet documents, he stepped forth to make money. A +villainous young brute he looked: his clothes were dirty, and he had +lost the spring of the morning. Touching the walls, frowning, talking to +himself at times, he slouched disconsolately northwards; no wonder that +some tawdry girls screamed at him, or that matrons averted their eyes +as they hurried to afternoon church. He wandered from one suburb to +another, till he was among people more villainous than himself, who +bought his tobacco from him and sold him food. Again the neighbourhood +"went up," and families, instead of sitting on their doorsteps, would +sit behind thick muslin curtains. Again it would "go down" into a more +avowed despair. Far into the night he wandered, until he came to a +solemn river majestic as a stream in hell. Therein were gathered +the waters of Central England--those that flow off Hindhead, off the +Chilterns, off Wiltshire north of the Plain. Therein they were made +intolerable ere they reached the sea. But the waters he had known +escaped. Their course lay southward into the Avon by forests and +beautiful fields, even swift, even pure, until they mirrored the tower +of Christchurch and greeted the ramparts of the Isle of Wight. Of these +he thought for a moment as he crossed the black river and entered the +heart of the modern world. Here he found employment. He was not hampered +by genteel traditions, and, as it was near quarter-day, managed to get +taken on at a furniture warehouse. He moved people from the suburbs +to London, from London to the suburbs, from one suburb to another. His +companions were hurried and querulous. In particular, he loathed +the foreman, a pious humbug who allowed no swearing, but indulged in +something far more degraded--the Cockney repartee. The London intellect, +so pert and shallow, like a stream that never reaches the ocean, +disgusted him almost as much as the London physique, which for all +its dexterity is not permanent, and seldom continues into the third +generation. His father, had he known it, had felt the same; for between +Mr. Elliot and the foreman the gulf was social, not spiritual: both +spent their lives in trying to be clever. And Tony Failing had once put +the thing into words: "There's no such thing as a Londoner. He's only a +country man on the road to sterility." + +At the end of ten days he had saved scarcely anything. Once he passed +the bank where a hundred pounds lay ready for him, but it was still +inconvenient for him to take them. Then duty sent him to a suburb not +very far from Sawston. In the evening a man who was driving a trap asked +him to hold it, and by mistake tipped him a sovereign. Stephen called +after him; but the man had a woman with him and wanted to show off, and +though he had meant to tip a shilling, and could not afford that, he +shouted back that his sovereign was as good as any one's, and that if +Stephen did not think so he could do various things and go to various +places. On the action of this man much depends. Stephen changed the +sovereign into a postal order, and sent it off to the people at Cadford. +It did not pay them back, but it paid them something, and he felt that +his soul was free. + +A few shillings remained in his pocket. They would have paid his fare +towards Wiltshire, a good county; but what should he do there? Who +would employ him? Today the journey did not seem worth while. "Tomorrow, +perhaps," he thought, and determined to spend the money on pleasure of +another kind. Two-pence went for a ride on an electric tram. From the +top he saw the sun descend--a disc with a dark red edge. The same sun +was descending over Salisbury intolerably bright. Out of the golden haze +the spire would be piercing, like a purple needle; then mists arose from +the Avon and the other streams. Lamps flickered, but in the outer purity +the villages were already slumbering. Salisbury is only a Gothic upstart +beside these. For generations they have come down to her to buy or to +worship, and have found in her the reasonable crisis of their lives; +but generations before she was built they were clinging to the soil, and +renewing it with sheep and dogs and men, who found the crisis of their +lives upon Stonehenge. The blood of these men ran in Stephen; the vigour +they had won for him was as yet untarnished; out on those downs they had +united with rough women to make the thing he spoke of as "himself"; the +last of them has rescued a woman of a different kind from streets and +houses such as these. As the sun descended he got off the tram with a +smile of expectation. A public-house lay opposite, and a boy in a dirty +uniform was already lighting its enormous lamp. His lips parted, and he +went in. + +Two hours later, when Rickie and Herbert were going the rounds, a brick +came crashing at the study window. Herbert peered into the garden, and a +hooligan slipped by him into the house, wrecked the hall, lurched up the +stairs, fell against the banisters, balanced for a moment on his spine, +and slid over. Herbert called for the police. Rickie, who was upon the +landing, caught the man by the knees and saved his life. + +"What is it?" cried Agnes, emerging. + +"It's Stephen come back," was the answer. "Hullo, Stephen!" + + + +XXXI + +Hither had Rickie moved in ten days--from disgust to penitence, from +penitence to longing from a life of horror to a new life, in which he +still surprised himself by unexpected words. Hullo, Stephen! For the son +of his mother had come back, to forgive him, as she would have done, to +live with him, as she had planned. + +"He's drunk this time," said Agnes wearily. She too had altered: the +scandal was ageing her, and Ansell came to the house daily. + +"Hullo, Stephen!" + +But Stephen was now insensible. + +"Stephen, you live here--" + +"Good gracious me!" interposed Herbert. "My advice is, that we all go to +bed. The less said the better while our nerves are in this state. Very +well, Rickie. Of course, Wonham sleeps the night if you wish." They +carried the drunken mass into the spare room. A mass of scandal it +seemed to one of them, a symbol of redemption to the other. Neither +acknowledged it a man, who would answer them back after a few hours' +rest. + +"Ansell thought he would never forgive me," said Rickie. "For once he's +wrong." + +"Come to bed now, I think." And as Rickie laid his hand on the sleeper's +hair, he added, "You won't do anything foolish, will you? You are still +in a morbid state. Your poor mother--Pardon me, dear boy; it is my turn +to speak out. You thought it was your father, and minded. It is your +mother. Surely you ought to mind more?" + +"I have been too far back," said Rickie gently. "Ansell took me on a +journey that was even new to him. We got behind right and wrong, to a +place where only one thing matters--that the Beloved should rise from +the dead." + +"But you won't do anything rash?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Remember poor Agnes," he stammered. "I--I am the first to acknowledge +that we might have pursued a different policy. But we are committed to +it now. It makes no difference whose son he is. I mean, he is the same +person. You and I and my sister stand or fall together. It was our +agreement from the first. I hope--No more of these distressing scenes +with her, there's a dear fellow. I assure you they make my heart bleed." + +"Things will quiet down now." + +"To bed now; I insist upon that much." + +"Very well," said Rickie, and when they were in the passage, locked the +door from the outside. "We want no more muddles," he explained. + +Mr. Pembroke was left examining the hall. The bust of Hermes was broken. +So was the pot of the palm. He could not go to bed without once more +sounding Rickie. "You'll do nothing rash," he called. "The notion of him +living here was, of course, a passing impulse. We three have adopted a +common policy." + +"Now, you go away!" called a voice that was almost flippant. "I never +did belong to that great sect whose doctrine is that each one should +select--at least, I'm not going to belong to it any longer. Go away to +bed." + +"A good night's rest is what you need," threatened Herbert, and retired, +not to find one for himself. + +But Rickie slept. The guilt of months and the remorse of the last ten +days had alike departed. He had thought that his life was poisoned, and +lo! it was purified. He had cursed his mother, and Ansell had replied, +"You may be right, but you stand too near to settle. Step backwards. +Pretend that it happened to me. Do you want me to curse my mother? +Now, step forward and see whether anything has changed." Something had +changed. He had journeyed--as on rare occasions a man must--till he +stood behind right and wrong. On the banks of the grey torrent of life, +love is the only flower. A little way up the stream and a little way +down had Rickie glanced, and he knew that she whom he loved had risen +from the dead, and might rise again. "Come away--let them die out--let +them die out." Surely that dream was a vision! To-night also he hurried +to the window--to remember, with a smile, that Orion is not among the +stars of June. + +"Let me die out. She will continue," he murmured, and in making plans +for Stephen's happiness, fell asleep. + +Next morning after breakfast he announced that his brother must live +at Dunwood House. They were awed by the very moderation of his tone. +"There's nothing else to be done. Cadover's hopeless, and a boy of those +tendencies can't go drifting. There is also the question of a profession +for him, and his allowance." + +"We have to thank Mr. Ansell for this," was all that Agnes could say; +and "I foresee disaster," was the contribution of Herbert. + +"There's plenty of money about," Rickie continued. "Quite a man's-worth +too much. It has been one of our absurdities. Don't look so sad, +Herbert. I'm sorry for you people, but he's sure to let us down easy." +For his experience of drunkards and of Stephen was small. + +He supposed that he had come without malice to renew the offer of ten +days ago. + +"It is the end of Dunwood House." + +Rickie nodded, and hoped not. Agnes, who was not looking well, began to +cry. "Oh, it is too bad," she complained, "when I've saved you from him +all these years." But he could not pity her, nor even sympathize with +her wounded delicacy. The time for such nonsense was over. He would take +his share of the blame: it was cant to assume it all. + +Perhaps he was over-hard. He did not realize how large his share was, +nor how his very virtues were to blame for her deterioration. "If I had +a girl, I'd keep her in line," is not the remark of a fool nor of a cad. +Rickie had not kept his wife in line. He had shown her all the workings +of his soul, mistaking this for love; and in consequence she was the +worse woman after two years of marriage, and he, on this morning of +freedom, was harder upon her than he need have been. + +The spare room bell rang. Herbert had a painful struggle between +curiosity and duty, for the bell for chapel was ringing also, and he +must go through the drizzle to school. He promised to come up in the +interval, Rickie, who had rapped his head that Sunday on the edge of +the table, was still forbidden to work. Before him a quiet morning lay. +Secure of his victory, he took the portrait of their mother in his hand +and walked leisurely upstairs. The bell continued to ring. + +"See about his breakfast," he called to Agnes, who replied, "Very well." +The handle of the spare room door was moving slowly. "I'm coming," he +cried. The handle was still. He unlocked and entered, his heart full of +charity. + +But within stood a man who probably owned the world. + +Rickie scarcely knew him; last night he had seemed so colorless, no +negligible. In a few hours he had recaptured motion and passion and the +imprint of the sunlight and the wind. He stood, not consciously heroic, +with arms that dangled from broad stooping shoulders, and feet that +played with a hassock on the carpet. But his hair was beautiful against +the grey sky, and his eyes, recalling the sky unclouded, shot past the +intruder as if to some worthier vision. So intent was their gaze that +Rickie himself glanced backwards, only to see the neat passage and the +banisters at the top of the stairs. Then the lips beat together twice, +and out burst a torrent of amazing words. + +"Add it all up, and let me know how much. I'd sooner have died. It never +took me that way before. I must have broken pounds' worth. If you'll not +tell the police, I promise you shan't lose, Mr. Elliot, I swear. But it +may be months before I send it. Everything is to be new. You've not to +be a penny out of pocket, do you see? Do let me go, this once again." + +"What's the trouble?" asked Rickie, as if they had been friends for +years. "My dear man, we've other things to talk about. Gracious me, what +a fuss! If you'd smashed the whole house I wouldn't mind, so long as you +came back." + +"I'd sooner have died," gulped Stephen. + +"You did nearly! It was I who caught you. Never mind yesterday's rag. +What can you manage for breakfast?" + +The face grew more angry and more puzzled. "Yesterday wasn't a rag," he +said without focusing his eyes. "I was drunk, but naturally meant it." + +"Meant what?" + +"To smash you. Bad liquor did what Mrs. Elliot couldn't. I've put myself +in the wrong. You've got me." + +It was a poor beginning. + +"As I have got you," said Rickie, controlling himself, "I want to have a +talk with you. There has been a ghastly mistake." + +But Stephen, with a countryman's persistency, continued on his own line. +He meant to be civil, but Rickie went cold round the mouth. For he had +not even been angry with them. Until he was drunk, they had been dirty +people--not his sort. Then the trivial injury recurred, and he had +reeled to smash them as he passed. "And I will pay for everything," was +his refrain, with which the sighing of raindrops mingled. "You shan't +lose a penny, if only you let me free." + +"You'll pay for my coffin if you talk like that any longer! Will you, +one, forgive my frightful behaviour; two, live with me?" For his only +hope was in a cheerful precision. + +Stephen grew more agitated. He thought it was some trick. + +"I was saying I made an unspeakable mistake. Ansell put me right, but it +was too late to find you. Don't think I got off easily. Ansell doesn't +spare one. And you've got to forgive me, to share my life, to share +my money.--I've brought you this photograph--I want it to be the first +thing you accept from me--you have the greater right--I know all the +story now. You know who it is?" + +"Oh yes; but I don't want to drag all that in." + +"It is only her wish if we live together. She was planning it when she +died." + +"I can't follow--because--to share your life? Did you know I called here +last Sunday week?" + +"Yes. But then I only knew half. I thought you were my father's son." + +Stephen's anger and bewilderment were increasing. He stuttered. +"What--what's the odds if you did?" + +"I hated my father," said Rickie. "I loved my mother." And never had the +phrases seemed so destitute of meaning. + +"Last Sunday week," interrupted Stephen, his voice suddenly rising, +"I came to call on you. Not as this or that's son. Not to fall on your +neck. Nor to live here. Nor--damn your dirty little mind! I meant to +say I didn't come for money. Sorry. Sorry. I simply came as I was, and I +haven't altered since." + +"Yes--yet our mother--for me she has risen from the dead since then--I +know I was wrong--" + +"And where do I come in?" He kicked the hassock. "I haven't risen from +the dead. I haven't altered since last Sunday week. I'm--" He stuttered +again. He could not quite explain what he was. "The man towards +Andover--after all, he was having principles. But you've--" His voice +broke. "I mind it--I'm--I don't alter--blackguard one week--live here +the next--I keep to one or the other--you've hurt something most badly +in me that I didn't know was there." + +"Don't let us talk," said Rickie. "It gets worse every minute. Simply +say you forgive me; shake hands, and have done with it." + +"That I won't. That I couldn't. In fact, I don't know what you mean." + +Then Rickie began a new appeal--not to pity, for now he was in no mood +to whimper. For all its pathos, there was something heroic in this +meeting. "I warn you to stop here with me, Stephen. No one else in the +world will look after you. As far as I know, you have never been really +unhappy yet or suffered, as you should do, from your faults. Last night +you nearly killed yourself with drink. Never mind why I'm willing to +cure you. I am willing, and I warn you to give me the chance. Forgive me +or not, as you choose. I care for other things more." + +Stephen looked at him at last, faintly approving. The offer was +ridiculous, but it did treat him as a man. + +"Let me tell you of a fault of mine, and how I was punished for it," +continued Rickie. "Two years ago I behaved badly to you, up at the +Rings. No, even a few days before that. We went for a ride, and I +thought too much of other matters, and did not try to understand you. +Then came the Rings, and in the evening, when you called up to me most +kindly, I never answered. But the ride was the beginning. Ever since +then I have taken the world at second-hand. I have bothered less and +less to look it in the face--until not only you, but every one else has +turned unreal. Never Ansell: he kept away, and somehow saved himself. +But every one else. Do you remember in one of Tony Failing's books, +'Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days it really does +come back to you'? This had been true of my life; it will be equally +true of a drunkard's, and I warn you to stop with me." + +"I can't stop after that cheque," said Stephen more gently. "But I do +remember the ride. I was a bit bored myself." + +Agnes, who had not been seeing to the breakfast, chose this moment to +call from the passage. "Of course he can't stop," she exclaimed. "For +better or worse, it's settled. We've none of us altered since last +Sunday week." + +"There you're right, Mrs. Elliot!" he shouted, starting out of the +temperate past. "We haven't altered." With a rare flash of insight he +turned on Rickie. "I see your game. You don't care about ME drinking, or +to shake MY hand. It's some one else you want to cure--as it were, +that old photograph. You talk to me, but all the time you look at the +photograph." He snatched it up. + +"I've my own ideas of good manners, and to look friends between the eyes +is one of them; and this"--he tore the photograph across "and this"--he +tore it again--"and these--" He flung the pieces at the man, who had +sunk into a chair. "For my part, I'm off." + +Then Rickie was heroic no longer. Turning round in his chair, he covered +his face. The man was right. He did not love him, even as he had never +hated him. In either passion he had degraded him to be a symbol for the +vanished past. The man was right, and would have been lovable. He longed +to be back riding over those windy fields, to be back in those mystic +circles, beneath pure sky. Then they could have watched and helped and +taught each other, until the word was a reality, and the past not a torn +photograph, but Demeter the goddess rejoicing in the spring. Ah, if he +had seized those high opportunities! For they led to the highest of all, +the symbolic moment, which, if a man accepts, he has accepted life. + +The voice of Agnes, which had lured him then ("For my sake," she had +whispered), pealed over him now in triumph. Abruptly it broke into sobs +that had the effect of rain. He started up. The anger had died out of +Stephen's face, not for a subtle reason but because here was a woman, +near him, and unhappy. + +She tried to apologize, and brought on a fresh burst of tears. Something +had upset her. They heard her locking the door of her room. From that +moment their intercourse was changed. + +"Why does she keep crying today?" mused Rickie, as if he spoke to some +mutual friend. + +"I can make a guess," said Stephen, and his heavy face flushed. + +"Did you insult her?" he asked feebly. + +"But who's Gerald?" + +Rickie raised his hand to his mouth. + +"She looked at me as if she knew me, and then gasps 'Gerald,' and +started crying." + +"Gerald is the name of some one she once knew." + +"So I thought." There was a long silence, in which they could hear a +piteous gulping cough. "Where is he now?" asked Stephen. + +"Dead." + +"And then you--?" + +Rickie nodded. + +"Bad, this sort of thing." + +"I didn't know of this particular thing. She acted as if she had +forgotten him. Perhaps she had, and you woke him up. There are queer +tricks in the world. She is overstrained. She has probably been plotting +ever since you burst in last night." + +"Against me?" + +"Yes." + +Stephen stood irresolute. "I suppose you and she pulled together?" He +said at last. + +"Get away from us, man! I mind losing you. Yet it's as well you don't +stop." + +"Oh, THAT'S out of the question," said Stephen, brushing his cap. + +"If you've guessed anything, I'd be obliged if you didn't mention it. +I've no right to ask, but I'd be obliged." + +He nodded, and walked slowly along the landing and down the stairs. +Rickie accompanied him, and even opened the front door. It was as if +Agnes had absorbed the passion out of both of them. The suburb was now +wrapped in a cloud, not of its own making. Sigh after sigh passed along +its streets to break against dripping walls. The school, the houses +were hidden, and all civilization seemed in abeyance. Only the simplest +sounds, the simplest desires emerged. They agreed that this weather was +strange after such a sunset. + +"That's a collie," said Stephen, listening. + +"I wish you'd have some breakfast before starting." + +"No food, thanks. But you know" He paused. "It's all been a muddle, and +I've no objection to your coming along with me." + +The cloud descended lower. + +"Come with me as a man," said Stephen, already out in the mist. "Not as +a brother; who cares what people did years back? We're alive together, +and the rest is cant. Here am I, Rickie, and there are you, a fair +wreck. They've no use for you here,--never had any, if the truth was +known,--and they've only made you beastly. This house, so to speak, has +the rot. It's common-sense that you should come." + +"Stephen, wait a minute. What do you mean?" + +"Wait's what we won't do," said Stephen at the gate. + +"I must ask--" + +He did wait for a minute, and sobs were heard, faint, hopeless, +vindictive. Then he trudged away, and Rickie soon lost his colour and +his form. But a voice persisted, saying, "Come, I do mean it. Come; I +will take care of you, I can manage you." + +The words were kind; yet it was not for their sake that Rickie plunged +into the impalpable cloud. In the voice he had found a surer guarantee. +Habits and sex may change with the new generation, features may alter +with the play of a private passion, but a voice is apart from these. It +lies nearer to the racial essence and perhaps to the divine; it can, at +all events, overleap one grave. + + + +XXXII + +Mr. Pembroke did not receive a clear account of what had happened when +he returned for the interval. His sister--he told her frankly--was +concealing something from him. She could make no reply. Had she gone +mad, she wondered. Hitherto she had pretended to love her husband. Why +choose such a moment for the truth? + +"But I understand Rickie's position," he told her. "It is an unbalanced +position, yet I understand it; I noted its approach while he was ill. +He imagines himself his brother's keeper. Therefore we must make +concessions. We must negotiate." The negotiations were still progressing +in November, the month during which this story draws to its close. + +"I understand his position," he then told her. "It is both weak and +defiant. He is still with those Ansells. Read this letter, which thanks +me for his little stories. We sent them last month, you remember--such +of them as we could find. It seems that he fills up his time by writing: +he has already written a book." + +She only gave him half her attention, for a beautiful wreath had just +arrived from the florist's. She was taking it up to the cemetery: today +her child had been dead a year. + +"On the other hand, he has altered his will. Fortunately, he cannot +alter much. But I fear that what is not settled on you, will go. Should +I read what I wrote on this point, and also my minutes of the interview +with old Mr. Ansell, and the copy of my correspondence with Stephen +Wonham?" + +But her fly was announced. While he put the wreath in for her, she ran +for a moment upstairs. A few tears had come to her eyes. A scandalous +divorce would have been more bearable than this withdrawal. People +asked, "Why did her husband leave her?" and the answer came, "Oh, +nothing particular; he only couldn't stand her; she lied and taught him +to lie; she kept him from the work that suited him, from his friends, +from his brother,--in a word, she tried to run him, which a man won't +pardon." A few tears; not many. To her, life never showed itself as a +classic drama, in which, by trying to advance our fortunes, we shatter +them. She had turned Stephen out of Wiltshire, and he fell like a +thunderbolt on Sawston and on herself. In trying to gain Mrs. Failing's +money she had probably lost money which would have been her own. But +irony is a subtle teacher, and she was not the woman to learn from such +lessons as these. Her suffering was more direct. Three men had wronged +her; therefore she hated them, and, if she could, would do them harm. + +"These negotiations are quite useless," she told Herbert when she +came downstairs. "We had much better bide our time. Tell me just about +Stephen Wonham, though." + +He drew her into the study again. "Wonham is or was in Scotland, +learning to farm with connections of the Ansells: I believe the money +is to go towards setting him up. Apparently he is a hard worker. He also +drinks!" + +She nodded and smiled. "More than he did?" + +"My informant, Mr. Tilliard--oh, I ought not to have mentioned his name. +He is one of the better sort of Rickie's Cambridge friends, and has been +dreadfully grieved at the collapse, but he does not want to be mixed up +in it. This autumn he was up in the Lowlands, close by, and very kindly +made a few unobtrusive inquiries for me. The man is becoming an habitual +drunkard." + +She smiled again. Stephen had evoked her secret, and she hated him +more for that than for anything else that he had done. The poise of his +shoulders that morning--it was no more--had recalled Gerald. + +If only she had not been so tired! He had reminded her of the greatest +thing she had known, and to her cloudy mind this seemed degradation. She +had turned to him as to her lover; with a look, which a man of his type +understood, she had asked for his pity; for one terrible moment she +had desired to be held in his arms. Even Herbert was surprised when she +said, "I'm glad he drinks. I hope he'll kill himself. A man like that +ought never to have been born." + +"Perhaps the sins of the parents are visited on the children," said +Herbert, taking her to the carriage. "Yet it is not for us to decide." + +"I feel sure he will be punished. What right has he--" She broke off. +What right had he to our common humanity? It was a hard lesson for +any one to learn. For Agnes it was impossible. Stephen was illicit, +abnormal, worse than a man diseased. Yet she had turned to him: he had +drawn out the truth. + +"My dear, don't cry," said her brother, drawing up the windows. "I have +great hopes of Mr. Tilliard--the Silts have written--Mrs. Failing will +do what she can--" + +As she drove to the cemetery, her bitterness turned against Ansell, who +had kept her husband alive in the days after Stephen's expulsion. If +he had not been there, Rickie would have renounced his mother and his +brother and all the outer world, troubling no one. The mystic, inherent +in him, would have prevailed. So Ansell himself had told her. And +Ansell, too, had sheltered the fugitives and given them money, and saved +them from the ludicrous checks that so often stop young men. But when +she reached the cemetery, and stood beside the tiny grave, all her +bitterness, all her hatred were turned against Rickie. + +"But he'll come back in the end," she thought. "A wife has only to wait. +What are his friends beside me? They too will marry. I have only to +wait. His book, like all that he has done, will fail. His brother is +drinking himself away. Poor aimless Rickie! I have only to keep civil. +He will come back in the end." + +She had moved, and found herself close to the grave of Gerald. The +flowers she had planted after his death were dead, and she had not liked +to renew them. There lay the athlete, and his dust was as the little +child's whom she had brought into the world with such hope, with such +pain. + + + +XXXIII + +That same day Rickie, feeling neither poor nor aimless, left the +Ansells' for a night's visit to Cadover. His aunt had invited him--why, +he could not think, nor could he think why he should refuse the +invitation. She could not annoy him now, and he was not vindictive. In +the dell near Madingley he had cried, "I hate no one," in his ignorance. +Now, with full knowledge, he hated no one again. The weather was +pleasant, the county attractive, and he was ready for a little change. + +Maud and Stewart saw him off. Stephen, who was down for the holiday, +had been left with his chin on the luncheon table. He had wanted to come +also. Rickie pointed out that you cannot visit where you have broken the +windows. There was an argument--there generally was--and now the young +man had turned sulky. + +"Let him do what he likes," said Ansell. "He knows more than we do. He +knows everything." + +"Is he to get drunk?" Rickie asked. + +"Most certainly." + +"And to go where he isn't asked?" + +Maud, though liking a little spirit in a man, declared this to be +impossible. + +"Well, I wish you joy!" Rickie called, as the train moved away. "He +means mischief this evening. He told me piously that he felt it beating +up. Good-bye!" + +"But we'll wait for you to pass," they cried. For the Salisbury train +always backed out of the station and then returned, and the Ansell +family, including Stewart, took an incredible pleasure in seeing it do +this. + +The carriage was empty. Rickie settled himself down for his little +journey. First he looked at the coloured photographs. Then he read the +directions for obtaining luncheon-baskets, and felt the texture of the +cushions. Through the windows a signal-box interested him. Then he saw +the ugly little town that was now his home, and up its chief street the +Ansells' memorable facade. The spirit of a genial comedy dwelt there. It +was so absurd, so kindly. The house was divided against itself and yet +stood. Metaphysics, commerce, social aspirations--all lived together in +harmony. Mr. Ansell had done much, but one was tempted to believe in a +more capricious power--the power that abstains from "nipping." "One nips +or is nipped, and never knows beforehand," quoted Rickie, and opened the +poems of Shelley, a man less foolish than you supposed. How pleasant +it was to read! If business worried him, if Stephen was noisy or Ansell +perverse, there still remained this paradise of books. It seemed as +if he had read nothing for two years. Then the train stopped for the +shunting, and he heard protests from minor officials who were working on +the line. They complained that some one who didn't ought to, had mounted +on the footboard of the carriage. Stephen's face appeared, convulsed +with laughter. With the action of a swimmer he dived in through the open +window, and fell comfortably on Rickie's luggage and Rickie. He declared +it was the finest joke ever known. Rickie was not so sure. "You'll be +run over next," he said. "What did you do that for?" + +"I'm coming with you," he giggled, rolling all that he could on to the +dusty floor. + +"Now, Stephen, this is too bad. Get up. We went into the whole question +yesterday." + +"I know; and I settled we wouldn't go into it again, spoiling my +holiday." + +"Well, it's execrable taste." + +Now he was waving to the Ansells, and showing them a piece of soap: +it was all his luggage, and even that he abandoned, for he flung it at +Stewart's lofty brow. + +"I can't think what you've done it for. You know how strongly I felt." + +Stephen replied that he should stop in the village; meet Rickie at the +lodge gates; that kind of thing. + +"It's execrable taste," he repeated, trying to keep grave. + +"Well, you did all you could," he exclaimed with sudden sympathy. +"Leaving me talking to old Ansell, you might have thought you'd got your +way. I've as much taste as most chaps, but, hang it! your aunt isn't the +German Emperor. She doesn't own Wiltshire." + +"You ass!" sputtered Rickie, who had taken to laugh at nonsense again. + +"No, she isn't," he repeated, blowing a kiss out of the window to +maidens. "Why, we started for Wiltshire on the wet morning!" + +"When Stewart found us at Sawston railway station?" He smiled happily. +"I never thought we should pull through." + +"Well, we DIDN'T. We never did what we meant. It's nonsense that I +couldn't have managed you alone. I've a notion. Slip out after your +dinner this evening, and we'll get thundering tight together." + +"I've a notion I won't." + +"It'd do you no end of good. You'll get to know people--shepherds, +carters--" He waved his arms vaguely, indicating democracy. "Then you'll +sing." + +"And then?" + +"Plop." + +"Precisely." + +"But I'll catch you," promised Stephen. "We shall carry you up the hill +to bed. In the morning you wake, have your row with old Em'ly, she kicks +you out, we meet--we'll meet at the Rings!" He danced up and down the +carriage. Some one in the next carriage punched at the partition, and +when this happens, all lads with mettle know that they must punch the +partition back. + +"Thank you. I've a notion I won't," said Rickie when the noise had +subsided--subsided for a moment only, for the following conversation +took place to an accompaniment of dust and bangs. "Except as regards the +Rings. We will meet there." + +"Then I'll get tight by myself." + +"No, you won't." + +"Yes, I will. I swore to do something special this evening. I feel like +it." + +"In that case, I get out at the next station." He was laughing, but +quite determined. Stephen had grown too dictatorial of late. The Ansells +spoilt him. "It's bad enough having you there at all. Having you there +drunk is impossible. I'd sooner not visit my aunt than think, when I sat +with her, that you're down in the village teaching her labourers to be +as beastly as yourself. Go if you will. But not with me." + +"Why shouldn't I have a good time while I'm young, if I don't harm any +one?" said Stephen defiantly. + +"Need we discuss self." + +"Oh, I can stop myself any minute I choose. I just say 'I won't' to you +or any other fool, and I don't." + +Rickie knew that the boast was true. He continued, "There is also a +thing called Morality. You may learn in the Bible, and also from the +Greeks, that your body is a temple." + +"So you said in your longest letter." + +"Probably I wrote like a prig, for the reason that I have never been +tempted in this way; but surely it is wrong that your body should escape +you." + +"I don't follow," he retorted, punching. + +"It isn't right, even for a little time, to forget that you exist." + +"I suppose you've never been tempted to go to sleep?" + +Just then the train passed through a coppice in which the grey +undergrowth looked no more alive than firewood. Yet every twig in it +was waiting for the spring. Rickie knew that the analogy was false, but +argument confused him, and he gave up this line of attack also. + +"Do be more careful over life. If your body escapes you in one thing, +why not in more? A man will have other temptations." + +"You mean women," said Stephen quietly, pausing for a moment in this +game. "But that's absolutely different. That would be harming some one +else." + +"Is that the only thing that keeps you straight?" + +"What else should?" And he looked not into Rickie, but past him, with +the wondering eyes of a child. Rickie nodded, and referred himself to +the window. + +He observed that the country was smoother and more plastic. The woods +had gone, and under a pale-blue sky long contours of earth were flowing, +and merging, rising a little to bear some coronal of beeches, parting a +little to disclose some green valley, where cottages stood under elms +or beside translucent waters. It was Wiltshire at last. The train had +entered the chalk. At last it slackened at a wayside platform. Without +speaking he opened the door. + +"What's that for?" + +"To go back." + +Stephen had forgotten the threat. He said that this was not playing the +game. + +"Surely!" + +"I can't have you going back." + +"Promise to behave decently then." + +He was seized and pulled away from the door. + +"We change at Salisbury," he remarked. "There is an hour to wait. You +will find me troublesome." + +"It isn't fair," exploded Stephen. "It's a lowdown trick. How can I let +you go back?" + +"Promise, then." + +"Oh, yes, yes, yes. Y.M.C.A. But for this occasion only." + +"No, no. For the rest of your holiday." + +"Yes, yes. Very well. I promise." + +"For the rest of your life?" + +Somehow it pleased him that Stephen should bang him crossly with his +elbow and say, "No. Get out. You've gone too far." So had the train. +The porter at the end of the wayside platform slammed the door, and they +proceeded toward Salisbury through the slowly modulating downs. Rickie +pretended to read. Over the book he watched his brother's face, and +wondered how bad temper could be consistent with a mind so radiant. In +spite of his obstinacy and conceit, Stephen was an easy person to live +with. He never fidgeted or nursed hidden grievances, or indulged in a +shoddy pride. Though he spent Rickie's money as slowly as he could, +he asked for it without apology: "You must put it down against me," he +would say. In time--it was still very vague--he would rent or purchase +a farm. There is no formula in which we may sum up decent people. So +Ansell had preached, and had of course proceeded to offer a formula: +"They must be serious, they must be truthful." Serious not in the sense +of glum; but they must be convinced that our life is a state of some +importance, and our earth not a place to beat time on. Of so much +Stephen was convinced: he showed it in his work, in his play, in his +self-respect, and above all--though the fact is hard to face-in his +sacred passion for alcohol. Drink, today, is an unlovely thing. Between +us and the heights of Cithaeron the river of sin now flows. Yet the +cries still call from the mountain, and granted a man has responded to +them, it is better he respond with the candour of the Greek. + +"I shall stop at the Thompsons' now," said the disappointed reveller. +"Prayers." + +Rickie did not press his triumph, but it was a happy moment, partly +because of the triumph, partly because he was sure that his brother must +care for him. Stephen was too selfish to give up any pleasure without +grave reasons. He was certain that he had been right to disentangle +himself from Sawston, and to ignore the threats and tears that still +tempted him to return. Here there was real work for him to do. Moreover, +though he sought no reward, it had come. His health was better, his +brain sound, his life washed clean, not by the waters of sentiment, +but by the efforts of a fellow-man. Stephen was man first, brother +afterwards. Herein lay his brutality and also his virtue. "Look me in +the face. Don't hang on me clothes that don't belong--as you did on your +wife, giving her saint's robes, whereas she was simply a woman of her +own sort, who needed careful watching. Tear up the photographs. Here +am I, and there are you. The rest is cant." The rest was not cant, +and perhaps Stephen would confess as much in time. But Rickie needed a +tonic, and a man, not a brother, must hold it to his lips. + +"I see the old spire," he called, and then added, "I don't mind seeing +it again." + +"No one does, as far as I know. People have come from the other side of +the world to see it again." + +"Pious people. But I don't hold with bishops." He was young enough to +be uneasy. The cathedral, a fount of superstition, must find no place in +his life. At the age of twenty he had settled things. + +"I've got my own philosophy," he once told Ansell, "and I don't care a +straw about yours." Ansell's mirth had annoyed him not a little. And +it was strange that one so settled should feel his heart leap up at +the sight of an old spire. "I regard it as a public building," he told +Rickie, who agreed. "It's useful, too, as a landmark." His attitude +today was defensive. It was part of a subtle change that Rickie had +noted in him since his return from Scotland. His face gave hints of a +new maturity. "You can see the old spire from the Ridgeway," he said, +suddenly laying a hand on Rickie's knee, "before rain as clearly as any +telegraph post." + +"How far is the Ridgeway?" + +"Seventeen miles." + +"Which direction?" + +"North, naturally. North again from that you see Devizes, the vale of +Pewsey, and the other downs. Also towards Bath. It is something of a +view. You ought to get on the Ridgeway." + +"I shouldn't have time for that." + +"Or Beacon Hill. Or let's do Stonehenge." + +"If it's fine, I suggest the Rings." + +"It will be fine." Then he murmured the names of villages. + +"I wish you could live here," said Rickie kindly. "I believe you love +these particular acres more than the whole world." + +Stephen replied that this was not the case: he was only used to them. +He wished they were driving out, instead of waiting for the Cadchurch +train. + +They had advanced into Salisbury, and the cathedral, a public building, +was grey against a tender sky. Rickie suggested that, while waiting +for the train, they should visit it. He spoke of the incomparable north +porch. "I've never been inside it, and I never will. Sorry to shock you, +Rickie, but I must tell you plainly. I'm an atheist. I don't believe in +anything." + +"I do," said Rickie. + +"When a man dies, it's as if he's never been," he asserted. The train +drew up in Salisbury station. Here a little incident took place which +caused them to alter their plans. + +They found outside the station a trap driven by a small boy, who had +come in from Cadford to fetch some wire-netting. "That'll do us," said +Stephen, and called to the boy, "If I pay your railway-ticket back, and +if I give you sixpence as well, will you let us drive back in the +trap?" The boy said no. "It will be all right," said Rickie. "I am Mrs. +Failing's nephew." The boy shook his head. "And you know Mr. Wonham?" +The boy couldn't say he didn't. "Then what's your objection? Why? What +is it? Why not?" But Stephen leant against the time-tables and spoke of +other matters. + +Presently the boy said, "Did you say you'd pay my railway-ticket back, +Mr. Wonham?" + +"Yes," said a bystander. "Didn't you hear him?" + +"I heard him right enough." + +Now Stephen laid his hand on the splash-board, saying, "What I want, +though, is this trap here of yours, see, to drive in back myself;" and +as he spoke the bystander followed him in canon, "What he wants, though, +is that there trap of yours, see, to drive hisself back in." + +"I've no objection," said the boy, as if deeply offended. For a time he +sat motionless, and then got down, remarking, "I won't rob you of your +sixpence." + +"Silly little fool," snapped Rickie, as they drove through the town. + +Stephen looked surprised. "What's wrong with the boy? He had to think it +over. No one had asked him to do such a thing before. Next time he'd let +us have the trap quick enough." + +"Not if he had driven in for a cabbage instead of wire-netting." + +"He never would drive in for a cabbage." + +Rickie shuffled his feet. But his irritation passed. He saw that the +little incident had been a quiet challenge to the civilization that he +had known. "Organize." "Systematize." "Fill up every moment," "Induce +esprit de corps." He reviewed the watchwords of the last two years, +and found that they ignored personal contest, personal truces, personal +love. By following them Sawston School had lost its quiet usefulness +and become a frothy sea, wherein plunged Dunwood House, that unnecessary +ship. Humbled, he turned to Stephen and said, "No, you're right. Nothing +is wrong with the boy. He was honestly thinking it out." But Stephen had +forgotten the incident, or else he was not inclined to talk about it. +His assertive fit was over. + +The direct road from Salisbury to Cadover is extremely dull. The +city--which God intended to keep by the river; did she not move there, +being thirsty, in the reign of William Rufus?--the city had strayed out +of her own plain, climbed up her slopes, and tumbled over them in ugly +cataracts of brick. The cataracts are still short, and doubtless they +meet or create some commercial need. But instead of looking towards +the cathedral, as all the city should, they look outwards at a pagan +entrenchment, as the city should not. They neglect the poise of the +earth, and the sentiments she has decreed. They are the modern spirit. + +Through them the road descends into an unobtrusive country where, +nevertheless, the power of the earth grows stronger. Streams do divide. +Distances do still exist. It is easier to know the men in your valley +than those who live in the next, across a waste of down. It is easier to +know men well. The country is not paradise, and can show the vices that +grieve a good man everywhere. But there is room in it, and leisure. + +"I suppose," said Rickie as the twilight fell, "this kind of thing is +going on all over England." Perhaps he meant that towns are after all +excrescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying to find one another, +have lost themselves. But he got no response, and expected none. Turning +round in his seat, he watched the winter sun slide out of a quiet sky. +The horizon was primrose, and the earth against it gave momentary hints +of purple. All faded: no pageant would conclude the gracious day, and +when he turned eastward the night was already established. + +"Those verlands--" said Stephen, scarcely above his breath. + +"What are verlands?" + +He pointed at the dusk, and said, "Our name for a kind of field." Then +he drove his whip into its socket, and seemed to swallow something. +Rickie, straining his eyes for verlands, could only see a tumbling +wilderness of brown. + +"Are there many local words?" + +"There have been." + +"I suppose they die out." + +The conversation turned curiously. In the tone of one who replies, he +said, "I expect that some time or other I shall marry." + +"I expect you will," said Rickie, and wondered a little why the reply +seemed not abrupt. "Would we see the Rings in the daytime from here?" + +"(We do see them.) But Mrs. Failing once said no decent woman would have +me." + +"Did you agree to that?" + +"Drive a little, will you?" + +The horse went slowly forward into the wilderness, that turned from +brown to black. Then a luminous glimmer surrounded them, and the air +grew cooler: the road was descending between parapets of chalk. + +"But, Rickie, mightn't I find a girl--naturally not refined--and be +happy with her in my own way? I would tell her straight I was nothing +much--faithful, of course, but that she should never have all my +thoughts. Out of no disrespect to her, but because all one's thoughts +can't belong to any single person." + +While he spoke even the road vanished, and invisible water came gurgling +through the wheel-spokes. The horse had chosen the ford. "You can't own +people. At least a fellow can't. It may be different for a poet. (Let +the horse drink.) And I want to marry some one, and don't yet know who +she is, which a poet again will tell you is disgusting. Does it disgust +you? Being nothing much, surely I'd better go gently. For it's something +rather outside that makes one marry, if you follow me: not exactly +oneself. (Don't hurry the horse.) We want to marry, and yet--I can't +explain. I fancy I'll go wading: this is our stream." + +Romantic love is greater than this. There are men and women--we know it +from history--who have been born into the world for each other, and for +no one else, who have accomplished the longest journey locked in each +other's arms. But romantic love is also the code of modern morals, and, +for this reason, popular. Eternal union, eternal ownership--these are +tempting baits for the average man. He swallows them, will not confess +his mistake, and--perhaps to cover it--cries "dirty cynic" at such a man +as Stephen. + +Rickie watched the black earth unite to the black sky. But the sky +overhead grew clearer, and in it twinkled the Plough and the central +stars. He thought of his brother's future and of his own past, and of +how much truth might lie in that antithesis of Ansell's: "A man wants to +love mankind, a woman wants to love one man." At all events, he and his +wife had illustrated it, and perhaps the conflict, so tragic in their +own case, was elsewhere the salt of the world. Meanwhile Stephen called +from the water for matches: there was some trick with paper which Mr. +Failing had showed him, and which he would show Rickie now, instead of +talking nonsense. Bending down, he illuminated the dimpled surface of +the ford. "Quite a current." he said, and his face flickered out in the +darkness. "Yes, give me the loose paper, quick! Crumple it into a ball." + +Rickie obeyed, though intent on the transfigured face. He believed +that a new spirit dwelt there, expelling the crudities of youth. He +saw steadier eyes, and the sign of manhood set like a bar of gold upon +steadier lips. Some faces are knit by beauty, or by intellect, or by a +great passion: had Stephen's waited for the touch of the years? + +But they played as boys who continued the nonsense of the railway +carriage. The paper caught fire from the match, and spread into a +rose of flame. "Now gently with me," said Stephen, and they laid it +flowerlike on the stream. Gravel and tremulous weeds leapt into sight, +and then the flower sailed into deep water, and up leapt the two arches +of a bridge. "It'll strike!" they cried; "no, it won't; it's chosen the +left," and one arch became a fairy tunnel, dropping diamonds. Then it +vanished for Rickie; but Stephen, who knelt in the water, declared that +it was still afloat, far through the arch, burning as if it would burn +forever. + + +XXXIV + +The carriage that Mrs. Failing had sent to meet her nephew returned from +Cadchurch station empty. She was preparing for a solitary dinner when +he somehow arrived, full of apologies, but more sedate than she had +expected. She cut his explanations short. "Never mind how you got here. +You are here, and I am quite pleased to see you." He changed his clothes +and they proceeded to the dining-room. + +There was a bright fire, but the curtains were not drawn. Mr. Failing +had believed that windows with the night behind are more beautiful than +any pictures, and his widow had kept to the custom. It was brave of her +to persevere, lumps of chalk having come out of the night last June. For +some obscure reason--not so obscure to Rickie--she had preserved them +as mementoes of an episode. Seeing them in a row on the mantelpiece, +he expected that their first topic would be Stephen. But they never +mentioned him, though he was latent in all that they said. + +It was of Mr. Failing that they spoke. The Essays had been a success. +She was really pleased. The book was brought in at her request, and +between the courses she read it aloud to her nephew, in her soft yet +unsympathetic voice. Then she sent for the press notices--after all +no one despises them--and read their comments on her introduction. She +wielded a graceful pen, was apt, adequate, suggestive, indispensable, +unnecessary. So the meal passed pleasantly away, for no one could so +well combine the formal with the unconventional, and it only seemed +charming when papers littered her stately table. + +"My man wrote very nicely," she observed. "Now, you read me something +out of him that you like. Read 'The True Patriot.'" + +He took the book and found: "Let us love one another. Let our children, +physical and spiritual, love one another. It is all that we can do. +Perhaps the earth will neglect our love. Perhaps she will confirm it, +and suffer some rallying-point, spire, mound, for the new generations to +cherish." + +"He wrote that when he was young. Later on he doubted whether we had +better love one another, or whether the earth will confirm anything. He +died a most unhappy man." + +He could not help saying, "Not knowing that the earth had confirmed +him." + +"Has she? It is quite possible. We meet so seldom in these days, she and +I. Do you see much of the earth?" + +"A little." + +"Do you expect that she will confirm you?" + +"It is quite possible." + +"Beware of her, Rickie, I think." + +"I think not." + +"Beware of her, surely. Going back to her really is going back--throwing +away the artificiality which (though you young people won't confess it) +is the only good thing in life. Don't pretend you are simple. Once I +pretended. Don't pretend that you care for anything but for clever talk +such as this, and for books." + +"The talk," said Leighton afterwards, "certainly was clever. But it +meant something, all the same." He heard no more, for his mistress told +him to retire. + +"And my nephew, this being so, make up your quarrel with your wife." She +stretched out her hand to him with real feeling. "It is easier now than +it will be later. Poor lady, she has written to me foolishly and often, +but, on the whole, I side with her against you. She would grant you all +that you fought for--all the people, all the theories. I have it, in her +writing, that she will never interfere with your life again." + +"She cannot help interfering," said Rickie, with his eyes on the black +windows. "She despises me. Besides, I do not love her." + +"I know, my dear. Nor she you. I am not being sentimental. I say +once more, beware of the earth. We are conventional people, and +conventions--if you will but see it--are majestic in their way, and +will claim us in the end. We do not live for great passions or for great +memories, or for anything great." + +He threw up his head. "We do." + +"Now listen to me. I am serious and friendly tonight, as you must have +observed. I have asked you here partly to amuse myself--you belong to +my March Past--but also to give you good advice. There has been a +volcano--a phenomenon which I too once greatly admired. The eruption is +over. Let the conventions do their work now, and clear the rubbish away. +My age is fifty-nine, and I tell you solemnly that the important things +in life are little things, and that people are not important at all. Go +back to your wife." + +He looked at her, and was filled with pity. He knew that he would never +be frightened of her again. Only because she was serious and friendly +did he trouble himself to reply. "There is one little fact I should +like to tell you, as confuting your theory. The idea of a story--a long +story--had been in my head for a year. As a dream to amuse myself--the +kind of amusement you would recommend for the future. I should have had +time to write it, but the people round me coloured my life, and so it +never seemed worth while. For the story is not likely to pay. Then came +the volcano. A few days after it was over I lay in bed looking out upon +a world of rubbish. Two men I know--one intellectual, the other very +much the reverse--burst into the room. They said, 'What happened to +your short stories? They weren't good, but where are they? Why have you +stopped writing? Why haven't you been to Italy? You must write. You +must go. Because to write, to go, is you.' Well, I have written, and +yesterday we sent the long story out on its rounds. The men do not like +it, for different reasons. But it mattered very much to them that I +should write it, and so it got written. As I told you, this is only one +fact; other facts, I trust, have happened in the last five months. But +I mention it to prove that people are important, and therefore, however +much it inconveniences my wife, I will not go back to her." + +"And Italy?" asked Mrs. Failing. + +This question he avoided. Italy must wait. Now that he had the time, he +had not the money. + +"Or what is the long story about, then?" + +"About a man and a woman who meet and are happy." + +"Somewhat of a tour de force, I conclude." + +He frowned. "In literature we needn't intrude our own limitations. +I'm not so silly as to think that all marriages turn out like mine. My +character is to blame for our catastrophe, not marriage." + +"My dear, I too have married; marriage is to blame." + +But here again he seemed to know better. + +"Well," she said, leaving the table and moving with her dessert to the +mantelpiece, "so you are abandoning marriage and taking to literature. +And are happy." + +"Yes." + +"Because, as we used to say at Cambridge, the cow is there. The world is +real again. This is a room, that a window, outside is the night." + +"Go on." + +He pointed to the floor. "The day is straight below, shining through +other windows into other rooms." + +"You are very odd," she said after a pause, "and I do not like you at +all. There you sit, eating my biscuits, and all the time you know that +the earth is round. Who taught you? I am going to bed now, and all the +night, you tell me, you and I and the biscuits go plunging eastwards, +until we reach the sun. But breakfast will be at nine as usual. +Good-night." + +She rang the bell twice, and her maid came with her candle and her +walking-stick: it was her habit of late to go to her room as soon as +dinner was over, for she had no one to sit up with. Rickie was impressed +by her loneliness, and also by the mixture in her of insight and +obtuseness. She was so quick, so clear-headed, so imaginative even. +But all the same, she had forgotten what people were like. Finding life +dull, she had dropped lies into it, as a chemist drops a new element +into a solution, hoping that life would thereby sparkle or turn some +beautiful colour. She loved to mislead others, and in the end her +private view of false and true was obscured, and she misled herself. How +she must have enjoyed their errors over Stephen! But her own error had +been greater, inasmuch as it was spiritual entirely. + +Leighton came in with some coffee. Feeling it unnecessary to light the +drawing-room lamp for one small young man, he persuaded Rickie to say he +preferred the dining-room. So Rickie sat down by the fire playing with +one of the lumps of chalk. His thoughts went back to the ford, from +which they had scarcely wandered. Still he heard the horse in the +dark drinking, still he saw the mystic rose, and the tunnel dropping +diamonds. He had driven away alone, believing the earth had confirmed +him. He stood behind things at last, and knew that conventions are not +majestic, and that they will not claim us in the end. + +As he mused, the chalk slipped from his fingers, and fell on the +coffee-cup, which broke. The china, said Leighton, was expensive. He +believed it was impossible to match it now. Each cup was different. It +was a harlequin set. The saucer, without the cup, was therefore useless. +Would Mr. Elliot please explain to Mrs. Failing how it happened. + +Rickie promised he would explain. + +He had left Stephen preparing to bathe, and had heard him working +up-stream like an animal, splashing in the shallows, breathing heavily +as he swam the pools; at times reeds snapped, or clods of earth were +pulled in. By the fire he remembered it was again November. "Should you +like a walk?" he asked Leighton, and told him who stopped in the village +tonight. Leighton was pleased. At nine o'clock the two young men left +the house, under a sky that was still only bright in the zenith. "It +will rain tomorrow," Leighton said. + +"My brother says, fine tomorrow." + +"Fine tomorrow," Leighton echoed. + +"Now which do you mean?" asked Rickie, laughing. + +Since the plumes of the fir-trees touched over the drive, only a very +little light penetrated. It was clearer outside the lodge gate, and +bubbles of air, which Wiltshire seemed to have travelled from an immense +distance, broke gently and separately on his face. They paused on the +bridge. He asked whether the little fish and the bright green weeds were +here now as well as in the summer. The footman had not noticed. Over the +bridge they came to the cross-roads, of which one led to Salisbury and +the other up through the string of villages to the railway station. +The road in front was only the Roman road, the one that went on to the +downs. Turning to the left, they were in Cadford. + +"He will be with the Thompsons," said Rickie, looking up at dark eaves. +"Perhaps he's in bed already." + +"Perhaps he will be at The Antelope." + +"No. Tonight he is with the Thompsons." + +"With the Thompsons." After a dozen paces he said, "The Thompsons have +gone away." + +"Where? Why?" + +"They were turned out by Mr. Wilbraham on account of our broken +windows." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Five families were turned out." + +"That's bad for Stephen," said Rickie, after a pause. "He was looking +forward--oh, it's monstrous in any case!" + +"But the Thompsons have gone to London," said Leighton. "Why, that +family--they say it's been in the valley hundreds of years, and never +got beyond shepherding. To various parts of London." + +"Let us try The Antelope, then." + +"Let us try The Antelope." + +The inn lay up in the village. Rickie hastened his pace. This tyranny +was monstrous. Some men of the age of undergraduates had broken windows, +and therefore they and their families were to be ruined. The fools who +govern us find it easier to be severe. It saves them trouble to say, +"The innocent must suffer with the guilty." It even gives them a thrill +of pride. Against all this wicked nonsense, against the Wilbrahams and +Pembrokes who try to rule our world Stephen would fight till he died. +Stephen was a hero. He was a law to himself, and rightly. He was great +enough to despise our small moralities. He was attaining love. This +evening Rickie caught Ansell's enthusiasm, and felt it worth while to +sacrifice everything for such a man. + +"The Antelope," said Leighton. "Those lights under the greatest elm." + +"Would you please ask if he's there, and if he'd come for a turn with +me. I don't think I'll go in." + +Leighton opened the door. They saw a little room, blue with +tobacco-smoke. Flanking the fire were deep settles hiding all but the +legs of the men who lounged in them. Between the settles stood a table, +covered with mugs and glasses. The scene was picturesque--fairer than +the cutglass palaces of the town. + +"Oh yes, he's there," he called, and after a moment's hesitation came +out. + +"Would he come?" + +"No. I shouldn't say so," replied Leighton, with a furtive glance. He +knew that Rickie was a milksop. "First night, you know, sir, among old +friends." + +"Yes, I know," said Rickie. "But he might like a turn down the village. +It looks stuffy inside there, and poor fun probably to watch others +drinking." + +Leighton shut the door. + +"What was that he called after you?" + +"Oh, nothing. A man when he's drunk--he says the worst he's ever heard. +At least, so they say." + +"A man when he's drunk?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"But Stephen isn't drinking?" + +"No, no." + +"He couldn't be. If he broke a promise--I don't pretend he's a saint. I +don't want him one. But it isn't in him to break a promise." + +"Yes, sir; I understand." + +"In the train he promised me not to drink--nothing theatrical: just a +promise for these few days." + +"No, sir." "'No, sir,'" stamped Rickie. "'Yes! no! yes!' Can't you speak +out? Is he drunk or isn't he?" + +Leighton, justly exasperated, cried, "He can't stand, and I've told you +so again and again." + +"Stephen!" shouted Rickie, darting up the steps. Heat and the smell of +beer awaited him, and he spoke more furiously than he had intended. "Is +there any one here who's sober?" he cried. The landlord looked over +the bar angrily, and asked him what he meant. He pointed to the deep +settles. "Inside there he's drunk. Tell him he's broken his word, and I +will not go with him to the Rings." + +"Very well. You won't go with him to the Rings," said the landlord, +stepping forward and slamming the door in his face. + +In the room he was only angry, but out in the cool air he remembered +that Stephen was a law to himself. He had chosen to break his word, and +would break it again. Nothing else bound him. To yield to temptation is +not fatal for most of us. But it was the end of everything for a hero. + +"He's suddenly ruined!" he cried, not yet remembering himself. For a +little he stood by the elm-tree, clutching the ridges of its bark. Even +so would he wrestle tomorrow, and Stephen, imperturbable, reply, "My +body is my own." Or worse still, he might wrestle with a pliant Stephen +who promised him glibly again. While he prayed for a miracle to convert +his brother, it struck him that he must pray for himself. For he, too, +was ruined. + +"Why, what's the matter?" asked Leighton. "Stephen's only being with +friends. Mr. Elliot, sir, don't break down. Nothing's happened bad. No +one's died yet, or even hurt themselves." Ever kind, he took hold of +Rickie's arm, and, pitying such a nervous fellow, set out with him for +home. The shoulders of Orion rose behind them over the topmost boughs of +the elm. From the bridge the whole constellation was visible, and Rickie +said, "May God receive me and pardon me for trusting the earth." + +"But, Mr. Elliot, what have you done that's wrong?" + +"Gone bankrupt, Leighton, for the second time. Pretended again that +people were real. May God have mercy on me!" + +Leighton dropped his arm. Though he did not understand, a chill of +disgust passed over him, and he said, "I will go back to The Antelope. I +will help them put Stephen to bed." + +"Do. I will wait for you here." Then he leant against the parapet and +prayed passionately, for he knew that the conventions would claim him +soon. God was beyond them, but ah, how far beyond, and to be reached +after what degradation! At the end of this childish detour his wife +awaited him, not less surely because she was only his wife in name. He +was too weak. Books and friends were not enough. Little by little she +would claim him and corrupt him and make him what he had been; and the +woman he loved would die out, in drunkenness, in debauchery, and her +strength would be dissipated by a man, her beauty defiled in a man. She +would not continue. That mystic rose and the face it illumined meant +nothing. The stream--he was above it now--meant nothing, though it +burst from the pure turf and ran for ever to the sea. The bather, the +shoulders of Orion-they all meant nothing, and were going nowhere. The +whole affair was a ridiculous dream. + +Leighton returned, saying, "Haven't you seen Stephen? They say he +followed us: he can still walk: I told you he wasn't so bad." + +"I don't think he passed me. Ought one to look?" He wandered a little +along the Roman road. Again nothing mattered. At the level-crossing he +leant on the gate to watch a slow goods train pass. In the glare of the +engine he saw that his brother had come this way, perhaps through some +sodden memory of the Rings, and now lay drunk over the rails. Wearily +he did a man's duty. There was time to raise him up and push him into +safety. It is also a man's duty to save his own life, and therefore he +tried. The train went over his knees. He died up in Cadover, whispering, +"You have been right," to Mrs. Failing. + +She wrote of him to Mrs. Lewin afterwards as "one who has failed in +all he undertook; one of the thousands whose dust returns to the dust, +accomplishing nothing in the interval. Agnes and I buried him to the +sound of our cracked bell, and pretended that he had once been alive. +The other, who was always honest, kept away." + + + +XXXV + +From the window they looked over a sober valley, whose sides were +not too sloping to be ploughed, and whose trend was followed by a +grass-grown track. It was late on Sunday afternoon, and the valley was +deserted except for one labourer, who was coasting slowly downward on +a rosy bicycle. The air was very quiet. A jay screamed up in the woods +behind, but the ring-doves, who roost early, were already silent. +Since the window opened westward, the room was flooded with light, and +Stephen, finding it hot, was working in his shirtsleeves. + +"You guarantee they'll sell?" he asked, with a pen between his teeth. He +was tidying up a pile of manuscripts. + +"I guarantee that the world will be the gainer," said Mr. Pembroke, +now a clergyman, who sat beside him at the table with an expression of +refined disapproval on his face. + +"I'd got the idea that the long story had its points, but that these +shorter things didn't--what's the word?" + +"'Convince' is probably the word you want. But that type of criticism +is quite a thing of the past. Have you seen the illustrated American +edition?" + +"I don't remember." + +"Might I send you a copy? I think you ought to possess one." + +"Thank you." His eye wandered. The bicycle had disappeared into +some trees, and thither, through a cloudless sky, the sun was also +descending. + +"Is all quite plain?" said Mr. Pembroke. "Submit these ten stories to +the magazines, and make your own terms with the editors. Then--I have +your word for it--you will join forces with me; and the four stories in +my possession, together with yours, should make up a volume, which we +might well call 'Pan Pipes.'" + +"Are you sure `Pan Pipes' haven't been used up already?" + +Mr. Pembroke clenched his teeth. He had been bearing with this sort of +thing for nearly an hour. "If that is the case, we can select another. +A title is easy to come by. But that is the idea it must suggest. The +stories, as I have twice explained to you, all centre round a Nature +theme. Pan, being the god of--" + +"I know that," said Stephen impatiently. + +"--Being the god of--" + +"All right. Let's get furrard. I've learnt that." + +It was years since the schoolmaster had been interrupted, and he could +not stand it. "Very well," he said. "I bow to your superior knowledge of +the classics. Let us proceed." + +"Oh yes the introduction. There must be one. It was the introduction +with all those wrong details that sold the other book." + +"You overwhelm me. I never penned the memoir with that intention." + +"If you won't do one, Mrs. Keynes must!" + +"My sister leads a busy life. I could not ask her. I will do it myself +since you insist." + +"And the binding?" + +"The binding," said Mr. Pembroke coldly, "must really be left to the +discretion of the publisher. We cannot be concerned with such details. +Our task is purely literary." His attention wandered. He began to +fidget, and finally bent down and looked under the table. "What have we +here?" he asked. + +Stephen looked also, and for a moment they smiled at each other over +the prostrate figure of a child, who was cuddling Mr. Pembroke's boots. +"She's after the blacking," he explained. "If we left her there, she'd +lick them brown." + +"Indeed. Is that so very safe?" + +"It never did me any harm. Come up! Your tongue's dirty." + +"Can I--" She was understood to ask whether she could clean her tongue +on a lollie. + +"No, no!" said Mr. Pembroke. "Lollipops don't clean little girls' +tongues." + +"Yes, they do," he retorted. "But she won't get one." He lifted her on +his knee, and rasped her tongue with his handkerchief. + +"Dear little thing," said the visitor perfunctorily. The child began +to squall, and kicked her father in the stomach. Stephen regarded her +quietly. "You tried to hurt me," he said. "Hurting doesn't count. Trying +to hurt counts. Go and clean your tongue yourself. Get off my knee." +Tears of another sort came into her eyes, but she obeyed him. "How's the +great Bertie?" he asked. + +"Thank you. My nephew is perfectly well. How came you to hear of his +existence?" + +"Through the Silts, of course. It isn't five miles to Cadover." + +Mr. Pembroke raised his eyes mournfully. "I cannot conceive how the poor +Silts go on in that great house. Whatever she intended, it could not +have been that. The house, the farm, the money,--everything down to the +personal articles that belong to Mr. Failing, and should have reverted +to his family!" + +"It's legal. Interstate succession." + +"I do not dispute it. But it is a lesson to one to make a will. Mrs. +Keynes and myself were electrified." + +"They'll do there. They offered me the agency, but--" He looked down +the cultivated slopes. His manners were growing rough, for he saw few +gentlemen now, and he was either incoherent or else alarmingly direct. +"However, if Lawrie Silt's a Cockney like his father, and if my next is +a boy and like me--" A shy beautiful look came into his eyes, and passed +unnoticed. "They'll do," he repeated. "They turned out Wilbraham and +built new cottages, and bridged the railway, and made other necessary +alterations." There was a moment's silence. + +Mr. Pembroke took out his watch. "I wonder if I might have the trap? I +mustn't miss my train, must I? It is good of you to have granted me an +interview. It is all quite plain?" + +"Yes." + +"A case of half and half-division of profits." + +"Half and half?" said the young farmer slowly. "What do you take me for? +Half and half, when I provide ten of the stories and you only four?" + +"I--I--" stammered Mr. Pembroke. + +"I consider you did me over the long story, and I'm damned if you do me +over the short ones!" + +"Hush! if you please, hush!--if only for your little girl's sake." + +He lifted a clerical palm. + +"You did me," his voice drove, "and all the thirty-nine Articles won't +stop me saying so. That long story was meant to be mine. I got it +written. You've done me out of every penny it fetched. It's dedicated to +me--flat out--and you even crossed out the dedication and tidied me out +of the introduction. Listen to me, Pembroke. You've done people all your +life--I think without knowing it, but that won't comfort us. A wretched +devil at your school once wrote to me, and he'd been done. Sham food, +sham religion, sham straight talks--and when he broke down, you said it +was the world in miniature." He snatched at him roughly. "But I'll show +you the world." He twisted him round like a baby, and through the open +door they saw only the quiet valley, but in it a rivulet that would +in time bring its waters to the sea. "Look even at that--and up behind +where the Plain begins and you get on the solid chalk--think of us +riding some night when you're ordering your hot bottle--that's the +world, and there's no miniature world. There's one world, Pembroke, and +you can't tidy men out of it. They answer you back do you hear?--they +answer back if you do them. If you tell a man this way that four sheep +equal ten, he answers back you're a liar." + +Mr. Pembroke was speechless, and--such is human nature--he chiefly +resented the allusion to the hot bottle; an unmanly luxury in which he +never indulged; contenting himself with nightsocks. "Enough--there is no +witness present--as you have doubtless observed." But there was. For a +little voice cried, "Oh, mummy, they're fighting--such fun--" and feet +went pattering up the stairs. "Enough. You talk of 'doing,' but what +about the money out of which you 'did' my sister? What about this +picture"--he pointed to a faded photograph of Stockholm--"which you +caused to be filched from the walls of my house? What about--enough! +Let us conclude this disheartening scene. You object to my terms. Name +yours. I shall accept them. It is futile to reason with one who is the +worse for drink." + +Stephen was quiet at once. "Steady on!" he said gently. "Steady on +in that direction. Take one-third for your four stories and the +introduction, and I will keep two-thirds for myself." Then he went to +harness the horse, while Mr. Pembroke, watching his broad back, +desired to bury a knife in it. The desire passed, partly because it was +unclerical, partly because he had no knife, and partly because he soon +blurred over what had happened. To him all criticism was "rudeness": +he never heeded it, for he never needed it: he was never wrong. All his +life he had ordered little human beings about, and now he was equally +magisterial to big ones: Stephen was a fifth-form lout whom, owing to +some flaw in the regulations, he could not send up to the headmaster to +be caned. + +This attitude makes for tranquillity. Before long he felt merely an +injured martyr. His brain cleared. He stood deep in thought before the +only other picture that the bare room boasted--the Demeter of Cnidus. +Outside the sun was sinking, and its last rays fell upon the immortal +features and the shattered knees. Sweet-peas offered their fragrance, +and with it there entered those more mysterious scents that come from +no one flower or clod of earth, but from the whole bosom of evening. +He tried not to be cynical. But in his heart he could not regret that +tragedy, already half-forgotten, conventionalized, indistinct. Of course +death is a terrible thing. Yet death is merciful when it weeds out a +failure. If we look deep enough, it is all for the best. He stared at +the picture and nodded. + +Stephen, who had met his visitor at the station, had intended to drive +him back there. But after their spurt of temper he sent him with the +boy. He remained in the doorway, glad that he was going to make money, +glad that he had been angry; while the glow of the clear sky deepened, +and the silence was perfected, and the scents of the night grew +stronger. Old vagrancies awoke, and he resolved that, dearly as he +loved his house, he would not enter it again till dawn. "Goodnight!" he +called, and then the child came running, and he whispered, "Quick, then! +Bring me a rug." "Good-night," he repeated, and a pleasant voice called +through an upper window, "Why good-night?" He did not answer until the +child was wrapped up in his arms. + +"It is time that she learnt to sleep out," he cried. "If you want me, +we're out on the hillside, where I used to be." + +The voice protested, saying this and that. + +"Stewart's in the house," said the man, "and it cannot matter, and I am +going anyway." + +"Stephen, I wish you wouldn't. I wish you wouldn't take her. Promise +you won't say foolish things to her. Don't--I wish you'd come up for a +minute--" + +The child, whose face was laid against his, felt the muscles in it +harden. + +"Don't tell her foolish things about yourself--things that aren't any +longer true. Don't worry her with old dead dreadfulness. To please +me--don't." + +"Just tonight I won't, then." + +"Stevie, dear, please me more--don't take her with you." + +At this he laughed impertinently. "I suppose I'm being kept in line," +she called, and, though he could not see her, she stretched her arms +towards him. For a time he stood motionless, under her window, musing on +his happy tangible life. Then his breath quickened, and he wondered why +he was here, and why he should hold a warm child in his arms. "It's time +we were starting," he whispered, and showed the sky, whose orange was +already fading into green. "Wish everything goodnight." + +"Good-night, dear mummy," she said sleepily. "Goodnight, dear house. +Good-night, you pictures--long picture--stone lady. I see you through +the window--your faces are pink." + +The twilight descended. He rested his lips on her hair, and carried her, +without speaking, until he reached the open down. He had often slept +here himself, alone, and on his wedding-night, and he knew that the turf +was dry, and that if you laid your face to it you would smell the +thyme. For a moment the earth aroused her, and she began to chatter. "My +prayers--" she said anxiously. He gave her one hand, and she was +asleep before her fingers had nestled in its palm. Their touch made him +pensive, and again he marvelled why he, the accident, was here. He was +alive and had created life. By whose authority? Though he could not +phrase it, he believed that he guided the future of our race, and that, +century after century, his thoughts and his passions would triumph in +England. The dead who had evoked him, the unborn whom he would evoke he +governed the paths between them. By whose authority? + +Out in the west lay Cadover and the fields of his earlier youth, and +over them descended the crescent moon. His eyes followed her decline, +and against her final radiance he saw, or thought he saw, the outline +of the Rings. He had always been grateful, as people who understood him +knew. But this evening his gratitude seemed a gift of small account. The +ear was deaf, and what thanks of his could reach it? The body was dust, +and in what ecstasy of his could it share? The spirit had fled, in agony +and loneliness, never to know that it bequeathed him salvation. + +He filled his pipe, and then sat pressing the unlit tobacco with his +thumb. "What am I to do?" he thought. "Can he notice the things he gave +me? A parson would know. But what's a man like me to do, who works all +his life out of doors?" As he wondered, the silence of the night was +broken. The whistle of Mr. Pembroke's train came faintly, and a lurid +spot passed over the land--passed, and the silence returned. One thing +remained that a man of his sort might do. He bent down reverently and +saluted the child; to whom he had given the name of their mother. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Longest Journey, by E. M. 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