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diff --git a/36295-0.txt b/36295-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa03811 --- /dev/null +++ b/36295-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14745 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASTOR'S WIFE *** + + + + +THE PASTOR'S WIFE + +_By the Author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden"_ + + +_Illustrated by Arthur Litle_ + + +GARDEN CITY NEW YORK +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + 1914 + + +[Illustration: "Tell me, Little One," he said when she rejoined him, +"will you marry me?"] + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN +ADVENTURES OF ELIZABETH IN RÜGEN +FRÄULEIN SCHMIDT AND MR. ANSTRUTHER +PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT +THE SOLITARY SUMMER +THE CARAVANERS + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +"Tell me, Little One," he said when she rejoined him, "will you + marry me?" _Frontispiece_ + +"Then why," she asked, with the courage of curiosity, "are you + a pastor?" + +"Will you not, Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, calling her for the + first time by her name, "cut the cake?" + +"But--father, I've been doing it too" + +He could no longer walk around his own garden without meeting an + interlaced couple + +"You are married to her?" asked the elder Frau Dremmel, turning her + pebble eyes slowly from one to the other + +Especially her gaze lingered on her feet. Becoming aware of this, + Ingeborg tried to hide them + +"But these are very wonderful," she said, taking up the sketches. + "I wish I were really like that." + + + + +PART I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +On that April afternoon all the wallflowers of the world seemed to her +released body to have been piled up at the top of Regent Street so that +she should walk in fragrance. + +She was in this exalted mood, the little mouse-coloured young lady +slipping along southwards from Harley Street, because she had just had a +tooth out. After weeks of miserable indifference she was quivering with +responsiveness again, feeling the relish of life, the tang of it, the +jollity of all this bustle and hurrying past of busy people. And the +beauty of it, the _beauty_ of it, she thought, fighting a tendency to +loiter in the middle of the traffic to have a good look--the beauty of +the sky across the roofs of the houses, the delicacy of the mistiness +that hung down there over the curve of the street, the loveliness of the +lights beginning to shine in the shop windows. Surely the colour of +London was an exquisite thing. It was like a pearl that late afternoon, +something very gentle and pale, with faint blue shadows. And as for its +smell, she doubted, indeed, whether heaven itself could smell better, +certainly not so interesting. "And anyhow," she said to herself, lifting +her head a moment in appreciation, "it can't possibly smell more +_alive_." + +She herself had certainly never been more alive. She felt electric. She +would not have been surprised if sparks had come crackling out of the +tips of her sober gloves. Not only was she suddenly and incredibly +relieved from acute pain, but for the first time in her life of +twenty-two years she was alone. This by itself, without the business of +the tooth, was enough to make a dutiful, willing, and hardworked +daughter tingle. She would have tingled if by some glorious chance a +whole free day had come to her merely inside the grey walls of the +garden at home; but to be free and idle in London, to have them all so +far away, her family down there in the west, to have them so necessarily +silent, so oddly vague already and pallid in the distance! Yet she had +only left them that morning; it was only nine hours since her father, +handsome as an archangel, silvery of head and gaitered of leg, had waved +her off from the doorstep with offended resignation. "And do not return, +Ingeborg," he had called into the fly where she sat holding her face and +trying not to rock, "till you are completely set right. Even a week. +Even ten days. Have them all seen to." + +For the collapse of Ingeborg, daunted into just a silent feverish thing +of pain, had convulsed the ordered life at home. Her family bore it for +a week with perfect manners and hardly a look of reproach. Then they +sent her to the Redchester dentist, a hitherto sufficient man, who +tortured her with tentative stoppings and turned what had been dull and +smooth into excitement and jerks. Then, unable to resist a feeling that +self-control would have greatly helped, it began to find the etiquette +of Christian behaviour, which insisted on its going on being silent +while she more and more let herself go, irksome. The Bishop wanted +things in vain. Three times he had to see himself off alone at the +station and not be met when he came back. Buttons, because they were not +tightened on in time, burst from his gaiters, and did it in remote +places like railway carriages. Letters were unanswered, important ones. +Engagements, vital ones, through lack of reminders went unkept. At last +it became plain, when she seemed not even to wish to answer when spoken +to or to move when called, that this apathy and creeping away to hide +could not further be endured. Against all tradition, against every home +principle, they let a young unmarried daughter loose. With offended +reluctance they sent her to London to a celebrity in teeth--after all it +was not as if she had been going just to enjoy herself--"And your aunt +will please forgive us," said the Bishop, "for taking her in this manner +unawares." + +The aunt, a serious strong lady, was engaged for political meetings in +the north, and had gone away to them that very morning, leaving a letter +and her house at Ingeborg's disposal for so long as the dentist needed +her. The dentist, being the best that money could buy, hardly needed her +at all. He pounced unerringly and at once on the right tooth and pulled +it out. There were no stoppings, no delays, no pain, and no aunt. Never +was a life more beautifully cleared. Ingeborg went away down Harley +Street free, and with ten pounds in her pocket. For the rest of this one +day, for an hour or two to-morrow morning before setting out for +Paddington and home, she could do exactly as she liked. + +"Why, there's nothing to prevent me going _anywhere_ this evening," she +thought, stopping dead as the full glory of the situation slowly dawned +on her. "Why, I could go out somewhere really grand to dinner, just as +people do I expect in all the books I'm not let read, and then I could +go to the play--nobody could prevent me. Why, I could go to a music-hall +if I chose, and _still_ nobody could prevent me!" + +Audacious imaginings that made her laugh--she had not laughed for +weeks--darted in and out of her busy brain. She saw herself in her +mouse-coloured dress reducing waiters in marble and gilt places to +respect and slavery by showing them her ten pounds. She built up lurid +fabrics of possible daring deeds, and smiled at the reflection of +herself in shop windows as she passed, at the sobriety, the +irreproachableness of the sheath containing these molten imaginings. +Why, she might hire a car--just telephone, and there you were with it +round in five minutes, and go off in the twilight to Richmond Park or +Windsor. She had never been to Richmond Park or Windsor; she had never +been anywhere; but she was sure there would be bats and stars out there, +and water, and the soft duskiness of trees and the smell of wet earth, +and she could drive about them a little, slowly, so as to _feel_ it all, +and then come back and have supper somewhere--have supper at the Ritz, +she thought, of which she had read hastily out of the corner of an eye +between two appearances of the Bishop, in the more interesting portions +of the _Times_--just saunter in, you know. Or she could have dinner +first; yes, dinner first--dinner at Claridge's. No, not at Claridge's; +she had an aunt who stayed there, another one, her mother's sister, rich +and powerful, and it was always best not to stir up rich and powerful +aunts. Dinner at the Thackeray Hôtel, perhaps. That was where her +father's relations stayed, fine-looking serious men who once were +curates and, yet earlier, good and handsome babies. It was near the +British Museum, she had heard. Its name and surroundings suggested +magnificence of a nobler sort than the Ritz. Yes, she would dine at the +Thackeray Hôtel and be splendid. + +Here, coming to a window full of food, she became aware that, +wonderfully, and for the first time for weeks, she was hungry; so hungry +that she didn't want dinner or supper or anything future, but something +now. She went in; and all her gilded visions of the Ritz and the +Thackeray Hôtel were swamped in one huge cup (she felt how legitimate +and appropriate a drink it was for a bishop's daughter without a +chaperon, and ordered the biggest size costing four-pence) of Aerated +Bread Shop cocoa. + +It was six o'clock when she emerged, amazingly nourished, from that +strange place where long-backed elderly men with tired eyes were +hurriedly eating poached eggs on chilly little clothless marble tables, +and continued down Regent Street. + +She now felt strangely settled in her mind. She no longer wanted to go +to the Ritz. Indeed the notion of dining anywhere with the cocoa +clothing her internally as with a garment--a thick winter garment, +almost she thought like the closer kinds of fur--was revolting. She +still felt enterprising, but a little clogged. She thought now more of +things like fresh air and exercise. Not now for her the heat and glitter +of a music-hall. There was a taste in that pure drink that was +irreconcilable with music-halls, a satisfying property in its +unadulteratedness, its careful cleanliness, that reminded her she was +the daughter of a bishop. Walking away from the Aerated Bread Shop +rather gravely, she remembered that she had a mother on a sofa; an only +sister who was so beautiful that it was touching; and a class of boys, +once unruly and now looking up to her--in fact, that she had a position +to keep up. She was still happy, but happy now in a thoroughly nice way; +and she would probably have gone back in this warmed and solaced +condition to her aunt's house in Bedford Square and an evening with a +book and an early bed if her eye had not been caught by a poster outside +an office sort of place she was passing, a picture of water and +mountains, with written on it in big letters: + + A WEEK IN LOVELY LUCERNE + SEVEN DAYS FOR SEVEN GUINEAS + + THOSE WHO INTEND TO JOIN NEXT TRIP INQUIRE + WITHIN + +Now Ingeborg's maternal grandmother had been a Swede, a creature of +toughness and skill on skis, a young woman, when caught surprisingly by +the washed-out English tourist Ingeborg's grandfather, drenched in frank +reading and thinking and in the smell of the abounding forests and in +wood strawberries and sour cream. She had lived, up to the day when for +some quite undiscoverable reason she allowed herself to be married to +the narrow stranger, in the middle of big beautiful things--big +stretches of water, big mountains, big winds, big lonelinesses; and +Ingeborg, who had never been out of England and had spent years in the +soft and soppy west, seeing the picture of the great lake and the great +sky in the window in Regent Street, felt a quick grip on her heart. + +It was the fingers of her grandmother. + +She stood staring at the picture, half-remembering, trying hard to +remember quite, something beautiful and elusive and remote that once she +had known--oh, that once she had known--but that she kept on somehow +forgetting. The urgencies of daily life in episcopal surroundings, the +breathless pursuit of her duties, the effort all day long to catch them +up and be even with them, the Bishop's buttons, the Bishop's speeches, +the Bishop's departures by trains, his all-pervadingness when at home, +his all-engulfing mass of correspondence when away--"She is my Right +Hand," he would say in stately praise--the Redchester tea-parties to +which her mother couldn't go because of the sofa, the county +garden-parties to which Judith had to be taken, the callers, the +bazaars, the cathedral services, the hurry, the noise--life at home +seemed the noisiest thing--these had smothered and hidden, beaten down, +put out and silenced that highly important and unrecognized part of her, +her little bit of lurking grandmother. Now, however, this tough but +impulsive lady rose within her in all her might. Her granddaughter was +in exactly the right state for being influenced. She was standing there +staring, longing, seething with Scandinavia, and presently arguing. + +Why shouldn't she? The Bishop, as she had remarked with wonder earlier +in the afternoon, seemed to have faded quite pallid that long way off. +And arrangements had been made. He had engaged an extra secretary; his +chaplain had been warned; Judith was going perhaps to do something; her +mother would stay safely on the sofa. They did not expect her back for +at least a week, and not for as much longer as her tooth might ache. If +her tooth were still in her mouth it _would_ be aching. If the dentist +had decided to stop it, it would have been a fortnight before such a +dreadful ache as that could be suppressed, she was sure it would. And +the ten pounds her father had given her for taxis and tips and other +odds and ends, spread over a fortnight what would have been left of it +anyhow? Besides, he had said--and indeed the Bishop, desirous of taking +no jot from his generosity in the whole annoying business, had said it, +and said it with the strong flavour of Scripture which hung about even +his mufti utterances--that she might keep any fragments of it that +remained that nothing be lost. + +"Your father is very good to you," said her mother, in whose prostrate +presence the gift had been made.--"But bishops," flashed across +Ingeborg's undisciplined and jerky mind, "have to be good"--(she caught +the flash, however, and choked it out before it had got +half-way)--"you'll be able to get yourself a spring hat." + +"Yes, mother," said Ingeborg, holding her face. + +"And I should think a blouse as well," said her mother thoughtfully. + +"Yes, mother." + +"My dear, remember I _require_ Ingeborg here," said the Bishop, uneasy +at this vision of an indispensable daughter delayed by blouses. "You +will not, of course, forget that, Ingeborg." + +"No, father." + +And here she was forgetting it. Here she was in front of a common poster +forgetting it. What the Ritz and the Thackeray Hôtel with all their +attractions had not been able to do, that crude picture did. She forgot +the Bishop--or rather he seemed at that distance such a little thing, +such a little bit of a thing, a tiny little black figure with a dab of +white on its top, compared to this vision of splendid earth and heaven, +that she wilfully would not remember him. She forgot her accumulating +work. She forgot that her movements had all first to be sanctioned. A +whirl of Scandinavianism, of violent longing for freedom and adventure, +seemed to catch her and lift her out of the street and fling her into a +place of maps and time-tables and helpful young men framed in mahogany. + +"When--when--" she stammered breathlessly, pointing to a duplicate of +the same poster hanging inside, "when does the next trip start?" + +"To-morrow, madam," said the young man her question had tumbled on. + +A solemnity fell upon her. She felt it was Providence. She ceased to +argue. She didn't even try to struggle. "I'm going," she announced. + +And her ten pounds became two pounds thirteen, and she walked away +conscious of nothing except that the very next day she would be off. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +She was collected by the official leader of this particular Dent's +Excursion at Charing Cross the next morning and swept into a +second-class carriage with nine other excursionists, and next door there +were more--she counted eighteen of them at one time crowding round the +leader asking him questions--and besides these there was a crowd of +ordinary passengers bustling about with holiday expressions, and several +runaway couples, and every single person seemed like herself eager to be +off. + +The runaway couples, from the ravaged expressions on their faces, were +being torn by doubts, perhaps already by repentances; but Ingeborg, +though she was deceiving her father who, being a bishop, should have +been peculiarly inviolate, and her mother who, being sofa-ridden, should +have appealed to her better nature, and her sister who, being exquisite, +should have been guarded from any shadow that might dim her beauty, had +none. She had been frightened that morning while she was packing and +getting herself out of her aunt's house. The immense conviction of the +servants that she was going home cowed her. And she had had to say +little things--Paddington, for instance, to the taxi driver when she +knew she meant Charing Cross, and had blushed when she changed it +through the window. But here she was, and there was a crowd of people +doing exactly the same thing whose secure jollity, except in the case of +those odd, sad couples, was contagious, and she felt both safe and as +though she were the most normal creature in the world. + +"What _fun_," she thought, her blood dancing as she watched the +swarming, surging platform, "what _fun_." + +Often had she been at the Redchester station in attendance on her +departing father, but what a getting off was that compared with this +hilarity. There was bustle, of course, because trains won't wait and +people won't get out of the way, but the Bishop's bustlings, +particularly when their end was confirmations, were conducted with a +kind of frozen offendedness; there was no life in him, she thought, +remembering them, he didn't let himself go. On the other hand, she +reflected, careful to be fair, you couldn't snatch illicitly at things +like confirmations in the way you could at a Dent's Tour and devour them +in secret with a fearful hidden joy. She felt like a bulb must feel, she +thought, at the supreme moment when it has nosed its little spear +successfully up through the mould it has endured all the winter and gets +it suddenly out into the light and splendour of the world. The freedom +of it! The joy of getting _clear_! + +The excursionists in the carriage struggled to reach the window across +her feet and say things to their friends outside. They all talked at +once, and the carriage was full of sound and gesticulations. The friends +on the platform could not hear, but they nodded and smiled +sympathetically and shouted at intervals that it was going to be a good +crossing. Everybody was being seen off except herself and the runaway +couples; indeed, you could know which those were by the gaps along the +platform. She sat well back in her place, anxious to make herself as +convenient as possible and to get her feet tucked out of the way, a +typical daughter of provincial England and a careful home and the more +expensive clergy, well-dressed, inconspicuous, and grey. Her soft +mouse-colour hat, as the fashion that spring still went on decreeing in +the west, came down well over her eyes and ears, and little rings of +cheerful hair of a Scandinavian colouring wantoned beneath it. Her small +face was swallowed up in the shadow of the hat; you saw a liberal mouth +with happy corners, and the nostrils of a selective nose, and there was +an impression of freckles, and of a very fair sunny sort of skin. + +The square German gentleman opposite her, knowing nobody in London and +therefore being, but for a different and honourable reason, in her +position of not having any one to see him off, filled up the time by +staring. Entirely unconscious that it might be embarrassing he sat and +stared. With the utmost singleness of mind he wished to see the rest of +her, when he would be able to determine whether she were pretty or not. + +Ingeborg, absorbed by the wild excitement on the platform, had not +noticed him; but immediately the train started and the other passengers +had sorted themselves into their seats and were beginning the furtive +watchfulness of one another that was presently to resolve itself into +acquaintanceship, she knew there was something large and steady opposite +that was concentrated upon herself. + +She looked up quickly to see what it was, and for a moment her polite +intelligent eyes returned his stare. He decided that she had missed +being pretty, and with a faint regret wondered what God was about. + +"Fattened up--yes, possibly," he thought. "Fattened up--yes, perhaps." + +And he went on staring because she happened to be exactly opposite, and +there was nothing else except tunnels to look at. + +The other excursionists were all in pairs; they thought Ingeborg was, +too, and put her down at first as the German gentleman's wife because he +did not speak to her. There were two couples of young women, one of +ladies of a riper age, and one of earnest young men who were mentioning +Balzac to each other almost before they had got to New Cross. Indeed, a +surprising atmosphere of culture pervaded the compartment. Ingeborg was +astonished. Except the riper ladies, who persisted in talking about +Shoolbred, they were all presently saying educated things. Balzac, +Blake, Bernard Shaw, and Mrs. Florence Barclay were bandied backwards +and forwards across the carriage as lightly and familiarly as though +they had been balls. In the far corner Browning was being compared with +Tennyson; in the middle, Dickens with Thackeray. The two elder ladies, +who kept to Shoolbred, formed a sort of dam between these educated +overflowings and the silent back-water in which Ingeborg and the German +gentleman sat becalmed. Presently, owing to a politeness that could not +allow even an outlying portion of any one else's clothing or belongings +to be brushed against without "Excuse me" having been said and "Don't +mention it" having been answered, acquaintanceships were made; +chocolates were offered; they introduced each other to each other; for a +brief space the young men's caps were hardly on their heads, and the air +was murmurous with gratified noises. But the two riper ladies, +passionately preoccupied by Shoolbred, continued to dam up Ingeborg and +her opposite neighbour into a stagnant and unfruitful isolation. + +She tried to peep round the lady next to her, who jutted out like a +mountain with mighty boulders on it, so as to see the three people +hidden in the valley beyond. Glimpses of their knees revealed that they +were just like the ones on the seat opposite. They were neat knees, a +little threadbare; not with the delicate threadbareness of her own home +in the palace at Redchester, where splendours of carved stone and black +oak and ancient glass were kept from flaunting their pricelessness too +obviously in the faces of the local supporters of Disestablishment by a +Christian leanness in the matter of carpets, but knees that were +inexpensive because they had to be. Who were these girls and young men, +and the two abundant ladies, and the man with the vast thick head and +unalterable stare? All people who did things, she was certain. Not just +anything, like herself, but regular things that began and stopped at +fixed times, that were paid for. That was why they were able to do +frankly and honourably what she was snatching at furtively in a corner. +For a brief astonishing instant she was aware she liked the corner way +_best_. Staggered at this, for she could in no way reconcile it with the +Bishop, the cathedral, the home, nor with any of her thoughts down there +while enfolded in these three absorbing influences, she tried to follow +her father's oft-repeated advice and look into herself. But it did not +help much. She saw, indeed, that she was doing an outrageous thing, but +then she was very happy--happier than she had ever been in Redchester, +plied with legitimate episcopal joys. There was a keenness about this +joy, the salt freshness of something jolly and indefensible done in +secret. She did look at penitence sideways for an instant, but almost, +at once decided that it was a thing that comes afterwards. First you do +your thing. You must of course do your thing, or there couldn't be any +penitence. + +She sat up very straight, her face lit with these thoughts that both +amused and frightened her, her lips slightly parted, her eyes radiant, +ready for anything life had to offer. + +"A little fattened up," thought the German gentleman; "a _little_ even +would probably suffice." + +There was to be a night in Paris--no time to see it, but you can't have +everything, and Paris is Paris--and next morning into the train again, +and down, down, all down the slope of the map of France to Bâle, the +Gate of Beauty, surely of heavenly beauty, and then you got there, and +there were five whole days of wonder, and then.... + +Her thoughts hesitated. Why then she supposed, making an effort, you +began to come back. And then.... + +But here she thought it wisest not to go on thinking. + +"Excuse me, but do you mind having that window up?" asked the lady on +her right. + +"Oh, no," said Ingeborg, darting at the strap with the readiness to help +and obey she had been so carefully practised in. + +It was stiff, and she fumbled at it, wondering a little why the man +opposite just watched. + +When she had got it up he undid the woollen scarf round his neck and +unbuttoned the top button of his overcoat. + +"At last," he said in a voice of relief, heaving an enormous sigh. + +He looked at her and smiled. + +Instantly she smiled back. Any shreds of self-consciousness she may have +had clinging to her in her earlier days had been finally scraped off +when Judith, that amazing piece of loveliness, came out. + +"Were you cold?" she asked, with the friendly interest of a boy. + +"Naturally. When windows are open one is always cold." + +"Oh!" said Ingeborg, who had never thought of that. + +She perceived from his speech that he was a foreigner. From the +turned-down collar and white tie beneath his opened scarf she also was +made aware that he was a minister of religion. "How they pursue me," she +thought. Even here, even in a railway carriage reserved for Dent's +excursionists only, one of them had filtered through. She also saw that +he was of a drab complexion, and that his hair, drab, too, and +close-cropped and thick, seemed to be made of beaver. + +"But that's what windows are _for_," she said, after reflecting on it. + +"No." + +The two large ladies let Shoolbred pause while they looked at each +other. + +They considered Ingeborg's behaviour forward. She ought not to have +spoken first. Impossible on a Dent's Tour not to make friends--indeed +the social side of these excursions is the most important--but there are +rules. The other end of the carriage had observed the rules. The two +ladies hoped they had not joined anything not quite high-toned. The +other end had carried out the rules with rigid _savoir-vivre_; had +accidentally touched and trodden on; had apologised; had had its +apologies accepted; had introduced and been introduced; and so had +cleared the way to chocolates. + +"No?" repeated Ingeborg inquiringly. + +"The aperture was there first," said the German gentleman. + +"Of course," said Ingeborg, seeing he waited for her to admit it. + +"And in the fulness of the ages came man, and mechanically shut it." + +"Yes," said Ingeborg. "But--" + +"Consequently, the function of windows is to shut apertures." + +"Yes. But--" + +"And not to open that which, without them, was open already." + +"Y'es. But--" + +"It would be illogical," said the German gentleman patiently, "to +contend that their function is to open that which, without them, was +open already." + +Reassured by the word illogical, which was a nice word, well known to +and quite within the spirit of a Dent's Tour, the two ladies went on +with Shoolbred where they had left him off. + +"The first day I was in England I went about logically, and shut each +single window in my boarding-house. I then discovered that this +embittered the atmosphere around me." + +"It would thicken it," nodded Ingeborg, interested. + +"It did. And my calling after all being that of peace, and my visit so +short, that whatever happened could be endured, I relinquished logic and +purchased in its place a woollen scarf. This one. Then I gave myself up +unrestrictedly to their air." + +"And did you like it?" + +"It made me recollect with pleasure that I was soon going home. In East +Prussia there are, on the one hand, drawbacks; but, on the other, are +double windows, stoves, and a just proportion of feathers for each man's +bed. Till the draughts and blankets of the boarding-house braced me to +enduring instead of enjoying I had thought my holiday too short, and +when I remembered my life and work at home--my official life and +work--it had been appearing to me puny." + +"Puny?" said Ingeborg, her eyes on his white tie. + +"Puny. The draughts and blankets of the boarding-house cured me. I am +returning gladly. My life there, I say to myself, may be puny but it is +warm. So," he added, smiling, "a man learns content." + +"Taught by draughts and blankets?" + +"Taught by going away." + +"Oh?" said Ingeborg. Had Providence then only led her to that poster in +order that she should learn content? Were Dent's Tours really run, +educationally, by Providence? + +"But--" she began, and then stopped. + +"It is necessary to go away in order to come back," said the German +gentleman, again with patience. + +"Yes. Of course. But--" + +"The chief use of a holiday is to make one hungry to have finished with +it." + +"Oh _no_," she protested, the joy of holiday in her voice. + +"Ah. You are at the beginning." + +"The very beginning." + +"Yet at the end you, too, will return home reconciled." + +She looked at him and shook her head. + +"I don't think reconciled is quite the--" She paused, thinking. "To +what?" she went on. "To puniness, too?" + +The two ladies faltered in their conversation, and glanced at Ingeborg, +and then at each other. + +"Perhaps not to puniness. You are not a pastor." + +There was a distinct holding of the breath of the two ladies. The German +gentleman's slow speech fell very clearly on their sudden silence. + +"No," said Ingeborg. "But what has that--" + +"I am. And it is a puny life." + +Ingeborg felt a slight curdling. She thought of her father--also, if you +come to that, a pastor. She was sure there was nothing in anything he +ever did that would strike him as puny. His life was magnificent and +important, filled to bursting point with a splendid usefulness and with +a tendency to fill the lives of every one who came within his reach to +their several bursting points, too. But he, of course, was a prince of +the Church. Still, he had gone through the Church's stages, beginning +humbly; yet she doubted whether at any moment of his career he had +looked at it and thought it puny. And was it not indeed the highest +career of all? However breathless and hurried it made one's female +relations in its upper reaches, and drudging in its lower, the very +highest? + +But though she was curdled she was interested. + +"It might not be amiss," continued the pastor, looking out of the window +at some well-farmed land they were passing, "if it were not for the +Sundays." + +Again she was curdled. + +"But--" + +"They spoil it." + +She was silent; and the silence of the two ladies appeared to acquire a +frost. + +"It is the fatal habit of Sundays," he went on, following the +disappearing land with his eyes, "to recur." + +He paused, as if waiting for her to agree. + +She had to, because it was a truth one could not get away from. "Yes," +she said, reluctantly. "Of course. It's their nature." Then a wave of +memories suddenly broke over her, and she added warmly "Oh _don't_ +they!" + +The frost of the ladies seemed to settle down. It grew heavy. + +"They interrupt one's work," he said. + +"But they _are_ your work," she said, puzzled. + +"No." + +She stared. "But," she began, "a pastor--" + +"A pastor is also a man." + +"Yes," said Ingeborg, "but--" + +"You have no doubt observed that he is, invariably, also a man." + +"Yes," said Ingeborg, "but--" + +"And a man of intelligence--I am a man of intelligence--cannot fill up +his life with the meagre materials offered by the practice of the tenets +of the Lutheran Church." + +"Oh--the _Lutheran_ Church," said Ingeborg, catching at a straw. + +"Any church." + +She was silent. She felt how immensely her father would not have liked +it. She felt it was wicked to sit there and listen. She also felt, +strange and dreadful to observe, refreshed. + +"Then," she began, knitting her brows, for really this at its best was +bad taste, and bad taste, she had always been taught, was the very +worst--oh, but how nice it was, a little bit of it, after the swamps of +good taste one waded about in in cathedral cities! She knitted her +brows, aghast at her thoughts. "Then what," she asked, "_do_ you fill +your life up with?" + +"Manure," said the German gentleman. + +The ladies leapt in their places. + +"Ma--" began Ingeborg; then stopped. + +"I am engaged in endeavouring to teach the peasants of my parish how +best to farm their poor pieces of land." + +"Oh, really," said Ingeborg, politely. + +"I do it by example. They do not attend to words. I have bought a few +acres and experiment before their eyes. Our soil is the worst in +Germany. It is inconceivably thankless. And the peasants resemble it." + +"Oh, really," said Ingeborg. + +"The result of the combination is poverty." + +"So then, I suppose," said Ingeborg, with memories of the Bishop's +methods, "you preach patience." + +"Patience! I preach manure." + +Again at the dreadful word the ladies leapt. + +"It is," he said solemnly, his eyes glistening with enthusiasm, "the +foundation of a nation's greatness." + +"I hadn't thought of it like that," said Ingeborg, seeing that he +waited. + +"But on what then does a State depend in the last resort?" + +She was afraid to say, for there seemed to be so many possible answers. + +"Naturally on its agriculture," said the pastor, with the slight +irritation of one obliged to linger over the obvious. + +"Of course," said the pliable Ingeborg, trained in acquiescence. + +"And on what does agriculture depend in the last resort?" + +Brilliantly she hazarded "Manure." + +For the third time the ladies leapt, and the one next to her drew away +her dress. + +He showed his appreciation of her intelligence by nodding slowly. + +"A nation must be fed," he said, "and empty fields will feed no one." + +"Of course not," said Ingeborg. + +"So that it is the chief element in all progress; for the root of +progress flourishes only in a filled stomach." + +The ladies began to fan themselves violently, nervously, one with _The +Daily Mirror_ the other with _Answers_. + +"Of course," said Ingeborg. + +"First," said the German gentleman, "you fill your stomach--" + +The lady next to Ingeborg made a sudden lunge across her at the strap. + +"Excuse me, but do you mind putting that window _down_?" she said in a +sort of burst. + +The German gentleman, stemmed in his speech, used the interval while +Ingeborg opened the window in buttoning up his overcoat again with care +and patience and readjusting his muffler. + +When he had attended to these things he resumed his enthusiasm; he +seemed to switch it on again. + +"The infinite combinations of it!" he exclaimed. "Its infinite +varieties! Kali, Kainit, Chilisaltpetre, Superphosphates"--he rolled out +the words as though they were the verse of a psalm. "When I shut the +door on myself in the little laboratory I have constructed I shut in +with me all life, all science, every possibility. I analyse, I +synthesize, I separate, reduce, combine. I touch the stars. I stir the +depths. The daily world is forgotten. I forget, indeed, everything, +except my research. And invariably at the most profound, the most +exalted moments some one knocks and tells me it is Sunday again, and +will I come out and preach." + +[Illustration: "Then why," she asked, with the courage of curiosity, +"are you a pastor?"] + +He looked at her indignantly, demanding sympathy. "Preach!" he repeated. + +"Then why," she asked, with the courage of curiosity, "are you a +pastor?" + +"Because my father made me one." + +"But why are you still one?" + +"Because a man must live." + +"He oughtn't to want to," said Ingeborg with a faint flush, for she had +been carefully trained to shyness when it came to pronouncing +opinions--the Bishop called it being womanly--"he oughtn't to want to at +the cost of his convictions." + +"Nevertheless," said the pastor, "he does." + +"Yes," said Ingeborg, obliged to admit it; even at Redchester cases were +not unknown. "He does," she said, nodding. "Of course he does." And +unable not to be at least as honest as the pastor she added: "And so +does a woman." + +"Naturally," said the pastor. + +She looked at him a moment, and then said impulsively, pulling herself a +little forward towards him by the window strap-- + +"_This_ woman does. She's doing it now." + +The two ladies exchanged glances and fluttered their fans faster. + +"Which woman?" inquired the pastor, whose mastery of English, though +ripe, was not nimble. + +"This one," said Ingeborg, pointing at herself. "Me. I'm living at this +very moment--I'm whirling along in this train--I'm running away for this +holiday _entirely_ at the cost of my convictions." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +After this it was not to be expected that Dent's Tour should look +favourably on either Ingeborg or the German gentleman. Running away? And +something happened at Dover that clinched it in its coldness. + +The train had slowed down, and the excursionists had become busy and +were all standing up expectant and swaying with their bags and umbrellas +ready in their hands, except Ingeborg and the pastor. The train stopped, +and still the two at the door did not move. They were so much interested +in what they were saying that they went on sitting there, barbarously +corking up the congested queue inside the carriage while streams of +properly liberated passengers poured past the window on their way to the +best places on the boat. + +The queue heaved and waited, holding on to its good manners till the +last possible moment, quite anxious, with the exception of the two +ladies who were driven to the very verge of naturalness by the things +they had had to listen to, lest it should be forced to show what it was +feeling (for what one is feeling, Dent's excursionists had surprisingly +discovered, is always somehow something rude), and seconds passed and +still it was kept there heaving. + +Then the pastor, gazing with a large unhurried interest at the people +pushing by the window, people disfigured by haste and the greed for the +best places on the boat, said in a voice of mild but penetrating +complaint--it almost seemed as if in that congested moment he saw only +leisure for musing aloud--"But why does the good God make so many ugly +old women?" + +It was when he said this that the mountainous lady at the head of the +queue flung behaviour to the winds and let herself go uncontrolledly. +"_Will_ you allow me to pass?" she cried. Nor did she give him another +instant's grace, but pressed between his and Ingeborg's knees, followed +torrentially by the released remainder. + +"To keep us all waiting there just while he blasphemed!" she panted on +the platform to her friend. + +And during the rest of the time the party was together it retired, led +by these two ladies, into an icy exclusiveness, outside which and left +together all day long Ingeborg and the pastor could not but make +friends. + +They did. They talked and they walked, they climbed and they sight-saw. +They did everything Dent had arranged, going with him but not of him, +always, as it were, bringing up his rear. Equally careful, being equally +poor, they avoided the extras which seemed to lurk beckoning at every +corner of the day. Their frugality was flagrant, and shocked the other +excursionists even more than the dreadful things they said. "Such bad +_taste_." the Tour declared when, on the third day, after having +provoked criticism by their negative attitude towards afternoon tea and +the purchase of picture postcards, they would not lighten its several +burdens by taking their share of an unincluded outing in flys along the +lake. Even Mr. Ascough, Dent's distracted representative, thought them +undesirable, and especially could make nothing of Ingeborg, except that +somehow she was not Dent's sort. And the German gentleman, though in +appearance a more familiar type, became whenever he opened his mouth +grossly unfamiliar. "Foul-mouthed" was the expression the largest lady +had used, bearing down on Mr. Ascough at Dover to complain, adding that +as she had done all her travelling for years with and through Dent's she +felt justified in demanding that this man's mouth should be immediately +cleansed. + +"I'm not a toothbrush, Mrs. Bawn," replied the distracted Mr. Ascough, +engaged at that moment in struggling for air and light in the middle of +his clinging flock. + +"Then I shall write to Mr. Dent himself," said Mrs. Bawn indignantly. + +And Mr. Ascough, intimidated, fought himself free and followed her down +the platform, inquiring dreadfully--really he seemed to be a person of +little refinement--whether, then, the German gentleman's conversation +had been obscene. + +"I can get rid of him if it's been obscene, you know," said Mr. Ascough. +"Was it?" + +So that Mrs. Bawn, incensed and baffled, was obliged for the dignity of +her womanhood to say she was glad to have to inform him she did not know +what that word meant. + +But the pastor--his name was Dremmel, he told Ingeborg: Robert +Dremmel--took everything that happened with simplicity. They might shut +him out, and he would never notice it; they might turn their backs, and +he would never know. Nothing that Dent's Tour could do in the way of +ostracizing would have been able to pierce through to his consciousness. +Having decided that the women of it were plain and the men uninteresting +he thought of them no more. With his customary single-mindedness he +concentrated his attention at first only on Switzerland, which was what +he was paying to see, and he found it pleasant that the young lady in +grey should so naturally join him in this concentration. Just for a few +hours at the very beginning he had thought her naturalness, her ready +friendliness, a little unwomanly. She was, he thought, a little too +productive of an impression that she was a kind of boy. She had no +self-consciousness, which he had been taught by his mother to confound +with modesty, and no desire whatever apparently to please the opposite +sex. She went to sleep, for instance, towards the end of the long +journey right in front of him, letting her mouth open if it wanted to, +and not bothering at all that he should probably be looking at it. + +Herr Dremmel, who besides his agricultural researches prided himself on +a liberal if intermittent interest in womanly charm, regretted these +shortcomings, but only for a few hours at the very beginning. By the end +of the first day in Lucerne he was finding it pleasant to pair off with +her, womanly or unwomanly. He liked to talk to her. He discovered he +could talk to her as he had been unable to talk to the few East Prussian +young ladies he had met, in spite of the stiff intensity of their desire +to please him. He searched about for a reason, and concluded that it was +because she was interested. Whatever subject he discoursed upon she +came, so it seemed, running to meet him. She listened intelligently, and +with a pliability--he did not then know about the Bishop's +training--rarely to be found in combination with intelligence. +Intelligent persons are very apt, he remembered, to argue and object. +This young lady was intelligent without argument, a most comfortable +compound, and before a definite opinion had a graceful knack of doubling +up. And if her doublings up were at all, as they sometimes were, delayed +while she put in "But--" he only needed repeat with patience to bring +out an admirable submissive sunniness. He could not of course know of +her severe training in sunniness. + +By the end of the second day he had told her more about his life and his +home and his work and his ambitions than he had ever told anybody, and +she had told him, only he was unable to find that so interesting, about +her life and her home and her work. She had no ambitions, she explained, +which he said was well in a woman. He was hardly aware of the Bishop, so +lightly did she skim over him. + +By the end of the third day he had observed what had, curiously, escaped +him before, that she was pretty. Not of course in the abundant East +Prussian way, the way of generous curves and of what he now began to +think were after all superfluities, but with delicacy and restraint. He +no longer considered she would be better fattened up. And he was +noticing her clothes, and after a painstaking comparing of them with +those of the other ladies applying to them the adjective elegant. + +By the end of the fourth he admitted to himself that, very probably, he +was soon going to be in love. + +By the end of the fifth he knew without a doubt that the thing had +happened; the, to him incontrovertible, proof being that on this day +Switzerland sank into being just her background. + +Even the Rigi, he observed with interest, was nothing to him. He walked +up it, he who never walked up anything, because she wanted to. He toiled +up panting, and forgot how warmly he was dissolving inside his black +clothes in the pleasure of watching her on ahead glancing in and out of +the sunshine that fell clear and white on her as she fluttered above him +among the pine trunks. And when he got to the top, instead of looking at +the view he sat down in the nearest seat and became absorbed in the way +the burning afternoon light seemed to get caught in her hair as she +stood on the edge of the plateau, and made it look the colour of flames. + +This was very interesting. He had never yet within his recollection +preferred hair to views. A curious result, he reflected, of his harmless +holiday enterprise. + +He had not intended to marry. He was thirty-five, and dedicated to his +work. He felt it was a noble work, this patient proving to ignorance and +prejudice of what could be done with barrenness if only you mixed it +with brains. He was fairly comfortable in his housekeeping, having found +a woman who was a widow and had therefore learned the great lesson that +only widows ever really know, that a man must be let alone. He was poor, +and what he could spare by rigid economies went into the few acres of +sand that were to be the Light he had to offer to lighten the Gentiles. +Every man, he thought, should offer some light to the abounding Gentiles +before he died, some light which, however small, might be kept so clear +that they could not choose but see it. A wife, he had felt when +considering the question from time to time, which was each year in the +early spring, would come between him and his light. She would be a +shadow; and a voluminous, all-enveloping shadow. His church and the +business of preaching in it were already sufficiently interrupting, but +they were weekly. A wife would be every day. He could lock her out of +the laboratory, he would reflect, and perhaps also out of the +sitting-room.... When he became aware that he was earnestly considering +what other rooms he could lock her out of, and discovered that he would +want to lock her out of nearly all, he, as a wise and honest man, +decided he had best leave the much-curved virgins of the neighbourhood +alone. + +The question occupied him regularly every year in the first warm days of +spring. For the rest of the year he mostly forgot it, absorbed in his +work. And here he was on the top of the Rigi, a cool place, almost, +wintry, with it suddenly become so living that compared to it his +fertilizers seemed ridiculous. + +He examined this change of attitude with care. He was proud of the way +he had fallen in love; he, a poor man, doing it without any knowledge of +whether the young lady had enough or indeed any money. He sat there and +took pleasure in this proof that though he was thirty-five he could yet +be reckless. He was greatly pleased at finding himself so much attracted +that if it should turn out that she was penniless he would still manage +to marry her, and would make it possible by a series of masterly +financial skirmishings, the chief of which would be the dismissal of the +widow and the replacing of her dinginess, her arrested effect of having +been nipped in the bud although there was no bud, by this incorporate +sunshine. The young lady's tact, of which he had seen several instances, +would cause her to confine her sunshine to appropriate moments. She +would not overflow it into his working hours. Besides, marriage was a +great readjuster of values. After it, he had not a doubt his wife would +fall quite naturally into her place, which would, though honourable, be +yet a little lower than the fertilizers. If it were not so, if marriage +did not readjust the upset incidental to its preliminaries, what a +disastrous thing falling in love would be. No serious man would be able +to let himself do it. But how interesting it was the way Nature, that +old Hostility, that Ancient Enemy to man's thought, did somehow manage +to trip him up sooner or later; and how still more interesting the +ingenuity with which man, aware of this trick and determined to avoid +the disturbance of a duration of affection, had invented marriage. + +He gazed very benevolently at the little figure on the edge of the view. +Why not marry her now, and frugally convert the tail-end of Dent's +Excursion into a honeymoon? + +With the large simplicity and obliviousness to banns and licences of a +man of scientific preoccupations he saw no reason against this course. +It was obvious. It was desirable. It would not only save her going back +to England first, it would save the extra journey there for him. They +would go straight home to East Prussia together at the end of the week; +and as for doing it without her family's knowledge, if she could run +away from them as she had told him she had done just for the sake of a +jaunt, how much more readily, with what increase of swiftness, indeed, +would she run for the sake of a husband? + +"Tell me, Little One," he said when she rejoined him, "will you marry +me?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Ingeborg was astonished. + +She stared at him speechless. The gulf between even the warmest +friendliness and marriage! She had, she knew, been daily increasing in +warm friendliness towards him, characteristically expecting nothing +back. That he, too, should grow warm had not remotely occurred to her. +Nobody had ever grown warm to her in that way. There had always been +Judith, that miracle of beauty, to blot her into plainness. It is true +the senior curate of the Redchester parish church had said to her once +in his exhausted Oxford voice, "You know, I don't mind about faces--will +you marry me?" and she had refused so gingerly, with such fear of +hurting his feelings, that for a week he had supposed he was engaged; +but one would not call that warmth. As the sun puts out the light of a +candle so did the radiance of Judith extinguish Ingeborg. They were so +oddly alike; and Ingeborg was the pale, diminished shadow. Judith was +Ingeborg grown tall, grown exquisite, Ingeborg wrought wonderfully in +ivory and gold. No man could possibly fall in love with Ingeborg while +there before his very eyes was apparently exactly the same girl, only +translated into loveliness. + +From the first it had been the most natural thing in the world to +Ingeborg to be plain and passed over. Judith was always beside her. +Whenever there was a pause in her work for her father it was filled by +the chaperoning of Judith. She accepted the situation with complete +philosophy, for nothing was quite so evident as Judith's beauty; and she +used, in corners at parties, to keep herself awake by saying over bits +of the Psalms, on which, not being allowed to read novels, her literary +enthusiasms were concentrated. + +It was, then, really a very astonishing thing to a person practised in +this healthy and useful humility to have some one asking her to marry +him. That it should be Herr Dremmel seemed to her even more astonishing. +He didn't look like somebody one married. He didn't even look like +somebody who wanted to marry one. He sat there, his hands folded on the +knob of his stick, gazing at her with an entirely placid benevolence and +asked her the surprising question as though it were a way of making +conversation. It is true he had not called her Little One before, but +that, she felt as she stood before him considering this thing that had +happened to her, was pretty rather than impassioned. + +Here was an awkward and odd result of her holiday enterprise. + +"It's--very unexpected," she said, lamely. + +"Yes," he agreed. "It is unexpected. It has greatly surprised me." + +"I'm very sorry," she said. + +"About what are you sorry, Little One?" + +"I can't accept your--your offer." + +"What! There is some one else?" + +"Not _that_ sort of some one. But there's my father." + +He made a great sweep with his arm. "Fathers," he said; and pushed the +whole breed out of sight. + +"He's very important." + +"Important! Little One, when will you marry me?" + +"I can't leave him." + +He became patient. "It has been laid down that a woman shall leave +father and mother and any other related obstacle she may have the +misfortune to be hampered with, and cleave only to her husband." + +"That was about a man cleaving to his wife. There wasn't anything said +about a woman. Besides--" She stopped. She couldn't tell him that she +didn't want to cleave. + +He gazed at her a moment in silence. He had not contemplated a necessity +for persuasion. + +"This," he then said with severity, "is prevarication." + +She sat down on the grass and clasped her hands round her knees and +looked up at him. She had taken off her hat when first she got to the +top to fan herself, and had not put it on again. As she sat there with +her back to the glow of the sky, the wind softly lifted the rings of her +hair and the sun shone through them wonderfully. They seemed to flicker +gently to and fro, little tongues of fire. + +"Why," said Herr Dremmel, suddenly leaning forward and staring, "you are +like a spirit." + +This pleased her. For a moment her eyes danced. + +"Like a spirit," he repeated. "And here am I talking heavily to you, as +though you were an ordinary woman. Little One, how does one trap a +spirit into marrying? Tell me. For very earnestly do I desire to be +shown the way." + +"One doesn't," said Ingeborg. + +"Ah, do not be difficult. You have been so easy, of such a comfortable +response in all things up to now." + +"But this--" began Ingeborg. + +"Yes. This, I well know--" + +He was more stirred than he had thought possible. He was becoming almost +eager. + +"But," asked Ingeborg, exploring this new interesting situation, "why do +you want to?" + +"Want to marry you?" + +"Yes." + +"Because," said Herr Dremmel, immensely prompt, "I have had the extreme +good fortune to fall in love with you." + +Again she looked pleased. + +"And I do not ask you," he went on, "to love me, or whether you do love +me. It would be presumption on my part, and not, if you did, very modest +on yours. That is the difference between a man and a woman. He loves +before marriage, and she does not love till after." + +"Oh?" said Ingeborg, interested. "And what does he--" + +"The woman," continued Herr Dremmel, "feels affection and esteem before +marriage, and the man feels affection and esteem after." + +"Oh," said Ingeborg, reflecting. She began to tear up tufts of grass. +"It seems--chilly," she said. + +"Chilly?" he echoed. + +He let his stick drop, and got up and came and sat down, or rather let +himself down carefully, on the grass beside her. + +"Chilly? Do you not know that a decent chill is a great preservative? +Hot things decay. Frozen things do not live. A just measure of chill +preserves the life of the affections. It is, by a very proper +dispensation of Nature, provided before marriage by the woman, and +afterwards by the man. The balance is, in this way, nicely held, and +peace and harmony, which nourish best at a low temperature, prevail." + +She looked at him and laughed. There was no one in Redchester, and +Redchester was all she knew of life, in the least like Herr Dremmel. She +stretched herself in the roomy difference, happy, free, at her ease. + +"But I cannot believe," burst out Herr Dremmel with a passionate vigour +that astonished him more than anything in his whole life as he seized +the hand that kept on tearing up grass, "I cannot believe that you will +not marry me. I cannot believe that you will refuse a good and loving +husband, that you will prefer to remain with your father and solidify +into yet one more frostbitten virgin." + +"Into a what?" repeated Ingeborg, struck by this image of herself in the +future. + +She began to laugh, then stopped. She stared at him, her grey eyes very +wide open. She forgot Herr Dremmel, and that he was still clutching her +hand and all the grass in it, while her mind flashed over the years that +had gone and the years that were to come. They would be alike. They had +not been able to frostbite her yet because she had been too young; but +they would get her presently. Their daily repeated busy emptiness, their +rush of barren duties, their meagre moments of what when she was younger +used to be happiness but had lately only been relief, those rare moments +when her father praised her, would settle down presently and freeze her +dead. + +Her face grew solemn. "It's true," she said slowly. "I shall be a +frostbitten virgin. I'm doomed. My father won't ever let me marry." + +"You infinitely childish one!" he cried, becoming angry. "When it is +well known that all fathers wish to get rid of all daughters." + +"You don't understand. It's different. My father--why," she broke out, +"I used to dose myself secretly with cod liver oil so as to keep up to +his level. He's wonderful. When he praised me I usedn't to sleep. And if +he scolded me it seemed to send me lame." + +Herr Dremmel sawed her hand up and down in his irritation. + +"What is this irrelevant talk?" he said. "I offer you marriage, and you +respond with information about cod liver oil. I do not believe the +father obstacle. I do not recognize my honest little friend of these +last days. It is waste of time, not being open. Would you, then, if it +were not for your father, marry me?" + +"But," Ingeborg flashed round at him, swept off her feet as she so often +was by an impulse of utter truth, "it's _because_ of him that I +_would_." + +And the instant she had said it she was shocked. + +She stared at Herr Dremmel wide-eyed with contrition. The disloyalty of +it. The ugliness of telling a stranger--and a stranger with hair like +fur--anything at all about those closely related persons she had been +taught to describe to herself as her dear ones. + +"Oh," she cried, dragging her hand away, "let my hand go--let my hand +_go_!" + +She tried to get on to her feet, but with an energy he did not know he +possessed he pulled her down again. He did not recognize any of the +things he was feeling and doing. The Dremmel of his real nature, of +those calm depths where lay happy fields of future fertilizers, gazed at +this inflamed conduct going on at the top in astonishment. + +"No," he said, with immense determination, "you will sit here and +explain about your father." + +"It's a dreadful thing," replied Ingeborg, suddenly discovering that of +all things she did not like being clutched, and looking straight into +his eyes, her head a little thrown back, "that one can't leave one's +home even for a week without getting into a scrape." + +"A scrape! You call it a scrape when a good man--" + +"Here's a person who goes away for a little change--privately. And +before she knows where she is she's being held down on the top of the +Rigi and ordered by a strange man--" + +"By her future husband!" cried Herr Dremmel, who was finding the making +of offers more difficult than he had supposed. + +"--by a strange man to explain her father. As though anybody could ever +explain their father. As though anybody could ever explain _anything_." + +"God in Heaven," cried Herr Dremmel, "do not explain him then. Just +marry me." + +And at this moment the snake-like procession of the rest of Dent's Tour, +headed by Mr. Ascough watch in hand, emerged from the hôtel, where it +had been having tea, on to the plateau, wiping its mouths in readiness +for the sunset. + +With the jerk of a thing that has been stung it swerved aside as it was +about almost to tread on the two on the grass. + +Ingeborg sat very stiff and straight and pretended to be staring +intently at the view, forgetting that it was behind her. She flushed +when she found there was no time to move far enough from Herr Dremmel +for a gap to be visible between them. + +"Look at those two now," whispered the young lady last in the procession +to the young man brushing bread and butter out of his tie who walked +beside her. + +He looked, and seemed inclined to linger. + +"She's very _pretty_, isn't she?" he said. + +"Oh, do you think so?" said his companion. "I never think anybody's +pretty who isn't--you know what I mean--really _nice_, you +know--lady-like--" + +And she hurried him on, because, she said, if he didn't hurry he'd miss +the sunset. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Ingeborg spent most of the night on a hard chair at her bedroom window +earnestly endeavouring to think. + +It was very unfortunate, but she found an immense difficulty at all +times in thinking. She could keep her father's affairs in the neatest +order, but not her own thoughts. There were so many of them, and they +all seemed to jump about inside her and want to get thought first. They +would not go into ordered rows. They had no patience. Often she had +suspected they were not thoughts at all but just feelings, and that +depressed her, for it made her drop, she feared, to the level of the +insect world and enter the category of things that were not going to be +able to get to heaven; and to a bishop's daughter this was disquieting. +Most of her thoughts she was immediately sorry for, they were so unlike +anything she could, with propriety, say out loud at home. To Herr +Dremmel she had been able to say them all as far as speech, a limping +vehicle, could be made to go, and this was another of his refreshing +qualities. She did not of course know of that absorbed man's habit of +listening to her with only one ear--a benevolent ear, but only +one--while with the other, turned inwards, he listened to the working +out in his mind of problems in Chilisaltpetre and super-phosphates. + +She sat staring out of the window at the stars and chimney-pots, her +hands held tightly in her lap, and told herself that the moment had come +for clear, consecutive thought--_consecutive_ thought, she repeated +severely, aware already of the interlaced dancing going on in her brain. +What was she going to do about Herr Dremmel? About going home? +About--oh, about anything? + +They had come down the Rigi soberly and in the train. Nobody, as usual, +spoke to them, and for the first time in their friendship neither had +they spoken to each other. They had had a speechless dinner. He had +looked preoccupied. And when directly after it she said good night, he +had drawn her out into the passage and solemnly adjured her, while the +hall-porter pretended he was out of ear-shot, to have done with +prevarications. What he would suggest, he said, was a comfortable +betrothal next day; it was too late for one that night, he said, pulling +out his watch, but next day; and as she retreated sideways step by step +up the stairs, silent through an inability immediately to find an answer +that seemed tactful enough, he had eyed her very severely and inquired +of her with a raised voice what, then, the ado was all about. She had +turned at that, giving up the search for tact, and had run up the +remaining stairs rather breathlessly, feeling that Herr Dremmel on +marriage had an engulfing quality; and he, after a moment's perplexity +on the mat at the bottom, had gone to the reading-room a baffled man. + +Now she sat at the window considering. + +Her journey home was only two days off, and the thought of what would be +said to her when she got there and of what her answers would be like, +ran down the back of her neck and spine as though some one were drawing +a light, ice-cold finger over the shrinking skin. She had been +persuading herself that her little holiday was harmless and natural; and +now this business with Herr Dremmel would, she felt, do away with all +that, and justify a wrath in her father that she might, else for her +private solace and encouragement, have looked upon as unreasonable. It +is a peculiarity of parents, reflected Ingeborg, that they are always +being justified. However small and innocent what you are doing may be, +if they disapprove something turns up to cause them to have been +altogether right. She remembered little things, small occasions, of her +younger days.... This was a big occasion, and what had turned up on it +was Herr Dremmel. It was a pity--oh, it was a pity she hadn't considered +before she left London so impulsively whether when she got back to +Redchester she was going to be untruthful or not. She had considered +nothing, except the acuteness of the joy of running away. Now she was +faced by the really awful question of lying or not lying. It was ugly to +lie at all. It was dreadful to lie to one's father. But to lie to a +bishop raised the operation from just a private sin which God would deal +with kindly on being asked, to a crime you were punished for if it was a +cathedral you did it to, a real crime, the crime of sacrilege. +Impossible to profane a sacred and consecrated object like a bishop. +Doubly and trebly impossible if you were that object's own daughter. Her +tightly folded hands went cold as she realised she was undoubtedly going +to be truthful. She was every bit as valiant as her Swedish grandmother +had been, that grandmother who was aware of the dangers of the things +she did with her mountains and her gusty lakes and defied them, but her +grandmother knew no fear and Ingeborg knew it very well. Hers was the +real courage found only in the entirely terrified, who, terrified, yet +see the thing, whatever it is, doggedly through. She was faint, yet +pursuing. + +She saw much terror in her immediate future. She dreaded having to be +courageous. She felt she was too small really for the bravely truthful +answering of her magnificent father's questions. He would have the +catechism and the confirmation service on his side, as well as the laws +of right behaviour and filial love. It didn't seem fair. One couldn't +argue with a parent, one couldn't answer back; while as for a bishop, +one couldn't do anything at all with him except hastily agree. There was +just a possibility--but how remote--that her father would be too busy to +ask questions; she sighed as she reflected how little she could count on +that, and how the most superficial inquiry about her aunt or the dentist +would bring out the whole story. + +And here was Herr Dremmel who thought nothing at all of him, even in +regard to an enormous undertaking like his daughter's marriage. There +was something sublime in such detachment. She felt the largeness of the +freedom of it blowing in her face like a brisk, invigorating wind. There +seemed to be no hedges round Herr Dremmel. He was as untied-up a person +as she had ever met. He cared nothing for other people's opinion, that +chief enslavement of her home, and he was an orphan. Sad to be an +orphan, thought Ingeborg sighing. Sad, of course, not to have any dear +ones. But it did seem to be a condition that avoided the dilemma whose +horns were concealment by means of untruths and the screwing up of +oneself to that clammily cold and forlorn condition, having courage. + +Of course, Herr Dremmel didn't know her father. He hadn't faced that +impressive personality. Would he be quite so detached and easily +indifferent if he had? She thought with a shiver of what such a meeting, +supposing, just for the sake of supposing, that she allowed herself to +become engaged, would be like. Would Herr Dremmel in that setting of +carefully subdued splendour, of wainscoting and oriels, seem to her as +free and delightful as he seemed on a tour of frugal backgrounds? Would +she, in the presence of the Bishop's horrified disapproval, be able to +see him as she had been seeing him now? + +She had not explored very far into her own resources yet, but she had +begun lately to perceive that she was pliable. She bent easily, she +felt, and deplored having to feel in the direction desired by the +persons she was with and who laid hold of her with authority. It is true +she sprang back again, as she had discovered so surprisingly in London, +the instant the hold was relaxed, but it seemed that she sprang only to +do, as she now with a headshake admitted, difficulty-bringing things. +And her training in acquiescence and distrust of herself was very +complete, and back in her home would she not at once bend into the old +curve again? Was it possible, would it ever be possible, in her father's +presence to disassociate herself from his points of view? What his view +of Herr Dremmel would be she very exactly knew. Did she _want_ to +disassociate herself from it? + +She pushed back her chair, and began to walk quickly up and down the +narrow little room. If she didn't disassociate herself it meant +marriage; and marriage in stark defiance of the whole of her world. +Redchester would be appalled. The diocese would grieve for its Bishop. +The county would discuss her antagonistically at a hundred tea-tables. +Well, and while they were doing it, where would she be? Her blood began +suddenly to dance. She was seized, as she had been in London, by that +overwhelming desire to shake off old things and set her face towards the +utterly new. While all these people were nodding and whispering in their +stuffy stale world she would be safe in East Prussia, a place that +seemed infinitely remote, a place Herr Dremmel had described to her as +full of forests and water and immense stretches of waving rye. The lakes +were fringed with rushes; the forests came down to their edges; his own +garden ended in a little path through a lilac hedge that took you down +between the rye to the rushes and the water and the first great pines. +Oh, she knew it as though she had seen it, she had lured him on so often +to describing it to her. He thought nothing of it; talked, indeed, of it +with disgust as a God-forsaken place. Well, it was these God-forsaken +places that her body and spirit cried out for. Space, freedom, quiet; +the wind ruffling the rye; the water splashing softly against the side +of the punt (there was a punt, she had extracted); the larks singing up +in the sunlight; the shining clouds passing slowly across the blue. She +wanted to be alone with these things after the years of deafening hurry +at Redchester with a longing that was like home-sickness. She +_remembered_, somehow, that once she used to be with them--long ago, far +away.... And there used to be little things when you lay face downwards +on the grass, little lovely things that smelt beautiful--wild-strawberry +leaves, and a tiny aromatic plant with a white flower like a star that +you rubbed between your fingers.... + +She stood still a moment, frowning, trying to remember more; it wasn't +in England.... But even as she puzzled the vision slipped away from her +and was lost. + +She wanted to read, and walk, and think. She was hungry to read at last +what she chose, and walk at last where she chose, and think at last +exactly what she chose. Was the _Christian Year_ enough for one in the +way of poetry? And all those mild novels her mother read, sandwiched +between the biographies of more bishops and little books of comfort with +crosses on them that asked rude questions as to whether you had been +greedy or dainty or had used words with a double meaning during the +day--were they enough for a soul that had, quite alone, with no father +giving directions, presently to face its God? + +Her family held strongly that for daughters to read in the daytime was +to be idle. Well, if it was, thought Ingeborg lifting her head, that +head that drooped so apologetically at home, with the defiance that +distance encourages, then being idle was a blessed thing and the sooner +one got away to where one could be it, uninterruptedly, the better. In +that parsonage away in East Prussia, for instance, one would be able to +read and read.... Herr Dremmel had explained a hundred times about his +laboratory, and he himself locked into it and only asking to be left +locked. Surely that was an admirable quality in a husband, that he kept +himself locked up! And the parsonage was on the edge of the village, and +the little garden at the back had nothing between it and the sunset and +all God's other dear arrangements except a solitary and long-unused +windmill.... + +It was about one o'clock in the morning that her courage, however, +altogether ebbed at the prospect of going home. What would it be like, +taking up her filialities again, and all of them henceforth so terribly +tarnished? She would be a returning prodigal for whom no calf was +killed, but who instead of the succulences of a more liberal age would +be offered an awful opportunity of explaining her conduct to a father +who would interrupt her the instant she began and do the explaining +himself. + +How was she going to face it, all alone? + +If only she could have been in love with Herr Dremmel! With what courage +she would have faced her family then, if she had been in love with him +and come to them her hand in his. If only he looked more like the lovers +you see in pictures, like the one in Leighton's "Wedded," for +instance--a very beautiful picture, Ingeborg thought, but not like any +of the wedded in Redchester--so that if she couldn't be in love she +could at least persuade herself she was. If only he had proper hair +instead of just beaver. She liked him so much. She had even at +particular moments of his conversation gone so far as to delight in him. +But--marriage? + +What was marriage? Why did they never talk about it at home? In the +Bishop's Palace it might, for all the mentioning it got, be one of the +seven deadly sins. You talked there of the married, and sometimes, but +with reserve, of getting married, but marriage itself and what it was +and meant was never discussed. She had received the impression, owing to +these silences, that though it was God's ordinance, as her father in his +official capacity at weddings reiterated, it was a reluctant ordinance, +established apparently because there seemed no other way of getting +round what appeared to be a difficulty. What was the difficulty? She had +never in her busy life thought about it. Marriage had not concerned her. +It would not be nice, she had felt, unconsciously adopting the opinion +of her environment, for a girl who was not going to marry to get +thinking of it. And it really had not interested her. She had quite +naturally turned her eyes away. + +But now this question of facing her father, this need of being backed +up, this longing to get away from things, forced her to look. Besides, +she would have to give Herr Dremmel some sort of answer in the morning, +and the facing of Herr Dremmel required courage, too--of a different +kind, but certainly courage. She was so reluctant to hurt or disappoint. +It had seemed all her life the most beautiful of pleasures to give +people what they wanted, to get them to smile, to see them look content. +But suppose Herr Dremmel, before he could be got to smile and look +content, wanted to clutch her again as he had clutched her on the top of +the Rigi? She had very profoundly disliked it. She had been able to +resent it there and get loose, but if she were married and he clutched +could she still resent? She greatly feared not. She greatly suspected, +now she came to a calm consideration of it, that that was what was the +matter with marriage: it was a series of clutchings. Her father had no +doubt realised this as she was realising it now, and very properly +didn't like it. You couldn't expect him to. That was why he wouldn't +talk about it. In this she was entirely at one with him. But perhaps +Herr Dremmel didn't like it, either. Wasn't she rather jumping at +conclusions in imagining that he did? Hadn't he after all clutched +rather in anger up there than in anything else? And what about his +earnest wish, so often explained, to be left all day locked up in his +laboratory? And what about his praise, that very afternoon, of chill in +human relationships? + +At that moment her eye was arrested by something white appearing slowly +and with difficulty beneath her door. She sat up very straight and +stared at it, watching its efforts to get over and past the edge of her +mat. For an instant she wondered whether it were not a kind of insect +ghost; then she saw, as more of it appeared, that it was a letter. + +She held her breath while it struggled in. Nobody had ever pushed a +letter under her door before. She grew happy instantly. What _fun_. Her +heart beat quite fast with excitement while she waited to hear footsteps +going away before getting up to fetch it. Herr Dremmel, however, must +have been in his goloshes, objects from which he was seldom separated, +for she heard nothing; and after a few seconds of breathless listening +she got up with immense caution and went on tip-toe to the letter and +picked it up. + +"Why," she thought, pausing for a moment with a sort of solemnity before +opening it, "I suppose this is my first love-letter." + +There was nothing on the envelope and no signature, and this was what it +said: + + +"LITTLE ONE, + +"_I wish to tell you that before going to my room to-night I instructed +the hall-porter to order a betrothal cake, properly iced and with what +is customary in the matter of silver leaves, to be in the small salon +adjoining the smoking-room to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. Since no +man can be betrothed alone, it will be necessary that you should be +there_." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +It was a perturbed betrothal, there were so many people at it. + +Seven ladies besides Ingeborg appeared in the small _salon_ adjoining +the smoking-room next morning at nine o'clock. What Herr Dremmel had +done, being ignorant which was Ingeborg's room and after laborious +thought deciding that to demand her number of the hall-porter later than +dusk might very conceivably cast a slur on her reputation, young ladies +being, as he well knew, of all living creatures the most easily slurred, +was to write as many copies of the letter as there were doors on her +landing and thrust them industriously one by one beneath each door, +strong in the knowledge that she would in this manner inevitably get one +of them. + +He was greatly pleased with this plan. It seemed of a beautiful +simplicity and effectiveness. "Being unaware of the context," he +reasoned, "no lady except the right one will be able to guess what the +letter can possibly refer to. She will therefore throw it aside as an +obvious mistake and think no more about it." + +But the ladies did think. And none of the inhabitants of the third +floor, except Mr. Ascough who never thought anything about anything, +having discovered that if once you begin to think there is no end to it, +and a dried and brittle little man lately pensioned off by the firm he +had been clerk to and taking his first trip on the continent in a +condition of profound uninterestedness, threw it aside. These two did; +but the seven ladies not only did not throw it aside, they read it many +times, and instead of thinking no more about it thought of nothing else. +Even Mrs. Bawn, who had been a widow for six months and was heartily +tired of it, was pleased. She liked, particularly, being addressed as +Little One. There was a blindness about this that suggested genuine +feeling. She had not been so much pleased since her dear Bawn, now half +a year in glory, had told her one day, before their marriage, that he +did not care what anybody said he maintained that she was handsome. + +They all thought the letter very virile, and that nothing could be more +gentlemanly than its restraint. Four of them expected a different male +member of the party to be waiting in the small _salon_, the remaining +three expected Mr. Ascough. Mr. Ascough had a caressing way with pats of +butter and the closing of the doors of filled flys that had before now +led him, on these tours, into misapprehensions. He was long since +married, but had omitted to mention it. The ladies, therefore, when they +arrived in the small _salon_ at nine o'clock did not find Mr. Ascough +nor any of the other four friends they expected. They found, +surprisingly, each other; and, standing thick and black near a decorated +table at the window and scowling in a fresh astonishment every time the +door opened and another lady came in, that very undesirable +fellow-tourist, the German gentleman. + +Each one immediately knew it was Ingeborg who had been written to, and +that the letter had gone astray. Each one also thought she knew that +Ingeborg had not got the letter and would not come. But each one, except +Mrs. Bawn, was helped to cover up her shock by being sure the others did +not know of it; and the custom of life lying heavy on them they were +able, after one little start on first seeing Herr Dremmel, to drift into +the corners of the room and pretend that what they had come for was +books. Except Mrs. Bawn. Mrs. Bawn saw, stared, turned on her heel, and +went out again volcanically; and the corridor shook to her departing +footsteps and to the angry unintentional rhymes she was making aloud +with words like hoax and jokes. + +With astonishment and disgust Herr Dremmel saw the seven ladies +accumulate. It was most unfortunate that on that morning of all mornings +the small _salon,_ so invariably empty, should be visited. His +inexperienced mind did not connect their appearance with his letters; it +never occurred to him that his reasoning as to what they would do on +receiving them could possibly be wrong. Nor did he, as he watched the +door open and shut seven times and seven times admit the wrong woman, +guess that their presence, if Ingeborg came, would immensely help his +betrothal. + +The ladies, fingering dusty Tauchnitzes and magazines and eyeing the +table in the window with heads as much averted as could be combined with +the seeing of it, gradually found the shock they had had being soothed +by the interest they felt in what Herr Dremmel would do when he realised +that that unladylike Miss Bullivant, all unaware of what was waiting for +her, was not coming. Now that they were there they might as well stay +and see the end of it. It was really very interesting in its way; so +German; so unlike, thank goodness, what English people ever did. Would +he stand there all day, they wondered, with that really most improperly +suggestive cake, so very like a christening cake? One or two of them sat +down squarely on the sofas behind months-old magazines round whose edges +they peeped, making it clear to the unhappy man that they, at least, +intended to stay there; and they all coughed a little every now and then +in the way a waiting congregation coughs in church. + +Then the door was pushed open with the jerk of somebody who is either in +a hurry or has come to a sudden determination, and who should appear but +that Miss Bullivant. + +A thrill ran through the seven ladies, and they instantly became, behind +their magazines, stiff with excitement. Chance; what a chance; she had +chanced to look in; it was like a play; dear me, thought each of the +seven. + +And Ingeborg, who believed as lately as the last moment on the doormat +outside that she had only come in order to tell Herr Dremmel she was not +coming, when she saw the cake, very white and bridal, on a white cloth +with white flowers in pots round it, and on either side of it a bottle +with a white ribbon about its neck, and on the other for the sake of +symmetry two glasses, was staggered. How could she, who so much loved to +please, to make happy, cruelly hurt him, spoil his little feast, wipe +out the glow, the immense relief that beamed from his face when he saw +her? + +She turned round quickly, realising the presence of the seven ladies. +Amazed she stared at them, mechanically counting them. How could she +make him ridiculous, humiliate him, before all those women? + +Hesitating, torn, poised on the tip of flight, she stood there. Her hand +was on the door to open it again and run; but Herr Dremmel's simplicity +came to his help more effectually than the cunningest plans. He forgot +the ladies, and stepping forward took her hand in his and quite simply +kissed her forehead, sealing her then and there, with the perfect +frankness of his countrymen when engaged in legitimate courtship, as his +betrothed. He then slipped a ring he wore on his little finger on to her +thumb, that being the only bit of her hand he could find that it would +stay on, and he being free from prejudices in the matter of fingers, and +the thing--at least so he supposed--was done. + +Ingeborg in her bewilderment let these things happen to her. Her +thoughts as she stood being betrothed were jerking themselves into a +perfect tangle of knots. She was astonished at the tricks life stoops +to. A cake and the eyes of seven women. Her whole future being decided +by a cake and the eyes of seven women. Oh, no, it couldn't be. It was +only that she couldn't stop now. Impossible, utterly, to stop now. She +had never dreamed she wouldn't find him alone. These women were all +witnesses. He had kissed her before them all. His methods were really +overwhelming. Suppose her father could see her. But the kiss had been +administered very ceremoniously; it had been quite cooling; such a one +as even a bishop might feel justified in applying to the brow of a sick +person or a young child. Later, at a more convenient time, when the +pathetic cake was out of sight, when these women were out of ear-shot, +she would tell him she hadn't meant.... + +Amazingly she found herself advancing towards the cake with Herr Dremmel +and standing in front of it with him hand in hand. Oh, the _mischief_ +people got into who came up to London to dentists! She now saw what +provincial dentists were for: they kept you in pain, and pain kept you +out of mischief. For the first time she understood what her spirit had +till then refused to accept, the teaching so popular with the Bishop +that pain was a necessary part of the scheme of things. Of course. You +were safe so long as you were in pain. In that condition the very +nearest you could get to the most seductive temptation was to glance at +it palely, with a sick distaste. And you stayed at home, and were +grateful for kindnesses. It was only when you hadn't anything the matter +with you that you ran away from your family and went to Lucerne and took +up with a strange man positively to the extent of letting him promise to +marry you. + +Somebody coughed so close behind her that it made her jump. She turned +round nervously, Herr Dremmel still holding her hand, and beheld the +seven ladies flocked about her for all the world like seven bridesmaids. + +They had hastily consulted together in whispers while she was being led +away to the cake as to whether they ought not to congratulate her. Their +hearts were touched by the respectful ceremony with which Herr Dremmel +had conducted his betrothal. It had had the solemn finality of a +marriage, and what woman can look on at a marriage unmoved? They had +agreed in whispers that this was one of those moments in which one lets +bygones be bygones. The two at the altar--they meant at the cake--had no +doubt said many terrible and vulgar things and had behaved in a way no +lady and gentleman would--the girl, for instance, openly admitting she +had run away from home; but what they were doing now at least was beyond +reproach, and, by uniting, two blacks were after all, in spite of what +people said about its not being possible, going to make one white. At +any rate it was charitable to hope so. + +So they cleared their throats and wished her joy. + +"Thank you," said Ingeborg a little faintly, looking from one to the +other, "it's so kind of you--but--" + +They then shook hands with Herr Dremmel and said they were sure they +wished him joy, too, and he thanked them with propriety and bows. + +"Such a thing has never happened on a Dent's Tour before--oh, no, never +before at all I'm sure," said the most elderly lady nervously, with a +number of nods. + +"There isn't time enough, that's what I sometimes think," said the young +lady who had hurried her companion away to the sunset the evening +before. "What's a week?" And she stared at the cake and frowned. + +"Dent's had a funeral once," said a square small lady who kept her hands +plunged in the pockets of a grey jersey. + +"Now Miss Jewks, really--" protested the elderly lady. "One doesn't +mention--" + +"Well, it wasn't their fault, Miss Andrews. They didn't _want_ to have +it, I'm sure. It was a gentleman from Gipsy Hill--" + +"What a beautiful--er--cake," hastily interrupted the elderly lady. + +"Funny thing, I sometimes think," continued Miss Jewks, "to go for a +holiday and die instead." + +"Those silver leaves--" said the elderly lady, raising her voice, "I +call them dainty." + +"It's like a wedding-cake, isn't it?" said the young lady of the sunset, +peering close at it with a face of gloom. + +"Will you not, Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, calling her for the first +time by her name, "cut the cake? And perhaps these ladies will do us the +honour of tasting it." + +[Illustration: "Will you not, Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, calling her +for the first time by her name, "cut the cake?"] + +She did not recognise him in this persistent ceremoniousness. Every +trace of his usual lax behaviour was gone, his ease and familiarity of +speech, and he was as stiff and correct and grave as if he were laying a +foundation stone or opening a museum. They were the manners, though she +did not know it, which all Germans are trained to produce on public +occasions. + +"Oh, thank you--" + +"Oh, you're really very kind--" + +"Oh, thank you very much I'm sure--" + +There was a murmur of awkward and reluctant thanks. The seven ladies +were not at all certain that their cordiality ought to stretch as far as +cake. They had been moved by an impulse that did honour to their +womanliness to offer congratulations, but they did not for all that +forget the dreadful things the couple had constantly been heard talking +about and the many clear proofs it had provided that it was what Dent's +Tours were accustomed to describe as no class; and though they all liked +cake, and were getting steadily hungrier as the Dent week drew to its +close, they were doubtful as to the social wisdom of eating it. It would +be very unpleasant if these people, encouraged, were later on to +presume; if they were to try to use the eaten cake as a weapon for +forcing their way into English society. If, in a word, when the Tour got +back to England, they were to want to call. + +So they took the cake reluctantly that Ingeborg, in a sort of dream, cut +and offered them; and with even more reluctance they sipped the wine in +which the German gentleman requested them to drink the newly betrothed +couple's health. + +"But--" said Ingeborg, trying to rouse herself even at this eleventh +hour. + +"True. There are not enough glasses. I will ring for more," was the way +Herr Dremmel finished her sentence for her. + +The immense official promptness of him! She felt numbed. + +And when the glasses were brought there was another ceremony--a clinking +of Herr Dremmel's glass with each glass in turn, his heels together as +in the days of his soldiering, his body stiff and his face a miracle of +solemnity; and before drinking he made a speech, the Asti held high in +front of him, in which he thanked the ladies for their good wishes on +behalf of his betrothed, Miss Ingeborg Bullivant, whose virtues he dwelt +upon singly and at length in resounding periods, before proceeding to +assure those present of his firm resolve to prove, by the devotion of +the rest of his life, the extremity of his gratitude for the striking +proof she had given before them all of her confidence in him; and every +sentence seemed to set another and a heavier seal on her as a creature +undoubtedly bound to marry him. + +Dimly she began to realise something of the steely grip of a German +engagement. She wondered whether there were any more room left on her +forehead for further seals. She felt that it must be covered with great +red things, scrawled over with the inscription: + + DREMMEL'S. + +Well, she was after all not a parcel to be picked up and carried away by +the first person who found her lying about, and the minute she was alone +with him she would, she _must_, tell him that what she had really come +down for, though appearances were certainly by this time rather against +her, was to refuse him. She would be as gentle as possible, but she +would be plain and firm. The minute these women left them alone she +would tell him. + +With a start she saw that the women were leaving them alone, and that +the minute had come. She wanted them not to go; she wanted to keep them +there at any cost. She even made a step after them as the last one, +nodding to the end, went out and shut the door, but Herr Dremmel still +had hold of her hand. + +When the door had finally shut she turned to him quickly. Her head was +thrown back, her eyes were full of a screwed-up courage. + +"But you know--" she began, determined to clear things up, however much +it might hurt them both. + +And again he promptly finished her sentence for her, this time by +enfolding her in his arms and kissing her with a largeness and abundance +which no bishop, her mind flashed as her body stood stiff with surprise +and horror, could possibly approve. + +She felt engulfed. + +She felt she must be disappearing altogether. + +He seemed infinitely capacious and soft. + +"Oh, but I can't--I won't--oh, stop--oh, stop--it's a mistake--" she +tried to get out in gasps. + +"My little wife," was all the notice Herr Dremmel took of that. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was raining at Redchester when Ingeborg got out at the station a week +and a day after she left it--the soft persistent fine rain, hardly more +than a mist, peculiar to that much-soaked corner of England. The lawns +in the gardens she passed as her fly crawled up the hill were incredibly +green, the leaves of the lilac bushes glistened with wet, each tulip was +a cup of water, the roads were chocolate, and a thick grey blanket of +cloud hung warm over the town, tucking it in all round and keeping out +any draught that might bite and sting the inhabitants, she thought, into +real living. + +The porter told her it was fine growing weather, and she wondered +stupidly why, after the years she had had of the sort of thing, she had +had not grown, then, more thoroughly herself. A retired colonel she knew +--she knew all the retired colonels--waved his umbrella and shouted a +genial inquiry after her toothache, and she looked at him with a dead, +ungrateful eye. A passing postman touched his cap, and she turned the +other way. The same sensible female figures she had seen all her life +draped in the same sensible mackintoshes bowed and smiled, and she +pretended she hadn't seen them. Everybody, in fact, behaved as though +she were still good, which was distressing, embarrassing, and productive +of an overwhelming desire to shut her eyes and hide. + +There were the shops, with the things in the windows unchanged since she +left nine days ago, the same ancient novelties nobody ever bought, the +same flies creeping over the same buns. There was the book-seller her +_Christian Year_ had come from, his windows full of more of them, +endless supplies for endless dieted daughters, vegetarians in literature +she called them to herself, forcibly vegetabled vegetarians; and there +was the silversmith who provided the Bishop with the crosses after a +good Florentine fifteenth-century pattern he presented to those of his +confirmation candidates who were the daughters in the diocese of the +great. The Duke's daughter had one. The Lord-Lieutenant's daughter had +one. On this principle Ingeborg herself had been given one, and wore it +continually night and day, as her father expected, under her dress, +where it bruised her. It was pleasant to her father to be able to +recollect, in the stress and dust of much in his work that was +unrefreshing, how there was a yearly increasing though severely sifted +number of gentle virgin blouses belonging to the best families beneath +which lay and rhythmically heaved this silver reminder of the wearer's +Bishop and of her God. + +"Father," Ingeborg said, after she had worn hers for a week, "may I take +my cross off at night?" + +"Why, Ingeborg?" he had inquired; adding quietly, "Did our Saviour?" + +"No; but--you see when one turns round in one's sleep it sticks into +one." + +"Sticks, Ingeborg?" the Bishop said gently, raising his eyebrows at such +an expression applied to such an object. + +"Yes, and I'm getting awfully bruised." She was still in the schoolroom, +and still saying awfully. + +"By His stripes we are healed," said the Bishop, shutting up the +conversation as one shuts up a book. + +In spite of the wet warmth she shivered as the silversmith's window +reminded her of this. It had happened years ago, but even farther back, +as far back as she could remember, every time she had asked leave of her +father to do anything it had been refused; and refused with bits of +Bible, which was so peculiarly silencing. + +And now here she was about to face him covered with the leaves she had +not asked for at all but had so tremendously taken, and going to ask the +most tremendous one of all, the leave to marry Herr Dremmel. + +For that was how the last two days of her Dent's Tour had been spent, in +being openly engaged to Herr Dremmel. She had found her attempts to +explain that she was not so really availed nothing against his +conviction that she was. And public opinion, the public opinion of the +whole Tour, also never doubted but that she was--had not seven of its +most reliable members actually seen her in the act of becoming it? In +fact it not only did not doubt it, it was sternly determined that she +should be engaged whether she liked it or not. It was the least, the +Tour felt, that she could do. So that there was nothing for it now but +to face the Bishop. + +She felt cold. No amount of the familiar moist stuffiness could warm +her. Vainly she tried to sit up, to be proud and brave, to recapture +something at least of the courage that had seemed so easy just at the +end in Switzerland with Herr Dremmel to laugh at her doubts. Her head +would droop, and her hands and feet were like stones. + +It was the place, the place, she thought, the hypnotic effect of it, of +her old environment. The whole of Redchester was heavy with +recollections of past obediences. Not once had she ever in Redchester +even dreamt of rebellion. She had questioned latterly, in the remoter +and less filial corners of her heart, but she had never so much as +thought of rebellion. And the moment she got away out of sight and +hearing of home, things she knew here were wicked had appeared to be +quite good and extremely natural. How strange that was. And how strange +that now she was back everything was beginning to seem wicked again. +What was a poor wretch to do, she asked herself with sudden passion, +confronted by these shuffling standards that behaved as if they were +dancing a quadrille? This was the place in which for years her +conscience had been cockered to size and delicacy; and though it had +become temporarily tough in Herr Dremmel's company she felt it relapsing +with every turn of the wheels more and more into its ancient softness. + +Yet she undoubtedly, conscience-stricken and frightened or not, had to +tell her father what she had done. She had got to be brave, and if needs +be she had got to defy. She was bound to Herr Dremmel. He had only gone +home to set his house in order, and then, he announced, she meanwhile +having prepared the Bishop, he was coming to Redchester to marry her. +Prepared the Bishop! She shivered. Herr Dremmel had tried to marry her +in Lucerne; but the Swiss, it seemed, would not be hurried, so that here +she was, and within the next few hours she was going to have to prepare +the Bishop. + +She shut her eyes and thought of Herr Dremmel; of Robert, as she was was +learning to call him. With all her heart she liked him. And he had been +so kind when he found she really disliked being engulfed in embraces, +and had restricted his exhibitions of affection to the kissing of her +hand, telling her he could very well wait till later on, sure that she +would after marriage warm, as he had explained to her on the Rigi all +women did, to a just appreciation of the value of the caresses of an +honest man. He had also produced a number of German love-names from some +hitherto fallow corner of his mind, and garnished his conversation with +them in a way that made her who, nourished as she had been on the noble +language of the Bible and the Prayer-book, was instantly responsive to +the charm of words, laugh and glow with pleasure. She was his Little +Heart, his Little Tiny Treasure, his Little Sugar Lamb--a dozen little +sweet diminished German things translated straight away just as they +were into English. The freshness of it! The freshness of being admired +and petted after the economies in these directions practised in her +home. And his ring at that very moment dangled beneath her dress on the +same chain as her father's cross. Yes, she was bound to him. Duty, she +perceived, could be a very blessed thing sometimes if it protected one +from some other duty. It was Herr Dremmel now who had become her Duty. + +She put up her hand to get courage by feeling the ring, for her spirit +was fainting within her--she had just caught sight of the cathedral. The +ring had been slung on the chain alongside the confirmation cross +because it was impossible to wear it on her thumb; and out there in +Switzerland, where one was simple, it had seemed a most natural and +obvious place to put it. Yet now, as the fly rattled over the cobbles of +the Close and the familiar cathedral rose before her like a menace, she +hung her head and greatly doubted but what the juxtaposition was wicked. + +Nobody was on the doorstep when she arrived beneath the great cedar that +spread its shade, an intensified bit of dripping gloom where all was +gloom and dripping, across from the lawn to the Palace's entrance, +except the butler, whose black clothes struck her instantly as very neat +and smooth, and his underling, a youth kept carefully a little on the +side of a suitable episcopal shabbiness. She had telegraphed her train +from Paddington, but that, of course, was no reason why any one should +be on the doorstep. It was she whose business lay with doorsteps when +people arrived or left, she was the one who welcomed and who sped, and, +since she could not welcome herself, there was nobody there to do it. + +She stole a nervous look at Wilson as he helped her out, but his face +was a blank. The boy on her other side had an expression, she thought, +as though under happier conditions he might have let himself go in a +smirk, and she turned her eyes away with a little sick feeling. Did they +know already, all of them, that she had left her aunt's a week ago? But, +indeed, that seemed a small thing now compared with the things she had +done since. + +"I'm a dead girl," thought Ingeborg, as she passed beneath her parents' +porch. + +The servants brought in her luggage, off which in her newness at deceit +she had not thought to scrape the continental labels, and she crossed +the hall, treading on the dim splashes of lovely blurred colour that +fell from the vast stained glass windows on to the stone flags of its +floor. It was the noblest hall, as bare of stuffs and carpets as the +cathedral itself, and she looked more than insignificant going across it +to the carved oak door that opened into the wide panelled passage +leading to the drawing-room, a little figure braced to a miserable +courage, the smallest thing to be going to defy powers of which this +magnificence was only one of the expressions. + +Her mother was as usual on her sofa near a fire whose heat, that warm +day, was mitigated by the windows being wide open. Beside her was her +own particular table with the usual flowers, needlework, devotional +books, and biographies of good men. It was difficult to believe her +mother had got off that sofa nine times to go to bed, had dressed and +undressed and had meals--thirty-six of them, counted Ingeborg +mechanically, while she looked about for the Bishop, if you excluded the +before breakfast tea, forty-five if you didn't--since she saw her last, +so immovable did she appear, so exactly in the same position and +composed into the same lines as she had been nine days before. The room +was full of the singing of thrushes, quite deafeningly full, as she +opened the door, for the windows gave straight into the green and soppy +garden and it was a day of many worms. Judith was making tea as far away +from the fire as she could get, and there was no sign of the Bishop. + +"Is that you, Ingeborg?" said her mother, turning her face, grown pale +with years of being shut up, to the door. + +Ingeborg's mother had found the sofa as other people find salvation. She +was not ill. She had simply discovered in it a refuge and a very present +help in all the troubles and turmoil of life, and in especial a shield +and buckler when it came to dealing with the Bishop. It is not easy for +the married, she had found when first casting about for one, to hit on a +refuge from each other that shall be honourable to both. In a moment of +insight she perceived the sofa. Here was a blameless object that would +separate her entirely from duties and responsibilities of every sort. It +was respectable; it was unassailably effective; it was not included in +the Commandments. All she had to do was to cling to it, and nobody could +make her do or be anything. She accordingly got on to it and had stayed +there ever since, mysteriously frail, an object of solicitude and +sympathy, a being before whose helplessness the most aggressive or +aggrieved husband must needs be helpless, too. And she had gradually +acquired the sofa look, and was now very definitely a slightly plaintive +but persistently patient Christian lady. + +"Is that you, Ingeborg?" she said, turning her head. + +"Yes, mother," said Ingeborg, hesitating in spite of herself on the +threshold. + +She looked round anxiously, but the Bishop was not lurking anywhere in +the big room. + +"Come in, dear, and shut the door. You see the windows are open." + +Judith glanced up at her a moment from her tea-making and did not move. +Even in the midst of her terrors Ingeborg was astonished, after not +having seen it for a while, at her loveliness. She seemed to have taken +the sodden greys of the afternoon, the dulness and the gathering dusk, +and made out of their gloom the one perfect background for her beauty. + +"We thought you would have written," said Mrs. Bullivant, putting her +cheek in a position convenient for the kiss that was to be applied to +it. + +"I--I telegraphed," said Ingeborg, applying the kiss. + +"Yes, dear, but only about your train." + +"I--thought that was enough." + +"But, Ingeborg dear, such a great occasion. One of _the_ great occasions +of life. We did expect a little notice, didn't we, Judith?" + +"Notice?" said Ingeborg faintly. + +"Your father was wounded, dear. He thought it showed so little real love +for your parents and your sister." + +"But--" said Ingeborg, looking from one to the other. + +"We wrote to you at once--directly we knew. Didn't we, Judith?" + +"Of course," said Judith. + +Ingeborg stood flushing and turning pale. Had one of the Dent's Tour +people somehow found out where she lived and written about her +engagement and the impossible had happened and they weren't going to +mind? Was it possible? Did they know? And were taking it like this? If +only she had called at her aunt's house on the way to Paddington and got +the letters--what miserable hours of terror she would have been spared! + +"But--" she began. Then the immense relief of it suddenly flooded her +whole being with a delicious warm softness. They did know. Somehow. And +a miracle had happened. Oh, how _kind_ God was! + +She dropped on her knees by the sofa and began to kiss her mother's +hand, which surprised Mrs. Bullivant; and indeed it is a foreign trick, +picked up mostly by those who go abroad. "Mother," she said, "are you +really pleased about it? You don't mind then?" + +"Mind?" said Mrs. Bullivant. + +"Oh, how glad, how glad I am. And father? What does he say? Does +he--does _he_ mind?" + +"Mind?" repeated Mrs. Bullivant. + +"Father is very pleased, I think," said Judith, with what in one less +lovely would have been a slight pursing of the lips. And she twisted a +remarkable diamond ring she was wearing straight. + +"Father is--pleased?" echoed Ingeborg, quite awe-struck by the amount +and quality of these reliefs. + +"I must say I think it is really _good_ of your dear father to be +pleased, when he loses--" began Mrs. Bullivant. + +"Oh, yes, yes," interrupted the overcome Ingeborg, "it's a wonder--a +wonder of God." + +"Ingeborg dear," her mother gently rebuked, for this was excess; and +Judith looked still more what would have been a little pursed in any +other woman. + +"When he loses," then resumed Mrs. Bullivant with the plaintive +determination of one who considers it the least she may expect as a +sofa-ridden mother to be allowed to finish her sentences, "so much." + +"Yes, yes," assented Ingeborg eagerly, whose appreciation of her +parents' attitude was so warm that she almost felt she must stay and +bask in its urbanity forever and not go away after all to the bleak +distance of East Prussia. + +"Your father loses not _only_ a daughter," continued Mrs. Bullivant, +"but £500 a year of his income." + +"Would one call it his income?" inquired Judith, politely but yet, if +one could suspect a being with an angel's face of such a thing, with +some slight annoyance. "I thought our grandmother--" + +"Judith dear, the £500 a year your grandmother left to each of you was +only to be yours when you married," explained Mrs. Bullivant, also with +some slight annoyance beneath her patience. "Till you married it was to +be mine--your father's, I mean, of course. And if you never did marry it +would have been mine--I mean his--always." + +Ingeborg had heard of her Swedish grandmother's will, but had long ago +forgotten it, marriage being remote and money never of any interest to +her who had no occasions for spending. Now her heart bounded with yet +more thankfulness. What a comfort it would be to Robert. How it would +help him in his research. Extraordinary that she should have forgotten +it. When he told her of his stipend of five thousand marks--£250 it was +in English money, he explained, and there was the house and land +free--most of which went in his experiments, but what was left being +ample, he said, for the living purposes of reasonable beings if they +approached it in a proper spirit, it all depending, he said, on whether +they approached it in a proper spirit. "And after all," he had added +triumphantly, throwing out his chest just as she was about to inquire +what the proper spirit was, "no man can call me _thin_--"--to think she +had forgotten the substantial help she was going to be able to bring +him! + +The full splendour of her father's generosity in being pleased at her +engagement was now revealed to her. The relief of it. The glad, warm +relief. So must one feel who is born again, all new, all clean from old +mistakes and fears. She felt lifted up, extraordinarily happy, +extraordinarily good, more in harmony with Providence and the Bible than +she had been since childhood. She would have been willing, and indeed +found it perfectly natural, to kneel down with her mother and Judith +then and there and say prayers together out loud. She would have been +willing on the crest of her wave of gratefulness quite readily to give +up Herr Dremmel in return for the family's immense kindness in not +asking her to give him up. She had felt nothing like this exaltation +before in her life, this complete being in harmony with the infinite, +this confidence in the inherent goodness of things, except on the +afternoon her tooth was pulled out. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, laying her cheek on her mother's hand, "oh, I do +_hope_ you'll like Robert!" + +"Robert?" said Mrs. Bullivant; and at the tea-table there was a sudden +silence among the cups, as though they were holding their breath. + +"His name's Robert," said Ingeborg, still with her cheek on her mother's +hand, her eyes shut, her face a vision of snuggest, safest contentment. + +"What Robert, Ingeborg?" inquired Mrs. Bullivant, shifting her position +to stare down more conveniently at her daughter. + +"Herr Dremmel. It's his Christian name. He's got to _have_ one, you +know," said Ingeborg, still with her eyes shut in the blissfulness of +perfect confidence. + +"Herr who?" said Mrs. Bullivant, a sharper note of life in her voice +than there had been for years. "Here's your father," she added quickly, +hastily composing herself into the lines of the unassailable invalid +again as the door opened and the Bishop came in. + +Ingeborg jumped up. "Oh, father," she cried, running to him with the +entire want of shyness one may conceive in the newly washed and forgiven +soul when it first arrives in heaven and meets its Maker and knows there +are going to be no more misunderstandings for ever, "how _good_ you've +been!" + +And she kissed him so fervently in a room gone so silent that the kiss +sounded quite loud. + +The Bishop was nettled. + +Was he then at any time not good? His daughter's excessive gratitude, +really almost noisy gratitude, for what after all had been inevitable, +the permission to go up to London and place herself in the hands of a +dentist, suggested that humaneness on his part came to her as a +surprise. He did feel he had been good to let her go, but he also felt +he would have been not good if he had not let her go. Certainly +Redchester opinion would have condemned him as cruel even if he himself, +who knew all the circumstances, was not able to think so. What had +really been cruel was the terrible muddle his papers and letters had got +into owing to her prolonged absence. Grave dislocations had taken place +in the joints of his engagements, several with far-reaching results; and +all because, he could not help feeling, Ingeborg, in spite of precept +and example, did not in her earlier years use her toothbrush with +regularity and conscientiousness. Manifestly she did not, or how could +she have needed nine enormous days to be set in repair? He himself, who +regarded his body as a holy temple, which was the one solution of the +body question that at all approached satisfactoriness, and had +accordingly brushed his teeth, from the point of view of their being +pillars of a sacred edifice, after every meal for forty years, had never +had a toothache in his life. + +"Let us hope now, Ingeborg," he said, reflecting on the instance she had +provided of the modern inversion of the Mosaic law which visited the +sins of the fathers on the children, the original arrangement, the +Bishop felt, being considerably healthier, and gently putting her away +in order to go over to the tea-table where he stood holding out his hand +for the cup Judith hastened to place in it, "let us now hope, now you +have had your lesson, that in future you will remember cleanliness is +next to godliness." + +And this seemed to Ingeborg an answer so surprising that she could only +stare at him with her mouth fallen a little open, there where he had +left her in the middle of the carpet. + +But the Bishop had not done. He went on to say another thing that +surprised her still more; nay, smote her cold, shook her to her +foundations. He said, after a pause during which the silence in the room +was remarkable, his back turned to her while at the tea-table he +carefully selected the particular piece of bread and butter he intended +to eat, "And pray, Ingeborg, why did you not write the moment you heard +from us, and congratulate your sister on her engagement?" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Ingeborg was dumb. + +Her father's question was like a blow, shocking her back to +consciousness. The warm dream that all was well, that she was +understood, that there was love and kindliness for her at home after all +and welcome and encouragement, the warm feeling of stretching herself in +her family's kind lap, confident that it would hold her up and not spill +her out on to the floor, was gone in a flash. She was hit awake, hit out +of her brief delicious sleep. Her family had not got a lap, but it had +an entirely unprepared mind, and into that unprepared mind she had +tumbled the name of Dremmel. + +"Judith--engaged?" she stammered faintly, on the Bishop's wheeling +round, cup in hand, to examine into the cause of her prolonged silence. + +"Your incredulity is not very flattering to your sister," he said; and +Judith's eyelashes as she concentrated her gaze on the teapot were alone +sufficiently lovely, the curved, dusky-golden soft things, to make +incredulity simply silly. + +Mrs. Bullivant avoided all speech and clung to her sofa. + +"It's--so sudden," faltered Ingeborg. + +"Much may happen in a week," said the Bishop. + +"Yes," murmured Ingeborg, who knew that terribly, too. + +"We never can tell what a day may bring forth," said the Bishop; and +Ingeborg, deeply convinced, drooped her head acquiescent. + +"No man," began the Bishop, habit being strong within him, "knoweth the +hour when the bridegroom--" But he stopped, recollecting that Ingeborg +was not engaged and therefore could not with propriety be talked to of +bridegrooms. Instead, he inquired again why she had not written; and +eyeing her searchingly asked himself if it were possible that a child of +his could be base enough to envy. + +"I--didn't get the letters," said Ingeborg, her head drooping. + +"You did not? That is very strange. Your mother wrote at once. Let me +see. It was on Friday it happened. It _was_ Friday, was it not, Judith? +_You_ ought to know"--Judith blushed obediently--"and to-day is Tuesday. +Ample time. Ample time. My dear," he said, turning to his wife who at +once twitched into a condition of yet further relaxed defencelessness, +"do you think it possible your letter was not posted?" + +"Quite, Herbert," murmured Mrs. Bullivant, closing her eyes and +endeavouring to imagine herself unconscious. + +"Ah. Then that's it. That's it. Wilson is growing careless. This last +week there have been repeated negligences. You will make inquiries, +Ingeborg, and tell him what I have said." + +"Yes, father." + +"And you will discharge him if he goes on like this." + +"Yes, father." + +"Unfaithful servant. Unfaithful servant. He that is unfaithful in a few +things--" + +The Bishop, frowning at it, took a second piece of bread and butter, and +went over to the hearthrug, where he stood from force of habit, in spite +of the warmth of the day, drinking his tea, and becoming vaguely and +increasingly irritated by the action of the fire behind him. + +"Then," he said, looking at Ingeborg, "you know nothing about it?" + +She shook her head. She was the oddest figure in the middle of the +splendid old room, travel-stained, untidy, her face white with fatigue, +her hat crooked. + +Judith glanced at her every now and then, but it was impossible at any +time to tell what the delicate white rose at the tea-table was thinking; +so impossible that the young men who clustered round her like bees when +they first saw her gave it up and went on presently to more +communicative flowers. The local Duchess had hoped her first-born would +marry her--a creature so lovely, so entirely respectable with that nice +Bishop for a father, and so happily adapted in the perfection of her +proportions for the successful production of further dukes; and she +pointed out various aspects of the girl's exquisiteness to her son, and +told him he would have the most beautiful wife in England. But the young +man, after a reproachful look at his mother for supposing he could have +missed noticing even the humblest approach to a pretty woman let alone +Judith Bullivant, said he didn't want to marry a picture but something +that was alive and, anyhow, something that talked. + +"She's right enough, of course," he remarked, "and I like looking at +her. I'd be blind if I didn't. But Lord, dull? The girl hasn't got a +word to say for herself. I never met any woman who looked so ripping and +then somehow wasn't. She won't talk. She won't _talk_," he almost +wailed. "She ain't got the remotest resemblance to anything approaching +_kick_ in her." + +"You might end by being thankful for that," said his mother. + +He would not, however, be persuaded, and went his way and married, as +the Duchess had feared, a young lady from the halls--a young lady nimble +not only of toes but of wits, nimble, that is to say, as he proudly +pointed out to his mother, at both ends, with whom he lived in great +contentment, for she amused him, which is much. + +"I have not observed you offer any congratulations, Ingeborg," said the +Bishop, becoming more and more displeased by her strange behaviour, and +not at all liking her crumpled and forlorn appearance. He again thought +of envy, but that alone could not crumple clothes. "And yet your +sister," he said, getting a little further away from the fire which had +begun to scorch him unpleasantly, "is to be the wife of the Master." + +"The Master?" repeated Ingeborg, stupidly. For a moment her tormented +brain supposed Judith must be going to be a nun. + +"There is only one Master," said the Bishop, in his stateliest manner. +"Everybody knows that. The Master of Ananias." + +Ingeborg knew this was a great thing. The Master of Ananias, the most +celebrated of Oxford colleges, was in every way, except perhaps that of +age, desirable; but what was age when it came to all the other +desirabilities? Her father had rebuked her once for speaking of him as +old Dr. Abbot, and had informed her the Master was only sixty, and that +everybody was sixty--that is, said the Bishop, everybody of any sense. +He was not a widower, he was pleasant to look at in a shaven iron-grey +way, he was brilliantly erudite, and extremely well off apart from his +handsome salary, one of the handsomest salaries in the gift of the +Crown. Several years before, when Judith was still invisible in a +pinafore, he had stayed at the Palace--it was then Ingeborg spoke of him +as old--and had been treated by her father with every attention and +respect: He had on that occasion seemed glad to go. Now it appeared he +had been again, and must have fallen immediately--and overwhelmingly in +love with Judith for his short visit to bridge the distance between a +first acquaintance and an engagement. Who, however, knew better than +herself how quickly such distances can be bridged? + +She wanted to go and kiss Judith and say sweet things to her, but her +feet seemed unable to move. She wanted to congratulate everybody with +all her heart if only they would be kind and congratulate her a little, +too. For Judith had heard what she said before her father came in, and +her mother had heard it, and the room was heavy with the uttered name of +Dremmel. + +She looked round at them--her father waiting for her to show at least +ordinary decency and feeling, Judith so safe in the family's approval, +so entirely clear from hidden things, her mother lying with closed eyes +and expressionless face, and she suddenly felt intolerably alone. + +"Oh, oh--" she cried, holding out her hands, "doesn't anybody love me?" + +This was worse than her toothache. + +Her family had endured much during those days, but at least there was a +reason then for the odder parts of her behaviour. Now they were called +upon to endure the distressing spectacle of a hitherto reserved relative +letting herself go to unbridledness. Ingeborg was going to make a scene; +and a scene was a thing that had never yet, anyhow not during the entire +Bullivant period, been made in that house. + +[Illustration: "But father, I've been doing it too"] + +Mrs. Bullivant shut her eyes tighter and tried to think she was not +there at all. + +Judith turned red and again became absorbed in the teapot. + +The Bishop, after the first cold shock natural to a person called upon +to contemplate nakedness where up to then there had been clothes, put +down his cup on the nearest table and, with an exaggerated calm, stared. + +They all felt intensely uncomfortable; as uncomfortable as though she +had begun, in the middle of the drawing-room, to remove her garments one +by one and cast them from her. + +"This is very sad, Ingeborg," said the Bishop. + +"Isn't it--oh, _isn't_ it--" was her unexpected answer, tears in her +eyes. She was so tired, so frightened. She had been travelling hard +since the morning of the day before. She had had nothing to eat for a +time that seemed infinite. And yet this was the moment, just because she +had betrayed herself to her mother and Judith, in which she was going to +have to tell her father what she had done. + +"It is the most distressing example," said the Bishop, "I have ever seen +of that basest of sins, envy." + +"Envy?" said Ingeborg. "Oh, no--that's not what it is. Oh, if it were +only that! And I do congratulate Judith. Judith, I do, I do, my dear. +But--father, I've been doing it too." + +It was out now, and she looked at him with miserable eyes, prepared for +the worst. + +"Doing what, Ingeborg?" + +"I'm engaged, too." + +"Engaged? My dear Ingeborg." + +The Bishop was alarmed for her sanity. She really looked very strange. +Had they been giving her too much gas? + +His tone became careful and humouring. "How can you," he said quietly, +"have become engaged in these few days?" + +"Much may happen in a week," said Ingeborg. It jumped out. She did try +not to say it. She was unnerved. And always when she was unnerved she +said the first thing that came into her head, and always it was either +unfortunate or devastating. + +The Bishop became encased in ice. This was not hysteria, it was +something immeasurably worse. + +"Be so good as to explain," he said sharply, and waves of icy air seemed +to issue from where he stood and heave through the room. + +"I'm engaged to--to somebody called Dremmel," said Ingeborg. + +"I do not know the name. Do you, Marion?" + +"No, oh, no," breathed Mrs. Bullivant, her eyes shut. + +"Robert Dremmel," said Ingeborg. + +"Who are the Dremmels, Ingeborg?" + +"There aren't any." + +"There aren't any?" + +"I--never _heard_ of any," she said, twisting her fingers together. "We +usedn't to talk about--about things like _more_ Dremmels." + +"What is this man?" + +"A clergyman." + +"Oh. Where is he living?" + +"In East Prussia." + +"In where, Ingeborg?" + +"East Prussia. It--it's a place abroad." + +"Thank you. I am aware of that. My education reaches as far as and +includes East Prussia." + +Mrs. Bullivant began to cry. Not loud, but tears that stole quietly down +her face from beneath her closed eyelids. She did not do anything to +them, but lay with her hands clasped on her breast and let them steal. +What was the use of being a Christian if one were exposed to these +scenes? + +"Pray, why is he in East Prussia?" asked the Bishop. + +"He belongs there." + +Again the room seemed for an instant to hold its breath. + +"Am I to understand that he is a German?" + +"Please, father." + +"A German pastor?" + +"Yes, father." + +"Not by any chance attached in some ecclesiastical capacity to the +Kaiser?" + +"No, father." + +There was a pause. + +"Your aunt--what did she say to this?" + +"She didn't say anything. She wasn't there." + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"I haven't been at my aunt's." + +"Judith, my dear, will you kindly leave the room?" + +Judith got up and went. While she was crossing to the door and until she +had shut it behind her there was silence. + +"Now," said the Bishop, Judith being safely out of harm's way, "you will +have the goodness to explain exactly what you have been doing." + +"I think I wish to go to bed," murmured Mrs. Bullivant, without changing +her attitude or opening her eyes. "Will some one please ring for +Richards to come and take me to bed?" + +But neither the Bishop nor Ingeborg heeded her. + +"I didn't _mean_ to do anything, father--" began Ingeborg. Then she broke +off and said, "I--can explain better if I sit down--" and dropped into +the chair nearest to her, for her knees felt very odd. + +She saw her father now only through a mist. She was going to have to +oppose him for the first time in her life, and her nature was one which +acquiesced and did not oppose. In her wretchedness a doubt stole across +her mind as to whether Herr Dremmel was worth this; was anything, in +fact, worth fighting about? And with one's father. And against one's +whole bringing-up. Was she going to be strong enough? Was it a thing one +ought to be strong about? Would not true strength rather lie in a calm +continuation of life at home? What, when one came to think of it, was +East Prussia really to her, and those rye-fields and all that water? She +wished she had had at least a piece of bread and butter. She thought +perhaps bread and butter would have helped her not to doubt. She looked +round vaguely so as not to have to meet her father's eye for a moment +and her glance fell on the tea-table. + +"I think," she said faintly, getting up again, "I'll have some tea." + +To the Bishop this seemed outrageous. + +He watched her in a condition of icy indignation such as he had not yet +in his life experienced. His daughter. His daughter for whom he had done +so much. The daughter he had trained for years, sparing no pains, to be +a helpful, efficient, Christian woman. The daughter he had honoured with +his trust, letting her share in the most private portions of his daily +business. Not a letter had he received that she had not seen and been +allowed to answer. Not a step in any direction had he taken without +permitting her to make the necessary arrangements. Seldom, he supposed +bitterly, had a child received so much of a father's confidence. His +daughter. That crumpled and disreputable--yes, now he knew what was the +matter with her appearance--disreputable-looking figure cynically +pouring itself out tea while he, her father whom she had been deceiving, +was left to wait for her explanations until such time as she should have +sated her appetite. Positively she had succeeded, he said to himself, +bitterly enraged that he should be forced to be bitterly enraged, in +making him feel less like a bishop should feel than he had done since he +was a boy. + +"It's because I've had nothing to eat since Paris," Ingeborg explained +apologetically, holding the teapot in both hands because one by itself +shook too much, and feeling, too, that the moment was not exactly one +for tea. + +The Bishop started. "Since where?" he said. + +"Paris," said Ingeborg; adding tremulously, having quite lost her nerve +and only desiring to fill up the silence, "it--it's a place abroad." + +Mrs. Bullivant murmured a more definitely earnest request that Richards +might be rung for to take her to bed. + +"Ingeborg," said the Bishop in a voice she did not know. "Paris?" + +"Yes, father--last night." + +"Ingeborg, come here." + +He was pointing to a chair a yard or two from the hearthrug on which he +stood, and his voice was very strange. + +She put down the cup with a shaking hand and went to him. Her heart was +in her mouth. + +"What have you been doing?" he said. + +"I told you, father. I'm engaged to Herr--" + +"How did you get to Paris?" + +"By train." + +"Will you answer me? What were you doing in Paris?" + +"Having dinner." + +She was terrified. Her father was talking quite loud. She had never in +her life seen him like this. She answered his questions quickly, her +heart leaping as he rapped them out, but her answers seemed to make him +still angrier. If only he would let her explain, hear her out; but he +hurled questions at her, giving her no time at all. + +"Father," she said hurriedly, seeing that after that last answer of hers +he did for a moment say nothing, but stood looking at her very +extraordinarily, "please let me tell you how it all happened. It won't +take a minute--it won't really. And then, you see, you'll _know_. I +didn't mean to do anything, I really didn't; but the dentist pulled my +tooth out so quickly, that very first day, and so instead of coming home +I went to Lucerne--" + +"To--" + +"Yes," she nodded, in a frenzy of haste to get it all said, "to +Lucerne--I couldn't tell you why, but I did--I seemed pushed there, and +after a little while I got engaged, and I didn't in the least mean to do +that, either, really I didn't--but somehow--" Was there any use trying +to tell him about the white and silver cake and the seven witnesses and +the undoubting kind Herr Dremmel and all the endless small links in the +chain? Would he ever, ever understand?--"somehow I _did_. You see," she +added helplessly, looking up at him with eyes full of an appeal for +comprehension, for mercy, "one thing leads to another." And as he still +said nothing she added, even more helplessly, "Herr Dremmel sat opposite +me in the train." + +"You picked him up casually, like any servant girl, in a train?" + +"He was one of the party. He was there from the beginning. Oh, yes, I +forgot to tell you--it was one of Dent's Tours." + +"You went on a Dent's Tour?" + +"Yes, and he was one of it, too, and we all, of course, always went +about together, rather like a school, two and two--I suppose because of +the pavement," she said, now saying in her terror anything that came +into her head, "and as he was the other one of my two--the half of the +couple I was the other one of, you know, father--we--we got engaged." + +"Do you take me for a fool?" was the Bishop's comment. + +Ingeborg's heart stood still. How could her father even _think_-- + +"Oh, father," was all she could say to that; and she hung her head in +the entire hopelessness, the uselessness of trying to tell him anything. + +She knew she had been saying it ridiculously, tumbling out a confusion +of what must sound sad nonsense, but could he not see she was +panic-stricken? Could he not be patient, and help her to make her clean +breast? + +"I'm stupid," she said, looking up at him through tears, and suddenly +dropping into a kind of nakedness of speech, a speech entirely simple +and entirely true, "stupid with fright." + +"Do you suggest I terrorize you?" inquired the incensed Bishop. + +"Yes," she said. + +This was terrible. And it was peculiarly terrible because it made the +Bishop actually wish he were not a gentleman. Then, indeed, it would be +an easy matter to deal with that small defying creature in the chair. +When it comes to women the quickest method is, after all, to be by +profession a navvy.... + +He shuddered, and hastily drew his thoughts back from this abyss. To +what dread depths of naturalness was she not by her conduct dragging +him? + +"Father," said Ingeborg, who had now got down to the very bottom of the +very worst, a place where once one has reached it an awful sincerity +takes possession of one's tongue, "do you see this? Look at them." + +And she held up her hands and showed him, while she herself watched them +as though they were somebody else's, how they were shaking. + +"Isn't that being afraid? Look at them. It's fear. It's fear of you. +It's you making them do that. And think of it--I'm twenty-two. A woman. +Oh, I--I'm _ashamed_--" + +But whether it was a proper shame for what she had done or a shocking +shame for her compunctions in sinning, the Bishop was not permitted that +afternoon to discover; because when she had got as far as that she was +interrupted by being obliged to faint. + +There was a moment's confusion while she tumbled out of the chair and +lay, a creased, strange object, on the floor, owing to Mrs. Bullivant's +having produced an exclamation; and this to the Bishop, after years of +not having heard her more than murmur, was almost as disconcerting as +if, flinging self-restraint to the winds, she had suddenly produced +fresh offspring. He quickly, however, recovered the necessary presence +of mind and the bell was rung for Richards; who, when she came, knelt +down and undid Ingeborg's travel-worn blouse, and something on a long +chain fell out jingling. + +It was her father's cross and Herr Dremmel's ring metallically hitting +each other. + +The Bishop left the room without a word. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +A pall descended on the Palace and enveloped it blackly for four awful +days, during which Mrs. Bullivant and her daughters and the chaplain and +the secretary and all the servants did not so much live as feel their +way about with a careful solicitude for inconspicuousness. + +This pall was the pall of the Bishop's wrath; and there was so much of +it that it actually reached over into the dwellings of the Dean and +Chapter and blackened those white spots, and it got into the hitherto +calm home of the Mayor, who had the misfortune to have business with the +Bishop the very day after Ingeborg's return, and an edge of it--but +quite enough to choke an old man--even invaded the cathedral, where it +extinguished the head verger, a sunny octogenarian privileged to have +his little joke with the Bishop, and who had it unfortunately as usual, +and was instantly muffled in murkiness and never joked again. + +That the Bishop should have allowed his private angers to overflow +beyond his garden walls, he who had never been anything in public but a +pattern in his personal beauty, his lofty calm, and his biblically +flavoured eloquence of what the perfect bishop should be, shows the +extreme disturbance of his mind. But it was not that he allowed it: it +was that he could not help it. He had, thanks to his daughter, lost his +self-control, and for that alone, without anything else she had done, he +felt he could never forgive her. + +Self-control gone, and with it self-respect. He ached, he positively +ached during those first four black days in which his natural man was +uppermost, a creature he had forgotten so long was it since he had heard +of him, thoroughly to shake his daughter. And the terribleness of that +in a bishop. The terribleness of being aware that his hands were +twitching to shake--hands which he acutely knew should be laid on no one +except in blessing, consecrated hands, divinely appointed to bless and +then dismiss in peace. That small unimportant thing, that small weak +thing, the thing he had generously endowed with the great gift of life +and along with that gift the chance it would never have had except for +him of re-entering eternal blessedness, the thing he had fed and +clothed, that had eaten out of his hand and been all bright tameness--to +bring disgrace on him! Disgrace outside before the world, and inside +before his abased and humiliated self. And she had brought it not only +on a father, but on the best-known bishop on the bench; the best known +also and most frequently mentioned, he had sometimes surmised with a +kind of high humility, in the--how could one put it with sufficient +reverence?--holy gossip of the angels. For in his highest moods he had +humbly dared to believe he was not altogether untalked about in heaven. +And here at the moment of much thankfulness and legitimate pride when +his other daughter was so beautifully betrothed came this one, and with +impish sacrilegiousness dragged him, her father, into the dust of base +and furious instincts, the awful dust in which those sad animal men sit +who wish to and do beat their women-folk. + +He could not bring himself to speak to her. He would not allow her near +him. Whatever her repentance might be it could never wipe out the memory +of these hours of being forced by her to recognise what, after all the +years of careful climbing upwards to goodness, he was still really like +inside. Terrible to be stirred not only to unchristianity but to +vulgarity. Terrible to be made to wish not only that you were not a +Christian but not a gentleman. He, a prince of the Church, was desiring +to be a navvy for a space during which he could be unconditionally +active. He, a prince of the Church, was rent and distorted by feelings +that would have disgraced a curate. He could never forgive her. + +But the darkest hours pass, and just as the concerned diocese was +beginning to fear appendicitis for him, unable in any other way to +account for the way he remained invisible, he emerged from his first +indignation into a chillier region in which, still much locked in his +chamber, he sought an outlet in prayer. + +A bishop, and indeed any truly good and public man, is restricted in his +outlets. He can with propriety have only two--prayer and his wife; and +in this case the wife was unavailable because of her sofa. For the first +time the Bishop definitely resented the sofa. He told himself that the +wife of a prelate, however ailing--and he believed with a man's +simplicity on such points that she did ail--had no business to be +inaccessible to real conversation. With no one else on earth except his +wife can a prelate or any other truly good and public man have real +conversation without losing dignity, or, if the conversation should +become very real, without losing office. That is why most prelates are +married. The best men wish to be real at times. + +When Ingeborg stripped off her deferences, and, after having most +scandalously run away and most scandalously entangled herself with an +alien clerical rogue, had the face to hold up her hands at him and +accuse him, accuse _him_, her father, of being the cause of their +shaking, the Bishop had been as much horrified as if his own garden path +on which he had trodden pleasantly for years had rent itself asunder at +his feet and gaped at him. He had made the path; he had paid to have it +tidied and adorned; and he required of it in return that it should keep +quiet and be useful. To have it convulsed into an earthquake and its +usefulness interrupted must be somebody's fault, and his instinct very +properly was to go to his wife and tell her it was hers. + +But there was the sofa. + +He desired to converse with his wife. He had an intolerable desire for +even as few as five minutes' real conversation with her. He wanted to +talk about the manner in which Ingeborg must have been brought up, about +the amount of punishment she had received in childhood; he wished to be +informed as to the exact nature of the participation her mother had +taken in her moral education; he wished to discuss the responsibility of +mothers, and to explain his views on the consequences of maternal +neglect; and he wanted, too, to draw his wife's attention to the fact +she easily apparently overlooked, that he had bestowed a name grown +celebrated on her, and a roof that through his gifts and God's mercy was +not an ordinary but a palace roof, and that in return the least he might +expect.... In short, he wanted to talk. + +But when driven by his urgencies he went to her room to break down the +barricade of the sofa, he found not only Richards hovering there +tactfully, but the doctor; for Mrs. Bullivant had foreseen her husband's +probable desire for conversation, and the doctor, a well-trained man, +was in the act of prescribing complete silence. + +It was then that, thwarted and debarred from the outlet a man prefers, +he sought his other outlet, and laid all these distressful matters in +prayer at the feet of heaven. On his knees in his chamber he earnestly +begged forgiveness for his descent to naturalness, and a restoration of +his self-respect. Without his self-respect what would become of him? He +had lived with it so intimately and long. Fervently he desired the +molten moments in which his hands had twitched, wiped out, and +forgotten. He asked for help to conduct himself henceforth with calm. He +implored to be given patience. He implored to be given self-control. And +presently, after two days of his spare moments spent in this manner, he +was sitting upon a chair and telling himself that the main objection to +praying, if one might say so with all due reverence, is that it is +one-sided. It is a monologue, said the Bishop--also with all due +reverence--and in troubles of the kind he was in one needs to be sure +one is being attended to. He did not think he could possibly be being +attended to, because, pray as he might, withdraw and wrestle as he +might, he continued to want to shake his daughter. + +For there was the constant irritation going on of the affairs of the +diocese getting into a more hopeless disorder. All that time she was +away guiltily gadding, and now all this time she was not away but +unavailable till she should have utterly repented, his letters were +piling themselves up into confused heaps, and his engagements were a +wilderness in which he wandered alone in the dark. The chaplain and the +typist did what they could, but they had not been with him so long as +his daughter and were not possessed of the mechanical brainlessness that +makes a woman so satisfactory as a secretary. His daughter, not having +what might be called actual brains, was not troubled by thought. The +distresses of possible alternatives did not disturb her. She did not, +therefore, disturb him by suggesting them. She was mechanically +meticulous. She respected detail. She remembered. She knew not only what +had to be done, which was easy, but what had to be done exactly first. +And both the chaplain and the typist were men with ideas, and instead of +assisting him along one straight and narrow path which is the only way +of really getting anywhere, including, remembered the Bishop, to heaven, +they were constantly looking to the right and the left, doubting, +weighing, hesitating. The chaplain had as many eyes for a question as a +fly, and saw it from as many angles. Fairness, desirability, the +probable views of the other side, their equal Rightness, these things +faltered interminably round each letter to be answered, were hesitated +over interminably in the mellow intonations of that large-minded, +well-educated young man's voice, and he was echoed and supported by the +typist, who was also from Oxford, and had been given this chance of +nearness to the most distinguished of bishops at such a youthful age +that the undergraduate milk had not yet dried on the corners of his +eloquent and hesitating mouth, and gave a peculiarly sickly flavour, +thought the irritated Bishop, to whatever came out of it. + +The Bishop felt that if this went on much longer the work of the diocese +would come to a standstill. In ten days the Easter recess would be over, +and he was due in the House of Lords, where he had been put down for a +speech on the Home Rule Bill from the point of view of simple faith, and +how was he to leave things in this muddle at home, and how was he to +have the peace of mind, the empty clarity, appropriate to a proper +approach of the measure if his inward eye went roving away to Redchester +all the time and to the increasing confusion on his study table? + +The trail of Ingeborg was over all his day. When, warm and ruffled from +prayer, he plunged down into his work again, he could not do a thing +without being reminded she was not there. He was forced to think of her +every moment of his time. It was ignoble, but without her he was like an +actor who has learned not his part but to lean on the prompter, and who +finds himself on the stage with the prompter gone dead in his box. She +was dead to him, dead in obstinate sin; and dignity demanded she should +continue dead until she came of her own accord and told him she had done +with that terrible affair of the East Prussian pastor. He did not know +whether he would then forgive her--he would probably defer forgiveness +as a disciplinary measure, after having implored heaven's guidance--but +he would allow a certain amount of resurrection, sufficient to enable +her to sit up at her desk every day and disentangle the confusion her +wickedness alone had caused. In the evenings she would, he thought, at +any rate for a time, be best put back in her grave. + +At this point he began to be able to say "Poor girl," and to feel that +he pitied her. + +But it was not till the end of the week, as Sunday drew near, that his +prayers did after all begin to be answered, and he regained enough +control of his words if not of his thoughts to be able to reappear among +his family and show nothing less becoming than reserve. He even +succeeded, though without speaking to her, in kissing Ingeborg's +forehead night and morning and making the sign of the Cross over her +when she went to bed as he had done from her earliest years. She seemed +smaller than ever, hardly there at all, and made him think of an empty +dress walking about with a head on it. Contemplating her when she was +not looking his desire to shake her became finally quenched by the +perception that really there would be nothing to shake. It would be like +shaking out mere clothes, garments with the body gone out of them; there +would be dust, but little satisfaction. She had evidently been feeling, +he was slightly soothed to observe, for not only was her dress empty but +her face seemed diminished, and she certainly was remarkably pale. She +struck him as very unattractive, entirely designed by Providence for a +happy home life. And to think that this nothing, this amazing +littleness--well, well; poor girl. + +On the Sunday afternoon he determined to help her by getting into touch +with her from the pulpit. On that day he several times assured himself +before preaching that his only feeling in the sad affair was one of +concern for her and grief. The pulpit, he knew from experience, was a +calm and comfort-bringing place when he was in it; it was, indeed, his +way with a pulpit that had brought the Bishop to the pinnacle of the +Church on which he found himself. He was at his best in it, knowing it +for a blessed spot, free from controversy, pure from contradiction, a +place where personal emotions could find no footing owing to the wise +custom that prevented congregations from answering back. Put into common +terms, the terms of his undergraduate days, he could let himself rip in +the pulpit; and the Bishop was in a ripped condition altogether at his +greatest. + +He spoke that Sunday specially to Ingeborg, and he told himself that +what had come straight from his heart must needs go straight to hers. +The Bible was very plain. It did not mince matters as to the dangers she +was running. The punishment for her class of sin right through it was +various and severe. Not that the ravens of another age and the eagles of +a different climate--he had taken as his text that passage, or rather +portion of a passage--he described it as remarkable--in the Proverbs: +"The ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young eagles shall +eat it"--were likely ever miraculously to appear in Redchester, though +even on that point the Bishop held that nothing was certain; but there +were, he explained, spiritual ravens and eagles provided by an +all-merciful Providence for latter-day requirements whose work was even +more thorough and destructive. He earnestly implored those members of +his flock who knew themselves guilty of the particular sin the passage +referred to, to seek forgiveness of their parents before Heaven +interfered. He pointed out that what is most needed, if people are to +live with any zest and fine result at all, is encouragement, and what +encouragement could equal full and free forgiveness? The Bible, he said, +understood this very well, and the Prodigal Son's father never hesitated +in his encouragement. It seemed difficult to suppose one could equal the +lavishness of the best robe, the ring, the shoes, and the fatted calf, +yet he felt certain--he _knew_ there were fathers at that very moment, +there in that town, nay, in that cathedral, ready with all and more than +that. Who would wish to punish his dear child, the soul given into his +hands to be whitened for heaven? One knew from one's own experience--all +who had once been children must know--how sorry one was for having done +wrong, how _bleeding_ one felt about it; and just then, just at that +moment of sorrow, of heart's blood, was not what one needed so that one +might get on one's feet again quickly and do better than ever, not +punishment but forgiveness? A frequent and free forgiveness, said the +Bishop, and his voice was beautiful as he said it, was one of the chief +necessities of life. What poor children want, poor frail children, so +infinitely apt to fall, so infinitely clumsy at getting up, is a +continual wiping out and never thinking again of the yesterdays, a daily +presentation by authority to yesterday's stumblers of that most bracing +object, the cleaned and empty slate. Why, it was as necessary, he +declared, his fine face aglow, if one was to work well and add one's +cheerful contribution to the world's happiness, as a nourishing and +sufficient breakfast--the congregation thrilled at this homely +touch--and to numb a human being's powers of cheerful contribution by +punishment was _waste_. How cruel, then, to force a father by one's +stubbornness to punish; how cruel and how sinful to hinder him, by not +seeking out at once what he so freely offered, to hinder him from +bringing forth his best robe, his ring, his fatted calf. What a heavy +responsibility towards their fathers did children bear, said the Bishop, +who had ceased himself being anybody's child many years before. This, he +said, is a sermon to children; to erring children; to those sad children +who have gone astray. We are all children here, he explained, and if +life has been with us so long that we can no longer find any one we may +still with any certainty call father, we are yet to the end Children of +the Kingdom. But, he continued, though every single soul in this +cathedral is necessarily some one's child, not every single soul in it +is inevitably some one's father, and he would say a few words to the +fathers and remind them of the infinite effect of love. To punish your +child is to make its repentance go sour within it. Do not punish it. +Love it. Love it continuously, generously, if needs be obstinately; +smite its hardness, as once a rock was smitten, with the rod of +generosity. Give it a chance of gushing forth into living repentance. +Generosity begets generosity. Love begets love. Show your love. Show +your generosity. Forgive freely, magnificently. Oh, my brothers, oh, my +children, my little sorry children, what could not one, what would not +one do in return for love? + +The Bishop's face was lifted up as he finished to the light of the west +window. His voice was charged with feeling. He had forgotten the ravens +and eagles of the beginning, for he never allowed his beginnings to +disturb his endings, well knowing his congregation forgot them, too. He +was an artist at reaching into the hearts of the uneducated. Everything +helped him--his beauty, his voice, and the manifest way in which his own +words moved him. + +And the typist, as he walked back to the Palace with the chaplain across +the daisies of the Close, was unable to agree with the chaplain that a +course at Oxford even now in close reasoning might help the Bishop. The +typist thought it would spoil him; and offered to lay the chaplain +twenty to one that Redchester that afternoon would be full of erring +children upsetting their fathers' Sunday by wanting to be forgiven. + +It was; and Ingeborg was one of them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +She waylaid him after tea on the stairs. + +"Father," she said timidly, as he was passing on in silence. + +"Well, Ingeborg?" said the Bishop, pausing and gravely attentive. + +"I--want to tell you how sorry I am." + +"Yes, Ingeborg?" + +"So sorry, so ashamed that I--I went away like that on that tour. It was +very wrong of me. And I went with your money. Oh, it was ugly. I--hope +you'll forgive me, father?" + +"Freely, Ingeborg. It would be sad indeed if I lagged behind our Great +Exemplar in the matter of forgiveness." + +"Then--I may come back to work?" + +"When you tell me you have broken off your clandestine engagement." + +"But father--" + +"There are no buts, Ingeborg." + +"But you said in your sermon--" + +The Bishop passed on. + +In her eagerness Ingeborg put her hand detainingly on his sleeve, a +familiarity hitherto unheard of in that ordered and temperate household. + +"But your sermon--you said in your sermon, father--why, how can free +forgiveness have conditions? They didn't do it that way in the +Bible"--(this to him who was by the very nature of his high office a +specialist in forgiveness; poor girl, poor girl)--"You said yourself +about the Prodigal Son--his father forgave _everything_, and perhaps +he'd done worse things even than going to Lucerne--" + +"We are not told, Ingeborg, of any clandestine engagement," said the +Bishop, pursuing his way hampered but, as he was glad to remember +afterwards, calm. + +"But you know about it--how can it be clandestine when you know about +it?" + +"Once more, Ingeborg, there are no buts." + +"But why shouldn't I marry a good man?" + +She was actually following him up quite a number of the stairs, still +with her hand on his arm, and her face, so unattractive in its unwomanly +eagerness, quite close to his. + +"Why should I have to be forgiven for wanting to marry a good man? +Everybody marries good men. Mother did, and you never told her she +wasn't to. Oh, oh--" she went on, as his dressing-room door was quietly +closed upon her, "that isn't free forgiveness at all--it isn't what you +_said_--it isn't what you _said_--it's _conditions_."... + +And her voice from the doormat became quite a cry, regardless of +possible listening Wilsons. + +How glad he was that he had been able to put her aside quietly and get +himself, still controlled, into his dressing-room. How strange and new +were these reckless outbreaks of unreserve. And her reasoning, how +wholly deplorable. She wished, unhappy girl, to enjoy the advantages and +privileges of the forgiven state while continuing in the sin that had +procured the forgiveness. She wished, he reflected, though in educated +language, to eat her cake and have it, too. Yet was it not clear that a +free forgiveness could only be bestowed on an unlimited penitence? There +could be no reservations of particular branches of sin. All must be +lopped. And the East Prussian pastor was a branch that must be lopped +with the cleanest final cut before real submission could be said to have +set in. + +But the Bishop in his dressing-room, though he retained his apparent +calm, was sore within him. His sermon had failed. The girl must be a +stone. It wasn't, he thought profoundly worried, as if he hadn't given +her nearly a week for undisturbed thought and hadn't approached her that +day with all the helpfulness in his power from the pulpit. Both these +things he had done; and she was no nearer recovery than before. Was +training then nothing? Was environment nothing? Was blood nothing? Was +the blood of bishops, that blood which of all bloods must surely be most +potent in preventing its inheritors in all their doings, nothing? + +On the following afternoon there was a party at the Palace, arranged by +Mrs. Bullivant in the confident days before she knew what Ingeborg was +really like. It was a congratulatory party for Judith, and all +Redchester and all the county had been invited. Nothing could stop this +party but a death in the household--any death, even Richards' might do, +but nothing short of death, thought the afflicted lady, wondering how +she was to get through the afternoon; and as she crept on to her sofa at +a quarter to four to be put by Richards into the final folds and knew +that as four struck a great surge of friends would pour in over her and +that for three hours she would have to be bright and happy about Judith, +and sympathetically explanatory about Ingeborg--who looked altogether +too odd to be explained only by a long past dentist--she felt so very +low that she was unable to stop herself from thinking it was a pity +people didn't die a little oftener. Especially maids. Especially maids +who were being so clumsy with the cushions.... + +And the Master of Ananias had been there since before luncheon, and how +exhausting that was. She had had to do most of the entertaining of him, +the Bishop being unavoidably absent from the meal, and Ingeborg, who did +the conversation in that family, not being able to now because she was +in disgrace, and Judith, dear child, never saying much at any time. And +the Master had been very exuberant; and his vitality, delightful of +course but just a little overwhelming at his age, had reminded her that +she needed care. How difficult it had been to get him out into the +garden, to somewhere where she wasn't. She hadn't got him there till +half-past two, by which time he had been vital without stopping since +twelve, and even then she had had to invent a pear-tree in full blossom +that she wasn't at all sure about, and tell him she had heard it was a +wonderful sight and ought not to be missed. But how difficult it had +been. Judith had not seemed to want to show him the pear-tree, and he +would not go and look at it unless she went, too. Judith had gone at +last, but with an expression on her face as though she thought she was +going to have to bear things, and no girl should show a thought like +that before marriage. And then there had been an immense number of small +matters to see to because of the party, matters Ingeborg had always seen +to but couldn't now because she was in disgrace, and how difficult all +that was. Still, Mrs. Bullivant felt deeply if vaguely that nobody +temporarily evil should be allowed to minister to anybody permanently +good. Such persons, she felt, should be put aside into a place made +roomy for repentance by the clearing out of all claims. During the whole +of the week since her daughter's return she had not let her even pour +out tea, either when the riven family was by itself or when +congratulatory callers came. "Poor Ingeborg isn't very well," she had +murmured, quenching the inquisitiveness natural to callers. She had made +up her mind that first evening, when the full horror of what her +daughter had done became clear to her, that she would ask nothing of +her, not even tea. + +But it did make difficulties. She felt entirely low, quite damp with the +exertion of meeting them, when she crept into position on the sofa at a +quarter to four and waited with closed eyes for the next wave of life +that would wash over her. And it all happened as she had feared--she was +perpetually having to explain Ingeborg. Guest after guest came up with +the expressions of rejoicing proper to guests invited to rejoice over +Judith, and the smiling laudations of what was indeed a vision of beauty +each ended with a question about Ingeborg. What had she been +doing?--(the awful innocence of the question)--how perfectly miserably +seedy she looked; poor little Ingeborg; was it really just that tiresome +tooth? + +Mrs. Bullivant, as she murmured what she could in reply to this +ceaseless flow of sympathy from the retired officers and their wives and +daughters, and the cathedral dignitaries and their wives and daughters, +and the wives and daughters of the county who came without their men +because their men wouldn't come, felt vaguely but deeply that it was +somehow wrong that Ingeborg should both sin and be sympathised with. She +had no right, her injured mother felt, to look so small and stricken. +Her family had quite properly removed her outside the pale of their +affection till she should announce her broken-off engagement to that +dreadful German and ask to be forgiven for ever having been engaged at +all, but she ought not to look like somebody who is outside a pale. She +seemed positively to be advertising the pale. It was bad taste. It was +really the worst of taste when you were the sinner to look like the +sinned against; to look ill-used; to droop openly. Yet never could a +girl who had done such horrible, such detestably deceitful and vulgar +things, have been treated so gently by her family. It had been, Mrs. +Bullivant felt, the only good thing in a wretched affair, the perfect +breeding with which the Bullivants had met the situation. Not one of +them had even remotely alluded to the scene she had made the first +afternoon. No one had questioned her, no one had troubled her in any +way. She had been left quite free, and no one had exacted the smallest +sacrifice of her time to any of their needs. Her father had given her a +complete holiday, not allowing her at all in his study, and whenever she +had attempted to do anything for her mother or in the house Richards had +been rung for. Judith, dear child, seemed instinctively to do the right +thing, and without a word from her mother avoided Ingeborg; she was so +delicate about it, so fine in her feeling that here was something not +quite nice, that she turned red each time Ingeborg during the first day +or two tried to talk to her, and quietly went into another room. All the +last part of the week Ingeborg had spent in the garden, quite free, +quite undisturbed, not a claim on her. And yet here she was, standing +about at the party or sitting alone in foolish corners, thin, and pale, +and unsmiling, like a reproach. + +Through a gap in the crowd Mrs. Bullivant presently saw her being talked +to by one who had once been a general but now in retirement wreaked his +disciplines on bees. She just had time to notice how her daughter +started and flushed when this man suddenly addressed her--such bad +manners to start and flush--before the crowd closed again. She shut her +eyes for a moment and felt very helpless. Who knew to what lengths +Ingeborg's bad manners might not go, and what she might not be saying to +the man? + +What the general was telling her, with the hearty kindliness fathers of +other daughters use to daughters of other fathers--will use, indeed, +commented the Bishop observing the incident from afar and allowing +himself the solace of an instant's bitterness, to any created female +thing if only she will oblige them by not being their own--was that he +couldn't have her looking like this. + +"Oh, like what?" asked Ingeborg quickly, starting and flushing; for her +week as an outcast had lowered her vitality to such an extent that she +was morbidly afraid her face might somehow have become a sort of awful +crystal in which everybody would be able to see the Rigi, and herself +being proposed to on its top. + +"Shocking white about the gills," said the hearty man standing over her, +cup in hand and see-sawing on his toes and heels because his boots +creaked and it gave him a vague pleasure to make them go on doing it. +"You must come round and have a good game of tennis with Dorothy some +afternoon. You've been shut up working too hard at that letter-writing +business, that's what you've been doing, young lady." + +"I wish I had--oh, I wish I had," said Ingeborg, pressing her hands +together and looking up at this stray bit of kindliness with a quick +gratefulness. + +"We always think of you as sitting there writing, writing," the hearty +man went on, more intent on what he was saying than on what she was +saying. "Father's right hand, mother's indispensable, you know. I tell +Dorothy--" + +Ingeborg twisted on her chair. "Oh," she said, "don't tell +Dorothy--don't tell her--" + +"Tell her what? You don't know what I was going to say." + +"Yes, I do--about that's how daughters ought to be--like _me_. And +Dorothy's so good and dear, and wouldn't ever in this world have gone +off to--" + +She stopped, but only just in time, and looked at him frightened. + +She had all but said it. The general, however, was staring at her with +kindly incomprehension. Her head drooped a little, and she gazed vaguely +at his toes as they rhythmically touched and were lifted up from the +carpet. "Nobody knows what anybody else is really like inside," she +finished forlornly. + +"You come up and have some tennis," he said, patting her on the +shoulder. And later on to the Bishop he remarked, in his hearty desire +to have everything trim and in its proper place, the young in the fresh +air, older persons at desks in studies, white faces reserved for +invalids, roses blooming in the cheeks of girls, that he mustn't +overwork that little daughter of his. + +"Overwork!" exclaimed the Bishop, full of bitter memories of an empty +week. + +"Turn her out into the sun, Bully, my boy," said the general whose fag +the Bishop had been at Eton. + +"Into the sun!" exclaimed the Bishop, having for six mortal days +observed her from windows horribly idling in it. + +"If you keep 'em shut up you can't expect girls any more than you can +expect a decent bee to provide you with honey." + +"Honey!" exclaimed the Bishop. + +That Duchess who had wanted her eldest son to marry Judith tapped +Ingeborg on the arm with her umbrella as she passed her followed by her +daughter and said: "Little pale child, little pale child," and shook her +head at her and frowned and smiled, and whispered to Pamela that it +looked very like jealousy; and Pamela said Nonsense to that, and tried +to linger and talk to Ingeborg, but her mother, filled with the passion +for refreshment that seizes all persons who go to parties, dragged her +along with her to where it could be found, and on the way she was seen +by the Bishop, who at once left the old lady who was talking to him to +enfold Lady Pamela in his care and compass her about with a cloud of +little attentions--chairs, ices, fruit; for not only had he confirmed +her but he felt a peculiar interest in her particular kind of +clean-limbed intelligent beauty. Of all the confirmation crosses he had +given away he liked best to think of Lady Pamela's. Certainly in that +soft cradle, beneath the muslin and lace of propriety, he could be sure +it would not jangle against an illicit and alien ring. + +"You still wear it?" he said, his beautiful voice, lowered to suit the +subject, charged with feeling as with his own hands he brought her tea; +and he felt a little checked, a little disappointed, when she said, +smiling at him, her grey eyes level with his so well grown was she, +"Wear what?" + +And another thing this young woman did that afternoon that checked and +disappointed him--she showed a disposition to take care of him; and no +bishop of sixty, or indeed any other honest man of sixty, likes that. +"She thinks me _old_," he thought with acute and pained surprise as she +charmingly made him sit down lest he might be tired standing, and +charmingly shut a window behind them lest he should be in a draught, and +charmingly later on when he took her down the garden to show her the +pear-tree turned her pretty head and asked him over her shoulder whether +she were walking too fast. "She thinks me _old_," he thought; and it was +an amazement to him, for only last year he was still fifty-nine, still +in the fifties, and the fifties, once one was used to them, were nothing +at all. + +He became very grave with Lady Pamela. He felt that the showing of the +pear-tree had lost a good deal of its savour. He felt it still more +when, turning the bend in the path that led to the secluded corner that +made the pear-tree popular as a resort, he perceived Ingeborg sitting +beneath it. + +She was alone. + +"Why is she always by herself?" asked Lady Pamela, who was, the Bishop +could not help thinking, being rather steadily tactless. + +He made no answer. He was too seriously nettled. Apart from everything +else, to have one's daughter cropping up.... + +"Ingeborg--!" called Lady Pamela, waving her sunshade to attract her +attention as they walked on towards her, for Ingeborg, under the tree, +was sitting with her chin on her hand looking at nothing and once more +advertising by her attitude, Mrs. Bullivant would have considered, that +she was outside the pale. + +"I think," said the Bishop pausing, "we ought perhaps to go back." + +"Ought we? Oh, why? It's lovely here. Ingeborg!" + +"I think," said the Bishop, now altogether annoyed at this persistent +determination to include his daughter--as though one could ever +satisfactorily include daughters--in what might have been a poetic +conversation between beauty and youth on the one side and prestige and +more than common gifts on the other, beauty, too, if you come to that, +and as great in its male ripe way as hers in its girlishness--"I think +that I at any rate must go back. My wife--" + +"Ingeborg! Wake up! What are you dreaming about?" + +Positively Lady Pamela was not listening to him. + +He turned on his heel and left her to go on waving her sunshade at his +daughter if that was what she liked, and went back towards the house +reflecting that women really are quite sadly deficient in imagination +and that it is a great pity. Even this one, this well-bred, well-taught +bright being, was so unimaginative that she actually saw no reason why a +man's grown-up daughter.... Really a deficiency of imagination amounted +to stupidity. He hardly liked to have to admit that Lady Pamela was +stupid, but anyhow women ought not to have the vote. + +He went away back into the main garden along the path by the great +herbaceous border then in a special splendour of tulips and all the +clean magnificence of May, thinking with his eyes on the ground how +different things would have been if when he was a curate he had been +sane enough not to marry. The clearness now in his life if only he had +not done that! Nobody sofa-ridden in it, no grown-up thwarting +daughters, and himself vigorous, distinguished, entirely desirable as a +husband, choosing with the mellow, yet not too mellow, wisdom of middle +life exactly who was best fitted to share the advantages he had to +offer. Even Lady Pamela would not then have been able to think of him as +old. It was his family that dated him: his grey-haired wife, his +grown-up daughters. The folly of curates! The black incurable folly of +curates. And he forgot for a gloomy instant what he as a rule with a +sigh acknowledged, that it had all been Providence, even then restlessly +at work guiding him, and that Mrs. Bullivant and the girls merely +constituted one of its many inscrutable ends. + +The baser portion of the Bishop's brain was about to substitute another +word for guiding when he was saved--providentially, the nobler portion +of his brain instantly pointed out--by encountering the Duchess. + +She was coming slowly along examining the plants in the border with the +interest of a garden-lover, and pointing out by means of her umbrella +the various successes to a man the Bishop took to be one of her party. +He was a big man in ill-fitting shiny black with something of the air of +one of the less reputable Cabinet Ministers and was, in fact, Herr +Dremmel; but no one except Herr Dremmel knew it. He had arrived that +afternoon, a man animated by a single purpose, which was to marry +Ingeborg as soon as possible and get back quickly to his work; and he +had come straight from the station to the Palace and walked in +unquestioned with all the others, and after a period of peering about in +the drawing-room for Ingeborg had drifted out into the garden, where he +had at once stumbled upon the Duchess, who was being embittered by a +prebendary of servile habits who insisted on agreeing with her as to the +Latin name of a patch of Prophet-flower when she knew all the time she +was wrong. + +"You tell me," she said, turning on Herr Dremmel who was peering at +them. + +"What shall I tell you, madam?" he inquired, politely sweeping off his +felt hat and bowing beautifully. + +"This. What is its name? I've forgotten." + +Herr Dremmel, who took a large interest in botany, immediately told her. + +"Of course," said the Duchess. "I knew it was Arnebia even when I said +it was something else. It's a borage." + +"_Arnebia echinoides_, madam," said Herr Dremmel peering closer. "A +native of Armenia." + +"Of course they'll conquer us," remarked the Duchess to the prebendary. + +"Oh, of course," he agreed, though he did not take her meaning, for he +had been a prebendary some time and was a little slow, intellectually, +at getting under way. + +Then the Duchess dropped him and turned entirely to Herr Dremmel, who +though he had never seen a herbaceous border in his life by sheer +reasoning was able to tell her very intimately what the Bishop, who he +supposed did the digging, had been doing to it the previous autumn, and +the exact amount and nature of the fertilizers he had put in. + +She was suggesting he should come back with her that afternoon to Coops +and stay there indefinitely, so profound and attractive did his +knowledge seem of what her own garden and her farm needed in the way of +a treatment he alluded to as cross-dressing, when he interrupted her--a +thing that had never happened to her before while inviting somebody to +Coops--to inquire why there were so very many people in the drawing-room +and on the lawn. + +The Duchess stared. "It's a party," she said. "To celebrate the +betrothal. Don't you know?" + +"I am gratified," said Herr Dremmel, "to find the parents so evidently +pleased. It adds a grace to what was already full of charm. But would it +not have been more complete if they had invited me?" + +"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess. "Much more complete. Well, +anyhow, here you are. So you think my soil wants nitrogen?" + +"Certainly, madam. In the form of rape cake and ammonia salts--but +combined with organic manure. Artificial manure alone will not, in hot +weather--who is that?" he broke off, pointing with his umbrella to the +Bishop advancing along the path, his eyes on the ground, sardonically +meditating. + +"What?" said the Duchess, intent on the notes she was making of his +recommendations in her note-book. + +"That," said Herr Dremmel. + +The Duchess looked up. "Why, the Bishop, of course. Go on about the hot +weather." + +"Her father," said Herr Dremmel; and he advanced, hat in hand, and the +other held out in friendliest greeting, to meet him. + +The Duchess went after him. "Bishop," she said, "this is a man who knows +all the things worth knowing." And the Bishop, taking this to be her +introduction of a friend, cordially returned Herr Dremmel's handshake. + +He was never cordial again. + +"Sir," said Herr Dremmel, "I am greatly pleased to make your +acquaintance. My name is Dremmel. Robert Dremmel." + +The Bishop had just enough self-control not to snatch his hand away, but +to let Herr Dremmel continue to hold and press it. His mind began to +leap about. How to get the Duchess away; how to get Herr Dremmel turned, +noiselessly, out of the house; how to prevent Ingeborg's coming at any +moment along the path behind them with Lady Pamela.... + +"We have every reason, sir," said Herr Dremmel, holding the Bishop's +hand in a firm pressure, "to congratulate each other, I you, on the +possession of such a daughter, you me--" + +"Isn't she a lovely girl," said the Duchess, for whom only Judith +existed in that family. "Would rape cake and the other thing help my +flowers at all, or is it only for the mangels?" + +"Mangels!" thought the Bishop, "Rape cake!" And swiftly glanced behind +him down the path. + +"Sir," said Herr Dremmel, desiring to be very pleasant to the Bishop and +slightly waving the Duchess aside, "permit me also to congratulate +you--" + +"_Have_ you had any tea?" inquired the Bishop desperately of the +Duchess, turning to her and getting his hand away. + +"Thank you, yes. Well, Mr. Dremmel? Don't interrupt him, Bishop, he's +_most_ interesting." + +"--on the results," continued Herr Dremmel to the Bishop, "of your +autumnal activities. This blaze of flowers is sufficient witness to the +devotion, the assiduity--" + +"You don't suppose he did it himself, do you?" said the Duchess. + +"And your costume, sir," said Herr Dremmel, concentrated on the Bishop +and earnestly desiring to please, "suggests a quite particular and +familiar interest in what this lady rightly calls the things really +worth knowing." + +"But he can't help wearing that," said the Duchess. + +Again Herr Dremmel, and with some impatience, waved her aside. + +"It is a costume most appropriate in a garden," he continued. "Even the +gaiters are horticultural, and the apron is pleasantly reminiscent of +the innocence of our first parents. So Adam might have dressed--" + +"Oh, but you _must_ come to Coops!" cried the Duchess. "Bishop, he's to +come back with me." + +"Sir," said Herr Dremmel with something of severity, for he was +beginning to consider the Duchess forward, "is this lady Mrs. Bishop?" + +"Oh, oh!" screamed the Duchess, while Herr Dremmel watched her +disapprovingly and the Bishop struggled not to seize him by the throat. + +"My dear Bishop," said the Duchess, wiping her eyes, "I never had such a +compliment paid me. The best-looking bishop on the bench--" + +"_Do_ come indoors," he implored. "I can't really let you stand about +like this--" + +"Thank you, I'm not in the least tired. Go on, Mr. Dremmel." + +"Sir, can I see you alone?" said Herr Dremmel, now without any doubt as +to the Duchess's forwardness. "On such an occasion as this, before we +begin together openly to rejoice it seems fitting we should first by +ourselves, unless this lady is your daughter's mother--" + +"Oh, oh!" again screamed the Duchess. + +The Bishop turned on him in a kind of blaze, quite uncontrollable. "Yes, +sir, you can," he said. "Come into my study--" + +"What? Are you going to take him away from me?" cried the Duchess. + +"My dear Duchess, if he has business with me--" said the Bishop. "I'll +take you indoors first," he said, offering her his arm. "This +gentleman"--he glared at him sideways, and Herr Dremmel, all unused as +he was to noticing hostility, yet was a little surprised at the +expression of his face--"will wait here. No, no, he won't, he'll come, +too"--for approaching round the bushes behind which grew the pear-tree +the Bishop had caught sight of skirts. "Come on, sir--" + +"But--" said the Duchess, as the Bishop drew her hand hastily through +his arm and began to walk her off more quickly than she had been walked +off for years. + +"Come on, sir--" the Bishop flung back, almost hissed back, at Herr +Dremmel. + +"One moment," said Herr Dremmel holding up his hand, his gaze fixed on +what was emerging from the bushes. + +"Come _on_, sir!" cried the Bishop, "I can only see you alone if you +come at once--" + +But Herr Dremmel did not heed him. He was watching the bushes. + +"Will you come?" said the Bishop, pausing and stamping his foot, while +he held the Duchess tight in the grip of his arm. + +"Why," said Herr Dremmel without heeding him, "why--yes--why it +_is_--why, here at last appears the Little Sugar Lamb!" + +"The little _what_?" said the Duchess, resolutely pulling out her hand +from the Bishop's arm and putting up her eyeglass. "Heavens above us, he +can't mean Pamela?" + +But nobody answered her; and indeed it was not necessary, for Herr +Dremmel, gone down the path with a swiftness amazing in one of his +appearance, was already, in the sight of all Redchester and most of the +county, enfolding Ingeborg in his arms. + +"Of course," was the Duchess's comment to the Bishop as she watched the +scene with her eyeglass up and the placidity of relief, "of course they +will conquer us." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +And so it came to pass that Herr Dremmel, armed only with simplicity, +set aside the resistances of princes, potentates, and powers, and was +married to Ingeborg by her father the Bishop in his own cathedral. And +it was done as quickly as the law allowed, not only because Herr Dremmel +was determined it should be, but because the enduring of his daily +arrival for courting purposes from Coops, where he was staying, became +rapidly impossible for the Bishop. Also there was the Master of Ananias, +spurred to a frenzy of activity by Herr Dremmel's success in getting +things hurried on, insisting that he had been engaged long enough and +demanding to be married on the same day. + +In the end he was, and Ingeborg's wedding, being Judith's as well, was +unavoidably splendid. All along the line the Bishop's hand was forced. +The very wedding-dress had to be as beautiful for the one as for the +other of his daughters; and, absurdly and wickedly, he was obliged to +spend as much on her trousseau who was going into pauperdom and +obscurity for the rest of her days as on hers who would no doubt be +soon, though of course only in God's good time, the most magnificent of +widows. He never afterwards was able to feel quite the same to the +Duchess. Without knowing anything of the circumstances, of the secret +disgrace of the affair, of the blank undesirability in any case of such +a son-in-law, of the extraordinary inconvenience and pecuniary loss of +Ingeborg's marrying at all, she had taken up Herr Dremmel to an extent +that was positively near making her ridiculous, supposing that, humanly +speaking, were possible, and had rammed him down the county's throat +till at last it believed that of the two husbands Ingeborg had secured +the better. And this gossip filtered through into the Palace, and +Judith, who never did speak, spoke less than ever, but edging away more +and more decidedly from the blandishments of the Master, who had not +been invited to Coops, spent most of her time in her own room engaged in +not looking at her trousseau; and the Palace became such an +uncomfortable place what with one thing and another, and the strain of +remaining calm and becoming in conduct to the ducally protected Herr +Dremmel was so great, that at last the Bishop was as eager as any one to +get the wedding over and feverishly furthered any scheme that would, by +hastening it, deliver him. + +To Ingeborg he never spoke, but turned away with the same cold horror +that came over the rest of the family when from windows he or it beheld +her being courted with what seemed a terrible German thoroughness in +places like the middle of the lawn. He could no longer walk round his +own garden without meeting an interlaced couple; and though he suggested +to Herr Dremmel with what he felt was really admirable self-restraint +that these public endearments might give rise to comment, Herr Dremmel +merely replied that as Ingeborg was his _Braut_ it ought to give rise to +much more comment, even to justifiable complaints, if his manner to her +were less warm. + +"In England we do not--" began the Bishop; but broke off for fear of +losing his self-restraint. And Herr Dremmel and Ingeborg continuing to +perambulate the garden slowly, with a frequent readjusting of their +steps to each other's--for it is a difficult method, the interlaced one, +of getting along a path--the Bishop and Mrs. Bullivant retreated for +refreshment and comfort to the delicacy of Judith, to her lovely +withdrawals. That the Master should blandish was natural, because a man +is natural; but they knew that a woman, if she is to approach any ideal +of true womanhood, cannot be too carefully unnatural, and should she be +persuaded or betrayed into some expression of affection for her lover, +some answering caress, at least she must not like it. And there was +Ingeborg progressing round the garden as described, or in the middle of +the lawn openly having her hand held, and looking pleased. + +It was rank. + +[Illustration: He could no longer trail around his own garden without +meeting an interlaced couple] + +Ingeborg, in fact, was pleased. She was more, she was extremely happy. +Here she was suddenly no longer a disgraced and boycotted and wicked +girl, but that strangely encouraging object, that odd restorer of faith +in oneself, a Little Sugar Lamb. The _cosiness_ of being a Sugar Lamb! +She had been so very miserable. She had dragged through such cold, +anæmic days. She had had such a horrible holiday, forced upon her on the +very scene of her activities, and had had it brought home to her so +freezingly, so blightingly, that she had done too dreadful a thing to be +allowed apparently ever again to associate with the decent. And +Robert--she quickly began calling him that to herself under the +influence of her family's methods of reclaiming her--had not written a +single letter. + +"But he came," said Herr Dremmel, for whose enlightenment she was +picturing the week she had had. + +And her father would not speak to her at all, would not look at her. + +"Old sheep," said Herr Dremmel good-naturedly. + +And Judith had seemed entirely horrified, and used to blush if she tried +to speak to her. + +"Foolish turkey," said Herr Dremmel placidly. + +But now somehow it did seem as if she needn't have been quite so +miserable, and might have had more faith. + +"What ought the Little One to have had more of?" asked Herr Dremmel; for +his thoughts had not much time to spare, and he profitably employed them +while she talked in working out the probable results of, say, the +treatment of three acres of sugar-beet with sulphate of potash, sulphate +of ammonia, and nitrate of soda respectively, all of them receiving 400 +lbs. of basic slag as well--would not sulphate of ammonia be more +effective as a nitrogenous manure than nitrate of soda in the case of +sugar-beets, whose roots grew smaller and nearer the surface than +mangels? "That is what little women should constantly have more of," he +said, breaking away from sugar-beets to a zestful embracing; for on this +occasion they were under the pear-tree, a place she seldom went to +because she had not yet acquired, in spite of his assurances that she +undoubtedly would, any real enthusiasm for embracings, keeping by +preference to the only immune place in the garden, which was the middle +of the lawn. + +"I wonder," she thought while it was being done, "if this will really +grow on me...." + +And, while it was still being done, "Mother must have been kissed, too, +and she's still alive...." + +And presently, while it was still being done, "But mother isn't _much_ +alive--there's the sofa--perhaps that's why...." + +Well, he loved her, somehow; she did not now care how. Whether it was a +spiritual affection or one that would go on requiring at frequent +intervals to enfold her capaciously did not matter any more, for it was +a warm thing, a warm human thing, he was offering her, and she had been +half-dead with cold. What did it matter if she herself was not in love? +It was the dream of a schoolgirl to want to be in love. Life was not +like that. Life was a thing full of friendliness and happy affection; +and love, anyhow on the woman's side, was not a bit necessary. The +Bishop would have been surprised if he had known how nearly she +approached his ideal of womanhood. She was going to be so good, she said +to herself and to Herr Dremmel, too, her heart full of gratitude and +glad relief--oh, so good! She was never going to be dejected or beaten +out of hope and courage again. She would work over there, work hard at +all sorts of happy things in the parish, and among the poor and sick, +and she would help Robert in his work if he would let her, and if he +wouldn't then she'd help him when he had done--help him to play and +rest. They would laugh together and talk together and walk together, and +he would explain his experiments to her and teach her to understand. And +the first thing she would do would be to learn German very thoroughly, +so as to be able to write all his letters for him, and even his sermons +if needs be, and save his precious time. + +"Those," said Herr Dremmel, who in the lush meadows of dalliance had +forgotten that what had first attracted him to her had been a certain +bright baldness of brain, "would be pretty little nonsense sermons the +small snail would produce." + +"You'll see," said Ingeborg confidently; and she suddenly flung out her +arms and turned her face up to the sun and the blue through the little +leaves and all the light and promise of the world, and stretched herself +in an immense contentment. "Oh," she sighed, "isn't it all _good_--isn't +it all _good_--" + +"It is," agreed Herr Dremmel. "But it is nothing to how good it will be +presently, when we are surrounded by our dear children." + +"Children?" said Ingeborg. + +She dropped her arms and looked at him. She had not thought of children. + +"Then, indeed, my little wife will not wish to write letters or compose +sermons." + +"Why?" said Ingeborg. + +"Because you will be a happy mother." + +"But don't happy mothers--" + +"You will be entirely engaged in adoring your children. Nothing else in +the world will interest you." + +Ingeborg stood looking at him with a surprised face. "Oh?" she said. +"Shall I?" Then she added, "But I've never _had_ any children." + +"It was not to be expected," said Herr Dremmel. + +"Then how do you know nothing else in the world will interest me?" + +"Foolish Little One," he said, taking her in his arms, his eyes moist +with tenderness, for he knew that here against his breast he held in her +slender youth the mother of all the Dremmels, and the knowledge +profoundly moved him. "Foolish Little One, is not throughout all nature +every mother solely preoccupied by interest in her young?" + +"Is she?" said Ingeborg doubtfully, quite a number of remembered family +snapshots dancing before her eyes. Still, she was very willing to +believe. + +She looked at him a moment thinking. "But--" she said, gently pushing +herself a little way from him, both hands on his chest. + +"But what then, small snail?" + +"Wouldn't they be German children?" + +"Undoubtedly," said Herr Dremmel proudly. + +"All of them?" + +"All of them?" he echoed. + +"It wouldn't be like Roman Catholics and Protestants marrying, and half +the children be German and half English?" + +"Certainly not," said Herr Dremmel emphatically. + +"But Robert--" + +"Continue, little hare." + +"What are German children _like_?" + +It was now Herr Dremmel's turn to say confidently, "You'll see." + + * * * * * + +A week later they were married; and the Bishop, inscrutably watching +Ingeborg from the doorstep as she was being tucked by deft hands into +the rugs of the car that was to take her to the station, observing how +cushions were put in the right places at her back, how a footstool was +carefully inserted under her feet, how her least movement was +interpreted and instantly attended to, made his farewell remark to his +daughter--the last remark, as it happened, that he ever did make to +her. + +"You will miss Wilson," he said; and re-entered the Palace a slightly +comforted man. + +She never saw him again. + + + + +PART II + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +On her honeymoon, which was only as long as it took to get from +Redchester to Kökensee, except for a day in Holland where a brief and +infinitely respectful visit, or rather waiting on, was made to the +eminent De Vries, Ingeborg said to herself at frequent intervals as she +had said to herself under the pear-tree in what now seemed a remote +past, "Perhaps this will grow on me." But even before they reached +Kökensee on the fourth day after their marriage she was deciding, though +a little reluctantly for she had always heard them praised, that +probably she had no gift for honeymoons. + +Robert, luckily, was apparently liking his and was quite happy and +placid and slept sonorously in the trains. The meals were invariably +cheerful. From Bromberg on he woke up and became attentive to the +country they were passing through; and once in his own part of the world +he expanded into much talk, pointing out and explaining the distinctive +features of the methods employed on the different farms along the line. + +Ingeborg drank it in eagerly. She was zealous to learn; resolute to be a +helpmeet. Had he not delivered her from the immense suffocation of +Redchester? She was obsequious with gratitude. It was a country of an +exhilarating spaciousness; no hedges, no shutting off of one field from +another, no shutting off, indeed, of the sky itself or of the blue +delicious distance by little interfering hills like those they had round +Redchester. It was all one great sweep, one great roll of earth up to +heaven and of heaven down to earth, fresh and free and with a quality in +the air of clear bright hardness she thought adorable after the wadded +effect of the climate at home. And once, when the train pulled up in the +open, she could hear from far away up in the blue the cry of a hawk. + +From Allenstein they went on by a light railway with toy carriages and a +tiny engine through an infinity of rye-fields and seemingly uninhabited +country to the nearest station to Kökensee, a place called Meuk, of some +pretension to being a little town, with an enormous church rising out of +its middle and containing, among other objects of interest, explained +Herr Dremmel, his mother. + +"Oh?" said Ingeborg, surprised. "Have you got one?" For he somehow +produced a completely motherless impression. + +"Invariably, my treasure," said Herr Dremmel with patience, "do people +have mothers." + +"Yes," she said, reaching down his hat for him and putting it carefully +on his head, "but then they say so." + +"Perhaps. Sooner or later. I well remember, however, informing you that +my father was dead. From that it was possible to reason that my mother +was not. She is a simple woman. No longer young. We will visit her on +our way through the town." + +Outside the station a high vehicle drawn by two long-tailed horses, one +of which reached a head and neck further than the other, so that when +you looked at them sideways and could not see that they both began at +the same place it seemed to be perpetually winning a race, was in +readiness to take them to Kökensee. + +"This," said Herr Dremmel, introducing it with a wave of the hand, "is +my carriage. And this," he continued, similarly introducing the driver, +"is my faithful servant Johann. He has been with me now nearly a year." + +Ingeborg shook Johann's hand, when he had carefully clambered down over +the sacks of kainit that filled the front part of the carriage, very +politely. "Do they all stay as long as that?" she murmured to Herr +Dremmel. + +"All? There is but my widow, and she is adjusting her feathers for +flight. She will wing her way to some other bachelor nest as soon as my +Little One has been inducted." + +"But does she like that?" asked Ingeborg. For she had acquired a habit, +due to much repetition of the Litany, of regarding widowers as brittle, +needing special care. There was an instant's vision before her eyes of +this one flapping blackly athwart the fields of East Prussia, turned +out, desolate and oppressed, and with perhaps some cackling trail of +curses stridulously marking her course. + +"No doubt she will feel it. She, too, has been very faithful. She has +been with me now nearly eight months. But if it were less she would +still feel it. Widows," he continued abstractedly, peering among the +sacks of kainit in search of some Chilisaltpetre that was not there, +"are in a constant condition of feeling." + +Johann explained--he was a shabby man, grown grey and frayed, Ingeborg +supposed, in service--that the previous stuff did not seem to have +caught its train, and Herr Dremmel went off to make anxious inquiries of +the stationmaster while Ingeborg stood smiling with an excessive +friendliness at Johann to make up for her want of words, and wondering +how her luggage would get on to a carriage already so much occupied by +sacks. + +In the end most of it did not and was left at the station till some +future time, and clutching her dressing-bag with one hand and the iron +rail of the carriage with the other she was rattled away over the +enormous cobbles of Meuk with a great cracking of Johann's whip and +barking of dogs and kickings of the horses, whose tails were long and +kept on getting over the reins. The planks of the carriage's bottom +heaved and yawned beneath her feet. The horses shied in and out of the +gutters. Her hat wanted to blow off, and she did not dare let either of +her hands go free to hold it. She bent her head to try to keep it on. +Her skin pricked and tingled from the shaking. She had an impression of +red houses flush with the street, railless dwellings giving straight on +to it; of a small shop or two; of people stopping to stare; of straw and +paper and dust dancing together in the wind. + +Herr Dremmel chose these flustered moments to expand conversationally, +and raising his voice above the tumult explained in shouts that the +three sacks in front were not so much sacks as mysterious stomachs +filled with the future. She strained to catch what he said, but only +heard a word now and then when she bumped against him--"divine +maws--richly furnished banquet--potential energy--" She found it +difficult to answer with any sort of connected intelligence, more +especially because he kept on breaking off to lean forward and hit the +horse-flies that alighted on the back of Johann's neck. When he did this +Johann started and the horses kicked. + +"Faithful servant"--he shouted in her ear--"nearly a year--must not be +stung--" + +It was a disorganized and breathless Ingeborg trying to rub things out +of her eyes who found herself finally in the passage of the elder Frau +Dremmel's house. + +The door stood ajar, and her husband pushed it open and called loudly on +his mother to appear. "She lurks, she lurks," he said, impatiently +looking at his watch; and redoubled his cries. + +"Does she expect us?" asked Ingeborg at last, who was trying to pin up +her loosened hair. + +"She is a simple woman," he said, "consequently she never expects +anything." And he pulled open a door out of which came nothing but +darkness and a great cold smell. + +"That is not my mother," he said, shutting it again. + +"Does she know we're coming home to-day?" asked Ingeborg, a doubt +beginning to take hold of her. + +"She is a simple woman. Consequently she never knows anything. Mother! +Mother!" + +"Does she know you're married?" asked Ingeborg, the doubt growing +bigger. + +"She is a simple woman. Consequently--" He broke off and stared down at +her, reflecting. "Is it possible that I forgot to tell her?" he said. + +It evidently was possible, for at that moment Frau Dremmel came slowly +up some steps at the end of the passage from a lower region, and +perceiving her son and a strange young woman stood still and said +nothing whatever. + +"Mother, this is my wife," said Herr Dremmel, taking Ingeborg's hand and +leading her to the motionless figure. + +"_Ach_," said Frau Dremmel, without moving. + +"Kiss her, Little One," directed Herr Dremmel. + +"Yes, yes," said Ingeborg, blushing a vivid red and going a convulsive +step nearer. + +Frau Dremmel was regarding her with sombre, unblinking eyes, eyes that +had the blankness of pebbles. From her waist downwards she wore a big +dark-blue apron. She was entirely undecorated. Her black dress ended at +the neck abruptly in its own binding and a hook and eye. Her hair was +drawn back into the smallest of knobs. Ingeborg felt suddenly that she +herself was a thing of fal-lals--a showy thing, bedizened with a white +collar and a hat she had till then considered neat, but that she now +knew for a monstrous piece of frippery crushed on to insufficiently +pinned-up hair. + +"You are married to her?" asked the elder Frau Dremmel, turning her +pebble eyes slowly from one to the other. + +"Undoubtedly," said Herr Dremmel; and to Ingeborg, in English, "Kiss +her, Little One, and we will go on home." + +He himself put his arm round his mother's shoulder and gave her a hasty +kiss. + +"My wife is English," he said. "She does not yet either speak or +understand our tongue. Kiss her, mother, and we will go on home." + +But it did not seem possible to get the two women to kiss. Ingeborg went +another shy step nearer. Frau Dremmel remained immobile. + +"This," said Frau Dremmel, moving her slow eyes over Ingeborg and then +fixing them on her son, "is a pastor's wife?" + +[Illustration: "You are married to her?" asked the elder Frau Dremmel, +turning her pebble eyes slowly from one to the other] + +"Undoubtedly. I regret I omitted to tell you, mother, but one does +occasionally omit." And, in English to Ingeborg, "She is a simple woman. +Consequently--" + +"But I heard," said Frau Dremmel. "Through your housekeeper. And others. +Thus I heard. Of my only son's marriage. I a widow." + +Ingeborg, not understanding, stood smiling nervously. She thought on +such an occasion somebody ought to smile, but she did not like doing it. +The immobility of Frau Dremmel, who moved nothing but her eyes, the dank +bare passage, the rush of cold smell that had escaped out of the one +door in it, the bleak air of poverty about her mother-in-law--poverty in +some strange way regarding itself as virtuous for no reason except that +it was poor--did not make her smiling easy. But she was a bride; just +coming home; just being introduced to her husband's people. Somebody, +she felt, on such an occasion must smile, and, trained as she had been +by her father to do the things no one else wanted to do, she provided +all the smiling for the home-coming entirely herself. + +"Please, Robert, tell your mother how sorry I am I can't talk," she +said. "Do tell her I wish I weren't so dumb." + +"How much has she?" Frau Dremmel was asking across this speech. + +"Enough, enough," said her son, putting on his hat and making movements +of departure. + +"Ah. I am not to know. More secrets. It is all to go in further +unchristian tampering with God's harvests." + +Herr Dremmel bestowed a second abstracted kiss somewhere on his mother's +head. He had not listened to anything she said for a quarter of a +century. + +"Nothing for the mother," she went on. "No, no. The mother is only a +widow. She is of no account. Yet your sainted father--" + +"Farewell, and God be with you," said Herr Dremmel, departing down the +passage and forgetting in his hurry to get his bride home as quickly as +possible to take her with him. + +For a moment she was left alone confronting her new relation. She made a +great plunge into filialness and, swiftly blushing, picked up her +mother-in-law's passive hand. + +She had meant to kiss it, but looking into her eyes she found kissing +finally impossible. She shyly murmured an English leave-taking and got +herself, infinitely awkwardly, out of the house. + +"One has to have them," was Herr Dremmel's only comment. + +Kökensee lay three miles along the highroad between Meuk and +Wiesenhausen, and they could see the spire of its little church over the +fields on the left the whole way. The road, made with as few curves as +possible, undulated gently up and down between rye-fields. It was +carefully planted on each side with mountain ashes, on that day in full +flower, and was white and hard as though there had been no rain for a +long while. The wind blew gaily over the rye; the sky was flecked with +small white clouds. Ingeborg could see for miles. And there were dark +lines of forest, and flashes of yellow where the broom grew, and shining +bits of water, and larks quivering out joy, and everywhere on the higher +places busy windmills, and the whole world seemed to laugh and flutter +and sing. + +"It's beautiful--oh, beautiful!" she said. + +"Beautiful? I tell you what is beautiful, Little One--the fat red soil +of your girlhood's home. The fat red soil and the steady drip, drip of +the heavens." + +And he bent forward and inquired of Johann when it had rained last, and +became very gloomy on hearing that it was three weeks ago, and said +things to himself in German. They seemed to be unpastoral things, for +Ingeborg saw Johann's ears lifted up by what was evidently, in the front +of his face, being a grin. + +A weather-beaten sign-post with one bent arm pointed crookedly down a +field-track at right angles to the road, and with a lurch and a heave +they tilted round the corner. There was an immediate ceasing of sound. +She could now hear all sorts of little birds singing besides +larks--chaffinches, tits, yellow-hammers, black-caps. The carriage +ploughed along slowly through the deep sand between rye that grew more +reluctantly every yard. The horses were completely sobered and covered +with sweat. Before them on an upward slope was Kökensee, one long +straggling street of low cottages lying up against the sunset, its +church behind it, and near the church two linden trees which were the +trees, she knew for she had often made him tell her, in front of her +home. + +Ingeborg felt a quick tug at her heart. Here was the place containing +all her future. There was nothing left to her to feel, she supposed, +that she would not feel here. The years lay spread out before her, +spacious untouched canvases on which she was presently going to paint +the picture of her life. It was to be a very beautiful picture, she said +to herself with an extraordinary feeling of proud confidence; not +beautiful because of any gifts or skill of hers, for never was a woman +more giftless, but because of all the untiring little touches, the +ceaseless care for detail, the patient painting out of mistakes; and +every touch and every detail was going to be aglow with the bright +colours of happiness. Exulting bits out of the Prayer-book, the book she +knew altogether best, sang in her ears--_Lift up your hearts.... We lift +them up unto the Lord our God_.... Oh, the beautiful words, the +beautiful world, the wonder and the radiance of life! + +"When the Devil," said Herr Dremmel, who had been scanning the crops on +either side of the track with deepening depression, "took our Saviour up +on to a high place to tempt him with the offer of the kingdoms of the +earth, he was careful to hide Kökensee by keeping his tail spread out +over it, it was so ugly and so undesirable." + +"Oh--the Devil," said Ingeborg, shrugging her shoulder in a splendid +contempt, her face still shining with what she had been thinking. + +She turned to him and laughed. "You can't expect _devils_ to know what's +what," she said, slipping her hand through his arm and throwing up her +head in a kind of proud glee. + +He smiled down at her. "Little treasure," he said, for a moment becoming +conscious that this was a very bright thing he had got and was bringing +home with him. + +The carriage was hauled up through an opening between two cottages out +of the sand on to the stones of the village street by a supreme last +effort of the horses, and was dragged in great bumps across various +defects through an open gate on the opposite side. + +There was a yard with sheds, a plough, a manure heap, some geese, some +hens, a pig, the two linden trees, and in between the linden trees +behind wire netting a one-storied house like a venerable bungalow, which +Herr Dremmel, on their drawing up in front of it, introduced to her. + +"My house," he said, with a wave of the hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +There followed a time of surprising happiness for Ingeborg. It was the +happiness of the child escaped from its lessons and picnicking +gloriously in freedom and unrebukedness. The widow, it is true, slightly +smudged the brightness of the beginning by, as it were, dying hard. Her +body clung to life--the life she had known, she lamented, for eight long +months. She was the last, she explained, of the Herr Pastor's widows, +who reached back in a rusty row to the days when he first came, elastic +with youth, to cure the souls of Kökensee, and as she had stayed the +longest it was clear she must be the best. She remained at the +parsonage, dingily persistent, for several days on the pretext of +initiating Ingeborg into the ways of the house; and each time Herr +Dremmel, who seemed a little shy of embarking on controversy with her, +mentioned trains, she burst in his presence into prayer and implored +aloud on his behalf that he might never know what it was to be a widow. +She did ultimately, however, become dislodged, and once she was gone +there was nothing but contentment. + +Ingeborg was young enough to think the almost servantless housekeeping a +thing of charm and humour. Herr Dremmel was of the easiest unconcern as +to what or when or if he ate. It was early summer, and there was only +delight in getting up at dawn and pottering about the brick-floored +kitchen before the daily servant came--a girl known to Kökensee as +Müller's Ilse--and heating water, and making coffee, and preparing a +very clean little breakfast-table somewhere in the garden, and +decorating it with freshly picked flowers, and putting the butter on +young leaves, and arranging the jar of honey so that a shaft of sunlight +between the branches shone straight through it turning it into a miracle +of golden light. It was the sort of breakfast-table one reads about in +story books; and on its fragility Herr Dremmel would presently descend +like some great geological catastrophe, and the whole in a few convulsed +moments would be just crumbs and coffee stains. Then he would put on +leggings and go off with Johann to his experimental fields, and she +would give herself up eagerly to the duties of the day. + +She could not talk at first to Ilse, a square girl with surprisingly +thick legs, because though she went about always with a German grammar +in one hand she found that what she had learned was never what she +wanted to say. Ilse, whose skirt was short, did not wear stockings, and +when Ingeborg by pointing and producing a pair had conveyed to her that +it would be well if she did, Ilse raised her voice and said that she had +no money to get a husband with but at least, and _Gott sei Dank_, she +had these two fine legs, and if the Frau Pastor demanded that she should +by hiding them give up her chances, then the Frau Pastor had best seek +some girl on whom they grew crooked or lean, and who for those reasons +would only be too glad to cover them up. Ingeborg, not understanding a +word but apprehending a great objection, smiled benevolently and put the +stockings away, and Ilse's legs went on being bare. They worked together +in great harmony, for there could be no argument. Cut off from +conversation, they sang; and Ingeborg sang hymns because her memory was +packed with them, and Ilse sang long loud ballads, going through them +slowly verse by verse in a sort of steady howl. The very geese paused on +their way to the pond to listen anxiously. + +Dinner, which Ingeborg found convenient to prepare entirely in one pot, +simmered placidly on the stove from twelve o'clock onwards. Anybody who +was hungry went and ate it. You threw in potatoes and rice and bits of +meat and carrots and cabbages and fat and salt, and there you were. What +are these mysterious difficulties of housekeeping, she asked herself, +that people shake their heads over? Her dinners were wholesome always, +delicious if one were hungry, and quite amazingly hot. They stayed hot +as persistently as poultices. And once when Ilse had the misfortune to +be stung by a wasp on one of her admirable legs, Ingeborg, with immense +presence of mind, seized the dinner and emptying it into a fair linen +cloth bound it over the swollen place; so that when Herr Dremmel +arrived, as it happened hungrily that day, about two o'clock and asked +for his dinner, he was told it was on Ilse's leg and had to eat +sandwiches. He could not but admire the resourcefulness of Ingeborg; but +it was not until he had eaten several sandwiches that he was able still +to say, as he patted her shoulder, "Little treasure." + +It was the busiest, happiest time. Every minute of the day was full. It +was life at first hand, not drained dry of its elemental excellences by +being squeezed first through the medium of servants. To have a little +kitchen all to yourself, to be really mistress of every corner of your +house, to watch the career of your food from its very beginning, to run +out into the garden and pull up anything you happened to want, to stand +at the back door with your skirt full of grain and call your own +chickens round you and feed them, to go yourself and look for eggs, to +fill the funny little dark rooms with flowers and measure the +stone-floored passage for a drugget you would presently order in the +only carpet shop you had faith in, which was the one in Redchester--what +pleasures did the world contain that could possibly come up to these? +Things were a little untidy, but what did that matter? It was possible +to become the slave of things; possible to miss life in preparation for +living. + +And the weather was so beautiful--at least, Ingeborg thought it was. +There was the hottest sun, and the coolest wind, and bright, clear-skied +starry nights. It is true Robert, when he scanned the naked heavens the +last thing at night and peered at the thermometer outside his window the +first thing in the morning, said it was the Devil's own weather, and +that if there was not soon some rain all his fertilizers, all his +activities, all his expenditure would be wasted; but though this would +throw a shadow for a moment across her joy in each new wonderful morning +she found it impossible not to rejoice in the light. Out in the garden, +for instance, down there beyond the lime-trees at the end, where you +could stand in the gap in the lilac hedge and look straight out across +the rye-fields, the immense unending rye-fields, dipping and rising, +delicate grey, delicate green, shining in sunlight, dark beneath a +cloud, restlessly waving, on and on, till over away at the end of things +they got to the sky and were only stopped by brushing up against it--out +there with one's hand shading one's eyes from the too great brightness, +who could find fault with anything, who could do anything but look and +see that it was all very good? Oh, but it _was_ good. It made one want +to sing the Te Deum, or the Magnificat, or still better that hymn of +exultation, _We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify +Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory_.... + +Whenever there was a spare half hour, such as between where dinner ended +and tea began, she would run out to the lime-trees, and pacing up and +down that leafy place with the gooseberry bushes and vegetables and +straggling accidental flowers of the garden lying hotly in the sun +between her and the back of the house, she learned German words by +heart. She learned them aloud from her grammar, saying them over and +over again glibly, mechanically, while her thoughts danced about the +future, from the immediate future of what she would do to-morrow, the +future of an afternoon in the punt among the reeds and perhaps paddling +along to where the forest began, to the more responsible vaguer future +of further down the months, when, armed with German, she would begin +among the poor and go out into the parish and make friends with the +peasants and be a real pastor's wife. Particularly she wished to get +nearer her mother-in-law. It seemed to her to be her first duty to get +near her. Ceaselessly she trotted up and down repeating the German for +giants, umbrellas, keys, spectacles, wax, fingers, thunder, beards, +princes, boats, and shoulders. Ceaselessly her lips moved, while her +eyes followed the movements of the birds darting in and out of the +lilac hedge and hopping among the crumbs where breakfast had been; and +through her giants, umbrellas, keys, spectacles, and wax she managed +not to miss a word the yellow-hammers were chirping to each other +in cheerful strophe and antistrophe: _A little bit of bread and no +che-e-e-e-e-ese--a little bit of bread and no che-e-e-e-e-ese_. + +At four she would go in and make some coffee by the simple method of +uniting the coffee to hot water and leaving them to settle down together +on the mat outside the laboratory's locked door. Herr Dremmel did not +wish to be disturbed once he was in there, and she would steal down the +passage on tip-toe, biting her under-lip in the intentness of her care +that no rattling of the things on the tray should reach his ears. + +When he was in the house all singing ceased. She arranged that Ilse +should do her outdoor duties then--clean out the hen-house, milk the cow +whether it wanted to be milked or not, and minister to the pig. Johann +was away all day at the experiment ground, and Ilse waded about the +farmyard mess with her bare legs, thoroughly enjoying herself, for no +one ever scolded her whatever she did, and the yard was separated from +the village street only by a low fence, and the early manhood of +Kökensee, as it passed, could pause and lean on this and learn from her +manner of solacing the pig the comfortableness of the solacements +awaiting her husband. + +At seven Ilse went home, and Ingeborg prepared a supper so much like +breakfast that nobody could have told it was evening and not morning +except that the ray of sunshine fell through the honey from the west +instead of the east, and there was cheese. At this meal Herr Dremmel, +full of his fertilizers, was mostly in a profound abstraction. He drank +the coffee with which he was becoming saturated and ate great slices of +bread and cheese in an impenetrable silence. Ingeborg sat throwing +crumbs to the birds and watching the sky at the edge of the world grow +first a mighty red, then fade, then light up into clear green; and long +after the shadows beneath the lime-trees were black and the stars and +the bats were out and the frogs down in the reeds of the lake and the +occasional creaking of the village pump were all that one could hear +outside the immense stillness, they would go on sitting there, Herr +Dremmel silently smoking, Ingeborg silently making plans. + +Sometimes she would get up and cross over to him and bend her face down +close to his and try in the dark to explore his eyes with hers. "The +_noise_ you make!" she would say, brushing a kiss, so much used does +marriage make one to what once has seemed impossible, across the top of +his hair; and he would wake up and smile and pat her shoulder and tell +her she was a good little wife. + +Then she felt proud. It was just what she wanted to be--a good little +wife. She wanted to give satisfaction, to be as helpful to him as she +had been to her father in the days before her disgrace; and more +helpful, for he was so much kinder, he was so dear. For this +extraordinary happiness, for this delicious safety from disapproval, for +these free, fearless, wonderful days, she would give in return all she +had, all she was, all she could teach herself and train herself to be. + +Nearly always Herr Dremmel went back to his laboratory about ten and +worked till after midnight; and she would lie awake in the funny bare +bedroom across the passage as long as she could so as not to miss too +much of life by being asleep, smelling with the delight delicate sweet +smells gave her the various fragrances of the resting garden. And the +stars blinked in through the open window, and she could see the faint +whiteness of a bush of guelder roses against the curtain of the brooding +night. When Herr Dremmel came in he shut the window. + +On Sundays there was a service at two o'clock once a fortnight. On the +alternating Sundays Herr Dremmel was driven by Johann to another village +three miles distant which was part of his scattered parish, and here he +preached the sermon he had preached to Kökensee the Sunday before. He +practised a rigorous economy in sermons; and it had this advantage that +an enthusiast--only there was no enthusiast--by waiting a week and +walking three miles, most of which was deep sand, might hear again +anything that had struck him the previous week. By waiting a year, +indeed, the same enthusiast, supposing him there, could hear everything +again, for Herr Dremmel's sermons numbered twenty-six and were planned +to begin on January 1st with the Circumcision, and leaping along through +the fortnights of the year ended handsomely and irregularly with an +extra one at Christmas. However inattentive a member of the congregation +might be, as the years passed over him he knew the sermons. They were +sermons weighty, according to the season, either with practical advice +or with wrathful expositions of duty. There was one every year when the +threshing time was at hand on the text Micah iv. 13, _Arise and thresh_, +explaining with patient exactitude the newest methods of doing it. There +was the annual Harvest Thanks-giving sermon on Matthew xiii., part of +verse 26, _Tares_, after yet another year of the congregation's +obstinate indifference to chemical manure. There was the sermon on +Jeremiah ix. 22, _Is there no physician there?_ preached yearly on one +of the later Sundays in Trinity when the cold, continuous rains of +autumn were finding out the weak spots in the parish's grandparents, and +the peasants, having observed that once one called in a doctor the sick +person got better and one had to pay the doctor into the bargain, evaded +calling him in if they possibly could, inquiring of each other gloomily +how one was to live if death were put a stop to. And there was the +Advent sermon when the annual slaughter of pigs drew near, on Isaiah +lxv., part of the 4th verse, _Swine's flesh_. + +This sermon filled the church. In spite of the poor opinion of pigs in +both the Old and New Testaments, where, Herr Dremmel found on searching +for a text, they were hardly mentioned except as convenient receptacles +for devils, in his parishioners' lives they provided the nearest, indeed +the only, approach to the finer emotions, to gratitude, love, wonder. +The peasant, watching this pink chalice of his future joys, this +mysterious moving crucible into which whatever dreary dregs and leavings +he threw, uttermost dregs of uttermost dregs that even his lean dog +would not touch, they still by Christmas emerged as sausages, could not +but feel at least some affection, at least some little touch of awe. +While his relations were ill and having to have either a doctor or a +funeral and sometimes, rousing him to fury, both, or if not ill were +well and requiring food and clothing, his pig walked about pink and +naked, giving no trouble, needing no money spent on it, placidly +transmuting into the fat of future feastings that which without it would +have become, in heaps, a source of flies and corruption. Herr Dremmel on +pigs was full of intimacy and local warmth. He was more--he was +magnificent. It was the sermon in the year which never failed to fill +every seat, and it was the one day on which Kökensee felt its pastor +thoroughly understood it. + +Ingeborg went diligently to church whenever there was church to go to. +She explained to Herr Dremmel that she held it to be her duty as the +pastor's wife to set an example in this matter, and he pinched her ear +and replied that it might possibly be good for her German. He seemed to +think nothing of her duty as a pastor's wife; and when she suggested +that perhaps she ought to begin and go the rounds of the cottages and +not wait for greater stores of language, he only remarked that little +women's duty is to make their husbands happy. + +"But don't I?" she asked confidently, seizing his coat in both her +hands. + +"Of course. See how sleek I become." + +"And I can do something besides that." + +"Nothing so good. Nothing half so good." + +"But Robert, one thing doesn't exclude--" + +Herr Dremmel had already, however, ceased to listen. His thoughts had +slid off again. She seemed to sit in his mind on the top of a slope up +which he occasionally clambered and caressed her. Eagerly on these +visits she would buttonhole him with talk and ask him questions so that +he might linger, but even while she button-holed his gaze would become +abstracted and off he slid, leaving her peering after him over the edge +filled with a mixture of affection, respect for his work, pride in him, +and amusement. + +You might as well try, she thought, to buttonhole water; and she would +laugh and go back to whatever she was doing with a blithe feeling that +it was very ideal, this perfect independence of one another, this +spaciousness of freedom to do exactly what each one liked. The immense +tracts of time she had! How splendid this leisure was after the close +detail of every hour at home in her father's study. When she had got +over the first difficulties of German and need no longer devote most of +her day to it she would get books from England and read and read; all +the ones she had wanted to read but had not been allowed to. Oh, the +magnificence of marriage, thought Ingeborg, beating her hands together, +the splendour of its liberations! She would go off in the morning with +the punt full of books, and spend long glorious days away in the forest +lying on the green springy carpet of whortleberries, reading. She would +most diligently work at furnishing her empty mind. She would sternly +endeavour to train it not to jump. + +All the books she possessed she had brought with her and spread over the +living-room: the wedding-presents which had enriched her with Hardy and +Meredith and Kipling and Tennyson and Ruskin, and her own books she had +had as a girl. These were three, the _Christian Year_, given to her on +her confirmation by her father, _Longfellow's Poems_, given her on her +eighteenth birthday by her mother, and Dumas' _Tulipe Noire_, given her +as a prize for French because Judith did not know any, one summer when +a French governess was introduced (thoughtlessly, the Bishop said +afterwards) into the Palace. This lady had been removed from the Palace +again a little later with care, every corner of her room being +scrupulously disinfected by the searching of Richards who found, +however, nothing except one book in a yellow paper cover called _Bibi et +Lulu: Mœurs du Montparnasse_; and even this was not in her room at +all, but in Judith's, beneath some stockings. + +Herr Dremmel took up one of the wedding volumes when first he saw them +in the sitting-room and turned its pages. It was _The Shaving of +Shagpat_. "Tut, tut," he said presently, putting it down. + +"Why, Robert?" asked Ingeborg, eager to hear what he thought. But he +patted her abstractedly, already slid off again down into regions of +reality, the regions in which his brain incessantly worked out possible +chemical combinations and forgot with a completeness that sometimes even +surprised himself that he had a wife. Invariably, however, he found it +pleasant on re-emerging to remember her. + +She asked to be shown his experimental fields, and he took her with him +very amiably one hot morning, promising to explain them to her; but +instantly on reaching them he became absorbed, and after she had spent +an hour sitting on a stone at the edge of a strip of lupins beneath a +haggard little fir tree which gave the solitary bit of shade in that +burning desert watching him going up and down the different strips +examining apparently every single plant with Johann, she began to think +she had better go home and look after the dinner, and waving a good-bye +to him, which he did not see, she went. + +A day or two later she asked whether it would not be good and pleasant +that his mother should come over to tea with them soon. + +He replied amiably that it would be neither good nor pleasant. + +She asked whether it might not be a duty of theirs to invite her. + +He replied, after consideration, "Perhaps." + +She asked whether he did not love his mother. + +He replied unhesitatingly, "No." + +She then went and sat on his knee and caught hold of his ears and pulled +his head up so that he should look at her. + +"But Robert--" she said. + +"Well, little sheep?" + +Since their marriage he had instinctively left off calling her a lamb. +The universe, which for a time she had managed to reduce into just a +setting for one little female thing, had arranged itself into its proper +lines again; the lamb had become a sheep--a little one, but yet no +longer and never again a lamb. He was glad he had been able to be so +thoroughly in love. He was glad he had so promptly applied the remedy of +marriage. His affection for his wife was quite satisfactory: it was +calm, it was deep, it interfered with nothing. She held the honourable +position he had always, even at his most enamoured moments, known she +would ultimately fill, the position next best in his life after the +fertilizers. His house, so long murky with widows, was now a bright +place because of her. Approaching poetry, he likened her to a little +flitting busy bird in spring. Always he was pleased when she came and +perched on his knee. + +"Well, little sheep?" he said, smiling at her as she looked very close +into his eyes. + +Her face, seen so near, was charming in its delicate detail, in its +young perfection of texture and colouring. Scrutinizing her eyes he was +glad to notice once again how intelligent they were. Presently there +would be sturdy boys tumbling about the garden with eyes like that, grey +and honest and intelligent. His boys. Carrying on, far more efficiently, +the work he had begun. + +"Well, little sheep?" he said, suddenly moved. + +"_Oughtn't_ one to love one's mother?" she asked. + +"Perhaps. But one does not. Do you?" + +"Oh, poor mother--" said Ingeborg quickly. + +Her mother, far away, was already becoming a rather sad and a quite +tender memory. All those days and years on a sofa, and all the days and +years still to come.... Now she knew better, now that she was married +herself, what it must have been like to be married to the Bishop, to +have twenty years of unadulterated Bishop. She no longer wondered at the +sofa. She was full of understanding and pity. + +"One does, no doubt, at the beginning," said Herr Dremmel. + +"And then leaves off? Is that all children are born for, that they may +leave off loving us?" + +He became cautious. He talked of the general and the individual. Of many +mothers and some mothers. Of the mothers of the present generation--he +called them the _Gewesene_--and the mothers of the generation to be +born--he called them the _Werdende_. And presently, as she sat rather +enigmatically silent on his knee, he developed affection for his mother, +explaining that no doubt it had always been there, but like many other +good things when life was busy and a man had little time to go back and +stir them had lain dormant, and he now thought, indeed he recognised, +that it would be excellent to urge her to come over soon and spend an +afternoon--or still better a morning. + +"But you're not here in the morning," said Ingeborg. + +"Ah--that is true. I am present, however, at dinner." + +"But nobody ever knows when." + +"I might, perhaps, arrive early." + +In this way the elder Frau Dremmel, who had her pride to consider as the +widow of her neglectful son's traditionally appreciative father, and who +would consequently never have taken what she called in her broodings the +first step, did, about seven weeks after the marriage, cross the +threshold of her daughter-in-law's home. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The visit was arranged to begin the following Friday at four, for +Ingeborg thought the afternoon feeling was altogether more favourable to +warmth than anything you were likely to get before midday, and Johann +drove in to Meuk to fetch Frau Dremmel in time for that hour. + +There was to be tea out in the garden the first thing, because tea +lubricates the charities, and then, with the aid of a dictionary, +conversation. Ingeborg had had time to think out her mother-in-law, and +was firm in her resolve that no artificial barrier such as language +should stand in the way of the building up of affection. If necessary +she might even weave the German for giants, umbrellas, keys, and +spectacles into a sentence as a conversational opening, and try her +mother-in-law with that; and if Frau Dremmel showed the least +responsiveness to either of these subjects she might go on to wax, +fingers, thunder, and beards, and end with princes, boats, and +shoulders. That would be three sentences. She could not help thinking +they would be pregnant with conversational possibilities. There would be +three replies; and Frau Dremmel, being in her own language, would of +course enlarge. Then Ingeborg would open her dictionary and look up the +words salient in the enlargement, and when she had found them smile +back, brightly comprehending and appreciative. + +This, including having tea, would take, she supposed, about fifty +minutes. + +Then they would walk a little up and down in the shade, pointing out the +rye-field to each other, and that would be another ten minutes perhaps. + +Then at five, she supposed, Frau Dremmel would ask for and obtain the +carriage and go away again. Ingeborg made up her mind to kiss her at the +end when the visit had reached the doorstep stage. It would not be +difficult, she thought. The doorstep, she well knew, was a place of +enthusiasms. + +She and Ilse were immensely active the whole morning preparing, both of +them imbued with much the same spirit with which as children they +prepared parties for their dolls. But this was a live doll who was +coming, and they were making real cakes which she would actually eat. +The cakes were of a variety of shapes, or rather contortions, the coffee +was of a festival potency, sandwiches meant to be delicate and slender +were cut, but under the very knife grew bulky--it must be the strong +German air, Ingeborg thought watching them, perplexed by this +conduct--and there were the first gooseberries. + +When the table was set out under the lime-trees and finished off with a +jug of roses she gazed at her work in admiration. And the further she +got away from it the more delightful it looked. Nearer it was still +attractive but more with the delusive attractiveness of tables at a +school treat. Perhaps there was too much food, she thought; perhaps it +was the immense girth of the sandwiches. But down from the end of the +path it looked so charming that she wished she could paint it in +watercolours--the great trees, the tempered sunlight, the glimpse of the +old church at one end, the glimpse of the embosomed lake at the other, +and in the middle, set out so neatly, with such a grace of spotlessness, +the table of her first tea-party. + +Frau Dremmel arrived in a black bonnet with a mauve flower in its front +to mark that ten years had been at work upon the mitigation of her +grief. Her son came out of his laboratory when he heard the crashes of +the carriage among the stones and holes of the village street, and he +was ready at the door to help her down. He was altogether silent, for he +had been torn from the middle of counting and weighing the grains in +samples of differently treated rye, and would have to begin the last +saucerful all over again. Beside this brevity Ingeborg, in a white frock +and wearing the buckled shoes of youth, with the sun shining on her +freckled fairness and bare neck and her mouth framed into welcoming +smiles, looked like a child. She certainly did not look like anybody's +wife; and the last thing in the world that she at all resembled was the +wife of a German pastor. + +Again Frau Dremmel, as she had done that day at Meuk, turned her eyes +slowly all over her while she was receiving her son's abstracted kiss; +but she said nothing except, to her son, _Guten Tag_, and passively +submitted to Ingeborg's shaking both her hands, which were clothed in +the black cotton of decent widowhood. + +"Do say something, Robert," murmured Ingeborg. "Say how glad I am. Say +all the things I'd say if I could say things." + +Herr Dremmel gazed at his wife a moment collecting his thoughts. + +"Why should one say anything?" he said. "She is a simple woman. No +longer young. My wife," he said to his mother, "desires me to welcome +you on her behalf." + +"_Ach_," said Frau Dremmel. + +Ingeborg began to usher her along the passage towards the back door and +the garden. Frau Dremmel, however, turned aside half-way down it into +the living-room. + +"Oh, not in there!" cried Ingeborg. "We're going to have tea in the +garden. Robert, please tell her--" + +But looking round for help she found Robert had gone, and there was the +sound of a key being turned in a lock. + +Frau Dremmel continued to enter the living-room. Before she could be +stopped she had arranged herself firmly on its sofa. + +"But tea," said Ingeborg, following her and gesticulating, "tea, you +know. Out there--in the garden--" + +She pointed to the door, and she pointed to the window. Frau Dremmel +slowly took off her gloves and rolled them together, and undid her +bonnet strings and looked at the door and at the window and back again +at her daughter-in-law, but did not move. Then Ingeborg, making a great +effort at gay cordiality and determined that when words failed +affectionate actions should fill up the gaps, bent over the figure on +the sofa and took its arm. "Won't you come?" she said, adding a sentence +she had taken special pains to get by heart, "_liebe Schwiegermutter_?" +And smilingly, but yet, when it came to touching her, rather gingerly, +and certainly with her heart in her mouth, she gently pulled at her +sleeve. + +Frau Dremmel stared up at her without moving. + +"_Liebe Schwiegermutter_--tea--garden--better," said Ingeborg, still +smiling but now quite hot. She could not remember a single German word +except _liebe Schwiegermutter_. + +Frau Dremmel, urged and encouraged, was finally got out of the house and +into the garden and along between the gooseberry bushes to where the +tea-table stood and an armchair for her with a cushion on it. She went +with plain reluctance. She did not cease to stare at her +daughter-in-law. Especially her gaze lingered on her feet. Becoming +aware of this, Ingeborg tried to hide them, but you cannot hide feet +that are being walked on, and when she sat down to pour out the coffee +she found her short skirt was incapable of hiding anything lower than +above her ankles. + +She grew nervous. She spilt the milk and dropped a spoon. Beside the +rigid figure in the armchair she seemed and felt terribly fluid and +uncontrolled. The cheek that was turned to her mother-in-law flushed +hotly. She acutely knew her mother-in-law was observing this, and that +made it hotter. If only, thought Ingeborg, she would look at something +else or say something. Over the rim of her cup, however, Frau Dremmel's +eyes moved up and down and round and through the strange creature her +son had married. The rest of her was almost wholly motionless. Ingeborg +had nervously swallowed three cups of the black stuff before Frau +Dremmel was half through one. At last a German word flashed into her +mind and she flung herself on it. "_Schön--wunderschön_!" she cried, +waving her hands comprehensively over all the scenery. + +For an instant Frau Dremmel removed her eyes from her daughter-in-law's +warm and quivering body to follow her gesture, but seeing nothing soon +got them back again. She made no comment on the scenery. Her face +remained wholly impassive; and Ingeborg realized that the rye-field +would be no use as a means of entertainment. + +[Illustration: Especially her gaze lingered on her feet. Becoming aware +of this, Ingeborg tried to hide them] + +She could not again say _schön_, and the meal went on in silence. Frau +Dremmel's method of eating it was to begin a piece of each of the cakes +and immediately leave it off. This afflicted Ingeborg, who had supposed +them to be very lovely cakes. Frau Dremmel's place at the table--she had +pulled her chair close up to it--was asterisked with begun and abandoned +cakes. On the other hand she ate many of the sandwiches, and they drew +forth the only word she said to Ingeborg during the whole of tea. +"_Fleisch_," said Frau Dremmel, removing her eyes for one moment from +Ingeborg to the sandwiches that were being offered her, and with a +dingy, investigating forefinger lifting up that portion of each sandwich +which may be described as its lid. + +"_Ja, ja_," said Ingeborg responsively, delighted at this flicker of +life. + +It was, however, the only one. After it silence, complete and +impenetrable, settled down on Frau Dremmel. She did not even speak to +her son when half an hour later he came out in search of the coffee he +had failed to find on his doormat. Her manners prevented her, in his +house on this first visit after his marriage, from uttering the +unmanageable truths that come so naturally from the mouths of neglected +mothers; and except for those she had nothing to say to him. Herr +Dremmel expected nothing. His deeply engaged thoughts left no room in +him for anything but a primitive simplicity. He was hungry, and he ate; +thirsty, and he drank. The silent figure at the table, of whose presence +every nerve in Ingeborg's body was conscious, produced no impression on +him whatever. + +"Robert--do tell your mother how I really _do_ want to talk to her if +only I could," said Ingeborg, pressing her hands together in her lap and +tying and untying her handkerchief into knots. There were little beads +on her upper lip. The rings of hair on her temples were quite damp. + +He glanced at his mother, drawn up and taut in her chair, and +immediately she turned her eyes on to him and stared back at him +steadily. + +"Little One," he said, "I have told you she is a simple woman, not used +to or capable of wielding the weapons of social arts. Be simple, too, +and all will be well." + +"But I _am_ being simple," protested Ingeborg. "I'm dumb; I'm blank; +what can I be simpler than that?" + +"Then all is well. Give me coffee." + +He ate and drank in silence, and got up to go away again. + +Frau Dremmel looked at him and said something. + +"Is it the carriage?" asked Ingeborg. + +"She wants to go indoors," said Herr Dremmel. + +"Indoors?" + +"She says she does not like mosquitoes." + +He went away into the house. There was nothing for it but to follow. As +they reached the back door the church clock struck five, but Ingeborg, +glancing at her mother-in-law's impassive face, saw this sound meant +nothing to her. She followed her into the living-room and watched her +helplessly as she arranged herself once more on the sofa. + +When the clock struck half-past five she was still on it. She seemed to +be waiting. For what was she waiting? Ingeborg asked herself, whose +handkerchief was now rubbed into a hard ball between her nervous hands. +Impossible either to move her or communicate with her. Rigidly she sat, +her eyes examining the room and each object in it but yet not for an +instant missing the least of her daughter-in-law's movements. Ingeborg +seized her dictionary and grammar and made a final effort to build a +bridge out of them across which their souls might even now go out to +meet each other, but Frau Dremmel did not seem to understand the nature +of her efforts, and only stared with a deepened blankness when Ingeborg +read her out a sentence from the grammar that dealt with weather they +were not that day having. + +What was she waiting for? Seven o'clock struck, and still she waited. +The clock in the room ticked through the minutes, and every half hour +they could hear the church clock striking. Ingeborg brought her a +footstool; brought her a cushion; brought her, in extremity, a glass of +water; began to sew at a torn duster; left off sewing at it; fluttered +nervously among the pages of her grammar; pored in her dictionary; and +always Frau Dremmel watched her. She found herself struggling against a +tendency to think of her mother-in-law as It. At seven she heard Ilse go +home singing--happy Ilse, able to go away. Soon afterwards she finally +faltered into immobility, giving up, sitting now quite still herself in +her chair, the flush faded from her cheek, pale and crumpled. It was her +and Robert's supper-time. Soon it would be their bedtime. Quite soon it +would be to-morrow. And then it would be next week. And then there would +be winter coming on.... Was this visit never to end? + +At eight it at last became plain to her that what Frau Dremmel was +waiting for must be supper. This was terrible, for there was none. At +least, there was only that repetition of tea and breakfast that made her +and Robert's lives so wholesome. She had calculated the visit on the +basis of tea only, and had prepared only and elaborately for that. For +half an hour she sat on and hoped she was mistaken. She did not know +that in East Prussia if you are invited to tea you also stay to supper. +But at half-past eight she realised that there was nothing for it but to +go and fetch it in. + +When the ruins of the same meal that had been offered her once already +were produced a second time and set out clumsily on the unaccustomed +living-room table among the pushed-aside Merediths and Kiplings, the +bones of this skeleton being slowly put together under her very eyes, +and Ingeborg at last by ceasing to go in and out fetching things and +sinking into a chair indicated that that was all, Frau Dremmel, after +waiting a little longer, opened her mouth and startled her +daughter-in-law by speech. + +"_Bratkartoffel_," said Frau Dremmel. + +Ingeborg sat up quickly. After the hours of silence it was uncanny. + +"_Bratkartoffel_," said Frau Dremmel again. + +"Did you--did you speak?" said Ingeborg, staring at her. + +"_Bratkartoffel_," said Frau Dremmel a third time. + +Ingeborg jumped up and ran across the passage to the laboratory door. + +"Robert--Robert," she cried, twisting the handle, "come--come +quickly--your mother--she's talking, she's saying things--" There was +the same excitement and wonder in her voice as there is in that of a +parent whose baby has suddenly and for the first time said Papa. + +Herr Dremmel came out at once. From the sound of her he felt something +must have happened. + +She seized him and pulled him into the living-room. "Now--listen," she +said, holding him there facing the sofa. + +Herr Dremmel looked perplexed. "What is it, Little One?" he asked. + +"Listen--she'll say it again soon," said Ingeborg eagerly. + +"What is it, mother?" he asked in German. + +Frau Dremmel, without moving her head, ran her eyes over the table. + +"Are there not even--not even--" she began, but stopped. She was +evidently combating an emotion. + +"Thunder of heaven," said Herr Dremmel, looking from one woman to the +other, "what is it?" + +But Frau Dremmel was not able, after the hours of waiting for a supper +that seemed to her in every detail a studied insult on her +daughter-in-law's part, to bear harshness from her son. Drawing out a +handkerchief that had no end and that reached to her eyes while yet +remaining in her pocket, she began to cry. + +Ingeborg was appalled. She ran to her, and, kneeling down, begged her in +English to tell her what was the matter. She called her _liebe +Schwiegermutter_ over and over again. She stroked her sleeve, she patted +her, she even laid her head on her lap. + +But Frau Dremmel for the first time did not notice her. She was saying +detached things into her handkerchief, and they were all for her son. + +"A widow," wept Frau Dremmel. "A widow for ten years. When I think of +your dear father. How much he thought of me. My first visit. My visit on +your marriage. Treated as though I were anybody. Forced to drink coffee +out of doors. Like a homeless animal. No sofa. No real table. Flocks of +mosquitoes. No supper. No supper at all. Nothing prepared for me. For +the mother. For your sainted father's wife. His cherished wife long +before you were thought of. If it had not been for me you would not have +been here at all. Nor she. And I am to go home unfed. Uncared for. Not +even the least one has a right to expect given one. Not even what the +poorest peasant has each night. Not even"--again she said the magic +word--"_Bratkartoffel_--" + +"There, there," said Ingeborg soothingly, stroking her +anxiously--"there, there. Robert, what _is Bratkartoffel_?" + +"But never mind. Never mind," said Frau Dremmel, wiping her eyes only to +weep afresh--"soon I shall be with him. With him again. With your dear +father. And this--this is nothing, all nothing. It is only the will of +God." + +"There, there," said Ingeborg, anxiously stroking her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +It was not until some days later that she discovered the reason for her +mother-in-law's tears. + +She could get no information from Herr Dremmel. His thoughts were not to +be pinned a minute to such a subject. He swept her questionings away +with the wave of the arm of one who sweeps his surroundings clear of +rubbish, and the most that could be extracted from him was a general +observation as to the small amount of good to be obtained from +proximities. But Ingeborg one afternoon, walking longer than usual, +facing the hot sun and the flies and sand of the road beyond the village +to see where it led to instead of, as she generally did, exploring +footpaths in the forest, came after much heat and exertion to a thicket +of trees that were not firs or pines but green cool things, oaks, and +acacias and silver birches, and going through them along a grass-grown +road fanning herself with her hat as she walked in the pleasant shade, +found herself stopped by a white gate, a notice telling her she was not +to advance further, and a garden. Beyond the flower beds and long untidy +grass of this garden she saw a big steep-roofed house built high on a +terrace. On the terrace a dog was lying panting, with its tongue out. +Nothing else alive was in sight, and there were no sounds except the +rustling of the leaves over her head and such faint chirping as birds +make in July. + +"Who lives in that big white house away over there?" she asked Herr +Dremmel when next she saw him, which was not till that evening at +supper; and she nodded her head, her hands being full of the coffee pot, +in the direction of the north. + +Herr Dremmel was ruffled. He had been plunged in parish affairs since +breakfast, for it was the day appointed by him and recurring once a +fortnight into which by skilful organizing he packed them all. The world +in consequence on every second Tuesday appeared to him a place of folly. +People were born and lived embedded in ancient folly. The folly of their +parents, already stale when they got it, was handed down to them intact, +not shot at all, thought Herr Dremmel on these alternate Tuesdays, with +the smallest ray of perception of different and better things. The +school children were still learning about Bismarck's birthday, the +schoolmaster was still laboriously computing attendances and +endeavouring to obey the difficult law which commanded him to cane the +absent, the elders of the church were still refusing to repair the +steeple in time, the confirmation class was still meeting explanations +and exhortations with thick inattention, the ecclesiastical authorities +were still demanding detailed reports of progress when there was not and +could not be progress, couples were still forgetting marriage until the +last hurried moment and then demanding it with insistent cries, infants +were still being hastily christened before the same neglects that killed +those other infants who else might have been their proud and happy +grandparents carried them off, and peasants were still slinking away at +the bare mention of intelligence and manure. + +He was exceedingly ruffled; for while he had been wrestling with these +various acquiescences and evasions his real work was lying neglected out +there in the sun, in there in the laboratory, and a whole day of twelve +precious hours was gone for ever; and when Ingeborg said, "Who lives in +that big white house?" Herr Dremmel, with his wasted day behind him, and +the continued brassiness of the heavens above him, and the persistence +in that place of trees of mosquitoes, stared at her a moment and then +said, bringing his hand down violently on the table, "Hell and Devils." + +"Who?" said Ingeborg. + +"We must call on them at once." + +"What?" + +"My patron. He will be incensed that I have not presented you sooner. I +forgot him. That will be another day lost. These claims, these social +claims--" + +He got up and took some agitated steps about the table. + +"No sooner," he said, frowning angrily at the path, "has one settled one +thing than there appears another. To-day, all day the poor. To-morrow, +all day the rich--" + +"Do we call continuously all day?" + +"--both equally obstinate, both equally encased from head to foot in the +impenetrable thick armour of intellectual sloth. How," he inquired, +turning to her with all the indignant wrath of the thwarted worker, "is +a man to work if he lives in a constant social whirl?" + +Ingeborg sat regarding him with astonishment. "He can't," she said. +"But--do we whirl, Robert? Would one call what we do here whirling?" + +"What? When my work has been neglected all day to-day on behalf of the +poor and will be neglected all day to-morrow on behalf of the rich?" + +"But why will it take us all day?" + +"A man must prepare, he cannot call as he is. He must," said Herr +Dremmel with irritable gloom, "wash." And he added with still greater +irritation and gloom, "There has to be a clean shirt." + +"But--" began Ingeborg. + +He waved her into silence. "I do not like," he said, with a magnificent +sweep of his arm, "clean shirts." + +She stared at him with the parted lips of interest. + +"I am not at home in them. I am not myself in a clean shirt for at least +the first two hours." + +"Don't let's call," said Ingeborg. "We're so happy as we are." + +"Nay," said Herr Dremmel, immediately brought to reason by his wife's +support of his unreason, "but we must call. There are duties no decent +man neglects. And I am a decent man. I will send a messenger to inquire +if our visit to-morrow will be acceptable. I will put on my shirt early +in order to get used to it. And I will endeavour, by a persistent +amiability so long as the visit lasts, to induce my patron to forget +that I forgot him." + +Herr Dremmel had for some time past been practising forgetting his +patron. He had found this course, after divers differences of opinion, +simplest and most convenient. The patron, Baron Glambeck of Glambeck, +was a serious real Christian who believed that the poor should, like +some vast pudding that will not otherwise turn out well, be constantly +stirred up, and he was unable to approve of a pastor who except in +church and on every alternate Tuesday forbore to stir. It was for this +forbearance, however, that Herr Dremmel was popular in the parish. +Before his time there had been a constant dribble of pastor all over it, +making it never a moment safe from intrusion. Herr Pastor Dremmel might +be fiery in the pulpit, but he was quite quiet out of it; he was like a +good watchdog, savage in its kennel and indifferent when loose. Kökensee +had as one man refused to support the patron when he had wished some +time before to bring about Herr Dremmel's removal. Its pastor did not go +from house to house giving advice. Its pastor was invisible and +absorbed. These were great things in a clergyman, and should not lightly +be let go. Nothing could be done in the face of the parish's opposition, +and Kökensee kept its pastor; but Baron Glambeck ceased to patronise +Divine Service in Kökensee, and until Herr Dremmel brought Ingeborg to +make his wedding call he had had no word with him for three years. + +The Dremmels had announced themselves for four o'clock, and when they +drove up to the house along the shady grass road and through the white +gate they were met on the steps of the terrace by a servant who, if he +had been in Redchester, would have been Wilson. On the top of the steps +stood Baron Glambeck, tightly buttoned-up in black, formal, grave. +Further back, beneath the glass roof of the terrace, stood his wife, +tightly buttoned-up in black, formal, grave. They were both, if Ingeborg +had known it, extremely correct according to the standards of their part +of the country. They were unadorned, smoothed out, black, she abundant +in her smoothness, he spare in his; and they greeted Ingeborg with +exactly the cordiality suitable to the reception of one's pastor's new +wife, who ought to have been brought to call long ago but was not in any +way responsible for those bygones which studded their memory so +disagreeably in connection with her husband, a cordiality with the chill +on. Dignity and coats of arms pervaded the place. Monograms with +coronets were embroidered and painted on everything one sat on or +touched. The antlers of deer shot by the Baron, with the dates and +places of their shooting affixed to each, bristled thickly on the walls. +They saw no servant who was not a man. + +"Please take your hat off," said the Baroness in English, carefully +keeping her voice slightly on the side of coldness. + +Ingeborg was very nearly frightened. + +She would have been quite frightened if she had been less well trained +by the Bishop in unimportance. She had, however, owing to this training, +left off being shy years before. She had so small an opinion of herself +that there was no room in her at all for self-consciousness; and she +arrived at the Glambecks' in her usual condition of excessive +naturalness, ready to talk, ready to be pleased and interested. + +But it was conveyed to her instantly on seeing the Baroness--there was +an astonishment in the way she looked at her--that her clothes were not +right. And just the request or suggestion or demand--she did not know +which of these it really was--that she should take off her hat, made her +realise she was on new ground, in places where the webs of strange +customs were thick about her feet. + +She was, for a moment, very nearly frightened. + +"You will be more comfortable," said the Baroness, "without your hat." + +She took it off obediently, glancing beneath her eyelashes, as she drew +out the pins, at the Baroness's smooth black head and unwrinkled black +body, perceiving with the clearness of a revelation that that was how +she ought to look herself. Skimpier, of course, for the years had not +yet had their will with her, but she ought to be a version of the effect +done in lean. She resolved, in her thirst after fulfilled duty, to get a +black dress and practise. + +She thought it wisest not to think what her hair must be looking like +when her hat was off, for she had not expected to be hatless, and well +did she know it by nature for a straggler, a thing inclined to wander +from the grasp of hairpins and go off on its own account into wantonings +and rings which were all the more conspicuous because of their lurid +approach in colouring to the beards of her ancestors--sun-kissed +Scandinavians who walked the earth in their strength hung, according to +the way the light took them, with beards that were either the colour of +flames, or of apricots, or of honey. Well, if they _would_ make her take +her hat off.... + +By the time she was on the sofa she was presently put on in the inner +hall she had caught up with her usual condition of naturalness again, +and sat on it interested and forgetful of self. The Baroness's eyes +wandered over her, and they wandered over her with much the same quality +in their look that had been in her mother-in-law's. And always when they +got to her feet they lingered. Her skirt again reached only to her +ankles. All her outdoor skirts did that. "But I can't help _having_ +feet," thought Ingeborg, noticing this. They were small by nature, and +the artful shoes of the London shoemaker who had shared in providing her +and Judith's trousseau made them seem still smaller. She did not try to +hide them as she had tried when Frau Dremmel stared. It was Frau +Dremmel's heavy silence that had unnerved her. These people talked; and +the Baroness's English was reassuringly good. + +Nobody, the Baroness was thinking, and also simultaneously the Baron, +who was fit to be a pastor's wife had feet like that--little, incapable +feet. Nobody, indeed, who was a really nice woman had them. One left off +having them when one was a child and never had them again. The errands +of domesticity on which one ran, the perpetual up and down of stairs, +the hours standing on the cold stone floor of servants' quarters seeing +that one was not cheated, the innumerable honourable activities that +beautified and dignified womanhood, necessitated large loose shoes. A +true wife's feet should have room to spread and flatten. Feet were one +of those numerous portions of the body that had been devised by an +all-wise Creator for use and not show. + +As for the rest of the Frau Pastor's appearance there were, it is true, +some young ladies in the country who dressed rather like that in the +summer, but they were ladies in the Glambeck set, ladies of family or +married into family. That the person who had married one's pastor, a man +whose father had been of such obscure beginnings, and indeed +continuations, that even his having been dead ten years hardly made him +respectable, should dress in this manner was a catastrophe. Already they +had suffered too much from the conduct of their loose-talking, +unchristian pastor; and now, instead of bringing a neat woman in black +to be presented to them, a neat woman with a gold chain, perhaps, round +her high black collar, it being a state occasion and she, after all, +newly married--but only a very light chain, and inherited not +bought--and a dress so sufficient that it reached beyond and enveloped +anything she might possess in the way of wrist or ankle or throat, here +was the most unsuitable wife he could have chosen--short, of course, of +marrying among Jews. While as for her hair, when it came to her hair +their thoughts ceased to formulate. That small and flattened and +disordered head, like a boy's head run wild, like something on fire, +which emerged when she took off her hat.... + +Coffee was served on the big table in front of the sofa. The Baroness +sat beside Ingeborg, and the Baron and Herr Dremmel drew up chairs +opposite. The coffee was good, and there was one excellent cake. No +gooseberries, no flowers, no unwieldy sandwiches; just plainness and +excellence. + +The two men talked to each other, not to the women, the Baron stiffly +and on his guard, Herr Dremmel taking immense pains to be amiable and +not offend. Between them hung the memories of altercations. Between them +also hung the knowledge of the three years during which the Baron and +his wife, as a result of the last and hottest difference of opinion, had +attended Divine Service in a church that did not belong to them. They +had altogether cut Kökensee. For three years their private gallery in +the church in which their ancestors had once a fortnight feared God had +been a place where mice enjoyed themselves. Its chairs were covered with +dust; its hymn-books, growing brown, still lay open at the place the +Glambecks had praised God out of last. Such a withdrawal of approval +would have made any other pastor's life a thing of chill and bleakness; +Herr Dremmel hardly observed it. He had no vanities. He was pleased that +the rival pastor should be gratified. He cared nothing for comment, and +had no eye for shrugs and smiles. His eyes, his thoughts, were wanted +for his work; and he found it a relief, a release from at least one +interruption, when his patron took to leaving him frigidly alone. + +Indeed, when he drove up to the Glambecks' house and remembered he had +not had to go there for three peaceful years he felt really grateful, +and he showed his gratitude by performing immense feats of social +pleasantness during the visit. He agreed gigantically with everything +the Baron said. Whatever subject was touched upon---very cautiously, for +the Baron mistrusted all subjects with Herr Dremmel--he instantly +dragged it off the dangerous shoals of the immediate and close up to a +cosmic height and distance, a height and distance so enormous that even +what the Kaiser said last became a negligible tinkling and Conscience +and Dogma quavered off into silence; and he explained to the Baron, who +guardedly said "Perhaps," that though people's opinions might and did +vary seen near, if one spread them out wide enough, pushed them back far +enough, took them up high enough, bored them down deep enough, got them +away from detail and loose from foregrounds, one would come at last to +the great Mother Opinion of them all, in whose huge lap men curled +themselves up contentedly like the happy identities they indeed were and +went, after kissing each other, in placidest agreement to sleep. + +"Perhaps," said the Baron. + +Personalities, immediate interests, duties, daily life, were swamped in +the vast seas in which, with politeness but determination, Herr Dremmel +took the Baron swimming. One only needed, he repeated, warm with the +wish to keep in roomy regions, to trace back any two opinions, however +bitterly different they now were, far enough to get at last to the point +where they sweetly kissed. + +"Perhaps," said the Baron. + +"One only needed--" went on Herr Dremmel, making all-embracing movements +with his arms. + +But the Baron cleared his throat and began to enumerate contrary facts. + +Herr Dremmel agreed at once that he was right just there, and pushed the +point of kissing back a little further. + +The Baron went after him with more facts. + +Herr Dremmel again agreed, and went back further. In this way they came +at last to the Garden of Eden, beyond which the Baron refused to budge, +alleging that further back than that no Christian could go; and even in +that he repudiated the kiss. He was convinced, though he concealed it, +that at no period of human thought could his and Herr Dremmel's +opinions, for example, have kissed. + +But it was an amiable view, and Herr Dremmel was extremely polite and +was bent evidently on peace, and the Baron, recognising this, became +less distrustful. He even contributed a thought of his own at last, +after having been negatively occupied in dissecting Herr Dremmel's, and +said that in his opinion it was details that made life difficult. + +The Baroness, who loved him and overheard him, was anxious he should +have more coffee with plenty of milk in it after this. + +"Men," she explained to Ingeborg in careful English as she poured it +out, "need much nourishment because of all this head-work." + +"I suppose they do," said Ingeborg. + +"When I was first married I remember it was my chief pride and joy that +at last I had some one of my very own to nourish." + +"Oh?" said Ingeborg. + +"It is an instinct," said the Baroness, who had the air of administering +a lesson, "in a true woman. She wishes to nourish. And naturally the joy +of nourishing two is double the joy of nourishing one." + +"I suppose it is," said Ingeborg, who did not quite follow. + +"When my first-born--" + +"Oh, yes," said Ingeborg, glad to understand. + +"When my first-born was laid in my arms I cannot express, Frau Pastor, +what happiness I had in being given yet another human being to nourish." + +"I suppose it was delightful," said Ingeborg, politely sympathetic. + +The Baroness's eyes drooped a moment inquiringly from Ingeborg's face to +her body. + +"For six years," she went on, after a pause, "I had fresh reason for +happiness regularly at Christmas." + +"I suppose you have the loveliest Christmases here," said Ingeborg. +"Like the ones in books. With trees." + +"Trees? Naturally we have trees. But I had babies as well. Every +Christmas for six years regularly my Christmas present to my dear +husband was able to be a baby." + +"What?" said Ingeborg, opening her eyes. "A fresh one?" + +"Naturally it was fresh. One does not have the same baby twice." + +"No, of course not. But--how did you hide it till Christmas day?" + +"It could not, naturally," said the Baroness stiffly, "be as much a +surprise as a present that was not a baby would have been, but it was +for all practical purposes hidden till Christmas. On that day it was +born." + +"Oh, but I think that was very wonderful," said Ingeborg, genuinely +pleased by such neatness. She leaned forward in her enthusiasm and +clasped her hands about her knees. + +"Yes," said the Baroness, relaxing a little before this flattering +appreciation. "Yes. It was. Some people would call it chance. But we, as +Christians, knew it was heaven." + +"But how _punctual_," said Ingeborg admiringly, "how _tidy_!" + +"Yes, yes," mused the Baroness, relaxing still more in the warm moisture +of remembrance, "they were happy times. Happy, happy times. One's little +ones coming and going--" + +"Oh? Did they go as well as come?" asked Ingeborg, lowering her voice to +condolence. + +"About one's knees, I mean, and the house." + +"Oh, yes," said Ingeborg, relieved. + +"Every year the Christmas candles shining down on an addition to our +treasures. Every year the gifts of past Christmases gathered about the +tree again, bigger and stronger instead of being lost or broken as they +would have been if they had been any other kind of gift." + +"But what happened when there weren't any more to give?" + +"Then I gave my husband cigar-cases." + +"Oh." + +"After all, most women have to do that all their lives. I did not +grumble. When heaven ceased to provide me with a present for him, I knew +how to bow my head and went and bought one. There are excellent +cigar-cases at Wertheim's in Königsberg if you wish to give one to Herr +Pastor next Christmas. They do not come unsewn at the corners by July +or August in the way those one buys in other shops do. Ah, yes. Happy +years. Happy, happy years. First the six years of great joy collecting +my family, and then the years of happiness bringing it up. Of course you +are fond of children?" + +"I've never had any." + +"Naturally you have not," said the Baroness, stiffening again. + +"So I don't know," said Ingeborg. + +"But every true woman loves little children," said the Baroness. + +"But they must be _there_," said Ingeborg. + +"One has God-implanted instincts," said the Baroness. + +"But one must _see_ something to practise them on," said Ingeborg. + +"A true woman is all love," said the Baroness, in a voice that sounded +very like scolding. + +"I suppose she is," said Ingeborg, who felt that she never could have +met one. She had a vision of something altogether soft and squelchy and +humid and at the same time wonderful. "Are any of your children at +home?" she asked, thinking she would like to test her instincts on the +younger Glambecks. + +"They are grown up and gone. Out into the world. Some far away in other +countries. Ah, yes. One is lonely--" The Baroness became loftily +plaintive. "It is the lot of parents. Lonely, lonely. I had five +daughters. It was a great relief to get them all married. There was +naturally the danger where there were so many of some of them staying +with us always." + +"But then you wouldn't have been lonely," said Ingeborg. + +"But then, Frau Pastor, they would not have been married." + +"No. And then," said Ingeborg, interested, "you wouldn't have been able +to _feel_ lonely." + +The Baroness gazed at her. + +"These things are _nice_, you know," said Ingeborg, leaning forward +again in her interest. "One does _like_ it somehow--being sad, you know, +and thinking how lonely one is. Of course it's much more delicious to be +happy, but not being happy has its jollinesses. There's a perfume...." +She sought about in her mind--"It's like a wet day. It looks gloomy and +miserable compared to what yesterday was like, but there _is_ an +enjoyment. And things"--she hesitated, groping--"things seem to grow. +Different ones. Yet they're beautiful, too." + +But the Baroness, who did not follow and did not want to, for it was not +her business to listen to her pastor's wife, drooped an inquiring eye +again over Ingeborg's body and cut her tendency to talk more than was +becoming in her position short by remarking that she was still very +thin. + +When they had sat there till the coffee was cold Ingeborg, in a pause of +the talk, got up to go. + +The three others stared at her without moving. Even her own Robert +stared uncomprehending. It seemed a lame thing to have to explain that +she was now going home, but that was what she did at last murmur down to +the motionless and surprised Baroness. + +"Are you not feeling well?" inquired the Baroness. + +"What is it, Ingeborg?" asked Herr Dremmel. + +The Baron went over to a window and opened it. "A little faint, no +doubt," he said, adding something about young wives. + +The Baroness asked her if she would like to lie down. + +Herr Dremmel became alert and interested. "What is it, Little One?" he +asked again, getting up. + +"I think it would be good if the Frau Pastor rested a little before +supper," said the Baroness, getting up, too. + +"Certainly," said Herr Dremmel, quite eagerly, and with a funny +expression on his face. + +Ingeborg gazed from one to the other. + +"But, Robert," she said, wondering why he looked like that, "oughtn't we +to go home?" + +"Dear Frau Pastor," said the Baroness quite warmly, "you will feel +better presently. Believe me. There is an hour still before supper. Come +with me, and you shall lie down and rest." + +"But Robert--" said Ingeborg, astonished. + +She was, however, taken away--it seemed a sort of sweeping of her +away--through glass doors, down a carpetless varnished passage into a +spare bedroom, and commanded to put herself on the high white bed with +her head a little lower than her feet. + +"But," she said, "why?" + +"You will be better by supper-time. Oh, I know all these things," said +the Baroness, who was opening windows and had grown suddenly friendly. +"Do you feel sick?" + +"Sick?" + +She wondered whether the amount of cake she had eaten had appeared +excessive. She had had two pieces. Perhaps there was a rigid local +custom prescribing only one. She felt again that she was in a net of +customs, with nobody to explain. The Baroness seemed quite disappointed +when she assured her she did not feel sick at all. Ought guests to feel +sick? Was it a subtle way of drawing attention to the irresistibleness +of the host's food? It then occurred to her that it might very possibly +be the custom in these country places to put callers to bed for an hour +in the middle of their call, and that her omission to put her +mother-in-law there was one of the causes of her tears. Next to going +home as quickly as one did in England she felt going to bed was +altogether the best thing. + +This thought, that it must be the custom, made her instantly pliable. +With every gesture of politeness she hastened to clamber up on to the +billows of feathers and white quilt. There was a smell of naphthalin as +she sank downwards, a smell of careful warfare carried on incessantly +with moth. + +The Baroness came away from letting in floods of air, and looked at her. +"I am sure," she said, "you do feel sick." + +"I think I do--a little," said Ingeborg, anxious to give every +satisfaction. + +It was evidently the right thing to say, for her hostess's face lit up. +She went out of the room quickly and came back with some Eau de Cologne +and a fan. + +Ingeborg watched her with bright alert eyes over the edge of a billow of +feathers while she fetched a little table and brought it to the bed and +arranged these things on it. + +How odd it was, she thought, greatly interested. Was the Baron +simultaneously putting Robert to bed in some other room? She felt she +had grown suddenly popular, that she was doing all the right things at +last. Contrasted with its loftiness during the first part of the call +the Baroness's manner was quite human and warm. She put the table close +to her side, and told her the best thing she could do, quite the best +thing, would be to try and sleep a little; if she wanted anything she +was to ring, and the maid Tina would appear. + +"Ah, yes," she said in conclusion, standing for a moment looking down at +her and heaving a great sigh that seemed to Ingeborg somehow to be +pleasurable, "ah, yes. When one has said A, dear Frau Pastor, one must +say B. Ah, yes." + +And she went out again on tip-toe, softly closing the door and leaving +Ingeborg in a state of extreme and active interest and interrogation. +"When one has said A one must say B...." Why must one? And what was B? +What, indeed, if you came to that, was A? + +She listened a moment, raised on her elbow, her bright head more ruffled +than ever after its descent into the billows, then she slid down on to +the slippery floor and ran across in her stockings to one of the big +open windows. + +It looked on to a tangle of garden, a sort of wilderness of lilac bushes +and syringa and neglected roses and rough grass and hemlock at the back +of the house. There was nobody anywhere to be seen, and she got up on to +the sill and sat there in great enjoyment, swinging her feet, for it all +smelt very sweet at the end of the long hot day, till she thought the +hour, the blessed hour, must be nearly over. Then she stole back and +rearranged herself carefully on the bed. + +"But this is _the_ way of paying calls," she thought, pulling the quilt +up tidily under her chin and waiting for what would be done to her next. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +They did not get away till nine o'clock. + +There was supper at seven, an elaborate meal, and they sat over it an +hour and a half. Then came more coffee, served on the terrace by +servants in white cotton gloves, and half an hour later, just before +they left, tea and sandwiches and cakes and fruit and beer. + +Ingeborg was now quite clear about the reason for her mother-in-law's +tears. She saw very vividly how dreadful her behaviour must have seemed. +That groaning supper-table, that piling up as the end of the visit drew +near of more food and more and more, and the refreshment of bed in the +middle.... + +"I shall invite her all over again," she said suddenly, determined to +make amends. + +When she said this the carriage had finally detached them from sight and +sound of the now quite cordial Glambecks, and was heaving through the +sand of the dark wooded road beyond their gate. + +"Whom will the Little One invite?" asked Herr Dremmel, bending down. He +had got his arm round her, and at the bigger joltings tightened his hold +and lifted her a little. His voice was tender, and when he bent down +there was an enveloping smell of cigars and wine, mixed with the +india-rubber of his mackintosh. + +Ingeborg knew that for some reason she could not discover she had made +herself popular. There was the distinct consciousness of having +suddenly, half way through the visit, become a success. And she was +still going on being a success, she felt. But why? Robert was +extraordinarily attentive. Too attentive, really, for oh, what a +wonderful night of stars and warm scents it was, once they were in the +open--what a night, what a marvel of a night! And when he bent over her +it was blotted out. Dear Robert. She did love him. But away there on +that low meadow, far away over there where a white mist lay on the +swampy places and the leaves of the flags that grew along the ditch +stood up like silver spears in the moonlight, one could imagine the damp +cool fragrance rising up as one's feet stirred the grass, the perfect +solitariness and the perfect silence. Except for the bittern. There was +a bittern, she had discovered, in those swamps. If she were over there +now, lying quite quiet on the higher ground by the ditch, quite quiet +and alone, she would hear him presently, solemnly booming. + +"Whom will the Little One invite?" asked Herr Dremmel, bending down +across the whole of the Milky Way and every single one of all the +multitude of scents the night was softly throwing against her face. + +He kissed her very kindly and at unusual length. It lasted so long that +she missed the smell of an entire clover field. + +"Your mother," said Ingeborg, when she again emerged. + +"Heavens and earth!" said Herr Dremmel. + +"I know now what I did--or rather didn't do. I know now why she kept on +saying _Bratkartoffel_. Oh, Robert, she must have been _hurt_. She must +have thought I didn't care a bit. And I did so want her to be happy. Why +didn't you tell me?" + +"Tell you what, little sheep?" + +"About there having to be supper, and about her having to go to bed." + +"To bed?" + +"Did the Baron put you?" + +"Put me?" + +"To bed?" + +Herr Dremmel bent down again and looked a little anxiously at as much of +her face as he could see in the moonlight. It seemed normal; not in the +least flushed or feverish. He touched her cheek with his finger. It was +cool. + +"Little One," he said, "what is this talk of beds?" + +"Only that it would save rather a lot of awful things happening if you +would just give me an _idea_ beforehand of what is expected. It wouldn't +take a minute. I wouldn't disturb you at your work for anything, but at +some odd time--breakfast, for instance, or while you're shaving--if +you'd _say_ about beds and things like that. One couldn't guess it, you +know. In Redchester one didn't do it, you see. And it's such a really +beautiful arrangement. Oh"--she suddenly flung her arms round him and +held him tight--"I _am_ glad I married one of you!" + +"One of me?" + +Herr Dremmel again peered anxiously at her face. + +"One of you wonderful people--you magnificent, spacious people. In +Redchester we got rid of difficulties by running away. You face them and +overcome them. There isn't much doubt, is there, which is the finer?" + +He transferred his cigar to the hand that was round her shoulder and +spread his right one largely over her forehead. It was quite cool. + +"Who," went on Ingeborg enthusiastically, jerking her head away from his +hand, "would have a custom that makes calls last five hours without +rebelling? You are too splendidly disciplined to rebel. You don't. You +just set about finding some way of making the calls endurable, and you +hit on the _nicest_ way. I loved that hour in bed. If only I'd known +that the other day when your mother came! The relief of it...." + +"But my mother--" began Herr Dremmel in a puzzled voice. Then he added +with a touch of severity, "Your remarks, my treasure, are not in your +usual taste. You forget my mother is a widow." + +"Oh? Don't widows?" + +"Do not widows what?" + +"Go to bed?" + +"Now kindly tell me," he said, with an impatience he concealed beneath +calm, for he had heard that a husband who wishes to become successfully +a father has to accommodate himself to many moods, "what it is you are +really talking about." + +"Why, about your not explaining things to me in time." + +"What things?" + +"About your mother having to go to bed." + +"Why should my mother have to go to bed?" + +"Oh, Robert--because it's the custom." + +"It is not. Why do you suppose it is the custom?" + +"What? When I've just been put there? And you saw me go?" + +"Ingeborg--" + +"Oh, don't call me Ingeborg--" + +"Ingeborg, this is levity. I am prepared for much accommodating of +myself to whims in regard to food and kindred matters, but am I to +endure levity for nine months?" + +She stared at him. + +"You went to bed because you were ill," he said. + +"I wasn't," she said indignantly. Did he, too, think she did not know +how to control herself in the presence of cake? + +"What? You were not?" + +There was a note of such sharp disappointment in his voice that in her +turn she peered at his face. + +"Now kindly tell me, Robert," she said, giving his sleeve a slight pull, +"what it is you are _really_ talking about." + +"You did not feel faint? You feel quite well? You do not feel ill after +all?" + +Again the note of astonished disappointment. + +"But why should I feel ill?" + +"Then why did you ask to be taken home almost before we had arrived?" + +For the first time she heard anger in his voice, anger and a great +aggrievedness. + +"Almost before we'd arrived? We'd been there hours. You hadn't _told_ me +a call meant supper." + +"Almighty Heaven," he cried, "am I to dwell on every detail of life? Am +I personally to conduct you over each of the inches of your steps? Do +you regard me as an elementary school? Can you not imagine? Can you not +calculate probabilities? Can you not construct some searchlight of +inference of your own, and illuminate with it the outline of at least +the next few hours?" + +She gazed at him a moment in astonishment. + +"_Well_," she said. + +If her father had asked her only one of these questions in that sort of +voice she would have been without an answer, beaten down and crushed. +But Robert had not had the steady continuous frightening of her from +babyhood. He could not hold over her, like an awful rod, that she owed +her very existence to him. He could not claim perpetual gratitude for +this remote tremendous gift, bestowed on her in the days of her +unconsciousness. He was a kindly stranger appointed by the Church to +walk hand in hand with her along the path of grown-up life. He had +admired her, and kissed her, and quite often during their engagement had +abased himself at her feet. Also she had seen him at moments such as +shaving. + +"I believe," she said after another astonished pause, "that you're +scolding me. And you're scolding me because you're angry with me, and +you're angry with me--Robert, is it possible you're angry with me +because I'm _not_ ill?" + +He threw away his cigar and seized her in his arms and began to whisper +voluminously into her ear. + +"What?" she kept on saying. "What? You're tickling me--what? I can't +hear--" + +But she did in the end hear, and drew herself a little back from him to +look at him with a new interest. It seemed the oddest thing that he, so +busy, so nearly always somewhere else in thought, so deeply and +frequently absent from the surface of life, so entirely occupied by his +work that often he could hardly remember he had a wife, should want to +have yet another object of the kind added unto him, a child; and that +she who lived altogether on the surface, who knew, as it were, the very +taste of each of the day's minutes and possessed them all, who never +lost consciousness of the present and never for an instant let go of her +awareness of the visible and the now, should be without any such desire. + +"But," she said, "we're so happy. We're so happy as we are." + +"It is nothing compared to what we would be." + +"But I haven't even begun to get used to _this_ happiness yet--to the +one I've got." + +"You will infinitely prefer the one that is yet to come." + +"But Robert--don't rush me along. Don't let us rush past what we've got. +Let us love all this thoroughly first--" + +He looked at her very gravely. "We have now been married two months," he +said. "I become anxious. To-night--I cannot tell you how glad I was. And +then--it was nothing after all." + +She gazed at him with a feeling of a new incumbency. He had said the +last words in a voice she did not know, with a catch in it. + +"Robert--" she said quickly, putting out her hand and touching his with +a little soft stroking movement. + +She wished above all things to make him perfectly happy. Always she had +loved making people happy. And she was so grateful to him, so grateful +for the freedom she had got through him, that just her gratitude even if +she had not loved him would have made her try to do and be everything he +wished. But she did love him. She certainly loved him. And here was +something he seemed to want beyond everything, and that she alone could +provide him with. + +He turned his head away; and as he did this did she see something +actually glistening in his eyes, glistening like something wet? + +In an instant she had put her arms round him. "Of course I do--of course +I want one," she said, rubbing her cheek up and down his mackintosh, +"some--heaps--of course we'll have them--everybody has them--of course +I'll soon begin--don't mind my not having been ill to-night--I'm so +sorry--I _will_ be ill--dear Robert--I didn't know I had to be ill--but +I will be soon--I'm sure I will be--I--I feel quite like _soon_ being +ill now--" + +He patted her face, his face still turned away. "Good little wife," he +said; "good little wife." + +She felt nearer to him than she had ever felt, so close in understanding +and sympathy. She had seen tears, a man's tears. Of what tremendous +depths of feeling were they not the signal? The sentence, _A strong +man's tears_, floated up from somewhere and hung about her mind. She +pressed him to her in a passion of desire to make him altogether happy, +to protect him from feeling too much. She held him like that, her cheek +against his arm, rubbing it up and down every now and then to show how +well she understood, till they got home. When he lifted her down from +the carriage at their door she slipped her hand round the back of his +neck and kept it there a moment with the tenderest lingering touch. + +"Dear Robert," she whispered, her lips on his ear while he lifted her +down; and implicit in the words was the mother-assurance, the yearning +mother-promise, "Oh, little thing, little man thing, I'll take _care_ of +you." + +She hung about the parlour and the passage while he went, as he said, +for a moment into his laboratory for a final look round, waiting for him +in a strangely warmed exalted state, entirely at one with him, suddenly +very intimate, sure that after letting her see things so sacred as tears +he would only want to spend the rest of the evening with her, being +comforted and reassured, held close to her heart, talking sweetly with +her in the quiet dark garden. + +But there were six saucerfuls of differently treated last year's rye +ready on the laboratory table for counting and weighing. Herr Dremmel +beheld them, and forgot the world. He began to count and weigh. He +continued to count and weigh. He ended by counting and weighing them +all; and it was dawn before, satisfied and consoled for his lost +afternoon, it occurred to him that perhaps it might be bedtime. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The winter came before Ingeborg, after many false alarms due to her +extreme eagerness to give Robert the happiness he wanted, was able to +assure him with certainty that he would presently become a father. "And +I," she said, looking at him with a kind of surprised awe now that it +had really come upon her, "I suppose I will be a mother." + +Herr Dremmel remarked with dryness that he supposed in that case she +would, and refused to become enthusiastic until there was more +certainty. + +He had been disappointed during the summer so often. Her zeal to meet +his wishes made her pounce upon the slightest little feeling of not +being well and run triumphantly to his laboratory, daring its locked +door, defying its sacredness, to tell him the great news. She would +stand there radiantly saying things that sounded like paraphrases of the +Scripture, and almost the first German she really learned and used was +the German so familiar in every household for being of Good Hope, for +being in Blessed Circumstance. + +For some time Herr Dremmel greeted these tidings with emotion and +excitement; but as the summer went on, he had become so incredulous that +she fainted twice in December before he was convinced. Then, indeed, for +nearly a whole day his joy was touching. One cannot, however, keep up +such joy, and Ingeborg found that things after this brief upheaval of +emotion settled back again into how they were before, except that she +felt extraordinarily and persistently ill. + +Well, she had had the most wonderful summer; she had got that anyhow +tucked away up the sleeve of her memory, and could bring it out and look +at it when the days were wet and she felt cold and sick. The summer that +year in East Prussia had been a long drought, a long bath of sunshine, +and Ingeborg lived out in it in an ecstasy of freedom. Her body, light +and perfectly balanced, did wonders of exploration in the mighty forests +that began at the north of the Kökensee lake and went on without +stopping to the sea. She would get Robert's dinner ready for him early, +and then put some bread and butter and a cucumber into a knapsack with +her German grammar, and paddle the punt down the lake, tie it up where +the trees began, and start. Nothing seemed to tire her. She would walk +for miles along the endless forest tracks, just as much suited to her +environment, just as harmonious and as much a creature of air and +sunshine as the white butterflies that fluttered among the enormous pine +trunks. Every now and then, for sheer delight in these things, she would +throw herself down on the springy delicious carpet of whortleberries and +lie still watching the blue-green tops of the pine-trees delicately +swaying backwards and forwards far away over her head against the serene +northern sky. They made a gentle sighing noise in the wind. It was the +only sound, except the occasional cry of a woodpecker or the cry, +immensely distant, of a hawk. + +Nobody but herself seemed to use the forests. It was the rarest thing +that she met a woodman, or children picking whortleberries. When she did +she was much stared at. The forests were quite out of the beat of +tourists or foreigners, and the indigenous ladies were too properly +occupied by indoor duties to wander, even if they liked forests, away +from their home anchorage; and for those whose business sent them into +these lonely places to come across somebody belonging to the class that +can have dinner every day regularly in a house if it likes and to the +sex that ought to be there cooking, it was an amazement. + +The young lady, however, seemed so happy that they all smiled at her +when she looked at them. They supposed she must be some one grown white +in a town, and come to stay the summer weeks with one of the Crown +foresters. That would explain her detachment from duty, her knapsack, +and the colour of her skin. Anyhow, just her passing made their dull day +interesting; and they would watch her glinting in and out of the trees +till at last, hardly distinguishable from one of the white butterflies, +the distance took her. + +When she was quite hot she would sit down in a carefully chosen spot +where, if possible, a deciduous tree, a maple or a bird cherry, splashed +its vivid green exquisitely against the peculiar misty bloom of pink and +grey that hung about the pine trunks, a tree that looked quite little +down among these giants, hardly as if it reached to their knees, and yet +when she stood under it it was almost as big as the lime-trees in the +Kökensee garden. She did not sit in its shade; she went some distance +away where she could look at it quivering in the light, and leaning her +back against a pine-tree she would eat her bread and cucumber and feel +utterly filled with the love and glory of God. + +Impossible to reason about this feeling. It was there. It seemed in that +summer to go with her where-ever she went and whatever she did. She +walked in blessing. It was in the light, she thought, looking round her, +the wonderful light, the soft radiance of the forest; it was in the air, +warm and fresh, scented and pungent; it was in the feel of the pine +needles and the dry crisp last year's cones she crushed as she went +along; it was in the cushions of moss so green and cool that she stopped +to pat them, or in the hot lichen that came off in flakes when her feet +brushed a root; it was in being young and healthy and having had one's +dinner and sitting quiet and getting rested and knowing the hours ahead +were roomy; it was in all these things, everywhere and in everything. +She would pick up her German grammar in a quick desire to do something +in return, something that gave her real trouble--shall one not say +somehow Thank you?--and she engulfed huge tracts of it on these +expeditions, learning pages of it by heart and repeating them aloud to +the pine-trees and the woodpeckers. + +When the sun began to go down she set out for home, sometimes losing her +way for quite a long while, and then she would hurry because of Robert's +supper, and then she would get very hot; and the combined heat and hurry +and cucumber, to which presently was added fatigue, would end in one of +those triumphal appearances later on in his laboratory to which he was +growing so much accustomed. + +In January, when she was just a sick thing, she thought of these days as +something too beautiful to have really happened. + +There was from the first no shyness about her on the subject of babies. +She had not considered it during her life at home, for babies were never +mentioned at the Palace--of course, she thought, remembering this +omission, because there were none, and it would be as meaningless to +talk about babies when there were none as it would be in Kökensee to +talk about bishops when there were none. She arrived, therefore, at +Kökensee with her mind a blank from prejudice, and finding the +atmosphere thick with babies immediately with her usual uninquiring +pliability adopted the prevailing attitude and was not shy either. + +The neighbourhood did not wait till they were born to talk about its own +children. It did not think of its children as unmentionable until they +had been baptised into decency by birth. They were important things, the +most important of all in the life of the women, and it was natural to +discuss them thoroughly. The childless woman was a pitied creature. The +woman who had most children was proudest. She might be poor and +tormented by them, but it was something she possessed more of than her +neighbours. Ilse had early inquired which room would be the nursery. +That obvious pattern of respectability, Baroness Glambeck, talked of +births with a detail and interest only second to that with which she +talked of deaths. It seemed to her a most proper topic of conversation +with any young married woman; and on her returning the Dremmel call a +fortnight after it had been made she was quite taken aback and annoyed +to find it had become irrelevant owing to Ingeborg's being perfectly +well. + +Indeed, this failure of Ingeborg's entirely spoilt the visit. The +Baroness, who had arrived friendly, withdrew into frost with the manner +of one who felt she had been thawed on the last occasion on false +pretences. Impossible to meet one's pastor's wife--and such an +odd-looking and free-mannered one, too--with any familiarity except on +the Christian footing of impending birth or death. A pastor's wife +belonged to the class one is only really pleasant with in suffering or +guilt. Offended, yet forced to continue the call, the Baroness confined +such conversation as she made to questions that had a flavour of +hostility: where was it possible to get such shoes, and did the Frau +Pastor think toes so narrow good for the circulation and the housework? + +Ingeborg could not believe this was the motherly lady who had fussed +round her bed that day at Glambeck. She felt set away at a great +distance from her, on the other side of a gulf. For the first time it +was borne in upon her that her marriage made a difference to her +socially, that here in Germany the gulf was a wide one. She was a +pastor's wife; and when asked about her family, which happened early and +searchingly in the call, could only give an impression of more pastors. + +"Ah, that is the same as what we call superintendent," said the +Baroness, nodding several times slowly on learning that Ingeborg's +father was a bishop; and after a series of questions as to the Frau +Pastor's sister's marriage nodded her head slowly several times again, +and informed Ingeborg that what her sister had married was a +schoolmaster. "Like Herr Schultz," said the Baroness--Herr Schultz being +the village schoolmaster. + +There was a photograph of Judith on the table that caught and kept the +Baroness's eye and also, in an even greater but more careful degree, the +Baron's. It was Judith dressed in evening beauty, bare-necked, perfect. + +Ingeborg took it up with a natural pride in having such a lovely thing +for her very own sister and handed it to the Baroness. + +"Here she is," said Ingeborg, full of natural pride. + +The Baroness stared in real consternation. + +"What?" she said. "This is a schoolmaster's wife? This is our pastor's +sister-in-law? I had thought--" + +She broke off, and with a firm gesture put the photograph on the table +again and said she could not stay to supper. + +Since then there had been no intercourse with Glambeck, and the Baroness +did not know of the satisfactory turn things had taken at the parsonage +till on Christmas Eve, from her gallery in church to which she and the +Baron had decided to return on the greater festivals as a mark of their +awareness that Herr Dremmel desired to make amends, she beheld during +the drawn-out verses of the chorale Ingeborg drop sideways on the seat +in her pew below and remain motionless and bunched up, her hymn-book +pushed crooked on the desk in front of her, and her attitude one of +complete indifference to appearances. + +The Baroness did not nudge the Baron, because in her position one does +not nudge, but her instinct was all for nudging. + +Herr Dremmel could not see what had happened, custom concealing him +during the singing in a wooden box at the foot of the pulpit where he +was busy imagining agricultural experiments. Till he came out the +singing went on; and suppose, thought the Baroness, he were to forget to +come out? Once he had forgotten, she had heard, and had stayed in his +box, having very unfortunately been visited there by a revelation +concerning potash that caught him up into oblivion for the best part of +an hour, during which the chorale was gone through with an increasing +faintness fifteen times. She knew about the hour, but did not know it +was potash. Suppose he once again fell into a meditation? There was no +verger, beadle, pew-opener, or official person of any sort to take +action. The congregation would do nothing that was outside the customary +and the prescribed. There was no female relative such as the Frau Pastor +would have had staying with her over Christmas if she had been what she +ought to have been, and what every other pastor's wife so felicitously +was, a German. And for her herself to descend and help in the eyes of +all Kökensee would have been too great a condescension, besides +involving her in difficulties with the wife of the forester, and the +wife of the Glambeck schoolmaster, who was also the postman, both of +whom were of the same social standing as the younger Frau Dremmel and +would jealously resent the least mark of what they would interpret as +special favour. + +Herr Dremmel, however, came out punctually and went up into the pulpit +and opened his well-worn manuscript and read out the well-known text, +and the congregation sat as nearly thrilled as it could be waiting for +the moment when his eye would fall on to his own pew and what was in it. +Would he interrupt the service to go down and carry his wife out? Would +the congregation have to wait till he came back again, or would it be +allowed to disperse to its Christmas trees and rejoicings? + +Herr Dremmel read on and on, expounding the innocent Christmas story, +describing its white accessories of flocks and angels and virgins and +stars with the thunderous vehemence near scolding that had become a +habit with him when he preached. His text was _Peace on earth, goodwill +among men_, and from custom he hit his desk with his clenched fist while +he read it out and hurled it at his congregation as if it were a threat. + +He did not look in his wife's direction. He was not thinking of her at +all. He wondered a little at the stillness and attention of his +listeners. Nobody coughed. Nobody shuffled. The school children hung +over the edge of the organ loft, motionless and intent. Baron Glambeck +remained awake. + +At the end of the service Herr Dremmel had to stay according to custom +in his wooden box till every one had gone, and it was not till he came +out of that to go through the church to its only door that he perceived +Ingeborg. For a moment he thought she was waiting for him in an attitude +of inappropriately childish laxity, and he was about to rebuke her when +it flashed upon him that she had fainted, that it was the second time in +ten days, and that he was indeed and without any doubt at last the +happiest of men. + +In spite of the bitter wind that was raking the churchyard every person +who had been inside the church was waiting outside to see the pastor +come out. The Glambecks and elders of the church would have waited in +any case on Christmas Eve to wish him the compliments of the season and +receive his in return, but on this occasion they waited with pleasure as +well as patience, and the rest of the congregation waited, too. + +They were rewarded by seeing him presently appear in the doorway in his +gown and bands carrying the bundle that was the still unconscious Frau +Pastor as if she were a baby, his face illuminated with joy and pride. +It was as entertaining as a funeral. Double congratulations were poured +upon him, double and treble handshakes of the hand he protruded for the +purpose from beneath Ingeborg's relaxed body, and his spectacles as he +responded were misty, to the immense gratification of the crowd, with +happy tears. + +This was the first popular thing Ingeborg had done since her arrival. +She could not if she had planned it out with all her care and wits have +achieved anything more dramatically ingratiating. The day was the most +appropriate day in the whole year. It had been well worth waiting, +thought her overjoyed Robert, in order to receive such a Christmas gift. +The Baroness, who with the Baron was most cordial, felt flattered, as +if--only of course less perfectly, for she herself had produced her +children in actual time for the tree--her example had been taken to +heart and followed. The village was deeply gratified to see an +unconscious Frau Pastor carried through its midst, and her limp body had +all the prestige of a corpse. Everybody was moved and pleased; and when +Ingeborg, after much persuasion, woke up to the world again on the sofa +of the parsonage parlour it was to live through the happiest day she had +yet had in her life, the day of Robert's greatest joy in her and +devotion and care and pride and petting. + +Once more and for this day she outstripped the fertilizers in interest, +and the laboratory was a place forgotten. She was pampered. She lay on +the sofa, feeling quite well again, but staying obediently on it because +he told her to and she loved him to care, watching him with happy eyes +as he tremendously hovered. He finished the arranging of the tree for +her and fixed the candles on it, interrupting himself every now and then +to come and kiss her hands and pat her. Beams seemed to proceed from him +and penetrate into the remotest corners. In a land where all homes were +glowing that Christmas night this little home glowed the brightest. The +candles of the tree shone down on Ingeborg curled up in the sofa corner, +talking and laughing gaily, but with an infinitely proud and solemn +gladness in her heart that at last he believed, that at last she was +fairly started on the road of the Higher Duty, that at last she was +going to be able to do something back, something in return for all this +happiness that had come to her through and because of him. + +Ilse was called in, and came very rosy and shining from careful washing +to be given her presents. There were surprises for Ingeborg--she had to +shut her eyes while they were arranged--that touched and astonished her, +so totally blind had Robert seemed to be for weeks past to anything +outside his work--a pot of hyacinths twisted about with pink crinkly +paper and satin bows that he must have got with immense difficulty and +elaborate precautions to prevent her seeing it, a volume of Heine's +poetry, a pair of fur gloves, a silver curb bracelet, and a smiling pig +of marzipan with a label round its neck, _Ich bringe Glück_. She, not +realising what a German Christmas meant, had only a cigar-case for him; +and when, her lap full of his presents and her wrist decorated with the +bracelet in which he showed an honest pride, carefully explaining the +trick of its fastening and assuring her it was real silver and that +little women, he well knew, liked being hung with these barbaric +splendours, she put her arm round his neck and apologised for her +dreadful ignorance of custom and want of imagination and solitary, +unsurprising, miserable cigar-case--when she did this, with her cheek +laid on his furry head, he drew her very close to him and blessed her, +blessed her his little wife and that greatest of gifts that she was +bringing him. + +Both of them had wet eyes when this blessing, solemnly administered and +received, was over. It was done in the presence of Ilse, who looked on +benevolently and at the end came and shook their hands and joined to her +thanks for what she had been given her congratulations on the happy +event of the coming summer. + +"July," said Ilse, after a moment's reflection. "We must furnish that +room," she added. + +Ingeborg felt as though her very bones were soft with love. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +But these high moments of swimming in warm emotion do not last, she +found; they are not final, they are not, as she had fondly believed, a +state of understanding and cloudless love at last attained to and rested +in radiantly. She discovered that the littlest thing puts an end to +them, just such a little thing as its being bedtime, for instance, is +enough, and the mood does not return, and not only does it not return +but it seems forgotten. + +She became aware of this next morning at breakfast, and it caused at +first an immense surprise. She had got the coffee ready with the glow of +the evening before still warming her rosily, she was still altogether +thinking _dear_ Robert, and wondering, her head on one side as she cut +the bread--Ilse was a little cross after the marzipan--and a smile on +her lips, at the happiness the world contains; and when he came in she +ran to him, shiningly ready to take up the mood at the exact point where +bedtime had broken it off the night before. + +But Herr Dremmel had travelled a thousand miles in thought since then. +He hardly saw her. He kissed her mechanically and sat down to eat. To +him she was as everyday and usual again as the bread and coffee of his +breakfast. She was his wife who was going presently to be a mother. It +was normal, ordinary, and satisfactory; and the matter being settled and +the proper first joy and sentiment felt, he could go on with more +concentration than ever with his work, for there would not now be the +perturbing moments so frequent in the last six months when his wife's +condition, or rather negation of condition, had thrust itself with the +annoyance of an irrepressible weed up among his thinking. The matter was +settled; and he put it aside as every worker must put the extraneous +aside. Just on this morning he was profoundly concerned with the +function of potash in the formation of carbohydrates. He had sat up +late--long after Ingeborg, feeling as if she were dissolved in stars and +happily certain that Robert felt just as liquidly starry, had gone to +bed--considering potash. He wanted more starch in his grain, more +woody-fibre in his straw. She was not across the passage into their +bedroom before his mind had sprung back to potash. More starch in his +grain, more woody-fibre in his straw, less fungoid disease on his +mangels.... + +At breakfast his thoughts were so sticky with the glucose and cane sugar +of digestible carbohydrates that he could not even get them free for his +newspaper, but sat quite silently munching bread and butter, his eyes on +his plate. + +"Well, Robert?" said Ingeborg, smiling at him round the coffee pot, a +smile in which lurked the joyful importance of the evening before. + +"Well, Little One?" he said absently, not looking at her. + +"Well, Robert?" she said again, challengingly. + +"What is it, Little One?" he asked, looking up with the slight +irritation of the interrupted. + +"What? You're not pleased any more?" she asked, pretending indignation. + +"Pleased about what?" + +She stared at him at this without pretending anything. + +"About what?" she repeated, her lips dropping apart. + +He had forgotten. + +She thought this really very extraordinary. She poured herself out a cup +of coffee slowly, thinking. He had forgotten. The thing he had said so +often that he wanted most was a thing he could forget, once he had the +certain promise of it, in a night. The candles on the Christmas tree in +the corner were not more burned out and finished than his tender +intensity of feeling of the evening before. + +Well, that was Robert. That was the way, of course, of clever men. +But--the tears? He had felt enough for tears. It was without a doubt +that he had felt tremendously. How wonderful then, she thought, slowly +dropping sugar into her cup, for even the memory of it to be wiped out! + +Well, that, too, was Robert. He did not cling as she did to moments, but +passed on intelligently; and she was merely stupid to suppose any one +with his brains would linger, would loiter about with her indefinitely, +gloating over their happiness. + +She left her coffee and got up and went over to him and kissed him. +"Dear Robert," she murmured, accommodating herself to him, proud even, +now, that he could be so deeply preoccupied with profound thoughts as to +forget an event so really great: for after all, a child to be born, a +new life to be launched, was not that something really great? Yet his +thoughts, her husband's thoughts, were greater. + +"Dear Robert," she murmured; and kissed him proudly. + +But the winter, in spite of these convictions of happiness and of having +every reason for pride, was a time that she dragged through with +difficulty. She who had never thought of her body, who had found in it +the perfect instrument for carrying out her will, was forced to think of +it almost continuously. It mastered her. She had endlessly to humour it +before she could use it even a little. She seemed for ever to be having +to take it to a sofa and lay it down flat and not make it do anything. +She seemed for ever to be trying to persuade it that it did not mind the +smell of the pig, or the smell that came across from Glambeck when the +wind was that way of potato spirits being made in the distillery there. +When these smells got through the window chinks she would shut her eyes +and think hard of the scent of roses and pinks, and of that lovely +orange scent of the orange-coloured lupin she had seen grown everywhere +in the summer; but sooner or later her efforts, however valiant, ended +in the creeping coldness, the icy perspiration, of sick faintness. + +As the months went on her body became fastidious even about daily +inevitable smells such as the roasting of coffee and the frying of +potatoes, which was extremely awkward when one had to see to these +things oneself; and it often happened that Ilse, coming out of the +scullery or in from the yard fresh and energetic with health, would find +her mistress dropped on a chair with her head on the kitchen table in +quite an absurd condition considering that everybody assured her it was +not an illness at all of feeling as though it were one. + +Ilse would look at her with a kind of amused sympathy. "The Frau Pastor +will be worse before she is better," she would say cheerfully; and if +things were very bad and Ingeborg, white and damp, clung to her in a +silent struggle to feel not white and damp, she used the formula first +heard on the lips of Baroness Glambeck and nodded encouragingly, though +not without a certain air of something that was a little like pleasure, +and said, "_Ja, ja_, those who have said A must also say B." + +When Ingeborg's spirit was at its lowest in these unequal combats she +would droop her head and shut her eyes and feel she hated--oh, she +faintly, coldly, sicklily hated--B. + +The fun of housekeeping, of doing everything yourself, wore extremely +thin during the next few months. She no longer jumped out of bed eager +to get to her duties again and bless the beginning of each new day by a +charming and cheerful breakfast table for her man. She felt heavy; +reluctant to face the business of dressing; sure that no sooner would +she be on her feet than she would feel ill again. She talked of getting +another servant, a cook; and Herr Dremmel, who left these arrangements +entirely to her, agreed at once. But when it came to taking the +necessary steps, to advertising or journeying in to Königsberg to an +agency, she flagged and did nothing. It was all so difficult. She might +faint on the way. She might be sick. And she could not ask Robert to +help her because she did not know what problem nearing a triumphant +solution she might not disastrously interrupt. + +It seemed to her monstrous to take a man off his thinking, to tear its +threads, perhaps to spoil for good that particular line of thought, with +demands that he should write advertisements for a cook or go with her in +search of one. And as no cook was to be found locally, every wife and +mother except ladies like Baroness Glambeck carrying out these higher +domestic rites herself, she did nothing. She resigned herself to a fate +that was, after all, everybody else's in Kökensee. It was easier to be +resigned than to be energetic. Her will grew very flabby. Once she said +prayers about cooking, and asked that she might never see or smell it +again; but she broke off on realising suddenly and chillily that only +death could get her out of the kitchen. + +Herr Dremmel was, as he had always been, good and kind to her. He saw +nothing, as indeed there was nothing, but the normal and the +satisfactory in anything she felt, yet he did what he could, whenever he +remembered to, to cheer and encourage. When, coming out of his +laboratory to meals, he found her not at the table but on the sofa, her +face turned to the wall and buried in an orange so that the dinner smell +might be in some small measure dissembled and cloaked, he often patted +her before beginning to eat and said, "Poor little woman." One cannot, +however, go on saying poor little woman continuously, and of necessity +there were gaps in these sympathies; but at least twice he put off his +return to work for a few minutes in order to hearten her by painting the +great happiness that was in store for her at the end of these tiresome +months, the marvellous moment not equalled, he was informed, by any +other moment in a human being's life, when the young mother first beheld +her offspring. + +"I see my little wife so proud, so happy," he would say; and each time +the picture dimmed his eyes and brought him over to her to stroke her +hair. + +Then she would forget how sick she felt, and smile and be ashamed that +she had minded anything. The highest good--what would not one practise +in the way of being sick to attain the highest good? + +"And he'll be full of brains like yours," she would say, pulling down +his hand from her hair and kissing it and looking up at him smiling. + +"And I shall have to double the size of my heart," Herr Dremmel would +say, "to take in two loves." + +Then Ingeborg would laugh for joy, and for quite a long while manage +very nearly to glory in feeling sick. + +About March, when the snow that had been heaped on either side of the +path to the gate all the winter began to dwindle dirtily, and at midday +the eaves dripped melting icicles, and the sun had warmth in it, and +great winds set the world creaking, things got better. She no longer +felt the grip of faintness on her heart. She left off looking quite so +plain and sharp-nosed. An increasing dignity attended her steps, which +every week were slower and heavier. After months of not being able to +look at food she grew surprisingly hungry, she became suddenly +voracious, and ate and ate. + +Ilse's amused interest continued. Her mother had had fourteen children +and was still regularly having more, and Ilse was well acquainted with +the stages. The Frau Pastor, it is true, took the stages more seriously, +with more difficulty, with a greater stress on them than Ilse's mother +or other Kökensee women, but roughly it was always the same story. "It +will be easier next time," prophesied Ilse inspiritingly; though the +thought of a next time before she had finished this one depressed rather +than inspirited Ingeborg. + +She had written home to Redchester to tell her great news, and received +a letter from Mrs. Bullivant in return in which there was an extremity +of absence of enthusiasm. Indeed, the coming baby was only alluded to +sideways as it were, indirectly, and if written words could whisper, in +a whisper. "_Your father is overworked_," the letter went on, getting +away as quickly as possible from matters of such doubtful decency as an +unborn German, "_he has too much to do. Delicate as I am, I would gladly +help him with his correspondence if I could, but I fear the strain would +be too much. He sadly needs a complete rest and change. Alas, +shorthanded as he is and obliged now as we are to retrench, there is no +prospect of one_." + +Whereupon Ingeborg impulsively wrote suggesting in loving and +enthusiastic terms a visit to Kökensee as the most complete change she +could think of, and also as the most economical. + +The answer to this when it did come was an extraordinarily dignified No. + +In April Baroness Glambeck drove over one fine afternoon and questioned +her as to her preparations, and was astonished to find there were none. + +"But, my dear Frau Pastor!" she cried, holding up both her yellow kid +hands. + +"What ought there to be?" asked Ingeborg, who had been too busy +wrestling with her daily tasks in her heavily handicapped state to think +of further labours. + +"Many things--necessary, indispensable things." + +"What things?" asked Ingeborg faintly. + +She had little spirit. She was more tired every day. Just the difficulty +of keeping even with her housekeeping, of keeping herself tidy in +dresses that seemed to shrink smaller each time she put them on, took up +what strength she had. There was none left over. "What things?" she +asked; and her hands, lying listlessly on her lap, were flaccid and +damp. + +Then the Baroness poured forth an endless and bewildering list with all +the gusto and interest of health and leisure. When her English gave out +she went on in German. Her list ended with a midwife. + +"Have you spoken with her?" she asked. + +"No," said Ingeborg. "I didn't know--where is she?" + +"In our village. Frau Dosch. It is lucky for you she is not further +away. Sometimes there is none for miles. She is a very good sort of +person. A little old now, but at least she _has_ been very good. You +ought to see her at once and arrange." + +"Oh!" said Ingeborg, who felt as if the one blessedness in life would be +to creep away somewhere and never arrange anything about anything for +ever. + +But it did after this become clear to her that certain preparations +would undoubtedly have to be made, and she braced herself to driving +into Meuk with Ilse and going by train to Königsberg for a day's +shopping. + +With sandwiches in her pocket and doubt in her heart she went off to +shop for the first time in German. Ilse, full of importance, and dressed +astonishingly in stockings and new spring garments, sat by her side with +an eye to right and left in search of some one to witness her splendour. +Herr Dremmel had laid many and strict injunctions on her to take care of +her mistress, and in between these wandering glances she did her best by +loud inquiries as to Frau Pastor's sensations. Frau Pastor's sensations +were those of a perilously jolted woman. She held tight to the hand rail +on one side while the Meuk cobbles lasted and to Ilse's arm on the +other, and was thankful when the station was reached and she somehow, +with a shameful clumsiness, got down out of the high carriage. +Incredible to remember that last time she had been at that station she +had jumped up into the same carriage as lightly as a bird. She felt +humiliated, ashamed of her awkward distorted body. She drew the foolish +little cloak and scarf she had put on anxiously about her. People +stared. She seemed to be the only woman going to have a child; all the +others were free, unhampered, vigorous persons like Ilse. It was as +though she had suddenly grown old, this slowness, this fear of not being +able to get out of the way of trucks and porters in time. + +In Königsberg the noise in the streets where the shops were was +deafening. All the drays of all the world seemed to be spending that day +driving furiously over the stones and tram-lines filled with cases of +empty beer bottles or empty milk cans or long, shivering, screaming iron +laths, while endless processions of electric-trams rang their bells at +them. + +Ingeborg clung to Ilse's arm bewildered. After Kökensee alone in its +fields, after the dignified tranquillities of Redchester, the noise +hammered on her head like showers of blows. There were not many people +about, but those there were stared to the extent of stopping dead in +front of the two women in order not to miss anything. It was at Ingeborg +they stared. Ilse was a familiar figure, just a sunburnt country girl +with oiled hair, in her Sunday clothes; but Ingeborg was a foreigner, an +astonishment. Men and women stopped, children loitered, half-grown +youths whistled and called out comments that her slow German could not +follow. She flushed and turned pale, and held on tighter to Ilse. She +supposed she must be looking more grotesque even than she had feared. +She put it all down to her condition, not knowing on this her first walk +in a German provincial town that it was her being a stranger, dressed a +little differently, doing her hair a little differently, that caused the +interest. She walked as quickly as she could to get away from these +people into a shop, little beads of effort round her mouth, looking +straight before her, fighting down a dreadful desire to cry; and it was +with thankfulness that she sank on to a chair in the quiet midday +emptiness of Berding and Kühn's drapery and linen establishment. + +The young lady behind the counter stared, too, but then there was only +one of her. She very politely called Ingeborg _gnädiges Fräulein_ and +inquired whether her child was a boy or a girl. + +"Lord God!" cried Ilse, "how should we know?" + +But Ingeborg, with dignity and decision, said it was a boy. + +"Then," said the young lady, "you require blue ribbons." + +"Do I?" said Ingeborg, very willing to believe her. + +The young lady sorted out small garments from green calico boxes +labelled _For Firsts_. There were little jackets, little shirts, little +caps, everything one could need for the upper portion of a baby. + +"So," said the young lady, pushing a pile of these articles across the +counter to Ingeborg. + +"God, God!" cried Ilse in an ecstasy at such tininess, thrusting her red +thumb through one of the diminutive sleeves and holding it up to show +how tightly it fitted. + +"_Nicht wahr_?" agreed the young lady, though without excitement. + +"But," said Ingeborg, laboriously searching out her words, "the baby +doesn't leave off there, at its middle. It'll go on. It'll be a whole +baby. It'll have legs and things. What does one put on the rest of it?" + +The young lady looked at Ilse for enlightenment. + +"It'll _have_ a rest, Ilse," said Ingeborg, also appealing to her. +"These things are just clothes for cherubs." + +"_Ach so_," said the young lady, visited by a glimmer of understanding, +and turning round she dexterously whipped down more green boxes, and +taking off the lids brought out squares of different materials, linen, +flannel, and a soft white spongy stuff. + +"Swaddle," she said, holding them up. + +"Swaddle?" said Ingeborg. + +"Swaddle," confirmed Ilse. + +And as Ingeborg only stared, the young lady gradually plumbing her +ignorance produced a small mattress in a white and frilly linen bag, and +diving down beneath the counter, brought up a dusty doll which she +deftly rolled up to the armpits in the squares, inserted it into the bag +with its head out, and tied it firmly with tapes. "So," she said, giving +this neat object a resounding slap: and picking it up she pretended to +rock it fondly in her arms. "Behold the First Born," she said. + +After that Ingeborg put herself entirely into these experienced hands. +She bought all she was told to. She even bought the doll to practise +on--"It will not do _everything_ of course," explained the young lady. +The one thing she would not buy was a sewing machine to make her own +swaddle with, as Ilse economically counselled. The young lady was +against this purchase, which could only be made in another shop; she +said true ladies always preferred Berding and Kühn to do such work for +them. Ilse said true mothers always did it for themselves, and it was +one of the chief joys of this blessed time, Ilse said, seeing the house +grow fuller and fuller of swaddle. + +At this the young lady pursed her lips and shrugged her shoulders and +assumed an air of waiting indifference. + +Ilse, resenting her attitude, inquired of her heatedly what, then, she +knew of _Mutterglück_. + +The young lady, for some reason, was offended at this, though nothing +was more certain than that knowledge of _Mutterglück_ would have meant +instant dismissal from Berding and Kühn's. It became a wrangle across +the counter, and was only ended by Ingeborg's altogether siding with the +young lady and the interests of Berding and Kühn, and ordering, as the +Baroness had directed, ten dozen each of the ready-made squares. "I'd +die if I had to hem ten dozen of anything," she explained apologetically +to Ilse. + +And it was very bitter to Ilse, who meant well, to see the young lady +look at her with a meditative comprehensiveness down her nose; it left +no honourable course open to her but to sulk, and in her heart she would +rather not have sulked on this exciting and unusual excursion. She was +forced to, however, by her own public opinion, and she did it +vigorously, thoroughly, blackly, all the rest of the day, all the way +home; and neither cakes nor chocolate nor ices earnestly and +successively applied to her by Ingeborg at the pastrycook's were allowed +to lighten the gloom. + +"But I suppose," Ingeborg said to herself as she crept into her bed that +night in the spiritless mood called philosophical, for Ilse was her stay +and refuge, and to have her not speaking to her, to feel she had hurt +her, was a grievous thing, a thing when one is weary very like the last +straw--"I suppose it's all really only a part of B. Oh, oh," she added +with a sudden flare of rebellion that died out immediately in shame of +it, "I don't think I _like_ B--I don't think I _like_ B...." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +There was nevertheless an absorption and an excitement about this new +strange business that did not for a moment allow her to be dull. She +might feel ill, wretched, exhausted, but she was always interested. A +tremendous event was ahead of her, and all her days were working up to +it. She lived in preparation. Each one of her sensations was a +preparation, an advance. There was a necessity for it; something was +being made, was growing, had to be completed; life was full of meaning, +and of plain meaning; she understood and saw reasons everywhere for what +happened to her. Things had to be so if one wanted the supreme crown, +and her part of the work was really very easy, it was just to be +patient. She was often depressed, but only because the month seemed so +endless and she was so tired of her discomfort--never because she was +afraid. She had no fears, for she had no experience. She contemplated +the final part of the adventure, the part Ilse alluded to cheerfully as +her Difficult Hour, with the perfect tranquillity of ignorance. On the +whole she was very free from the moods Herr Dremmel had braced himself +to bear, and continued right through not to be exacting. She had no +examples of more fussed over and tended women before her eyes to upset +her contentment, and saw for herself how the village women in like +condition worked on at their wash-tubs and in the fields up to the end. +Besides, she had been trained in a healthy self-effacement. + +She only cried once, but then it was February and enough to make anybody +cry, with the sleet stinging the windows and the wind howling round the +dark little house. She put it down to February, a month she had never +thought anything of, and hid from herself as she hurriedly wiped away +her tears--where did they all come from?--that she was disgracefully +crying because she had been alone so long, and Ilse had gone out +somewhere without asking, and Robert hadn't spoken to her for days, and +there was nobody to bring in the lamp if she didn't fetch it herself, +and she couldn't fetch it because she felt so funny and might drop it, +and what she wanted most in the world was a mother. Not a mother +somewhere else, away in Redchester, but a real soft warm mother sitting +beside her in that room, with her (the mother's) arm under her +(Ingeborg's) head, and her (Ingeborg's) face against her (the mother's) +bosom. A mother with feathers all over her like a kind hen would be very +ideal, but short of that there was a soft black dress she remembered her +mother used to wear with amiable old lace on it that wouldn't scratch, +and the comfort it would be, the _comfort_, if for half an hour she +might put her cheek against this and keep it there and say nothing. + +And she cried more and more, and told herself more and more eagerly, +with a kind of rage, that February was no sort of month at all. + +When Herr Dremmel came out of his laboratory to ask why his lamp had not +been brought, and found no light anywhere and no Ilse when he shouted, +he was vexed; but when he had fetched a lamp himself and put it on the +table where it shone on to Ingeborg's swollen and blinking eyes, he was +still more vexed. + +"This is foolish," he said, staring down at her a moment. "You will only +harm my child." + +She did not cry again. + +The spring had dried up the roads, but she did not for all that take +walks that obliged her to pass through the village; instead, she spent +hours in the budding garden up and down on one of the two available +paths, the one at the end on the edge of the rye-fields which were now +the vividest green, or the one on the east side of the house beneath +Robert's laboratory windows where the lilacs grew. + +His table was at right angles to the end window, and she often stood on +the path watching him, his head bent over his work in an absorption that +went on hour after hour. He kept the windows shut because the spring +disturbed him. It had a way of coming in irrepressibly and wantoning +among his papers, or throwing a handful of lilac blossoms into his rye +samples, or sending an officious bee to lumber round him. + +Ingeborg walked up and down, up and down on this path every day, taking +the exercise Baroness Glambeck had recommended, and for three weeks just +this path was the most beautiful thing in the world, for it was planted +on either side with ancient lilac bushes and they were a revelation to +her when they came out after the spare and frugal lilacs in the gardens +at home. Above their swaying scented loveliness of light and colour and +shape she could see Robert's tow-coloured head inside the window bending +over his table every time she came to the end of her tramp and turned +round again. It was the best part of the whole nine months, these three +weeks of lilacs and fine weather on that scented path, with Robert busy +and content where she could see him. She loved being able to see him; it +was a companionable thing. + +By June everything was ready. The nursery was furnished, the cradle +trimmed, a pale blue perambulator blocked the passage, neat stacks of +little clothes filled the cupboards, and Frau Dosch, a hoary person of +unseemly conversation, interviewed and told to be on the alert. The idea +of arranging for a doctor to be on the alert too would not of itself +have entered Ingeborg's head, and nobody put it there. Such a being was +indeed mentioned once by Baroness Glambeck, whose interest, increasing +with the months, brought her over several times, but only vaguely as +some one who had to be sent for when the midwife judged the patient to +have reached the stage. Then, apparently, the law obliged the midwife to +send for a doctor. + +"There is much difference, however," said the Baroness, "between +thinking one is in extremity and really being in it," and the patient +was apt to be biassed on these occasions, she explained, and inclined +rashly to jump to conclusions. Therefore wisdom dictated the leaving of +such a decision to the midwife. + +"Yes," said Ingeborg placidly. + +"Of course," said the Baroness, "all this is different from other +illnesses, because it is not one." + +"Yes," said Ingeborg, placidly. + +"And when I speak of the patient I do not mean the patient, because +without an illness there cannot be a patient." + +"No," said Ingeborg, placidly. + +"Nor without a patient can there be an illness." + +"No," said Ingeborg, placidly. + +She was leaning back in a low chair watching the sun shining on the tops +of the lime-trees over her head, for it was the end of June and they +were in the garden. It all seemed very satisfactory. Nobody was ill, +nobody was going to be ill. There would be rather a troublesome moment +that would be met and got over with patience and Frau Dosch, but no +illness, just nature having its way, and then--it really seemed +altogether too wonderful that then, quite soon now, perhaps in a week or +two, any day really, there would be a baby. And she was going to love it +with this passion of love that only mothers know, and it was going to +fill her life most beautifully to the brim, and it would make her so +happy that she would never want anything but just it. + +That is what they had told her. On her own account she had added to this +that the baby would be every bit as clever as Robert but with more +leisure; that it would have his brains but not his laboratory; that it +wouldn't be able, it wouldn't want, to get out of its perambulator and +go and lock itself up away from her and weigh rye grains; and that it +wouldn't mind, in fact it would prefer, being fetched out of its +thoughts to come and be kissed. + +For ages, for years, it was going to be her dear and close companion, +her fellow-paddler in the lake, her fellow-wanderer in God's woods. Her +eyes were soft with joy at the thought of how soon now she was going to +be able to tuck this precious being under her arm and take it with her +lightly and easily into the garden, restored to her own slim nimbleness +again, and point out the exceeding beauty of the world to its new, +astonished eyes. She would show it the rye-fields, and the great +heaped-up sky. She would make it acquainted with the frogs, and +introduce it to the bittern. She would draw its attention to the delight +of lying face downwards on hot grass where tufts of thyme grew and +watching the busy life among the blades and roots. She would insist on +its observing the storks standing in their nest on the stable roof and +how the light lay along their white wings, and how the red of their legs +was like the red of the pollard willows in March. And at night, if it +were so ill-advised as not to sleep, she would pick it up and take it to +the window and impress its soft mind all over with shining little stars. +Wonderful to think that before the orange-coloured lupins, those August +glories, had done flowering, she would be out among them again, only +with her son this time, her flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, +her Robertlet. + +Baroness Glambeck watched her face curiously as she lay looking up at +the sunny tree-tops with the amused smile of these thoughts on it. It +was clear the Frau Pastor had forgotten her presence; and even her being +so near her Difficult Hour did not explain or excuse a social lapse. +Indeed, the Frau Pastor received her visits with an absence of +excitement and of realisation of the honour being done her that was +almost beyond the limits of the forgivable. Always she behaved as though +she were an equal, and a particularly equal equal. Much, however, could +be excused in a person who was not only English--a nation the Baroness +had heard described as rude--but so near her first confinement. When +this was over there would be a severe readjustment of relationships, but +meanwhile one could not really be angry with her; just her amazing and +terrible ignorance of the simplest facts connected with child-bearing +made it impossible to be angry with her. She reminded the Baroness of a +sheep going tranquilly to the slaughter, quite pleased with the +promenade, quite without a thought of what lay at the end of it. Did +English mothers then all keep their daughters in such darkness on the +one great subject for a woman? + +For some subtle reason the expression of extreme placidness on +Ingeborg's face as she lay silently watching the tree-tops and planning +what she would do with her baby annoyed the Baroness. + +"It will hurt, you know," she said. + +Ingeborg brought her gaze slowly down to earth again, and looked at her +a moment. + +"What?" she said. + +"It will hurt," repeated the Baroness. + +"Oh, yes," said Ingeborg. "I know. But it's all natural." + +"Certainly it is natural. Nevertheless--" + +The Baroness stopped grimly, screwed up her mouth, and shook her head +three times with an awful suggestiveness. + +Ingeborg looked at her, and then suddenly some words out of her +cathedral-going days at Redchester flashed into her mind. She had +totally forgotten them, and now her memory began jerking them together. +They came, she knew, in the Prayer-book somewhere; was it in the Litany? +No; but anyhow they were in that truthful book, the Book of Common +Prayer, and they were--yes, that was it: _The great danger of +child-birth._ Yes; and again: _The great pain and peril of child-birth._ + +A quick flush came into her face, and for the first time a look of fear +into her eyes. She sat up, leaning on both her hands, and stared at the +Baroness. + +"Is it so very dreadful?" she asked. + +The Baroness merely shook her head. + +"It can't be _very_" said Ingeborg, watching the Baroness's expression +in search of agreement, "or there wouldn't be any mothers left." + +The Baroness went on screwing up her mouth and shaking her head. + +"It must be _bearable_," said Ingeborg again, anxiously. + +The Baroness would not commit herself. + +"They'd die, you see, if it wasn't--the mothers all would. But there +seem"--her voice trembled a little in her desire for the Baroness's +agreement--"there seem to be lots of mothers still about." + +She paused, but the Baroness continued not to commit herself. + +"I can bear anything," said Ingeborg, with a great show of pride and a +voice that trembled, "if it's--if it's reasonable." + +"It is not reasonable," said the Baroness. "It is the Will of God." + +"Oh, that's the same thing, the same thing," said Ingeborg, throwing +herself back on her cushions and nervously pulling some white pinks she +had been smelling to pieces. + +She was ashamed of her terror. But all that evening she was restless and +nervous, struggling with this new feeling of fear. She could not keep +still, but walked about the sitting-room while Robert ate his supper at +the table, pressing her cold hands together, trying to reason herself +into tranquillity again. + +She stood still a moment watching Robert's quiet black back as he bent +over his supper. Then she went over to him impulsively and rubbed both +her hands quickly through his hair, which had not been cut for some +time, making it stand up on ends. + +"There!" she said. "Now you look _really_ sweet." And she bent and +kissed him, lingeringly, on the back of his neck. He was near her, he +was alive, she could hold on to him for a little before she went alone +into whatever it was of icy and awful and unknown that waited for her. + +"Good little wife," he said, still going on eating, but putting his left +arm round her while his right continued to do what was necessary with +the supper, and not looking up. + +His affection at this time had watered down into a mild theory. She was +not a wife to him, though he called her so; she was a _werdende Mutter_. +This, Herr Dremmel told himself when he, too, felt bored by the length +of the months, is a most honourable, creditable, and respectable +condition; but no man can feel warm towards a condition. His little +sheep had disappeared into the immensities of the _werdende Mutter_. He +would be glad when she was restored to him. + +The next day she got a letter from Mrs. Bullivant, dated from the +Master's House, Ananias College, Oxford. + +"_It may interest you to hear_," wrote Mrs. Bullivant, "_that your +sister has a little daughter. The child was born at daybreak this +morning. I am worn out with watching. It is a very fine little girl, and +both mother and child are doing well. I am not doing well at all. We had +that excellent Dr. Williamson, I am thankful to say, or I don't know +what would have happened. Of course our darling Judith was mercifully +spared knowing anything about it, for she was kept well under +chloroform, but I knew and I feel very upset. I only wish I, too, could +have been chloroformed during those anxious hours. As it is I am +suffering much from shock, and it will be a long while before I recover. +Dr. Williamson says that on these occasions he always pities most the +mothers of the mothers. Your father_--" + +But here Ingeborg let the letter drop to the floor and sat thinking. + +When Robert came in to dinner late that day, hot and pleased from his +fields which were doing particularly well after the warm rains of +several admirably timed thunderstorms, she gave him his food and waited +till he had eaten it and begun to smoke, and then asked him if she were +going to have chloroform. + +"Chloroform?" he repeated, gazing at her while he fetched back his +thoughts from their pleasurable lingering among his fields. "What for?" + +"So that I don't know about anything. Mother writes Judith had some. +She's got a little girl." + +Herr Dremmel took his cigar out of his mouth and stared at her. She was +leaning both elbows on the table at her end and, with her chin on her +hands, was looking at him with very bright eyes. + +"But this is cowardice," he said. + +"I'd _like_ some chloroform," said Ingeborg. + +"It is against nature," said Herr Dremmel. + +"I'd _like_ some chloroform," said Ingeborg. + +"You have before you," said Herr Dremmel, endeavouring to be patient, +"an entirely natural process, as natural as going to sleep at night and +waking up next morning." + +"It may be as natural," said Ingeborg, "but I don't believe it's as +nice. I'd _like_ some chloroform." + +"What! Not nice? When it is going to introduce you to the supreme--" + +"Y'es, I know. But I--I have a feeling it's going to introduce me rather +roughly. I'd _like_ some chloroform." + +"God," said Herr Dremmel solemnly, "has arranged these introductions +Himself, and it is not for us to criticise." + +"That's the first time," said Ingeborg, "that you've talked like a +bishop. You might be a bishop." + +"When it comes to the highest things," said Herr Dremmel severely, "and +this is the holiest, most exalted act a human being can perpetrate, all +men are equally believers." + +"I expect they are," said Ingeborg. "But the others--the ones who're not +men--they'd _like_ some chloroform." + +"No healthy, normally built woman needs it," said Herr Dremmel, greatly +irritated by this persistence. "No doctor would give it. Besides, there +will not be a doctor, and the midwife may not administer it. Why, I do +not recognise my little wife, my little intelligent wife who must know +that nothing is being required of her but that which is done by other +women every day." + +"I don't see what being intelligent has to do with this," said Ingeborg, +"and I'd _like_ some chloroform." + +Herr Dremmel looked at her bright eyes and flushed cheeks in +astonishment. Up to now she had rejoiced in her condition whenever he +mentioned it, and indeed he could see no reason for any other attitude; +she had apparently felt very little that was not pleasant during the +whole time, known none of those distresses he had heard that women +sometimes endure, been healthily free from complications. There had been +moods, it is true, and he had occasionally found her lounging on sofas, +but then women easily become lazy at these times. It had all been normal +and would no doubt continue normal. What, then, was this shrinking at +the eleventh hour, this inability to be as ordinarily courageous as +every peasant woman in the place? It was a most unfortunate, unpleasant +whim, the most unfortunate she could have had. He had been prepared for +whims, but had always supposed they would be tinned pine apples. Of +course he was not going to humour her. Too much was at stake. He had +heard anæsthetics were harmful on these occasions, harmful and entirely +unnecessary. The best thing by far for the child was the absence of +everything except nature. Nature in this matter should be given a free +hand. She was not always wise, he knew from his experience with his +fields, but in this department he was informed she should be left +completely to herself. If his wife was so soft as not to be able to bear +a little pain what sort of sons was she likely to give him? A breed of +shrinkers; a breed of white-skinned hiders. Why, he had not asked for +gas even when he had three teeth out at one sitting two years before--it +was the dentist who had insisted he should have it--and that was only +teeth, objects of no value afterwards. But to have one's son handicapped +at the very beginning because his mother was not unselfish enough to +endure a little for his sake.... + +Ingeborg got up and came and put her arms round his neck and whispered. +"I'm--frightened," she breathed. "Robert, I'm--frightened." + +Then he took her to the sofa, and made her sit down beside him while he +reasoned with her. + +He reasoned for at least twenty minutes, taking great pains and being +patient. He told her she was not really frightened, but that her +physical condition caused her to fancy she thought she was. + +Ingeborg was interested by this, and readily admitted that it was +possible. + +He told her about the simple courage of the other women in Kökensee, and +Ingeborg agreed, for she had seen it herself. + +He told her how God had arranged she should bring forth in sorrow, but +she fidgeted and began again to talk of bishops. + +He told her it would only be a few hours' suffering, perhaps less, and +that in return there was a lifetime's joy for them in their child. + +She listened attentively to this, was quite quiet for a few minutes, +then slid her hand into his. + +He told her she might, by letting herself go to fear, hurt her child, +and would she not in that case find difficulty afterwards in forgiving +herself? + +This completed her cure. An enormous courage took the place of her +misgivings. She rose up from the sofa so superfluously brave, so glowing +with enterprise, that she wanted to begin at once that she might show +how much she could cheerfully endure. "As though," she said, lifting her +chin, "I couldn't stand what other women stand--as though I wouldn't +stand _anything_ sooner than hurt my baby!" And she flung back her head +in the proudest defiance of whatever might be ahead of her. + +Her baby, her husband, her happy home--to suffer for these would be +beautiful if it were not such a little thing, almost too little to offer +up at their dear altar. She would have been transfigured by her shining +thoughts if any thing could have transfigured her, but no thoughts +however bright could pierce through that sad body. Her outlines were not +the outlines for heroic attitudes. She not only had a double chin, she +seemed to be doubled all over. She looked the queerest figure, heavy, +middle-aged, uncouth, ugly, standing there passionately expressing her +readiness to begin; and Herr Dremmel unconsciously seeing this, and +bored by having had to explain the obvious at such length and spend a +valuable half hour bringing a woman to reason--why could they never go +to it by themselves?--wasted no more words having got her there, but +brushed a hasty kiss across her hair and went away looking at his watch. + +And next day, just as she was putting the potatoes into that dinner-pot +that so much simplified her cooking, she uttered a small exclamation and +turned quickly to Ilse with a look of startled questioning. + +"_Geht's los_?" asked Ilse, pausing in the wiping dry of a wooden ladle. + +"I--don't know," said Ingeborg, gasping a little. "No," she added after +a minute, during which they stood staring at each other, "it wasn't +anything." + +And she went on with the potatoes. + +But when presently there was another little fluttering exclamation, +Ilse, with great decision, laid down her gloomy drying-cloth and sought +out Johann, Herr Dremmel not having come in, and bade him harness the +horses and fetch Frau Dosch. + +"The first thing," said Frau Dosch, arriving two hours later, +surprisingly brisk and business-like considering her age and the heat, +"the first thing is to plait your hair in two plaits." + +And still later, when Ingeborg had left off pretending or trying to be +anything at all, when courage and unselfishness and stoicism and a +desire to please Robert--who was Robert?--were like toys for +drawing-room games, shoved aside in these grips with death, Frau Dosch +nodded her head philosophically while she ate and drank from the trays +Ilse kept on bringing her, and said at regular intervals, "_Ja, ja_--was +sein muss sein muss." + +Such were the consolations of Frau Dosch. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +These things began on Tuesday at midday; and on Wednesday night, so late +that bats and moths were busy in the garden and often in the room, Frau +Dosch, grown very wispy about the hair and abandoned in the dress, +dabbed a bundle of swaddle with a small red face emerging from it down +on to the bed beside Ingeborg and said, tired but triumphant, "There!" + +The great moment had come: the supreme moment of a woman's life. Herr +Dremmel was present, dishevelled and moist-eyed; Ilse was present, +glowing and hot. It was a boy, a magnificent boy, Frau Dosch pronounced, +and the three stood watching for the first ray of _Mutterglück_, the +first illumination that was to light the face on the pillow. + +"There!" said Frau Dosch; but Ingeborg did not open her eyes. + +"There!" said Frau Dosch again, picking up the bundle and laying it +slantwise on Ingeborg's breast and addressing her very loudly. "Frau +Pastor--rouse yourself--behold your son--a splendid boy--almost a man +already." + +She took Ingeborg's arm and laid it round the bundle. + +It slid off and hung over the edge of the bed as before. + +"Tut, tut!" said Frau Dosch, becoming scandalised: and stooping down she +shouted into Ingeborg's ear: "Frau Pastor--wake up--look at your son--a +magnificent fellow--with a chest, I tell you--oh, but he will break the +hearts of the maidens he will--" + +Still the blankest indifference on the face on the pillow. + +Herr Dremmel knelt down so as to be on a level with it, and took the +limp damp hand hanging down in his and patted it. + +"Little wife," he said in German, "it is all over. Open your eyes and +rejoice with me in our new happiness. You have given me a son." + +"_Ja eben_," said Frau Dosch emphatically. + +"You have filled my cup with joy." + +"_Ja eben_," said Frau Dosch, still louder. + +"Open your eyes, and welcome him to his mother's heart." + +"_Ja eben_" said Frau Dosch indignantly. + +Then Ingeborg did slowly open her eyes--it seemed as if she could hardly +lift their heavy lids--and looked at Robert as though she were looking +at him from an immense distance. Her mouth remained open; her face was +vacant. + +Frau Dosch seized the bundle, and with clucking sounds jerked it up and +down between the faces of the parents so that its mother's eyes must +needs fall upon it. Its red contents began to cry. + +"Ah--there now--now we shall see," exclaimed Frau Dosch, who had been +secretly perturbed by the newborn's absence of comment while it was +being washed and swaddled. + +"The first cry of our son," said Herr Dremmel, kissing Ingeborg's hand +with deep emotion. + +"_Now_ we will try," said Frau Dosch, once more laying the baby on +Ingeborg's chest and folding her arm round it. This time she took the +precaution to hold the mother's arm firmly in position herself. "Oh, the +splendid fellow!" she exclaimed. "Frau Pastor, what do you say to your +eldest son?" + +But Frau Pastor said nothing. Her eyelids drooped over her eyes again, +and shut the world and all its vigours out. The sound of these people +round her bed came to her from far away. There was a singing in her +ears, a black remoteness in her soul. Somewhere from behind the vast sea +of nothingness in which she seemed to sink, through the constant singing +in her ears, came little faint voices with words. She wanted to listen, +she wanted to listen, why would these people interrupt her--the same +words over and over again, faintly throbbing in a rhythm like the rhythm +of the wheels of the train that had brought her through the night long +ago across Europe to her German home, only very distant, tiny, +muffled--"From battle and murder"--yes, she had caught that--"from all +women labouring with child"--yes--"from all sick persons"--yes--"and +young children"--yes, go on--"Good Lord deliver us"--oh, yes--please.... +Good Lord deliver us--please--please--deliver us.... + +"Perhaps a little brandy?" suggested Herr Dremmel, puzzled. + +"Brandy! If her own son cannot cheer her--Does the Herr Pastor then not +know that one gives nothing at first to a lady lying-in but water-soup?" + +Herr Dremmel, feeling ignorant, let go the idea of brandy. "Her hand is +rather cold," he said, almost apologetically, for who knew but what it +was cold because it ought to be? + +Frau Dosch expressed the opinion that it was not, and that if it were it +was not so cold as her heart. "See here," she said, "see this beautiful +boy addressing his mother in the only language he knows, and she not +even looking at him. Come, my little fellow--come, then--we are not +wanted--come with Aunt Dosch--the old Aunt Dosch--" + +And she took the baby off Ingeborg's passive chest, and after a few +turns with it up and down the room slapping the underside of its swaddle +in a way experience had taught choked out crying, put it in the pale +blue cradle that stood ready on two chairs. + +"Well, well," said Herr Dremmel getting up, for his knees were hurting +him, and looking at his watch, "it is bedtime for all of us. It is past +midnight. To-morrow, after a sleep, my wife will be herself again." + +He went towards the door, followed by Ilse with one of the two lamps +that were adding to the stifling heat in the room, then paused and +looked back. + +Ingeborg was lying as before. + +"You are sure only water-soup?" he said, hesitating. "Is that--will that +by the time it reaches my son nourish him?" + +For all answer Frau Dosch advanced heavily and shut the door. + +She was tired to death. She was not, at that hour of the night, going to +defend her methods to a husband. She locked the door and began pulling +off her dress. She could hardly stand. It had been one of those +perfectly normal births that yet are endless and half kill an honest +midwife who is not as young as she used to be. Before dropping on to the +bed provided for her she took a final look at the object in the cradle, +which was noiselessly sleeping, and then at the other object on the bed, +which was lying as before. Well, if the Frau Pastor preferred behaving +like a log instead of a proud mother--Frau Dosch shrugged her shoulder, +put on a coloured dimity jacket over her petticoat, kicked off her +slippers, and went, stockinged and hairpinned, to bed and to instant +sleep. + +But the life in the parsonage puzzled Herr Dremmel during the next few +weeks. He had expected the simple joys of realised family happiness to +succeed the act of birth. It was a reasonable expectation. It occurred +in other houses. He had been patient for nine months, supported during +their interminableness by the thought that what he bore would be amply +made up to him at the end of them by a delighted young wife restored to +him in her slenderness and health, running singing about the house with +a healthy son in her arms. The son was there and seemed satisfactory, +but where was the healthy young wife? And as for running about the +house, when the fifth day came, the day on which the other women in the +parish got up and began to be brisk again, Ingeborg made no sign of even +being aware it was expected of her. She looked at him vaguely when he +suggested it, with the same vagueness and want of interest in anything +with which she lay for hours staring out of the window, her mouth always +a little open, her position always the same, unless Ilse came and +changed it for her. + +Frau Dosch had left the morning after the birth according to the custom +of midwives, returning on each of the three following mornings to wash +the mother and child, and after that Ilse had taken over these duties, +and as far as he could see performed them with zeal and vigour. +Everything was done that could be done; why then did Ingeborg remain +apathetic and uninterested in bed, and not take the trouble even to shut +her mouth? + +He was puzzled and disappointed. The days passed, and nothing was +changed. He could not but view these manifestations of want of backbone +with uneasiness, occurring as they did in the mother of his children. +The least thing that was demanded of her in the way of exertion made her +break out into a perspiration. She had not yet, so far as he knew, +voluntarily put her arms once round her son--Ilse had to hold them round +him. She had not even said anything about him. He might have been a girl +for any pride she showed. And that holiest function of a mother, the +nursing of her child, instead of being a recurring joy was a recurring +and apparently increasing difficulty. + +He had pointed out to her that it was not only the greatest privilege of +a mother to nurse her child but it was an established fact that it gave +her the deepest, the holiest satisfaction. In all pictures where there +is a mother, he had reminded her, she is invariably either nursing or +has just been doing so, and on her face is the satisfied serenity that +attends the fulfilment of natural functions. + +She had not answered, and her face remained turned away and flushed, +with beads rolling down it. Ilse held the baby, he observed; there was a +most regrettable want of hold in his wife. + +And she appeared to have odd fancies. She imagined, for instance, that +the pieces of buttered bread Ilse put on a plate and laid beside her on +her bed at tea-time were stuck to the plate. He had found her struggling +one afternoon and becoming hot endeavouring to lift one of these pieces +up off the plate. He had asked her, Ilse not being in the room, what she +was doing. As usual she had whispered--it was another of her fancies +that she had lost her voice--and when he bent down he found that she was +whispering the word _stuck_. + +He had taken up the piece to show her she was mistaken, and had shaken +the plate and made all the pieces on it spring about, and she had +watched him and then begun over again to behave as if she could not lift +one. + +Then she dropped her hands down on to the sheet and looked up at him and +began to whisper something else. "_Heavy_," she whispered, but not, he +was glad to say, without at least some sort of a slight smile indicating +her awareness that she was conducting herself childishly, and Ilse, +coming in, had taken the bread and fed her as if it were she who were +the baby and not his son. + +Herr Dremmel, therefore, was both puzzled and worried. He was still more +puzzled and worried when, on the very day week after the birth, Ilse +came to him and said that Frau Pastor was shaking her bed about and that +she feared if she did not soon stop the bed, which was enfeebled as Herr +Pastor knew by having two mended legs among its four, might break. She +had reminded Frau Pastor of this, but she did not seem to care and +continued to shake it. + +"The good bed," said Ilse, "the excellent bed. The best we have in the +house. Would Herr Pastor step across?" + +Herr Pastor stepped across, and found Ingeborg shivering with such +astonishing energy that the bed did, as Ilse had described, rattle +threateningly. + +In reply to his questions Ilse told him, for Ingeborg was too busy +shaking to explain, that nothing had happened except that Frau Pastor +said she was thirsty and would like a glass of cold water, and she had +fetched it fresh from the pump and Frau Pastor had asked to be held up +to drink it and had drunk it all at one draught and immediately fallen +back and begun this shaking. + +"Ingeborg, what is this?" said Herr Dremmel with a show of severity, for +he had heard severity acted as a sedative on those who, for instance, +shake. + +When, however, Ingeborg, instead of replying like a reasonable being, +continued to shake and seem unaware of his presence, and when on +touching her he found that in spite of the shivering she was extremely +hot, he sent Johann for Frau Dosch, who on seeing her could only suggest +that Johann should drive on into Meuk and bring out the doctor. + +And so it was that Ingeborg, coming suddenly out of a thin, high +confusion in which she seemed to have been hurrying since the world +began, found it was night, for lamps were alight, and people--many +people--were round her bed, and one was a man she did not know with a +short black beard. But she did know him. It was the doctor. It flashed +across her instantly. Then she had really got to being in extremity. +That woman had said so, that big woman who used to come and see her in +the garden long ago. And Ilse--that was Ilse at the foot of the bed +crying. When one was in extremity Ilse did cry. She found herself +stroking the doctor's beard and begging him not to let go of her. She +was reminded that it was unusual to stroke the doctor's beard by his +drawing back, but she thought it silly not to let one's beard be stroked +if somebody wanted to. She heard herself saying, "Don't let go of +me--please--don't let go of me--please--" but it seemed that he could +not hold her, for she was caught away almost immediately again into that +thin, hot, hurrying confusion, high up in the treble, high up at the +very top, where all the violins were insisting together over and over +again on one thin, quivering, anxious note.... + +"It is impossible," said the doctor, a Jew from Königsberg, lately +married and set up at Menk, looking at Frau Dosch, "that this should +have happened." + +And he proceeded to explain to Herr Dremmel that the child in future +would have to seek its nourishment in tins. + +"What?" exclaimed Herr Dremmel. + +"Tins," said the doctor. + +"Tins? For my son? When there are cows in the world? Cows, which at +least more closely resemble mothers than tins?" + +"Tins," repeated the doctor firmly. "Herr Pastor, cows have moods just +as frequently as women. They are fed unwisely, and behold immediately a +mood. Not having the gift of tongues they cannot convey their mood by +speech, and baffled at one end they fall back upon the other and express +their malignancies in milk." + +Herr Dremmel was silent. The complications and difficulties of family +life were being lit up into a picture at which he could only gaze in +dismay. On the bed Ingeborg was ceaselessly turning her head from one +side to the other and rubbing her hands weakly up and down, up and down +over the sheet. While he talked the doctor was watching her. Frau Dosch +stood looking on with a locked-up mouth. Ilse wept. The baby whimpered. + +The doctor said he would send some tins of patent food out by Johann on +his return journey; if there should be much delay and the baby was +noisy, said the doctor, a little water-- + +"Water! My son fed on water?" exclaimed Herr Dremmel. "Heavens above us, +what diet is this for a good German? Tins and water in the place of +blood and iron?" + +The doctor shrugged his shoulder, and gently putting down Ingeborg's +hand which he had been holding for a moment to see if he could quiet it, +prepared to go away, saying he would also send out a nurse. + +"Ahh," said Herr Dremmel, greatly relieved, "you know of a thoroughly +healthy wet one?" + +"Completely dry. For Frau Pastor. Impossible to leave her unnursed. +There will be bandages. There must be punctuality and care"--he looked +at Frau Dosch--"cleanliness, efficiency"--at each word he looked at Frau +Dosch. "I will come out to-morrow. Perfectly normal, perfectly normal," +he said, as he got into the carriage while Herr Dremmel stood ruefully +on the doorstep. + +The illness went its perfectly normal course. A nurse came out from the +principal Königsberg hospital and the disordered house at once became +perfectly normal, too. Ilse returned to her kitchen, the baby was +appeased by its scientific diet, Ingeborg's bed grew smooth and +spotless, her room was quiet, nobody knocked any more against the foot +of the bed in passing or shook the floor and herself by heavy treading; +she was no longer tended with the same vigour that made the kitchen +floor spotless and the pig happy; bandages, unguents, and disinfectants +stood neatly in rows, clean white cloths covered the tables, the windows +were wide open day and night, and lamps left off burning exactly where +they shone into her eyes. Everything was normal, including the behaviour +of the abscess, which went its calm way, unhurried and undisturbed by +anything the doctor tried to do to it, ripening, reaching its +perfection, declining, in an order and obedience to causation that was +beautiful for those capable of appreciating it. Everything was normal +except the inside of Ingeborg's mind. + +There, in a black recess, crouched fear. She suspected life. She had +lost, on that awful night and day and night again of birth, confidence +in it. She knew it now. It was all death. Death and cruelty. Death and +nameless horror. Death pretending, death waiting, waiting to be cruel +again, to get her again, and get her altogether next time. What was this +talk of life? It was only just death. The others didn't know. She knew. +She had seen it and been with it. She had been down into the valley of +the shadow of it uncomforted. Her eyes had been wide open while she +went. Each step of the way was cut into her memory. They had let her +miss nothing. She knew. Out there in the garden the rustling leaves +looked gay, and the sun looked cheerful, and the flowers she had so +confidently loved looked beautiful and kind. They were death dressed up. +Oh, she was not to be taken in any more. She knew the very sound of him. +Often, while she was in that fever, she had heard him coming across the +yard, up the steps, along the passage, pausing just outside the door, +going back each time, but only for a little while. He would come again. +The horror of it. The horror of living with that waiting. The horror of +knowing that love ended in this, that new life was only more death. +Fearfully she lay staring at the realities that she alone in that house +could see. And she could hear her heart beating--if only she needn't +have to hear her heart beating--it beat in little irregular beats, +little flutters, and then a pause--and then a sudden _ping_--oh, the +weak, weak helplessness--nothing to hold on to anywhere in all the +world--even the bed hadn't an underneath--she was always dropping +downwards, downwards, through it, away.... + +Sometimes the nurse came and stood beside her, and with a big wholesome +hand smoothed back the hair from her absorbed and frowning forehead. +"What are you thinking about?" she would ask, bending down and smiling. + +But Ingeborg never told. + +To Herr Dremmel the nurse counselled patience. + +He said he had been having it for ten months. + +"You must have some more," said the nurse, "and it will come right." + +And so it gradually did. Slowly Ingeborg began to creep up the curve of +life again. It was a long and hesitating creeping, but there did come a +time when there were definite and widening gaps in her vision of the +realities. The first day she had meat for dinner she lost sight of them +for several hours. The next day she had meat she shut her mouth. The day +after, a feeling of shame for her black thoughts crept into her mind and +stayed there. The day after that, when she not only had meat but began a +new tonic, she asked for Robertlet and put her arms round him all by +herself. + +Then the nurse slipped out and called Herr Dremmel; and he, hurrying in +and finding her propped on pillows, holding his baby and smiling down at +him just as he had pictured she would, went down once more on his knees +beside the bed and took the whole group, mother, baby, and pillows, into +his arms, and quite frankly and openly cried for joy. + +"Little sheep ... little sheep,..." he kept on saying. And Ingeborg, +having reached that point in convalescence where one never misses a +chance of crying, at once cried, too; and Robertlet beginning to cry, +the nurse, who laughed, broke up the group. + +After that things grew better every day. Ingeborg visibly improved; +every hour almost it was possible to see some new step made back to her +original self. She clung to the nurse, who stayed on long after the +carrying into the next room stage had been passed and who did not leave +her till she was walking about quite gaily in the garden and beginning +to do the things with Robertlet that she had planned she would. She +seemed, after the long months of ugliness, to be prettier than before. +She was so glad, so grateful, to be back again, and her gladness lit her +up. It was so wonderful to be back in the bright world of free movement, +to be presently going to punt, and presently be off for a day in the +forests, to be able to arrange, to be in clear possession of her time +and her body. The deliciousness of health, the happiness of being just +normal made her radiant. + +The September that year was one of ripe days and glowing calms. Neither +Herr Dremmel nor Ingeborg had ever been quite so happy. He loved her as +warmly as before their marriage. He found himself noticing things like +the fine texture of her skin, and observing how pretty the back of her +neck was and the way her hair behaved just at that point. She was the +brightest adornment and finish to a man's house, he said to himself, +independently busy with her baby and her housekeeping, not worrying him, +not having to be thought about in his laboratory when he wished to work, +absorbed in womanly interests, cheerful, affectionate, careful of her +child. It was delightful to have her sit on his knee again, delightful +to hear her talk the sweet and sometimes even amusing nonsense with +which her head seemed full, delightful to see her sudden solemnity when +there was anything to be done for the personal comfort of Robertlet. + +"Aren't we _happy_," said Ingeborg one evening when they were strolling +after supper along the path through the rye-field, all the old +fearlessness and confidence in life surging in her again. "Did you ever +_know_ anything like it?" + +"It is you, my little sun among sheep," said Herr Dremmel, standing +still to kiss her as energetically as though he had been beneath the +pear-tree in the Bishop's garden, "it is all you." + +"And presently," she said, "I'm going to do such things--Robert, such +things. First, I'm going to be a proper pastor's wife at last and turn +to in the village thoroughly. And besides that I'm going to--" + +She stopped and flung out her hands with a familiar gesture. + +"Well, little hare?" + +"Oh, I don't know--but it's fun being alive, isn't it? I feel as if I'd +only got to stretch up my hands to all those stars and catch as many of +them as I want to." + +And hardly had the nurse left and the household had returned to its +normal arrangements, and the parlour was no longer disfigured by Herr +Dremmel's temporary bed, and life was clear again, and all one had to do +was to go ahead praising the dear God who had made it so spacious and so +kind, than she began to have her second child. + + + + +PART III + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +There was a little bay about five minutes' paddle down the lake round a +corner made by the jutting out of reeds. You took your punt round the +end of an arm of reeds, and you found a small beach of fine shells, an +oak-tree with half-bared roots overhanging one side of it, and a fringe +of coarse grass along the top. On this you sat and listened to the faint +wash of the water at your feet and watched the sun flashing off the +wings of innumerable gulls. You couldn't see Kökensee and Kökensee +couldn't see you, and you clasped your hands round your knees and +thought. Behind you were the rye-fields. Opposite you was the forest. It +was a place of gentleness, of fair afternoon light, of bland +colours--silvers, and blues, and the pale gold that reeds take on in +October. + +Ingeborg did not bring Robertlet to this place. She decided, after four +months' close association with him had cleared her mind of +misconceptions, that he was too young. She would not admit, with all her +dreams about what she was going to do with him still vivid in her +memory, that she preferred to be alone. She would not admit that she did +anything but love him ardently. He was so good. He never cried. Nor did +he ever do what she supposed must be the converse of crying, crow. He +neither cried nor crowed. He neither complained nor applauded. He ate +with appetite and he slept with punctuality. He grew big and round while +you looked at him. Who would not esteem him? She did esteem him--more +highly perhaps than she had ever esteemed anybody; but the ardent love +she had been told a mother felt for her first-born was a thing about +which she had to keep on saying to herself, "Of course." + +He was a grave baby; and she did her best by cheery gesticulations and +encouraging, humorous sounds, to accustom him to mirth, but her efforts +were fruitless. Then one day as she was bending over him trying to +extract a smile by an elaborate tickling of his naked ribs she caught +his eye, and instantly she jerked back and stared down at him in dismay, +for she had had the sudden horrid conviction that what she was tickling +was her mother-in-law. + +That was the first time she noticed it, but the resemblance was +unmistakable, was, when you had once seen it, overwhelming. There was no +trace, now that she tremblingly examined him, of either Robert or +herself; and as for her own family, what had become of all that very +real beauty, the beauty of the Bishop, the dazzlingness of Judith, and +the sweet regularities of her mother? + +Robertlet was as much like Frau Dremmel as he might have been if Frau +Dremmel had herself produced him in some miraculous manner entirely +unassisted. The resemblance was flagrant. It grew with every bottle. He +had the same steady eyes. He had the same prolonged silences. His nose +was a copy. His head, hairless, was more like Frau Dremmel's, thought +Ingeborg, than Frau Dremmel's could ever have possibly been, and if ever +his hair grew, she said to herself gazing at him wide-eyed, it would +undoubtedly do it from the beginning in a knob. Gradually as the days +passed and the likeness appeared more and more she came, when she tubbed +him and powdered his many creases, to have a sensation of infinite +indiscretion; and she announced to Herr Dremmel, who did not understand, +that Robertlet's first word would certainly be _Bratkartoffel_. + +"Why?" asked Herr Dremmel, from the other side of a wall of thinking. + +"You'll see if it isn't," nodded Ingeborg, with a perturbed face. + +But Robertlet's first word, and for a long time his only one, was +_Nein_. His next, which did not join it till some months later, was +_Adieu_, which is the German for good-bye and which he said whenever +anybody arrived. + +"He isn't very _hospitable_," thought Ingeborg; and remembered with a +chill that not once since her marriage had her mother-in-law invited her +to her house in Meuk. But she made excuses for him immediately. +"Everybody," she said to herself, "feels a little stiff at first."... + +To this beautiful corner of the lake, for it was very beautiful those +delicate autumn afternoons, she went during Robertlet's dinner sleep to +do what she called think things out; and she sat on the little shells +with her hands round her knees, staring across the quiet water at the +line of pale reeds along the other shore, doing it. Presently, however, +she perceived that her thinking was more a general discomfort of the +mind punctuated irregularly by flashes than anything that could honestly +be called clear. Things would not be thought out--at least they would +not be thought out by her; and she was feeling sick again; and how, she +asked herself, can people who are busy being sick be anything _but_ +sick? Besides, things wouldn't bear thinking out. Her eyes grew bright +with fear when one of those flashes lit up what was once more ahead of +her. It was like a scarlet spear of terror suddenly leaping at her +heart.... + +No, thought Ingeborg, turning quickly away all cold and trembling, +better not think; better just sit in the sun and wonder what Robertlet +would look like later on if he persisted in being exactly like Frau +Dremmel and yet in due season had to go into trousers, and what would +happen if the next one were like Frau Dremmel, too, and whether she +would presently be teaching a row of little mothers-in-law its infant +hymns. The thought of Frau Dremmel become plural, diminished into socks +and pinafores, standing neatly at her knee being taught to lisp in +numbers, seized her with laughter. She laughed and laughed; and only +stopped when she discovered that what she was really doing was crying. + +"Perhaps it's talking I want more than thinking," she said to Herr +Dremmel at last, returning from one of these barren expeditions in +search of understanding. + +She said it a little timidly, for she was already less to him than she +had been in that brief interval of health, and knew that with every +month she would be less and less. It was odd how sure of him she was +when she was not going to have a baby, of what an easy confidence in his +love, and how he seemed to slip away from her when she was. Already, +though she had only just begun, he was miles away from the loving mood +in which he folded her in his arms and called her his little sheep. + +Herr Dremmel, who was supping, and was not in possession of the context, +recommended thinking. He added after a pause that only a woman would +have suggested a distinction. + +Ingeborg did not make the obvious reply, but said she thought if she +might talk to somebody, to Robert, for instance, and with her hand in +his, rather _tight_ in his while she talked, so that she might feel +safe, feel not quite so loose and unheld together in an enormous, awful +world-- + +Herr Dremmel looked at his watch and said perhaps he would have time to +hold her hand next week. + +A few days later she said, equally without supplying him with the +context, "It's blessing disguising itself, that's what it is." + +Herr Dremmel, who again was supping, said nothing, preferring to wait. + +"Blessing only pretending to be cruelty. Not really cruelty at all." + +Herr Dremmel still preferred to wait. + +"I thought at first it was cruelty," she said, "but now I think +perhaps--perhaps it's blessing." + +"What did you think was cruelty, Ingeborg?" asked Herr Dremmel, who +disliked the repetition of such a word. + +"Having this next baby so quickly--without time to forget." + +Her eyes grew bright. + +"Cruelty, Ingeborg?" + +Herr Dremmel said one did not, when one was a pastor's wife, call +Providence names. + +"That's what I'm saying," she said. "I thought at first it was cruel, +but now I see it's really ever so much better not to waste time between +one's children, and then be well for the rest of one's days. It--it will +make the contrast afterwards, when one has done with pain, so splendid." + +She looked at him and pressed her hands together. Vivid recollections +lit her eyes. "But I'd give up these splendid contrasts very +_willingly_," she whispered, her face gone suddenly terror-stricken. + +Herr Dremmel said that family life had always been praised not only for +its beauty but for its necessity as the foundation of the State. + +"You told me," said Ingeborg, who had a trick which good men sometimes +found irritating of remembering everything they had ever said, "the +foundation of the State was manure." + +Herr Dremmel said so it was. And so was family life. He would not, he +informed her, quibble over terms. What he wished to make clear was that +there could not be family life without a family to have it in. + +"And don't you call you and me and Robertlet a family?" she asked. + +"One child?" said Herr Dremmel. "You would limit the family to one +child? That is a highly unchristian line of conduct." + +"But the Christian lines of conduct seem to _hurt_ so," murmured +Ingeborg. "Oh, I know there have to be brothers and sisters," she added +quickly before he could speak, "and it _is_ best to get it over and have +done with it. It's only when I'm--it's only sometimes that I think +Robertlet would have been enough family till--till I'd had time to +forget--" + +Again the light of terror came into her eyes. She knew it was there. She +looked down at her plate to hide it. + +Twice after that she came back from her thinking down by the lake and +attempted to talk to him about questions of life and death. Herr Dremmel +was bored by questions of life and death unless they were his own ones. +He met them, however, patiently. She arrived panting, for it was uphill +back to the house, desperately needing her vision rubbed a little +clearer against his so that she might reach out to reassurance and +courage, and he took on an air of patience almost before she had begun. +In the presence of that premature resignation she faltered off into +silence. Also what she had wanted to say got tangled into the silliest +sentences--she heard them being silly as they came out. No wonder he +looked resigned. She could have wept with chagrin at her +inarticulateness, her want of real education, her incapacity for getting +her thoughts torn away from their confusion and safely landed into +speech. And there stood Robert, waiting, with that air of patience.... + +But how odd it was, the difference between his talk before she was going +to have a baby and his silence--surely resigned silence--when she was! +She wished she knew more about husbands. She wished that during the +years at home instead of writing all those diocesan letters she had +ripely reflected on the Conjugalities. + +As the days went by her need of somebody to talk to, her dread of being +alone with her imagination and its flashes, became altogether +intolerable. She went at last, driven by panic, to the village mothers, +asking anxious questions about how they had felt, how they had managed, +going round on days when she was better to the cottages where families +were longest. But nothing came of this; the attitude everywhere was a +dull acceptance, a shrug of the shoulder, a tiredness. + +Then she sought out the postman's wife, who looked particularly motherly +and bright, and found that she was childless. + +Then she met the forester one day in the woods, and was so far gone in +need that she almost began to ask him her anxious questions, for he +looked more motherly even than the postman's wife. + +Then she thought of Baroness Glambeck, who before Robertlet's birth had +been helpful in practical ways--would she not be helpful now in these +spiritual stresses?--and she walked over there with difficulty one +afternoon in November through the deep wet sand, approaching her as one +naked soul delivered by its urgencies from the web of reticence and +convention approaches another. But nothing could be less naked that day +than the Baroness's soul. It was dressed even to gloves and a bonnet. It +had no urgencies; and Hildebrand von Glambeck was there, the only son in +the family of six, the member of it who had married most money, and his +mother was proudly pouring out coffee for him in festal silk. + +It was entirely contrary to custom for one's pastor's wife to walk in +without having first inquired whether her visit would be acceptable; and +when the Baroness perceived the sandy and disordered figure coming +towards her down the long room she was not only annoyed but dismayed. +She had not seen this dearest of her children for six months, and it was +the first opportunity she had had since his arrival the evening before +of being alone with him, for he had brought a friend with him from +Berlin, and not till after luncheon had the friend, who painted, been +satisfactorily disposed of out of doors in the park, where he announced +his intention of staying as long as the sun stayed on a certain +beech-tree. She wanted to ask her boy questions. She had sent the Baron +out riding round his farms so as to be able to ask questions. She wanted +to know about his life in Berlin, to her so remote and so full of +drawbacks that yet glittered, a high, dangerous, less truly aristocratic +life than this of lofty stagnation in God's provinces, but shone upon +after all by the presence of her Emperor and King. In her heart she +believed that the Almighty had also some years ago, probably about the +time of her marriage when she, too, retired into them, withdrawn into +the provinces, and there particularly presided over those best of the +Fatherland's nobles who stayed with a pure persistency in the places +where they happened to have been born. On His departure for the country, +the Baroness decided, He had handed over Berlin and Potsdam to the care +of the First of His children, her Emperor and King; and so it was that +the provinces were higher and more truly aristocratic than Berlin and +Potsdam, and so it was that Berlin and Potsdam nevertheless ran them +very close. + +And now, just as she had so cleverly contrived this hour with Hildebrand +for getting at all those intimate details of his life that a mother +loves but does not care to talk about before her husband, this hour for +hearing about his children, his meals, his money, his dear wife's +success in society and appearances, thanks to her having married into +the nobility, at Court, his own health, his indigestion--that ancient +tormentor of his peace, _armer Junge_--and whether he had seen or heard +anything of poor Emmi, his eldest sister, who had miserably married six +thousand marks a year and lived impossibly at Spandau and could not be +got to admit she did not like it--just as she was going to be satisfied +on all these points came that eccentric and pushing Frau Pastor and +spoilt it all. Also Hildebrand was in the very middle of one of those +sad stories of scandal that one wishes one had not to listen to but +naturally wants to hear the end of. + +So great was the Baroness's disappointment that she found it impossible +to stop herself from affecting inability to recognise the Frau Pastor +till she was actually touching the coffee table. "Ah," she then said, +not getting up but slowly putting out her hand to take the hand that was +being offered, and staring as though she were trying to remember where +and when she had seen her before, "Ah--Frau Pastor? This is indeed an +honour." + +"Present me, mamma," said Hildebrand, who had got on to his feet the +instant Ingeborg appeared in the doorway. + +The ceremony performed he sank again into his chair and did nothing more +at all, being waited on by his mother and leaving it to her to see that +the visitor was given cream and sugar and cake, until the moment arrived +when Ingeborg, made abundantly and elaborately aware that she was +interrupting, prepared crest-fallen to go away again. Then once more he +started up, alert and with his heels together. + +"Well, and what did her husband do?" asked the Baroness, turning again +to Hildebrand as soon as Ingeborg had been got quiet on a chair with +coffee, determined to hear the end of the story. + +"My dear mother," said Hildebrand, shrugging his shoulders up to his +ears, "what could he do?" + +"He shot her?" + +"Of course." + +"Naturally," said the Baroness, nodding approval. "Was she killed?" + +"No. Badly wounded. But it was enough. His honour was avenged." + +"And she will not," said the Baroness grimly, "begin these tricks +again." + +Ingeborg roused herself with an effort to say something. She was +extraordinarily disappointed and unnerved by not finding the Baroness +alone. "Why did he shoot her?" she asked. It seemed to her in her +tiredness so very energetic of him to have shot her. + +The Baroness turned a cold eye on her. "Because, Frau Pastor," she said, +"she was his sinning wife." + +"Oh," said Ingeborg; and added an inquiry, in a nervous desire to make +for a brief space agreeable small talk before going away again, whether +in Germany they always shot each other when they sinned. + +"Not each other," said the Baroness severely. "At least, not if it is a +husband and his wife. He alone shoots." + +"Oh," said Ingeborg, considering this. + +She was sitting inertly on her chair, holding her cup of coffee +slanting, too much dejected to drink it. + +"And then does that make her love him again?" she asked, in her small +tired voice. + +The Baroness did not answer. + +"Only blood," said Hildebrand, "can wipe out a husband's dishonour." + +"How _nasty_!" said Ingeborg dejectedly. + +Life seemed all blood. She drooped over her cup, thinking of the cruelty +with which things were apparently packed. The Baroness and Hildebrand, +after a pregnant silence, turned from her and began to talk of somebody +they called poor Emmi. Ingeborg sat alone with her cup, wondering how +she could get away before she began to cry. Dreadful how easily she +cried now. She must buy some more handkerchiefs. They seemed lately to +be always at the wash. + +She roused herself again. She really must say something. As her way was +when confused and unnerved, she caught at the first thing she found +tumbling about in her mind. "Why was Emmi poor?" she asked in her small +tired voice. + +There was another pregnant silence. + +To shorten it Ingeborg asked whether Emmi was the wife who had been +shot--"The sinning one," she explained as nobody answered. + +The silence became awful. + +She looked up, startled by it. From the expression on their faces and +the general feel of things she thought that perhaps they wouldn't mind +if she went home now. + +She got up, dropping the spoon out of her saucer. "I--think I must be +going," she said. "It's a long way home." + +"It seems hardly worth while to have come," said the Baroness with +extraordinary chill. + +To which Ingeborg, absorbed in the failure of her effort to find help +and comfort, answered droopingly "No." + +Outside the sun had just dropped behind the forest line, and she would +have to walk fast if she wanted to be home before dark. The mist was +already rising over the meadows beyond the trees of the garden and +beginning to mix with the rose and lilac of the sky. The sandy avenue +she had come along on that hot July day when first she discovered +Glambeck lay at her feet in the still beauty of the last of its dresses +for the year, very delicate, very transparent already, the leaves of the +beeches almost all on the ground, making of the road a ribbon of light. +A November smell of dampness and of peat smoke from cottage chimneys +filled the air. There was a brooding peace over the world, as though in +every house, in every family, brotherly love must needs in such +gentleness continue. + +She went carefully down the steps, for her body was already growing +cumbersome, and along the golden way of the avenue. She tried not to +cry, not to smudge the beautiful evening with her own disappointments. +How foolish she had been to suppose that because she wanted to talk +Baroness Glambeck would want to listen! Moods did not coincide so +conveniently. She walked along, diligently stopping any stray tear with +her handkerchief before it could disgrace her by coming out on to her +cheeks. Presently Baroness Glambeck might passionately want to +listen--it was quite conceivable--and she herself would not in the least +want to talk. How foolish it all was! One had to stand on one's own +feet. It was no good going about calling out for help. It was less than +no good crying. Some day, if she continued intrepidly in this career of +maternity which seemed to be marked out for her, she, too, would be +happily pouring out coffee for a grown-up and successful man-child, all +her impatiences and pangs long since forgotten. You clearly couldn't +have a grown-up man-child to love and be proud of if you hadn't begun +him in time, he had at some period or other to be begun. And he had to +be begun in time, else one might easily be too old for acute +appreciation. She went as quickly as she could down the avenue, thinking +on large valiant lines and underneath her thinking feeling altogether +forsaken. It must be nice, a warm thing to live where one's friends and +relatives were within reach, where one could, for instance, when one +felt extra lonely go and have tea with one's mother.... + +A man carrying what seemed to be a great deal of something indefinite +was coming down the avenue towards her. She looked at him vaguely, +absorbed in her thoughts. It was not the Baron, and except for him she +knew nobody. She was within a yard or two of him when a quantity of +sheets of paper, long slender brushes, odd articles she did not +recognise, suddenly seemed to burst out from his person and scatter +themselves over the beech-leaves on the ground. + +"Oh, damn!" said the man, making efforts to catch them. + +Ingeborg, always eager to help, began clumsily to pick up those nearest +her. He had a camp-stool on one arm, and what appeared to be a +mackintosh, and was altogether greatly hampered. + +"Look here, don't do that," he exclaimed, struggling with these things +which also apparently were slipping from him. + +"Oh, but how lovely!" said Ingeborg, holding one of the sheets of paper +she had picked up at arm's length and staring with her red eyes at a +beech-tree on it, a celestial beech-tree surely, aflame with so great a +glory of light that it could not possibly be earthly but only the sort +of tree they have in heaven. Close, it was just splashes of colour; you +had to hold it away from you to see it at all. She blew away some grains +of sand that were on it and then held it once more as far from her as +her arm would go. "Oh, but how lovely!" she said again. "Look--doesn't +it _shine_?" + +"Of course it shines. That was what it was doing," he said, coming and +looking at the sketch over her shoulder a minute, his hands full of the +things he had collected from the ground. "They said they'd send a +servant for all this, and they didn't. I hate carrying things." + +"I'll carry some," said Ingeborg. + +"Nonsense. And you're not going there." + +"I've been. But I'd go back as far as the steps if you like." + +"Nonsense. I'll leave them at the foot of this tree. He'll see them all +right." + +"Not this--you mustn't leave this," she said, still gazing at the +sketch. + +"No. I'll take that. And I'm coming with you a little way, because I +can't conceive where you can be going to at this time of the day that +isn't to the Glambecks', and I'm curious. Also because it's so funny of +you to be English." + +"I think it's much funnier of you," said Ingeborg, picking up a pencil +out of a rut in the sand and adding it to the pile he was making against +the trunk of the nearest tree. "And I'm only going home." + +"Home?" + +He undid the pile and began again. He had got it wrong. The camp-stool, +of course, must be the foundation, then the smaller fly-away things, +then, neatly folded and tucking them all in, the mackintosh. She must be +an English governess or superior nurse on a neighbouring estate since +she talked of home. If so he did not want to go with her; nothing he +could think of seemed to him quite so tiresome as an English governess +or superior nurse. + +He finished tucking in the mackintosh and turned round and took the +sketch from her. He was, she perceived, a long, thin-necked man with a +short red beard. She was, he perceived, somebody in a badly fitting +tweed coat and skirt, a person with a used sort of nose and weak eyes. + +"Now then," he said, "I'll go with you anyhow to the end of the avenue. +Where is home?" + +"Kökensee," said Ingeborg, trotting to keep up with him. "It's the next +village. I'm the pastor's wife." + +Ingram--for it was that celebrated artist, then at thirty-five, already +known all over Europe as more especially and letting alone his small +exquisite things a surprising, indeed a disturbingly surprising painter +of portraits--glanced down at her and stepped out more vigorously. +"That's an amusing thing to be," he said. "And quite new." + +"It isn't very new. I've been it eighteen months. Why do you think it's +amusing?" + +"It's different from anything else. Nobody was ever a pastor's wife +in--what did you call it?--before." + +"Kökensee." + +"Kökensee. Kökensee. I like that. You're unique to live in Kökensee. +Nobody else has achieved that." + +"It wasn't very difficult. I just stayed passive and was brought." + +"And they didn't mind?" + +"Who didn't?" + +"Your people. Your father and mother. Or are you Melchisedec and never +had any?" + +"Why should they mind?" + +"Coming so far. It's rather the end of the world. You're right up +against the edge of Russia." + +"I wanted to." + +"Of course. I didn't suppose you were dragged across Europe by your hair +to Kökensee. I'll come all the way with you. I want to see Kökensee." + +"Don't walk so fast, then," said Ingeborg, panting. "I _can't_ walk like +that." + +He looked at her as he went slower. "Is that the effect of Kökensee?" he +said. "Why can't you walk like that? You're only a girl." + +"I'm not a girl at all. I'm a wife, I'm a mother. I'm everything really +now except a mother-in-law and a grandmother. That's all there's still +left to be. I think they're rather dull things, both of them." + +"You won't think so when you've got there." + +"That's the dreadfullest part of it." + +"It's a kindly trick Time plays on us. Are you a real pastor's wife who +goes about her parish being an example?" + +"I haven't yet. But I'm going to." + +"What--not begun in eighteen months? But what do you do then all day +long?" + +"First I cook, and then I--don't cook." + +They were out in the open, on the bit of road that passed between +meadows. Ingram stopped and looked at something over to the left with +sudden absorbed attention. She followed his eyes, but did not see +much--a wisp of mist along the grass, the top twigs of a willow emerging +from it, and above it the faint sky. He said nothing, and presently went +on walking faster than ever. + +"_Please_ go a little slower," begged Ingeborg, her heart thumping with +effort. + +"I think you know," said Ingram, suiting himself to her, "you should be +able to walk better than that." + +"Yes," said Ingeborg. + +"I suppose that's the danger of places like Kökensee--one lets oneself +get slack." + +"Yes," said Ingeborg. + +"You mustn't, you know. Imagine losing one's lines. Just think of the +horrible indefinite lines of a fat woman." + +"Yes," said Ingeborg. "Do you paint much?" she asked, unable to endure +this turn of the conversation. + +He looked at her and laughed. "A good deal," he said. Then he added, +"I'm Ingram." + +"Is that your name? Mine's Dremmel." + +"_Edward_ Ingram," he said, looking at her. It was inconceivable she +should not know. + +"_Ingeborg_ Dremmel," she said, as though it were a game. + +He was silent a moment. Then he stopped with a jerk. "I don't think I'll +come any farther," he said. "The Glambecks will be wondering what has +become of me. Glambeck brought me down for a couple of nights, and I +can't be not there all the time." + +"But you wanted to see Kökensee--" + +"Doesn't anybody ever read in Kökensee?" + +"Read?" + +"Papers? Books? Reviews? Criticisms? What the world's doing in all the +million places that aren't Kökensee? Who everybody is? What's being +thought and created?" + +He had an oddly nettled look. + +"Robert takes in the Norddeutscheallgemeinezeitung, and I've been +reading Kipling--" + +"Kipling! Well, good-bye." + +"But isn't Kipling--why, till I married I had only the Litany." + +"What on earth for?" + +"That and Psalms and things. I felt very _empty_ on the Litany." + +"I can imagine it. I'd lose no more time then in furnishing my +emptiness. Good-bye." + +"Oh, don't go--wait a moment. It's such ages since I've--Furnishing it +how? What ought I--?" + +"Read, read, read--everything you can lay your hands on." + +"But there _isn't_ anything to lay hands on." + +"My dear lady, haven't you postcards? Write to London and order the +reviews to be sent out to you. Get some notion of people and ideas. +Good-bye." + +"Oh--but won't you really come and look at Kökensee?" + +"It's a dark place. I'm afraid what I'd see there would be nothing." + +"There'll be more light to-morrow--" + +"I'm going south again to-morrow with Glambeck. I only came for a day. I +was curious about provincial German interiors. Good-bye." + +"Oh, but do--" + +"My advice is very sound, you know. One can't shut one's eyes and just +sleep while the procession of men and women who are making the world +goes past one, unless"--his eyes glanced over the want of trimness of +her figure, the untidy way her loose coat was fastened--"unless one +doesn't mind running to seed." + +"But I _do_ mind," cried Ingeborg. "It's the last thing I want to run +to--" + +"Then don't. Good-bye." + +He took off his hat and was already several steps away from her by the +time it was on his head again. Then he turned round and called out to +the dejected little figure standing where he had left it in the sandy +road with the grey curtain of mist blurring it: "It really is +_everybody's_ duty to know at least something of what's being done in +the world." + +And he jerked away into the dusk towards Glambeck. + +She stood a long while looking at the place where the gloom had blotted +him out. Wonderful to have met somebody who really talked to one, who +actually told one what to do. She went home making impulsive +resolutions, suddenly brave again, her chin in the air. Ill or not ill +she was not going to be beaten, she was not going to wait another day +before beginning to fill her stupid mind. It was monstrous she should be +so ignorant, so uneducated. What was she made of, then, what poor cheap +stuff, that she could think of nothing better than to cry because she +did not feel as well as she used to? Weren't there heaps of things to do +even when one was ill? Had she not herself heard of sick people whose +minds triumphed so entirely over their prostrate flesh that from really +quite perpetual beds they shed brightness on whole parishes? + +She wrote that night to Mudie demanding catalogues of him almost with +fierceness, and ordered as a beginning the _Spectator_ and _Hibbert +Journal_, both of which at Redchester had been mentioned in her presence +by prebendaries. When they arrived she read them laboriously from cover +to cover, and then ordered all the monthly reviews they advertised. She +subscribed at once to the _Times_ and to a weekly paper called the +_Clarion_ because it was alluded to in one of the reviews; she showered +postcards on Mudie, for whatever books she read about she immediately +bought, deciding that that was as good a way of starting as any other; +and she had not been reading papers a week before she came across Edward +Ingram's name. + +A great light dawned on her. "_Oh_--" she said with a little catch of +the breath, turning hot; and became aware that she had just been having +the most recognisably interesting encounter of her life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +In seven years Ingeborg had six children. She completely realised during +that period the Psalmist's ideal of a reward for a good man and was +altogether the fruitful vine about the walls of his house. She was +uninterruptedly fruitful. She rambled richly. She saw herself, at first +with an astonished chagrin and afterwards with resignation, swarming up +to the eaves of her little home, pauseless, gapless, luxuriantly +threatening choke the very chimneys. At the beginning she deplored this +uninterrupted abundance, for she could not but see that beneath it the +family roof grew a little rotten and sometimes, though she made feeble +efforts to keep it out, a rather dismal rain of discomfort soaked in and +dimmed the brightness of things. Good servants would not come to such a +teeming household. The children that were there suffered because of the +children that were soon going to be there. It was a pity, she thought, +that when one produced a new child one could not simultaneously produce +a new mother for it, so that it should be as well looked after as one's +first child had been. She could mend their stockings, because that could +be done lying on a sofa, but she was never sure about anything else that +concerned them. And there were so many things, such endless vital things +to be seen to if babies were to flourish. And when the first ones grew +bigger and she might have begun those intimate expeditions and +communions with them she used to plan, she found that, too, was +impossible, for she was so deeply engaged in providing them with more +brothers and sisters that she was unable to move. + +The days between her first and second child were the best. She was still +strong enough to tub Robertlet every night and prepare his food, and +keep a watchful eye on him most of the time; also, he was only one, and +easy to deal with. And he was so exact and punctual in his ways that he +seemed like a clock you wound up at regular intervals and knew would +then go on by itself; and his clothes, naturally, were all new and +needed little mending; and she still had Ilse, who did not marry till a +year later; and she had persuaded herself, for one must needs persuade +oneself of something, that after this next baby there would be a pause. + +This persuasion, and the few admonishments Edward Ingram had thrown at +her that afternoon, helped her extraordinarily. So easily could she be +stirred to courage and enthusiasm that she was able to forget most of +her fears and discomforts in the new business of training her mind to +triumph over her body, and she got through a surprising quantity of +mixed reading that winter and spring; and when at last in the following +May her hour had come, she marched off almost recklessly with her two +plaits already hanging down her back and her head held high and her eyes +wide and shining to the fatal bedroom where Death she supposed, but +refused to care, sat waiting to see if he could not get her this time, +so filled was she with the spirit she had been cultivating for six +months of proud determination not to be beaten. + +She was, however, beaten. + +It was the absence of pauses that beat her. She came to be, as the +German phrase put it, in a continual condition of being blest. She came +to be also continually more bloodless. Gradually sinking away more and +more from energy as one child after the other sapped her up, she left +off reading, dropping the more difficult things first. The _Hibbert +Journal_ went almost at once. Soon the _Times_ was looked at languidly +and not opened. The _National Review_ gave her an earache. Presently she +was too far gone even for the _Spectator_. The _Clarion_ lasted longest, +but a growing distaste for its tone caused it finally to be abandoned. +For she was becoming definitely religious; she was ceasing to criticise +or to ask Why? She would sit for hours contemplating the beauty of +acquiescence. It gave her a boneless satisfaction. The more anæmic she +grew the easier religion seemed to be. It was much the least difficult +thing to be passive, to yield, not to think, not to decide, never to +want explanations. And everybody praised her. How nice that was! +Baroness Glambeck approved, Frau Dosch approved loudly. The elder Frau +Dremmel came out each year twice and silently approved of a mother whose +offspring was so strikingly like herself; while as for Kökensee, it +regarded her with the respect due to a person becoming proverbial. It is +true Robert seemed to love her rather less than more, in spite of her +obviously deserving to be loved more than ever now that she was at one +with him about Providence; yet it was hardly fair to say that, either, +for nobody could be kinder than he was when he was not busy. He was busy +from morning to night. How nice that was, she thought, her hands folded; +she had always thought it nice to be busy. + +Of her six children Robertlet flourished, and so did the sister who came +after him. The next two died, one doing it boldly of mumps, a thing that +had never been achieved before and greatly interested the doctor, who +predicted a memorable future for him if he had been going to have one, +and the other, more explicably, by falling out of the punt when his very +existence depended on his keeping in it. Then they took to being born +dead; two of them in succession did this; and it was after the second +had done it that Ingeborg reached her lowest ebb of vitality and could +hardly be got to say a sentence that did not include heaven. + +When she had been up and dressed two months and still lay about on sofas +being religious, Herr Dremmel, who was patient but slowly becoming +conscious that there was an atmosphere of _chapelle ardente_ about his +parlour on his coming into it with the innocent briskness of a good man +to his supper, thought perhaps the Meuk doctor, who by now was a +familiar feature in his life, had better come over and advise; and so it +was that Ingeborg went to Zoppot, that bracing and beautiful seaside +resort near Danzig, leaving her home for the first time since her +marriage, going indeed with as much unwillingness as so will-less a +person could possess, but sent off regardless of her moist opposition by +the doctor, who would not even allow her to take Robertlet and Ditti +with her. + +She went in the care of the nurse who had helped her after Robertlet's +birth, and she was to stay there all June and all July, and all August +and September as well if necessary. + +"But what will they do without me?" she kept on feebly asking. "And my +duties--how can I leave everything?" + +Tears poured down her face at her departure. She gave keepsakes to both +the servants. She sent for the sexton, with whom she had latterly grown +friendly, and tried to speak but could not. She folded the impassive +Robertlet and Ditti to her heart so many times that they were stirred to +something almost approaching activity and resistance. + +"Your prayers--you won't forget what Mummy taught you?" she wept, as +though she were taking leave of them for ever. + +"Dear Robert," she sobbed, clinging to him with her cheek against his on +the platform at Meuk where he saw her off, "do forgive me if I've been a +bad wife to you. I _have_ tried. You won't forget--will you--ever--that +I _did_ try?" + +The nurse gave her a spoonful of Brand's Meat Jelly. The journey was a +journey of jelly combating grief. All the way each relapse into woe was +instantly interrupted by jelly; and it was not till the evening, when +they reached the little pension on the sands which was to be their home +for two months, and Ingeborg going to the open window gave a quick cry +as the full freshness and saltness and heaving glancing beauty burst +upon her, that the nurse threw the rest of the tin away and put her +trust altogether in the sea. + +Herr Dremmel returned to his wifeless home in a meditative frame of +mind. As he jolted along in the same carriage, only grown more shaky, in +which he had brought his bride back seven years before, he indulged, +first, in a brief wonder at the ups and downs of women; from this he +passed to a consideration of the superior reliability of chemicals; from +this, again, he proceeded to reflect that, nevertheless, a man's life +should be decorated at the edges, and that the most satisfactory +decoration was a wife and family. Ingeborg, in spite of her ups and +downs, had been a good wife to him, and he did not regret having +attached her to his edges, but then he also had done his part and been a +good husband to her. Few marriages, he thought, could have been so +harmonious and successful as theirs. He loved her as an honest man +should love his wife--at judicious intervals. Always he had affection +for her, and liked being with her when she was feeling well. Her +money--every wife should have a little--had helped him much, indeed had +made most of the successes that had rewarded his labours possible, and +she had given him a child a year, which was, he was aware, the maximum +output and rendered him civically satisfactory. That these children +should, four of them, not have succeeded in staying alive, and that the +two who had should bear so striking a resemblance to his mother, a +person he knew for unintelligent, were misfortunes, but one did not +dwell on misfortunes; one turned one's back on them and went away and +worked. The central fact of life, its core of splendour, he said to +himself as, arrived at home, he hung up his hat in the passage and +prepared to plunge with renewed appetite into his laboratory, was work; +but, he added as he passed the open door of the sitting-room, and was +reminded by its untidiness of domesticities, since one had to withdraw +occasionally from the heat of that great middle light and refresh +oneself in something cooler, one needed a place of relaxation where the +interest was more attenuated, a ring of relative tepidity round the +bright centre of one's life, and this ring was excellently supplied by +the object commonly called the family circle. The harder he worked, the +more hotly he pursued knowledge, the more urgent was a man's need for +intervals of tepidity. One sought out one's little wife and rested one's +brain; one took one's son on one's knee; one pulled, perhaps, the plait +of one's daughter. + +Life for Herr Dremmel was both great and simple. During the seven years +of his marriage it had become continually more so. There were times he +could remember previous to that event when he had lost sight of this +truth in a confused hankering, periods during which he had hankered +persistently, moments that astonished him afterwards to call to mind +when, the lilacs being out in the garden and the young corn of the +fields asprout in the warm spring sun, his laboratory, that place of +hopes and visions, had incredibly appeared to him to be mere bones. +Marriage had banished these distortions of perception, and he had lived +seven years in the full magnificent consciousness of the greatness and +simplicity of life. He was armoured by his singleness of purpose. He +never came out of his armour and was petty. Not once, while Ingeborg in +a distant corner of the house was fearing that she had hurt him, or +offended him, or had made him think she did not love him, had he been +hurt or offended or thinking anything of the sort. He was absorbed in +great things, great interests, great values. There was no room in his +thoughts for meditations on minor concerns. The days were not wide +enough for the bigness they had to hold, and it never would have +occurred to him to devote any portion of their already limited space to +inquiring if he had been hurt. His interested eyes, carefully examining +and comparing and criticising phenomena, had no time for introspection. +As the years passed and successes followed upon his patience, his +absorption and subjugation by his work became increasingly profound; for +a man has but a handful of years, and cannot during that brief span live +too inquisitively. Herr Dremmel was wringing more out of Nature, who +only asks to be forced to tell, each year. He was accumulating +experiences and knowledge of an interest and value so great that +everything else was trivial beside them. The passing day was forgotten +in the interest of the day that was to come. The future was what his +brain was perpetually concerned with, and an eye ranging with growing +keenness over a growingly splendid and detailed vision cannot observe, +it would be an interruption, a waste to observe, the fluctuations in the +moods of, for instance, a family or a parish. + +Wives, children, and parishes are adornments, obligations, and means of +livelihood. They are what a man has as well, but only as well. Herr +Dremmel during these years had trained his parish to be unobtrusive in +return for his own unobtrusiveness, and in spite of occasional +restiveness on the part of Baron Glambeck, who continued from time to +time, on the ground that the parish was becoming heathen and displaying +the smug contentment characteristic of that condition, to endeavour to +persuade the authorities to remove him somewhere else, was more firmly +established than ever in the heart of a flock that only wanted to be +left alone; and as for his wife and children, he regarded them +benevolently as the necessary foundation of his existence, the airy +cellars that kept the fabric above sweet and dry. Like cellars, one had +to have them, and one was glad when they were good, but one did not live +in them. As a wise man who wished to do fine work before being overtaken +by the incapacitations of death, he had contrived his life so that it +should contain enough love to make him able to forget love. It is not, +he had come to know very well since his marriage, by doing without but +by having that one can clear one's mind of wanting; and it is only the +cleared mind that can achieve anything at all in the great work of +helping the world to move more quickly on its journey towards the light. + +For some weeks after Ingeborg's departure he was immensely unaware of +her absence. It was June, that crowded month for him who has +experimental fields; and small discomforts at home, such as ill-served, +unpunctual meals and rooms growing steadily less dusted, at no time +attracted his notice. He would come out of his laboratory after a good +morning's work in much the same spirit with which the bridegroom issuing +from his chamber, a person details cannot touch, is filled, and would +eat contentedly any food he found lying about and be off to his fields +almost before Robertlet and Ditti had done struggling with their bibs +and saying their preliminary grace. + +The children, however, took no base advantage of this being left to +themselves. Robertlet did not turn on Ditti and seize her dinner because +she was a girl; Ditti did not conceal more than her share of pudding in +her pocket for comfort during the empty afternoon hours. They sat in +silence working through the meal, using their knives to eat with instead +of their forks, for knives rather than forks were in their blood, and +unmoved by the way in which bits they had carefully stalked round and +round their plates ended by tumbling over the edge on to the tablecloth. +They were patient children, and when that happened they made no comment, +but dropping their knives also on the tablecloth picked up the bits in +their fingers and ate them. At the end Ditti said the closing grace as +her mother had taught her, Robertlet having officiated at the opening +one, and they both stood behind their chairs with their eyes shut while +she expressed gratitude in German to the dear Saviour who had had the +friendliness to be their guest on that occasion, and having reached the +Amen, in which Robertlet joined, they did not fall upon each other and +fight, as other unshepherded children filled with meat and pudding might +have done, but left the room in a sober file and went to the kitchen and +requested the servant Rosa, who was the one who would have been their +nurse if they had had one, to accompany them to their bedroom and see +that they cleaned their teeth. + +They spent the afternoons in not being naughty. + +Herr Dremmel, accordingly, because of this health and sobriety in his +children and his own indifference to his comfort, had no domestic +worries such as engulf other men whose wives are away to disturb him, +and it was not till July was drawing to a close and a long drought +forced leisure upon him that Ingeborg's image began to obtrude itself +through the chinks of his work. + +At first he thought of her as a mother, as somebody heavy, continually +recovering from or preparing for illness; but presently he began to +think of her as a wife, as his wife, as his proper complement and +relaxation from all this toil shut up in a dull laboratory. She seemed +to grow brighter and lighter thought of like that, and by the time he +received a letter asking if she might stay away another fortnight to +complete what was being a thorough cure she was so brightly in his mind +that he felt extremely disappointed. + +He wrote giving the permission she asked, and made the discovery that +his house looked empty and that a fortnight was long. He paced the +garden in the hot evenings, smoking beneath the lime-trees where he and +she at the beginning used so gaily to breakfast, and forgot how slow of +movement and mind she had been for several years, how little he had +really seen of her, how more and more his attitude towards her had been +one of patience; and when he went in to his supper, which he suddenly +did not like and criticised, what he found himself looking for was not +the figure he had been used to find lying silent on the sofa, but the +quick, light, flitting thing that laughed and pulled his ears, the +Ingeborg of the beginning, his little sheep. + +On the day she came home, although it was the very height of harvesting +and the first samples of the year's grain lay on his table waiting to be +examined, he gave up the afternoon to driving in to Meuk to meet her, +and waited on the platform with an impatient expectancy he had not felt +for years. + +"It is not good for man to live alone," were his first words as he +embraced her largely in the door of the railway carriage, while the +porter, in a fever to get out the hand luggage and run and attend to +other passengers, had to wait till he had done. "Little sheep, how could +you stay away so long from the old shepherd?" + +She was looking very well, he thought--sunburnt and with many new +freckles, rounder, quite young, a sweet little wife for a long solitary +husband to have coming home to him. + +He lifted her proudly into the carriage and drove through Meuk with his +arm round her, waving the other one at the doctor who rallied past them +in his own high shaky vehicle and shouting, "Cured!" + +The doctor, however, seemed surprised at seeing Ingeborg, and did not +smile back but looked inscrutably at them both. + +She asked about the welfare of the children, and whether their ears had +been properly washed. + +"Ears?" exclaimed Herr Dremmel. "And what, pray, have the ears of others +to do with a reunited wedded couple?" + +She hoped, a little hurriedly, that Rosa and the cook had been good to +him. + +"Rosa and the cook?" he cried. "What talk is this of Rosa and the cook? +If you are not silent with your domesticities I will kiss you here and +now in the middle of the open highroad." + +She said she had never really thanked him for letting her go to Zoppot +and be there so long. + +"Too long, Little One," he interrupted, drawing her closer. "Almost had +I forgotten what a dear little wife I possess." + +"But I'm going to make up for it all now," she said, "and work harder +than I've ever done in my life." + +"At making the good Robert happy," he said, pinching her ear. + +"And doing things for the children. Dreadful to think of them all this +time without me. Were they good?" + +"Good as fishes." + +"Robert--fishes?" + +"They are well, Little One, and happy. That is enough about the +children. Tell me rather about you, how you filled up your days." + +"I walked, I sailed, I bathed, I lay in the sun, and I made +resolutions." + +"Excellent. I shall await the result with interest." + +"I hope you'll like them. I know they'll be very good for the children." + +She had so earnest a face that he pulled it round by the chin and peered +at it. Seen close she was always prettiest, full of delicacy and charm +of soft fair skin, and after examining her a moment with a pleased smile +he stooped down and did, after all, kiss her. + +She flushed and resisted. + +"What?" he said, amused. "The little wife growing virginal again?" + +"You've made my hat crooked," she said, putting up her hands to +straighten it. "Robert, how are the fields?" + +"I will not talk about the fields. I will talk about you." + +"Oh, Robert. You know," she added nervously, "I'm not _really_ well yet. +I've still got to go on taking tiresome things--that tonic, you know. +The doctor there said I'm still anæmic--" + +"We will feed her on portions of the strongest ox." + +"So you mustn't mind, if I--if I--" + +"I mind nothing if only I once more have my little wife at home," said +Herr Dremmel; and when he helped her down on to the parsonage steps, +where stood Robertlet and Ditti in a stiff and proper row waiting +motionless till their mother should have got near enough for them to +present her with the nosegays they were holding, he kissed her again, +and again pinched her ear, and praised God aloud that his widowerhood +was over. + +They had tea, a meal that had long before been substituted for the +heavier refreshment of coffee, in a parlour filled with flowers by Rosa +and the cook, the very cake, baked for the occasion, being strewn with +them. Herr Dremmel lounged on the sofa behind the table looking placidly +content, with one arm round his wife, while Robertlet and Ditti, awed by +the splendours of the decorations for their mother's home-coming and +their own best clothes and spotless bibs, sat opposite, being more +completely good than ever. From their side of the table they stared +unflinchingly at the two people on the sofa--at their comfortably +reclining, pleased-looking father, whom they knew so differently as a +being always hurriedly going somewhere else, at their mother sitting up +very straight, with her veil pushed up over her nose, pouring out tea +and smiling at them and keeping on giving them more jam and more milk +and more cake even after, aware from their sensations that overflowing +could not be far off, they had informed her by anxious repetitions of +the word _satt_, which she did not seem to hear, that they were already +in a dangerous condition. And they wondered dimly why, when she poured +out the tea, her hand shook and made it spill. + +"I will now," said Herr Dremmel when the meal was finished, getting up +and brushing crumbs out of the many folds that were characteristic of +his clothes, "retire for a space into my laboratory." + +He looked at Ingeborg and smiled. "Picture it," he said. "The only +solace I have now had for two months and a half has been in the bony +arms of my laboratory. I grow weary of them. It is well to have one's +little wife home again. A man, to do his work, needs his life complete, +equipped in each of its directions. His laboratory seems bony to him if +he has not also a wife; his wife would seem not bony enough if he had +not also a laboratory. Bony and boneless, bony and boneless--it is the +swing of the pendulum of the wise man's life." And he bent over her and +lifted her face up again by putting his finger under her chin. "Is it +not so, Little One?" he asked, smiling. + +"I--suppose so," said Ingeborg. + +"Suppose so!" + +He laughed, and pulled an escaping tendril of her hair, and went away in +great contentment and immersed himself very happily in the saucers of +new grain waiting to be weighed and counted. + +It was a fine August afternoon, and his windows were open, for there was +no wind to blow his papers about, and he was pleased when he presently +became aware out of the corner of an eye withdrawn an instant from its +work that his wife had come out on to the path below and was walking up +and down it in the way she used to before the acuter period of the sofa +and the interest in life beyond the grave had set in. + +He liked to see her there. There was a grass bank sloping up from the +path to beneath his windows, and by standing on tip-toe on the top of +this and stretching up an arm as far as it would go one was just able to +tap against the glass. He remembered how she used to do this when first +they were married, on very fine days, to try to lure him out from his +duties into dalliance with her among the lilacs. It amused him to find +himself almost inclined to hope she would do it now, for it was long +since there had been dalliance and he felt this was an occasion, this +restoration to normality, on which some slight trifling in a garden +would not be inappropriate. + +But Ingeborg, though she loitered there nearly half an hour, did not +even look up. She wandered up and down in the cool shade the house threw +across the path in the afternoon, her hat off, apparently merely +enjoying the beauty of a summer day bending towards its evening, and +presently he forgot her in the vivid interest of what he was doing; so +that it was the surprised expression of some one who has forgotten and +is trying to recall that he looked at her when, after a knock at the +door which he had not heard, he saw her come in and stand at the corner +of his table waiting till he had done counting--a process he conducted +aloud--to the end of the row of grains he was engaged upon. + +His thoughts were still chiefly with them as he looked up at her when he +had done and had written down the result, but there was room in them +also for a slight wonder that she should be there. She had not +penetrated into his laboratory for years. She had been tamed, after a +period of recurring insurrections, into respect for its sanctity. But he +did not mind being interrupted on this occasion; on the contrary, as +soon as he had fully returned to consciousness he was pleased. There was +a large warmth pervading Herr Dremmel that afternoon which made him +inclined not to mind anything. "Well, Little One?" he said. + +Immediately she began to deliver what sounded like a speech. He gazed at +her in astonishment. She appeared to be in a condition of extreme +excitement; she was addressing him rapidly in a trembling voice; she was +much flushed, and was holding on to the edge of the table. It was so +sudden and so headlong that it was like nothing so much as the gushing +forth of the long corked-up contents of an over-full bottle, and he +gazed at her in an astonishment that did not for some time permit him to +gather the drift of what she was saying. + +When he did she had already got to the word Ruins. + +"Ruins?" repeated Herr Dremmel. + +"Ruins, ruins. It _must_ stop--it _can't_ go on. Oh, I saw it so clearly +the last part of the time in Zoppot. I suppose it was the sea wind blew +me clear. Our existence, Robert, our decently happy existence in a +decently happy home with properly cared-for children--" + +"But," interrupted Herr Dremmel, raising his hand, "one moment--what is +it that must stop?" + +"Oh, don't you see all that will be in ruins about us--but in _ruins_, +Robert--all our happy life--if I go on in this--in this wild career +of--of unbridled motherhood?" + +Herr Dremmel stared. "Unbridled--?" he began; then he repeated, so deep +was his astonishment, "Wild career of--Ingeborg, did you say unbridled +motherhood?" + +"Yes," said Ingeborg, pressing her hands together, evidently +extraordinarily agitated. "I learned that by heart at Zoppot, on purpose +to say to you. I knew if I didn't directly I got into this room I'd +forget everything I meant to say. I know it sounds ridiculous, the way I +say it--" + +"Unbridled motherhood?" repeated Herr Dremmel. "But--are you not a +pastor's wife?" + +"Oh, yes, yes--I know, I know. I know there's Duty and Providence, but +there's me, too--there is me, too. And, Robert, won't you see? We shall +be happy again if I'm well, we shall be two real people instead of just +one person and a bit of one--you and a battered thing on a sofa--" + +"Ingeborg, you call a wife and a mother engaged in carrying out her +obligations a battered thing on a sofa?" + +"Yes," said Ingeborg, hurrying on to the principal sentence of those she +had prepared at Zoppot and learned by heart, desperately clutching at it +before Robert's questions had undermined her courage and befogged the +issues. "Yes, and I've come to the conclusion after ripe +meditation--after ripe yes--the production of the--of the--yes, of the +already extinct"--(dead seemed an unkind word, almost rude) "is +wasteful, and that--and that--....Oh, Robert," she cried, flinging out +her hands and letting go all the rest of the things she had learned to +say, "don't you think this persistent parenthood might end now?" + +He stared at her in utter amazement. + +"It--it _disagrees_ with me," she said, tears in her voice and in her +anxious, appealing eyes. + +"Am I to under--" + +"Anyhow _I_ can't go on," she cried, twisting her fingers about in an +agony. "There's so little of me to go on _with_. I'm getting stupider +every day. I've got no brains left. I've got no anything. Why, I can +hardly get together enough courage to tell you this. Oh, Robert," she +appealed, "it isn't as though it made you _really_ happier--you don't +really _particularly_ notice the children when they're there--it isn't +as though it made anybody _really_ happier--and--and--I'm dreadfully +sorry, but I've done." + +And she dropped on to the floor beside him and put her cheek against his +sleeve and tried to make up by kissing it and clinging to it for her +subversion of that strange tremendous combination of Duty and Providence +that so bestrode her life. "If only you wouldn't _mind_--" she kept on +saying. + +But Herr Dremmel, for the first time since he had known her, was deeply +offended, deeply hurt. She had pierced his armour at the one vulnerable +spot. His manhood was outraged; his kindness, his patience, his +affection were forgotten and spurned. He looked down at the head against +his arm with a face in which wounded pride, wrath, shockedness at so +great a defiance of duty, and the amazed aggrievement of him whose gifts +and blessings are not wanted, struggled together. Then, as she still +went on clinging and incoherently suggesting that he should not mind, he +rose up, took her by the hand, helped her to her feet, and led her to +the door; and there, after facing her a moment in silence with it opened +in his hand while she stood blinking up at him with appealing eyes, he +said dreadfully: "Evidently you do not and never have loved me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Ingeborg crept away down the passage with the sound in her ears of the +key being turned in the lock behind her. + +She was crushed. That Robert should think she had never loved him, that +he should not even let her tell him how much she had and did! She stared +out of the little window at the foot of the stairs at the untidy +vegetables in the garden. This was the quality of life--Brussels +sprouts, and a door being locked behind one. It was all grey and +difficult and tragic. She had hurt Robert, offended him. He was in there +thinking she didn't love him. What he had said was peculiarly shattering +coming from a mouth that had been always kind. Yet what was there to do +but this? The alternative, it seemed, was somebody's dying; and if the +children did live there would be the death of the spirit, the decay of +all lovely things in the home, the darkening of all light; there would +be neglect, apathy, an utter running to seed. But she felt guilty and +conscience-stricken. She was no longer sure she was right. Perhaps it +was indeed her duty to go on, perhaps she was indeed being wicked and +cruel. The clearness of vision that had been hers at Zoppot was blurred; +she was confused, infinitely distressed. Yet through the distress and +confusion there kept on jabbing something like a little spear of light, +and always it pointed in this one direction.... + +She stood leaning against the wall by the open window, a miserable +mixture of doubt and conviction, remorse and determination. All her life +she had been servile--servile with the sudden rare tremendous +insurrections that upheave certain natures brought up in servility, +swift tempests more devastating than the steady fighting of systematic +rebels. Her insurrections were epoch-making. When they occurred the +destiny of an entire family was changed. Fathers and husbands were not +prepared for anything but continued acquiescence in one so constantly +acquiescent. As far as she was concerned they felt they might sleep +peacefully in their beds. Then this obedient thing, this pliable +uncontradicting thing would return, for instance, from an illicit trip +abroad, betrothed to an unknown foreigner, and somehow in spite of +violent opposition marry him; or, as in this second volcanic upheaval, +with no preliminaries whatever, refuse point blank--the final effect on +Herr Dremmel's mind of her incoherence was a point blankness--to live +with her husband as his wife. + +Behind the locked door his anger was as great as her distressed +confusion outside it. She was to be his wife but not his wife. Under his +roof. A perpetual irritation. She had decreed, this woman who had +nothing to decree, that there were to be no more Dremmels. The +indignation of the thwarted ancestor was heavy upon him. Her moral +obliquity shocked him, her disregard for the give and take necessary if +a civilised community is to continue efficient. How was he going to work +with that constant reminder about his house of his past placidities? +Already it had begun, the annoyance, the hindering, for here he was +sitting in front of his samples making mistakes in weighing, adding up +wrong, forced by humiliatingly different results each time to count the +grains over and over again. + +Driven by the stress of the situation to unfairness, he remembered with +a kind of bitter affection those widows who had darkened his past so +soothingly before his marriage, the emotional peace their bony +dustiness, their bonneted dinginess had secured him. They had been, he +perceived, like a dark blind shading his eyes from the tormenting glare +of too much domesticity. The most infuriated of that black and blessed +band had been better than this threatening excess of relationship. Not +one had ever come between him and his steady reaching forward. Not one +had even once caused him to count his grains twice over. A man who +wishes to work, he told himself, must clear his life of women; of all +women, that is--for there are certain elementary actions connected with +saucepans and bedmaking that only women will do--except widows. A wife +who is not a wife and who yet persists in looking as if she were one, +can be nothing but a goad and a burden for an honest man. Either she +should look like some one used up and finished or she should continue to +discharge her honourable functions until such time as she developed the +physical unattractiveness that placed her definitely on the list of +women one respects. That Ingeborg should choose the moment when she +seemed younger and rounder than ever to revolt against Duty and +Providence appeared to him in his first wrath deliberately malicious. He +was amazed. He could not believe he was being called out of his +important and serious work, beckoned out of it just when it was going so +well, in order to be hurt, in order to be made acquainted with pain, and +by her of all people in the world whom he used to call--surely he had +been kind?--his little sheep. To be hit by one's sheep! To be hit +violently by it so that the blows actually shook one at the very moment +of greatest affection for it, of rejoicing over its return, of plunging +one's hands most confidently into the comfort of its wool! + +Herr Dremmel was amazed. + +He stayed in his laboratory in this condition till supper; then, during +the meal, he carefully read a book which he propped up in front of him +against the loaf, while Ingeborg, ministering to him with the eager +deftness of the conscience-stricken, watched for a sign of forgiveness +out of the corners of red eyes. + +He stayed after supper in his laboratory till past midnight, still being +amazed, reduced indeed at last to walking up and down that calm temple +of untiring attempts to nail down ultimate causes, considering how best +he could bring his wife to reason. + +The business of bringing a woman to reason had always seemed to him +quite the most extravagant way of wasting good time. To have to discuss, +argue, explain, threaten, adjure, only in order to get back to the point +from which nobody ought ever to have started, was the silliest of all +silly necessities. Again he fumed at the thought of an untractable, +undutiful wife about him, and recognised the acute need to be clear of +feminine childishness, egotism, unforeseeable resiliences, if a man +would work. In his stirred stale it appeared altogether monstrous that +the whole world should be blotted out, the great wide world of +magnificent opportunity and spacious interest, even for a day, even for +an hour, by the power to make him uncomfortable, by the power to make +him concentrate his brains on an irrelevant situation, of one small +woman. + +He went to their room about half-past twelve determined to have no more +of the nonsense. He would bring her then and there, by the shortest +possible route, to reason. He would have it out even to the extent of +severity and have done with it. He was master, and if she forced him to +emphasize the fact he would. + +Carrying the lamp he went to their room with the firm footsteps of one +who has ceased to be going to stand things. + +But the room was empty. It was as chillily empty of wifely traces as it +had been since the beginning of June. + +"This is paltry," thought Herr Dremmel, feeling the offence was now so +great as to have become ridiculous; and determined to discover into what +fastness she had withdrawn and fetch her out of it, he went lamp in hand +doggedly through the house looking for her, beginning with the thorough +patience of one accustomed to research in the kitchen, where shy +cockroaches peeped at him round the legs of tables, examining the +parlour, stuffy with the exhaustion of an ended day, penetrating into a +room in which Rosa and the cook reared themselves up in their beds to +regard him with horror unspeakable, and at last stumbling up the narrow +staircase to where Robertlet and Ditti slept the sleep of the +unvaryingly just. + +Here, in a third small bed of the truckle type, lay his defaulting wife, +her face to the wall, her body composed into an excess of +motionlessness. + +"Ingeborg!" he called, holding the lamp high over his head. + +But she did not stir. + +"Ingeborg!" he called again. + +But never did woman sleep so soundly. + +He walked across to the bed and bent over, searching her face by the +light of the lamp. Most of it was buried in the pillow, but the one eye +visible was tightly shut, more immensely asleep than any eye he had ever +seen. + +The indifference that could sleep while her outraged husband was looking +for her revolted him. Without making any further attempt to wake her he +turned on his heel, and slamming the door behind him went downstairs +again. + +"That is thieves at last," remarked Ditti, who had been expecting them +for years, brought out of her dreams--good dreams--by the noise of the +door. + +"Yes," said Robertlet, also roused from dreams that did him credit. + +"We must now get under the clothes," said Ditti, who had settled long +ago what would be the right thing to do. + +"Yes," said Robertlet. + +"You needn't," said Ingeborg out of the darkness--they both started, +they had forgotten she was there--"it was only Papa." + +But the thought of Papa coming up to their room and banging the door in +the middle of the night filled them in its strangeness with an even +greater uneasiness; they would have preferred thieves; and after some +preliminary lying quiet and being good they one after the other withdrew +as silently as possible beneath the comfort of the clothes, where they +waited in neat patience for the next thing Papa might do until, stifled +but uncomplaining, they once more fell asleep. + +There followed some days of strain in the Kökensee parsonage. + +Herr Dremmel retired into an extremity of silence, made no allusion to +these regrettable incidents, became at meals a mere figure behind a +newspaper, and at other times was not there at all. + +He had decided that he would not waste his energies in anger. At the +earliest opportunity he would drive in to Meuk, call on the doctor, and +after explaining the effect of Zoppot, a place which was to have cured +her, on his wife, request him now to prescribe a cure for the cure. It +was Ingeborg's business to come to her husband and ask for forgiveness, +and he would give her these few days in which to do it. If she did not +he would know, after consultation with the doctor, what course to +take--whether of severity, or whether, setting aside his manhood, it was +not rather an occasion on which one ought to coax. He was, after all, +too humane to resort without medical sanction to scenes. Perhaps what +she needed was only a corrective to Zoppot. There was such a thing as +excess of salubriousness. + +Having made up his mind, he found himself calmer, able to work again in +the knowledge that in a few days he would be clear, with the aid of the +doctor, as to what should be done; and Ingeborg had nothing to complain +of except that he would not speak. Several times she tried to reopen the +so hastily closed subject, but got no further in the face of his +monumental silence than "But, Robert--" + +She took the children for outings in the forest, and while they did not +chatter merrily together and did not play at games she thought over all +the ways that were really tactful of luring him to reasonable +discussion. She knew she had made a lamentable first appearance in the +_rôle_ of a retiring mother, but how difficult it was when you felt +overwhelmingly to talk objectively. And then there were tears. A woman +cried, and what a handicap that was. Before the first semicolon in any +vital discourse with one's husband was reached one was dissolved in +tears, thought Ingeborg, ashamed and resentful; and Robert grew so calm +and patient, so disconcertingly calm and patient when faced by crying; +he sat there like some large god, untouched by human distress, waiting +for the return of reason. It is true he cried, too, sometimes, but only +about odd things like Christmas Eves and sons if they were sufficiently +new born--things that came under the category surely of cheerful, at +most of cheerfully touching; but he never cried about these great +important issues, these questions on which all one's happiness hung. +Life would run more easily, she thought, if husbands and wives had the +same taste in tears. + +Four days after her return home she asked him to forgive her. + +It was at the end of supper, and he had just removed his book from the +supporting loaf and was getting up to go when she ran across to him with +the quickness of despair and laid hold of him by both his sleeves and +said, "Forgive me." + +He looked down at her with a gleam in his eye; he would not have to go +to Meuk after all. + +"Do," she begged. "Robert! Do! You know I love you. I'm so miserable to +have hurt you. Do let's be friends. Won't we?" + +"Friends?" echoed Herr Dremmel, drawing back. "Is that all you have to +say to me?" + +"Oh, do be friends! I can't bear this." + +"Ingeborg," he said with the severity of disappointment, pulling his +sleeves out of her hands and going to the door, "have you then not yet +discovered that a true husband and wife can never be friends?" + +"Oh, but how dreadful!" said Ingeborg, dropping her hands by her side +and staring after him as he went out. + +Toward the end of the week, when her unassisted meditations continued to +produce no suggestions of any use for removing the stain that +undoubtedly rested on her, she thought she would go in to Meuk and seek +the counsel of the doctor. He had always been good to her, kind and +understanding. She would go to him more in the spirit of one who goes to +a priest than to a doctor, and inquire of him earnestly what she should +do to be saved. + +She found the position at home unendurable. If the doctor told her that +it was her duty to go on having children, and that it was mere chance +the two last had been born dead, she would resume her career. It was a +miserable career--a terrible, maimed thing--but less miserable than +doubt as to whether one were not being wicked and Robert was being +utterly right. Not for nothing was she the daughter of a bishop, and had +enjoyed for twenty-two years the privileges of a Christian home. Also +she well knew that the public opinion of Kökensee and Glambeck would be +against her in this matter of rebellion, and she felt too weak to stand +up alone against these big things. She had never been able to hold out +long against prolonged disapproval; nor had she ever been able to endure +that people round her should not be happy. By the end of the week she +was so wretched and so full of doubts that she decided to put her trust +in Meuk and abide by the decision of its doctor; and so it happened that +she set out on the five-mile walk to it on the same day on which Herr +Dremmel drove there. + +He had driven off in the middle of the morning with sandwiches for +himself and the coachman in the direction of the experiment ground, +telling her he would not be in till the evening, so she seized the +favourable opportunity and, also armed with sandwiches, started soon +after twelve o'clock for Meuk. The doctor's consulting hour was, she +knew, from two to three, and if she were there punctually at two she +could talk to him, have her fate decided, and be home again by four. + +She walked along the edge of the harvested rye-fields eating her +sandwiches as she went, and refusing to think for this brief hour and a +half of the difficulties of life. Her mind was weary of them. She would +put them away from her for this one walk. It was the brightest of August +middays. The world seemed filled with every element of happiness. Some +people, probably friends of the Glambecks, were shooting partridges over +the stubble. The lupin fields were in their full glory, and their +peculiar orange scent met her all along the way. There was a mile of +sandy track to be waded through, and then came four good miles of hard +white highroad between reddening mountain ashes to Meuk. Walking in that +clear fresh warmth, so bright with colour, so sweet with scents, she +could not but begin gradually to glow, and by the time she arrived at +the doctor's house, however wan her spirits might be, the rest of her +was so rosy that the servant who opened the door tried to head her off +from the waiting-room to the other end of the passage, persuaded that +what she had come for could not be the doctor, but an animated call on +the doctor's wife. She entered the waiting-room, a dingy place, with +much the effect of a shaft of light piercing through a fog; and there, +sitting at the table, turning over the fingered and aged piles of +illustrated weeklies, she found Herr Dremmel. For a moment they stared +at each other. + +There was no one else there. Through folding-doors could be heard the +murmur of a patient consulting in the next room. Meuk was not usually a +sick place, and nine times out of ten the doctor read his newspaper +undisturbed from two to three; this was the tenth time, and though it +had only just struck two a patient was with him already. + +Herr Dremmel and Ingeborg stared at each other for a moment without +speaking. Then he said, suddenly angered by the realisation that she had +come in to Meuk without asking him if she might, "You did not tell me +you were coming here." + +"No," said Ingeborg. + +"Why have you come?" + +She sat down as inconspicuously as she could on the edge of a chair in a +corner and clung to her umbrella. It was the awkwardest thing meeting +Robert there. + +"I--I just thought I would," she murmured. + +"You do not look ill. You were not ill this morning." + +"It's--psychological," murmured Ingeborg unnerved, and laying hold of +the first word that darted into her undisciplined brain. + +"Psycho--?" + +"Are _you_ ill, Robert?" she asked, suddenly anxious. "Why have _you_ +come?" + +"My dear wife, that is my affair," said Herr Dremmel, who was +particularly annoyed and puzzled by her presence. + +"Oh," murmured Ingeborg. She had never yet heard herself called his dear +wife, and felt the immensity of her relegation to her proper place. + +He fluttered the pages of the _Fliegende Blätter_; she held on tighter +to what seemed to be her only friend, her umbrella. + +"Did you walk?" he asked presently, letting off the question at her like +a gun. + +"Yes--oh, yes," said Ingeborg, with hasty meekness. + +What had she come for? thought Herr Dremmel, fluttering the pages +faster. Ridiculous to pretend she needed a doctor. She looked, sitting +there with her unusual pink cheeks, like a flourishing sixteen--at most +eighteen. + +What had he come for? thought Ingeborg, wishing life would not deal so +upsettingly in coincidences, and keeping her eyes carefully on the +carpet. Then a swift fear jumped at her heart--suppose he were ill? +Suppose he had begun to have one of those large, determined, obscure +diseases that seem to mow down men and make the world so much a place of +widows? She had observed that for one widower in Kökensee and the +surrounding district there were ten widows. The women appeared to ail +through life, constantly being smitten down by one thing after the +other, but at least they stayed alive; while the men, who went year by +year out robustly to work, died after a single smiting. "Perhaps it's +want of practice in being smitten," she thought; and looked anxiously +under her eyelashes at Robert, struggling with a desire to go over and +implore him to tell her what was the matter. In another moment she would +have gone, driven across by her impulses, if the folding-doors had not +been thrown open and the doctor appeared bowing. + +"_Darf ich bitten_?" said the doctor to Herr Dremmel, not perceiving +Ingeborg, who was shuttered out of sight by the one half of the door he +had opened. "Ah--it is the Herr Pastor," he added less officially on +recognising him, and advanced holding out his hand. "I hope, my friend, +there is nothing wrong with you?" + +Herr Dremmel did not answer, but seizing his hat made a movement of a +forestalling character towards the consulting room; and the doctor +turning to follow him beheld Ingeborg in her corner behind the door. + +"Ah--the Frau Pastor," he said, bowing again and again advancing with an +extended hand. "Which," he added, looking from one to the other, "is the +patient?" + +But Herr Dremmel's back, disappearing with determination into the next +room, suggested an acute need of assistance not visible in his wife's +retiring attitude. + +"You'll tell me the _truth_ about him, won't you?" she whispered, +anxiously. "You won't hide things from me?" + +The doctor looked grave. "Is it so serious?" he asked; and hurried after +Herr Dremmel and shut the door. + +Ingeborg sat and waited for what seemed a long time. She heard much +murmuring, and often both voices murmured together, which puzzled her. +Sometimes, indeed, they ceased to be murmurs and rose to a point at +which they became distinct--"You forget I am a Christian pastor," she +heard Robert say--but they dropped again, though never into a pause, +never into those moments of silence during which Robert might be guessed +to be putting out his tongue or having suspect portions of his person +prodded. She sat there worried and anxious, all her own affairs +forgotten in this fear of something amiss with him; and when at last the +door opened again and both men came out she got up eagerly and said, +"Well?" + +Herr Dremmel was looking very solemn; more entirely solemn than she had +ever seen him; almost as though he had already attained to that crown of +a man's career, that final touch of all, that last gift to the world, a +widow and orphans. The doctor's face was a careful blank. + +"Well?" said Ingeborg again, greatly alarmed. + +"Does the Frau Pastor also wish to consult me?" asked the doctor. + +"Yes. I did. But it doesn't really matter now. Robert--" + +Herr Dremmel was putting on his hat very firmly and going towards the +outer door without saying good-bye to the doctor. "I will wait for you +outside and drive you home, Ingeborg," he said, not looking round. + +She stared after him. "Is he very ill?" she asked, turning to the +doctor. + +"No." + +"No?" + +"No," said the doctor, with a stress on it. + +"But--" + +"And you look very well, too. Pray, keep so. It is not necessary, +judging from your appearance, to consult me further. I will conduct you +to your carriage." + +"But--" said Ingeborg, who found herself being offered an arm and led +ceremoniously after Robert. + +"Take your tonic, be much in the sun, and alter nothing in your present +mode of life," said the doctor. + +"But Robert--" + +"The Herr Pastor enjoys excellent health, and will throw himself with +more zeal than ever into his work." + +"Then why--" + +"And the Frau Pastor will do her duty." + +"Yes." + +She stopped and faced him. "Yes," she said, "I'm going to, but--what is +my duty?" + +"My dear Frau Pastor, there is only one left. You have discharged all +the others. Your one duty now is to keep well in body and mind, provide +your two children with a capable mother, and your husband with a +companion possessed of the intelligent amiability that springs from good +health." + +"But Robert--?" + +"He has been consulting me about you. I will not allow you to turn him, +who deserves so well of fate, into that unhappy object, a widower." + +"Oh? So really--?" + +He opened the front door. "Yes," he said, "really." + +And he handed her up into the seat next to Herr Dremmel and waved them +off on their homeward journey with friendly gestures. + +And Ingeborg, now aware that the real cause of Robert's preternatural +gloom was the dread of losing her, not the dread of leaving her, was +deeply touched and full of a desire to express her appreciation. She +slid her hand through his arm and spent the time between Meuk and +Kökensee earnestly endeavouring to reassure him. He was not, after all, +she eagerly explained, going to be a widower. + +He bore her comforting in silence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Being a wise man, Herr Dremmel lost no time in fidgeting or lamenting +over the inevitable, but having heard the doctor's summing up, which was +expressed in the one firm word repeated over and over again like a +series of blows, _ausgeschlossen_, he ruled Ingeborg out of his thoughts +as a wife and proceeded to train himself to contemplate her as a sister. + +After a short period of solemnity, for he was not sure whether the +training would not be tormenting and grievously interfere with his work, +he became serene again, for to his satisfaction he found it easy. The +annoyance of having supposed his wife to be undutiful, the pain of +having believed her to be deliberately hurting him, was removed. He was +faced by a simple fact that had nothing to do with personalities. It was +unfortunate that he should have married some one who was so very, he +could not help thinking, easily killed, but on the other hand he was +less dependent on domestic joys than most members of that peculiarly +dependent profession, the Church, for he had his brains. He was +surprised how easy, once he recognised its inevitability, the +readjustment of the relationship was, how easily and comfortably he +forgot. She seemed to drop off him like a leaf off a tree in autumn, a +light thing whose detachment from the great remaining strength, the +reaching down and reaching up, was not felt. His mind became fitted with +wife-tight compartments. He ceased, he who had feared these things might +come to be an obsession, so much as to see that she was pretty, that she +was soft, that she was sweet. Just as when first he met her he had been +pleased and interested to find he could fall in love so now he was +pleased and interested to find, when it was a matter of reason and +necessity, he could fall out again. He was, it seemed, master of +himself. Passions were his servants, and came only as it were when he +rang the bell. All one had to do then was not to ring the bell. With +satisfaction he observed that in a crisis of the emotions (he supposed +one might fairly call it that) the training he had bestowed on his +reason, the attention he had given it from his youth up, was bearing +fruit not only abundant but ripe. Ingeborg was transformed in his eyes +with gratifying rapidity into a sister--a gentle maiden sister who on +the demise of his wife had taken over the housekeeping; and when in the +evenings he bade her a kind good-night he found himself doing it quite +naturally on her forehead. He did not tell her she had become a sister; +he merely rearranged his life on these new lines; and he did, as the +doctor had predicted, throw himself into his work with more zeal than +ever, and very soon was once again being pervaded by the blessed calms, +the serenities, the unequalled harmonies that are the portion of him who +diligently does what he is interested in. + +But Ingeborg, who had neglected her reason in her youth and whose mind +consequently was strictly undisciplined, spent the first few weeks of +being a sister in a condition of what can only be described as fluffing +about. She took hold of an end of life here that seemed to be sticking +out and tugged it, and of an end of life there that seemed to be +sticking out and tugged it, and looked at them inquiringly and let them +go again. She did not quite know, so rich in liberty had she suddenly +become, where to begin. There were so many ends to life, and she was so +free to choose that she blinked a little. Here were her days, swept out +and empty for her at last. Here she was able to say magnificently, "Next +month I'll do this or that," sure of her months, sure of their being +arrangeable things, flexible to her will, not each just a great black +leaden weight holding her pinned down more and more heavily to a sofa. +And not only could she say confidently what she would do next month, but +also, and this small thing like many other small things of the sort +seemed curiously new and delightful, she could say confidently what she +would wear. All those dreary tea-gowns in which she had trailed through +the seven years of her marriage, dark garments whose sole function was +to hide, were given to Ilse, her first servant, who had married poverty +and who frugally turned them into trousers of assorted shapes for her +husband, embittering him permanently; and from long-forgotten cupboards +she got out small neat frocks again, portions of her unworn tremendous +trousseau, short things, washable and tidy, and was refreshed into +respect for herself as a decent human being by the mere putting of them +on. + +Her days at first held any number of these new sensations or rather +recognitions of sensations that used in her girlhood to be a matter of +course, but now were seen to be extraordinarily precious. She spilt over +like a brimming chalice of gratefulness for the great common things of +life--sleep, hunger, power to move about, freedom from fear, freedom +from pain. Her returning health ran through her veins like some +exquisite delicate wine. She was now thirty, and had never felt so +young. Wonderful to wake up in the morning to another day of being well. +Wonderful being allowed to be alive in a world so utterly beautiful, so +full of opportunity. She had all the thankfulness, the tender giving of +herself up confidently to joy of the convalescent. She was happy just to +sit on fine mornings on the doorstep in the sun drinking things in. +Robertlet and Ditti had never been so much kissed; Rosa and the cook had +never been asked so often after their ailing mothers; Kökensee had never +been so near having a series of entertainments arranged for it. The very +cat was stroked with a fresh sense of fellowship, the very watchdog, at +one time suspected of surliness, was loved anew; and when she passed +through the yard she did not fail to pause and gaze with a sunny +determined kindness at the pig. + +But though she passionately wanted to make everybody and everything +happy in return for Robert's goodness to her, in return for the kind way +she thought he was accepting her decision and not once after that first +outbreak reproaching her, she had been anchored too long to one definite +behaviour not to feel a little unsteady when first let loose. She +hovered uncertainly round the edges of life, fingering them, trying to +feel the point where she could best catch hold and climb into its +fulness again. + +It was oddly difficult. + +Was it that she had been out of things for so many years? Had she then +become a specialist? As the weeks passed and the first sheer delight in +just being well was blunted by repetition, she began to be puzzled. +Everything began to puzzle her--herself, Robert, the children, the +servants. Robert puzzled her extremely. Whenever before she had been +happy, a cheerful singing thing, he had loved her. She knew he had. She +had only to be in a gay mood, in the mood that recklessly didn't mind +whether he liked it or not but sat on his knee and insisted on his +listening while she talked, half in earnest and half amused, about the +bigger, vaguer, windier aspects of life, for him to come up out of the +depths of his meditations and laugh and pet her. Now nothing fetched him +up. He was quite unresponsive. He seemed beyond her reach, in some +strange retreat where she could not get at him. She had never felt so +far away from him. He was not angry evidently; he was quite kind. She +could not guess that this steady unenthusiastic kindness was the natural +expression of a fraternal regard. + +"But he does _love_ me," she said to herself, altogether unaware of the +smallness of the place in the world occupied by negative persons like +sisters--"he does _love_ me." + +She said it several times a day, hugging it to herself as the weeks went +on in much the same way that a coachman, growing cold on his box, hugs +his chest, not having anything else to hug, at intervals to keep his +circulation going; and particularly she said it on her way up to the +attic after the administration of the good-night kiss. + +In spite of this assurance, she found herself presently beginning to +hesitate before she spoke to him or touched him, wondering whether he +would like it. She tried to shake off these increasing timidities, and +once or twice intrepidly stroked his hair; but his head, bent over his +dinner or his book, seemed unconscious that she was doing it, and she +felt unable to go on. + +"But he does _love_ me," she said to herself. + +It was not long before she perceived definitely that she had ceased to +amuse him, and the moment she discovered this she ceased to be amusing: +her gaiety went out like a light. + +"But he does _love_ me," she still said to herself. + +He called her Ingeborg regularly, never wife or Little One, and it soon +came to be unthinkable that she should ever have been his treasure, +snail, or sheep. He did it, however, quite kindly, with no trace of the +rebuke it used invariably to contain. + +"But he does _love_ me," she still said to herself. + +Puzzled, she racked her brain to think of ways to please him, and tried +to make his house as comfortably perfect for him as possible, performing +every duty she could find or invent with a thoroughness that by eleven +o'clock in the morning had exhausted the supply. Herr Dremmel, however, +was not accessible by ways of order and good food; he had never noticed +their absence, and he did not now notice their presence. She saw after a +while herself that his sum of happiness was not in the least increased +by them. How could she make him happy, then? What could she do to make +his life the brightest serene thing? + +It was a shock to her, an immense and shattering surprise, the day she +realised that all this time he was, in fact, being happy. She walked in +the garden long that day, staring hard at this new perception, +pondering, astonished. + +"But he does _l_--" she began; and stopped. + +Did he? What was the good of saying he did if he didn't? Was everything +with him, and perhaps with other husbands--she knew so little about +husbands--bound up with parenthood? Was it true, what he said to her the +day she begged him to be friends, that a husband and wife could never be +friends? She felt so entirely able to love Robert, to love him tenderly +and deeply, without perpetually being somebody's mother. Perhaps wives +could be friends and husbands couldn't. She wished she knew more about +these things. She felt she did not rightly understand; and suspected, +walking up and down the damp October garden, that being a bishop's +daughter was an inefficient preparation for being anybody's wife. It +kept one's mind muffled. You were brought up not to look. If you wanted +to see you had to be furtive and peep at life over the edge, as it were, +of your Prayer-book, which made you feel wicked and didn't give you any +sort of a view. All bishops' daughters, she said to herself walking +fast, for her thoughts became tumultuous on this subject, ought to be +maiden ladies; or, if they couldn't manage that as St. Paul would say, +they should at least only marry more bishops. Not curates, not vicars, +not mysterious elusivenesses like German pastors, but bishops. People +they were used to. People they understood. Continuations. Second +volumes. Sequels. Aprons. Curates might have convulsive moments that +would worry souls blanched white by the keeping out of the light, souls +like celery, no whiter than anybody else's if left properly to +themselves, but blanched by a continual banking up round them of +episcopal mould; and even a vicar might conceivably sometimes be +headlong; while as for a German pastor.... She flung out her hands. + +Well, Robert was not headlong. No one could accuse him of anything but +the most steady sequence in his steps. But he was, she thought, not +having the clue to Herr Dremmel's conduct, incomprehensible. With the +simple faith of women, that faith that holds out against so many +enlightenments and whose artless mainspring is vanity, she had believed +quite firmly that every sweet and admiring assurance he had ever given +her would go on changelessly and indefinitely holding good, she had +believed she knew and understood him better than he did himself, and +that at any time she wanted to she had only to reach out her hand to be +able to help herself to more of his love. This faith in herself and in +her power, if she really wished, to charm him, she called having faith +in him. It took six weeks of steadily continued mild indifference on +Herr Dremmel's part, of placid imperviousness to all approaches of an +affectionate nature, of the most obvious keen relish in his work, keener +than he had yet shown, to reveal the truth at last to her; and greatly +was she astonished. He was happy, and he was happy without her! "And +that," said Ingeborg, unable to resist the conclusion pressed upon her, +"isn't love." + +She stopped a moment beneath the gently dripping trees and took off her +knitted cap and shook it dry, for she had inadvertently brushed against +an overhanging branch on which last summer's leaves still wetly clung. + +She pulled out her handkerchief and rubbed her cap thoughtfully. It had +been raining all the morning, and now late in the afternoon the garden +was a quiet grey place of fallen leaves and gathering dusk and +occasional small shakings of wet off the trees when a silent bird +perched on the sodden branches. Some drops fell on her bare head while +she was drying her cap. She put up her hand mechanically and rubbed them +off. She stood wiping her cap long after it was dry, absorbed in +thought. + +"I don't know what it is," she said presently, half aloud, "but I do +know what it isn't." + +She put on her cap again, pulling it over her ears with both hands and +much care, and staring while she did it at a slug in the path in front +of her. + +"And what it isn't," she said after another interval, shaking her head +and screwing up her face into an expression of profoundest negation, "is +love." + +"_Well_," she added, deeply astonished. + +Then, with a flash of insight, "It's because he works." + +Then, with a quick desire to cover up the wound to her vanity, "If he +didn't get lost in his work he'd _remember_ he loves me--it's only that +he _forgets_." + +Then, with a white flare of candour, "He's a bigger thing than I am." + +Then, with the old eagerness to help, "So it's my business to see that +he can be big in happy peace." + +Then, remembrance smiting her with its flat, cold hand, "But he _is_ +happy." + +Then, "So where do I come in?" + +Then, with a great, frank acceptance of the truth, "I don't come in." + +Then, swept by swift, indignant honesty, "Why should I _want_ to come +in? What is all this coming in? Oh"--she stamped her foot--"the simple +fact, the naked fact when I've pulled all the silly clothes off, is that +I only want him to be happy if it's I who make him happy, and I'm +nothing but a--I'm just a--" She twisted round on her heels, her arms +flung out, in search of the exact raw word--"I'm nothing but just a +common tyrant." + +At tea-time her condition can best, though yet imperfectly, be described +as chastened. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Nevertheless, though she tried to face it squarely and help herself by +indignation at her own selfish vanity, she felt a great emptiness round +her, a great chill. + +It was impossible to get used all at once to this new knowledge, so +astonishing after seven years of conviction that one was loved, and so +astonishing when one remembered that as recently as August--one could +positively count the days--just coming home again after an absence had +drawn forth from Robert any number of manifestations of it. It had the +suddenness and completeness of the switching off of light. A second +before, one was illuminated; another second, and one was groping in the +dark. For she did grope. She was groping for reasons. It seemed for a +long time so incredible that her entire importance and interest as a +human being should depend on whether she was or was not what he called a +true wife that she preferred to go on groping rather than take hold of +this as an explanation. + +She had been so sure of Robert. She had been so familiar with him and +unafraid. When she thought of her days at home, of her abject fear of +her father, of her insignificance, she felt that Robert's love and +admiration had lifted her up from being a creeping thing to being a +creature with quite bright brave wings. He had come suddenly into her +life and told her she was a _süsses Kleines_: and behold she became a +_süsses Kleines_. And now he didn't think her even that any more; he had +dropped her again, and she was already falling back into the old state +of timidity towards the man in the house. + +She turned to the children and the housekeeping and to a search for +something she could do in the parish, so that at least while she was +making efforts to clear her confusion about Robert she might not be +wasting time. If she was no use to him she might be of use to the less +independent. She was entirely humble at this moment, and would have +thanked a dog if it had been so kind as to allow her to persuade it to +wag its tail. It had always been her hope throughout each of her +illnesses that presently when that one was over she would get up and +begin to do good, and now here she was, finally up, with two children +who had not yet had much mother, two servants whose lives might perhaps +be made more interesting, a whole field outside her gates for practise +in deeds of mercy, and enormous tracts of time on her hands. All she had +to do was to begin. + +But it was rather like an over-delayed resurrection. Things had filled +up. Everybody seemed used to being left alone, and such a thing as +district-visiting, so familiar to a person bred in Redchester, was +unknown in East Prussia. The wife of a country pastor had as many duties +in her own house as one woman could perform in a day, and nobody +expected to see her going about into other houses consoling and +alleviating. Also, the peasants thought, why should one be consoled and +alleviated? The social difference between the peasant and the pastor was +so small and rested so often only on education that it would have +appeared equally natural, if the thing could from any point of view have +been made natural, for the wife of the peasant to go and console and +alleviate the parsonage. Who wanted sympathy in Kökensee? Certainly not +the men, and the women were too busy with family cares, those many +crushing cares that yet kept them interested and alive, to have time for +consolations. And those with most cares, most children who died, most +internal complaints, most gloom and weariness, achieved just because of +these things almost as much distinction and popularity in the village as +those with most money. Ingeborg herself was popular so long as her +children were drowned out of punts, or died of mumps, or were stillborn; +but now that nothing happened to her and she went about, after having +had six of them, still straight and slender, Kökensee regarded her +coldly and with distrust. Doing nothing for anybody on a sofa in an +untidy black tea-gown she had been respected. Trim and anxious to be of +use she was disapproved of. + +When she went round to try to interest the women in the getting up of +little gatherings that were to brighten the parish once a fortnight +during the winter months, they shook their heads over their washtubs and +told each other after she had gone that it was because she kept two +servants. _Hausfraus_ who did not do their own work, they said, shaking +their heads with many _ja, ja's_, were sure to get into mischief. All +they asked of the pastor's wife was that she should attend to her own +business and let them attend to theirs. They did not walk into her +living-room; why should she walk into theirs? They did not want to +brighten her winter; why should she want to brighten theirs? She should +take example from her husband, they said, who never visited anybody. But +a Frau who kept two servants and who after six children still wore +skirts shorter than a Confirmation candidate's--_ja, ja, das kommt +davon_. + +And things had filled up at home. Rosa and the cook had been used so +long to managing alone, and were so completely obsessed by the idea that +the Frau Pastor was half dead and that her one real function was to lie +down, that they regarded her suddenly frequent appearances in the +kitchen with the uneasiness and discomfort with which they would have +regarded the appearances of a ghost. No more than if she had been a +ghost did they know what to do with her. She did not seem real, +separated from her bedroom and her beef-tea. They could not work with +her. She would make them jump when, on looking up, they saw her in their +midst, having come in unheard with her strange lightness of movement. +Their nerves were shaken when they discovered her on her knees in odd +corners of the house doing things with dusters. To see her prodding +potatoes over the fire, and weighing meat, and approaching onions +familiarly made them creep. + +It was like some dreadful miracle. + +It was like, said Rosa, whispering, being obliged to cook dinners and +make beds with the help of--side by side with-- + +"With what then?" cried the cook, pretending courage but catching fear +from Rosa's face. + +"_Mit einem Lazarus_," whispered Rosa, behind her hand. + +The cook shrieked. + +They did not, however, give notice, being good girls and prepared to +bear much, till they saw their names in red ink in one of the squares +ruled on a sheet of paper the Frau Pastor pinned up on the sitting-room +wall above her writing-table. + +For a day or two they were filled with nameless horror because the ink +was red. Then, when they discovered what the numbers against the square, +3--4, meant, the horror was swept away in indignation, for it was the +hour in the afternoon in which they usually mended or knitted and +gossiped together, and it appeared that the Frau Pastor intended to come +and sit with them during this hour and read aloud. + +"Nice books are so--so nice," said Ingeborg, explaining her idea. "Don't +you think you'll like nice books?" + +She faltered a little, because of the expression on their faces. + +"There is the pig," said the cook desperately. + +"The pig?" + +"It has to be fed between three and four." + +"Oh, but we're not going to mind things like _pigs_!" said Ingeborg with +a slightly laboured brightness. + +The next day they gave notice. + +But the plan pinned up in the parlour had nothing, except during this +one hour, to do with Rosa and the cook; it had been drawn up solely on +behalf of Robertlet and Ditti. + +Ingeborg had pored over it for days, making careful squares with a ruler +and doing all the principal words in red ink, her hair touzled by the +stresses of thinking out, and her cheeks flushed. The winter was upon +them, and already rain and gales made being out of doors impossible +except for one daily courageous trudge after dinner with the children in +waterproofs and goloshes, and she thought that with a little arranging +she might shorten and brighten the long months to the spring. The +children were so passive. They seemed hardly conscious, she thought, of +the world round them. Wouldn't they enjoy themselves more if they could +be taught to look at things? Their resemblance to the elder Frau Dremmel +was remarkable, it is true, but of course only superficial. Why they +were apathetic was because they had had so little mother in their lives. +She had only been able to teach them their prayers and their grace, and +beyond that had had to leave them to God. Now, however, she could take +over her charge again, and teach them things that would make them +lissom, quick, interested, and gay. + +What would make Robertlet and Ditti lissom, quick, interested, and gay? +She pored profoundly over this question, and was steeped in red ink and +with the end of her pen bitten off and the floor white with torn-up +plans before she had answered it. + +At the end of the winter she thought she could not have answered it +right. There was something wrong with education. The children had been +immensely patient. They had borne immensely with their mother. Yet by +the end of a whole winter's application of the plan they knew only how +cats and dogs were spelt, and the sole wonder that they felt after six +months' parental effort to stir them to that important preliminary to +knowledge was a dim surprise that such familiar beasts should need +spelling. + +It was very unfortunate, but they could not be got, for instance, to +like the heavenly bodies. Useless for their mother to press them upon +their notice on clear evenings when all the sky was a-blink. From first +to last they saw nothing in the sunsets that lit the white winter world +into a vast cave of colour except a sign that it must be tea-time. Not +once could they be induced to shudder at the thought, on great starry +nights, of infinite space. They were unmoved by the information that +they were being hurled at an incredible speed through it; and they +didn't mind the moon being all those miles away. In the dancing class it +was Ingeborg who danced. In the gymnastic class it was she who grew +lissom. The _English and German Chatting_, owing to an absence in +Robertlet and Ditti of any of the ingredients of chat, was a monologue; +and for the course on _Introductions to Insects Collected in the House_ +it was Ingeborg who caught the flies. + +They were, however, very good. Nothing to which they were subjected +altered that. When their mother in spite of discouragements went on +bravely, so did they. When out of doors she snowballed them they stood +patiently till she had done. She showed them how to make a snow man, and +they did not complain. She gave them little sledges at Christmas, and +explained the emotions to be extracted from these objects by sliding on +them swiftly down slopes, and they bore her no ill-will when, having +slid, they fell off, but quietly preferred the level garden paths and +drew each other in turn on one sledge up and down them, while their +mother on the other sledge did the sorts of things they had come to +expect from mothers, and kept on disappearing over the brink of the +slope to the frozen lake head first and face downward. + +"It's very _difficult_," thought Ingeborg sometimes, as the winter +dragged on. + +There she was, heavy with facts about flies and stars and distances +extracted in the evenings during her preparation hours from the +"Encyclopædia Britannica" which had been procured from London for the +purpose--the parsonage groaned beneath it--and longing to unload them, +and she was not able to because the two vessels which ought to have +received them were fitted so impenetrably with lids. + +They seemed to grow, if anything, more lidded. Quieter and quieter. The +hour at the end of the day, marked on the plan Lap, an hour she had +thought might easily become beautiful, something her children would +remember years hence, which was to have been all white intimacy, with +kisses and talks about angels and the best and quickest ways of getting +to heaven while Robertlet sat in the lap on Mondays, Wednesdays, and +Fridays, and Ditti sat in it on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays +(there being scarcity in laps), was from the beginning an hour of +semi-somnolence for the children, of staring sleepily into the glow of +the stove, resting while they waited for what their mother would do or +say next. + +Ingeborg was inclined to be disheartened at this hour. It was the last +one of the children's day, and the day had been long. There was the +firelight, the mother's lap and knee, the mother herself ready to kiss +and be confided in and more than ready to confide in her turn those +discoveries she had made in the regions of science, and nothing +happened. Robertlet and Ditti either stared fixedly at the glow from the +open stove door or at Ingeborg herself; but whichever they stared at +they did it in silence. + +"What are you thinking of?" she would ask them sometimes, disturbing +their dreamless dream, their happy freedom from thought. And then +together they would answer, "Nothing." + +"No, but tell me really--you can't _really_ think of nothing. It's +impossible. Nothing is"--she floundered--"is always _something_--." + +But the next time she asked the same question they answered with one +voice just as before, "Nothing." + +Then it occurred to her that perhaps they were having too much mother. +This also happened in the hour called Lap. + +"A mother," she reflected, both her arms round her children according to +plan, "must often be rather a nuisance." + +She looked down with a new sympathy at Ditti's head reposing, also +according to plan, on her shoulder. + +"Especially if she's a devoted mother." + +She laid her cheek on the black smooth hair, parted and pigtailed and as +unlike Robert's fair furry stuff or her own as it was like the elder +Frau Dremmel's. + +"A devoted mother," continued Ingeborg to herself, her eyes on the +glowing heart of the stove and her cheek on Ditti's head, "is one who +gives up all her time to trying to make her children different." + +"_I'm_ a devoted mother," she added, after a pause in which she had +faced her conscience. + +"How dreadful!" she thought. + +She began to kiss Ditti's head very softly. + +"How, too, dreadful to be in the power of somebody different; of +somebody quick if you're not quick, or dull if you're not dull, and +anyhow so old, so very old compared to you, and have to be made like +her! How would I like being in my mother-in-law's power, with years and +years for her to work at forcing me to be what she'd think I ought to +be? And what she'd think I ought to be would be herself, what she tries +to be. Of course. You can't think outside yourself." + +She drew the children tighter. "You _poor_ little things!" she exclaimed +aloud, suddenly overcome by the vision of what it must be like to have +to put up with a person so fundamentally alien through a whole winter; +and she kissed them one after the other, holding their faces close to +hers with her hands against their cheeks in a passion of apology. + +Even to that exclamation, a quite new one in a quite new voice, they +said nothing, but waited patiently for what would no doubt happen next. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + + +What happened next was that they went to school. + +Just as Ingeborg was beginning to ask herself rather shy questions--for +she was very full of respects--about the value of education and the +claims of free development, the State stepped in and swept Robertlet and +Ditti away from her into its competent keeping. In an instant, so it +seemed to her afterward when in the empty house she had nothing to do +but put away their traces, she was bereft. + +"You never told me _this_ is what happens to mothers," she said to Herr +Dremmel the day the brief order from the Chief Inspector of Schools +arrived. + +Herr Dremmel, who was annoyed that he should have forgotten his parental +and civic duties, and still more annoyed, it being April and his fields +needing much attention as a new-born infant, or a young woman one +wishes, impelled by amorous motives, to marry, that there should be +parental and civic duties to forget, was short with her. + +"Every German of six has to be educated," he said. + +"But they _are_ being educated," said Ingeborg, her mind weighted with +all she herself had learned. + +He waved her aside. + +"But, Robert--my children--surely there's some way of educating them +besides sending them away from me?" + +He continued to wave her aside. + +There was no doubt about it: the children had to go, and they went. + +Of the alternatives, their being taught at home by a person with +Government certificates, or attending the village school, Herr Dremmel +would not hear. He was having differences of a personal nature with the +village schoolmaster, who refused with a steadiness that annoyed Herr +Dremmel to recognise that he was a _Schafskopf_, while Herr Dremmel +held, and patiently explained, that a person who is born a _Schafskopf_ +should be simple and frank about it, and not persist in behaving as if +he were not one; and as for a teacher in the house, that was altogether +impossible, because there was no room. + +"There's the laboratory," said Ingeborg recklessly, to whom anything +seemed better than letting her children go. + +"The lab--?" + +"Only to sleep in," she eagerly explained, "just sleep in, you know. The +teacher needn't be there at all in the daytime, for instance." + +"Ingeborg--" began Herr Dremmel; then he thought better of it, and +merely held out his cup for more tea. Women were really much to be +pitied. Their entire inability to reach even an elementary conception of +values... + +The children went to school in Meuk. They lodged with their grandmother, +and were to come home on those vague Sundays when the weather was good +and Herr Dremmel did not require the horses. Ingeborg could not believe +in such a complete sweep out of her life. She loved Robertlet and Ditti +with an extreme and odd tenderness. There was self-reproach in it, a +passionate desire to protect. It was the love sometimes found in those +who have to do all the loving by themselves. It was an acute and +quivering thing. After her experiences in the winter she had doubts +whether education at present was what they wanted. It was not school +they wanted, she thought, but to run wild. She knew it would have been +perhaps difficult to get them to run in this manner, but thought if she +had had them a little longer and had thoroughly revised her plan, +purging it of science and filling them up instead with different forms +of wildness, she might eventually have induced them to. There could have +been a carefully graduated course in wildness, she thought, beginning +quietly with weeding paths, and going on by steps of ever-increasing +abandonment to tree-climbing, bird-nesting, and midnight raids on +apples. + +And while she wandered about the deserted garden and was desolate, +Robertlet and Ditti, safe in their grandmother's house, were having the +most beautiful dumplings every day for dinner that seemed to fit into +each part of them as warmly and neatly as though they were bits of their +own bodies come back, after having been artificially separated, to fill +them with a delicious hot contentment, and their grandmother was saying +to them at regular intervals with a raised forefinger: "My children, +never forget that you are Germans." + +There was now nothing left for Ingeborg but, as she told Herr Dremmel +the first Sunday Robertlet and Ditti had been coming home and then for +some obscure reason did not come, thrusting the information tactlessly +at tea-time between his attention and his book, her own inside. + +"After all," she said, as usual quite suddenly, breaking a valuable +silence, "there's still me." + +Herr Dremmel said nothing, for it was one of those statements of fact +that luckily do not require an answer. + +"Nobody," said Ingeborg, throwing her head back a little, "can take that +away." + +Herr Dremmel said nothing to that either, chiefly because he did not +want to. He had no time nor desire to guess at meanings which were, no +doubt, after all not there. + +"Whatever happens," she said, "I've still got my own inside." + +"Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, "I will not ask you what you mean in case +you should tell me." + +There was a drought going on, and Herr Dremmel, who justly prided +himself on his sweetness of temper, was not as patient as usual; so +Ingeborg, silenced, went into the garden where the drought was making +the world glow and shimmer, and reflected that on the object she called +her inside alone now depended her happiness. + +It was useless to depend on others; it was useless to depend, as she had +done in her ridiculous vanity, on others depending on her. After all, +each year had a May in it and the birds sang. She would send away the +extra servant and do the work herself, as she used to at first. She +would begin again to develop her intelligence, and write that evening to +London for the _Spectator_. Something, she remembered, had warmed and +quickened her all those years ago after her meeting with Ingram--was it +the _Spectator_? She would make plans. She would draw up plans in red +ink. There were a thousand things she might study. There were languages. + +She walked up and down the garden. If she let herself be beaten back +this time into neglect of herself and indifference she would be done +for. There was no one to save her. She would lapse and lapse; and not +into fatnesses and peace like other women in Germany lopped of their +children, and of a class above the class that stood at that instrument +of salvation, its own washtub, not into afternoon slumbers and +benevolences of a woolly nature that kept one's hand knitting while +one's brains went to sleep till presently one was dead, but into +something fretful and nipped, with a little shrivelled, skinny, steadily +dwindling mind. + +Her eyes grew very wide at this dreadful picture. Now was the moment, +she thought, turning away from it quickly, now that there had come this +pause in her life, to go over to England for a visit and see her +relations and talk and come back refreshed to a new chapter of existence +in Kökensee. She had not been out of Kökensee, except to Zoppot, since +her marriage, and her throat tightened at the thought of England. But +the Bishop had never forgiven her marriage; and her having had six +children had also, it seemed from her mother's letters when there used +to be letters, made an unfavourable impression on him. It had, in fact, +upset him. He had considered such conduct too distinctively German to be +passed over; and when she added to the error in taste of having had them +the further error or rather negligence--it must have been criminal, +thought the Bishop--of not being able to keep them alive, the Palace, +after having four times with an increasing severity condoled, withdrew +into a disapproval so profound that it could only express itself +adequately by silence. + +And a stay with Judith was out of the question. One had for a stay with +Judith to have clothes, and she had no clothes; at least, none newer +than eight years old--her immense unworn trousseau dogged her through +the years--for Judith gave many parties at the Master's Lodge, brilliant +gatherings, her mother called them in her rare letters, where London, +come down on purpose and expressed in Prime and other ministers as well +as in the fine flower of the aristocracy and a few selected fragrances +from the world of literature and art--once her mother wrote that Ingram, +the great painter, had been at the last party, and was so much enslaved +by Judith's loveliness that he had asked as a favour to be allowed to +paint her--sat at Judith's feet. + +No; England was not for her. Her place was in Kökensee, and her business +now was to do what her governesses used to call improve her mind. +Perhaps if she improved it enough Robert would talk to her again +sometimes, and this time not on the Little Treasure basis but on the +solid one of intellectual companionship. Might she not end by being a +real helpmeet to him? Somebody who would gradually learn to be quiet and +analytical and artful with grains? + +She went indoors and wrote then and there to London, renewing the +long-ended subscriptions to the _Times_, _Spectator_, _Clarion_, +_Hibbert's Journal_, and the rest. She asked for a catalogue of the +newest publications that were not novels--her determination was too +serious just then for novels--ordered Herbert Spencer's "First +Principles," for she felt she would like to have some principles, +especially first ones, and said she would be glad of any little hint the +news-agent could give her as to what he thought a married lady ought to +know; and she spent the rest of the evening and the two following days +laying the foundations of intellectual companionship by looking up the +article _Manure_ in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" and paraphrasing it +into conversational observations that sounded to her so clever when she +tried them on Herr Dremmel three days later at tea-time that she was +astonished herself. + +She was still more astonished when Herr Dremmel, having listened, +remarked that her facts were wrong. + +"But they can't _possibly_--" she began; then broke off, feeling the +awkwardness of a position in which one was unable to argue without at +once revealing the "Encyclopædia." + + + + +Chapter XXVII + + +This was in May. By the end of the following May Ingeborg had read so +much that she felt quite uncomfortable. + +It had been a fine confused reading, in which Ruskin jostled Mr. Roger +Fry and Shelley lingered, as it were, in the lap of Mr. Masefield. The +news-agent, who must have lived chiefly a great many years before, +steadily sent her mid, early, and pre-Victorian literature; and she, +ordering on her own account books advertised in the weekly papers, found +herself as a result one day in the placid arms of the Lake Poets, and +the next being disciplined by Mr. Marinetti, one day ambling +unconcernedly with Lamb, and the next caught in the exquisite +intricacies of Mr. Henry James. She read books of travel, she learned +poetry by heart, she grew skilful at combining her studies with her +cooking; and propping up Keats on the dresser could run to him for a +fresh line in the very middle of the pudding almost without the pudding +minding. And since she loved to hear the beautiful words she learned +aloud, and the kitchen was full of a pleasant buzzing, a murmurous sound +of sonnets as well as flies, to which the servant got used in time. + +But though she set about this new life with solemnity--for was she not a +lopped and lonely woman whose husband had left off loving her and whose +children had been taken away?--cheerfulness kept on creeping in. The +chief obstacle to any sort of continued gloom was that there was a +morning to every day. Also she had enthusiasms, those most uplifting and +outlifting from oneself of spiritual attitudes, and developed a pretty +talent for tingling. She would tingle on the least provocation, with joy +over a poem, with admiration over the description of a picture, and +thrilled and quivered with response to tales of Beauty--of the beauty of +the cathedrals in France, miracles of coloured glass held together +delicately by stone, blown together, she could only think from the +descriptions, in their exquisite fragility by the breath of God rather +than built up slowly by men's hands; of the beauty of places, the +lagoons round Venice at sunrise, the desert toward evening; of the +beauty of love, faithful, splendid, equal love; of all the beauty men +made with their hands, little spuddy things running over dead stuff, +blocks of stone, bits of glass and canvas, fashioning and fashioning +till at last there was the vision, pulled out of a brain and caught +forever into the glory of line and colour. She longed to talk about the +wonderful and stirring and vivid things life outside Kökensee seemed to +flash with. What must it be like to talk to people who knew and had +seen? What could it be like to see for oneself, to travel, to go to +France and its cathedrals, to go to Italy in the spring-time when the +jewels of the world could be looked at in a setting of clear skies and +generous flowers? Or in autumn, when Kökensee was grey and tortured with +rainstorms, to go away there into serenity, to where the sun burned the +chestnuts golden all day long and the air smelt of ripened grapes? + +And she had only seen the Rigi. + +Well, that was something; and it seemed somehow appropriate for a +pastor's wife. She turned again to her books. What she had was very +good; and she had found an old woman in the village who did not mind +being comforted, so that added to everything else was now the joy of +gratitude. + +It seemed, indeed, that she was to have a run of joys that spring, for +besides these came suddenly yet another, the joy so long dreamed of of +having some one to talk to. And such a some one, thought Ingeborg, +entirely dazzled by her good fortune--for it was Ingram. + +She was paddling the punt as usual down the lake one afternoon, a pile +of books at her feet, when, passing the end of the arm of reeds that +stretched out round her hidden bay, she perceived that her little beach +was not empty; and pausing astonished with her paddle arrested in the +air to look, she recognized in the middle of a confusion of objects +strewn round him that no doubt had to do with painting, sitting with his +elbows on his drawn-up knees and his chin in his hand, Ingram. + +He was doing nothing: just staring. She came from behind the arm of +reeds, half drifting along noiselessly out towards the middle of the +lake, straight across his line of sight. + +For an instant he stared motionless, while she, holding her paddle out +of the water, stared equally motionless at him. Then he seized his +sketching book and began furiously to draw. She was out in the sun and +had no hat on. Her hair was the strangest colour against the background +of water and sky, more like a larch in autumn than anything he could +think of. She seemed the vividest thing, suddenly cleaving the pallors +and uncertainties of reeds and water and flecked northern sky. + +"Don't move," he shouted in what he supposed was German, sketching +violently. + +"So it's you?" she called back in English, and her voice sang. + +"Yes, it's me all right," he said, his pencil flying. + +He did not recognise her. He had seen too many people in seven years to +keep the foggy figure of that distant November evening in his mind. + +"I'm coming in," she called, digging her paddle into the water. + +"Sit still!" he shouted. + +"But I want to talk." + +"Sit _still_!" + +She sat still, watching him, unable to believe her good fortune. If he +were only here again for a single day and she could only talk to him for +a single hour, what a refreshment, what a delight: to talk in English; +to talk to some one who had painted Judith; to talk to some one so +wonderful; to talk at _all_! She was as little shy as a person stranded +on a desert island would be of anybody, kings included, who should +appear after years on the solitary beach. + +"Well?" she called, after sitting patiently for what she felt must be +half an hour but which was five minutes. + +He did not answer, absorbed in what he was doing. + +She waited for what seemed another half-hour, and then turned the punt +in the direction of the shore. + +"I'm coming in," she called; and as he did not answer she paddled +towards the bay. + +He stared at her, his head a little on one side, as she came close. +"What are you going to do?" he asked, seeing she was manoeuvring the +punt into the corner under the oak-tree. + +"Land," said Ingeborg. + +He got up and caught hold of the chain fastened to the punt's nose and +dragged it up the beach. + +"How do you do?" she said, jumping out and holding out her hand. "Mr. +Ingram," she added, looking up at him, her face quite solemn with +pleasure. + +"Well, now, but who on earth are you?" he asked, shaking her hand and +staring. Her clothes, now that she was standing up, were the oddest +things, recalling back numbers of _Punch_. "You're not staying at the +Glambecks', and except for the Glambecks there isn't anywhere to stay." + +"But I told you I was the pastor's wife." + +"You did?" + +"Last time. Well, and I still am." + +"But when was last time?" + +"Don't you remember? You were staying with the Glambecks then, too." + +"But I haven't stayed with the Glambecks for an eternity. At least ten +years." + +"Seven," said Ingeborg. "Seven and a half. It was in November." + +"But you must have been in pinafores." + +"And you walked down the avenue with me. Don't you remember?" + +"No," said Ingram, staring at her. + +"And you scolded me because I couldn't walk as fast as you did. Don't +you remember?" + +"No," said Ingram. + +"And you said I'd run to seed if I wasn't careful. Don't you remember?" + +"No," said Ingram. + +"And I had on my grey coat and skirt. Don't you remember?" + +"No, no, no," said Ingram, smiting his forehead, "and I don't believe a +word of it. You're just making it up. Look here," he said, clearing away +his things to make room for her, "sit down and let us talk. Are you +real?" + +"Yes, and I live at Kökensee, just round the corner behind the reeds. +But I told you that before," said Ingeborg. + +"You do live?" he said, pushing his things aside. "You're not just a +flame-headed little dream that will presently disappear again?" + +"My name's Dremmel. Frau Dremmel. But I told you that before, too." + +"The things a man forgets!" he exclaimed, spreading a silk handkerchief +over the coarse grass. "There! Sit on that." + +"You're laughing at me," she said, sitting down, "and I don't mind a +bit. I'm much too glad to see you." + +"If I laugh it's with pleasure," he said, staring at the effect of her +against the pale green of the reeds--where had he seen just that before, +that Scandinavian colouring, that burning sort of brightness in the +hair? "It's so amusing of you to be Frau anything." + +She smiled at him with the frankness of a pleased boy. + +"You're very _nice_, you know," he said, smiling back. + +"You didn't think so last time. You called me your dear lady, and asked +me if I never read." + +"Well, and didn't you?" he said, sitting down, too, but a little way off +so that he could get her effect better. + +"Yes, do sit down. Then I shan't be so dreadfully afraid you're going." + +"Why, but I've only just found you." + +"But last time you disappeared almost at once into the fog, and you'd +only just found me then," she said, her hands clasped round her knees, +her face the face of the entirely happy. + +"After all I seem to have made some progress in seven years," he said. +"I apparently couldn't see then." + +"No, it was me. I was very invisible--" + +"Invisible?" + +"Oh, moth-eaten, dilapidated, dun-coloured. And I'd been crying." + +"You? Look here, nobody with your kind of colouring should ever cry. +It's a sin. It would be most distressing, seriously, if you were ever +less white than you are at this moment." + +"See how nice it is not to be a painter," said Ingeborg. "I don't mind a +bit if you're white or not so long as it's you." + +"But why should you like it to be me?" asked Ingram, to whom flattery, +used as he was to it, was very pleasant, and feeling the comfort of the +cat who is being gently tickled behind the ear. + +"Because," said Ingeborg earnestly, "you're somebody wonderful." + +"Oh, but you'll make me purr," he said. + +"And I see your name in the papers at least once a week," she said. + +"Oh, the glory!" + +"And Berlin's got two of your pictures. Bought for the nation." + +"Yes, it has. And haggled till it got them a dead bargain." + +"And you've painted my sister." + +"What?" he said quickly, staring at her again. "Why, of course. That's +it. That's who you remind me of. The amazing Judith." + +"Are you such friends?" she asked, surprised. + +"Oh, well, then, the wife of the Master of Ananias. Let us give her her +honours. She's the most entirely beautiful woman I've seen. But--" + +"But what?" + +"Oh, well. I did a very good portrait of her. The old boy didn't like +it." + +"What old boy?" + +"The Master. He tried to stop my showing it. And so did the other old +boy." + +"What other old boy?" + +"The Bishop." + +"But if it was so good?" + +"It was. It was exact. It was the living woman. It was a portrait of +sheer, exquisite flesh." + +"Well, then," said Ingeborg. + +"Oh, but you know bishops--" He shrugged his shoulders. "Italy's got it +now. It's at Venice. The State bought it. You must go and see it next +time you're there." + +"I will," she laughed, "the very next time." And her laugh was the laugh +of joyful amusement itself. + +Ingram was now forty three or four, and leaner than ever. His high +shoulders were narrow, his thin neck came a long way out of his collar +at the back and was partly hidden in front by his short red beard. His +hair, darker than his beard, was plastered down neatly. He had very +light, piercing eyes, and a nose that Ingeborg liked. She liked +everything. She liked his tweed clothes, and his big thin hands--the +wonderful hands that did the wonderful pictures--and his long thin +nimble legs. She liked the way he fidgeted, and the quickness of his +movements. And she glowed with pride to think she was sitting with a man +who was mentioned in the papers at least once a week and whose pictures +were bought by States, and she glowed with happiness because he did not +this time seem anxious to go back to the Glambecks' at once; but most of +all she glowed with the heavenliness, the absolute heavenliness of being +talked to. + +"And you're her sister," he said, staring at her. "Now that really is +astonishing." + +"But everybody can't be beautiful." + +"A sister of hers here, tucked away in this desert. It _is_ a desert, +you know. I've come to it because I wanted a desert--one does sometimes +after too much of the opposite. But I go away again, and you live in it. +What have you been doing all these years, since I was here last?" + +"Oh, I've--been busy." + +"But not here? Not all the time here?" + +"Yes, all of it." + +"What, not away at all?" + +"I went to Zoppot once." + +"Zoppot? Where's Zoppot? I never heard of Zoppot. I don't believe +Zoppot's any good. Do you mean to say you've not been to a town, to a +place where people say things and hear things and rub themselves alive +against each other, since last I was here?" + +"Well, but pastors' wives don't rub." + +"But it's incredible! It's like death. Why didn't you?" + +"Because I couldn't." + +"As though it weren't possible to tear oneself free at least every now +and then." + +"You wait till you're a pastor's wife." + +"But how do you manage to be so alive? For you shine, you know. When I +think of all the things _I've_ done since I was here last--" He broke +off, and looked away from her across the lake. "Oh, well. Sickening +things, really, most of them," he finished. + +"Wonderful pictures," said Ingeborg, leaning forward and flushing with +her enthusiasm. "That's what you've done." + +"Yes. One paints and paints. But in between--it's those in between the +work-fits that hash one up. What do _you_ do in between?" + +"In between what?" + +"Whatever it is you do in the morning and whatever it is you do in the +evening." + +"I enjoy myself." + +"Yes. Yes. That's what _I'd_ like to do." + +"But don't you?" + +"I can't." + +"What--_you_ can't?" she said. "But you live in beauty. You make it. You +pour it over the world--" + +She stopped abruptly, hit by a sudden thought. "I beg your pardon," she +said. "I don't know anything really. Perhaps--you're in mourning?" + +He looked at her. "No," he said, "I'm not in mourning." + +"Or perhaps--no, you're not ill. And you can't be poor. Well, then, why +in the world don't you enjoy yourself?" + +"Aren't you ever bored?" he answered. + +"The days aren't long enough." + +He looked round at the empty landscape and shuddered. + +"Here. In Kökensee," he said. "It's spring now. But what about the wet +days, the howling days? What about unmanageable months like February? +Why"--he turned to her--"you must be a perfect little seething vessel of +independent happiness, bubbling over with just your own contentments." + +"I never was called a seething vessel before," said Ingeborg, hugging +her knees, her eyes dancing. "What an impression for a respectable woman +to produce!" + +"What a gift to possess, you mean. The greatest of all. To carry one's +happiness about with one." + +"But that's exactly what _you_ do. Aren't you spilling joy at every +step? Splashing it into all the galleries of the world? Leaving beauty +behind you wherever you've been?" + +He twisted himself round to lie at full length and look up at her. "What +delightful things you say!" he said. "I wish I could think you mean +them." + +"Mean them?" she exclaimed, flushing again. "Do you suppose I'd waste +the precious minutes saying things I don't mean? I haven't talked to any +one really for years--not to any one who answered back. And now it's +_you_! Why, it's too wonderful! As though I'd waste a second of it." + +"You're the queerest, most surprising thing to find here on the edge of +the world," he said, gazing up at her. "And there's the sun just got at +your hair through the trees. Are you always full of molten enthusiasms +for people?" + +"Only for you." + +"But what am I to say to these repeated pattings?" he cried. + +"You got into my imagination that day I met you and you've been in it +ever since. I was in the stupidest state of dull giving in. You pulled +me out." + +He stared at her, his chin on his hand. "Imagine me pulling anybody out +of anything," he said. "Generally I pull them in." + +"It's true I've had relapses," she said. "Five relapses." + +"Five?" + +She nodded. "Five since then. But here I am, seething as you call it, +and it's you who started me, and I believe I shall go on now doing it +uninterruptedly for ever." + +Ingram put out his hand with a quick movement, as though he were going +to touch the edge of her dress. "Teach me how to seethe," he said. + +"That's rather like asking a worm to give lessons in twinkling to a +star." + +"Wonderful," he said softly, after a little pause, "to lie here having +sweet things said to one. Why didn't I find you before? I've been being +bored at the Glambecks' for a whole frightful week." + +"Oh, have you been there a week already?" she asked anxiously. "Then +you'll go away soon?" + +"I was going to-morrow." + +"That's like last time. You were just going when I met you." + +"But now I'm going to stay. I'm going to stay and paint you." + +She jumped. "_Oh!_" she exclaimed, awe-struck. "_Oh_--" + +"Paint you, and paint you, and paint you," said Ingram, "and see if I +can catch some of your happiness for myself. Get at your secret. Find +out where it all comes from." + +"But it comes from you--at this moment it's all you--" + +"It doesn't. It's inside you. And I want to get as much of it as I can. +I'm dusty and hot and sick of everything. I'll come and stay near you +and paint you, and you shall make me clean and cool again." + +"The stuff you talk!" she said, leaning forward, her face full of +laughter. "As though I could do anything for _you_! You're really making +fun of me the whole time. But I don't care. I don't care about anything +so long as you won't go away." + +"You needn't be afraid I'm going away. I'm going to have a bath of +remoteness and peace. I'll chuck the Glambecks and get a room in your +village. I'll come every day and paint you. You're like a little golden +leaf, a beech leaf in autumn blown suddenly from God knows where across +my path." + +"Now it's you making _me_ purr," she said. + +"You're like everything that's clear and bright and cool and fresh." + +"Oh," murmured Ingeborg, radiant, "and I haven't even got a tail to +wag!" + +"Already, after only ten minutes of you, I feel as if I were eating +cold, fresh, very crisp lettuce." + +"That's not nearly so nice. I don't think I like being lettuce." + +"I don't care. You are. And I'm going to paint you. I'm going to paint +your soul. Tell me some addresses for lodgings," he said, snatching up a +sheet of paper and a pencil. + +"There aren't any." + +"Then I must stay at your vicarage." + +"You'll have to sleep with Robert, then." + +"What? Who is Robert?" + +"My husband." + +"Oh, yes. But how absurd that sounds!" + +"What does?" + +"Your having a husband." + +"I don't see how you can help having a husband if you're a wife." + +"No. It's inevitable. But it's--quaint. That you should be anybody's +wife, let alone a pastor's. Here in Kökensee." + +She got up impulsively. "Come and see him," she said. "You wouldn't last +time. Come now. Let me make tea for you. Let me have the pride of making +tea for you." + +"But not this minute!" he begged, as she stood over him holding out her +hand to pull him up. + +"Yes, yes. He's in now. He'll be out in his fields later. He'll be +frightfully pleased. We'll tell him about the picture. Oh, but you did +_mean_ it, didn't you?" she added, suddenly anxious. + +He got up reluctantly and grumbling: "I don't want to see Robert. Why +should I see Robert? I don't believe I'm going to like Robert," he +muttered, looking down at her from what seemed an immense height. "Of +course I mean it about the picture," he added in a different voice, +quick and interested. "It'll be a companion portrait to your sister's." + +He laughed. "That would really be very amusing," he said, stooping down +and neatly putting his scattered things together. + +Ingeborg flushed. "But--that's rather cruel fun, isn't it, that you're +making of me now?" she murmured. + +"What?" he asked, straightening himself to look at her. + +The light had gone out of her face. + +"What? Why--didn't I tell you my picture of you is to be the portrait of +a spirit?" + +He pounced on his things and gathered them up in his arms. + +"Come along," he said impatiently, "and be intelligent. Let me beg you +to be intelligent. Come along. I suppose I'm to go in the punt. What's +in it? Books by the dozen. What's this? Eucken? Keats? Pragmatism? O +Lord!" + +"Why O Lord?" she asked, getting in and picking up the paddle while he +gave the punt a vigorous shove off and jumped on to it as it went. She +was radiant again. She was tingling with pride and joy. He really meant +it about the picture. He hadn't made fun of her. On the contrary.... +"Why O Lord?" she asked. "You said that, or something like it, last time +because I _didn't_ read." + +"Well, now I say it because you do," he said, crouching at the opposite +end watching her movements as she paddled. + +"But that doesn't seem to have much consistency, does it?" she said. + +"Hang consistency! I don't want you addled. And you'll get addled if you +topple all these different stuffs into your little head together." + +"But I'd rather be addled than empty." + +"Nonsense! If I could I'd stop your doing anything that may alter you a +hairbreadth from what you are at this moment." + +To that she remarked, suspending her paddle in mid air, her face as +sparkling as the shining drops that flashed from it, that she really was +greatly enjoying herself; and they both laughed. + +Ingram waited in the parlour, where he stood taking in with attentive +eyes the details of that neglected, almost snubbed little room, while +Ingeborg went to the laboratory, so happy and proud that she forgot she +was breaking rules, to fetch, as she said, Robert. + +Robert, however, would not be fetched. He looked up at her with a great +reproach on her entrance, for as invariably happened on the rare +occasions when the tremendousness of what she had to say seemed to her +to justify interrupting, he thought he had just arrived within reach, +after an infinite patient stalking, of the coy, illusive heart of the +problem. + +"Mr. Ingram's here," she said breathlessly. + +He gazed at her over his spectacles. + +"In the parlour," said Ingeborg. "He's come to tea. Isn't it wonderful? +He's going to paint--" + +"Who is here, Ingeborg?" + +"Mr. Ingram. Edward Ingram. Come and talk to him while I get tea." + +She had even forgotten to shut the door in her excitement, and a puff of +wind from the open window picked up Herr Dremmel's papers and blew them +into confusion. + +He endeavoured to catch them, and requested her in a tone of controlled +irritation to shut the door. + +"Oh, how dreadful of me!" she said, hastily doing it, but with gaiety. + +"I do not know," then said Herr Dremmel, mastering his annoyance, "Mr. +Ingram." + +"Rut, Robert, it's _the_ Mr. Ingram. Edward Ingram. The greatest artist +there is now. The great portrait painter. Berlin has--" + +"Is he a connection of your family's, Ingeborg?" + +"No, but he painted Ju--" + +"Then it is not necessary for me to interrupt my afternoon on his +behalf." + +And Herr Dremmel bent his head over his papers again. + +"But, Robert, he's _great_--he's _very_ great--" + +Herr Dremmel, with a wetted thumb, diligently rearranged his pages. + +"But--why, I told him you'd love to see him. What am I to say to him if +you don't come?" + +Herr Dremmel, his eye caught by a sentence he had written, was reading +with a deep enormous appetite. + +"Tea," said Ingeborg desperately. "There's tea. You always _do_ come to +tea. It'll be ready in a minute." + +He looked up at her, gathering her into his consciousness again. "Tea?" +he said. + +But even as he said it his thoughts fell off to his problem, and without +removing his eyes from hers he began carefully to consider a new aspect +of it that in that instant had occurred to him. + +There was nothing for it but to go away. So she went. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Ingram's visit to the Glambecks, had in any case been coming to an end +the next day, when he was to have gone to Königsberg on his way to the +Caucasus, a place he hoped might trick him by its novelty for at least a +time out of boredom, and the Baron and Baroness were greatly surprised +when he told them he was not going to the Caucasus but to Kökensee +instead. + +With one voice they exclaimed, "Kökensee?" + +"To paint the pastor's wife's hair," said Ingram. + +The Baron and Baroness were silent. The explanation seemed to them +beyond comment. Its disreputableness robbed them of speech. Herr Ingram, +of course, an artist of renown--if he had not been of very great renown +they could not have seen their way to admitting him on terms of equality +into their circle--might paint whoever's hair he pleased; but was there +not some ecclesiastical law forbidding that the hair of one's pastor's +wife should be painted? To have one's hair painted when one was a +pastor's wife was hardly more respectable than having it dyed. People of +family were painted in order to hand down their portrait to succeeding +generations, but you had to have generations, you had to have scions, +you had to have a noble stock for the scions to spring from, and the +painting was entered into soberly, discreetly, advisedly, in the fear of +God, for the delectation of children, not lightly or wantonly, not for +effect, not, as Herr Ingram had added of Frau Pastor's hair, because any +portion of one's person was strangely beautiful. Strangely beautiful? +They looked at each other; and the Baroness raised her large and +undulating white hands from her black lap for a moment and let them drop +on to it again, and the Baron slowly nodded his entire agreement. + +Ingram had found a room in the village inn at Kökensee, a place so +sordid, so entirely impossible as the next habitation after theirs for +one who had been their guest, that the Baron and Baroness were concerned +for what their servants must think when they heard him direct their +coachman in the presence of their butler and footman, as he clambered +nimbly into the dogcart, to take him to it. And the Baroness went in and +wrote at once to her son Hildebrand in Berlin, who had introduced Ingram +to Glambeck, and told him she did not intend permitting Herr Ingram to +visit her again. "_To please you_," she wrote, "_I did it. But how true +it is that these artists can never rise beyond being artists! I have +finished with outsiders, however clever. Give me gentlemen_." + +She did not mention, she found she could not mention, the hair; and to +the Baron that evening she expressed the hope that at least the picture +would only be in watercolour. Watercolour, she felt, seemed somehow +nearer the Commandments than oils. + +It was impossible to paint a serious picture of Ingeborg in the dark +little parlour at the parsonage, and as there was no other room at all +that they could use Ingram began a series of sketches of her out of +doors, in the garden, in the punt, anywhere and everywhere. + +"I must get some idea of you," he said, perceiving that a reason for his +coming every day had to be provided. "Later on I'll do the real picture. +In a proper studio." + +"I wonder how I'll get to a proper studio?" smiled Ingeborg. + +"I've got a very good one in Venice. You must sit to me there." + +"As though it were round the corner! But these are very wonderful," she +said, taking up the sketches. "I wish I were really like that." + +"It's exactly you as you were at the moment." + +"Nonsense," she said; but she glowed. + +She knew it was not true, but she loved to believe he somehow, by some +miracle, saw her so. The sketches were exquisite; little impressions of +happy moments caught into immortality by a master. Hardly ever did he do +more than her head and throat, and sometimes the delicate descent to her +shoulder. The day she saw his idea of the back of her neck she flushed +with pleasure, it was such a beautiful thing. + +"That's not me," she murmured. + +"Isn't it? I don't believe anybody has ever explained to you what you're +like." + +"There wasn't any need to. I can see for myself." + +"Apparently that's just what you can't do. It was high time I came." + +"Oh, but wasn't it," she agreed earnestly. + +He thought her frankness, her unadorned way of saying what she felt, as +refreshing and as surprising as being splashed with clear cold shining +mountain water. He had never met anything feminine that was quite so +near absolute simplicity. He might call her the most extravagantly +flattering things, and she appreciated them and savoured them with a +kind of objective delight that interested him at first extraordinarily. +Then it began to annoy him. + +[Illustration: "But these are very wonderful," she said, taking up the +sketches. "I wish I were really like that."] + +"You're as unselfconscious," he told her one afternoon a little crossly, +when he had been ransacking heaven and earth and most of the poets for +images to compare her with, and she had sat immensely pleased and +interested and urging him at intervals to go on, "as a choir-boy." + +"But what a nice, clean, soaped sort of thing to be like!" she said. +"And so much more alive than lettuces." + +"I wonder if you _are_ alive?" he said, staring at her; and she looked +at him with her head on one side and told him that if she were not a +bishop's daughter and a pastor's wife and a child of many prayers and +trained from infancy to keep carefully within the limits of the +allowable in female speech she would reply to that, "You bet." + +"But that's only if I were vulgar that I'd say that," she explained. +"Gentility is the sole barrier, I expect really, between me and excess." + +"You and excess! You little funny, cold-watery, early-morningy thing. +One would as soon connect the dawn and the fields before sunrise and +small birds and the greenest of green young leaves with excess." + +He was more near being quite happy during this first week than he could +remember to have been since that period of pinafore in which the world +is all mother and daisies. He was enjoying the interest of complete +contrast, the freshness that lies about beginnings. From this +remoteness, this queer intimate German setting, he looked at his usual +life as at something entirely foolish, hurried, noisy, and tiresome. All +those women--good heavens, all those women--who collected and coagulated +about his path, what terrible things they seemed from here! Women he had +painted, who rose up and reproached him because his idea of them and +their idea were different; women he had fallen in love with, or tried to +persuade himself he had fallen in love with, or tried to hope he would +presently be able to persuade himself he had fallen in love with; women +who had fallen in love with him, and fluffed and flapped about him, +monsters of soft enveloping suffocation; women he had wronged--absurd +word! women who had claims on him--claims on him! on him who belonged +only to art and the universe. And there was his wife--good heavens, yes, +his wife.... + +From these distresses and irksomenesses, from a shouting world, from the +crowds and popularity that pushed between him and the one thing that +mattered, his work, from the horrors of home life, the horrors of +society and vain repetitions of genialities, from all the people who +talked about Thought, and Art, and the Mind of the World, from +jealousies, affections, praises, passions, excitement, boredom, he felt +very safe at Kökensee. To be over there in the middle of the distracting +emptiness of London was like having the sour dust of a neglected +market-place blown into one's face. To be over here in Kökensee was to +feel like a single goldfish in a bowl of clear water. Ingeborg was the +clear water. Kökensee was the bowl. For a week he swam with delight in +this new element; for a week he felt so good and innocent, exercising +himself in its cool translucency, that almost did he seem a goldfish in +a bib. Then Ingeborg began to annoy him; and she annoyed him for the +precise reason that had till then charmed him, her curious resemblance +to a boy. + +This frank affection, this unconcealed delight in his society, this +ever-ready excessive admiration, were arresting at first and amusing and +delicious after the sham freshness, the tricks, the sham daring things +of the women he had known. They were like a bath at the end of a hot +night; like a country platform at the end of a stuffy railway journey. +But you cannot sit in a bath all day, or stay permanently on a platform. +You do want to go on. You do want things to develop. + +Ingram was nettled by Ingeborg's apparent inability to develop. It was +all very well, it was charming to be like a boy for a little while, but +to persist in it was tiresome. Nothing he could say, nothing he could +apply to her in the way of warm and varied epithet, brought the faintest +trace of self-consciousness into her eyes. What can be done, he thought, +with a woman who will not be self conscious? She received his speeches +with enthusiasm, she hailed them with delight and laughter, and, what +was particularly disconcerting, she answered back. Answered back with +equal warmth and with equal variety--sometimes, he suspected, annoyed at +being outdone in epithet, with even more. To judge from her talk she +almost made love to him. He would have supposed it was quite making love +if he had not known, if he had not been so acutely aware that it was +not. With a face of radiance and a voice of joy she would say suddenly +that God had been very good to her; and when he asked in what way, would +answer earnestly, "In sending you here." And then she would add in that +peculiar sweet voice--she certainly had, thought Ingram, a peculiar +sweet voice, a little husky, again a little like a choir-boy's, but a +choir-boy with a slight sore throat--"I've missed you dreadfully all +these years. I've been lonely for you." + +And the honesty of her; the honest sincerity of her eyes when she said +these things. No choir-boy older than ten could look at one with quite +such a straight simplicity. + +Every day punctually at two o'clock, by which time the daily convulsion +of dinner and its washing up was over at the parsonage, he walked across +from his inn, while Kökensee's mouths behind curtains and round doors +guttered with excited commentary, telling himself as he gazed down the +peaceful street that this was the emptiest, gossip-freest place in the +world, to the Dremmel gate; and dodging the various rich puddles of the +yard, passed round the corner of the house along the lilac path beneath +the laboratory windows to where, at the end of the lime-tree avenue, +Ingeborg sat waiting. Then he would sketch her, or pretend to sketch her +according as the mood was on him, and they would talk. + +By the second day he knew all about her life since her marriage, her six +children--they amazed and appalled him--her pursuit, started by him, of +culture, her housekeeping, her pride in Robert's cleverness, her +solitude, her thirst for some one to talk to. Persons like Ilse and +Rosa, Frau Dremmel, Robertlet and Ditti, became extraordinarily real to +him. He made little drawings of them while she talked up the edge of his +paper. And he also knew, by the second day, all about her life in +Redchester, its filial ardours, its duties, its difficulties when it +came to disentangling itself from the Bishop; and his paper sprawled up +its other edge with tiny bishops and unattached, expressive aprons. The +one thing she concealed from him of the larger happenings of her life +was Lucerne, but even that he knew after a week. + +"So you can do things," he said, looking at her with a new interest. +"You can do real live things." + +"Oh, yes. If I'm properly goaded." + +"I wonder what you mean by properly goaded?" + +"Well, I was goaded then. Goaded by being kept in one place +uninterruptedly for years." + +"That's what is happening to you now." + +"Oh, but this is different. And I've been to Zoppot." + +"Zoppot!" + +"Besides, _you're_ here." + +"But I won't be here for ever." + +"Oh, but you'll be somewhere in the same world." + +"As though that were any good." + +"Of course it is. I shall read about you in the papers." + +"Nonsense," he said crossly. "The papers!" + +"And I shall curl up in your memory." + +"As if I were dead. You sometimes really are beyond words ridiculous." + +"I expect it's because I've had so little education," she said meekly. + +At tea-time almost every day Herr Dremmel joined them in the garden, and +the conversation became stately. The sketches were produced, and he made +polite comments. He discussed art with Ingram, and Ingram discussed +fertilizers with him, and as neither knew anything about the other's +specialty they discussed by force of intelligence. Ingeborg poured out +the tea and listened full of pride in them both. She thought how much +they must be liking and admiring each other. Robert's sound sense, his +quaint and often majestic English, his obviously notable scientific +attainments must, she felt sure, deeply impress Ingram. And of course to +see and speak to the great Ingram every day could not but give immense +gratification to Robert, now that he had become aware of who he was. She +sat between the two men in her old-fashioned voluminous white frock, +looking from one to the other with eager pride while they talked. She +did not say anything herself out of respect for such a combination of +brains, but she was all ears. She drank the words in. It was more +mind-widening she felt even than the _Clarion_. + +Ingram hated tea-time at the parsonage. Every day it was more of an +effort to meet Herr Dremmel's ceremoniousness appropriately, and his +scientific thirst for facts about art bored Ingram intolerably. He +detested the large soft creases of his clothes and the way they buttoned +and bulged between the buttonings. He disliked him for having sleeves +and trousers that were too long. He shuddered at the thought of the six +children. He did not want to hear about super-phosphates, and resented +having regularly every afternoon to pretend he did; and he did want, and +this became a growing wish and a growing awkwardness, to make love to +Herr Dremmel's wife. + +Herr Dremmel's large unconsciousness of such a possibility annoyed him, +particularly his obliviousness to the attractiveness of Ingeborg. He +would certainly deserve, thought Ingram, anything he got. It was +scandalous not to take more care of a little thing like that. Every day +at tea-time he was enraged by this want of care in Herr Dremmel, and +every day before and after tea he was engrossed, if abortive efforts to +philander can be called so, in not taking care of her himself. + +"You see," said Ingeborg when he commented on the immense personal +absences and withdrawals of Herr Dremmel, "Robert is very _great_. He's +wonderful! The things he does with just grains! And of course if one is +going to achieve anything one has to give up every minute to it. Why, +even when he loved me he usedn't to--" + +"Even when he loved you?" interrupted Ingram. "What, doesn't he now?" + +"Oh, yes, yes," she said quickly, flushing. "I meant--of course he does. +And besides, one always loves one's wife." + +"No, one doesn't." + +"Yes, one does." + +They left it at that. + +At the end of his second week in Kökensee Ingram found himself +increasing the number of his adjectives and images and comparisons, +growing almost eagerly poetical, for the force of proximity and want of +any one else to talk to or to think about was beginning to work, and it +was becoming the one thing that seemed to him to matter to get +self-consciousness into her frank eyes, something besides or instead of +that glow of admiring friendliness. He was now very much attracted, and +almost equally exasperated. She was, after all, a woman; and it was +absurd, it was incredible, that he, Ingram, with all these opportunities +should not be able to shake her out of her first position of just wonder +at him as an artist and a celebrity. + +She was so warm and friendly and close in one sense, and so nowhere at +all in another; so responsive, so quick, so ready to pile the sweetest +honey of flattery and admiration on him, and so blank to the fact +that--well, that there they were, he and she. And then she had a sense +of fun that interrupted, a sense most admirable in a woman at any other +time, but not when she is being made love to. Also she was very +irrelevant; he could not fix her; she tumbled about mentally, and that +hindered progress, too. Not that he cared a straw for her mentality +except in so far as its quality was a hindrance; it was that other part +of her, her queer little soul that interested him, her happiness and +zest of life, and, of course, the graces and harmonies of her lines and +colouring. + +"You know, I suppose," he said to her one evening as they walked slowly +back along the path through the rye-field, and the cool scents of the +ended summer's day rose in their faces as they walked, "that I'd give a +hundred days of life in London or Paris for an hour of this atmosphere, +this cleanness that there is about you." + +"I don't think a hundred's much. I'd give them _all_ to be with you. +Here. Now. In the rye-field. Isn't it wonderful this evening--isn't it +beautiful? Did you smell that?" She stopped and raised her nose +selectingly. "Just that instant? That's convolvulus." + +"You have such faith in my gods," he went on, when he could get her away +from the convolvulus, "such a bravery of belief, such a dear bravery of +belief." + +"Well, but of course," she said, turning shining eyes on to him. "Who +wouldn't believe in your gods? Art, love of beauty--" + +"But it isn't only art. My gods are all sweet things and all fine +things," said Ingram, convinced at the moment that he had never done +anything but worship gods of that particular flavour, so thoroughly was +he being purged by the hyssop of life in Kökensee. + +"Oh," said Ingeborg with an awed enthusiasm, "how wonderful it is that +you should be exactly what you are! But it's _clever_ of you," she added +with a little movement of her hands, smiling up at him, "to be so +_exactly_ what you are." + +"And do you know what exactly you are? You're the open window in the +prison-house of my life." + +She held her breath a moment. "How very beautiful!" she then said. "How +_very_ beautiful! And how kind you are to think of me like that! But why +is it a prison-house? You of all people--" + +"It isn't living, you see. It's existence in caricature over there. It's +like dining perpetually with Madame Tussaud's waxworks, or anything else +totally unreal and incredible." + +"But I don't understand how a great artist--" + +"And you're like an open window, like the sky, like sweet air, like +freedom, like secret light--" + +"Oh," she murmured, deprecating but enchanted. + +"When I'm with you I feel an intolerable disgust for all the chatter and +flatulence of that other life." + +"And when I'm with you," she said, "I feel as if I were stuffed +with--oh, with stars." + +He was silent a moment. Then, determined not to be outdone, he said: + +"When I'm with you I begin to feel like a star myself." + +"As though you weren't always one." + +"No. It's only you. Till I found you I was just an angry ball of mud." + +"But--" + +"A thirsty man in a stuffy room." + +"But--" + +"An emptiness, a wailing blank, an eviscerated thing." + +"A what?" asked Ingeborg, who had not heard that word before. + +"And you," he went on, "are the cool water that quenches me, the scent +of roses come into the room, liquid light to my clay." + +She drew a deep breath. "It's wonderful, wonderful," she said. "And it +sounds so real somehow--really almost as though you meant it. Oh, I +don't mind you making fun of me a bit if only you'll go on saying lovely +things like that." + +"Fun of you? Have you no idea, then, positively no idea, how sweet you +are?" + +He bent down and looked into her face. "With little kisses in each of +your eyes," he said, scrutinizing them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +In Redchester nobody talked of kisses. They were things not mentioned. +They were things allowable only under strictly defined conditions--if +you did not want to kiss, for instance, and the other person did not +like it--and confined in their application to the related. Like pews in +a parish church, they were reserved for families. Aunts might kiss: +freely. Especially if they were bearded--Ingeborg had an aunt with a +beard. Mothers might kiss; she had seen her calm mother kiss a new-born +baby with a sort of devouring, a cannibalism. Bishops might kiss, within +a certain restricted area. As for husbands, they did kiss, and nothing +stopped them till the day when they suddenly didn't. But no one, aunts, +mothers, bishops, or husbands, regarded the practice as a suitable basis +for conversation. + +How refreshing, therefore, and how altogether delightful it was that +Ingram should be so natural, and how she loved to know that, though of +course he was pretending about the little kisses in her eyes, he thought +it worth while to pretend! With glee and pride and amusement she +wondered what Redchester would say if it could hear the great man it, +too, honoured being so simple and at the same time so very kind. For the +first time she did not answer back; she was silent, thinking amused and +pleasant thoughts. And Ingram walking beside her with his hands in his +pockets and a gayness about his heels felt triumphant, for he had, he +thought, got through to her self-consciousness, he had got her quiet at +last. + +Not that he did not enjoy the incense she burned before him, the +unabashed expression of her admiration, but a man wants room for his +lovemaking, and once he is embarked on that pleasant exercise he does +not want the words taken out of his mouth. Ingeborg was always taking +the words out of his mouth and then flinging them back at him again +with, as it were, a flower stuck behind their ear. He had known that if +once he could pierce through to her self-consciousness she would leave +off doing this, she would become aware that he was a man and she was a +woman. She would become passive. She would let go of persisting that he +was a demi-god and she a sort of humble pew-opener or its equivalent in +his temple. Now apparently he had pierced through, and her silence as +she walked beside him with her eyes on the ground was more sweet to him +than anything she had ever said. + +Before, however, they had reached the gap in the lilac hedge that formed +the simple entrance on that side to the Dremmel garden there she was +beginning again. + +"In Redchester--" she began. + +"Oh," he interrupted, "are you going to give me a description of the +town and its environs so as to keep me from giving you a description of +yourself?" + +"No," she laughed. "You know I could listen to you for ever." + +The same frankness; the same shining look. Ingram wanted to kick. + +"I was thinking," she went on, "how nobody in Redchester ever talked +about kisses. Even little ones." + +"So you are shocked?" + +"No. What a word! I'm full of wonder at the miracle of you--_you_--being +so kind to me--_me!_ Saying such beautiful things, thinking such +beautiful things." + +This trick of gratitude was really maddening. + +"Tell me about Redchester," he said shortly. "Don't they kiss each other +there?" + +"Oh, yes. But they don't have them in their eyes." + +He shuddered. + +"And people don't mention them, unless it's aunts. And then not like +that. No aunt could ever possibly be of the pregnant parts needful for +the invention of a phrase like that. And if she were I don't suppose I'd +want to listen." + +"You do at least then want to listen?" + +"Want to? Aren't I listening always to every word you say with both my +ears? What a mercy," she added with thankfulness, "what a real mercy, +what an escape, that you're _not_ an aunt!" + +"You can't call it exactly a hairbreadth escape," he said moodily. "I +don't feel even the rough beginnings of an aunt anywhere about me." + +He walked with her through the darkness of the lime-tree avenue, +refusing to stay to supper. Why could he not then and there in that +solitary dark place catch her in his arms and force her to wake up, to +leave off being a choir-boy, a pew-opener? Or shake her. One or the +other. At that moment he did not much care which. But he could not. He +told himself that why he could not was because she would be so +limitlessly surprised, and that for all her surprise he would be no +nearer, not an inch nearer to whatever it was in her he was now so eager +to reach. She might even--indeed he felt certain she would--thank him +profusely for such a further mark of esteem, for being, as she would +say, so very kind. + +"Are you tired?" she asked, peering up at his face in the scented gloom, +for it was the time of the flowering of the lime-trees, on his suddenly +stopping and saying good night. + +"No." + +"You're feeling quite well?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Then," she said, "why go away?" + +"I'm in slack water. I have no talk. I'd bore you. Good night." + +The next day, having found the morning quite intolerably long, he +approached her directly they were alone on the difficult subject of +husbands. + +"It's no good, Ingeborg," he said, "yes, I'm going to call you +Ingeborg--we're fellow pilgrims you and I along this rocky +ridiculousness called life, and we'll soon be dead, and so, my dear, let +us be friends for just this little while--" + +"Oh, but of course, of course--" + +"It's no good, you know, barring certain very obvious subjects because +of that idiotic prepossession one has for what is known as good taste. +The only really living thing is bad taste. All the preliminaries to real +union, union of any sort, mind or body, consist in the chucking away of +reticences and cautions and proprieties, and each single preliminary is +in bad taste. If we're going to be friends we'll have to go in for that. +Bad taste. Execrable taste. Now--" + +He stopped. + +"Well?" + +She was looking at him in a kind of alarm. This was the longest speech +by far he had made, and she could not imagine what was coming at the +end. He was busy as usual flinging her on to paper--the number of his +studies of her was by this time something monstrous--and was glancing at +her swiftly and professionally at every sentence. + +"About husbands. Tell me what you think about husbands." + +"About husbands? But _they're_ not bad taste," she said. + +"Tell me what you think about them." + +"Well, they're people one is very fond of," she said, with her hands +clasped round her knees. + +"Oh. You find that?" + +"Yes. Don't you?" + +"I never had one." + +"The advantages of being a woman! They're people one is fond of once and +for all. They rescue one from Redchester. They're good and kind. They +help one roll up great balls of common memories, and all the memories +grow somehow into tender things at last. And they're patient. Even when +they've found out how tiresome one is they still go on being patient. +And--one loves them." + +"And--they love you?" + +She flushed. "Of course," she said. + +"You're amusing with your of courses and once for alls. Really you know +there are no such things. Nothing necessarily follows. I mean, not when +you get to human beings." + +Ingeborg fidgeted. Too well did she know the dishonesty of her Of +course; too well did she remember the sudden switching off, after +Zoppot, of Robert's love. But the rest was strictly true anyhow, she +thought. She did love him--dear Robert. The difference between him and +an amazing friend like Ingram was, she explained to herself, that she +was interested in Ingram, profoundly interested, and she was not +interested in Robert. That, she supposed, was because she loved Robert. +Perfect love, she said to herself, watching with careful attention the +approach of a hairy and rather awful caterpillar across the path towards +her shoes, perfect love cast out a lot of things besides fear. It cast +out, for instance, conversation. And interest, which one couldn't very +well have without conversation. Interest, of course, was an altogether +second-rate feeling compared to love, and because it was second-rate it +was noisier, expressing itself with a copiousness unnecessary when one +got to the higher stages of feeling. One loved one's Robert, and one +kept quiet. Far the highest thing was to love; but--she drew her feet up +quickly under her--how very interesting it was being interested! + +"Well?" he said, looking at her, "go on." + +"Well, but I can't go on because I've finished. There isn't any more." + +"It's a soon exhausted subject." + +"That's because it's so simple and so--so dear. You know where you are +with husbands." + +"You mean you know you're not anywhere." + +"Oh," she said, throwing back her head and facing him courageously, "how +you don't _realise_! And anyhow," she added, "if that were true it would +be a very placid and restful state to be in." + +"Negation. Death. Do you find it placid and restful with me?" + +"No," she said quickly. + +He put down his brushes and stared at her. "What a mercy!" he said. +"What a mercy! I was beginning to be afraid you did." + +By the end of the third week an odd thing had happened. He was no nearer +piercing through her outer husk to any emotions she might possess than +before, but she, astonishingly, had pierced through his. + +The outer husk of Ingram at this time and for some years previously was +a desire at all costs to dodge boredom, to get tight hold of anything +that promised to excite him, squeeze it with diligence till the last +drop of entertainment had been extracted, and then let it go again +considerably crumpled. It was the kind of husk that causes divergences +of opinion with one's wife. And behind it sat, wrapped in flame, the +thing that was with him untouchably first, his work. He did not know how +or why, but in that third week Ingeborg got through this husk and became +mixed up in a curious inextricable way with the flaming holy thing +inside. + +High above, immeasurably above, any interest he had ever felt in women +was his work. The divers love-makings with which his past bristled as an +ancient churchyard bristles with battered tombstones, had all been +conducted as it were on his doorstep. He came out to the lady, the lady +destined so soon to be a tombstone, often with passion, sometimes with +illusions, and always with immense goodwill to believe that here was the +real thing at last, but she never came in. She might and did catch cold +there for anything he cared, she should never cross the threshold and +start interfering, delaying, coming between. In the end she got left out +there alone, along with the scraper, feeling chilly. + +And here was Ingeborg through the door, and not interfering, not +delaying, but positively furthering. + +The increasing beauty of his studies of her first made him suspect it. +Their beauty began to surprise him, to take him unawares, as though it +were a thing outside and apart from his own will. He had found so few +things in humanity that seemed beautiful, and his pictures had been +pictures of resentments--impish and wonderful exposures by a master of +the littleness at the back of brave shows. For a fortnight now he had +sketched and sketched and splashed about with colour just as an excuse +for staying on, in the desire to make love to Ingeborg, to refresh +himself for a space at this unexpectedly limpid little spring. He had +been attracted, irritated, increasingly attracted, greatly exasperated, +greatly attracted. He had grown eager, determined, almost anxious at +last. But these various emotions had been felt by him strictly on his +doorstep. She was merely a substitute, and at that only a temporary +substitute, for the Caucasus. + +Then in the third week he perceived that she had left off being that. +She was no longer just an odd little thing, an attractive, delicious +little thing to him, of the colouring he best loved, the fairness, the +whiteness, a thing that offered up incense before him with unflagging +zeal, a thing full of contentments and generous ready friendship; she +still was all that, but she was more. Like Adam when God breathed into +his nostrils the breath of life, she had become a living soul, and that +of which she was the living soul was his work. Not only her soul but his +had begun to get into his studies of her. Each successive study unveiled +more of an inner beauty. Each fixed into form and colour qualities in +her and qualities in him who apprehended them that he had not known were +there. It was as if he watched, while his hand was held and guided sure +swift touch by sure swift touch by some one else, some one altogether +greater, some splendid master from some splendid other world, who laid +hold of him as one lays hold of a learner and showed him these things +and said at each fresh stroke, "Look--this is what she is like, the +essence of her, the spirit ... and see, it is what you are like, too, +for you recognise it." + +In that third week late one afternoon they went on the lake. Ingeborg +paddled slowly along the middle of the quiet water towards the sunset, +and Ingram sat at the other end with his back to it and watched her +becoming more and more transfigured as the sun got lower. + +Very early in their acquaintance he had conveyed to her that she ought +always to wear white and that hats were foolish and unnecessary; +therefore she did wear white, and sat hatless in the punt. The light +blinded her. She could see nothing of him but a dark hunch against a +blaze of sky. But when she wanted to turn the punt towards the relief of +the shadows along the shore he instantly stopped her, and told her to +keep on straight into the eye of the sun. + +"But I can't see," she said. + +"But I can. It's for my picture. It's going to be a study of light." + +"Shall you be able to do it from the sketches?" + +"No. From you." + +"Why, you said you couldn't anywhere here because there wasn't a proper +place." + +"There isn't. I'm going to do it in Venice. In my studio there." + +"But can you from memory?" + +"No. From you." + +She laughed. "How I wish I could!" she said. "I ache and ache to see +things, to go to Italy--" + +She sighed. The vision of it was unendurably beautiful. + +"Well, you'll have to. Not only because it's monstrous you shouldn't, +monstrous and shocking and unbelievable that you should be stuck in +Kökensee for years on end and never see or hear or know any of the big +things of life, but because you can't spoil my great picture--the +greatest I shall ever have done." + +"Robert could never leave his work." + +"I don't want Robert to leave anything. It's you I'm going to paint. And +I can't do without you." + +"How very awkward," she smiled, "because Robert can't do without me, +either." + +He plunged his arm into the water with sudden extreme violence, scooped +a handful of it high into the air, and dashed it back again. + +It had seemed to him obvious throughout his life that when it came to +the supremest things not only did one give up everything oneself for +them but other people were bound to give up everything, too. The world +and the centuries were to be enriched--he had a magnificent private +faith in his position as a creator--and it was the duty of those +persons who were needful to the process to deliver themselves, their +souls and bodies, up to him in what he was convinced was an entirely +reasonable sacrifice. If any one were necessary to his work, even only +indirectly by keeping him content while he did it so that he could +produce his best, it was that person's duty to come to his help. A +paramount duty; passing the love of home or family. He would do as much, +he was convinced, for some one else who should instead of him possess +the gift. Here had he been in a state of dissatisfaction and +restlessness for years, and his work, though his reputation leapt along, +was, he very well knew, not what it could have been. Boredom had seized +him; a great disgust of humanity. There had been harassing private +complications; his wife had turned tiresome, refusing to understand. And +now he had found this--this thing, he thought, looking at her in the +kind of fury that seized him at the merest approach to any thwarting +that touched his work, of light and fire and cleanness, this little +hidden precious stone, hidden for him, waiting for him to come and make +of her a supreme work of art, and she was putting forward middle-class +obstacles, Philistine difficulties, ludicrous trivialities--Robert, in +short--to the achievement of it. + +"Do you realise," he said, leaning forward and staring at her with his +strange pale eyes, "what it means to be painted by me?" + +"My utter glorification," she answered, "my utter pride." + +He waved his hand impatiently. "It means," he said, "and in this case it +would supremely mean, another one added to the great possessions of the +world." + +"Oh," said Ingeborg; and then, after a slight holding of her breath, +again "Oh." + +She was awe-struck. His voice came out of the black shadow of him at her +through clenched teeth, which gave it a strange awe-striking quality. +She felt, with the sunset blinding her and that black figure in front of +her and the intense clenchedness of the voice issuing from it, in the +presence of immensities. She wondered whether it would have been any +worse--instantly she corrected the word (it had been the merest slip of +her brain) to more glorious--to be sitting in a punt with, +simultaneously, Shakespeare, Sophocles. Homer, and the entire +Renaissance. Weak a thing though her paddle was she pressed it tightly +in her arms. + +"It's--a great responsibility," she said lamely. + +"Of course it is," he said, still in that clenched voice. "And it has to +be met greatly." + +"But what have _I_--" + +"Here's this picture--I feel it in me, I tell you I feel it and know +it--going to be the crowning work of my life, going to be a thing of +living beauty throughout the generations, going to be the Portrait of a +Lady that draws the world to look at it during all the ages after we are +dead--" + +He broke off. He left off hurling the sentences at her. He began to beg. + +"Ingeborg," he said, "you've cleaned me up and glorified me like the +sunshine during this stay here, without meaning to clean or bothering to +clean a bit. You've become the eyes of the universe to me, and if it +weren't for you now the whole thing would be an eyeless monster and a +mask and a horror. Without you--why, even during the mornings here when +I mayn't come to you I'm like a ship laid up in an out-of-the-way port, +an aeroplane without an engine, a book with the first and last pages +lost. The mornings are like a realistic novel of Gissing's after a fairy +tale. The afternoons are like a bright vision in a crystal, like a +dream, like one of the drops into fairyland quite common people +sometimes take. You're the littlest thing, and you leave the most +enormous blank. It's extraordinary the _goneness_ of things directly I'm +away from you. I did poor work before I found you, poor I mean compared +to what I know it might be, and I'll do none at all or mere ruins if I +have to work without you now. Work is everything to me, and I'm not +going to be able to do it if you're not there. Jeer at me if you like. +Jeer at me for a parasite. I've been an empty thing without you all +these years. You can't let me go again. You can't let me drop back into +the old angers, into the old falling short of the highest. You're the +spirit of my inmost. You're my response, my reality, my glorification, +my transmuter into a god. And the picture I'm going to do of you will be +the Portrait of a Lady who gave him back his Soul." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +She stared at his black outline helplessly. She was overwhelmed. What +could a respectable pastor's wife say to such a speech? It had the +genuine ring. She did not believe it all--not, that is, the portions of +it which that back part of her mind, the part that leapt about with +disconcerting agility of irrelevant questioning when it most oughtn't +to, called the decorations, for how could any one like Ingram really +think those wonderful things of any one like her?--but she no longer +suspected him of making fun. He meant some of it. What was underneath it +he meant, she felt. She was scared, and at the same time caught up into +rapture. Was it possible that at last she was wanted, at last she could +help some one? He wanted her, he, Ingram, of all people in the world; +and only a few weeks ago she had been going about Kökensee so completely +unwanted that if a dog wagged its tail at her she had been glad. + +"It--it's a great responsibility," she murmured a second time, while her +face was transfigured with more than just the sunset. + +It was. For there was Robert. + +Robert, she felt even at this moment in the uplifted state when +everything seems easy and possible, would not understand. Robert had no +need of her himself, but he would not let her go for all that to Venice. +Robert had altogether not grasped Ingram's importance in the world; he +could not, perhaps, be expected to, for he did not like art. Robert, she +was deadly certain, would not leave his work for an hour to take her +anywhere for any purpose however high; and without him how could she go +to Venice? People didn't go to Venice with somebody who wasn't their +husband. They might go there with a whole trainful of indifferent +persons if they were indifferent. Directly you liked somebody, directly +it became wonderful to be taken there, to be shown the way, looked +after, prevented from getting lost, you didn't go. It simply, as with +kissing, was a matter of liking. Society seemed based on hate. You might +kiss the people you didn't want to kiss; you might go to Venice with any +amount of strangers because you didn't like strangers. And in a case +like this--"Oh, in a case like this," she suddenly cried out aloud, +flinging the paddle into the punt and twisting her hands together, +overcome by the vision of the glories that were going to be missed, +"when it's so important, when it so tremendously matters--to be caught +by convention!" + +He had got her. The swift conviction flashed through him as he jerked +his feet out of the way of the paddle. Got her differently from what he +had first aimed at perhaps, still incredibly without sex-consciousness, +but she would come to Venice, she would come and sit to him, he was +going to do his masterpiece, and the rest was inevitable. + +"How do you mean?" he said, his eyes on her. + +"To think the great picture's never going to be painted!" + +"And why?" + +"Because of convention, because of all these mad rules--" + +She was twisting her fingers about in the way she did when much stirred. + +"It's doomed," she said, "doomed." And she looked at him with eyes full +of amazement, of aggrievedness, of, actually, tears. + +"Ingeborg--" he began. + +"Do you know how I've longed to go just to Italy?" she interrupted with +just the same headlong impulsiveness that had swept her into Dent's +Travel Bureau years before. "How I've read about it and thought about it +till I'm sick with longing? Why, I've looked out trains. And the things +I've read! I know all about its treasures--oh, not only its treasures of +art and old histories, but other treasures, light and colour and scent, +the things I love now, the things I know now in pale mean little +visions. I know all sorts of things. I know there's a great rush of +wistaria along the wall as you go up to the Certosa, covering its whole +length with bunch upon bunch of flowers--" + +"Which Certosa?" + +"Pavia, Pavia--and all the open space in front of it is drenched in +April with that divinest smell. And I know about the little red monthly +roses scrambling in and out of the Campo Santo above Genoa in +January--in January! Red roses in January. While here.... And I know +about the fireflies in the gardens round Florence--that's May, early +May, while here we still sit up against the stoves. And I know about the +chestnut woods, real chestnuts that you eat afterwards, along the steep +sides of the lakes, miles and miles of them, with deep green moss +underneath, and I know about the queer black grapes that sting your +tongue and fill the world with a smell of strawberries in September, and +what the Appian way looks like in April when it is still waving flowery +grass burning in an immensity of light, and I know the honey-colour of +the houses in the old parts of Rome, and that the irises they sell there +in the streets are like pale pink coral--and all one needs to do to see +these things for oneself is to catch a train at Meuk. _Any_ day one +could catch that train at Meuk. Every day it starts and one is never +there. And Kökensee would roll back like a curtain, and the world be +changed like a garment, like an old stiff clayey garment, like an old +shroud, into all _that_. Think of it! What a background, what a +background for the painting of the greatest picture in the world!" + +She stopped and took up the paddle again. "I wonder," she said, with +sudden listlessness "why I say all this to you?" + +"Because," said Ingram, in a low voice, "you're my sister and my mate." + +She dipped the paddle into the water and turned the punt towards home. + +"Oh, well," she said, the enthusiasm gone out of her. + +The water and the sky and the forests along the banks and the spire of +the Kökensee church at the end of the lake looked dark and sad going +this way. At first she could see nothing after the blinding light of the +other direction, then everything cleared into dun colour and bleakness. +"How one talks," she said. "I say things--enthusiastic things, and you +say things--beautiful kind things, and it's all no good." + +"Isn't it? Not only do we say them but we're going to do them. You're +coming with me to Venice, my dear. Haven't you read in those travel +books of yours what the lagoons look like at sunset?" + +She made an impatient movement. + +"Ingeborg, let us reason together." + +"I can't reason." + +"Well, listen to me then doing it by myself." + +And he proceeded to do it. All the way down the lake he did it, and up +along the path through the rye, and afterwards in the garden pacing up +and down in the gathering twilight beneath the lime-trees he did it. +"Wonderful," he thought in that submerged portion of the back of his +mind where imps of criticism sat and scoffed, "the trouble one takes at +the beginning over a woman." + +She let him talk, listening quite in silence, her hands clasped behind +her, her eyes observing every incident of the pale summer path, the +broken twigs scattered on it, some withered sweet-peas she had worn that +afternoon, a column of ants over which she stepped carefully each time. +Till the stars came out and the owls appeared he eagerly reasoned. He +talked of the folly of conventions, of the ridiculous way people +deliberately chain themselves up, padlock themselves to some bogey of a +theory of right and wrong, are so deeply in their souls improper that +they dare not loose their chain one inch or unlock themselves an instant +to go on the simplest of adventures. Such people, he explained, were in +their essence profoundly and incurably immoral. They needed the straight +waistcoat and padded room of principles. Their only hope lay in chains. +"With them," he said, "sane human beings such as you and I have nothing +to do." But what about the others, the free spirits increasing daily in +number, the fundamentally fine and clean, who wanted no safeguards and +were engaged in demonstrating continually to the world that two friends, +man and woman, could very well, say, travel together, be away seeing +beautiful things together, with the simplicity of children or of a +brother and sister, and return safe after the longest absence with not a +memory between them that they need regret? + +Why, there were--he instanced names, well-known ones, of people who, he +said, had gone and come back openly, frankly, determined demonstrators +for the public good of the natural. And then there were--he instanced +more names, names of people even Ingeborg had heard of; and finding this +unexpectedly impressive he went on inventing with a growing +recklessness, taking any people well-known enough to have been heard of +by Ingeborg and sending them to Venice in twos, in haphazard +juxtapositions that presently began to amuse him tremendously. No doubt +they had gone, or would go sooner or later, he thought, greatly tickled +by the vision of some of his couples. "There was Lilienkopf--you know, +the African millionaire. _He_ went to Venice with Lady Missenden." He +flung back his head and laughed. The thought of Lilienkopf and Lady +Missenden.... "They, too, came back without a regret," he said; and +laughed and laughed. + +She watched him gravely. She knew neither Lilienkopf nor Lady Missenden, +and was not in the mood for laughter. + +"Even bishops go," said Ingram. "They go for walking tours." + +"But not to Venice?" + +"No. To shrines. Why, Cathedral cities are honey-combed with secret +pilgrims." + +"But why secret? You said--" + +"Well, careful pilgrims. Pilgrims who make careful departures. One has +to depart carefully, you know. Not because of oneself but because of +offending those who are not imbued with the pilgrim spirit. For instance +Robert." + +"Oh--Robert. I _see_ his face if I suggested he should let me be a +pilgrim." + +"But of course you mustn't suggest." + +"What?" She stood still and looked up at him. "Just go?" + +"Of course. It was what you did when you ran away to Lucerne. If you'd +suggested you'd never have got there. And you did that for merest fun. +While this--" + +He looked at her, and the impishness died out of his face. + +"Why, this," he said, after a silence, "this is the giving back to me of +my soul. I need you, my dear. I need you as a dark room needs a lamp, as +a cold room needs a fire. My work will be nothing without you--how can +it be with no light to see by? It will be empty, dead. It will be like +the sky without the star that makes it beautiful, the hay without the +flower that scents it, the cloak one is given by God to keep out the +cold and wickedness of life slipped off because there was no clasp to +hold it tight over one's heart." + +She began to warm again. She had been a little cooled while he laughed +by himself over Lady Missenden's unregretted journeyings. To go to +Italy; to go to Italy at all; but to go under such conditions, wanted, +indispensable to the creation of a great work of art; it was the most +amazing cluster of joys surely that had ever been offered to woman. + +"How long would I have to be away?" she asked. "How long is the shortest +time one wants for a picture?" + +He airily told her a month would be enough, and, on her exclaiming, +immediately reduced it to a week. + +"But getting there and coming back--" + +"Well, say ten days," he said. "Surely you could get away for ten days? +To do," he added, looking at her, "some long-delayed shopping in +Berlin." + +"But I don't want to shop." + +"Oh, Ingeborg, you're relapsing into your choir-boy condition again. Of +course you don't want to shop. Of course you don't want to go to Berlin. +But it's what you'll say to Robert." + +"Oh?" she said. "But isn't that--wouldn't that be rather--" + +"Why can't you be as simple as when you went to Lucerne? You wanted to +go, so you went. And you were leaving your father who tremendously +needed you. You were his right hand. Here you're nobody's right hand. +I'm not asking you to do anything that would hurt Robert. All you've got +to do is to arrange so that he knows nothing beyond Berlin. Surely after +these years he can let you go away for ten days?" + +She walked with him in silence down the lilac path as far as the gate +into the yard. She was exalted, but her exaltation was shot with doubt. +What he said sounded so entirely right, so obviously right. She had no +reasoning to put up against it. She longed intolerably to go. She was +quite certain it was a high and beautiful thing to go. And yet-- + +Herr Dremmel's laboratory windows were open, for the evening was heavy +and quiet, and they could see him in the lamplight, with disregarded +moths fluttering round his head, bent over his work. + +"Good night," Ingram called in at the window with the peculiar cordial +voice reserved for husbands; but Herr Dremmel was too much engrossed to +hear. + +Towards two o'clock there was a thunderstorm and sheets of rain, and +when Ingeborg got up next morning it was to find the summer gone. The +house was cold and dark and mournful, and it was raining steadily. +Looking out of the front door at the yard that had been so bright and +dusty for five weeks she thought she had never seen such a sudden +desolation. The rain rained on the ivy with a drawn-out dull dripping. +The pig standing solitary in the mud was the wettest pig. The puddles +were all over little buttons made of raindrops. Invariably after a +thunderstorm the weather broke up for days, sometimes for weeks. What +would she and Ingram do now? she thought; what in the world would they +do now? Shut up in the dark little parlour, he unable to work, and no +walks, and no punting--why, he'd go, of course, and the wonder-time was +at an end. + +"A week of this," said Herr Dremmel, coming out of his laboratory to +stand on the doorstep and rub his hands in satisfaction, "a week of this +will save the situation." + +"Which situation, Robert?" she asked, her mind as confused and dull as +the untidy grey sky. He looked at her. + +"Oh, yes," she said hastily, "of course--the experiment fields. Yes, I +suppose this is what they've been wanting all through that heavenly +weather." + +"It was a weather," said Herr Dremmel, "that had nothing to do with +heaven and everything to do with hell. Devils no doubt might grow in it, +wax fat and big and heavy-eared, devils used to drought, but certainly +not the kindly fruits of the earth." + +And for an instant he gave his mind to reflection on how great might be +the barrier created between two people living together by a different +taste in weather. + +Ingram arrived at two o'clock in a state of extreme irritation. He +splashed through the farmyard with the collar of his coat turned up and +angrily holding an umbrella. In his wet-weather mood it seemed to him +entirely absurd and unworthy to be wading through an East Prussian +farmyard mess in pouring rain, beneath an umbrella, in order to sit with +a woman. He wanted to be at work. He was obsessed by his picture. He was +in the fever to begin that seizes the artist after idleness, the fever +to get away, to be off back to the real concern of life--the fierce +fever of creation. He had not yet had to come into the house on his +daily visits, and when he got into the passage he was immediately and +deeply offended by the smell that met him of what an hour before had +been a German dinner. The smell came out, as it were, weighty with +welcome. It advanced _en bloc_. It was massive, deep, enveloping. The +front door stood open, but nothing but great space of time could rid the +house in the afternoons of that peculiar and all-pervading smell. He was +shocked to think his white and golden one, his little image of living +ivory and living gold, must needs on a day like this be swathed about in +such fumes, must sit in them and breathe them, and that his communings +with her were going to be conducted through a heavy curtain of what +seemed to be different varieties of cabbage and all of them malignant. + +The narrow gloom of the house, its unpiercedness on that north side by +any but the coldest light, its abrupt ending almost at once in the +kitchen and servant part, struck him as incredibly, preposterously +sordid. What a place to put a woman in! What a place, having put her in +it, to neglect her in! The thought of Herr Dremmel's neglects, those +neglects that had made his own stay possible and pleasant, infuriated +him. How dare he? thought Ingram, angrily wiping his boots. + +Herr Dremmel, Kökensee, everything connected with the place except +Ingeborg, seemed in his changed mood ignoble. He forgot the weeks of +sunshine there had been, the large afternoons in the garden and forest +and rye-fields, the floating on great stretches of calm water, and just +hated everything. Kökensee was God-forsaken, distant, alien, ugly, +dirty, dripping, evil-smelling. Ingeborg herself when she came running +out of the parlour to him into the concentrated cabbage of the corridor +seemed less shining, drabber than before. And so unfortunately active +was his imagination, so quick to riot, that almost he could fancy for +one dreadful instant as he looked at her that there was cabbage in her +very hair. + +"Ingeborg," he said the moment he was in the parlour, "I can't stand +this. I can't endure _this_ sort of thing, you know." + +He rubbed both his hands through his hair and gnawed at a finger and +fixed his eyes on hers in a kind of angry reproach. + +"I was afraid you wouldn't like it," she said apologetically, feeling +somehow as though the weather were her fault. + +"Like it! And I can't idle here any more. You can't expect me to hang on +here any more--" + +"Oh, but I never _expected_--" she interrupted hastily, surprised and +distressed that she should have produced any such impression. + +"Well, it comes to the same thing, your making difficulties about coming +away, your wanting such a lot of persuading." + +He stopped in his quick pacing of the little room and stared at her. +"Why, you're giving me _trouble_!" he said, in a voice of high +astonishment. + +And as she stood looking at him with her lips fallen apart, her eyes +full of a new and anxious questioning, he began to pace about again, +across and round and up and down the unworthy little room. + +"God," he said, swiftly pacing, "how I do hate miss-ishness!" + +And indeed it seemed to him wholly, amazingly monstrous that his great +new work should be being held up a day by any scruples of any sort +whatever. + +"This grey headache of a sky," he said, jerking himself for a moment to +the window, "this mud, this muggy chilliness--" + +"But--" she began. + +"The days here are lines--just length without breadth or thickness or +any substance--" + +"But surely--till to-day--" + +"I feel in a sort of well in this place, out of sight of faith and +kindliness--you shutting them out," he turned on her, "you deliberately +shutting them out, putting the lid on the glory of light and life, being +an extinguisher for the sake of nothing and nobody at all, just for the +sake of a phantom of an idea about Robert--" + +"But surely--" she said. + +"I'm bored and bored here. This morning was a frightful thing. I daren't +in this state even make a sketch of you. I'd spoil it. It'll rain for +ever. I can't stay in this room. I'd begin to rave--" + +"But of course you can't stay in it. Of course you must go." + +"Go! When I can't work without you? When you're so everything to me that +during the hours I'm away from you little things you've said and done +float in my mind like little shining phosphorescent things in a dark +cold sea, and I creep into warm little thoughts of you like some +creature that shivers and gets back into its nest? I told you I was a +parasite. I told you I depend on you. I told you you make me exist for +myself. How can you let me beg? How can you let _me_ beg?" + +They stood facing each other in the middle of the room, his light eyes +blazing down into hers. + +"You--you're sure I'd be back in ten days?" she said. + +And he had the presence of mind not to catch her to his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +From the moment she said she would go Ingram was a changed creature. He +became brisk, business-like, cheerful. Not a trace was left of the +exasperated wet man who had come round through the rain, and there were +no more poetic images. He was reassuringly like a pleased elder brother, +a brother all alert contentment. The table was cleared by his swift +hands of the litter of her English studies, and the map out of the +_Reichskursbuch_ spread on it; and with the help of an old Baedeker his +sharp eyes had noticed lurking in a corner he expounded to her what she +was to do. He wrote down her train from Meuk to Allenstein and her train +from Allenstein to Berlin; he told her where she was to stay the night +in Berlin, a city he appeared to know intimately; and he made a drawing +in pencil of the streets that led to it from the station. + +"The dotted line," he said, explaining his drawing, "is Ingeborg's +little footsteps." + +She was to stay at one of those refuges for timid ladies with +connections in the Church which are scattered about Berlin and called +_Christliche Hospiz_, places where, besides coffee and rolls, there are +prayers and a harmonium for breakfast. She was to meet him next day at +the Anhalter station, that happy jump-off for the south, and he would +leave Kökensee at once, perhaps that evening, and wait for her in +Berlin. They would proceed to Venice intermittently, getting out of the +train at various points in order to see certain things--there was a walk +he wanted to take her across the hills of Lake Maggiore, for instance-- + +"But I've only ten days," she reminded him. + +"Oh, you'll see. One can do a lot--" And there was Bergamo he wanted to +show her; she would, he assured her, greatly love Bergamo; and certainly +they would go to Pavia if only to see if the wistaria were still in +flower. + +Her eyes danced. The sight of the map and the time-table was enough. She +hung over him eagerly, following his pointing finger as it moved over +mountains and lakes. She was like a schoolboy watching the planning out +of his first trip abroad. There was no room in her for any thoughts but +thoughts of glee. The names were music to her--Locarno, Cannobio, Luino, +Varese, Bergamo, Brescia, Venice. She lost sight of the higher aspect of +the adventure, the picture, her position as indispensable assistant in +the production of a great work; her brain was buzzing with just the idea +of trains and places and new countries and utter fun. After the years of +inaction in Kökensee, just to go in a train to Berlin would have been +tremendous enough to set her blood pulsing; and here she was going on +and on, farther and farther, into more and more light, more and more +colour and heat and splendour and all new things, till actually at last +she would reach it, the heart of the world, and be in Italy. + +"Oh," she murmured, "but it's too _good_ to be true--" + +And the Rigi, which up to then had been the high-water mark of her +experience, collapsed into a little lump of pale indifferent mould. + +When the tea began to bump against the door and she went out to help the +servant, Ingram put every sign of intending travel neatly away, and by +the time Herr Dremmel joined them there was no hint of anything anywhere +in the room but sobriety except in Ingeborg's eyes. They danced and +danced. She longed to jump up and fling her arms round Robert's neck and +tell him she was off to Italy. She wanted him to share her joy, to know +how happy she was. She felt all lit up and bright inside, while Ingram, +on the contrary, looked forbiddingly solemn. He presently began to make +solemn comments on the change in the weather, and after hearing Herr +Dremmel's view and sympathising with his gratification, said that as +regarded himself it put an end to his work of preparation for the +painting of Frau Dremmel's portrait, and therefore he was leaving the +next morning and would take the opportunity, when Herr Dremmel presently +retired to his laboratory, of making his farewells. + +Herr Dremmel expressed polite regrets. Ingram politely thanked him. +Ingeborg felt suddenly less lit up, and her eyes left off dancing. She +wanted, for some odd reason, to slip her hand into Robert's. It grew and +grew on her, the desire to go and sit very close to Robert. If only he +would come, too, if only he would for once take a holiday and come and +see these beautiful things with her, how happy they would all be! It +seemed a forlorn thing to leave him there alone in the rain while she +went jaunting off to Italy. Well, but he wouldn't come; he liked rain; +and he wouldn't let her go, either, if she were frankly to ask him to. +The example of Lady Missenden or of any of those well-known persons +would not, she knew, move him. Nor would anything she could say on the +shameful absurdity of supposing evil. Liberal though he was and large as +were his scoffings at convention, he was not as liberal and large, she +felt sure, as Ingram, and she suspected that the conventions he scoffed +at were those which did not touch himself. She could not risk asking. +She must go. She must, must go. Yet-- + +She got up impulsively, and on the pretext of taking his cup from him +went to him and put her hand with a little stroking movement on his +hair. Herr Dremmel did not observe it, but Ingram did; and after tea and +until he left that evening not to see her again till they met at the +Anhalter station in Berlin, he was amazingly natural and ordinary and +cheery, more exactly like a brother than any brother that had ever been +seen or imagined. + +"Of course," he said quite at the last, turning back from the doorstep +before finally committing himself to the liquid masses of the dissolved +farmyard--"of course I can _depend_ on you?" + +She laughed. She stood on the top step with the light of the lamp in the +passage behind her, a little torch of resolution and adventure and +imagination well let loose. + +"I'm going to Italy," she said, flinging out both her arms as though she +would put them round that land of dreams; and so complex is man and so +simple in his complexity that Ingram went away in the wet twilight quite +sincerely offering thanks to God. + +But when it came to the moment of telling Robert about Berlin and +shopping, her heart beat very uncomfortably. It was at tea-time the next +afternoon. All day she had been trying to do it, but her tongue refused. +At breakfast she tried, and at dinner she tried, and in between she went +twice to the laboratory door and stood on the mat, and instead of going +in went away again on the carefullest toe-tips. And there was Ingram +getting to Berlin, got to Berlin, kicking his heels there waiting.... + +At tea-time, after a tempestuous walk in the wet during which, as she +splashed through sodden miles of sad-coloured wilderness, she took her +gods to witness that the thing should be done that afternoon, she did +finally bring it out. She had meant to say with an immense naturalness +that she wished to go to Berlin in order to buy boots. She had thought +of boots as simple objects, quickly bought and resembling each other; +not like hats or dresses which might lead later on to explanations. And +she needed boots. She really would buy them. It would, she felt, help +her to be natural if what she said so far as it went were true. + +But so greatly was she chagrined in her soul that she should have to +talk of boots at all instead of telling him, her Robert, her after all +_kind_ Robert, with delight of Italy and of her discoveries in beautiful +new feelings, that when she had gulped and cleared her throat and gulped +again and opened her mouth she found herself not talking of boots nor +yet of Berlin, but addressing him with something of the indignant +irrelevance of a suffragette who because she has been forcibly fed +demands the vote. + +He had, as his custom was, brought literature with him, and was sitting +bent over his cup with the book propped against the hot-water jug. It +was called _Eliminierung der Minusvarianten_, and was apparently, as all +the books he brought to meals also were apparently, absorbing. The sound +of the dripping of the rain on the ivy was unbroken at first except by +the sound of Herr Dremmel drinking his tea, and the room was so gloomy +under the pall of heavy sky that almost one needed a lamp. + +"You see," said Ingeborg, most of the blood in her body surging up into +her face as she suddenly, after ten minutes' silent struggle, leaned +across the table and plunged into the inevitable, "my feeling so +uncomfortable about a simple thing like this is really the measure of +the subjection of women." + +Herr Dremmel raised his head but not his eyes from his book, expressing +thereby both a civilised attentiveness to anything she might wish to say +and a continued interest in the sentence he was at. When he had finished +it he looked at her over his spectacles, and inquired if she had spoken. + +"Why should I not go and come unquestioned?" she asked, flushed with +indignation that his prejudices should be forcing her to the low cunning +that substituted boots for Italy. "_You_ do." + +He examined her impartially. "What do I do, Ingeborg?" he asked with +patience. + +"Go away when you want to and come back when you choose. You've been +quite far. You went once to a place the other side of Berlin. Oh, I know +it's business you go on, but I don't think that makes it any better--on +the contrary, it isn't half as good a reason as going because it's +beautiful to go, and fine and splendid. And it isn't as though I even +had to ask you to give me money for it. I simply roll in that hundred a +year you allow me. I haven't spent a quarter of it for years. My +cupboard upstairs is stuffed with notes." + +He looked at her, but finding it impossible to discover any meaning in +her remarks began to read again. + +"Robert--" + +With patience he again removed his eyes from his book and looked at her. +Beneath the table she was pressing her hands together, twisting them +about in her lap. + +"Well, Ingeborg?" he said. + +"Don't you think it's unworthy, the way women have to ask permission to +do things?" + +"No," said Herr Dremmel; but he was thinking of the _Minusvarianten_, +and it was mere chance that he did not say Yes. + +"When husbands go away they don't ask their wives' permission, and it +never would occur to the wives that they ought to. So why should the +wives have to ask the husbands'?" + +Herr Dremmel gazed at her a moment, and then made a stately, excluding, +but entirely kindly movement with his right hand. "Ingeborg," he said, +"I am not interested." And he began to read again. + +She poured herself out some more tea, drank it hastily and hot, and said +with a great effort, "It's nonsense about permissions. I--I'm going to +Berlin." + +Then she waited with her heart in her mouth and both hands clutching the +edge of the table. + +But nothing happened. He read on. + +"Robert--" she said. + +Once more he endeavoured to place his attention at her disposal, +dragging it away reluctantly from his book. "Yes, Ingeborg?" he said. + +"Robert--I'm going to Berlin." + +"Are you, Ingeborg?" he inquired with perfect mildness. + +"Why?" + +"I've got to get things. Shop." + +"And why Berlin, Ingeborg? Is not Meuk nearer?" + +"Boots," she said. "There aren't any in Meuk. I never _saw_ any in +Meuk." + +"And in Königsberg? That also is nearer than Berlin." + +"You must have heard," she said, laying hold, because she was afraid, of +the first words that came into her head, "of Berlin wool. Well, the same +thing exactly applies to boots." + +He stared at her as one who feels about for some point of contact with +an alien intelligence. + +"Naturally if you have to go you must," he said. + +"Yes. For ten days." + +"Ten, Ingeborg? On account of boots?" + +She nodded defiantly, her hands beneath the table twisted into knots. + +He adjusted his mind to the conception. + +"Ten days for boots?" + +"Ten, ten," she said recklessly, prepared to brave any amount of +opposition. "I want to see a few things while I'm about it--the +galleries, for instance. It isn't going to be _all_ boots. I haven't +stirred from here since our marriage, except to go to Zoppot--it's time +I went--it's really _ridiculously_ time I went--" + +"But," said Herr Dremmel, with the complete reasonableness of one who is +indifferent and has no desire whatever to argue, "but naturally. Of +course, Ingeborg." + +"Then--you don't mind?" + +"But why should I mind?" + +"You--you're not even surprised?" + +"But why should I be surprised?" And once again he reflected on her +apparently permanent obtuseness to values. + +She gazed at him with the astonishment of a child who has screwed itself +up for a beating and finds itself instead being blessed. She felt +relief, but a pained relief; an aggrieved, almost angry relief; such as +he feels who putting his entire strength into the effort to lift a +vessel he fears is too heavy for him finds it light and empty. Her soul, +as it were, tumbled over backwards and sprawled. + +"How funny!" she murmured. "How very funny! And here I've been afraid to +tell you." + +But once more he had ceased to listen. His eye had been caught by a +statement on the page in front of him that interested him acutely, and +he read with avidity to the end of the chapter. Then he got up with the +book in his hand and went to the door, thinking over what he had read. + +She sat looking after him. + +"I expect--I think--I suppose I shall start to-morrow," she said as he +opened the door. + +"Start?" he repeated absently. "Why should you start?" + +"Oh, Robert--I can't get there if I don't start." + +"Get where, Ingeborg?" he asked, his eyes on hers but his thoughts in +unimaginable distances. + +"Oh, Robert--but to Berlin, of course." + +"Berlin. Yes. Very well. Berlin." + +And, deeply turning over the new and pregnant possibilities suggested to +him by what he had just been reading, he went out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +As though to assure her of what she already knew, that she was on the +threshold of the most glorious ten days of her life, the world when she +looked out of the window next morning was radiant with sunshine and +sparkling with freshness. Far away on the edge of Russia the great rain +clouds that had come up to Kökensee from the west and folded it for two +days in a stupor of mist were disappearing in one long purple line. The +garden glistened and laughed. Sweet fragrances from the responsive earth +hurried to meet the sun like eager kisses. If she had needed reassuring, +this happy morning warm and scented would have done it; but now that the +night was over, a time when those who are going to have doubts do have +them, and the dark sodden days when if facts are going to be blurred +they are blurred, she felt no scruples nor any misgivings--she had +simply got to the beginning of the most wonderful holiday of her life. + +Everything was easy. Robert went away after an early breakfast to his +fields to see the improvement forty-eight hours' soaking must have made, +and obviously did not mind her impending departure in the least; one of +the horses, till lately lame, was recovered, Karl told her, and able to +take her in to Meuk; the servant Klara seemed proud to be left in sole +charge; the train left Meuk so conveniently that she would have time to +visit Robertlet and Ditti on the way. Singing she packed her smallest +trunk; singing she thrust money from the cupboard where it had so long +lain useless into her blouse--one, two, three, ten blue German notes of +a hundred marks each--while she wondered, but not much, if it would be +enough, and wondered, but equally not much, if it would be too little; +singing she pinned on unfamiliar objects such as a hat and veil, and +sought out gloves; singing she handed over the keys to Klara; singing +she stood on the steps watching Karl harness the horses. All the birds +of Kökensee were singing, too, and the pig sunning itself in a thick +ecstasy of appreciation also sang according to its lights, and it was +not its fault, she thought excusingly, if what happened when it sang was +that it grunted. + +"Life is really the heavenliest thing," she said to herself, buttoning +her gloves, her face sober with excess of joy. "The _things_ it has +round its corners! The dear surprises of happiness." And when the +buttons came off she didn't mind, but excused them, too, on the ground +that they were not used to being buttoned, and let her gloves happily +dangle. She would have excused everything that day. She would have +forgiven everybody every sin. + +Klara brought her out a packet of sandwiches with her luggage, and a +little bunch of rain-washed flowers. + +"How kind every one is!" she thought, smiling at Klara, wondering if she +would mind very much if she kissed her, her heart one single +all-embracing Thank you that reached right round the world. And then +suddenly, just as Karl was ready and the carriage was actually at the +door and the little trunk being put into it, and her umbrella and +sandwiches and flowers, she ran back into the house and scribbled a note +to Robert and put it on the table in his laboratory where he would not +be able to avoid seeing it when he came in that afternoon. + + +"I _can't_ not tell him," was the thought that had winged her impulse, +"I _can't_ not tell the truth this heavenly, God-given day of joy." + +"_It wasn't true about the boots_," she wrote, inking her gloves, too +frantically hurried to take them off. "_I'm going to Italy with Mr. +Ingram--to Venice--it's his picture--and of course other things, too on +the way--if you think it over you won't really mind--I must run or I'll +miss the train--_ + +"INGEBORG." + + +And she climbed up into the carriage and drove off greatly relieved and +strong in her faith, if you gave him time and quiet, in Robert's +understanding of a thing so transparently reasonable. She would write +again, she said to herself, a real letter from Berlin and put her points +of view and Ingram's before him. Of course that was the right thing to +do. Of course a highly intelligent man like Robert was bound ultimately +to understand. + +But her train did not get to Berlin till eleven o'clock that night, and +when she reached the _Christliche Hospiz_ she found a letter from Ingram +telling her she must be at the Anhalter station next morning at nine, +and though she meant to get up early and write she spent the time, being +very tired, asleep instead, and it was only when the strains of a +harmonium penetrated into her room and wandered round her head making +slow Lutheran noises that she woke up and realised how nearly she was on +the verge of missing the train to Italy. + +Breakfastless and prayerless and almost without paying her bill she +hurried forth from the _Christliche Hospiz_, her clothes full of an odd +smell of naphthalin and the meals that had been eaten there before she +arrived, the ancient meals of all the yesterdays. From the smell she +concluded, cautiously and reluctantly sniffing while she put down both +windows of her cab, that what they had to eat in the _Christliche +Hospiz_ was the chorales of the harmonium expressed in cabbage; and +whether it was the cab or whether it was her clothes she did not know, +but there inside it with her still was cabbage. + +"It's the odour of piety," she explained hastily to Ingram when he on +meeting her at the station looked at her with what she thought a severe +inquiry. + +"It's that you're within an ace of missing the train," he said, catching +hold of her elbow and hurrying her down the platform to a door that +still stood open, with an angry official, glaring dreadfully in spite of +his tip, waiting beside it to shut it. + +"I'm so sorry," she said, panting a little as she dropped into a corner +of the carriage opposite him and the train slipped away from the +station, "but I couldn't get here any sooner." + +"Why couldn't you?" he asked, still severely, for he had spent a +distressing and turbulent half hour. "You only had to get up in time." + +"But I couldn't get up because I was asleep." + +"Nonsense, Ingeborg. You could tell them to call you." + +"Well, but I didn't tell them." + +"And why don't you button your gloves? Here--I'll button them." + +"You can't. There aren't any buttons." + +"What? No buttons?" + +"They came off." + +"But why in heaven's name didn't you sew them on again?" + +"Do buttons matter? I was in such a tremendous hurry to start." And she +smiled at him a smile of perfect happiness. + +"To come to me. To come to me," he said, his eyes on hers. + +"Yes. And Italy." + +"Italy! Well, you very nearly missed me. What would you have done then?" + +"Oh, gone to Italy." + +"What, just the same?" + +"Well, Italy _is_ Italy, isn't it? Look at this sky. Isn't it wonderful +to-day, isn't it perfectly glorious? Can the sky in Italy possibly be +bluer than this?" + +He made an impatient movement. "Choir-boy," he said; and added, catching +sight of her finger-tips, "Why is your glove all over ink?" + +"Because I wrote to Robert in it." + +"What? You came away without saying anything at all?" + +"Oh, no. I said all the things about Berlin and shopping, and he didn't +mind a bit." + +"There, now--didn't I tell you? But what did you write?" + +"Oh, just the truth. That I'm going with you to Italy." + +"What? You did?" + +"I couldn't bear after all to start like that, in that--that lying sort +of way." + +"And you wrote that you were going with me?" + +"Yes. And I said--" + +"And he'll find the letter when he comes in?" + +"Yes. He can't help seeing it. I put it on his laboratory table, right +in the middle." + +Ingram leaned forward, his face flushed, laughter and triumph in his +eyes, and caught hold of her right hand in its inky glove. + +"Adorable inkstains," he said, looking at them and then looking up at +her. "You little burner of ships." + +And as she opened her mouth in what was evidently going to be a question +he hurried her away from it with a string of his phrases. + +"You are all the happiness," he said, with an energy of conviction +astonishing at half-past nine in the morning, "and all the music, and +all the colour, and all the fragrance there is in the world." + +"Then you haven't noticed the cabbage?" she asked, immensely relieved. + +He let go her hand. "What cabbage?" he asked shortly, for it nettled him +to be interrupted when he was spinning images, and it more than nettled +him to be interrupted in the middle of an emotion. + +But when she began--vividly--to describe the inner condition of the +_Christliche Hospiz_ he stopped her. + +"I don't want to talk of anything ugly to-day," he said. "Not to-day of +all days in my life." And he added, leaning forward again and looking +into her eyes, "Ingeborg, do you know what to-day is?" + +"Thursday," said Ingeborg. + +The conductor--it was a corridor train, and though they had the +compartment to themselves the passage outside was busy with people +squeezing past each other and begging each other's pardons--came in to +look at their tickets. + +"There is a restaurant car on the train," he said in German, giving +information with Prussian care, a disciplinary care for the comfort of +his passengers, who were to be made comfortable, to be forced to use the +means of grace provided, or the authorities would know the reason why. + +"Yes," said Ingram. + +"You do not change," said the conductor, with Prussian determination +that his passengers should not, even if they wanted to and liked it, go +astray. + +"No," said Ingram. + +"Not until Basel," said the conductor menacingly, almost as if he wanted +to pick a quarrel. + +"No," said Ingram. + +"At Basel you change," said the conductor eyeing him, ready to leap on +opposition. + +"Yes," said Ingram. + +"You will arrive at Basel at 11.40 to-night," said the conductor, in +tones behind which hung "Do you hear? You've just got to." + +"Yes," said Ingram. + +"At Basel--" + +"Oh, go to _hell_!" said Ingram, suddenly, violently, and in his own +tongue. + +The conductor immediately put his heels together and saluted. From the +extreme want of control of the gentleman's manner he knew him at once +for an officer of high rank disguised for travelling purposes in +civilian garments, and silently and deferentially withdrew. + +"If there's a restaurant car can I have some breakfast?" asked Ingeborg. + +"Haven't you had any? You poor little thing. Come along." + +She followed him out into the corridor, he going first to clear people +out of the way and turning to give her his hand at the crossings from +one coach to the next. The restaurant was in the front of the train, and +it required perseverance and the opening of many difficult doors to get +to it. Each time he turned to help her and gripped hold of her hand as +they swayed against the sides and were bumped they looked at each other +and laughed. What fun it all was, she thought, and how entirely new and +delicious being taken care of as though she were a thing that mattered, +a precious thing! + +He had had breakfast in Berlin, but he sat watching her with an alert +interest that missed not the smallest of her movements, very reminiscent +in his attitude and pleasure of a cat watching its own dear mouse, +observing it with a whiskered relish, its own dear particular mouse that +it has ached for for years before it ever met it, filling itself +dismally meanwhile with the wrong mice who disagreed with it--its mouse +that, annexed and safely incorporated, was going to do it so much good +and make it twice the eat it was before; and he buttered her roll for +her, and poured out her tea, and did all the things a cat would do in +such a situation if it were a man, pleased that its mouse should fatten, +aware that anything it ate and drank would ultimately, so to speak, +remain in the family. + +The splendid June morning, the last morning of June, shone golden +through the long, continuous windows of the car. The fields of the Mark +lay bathed in light. It was early still, but it had already begun to be +hot, and haymakers straightening themselves to watch the train go by +wiped their faces, and the prudent cows were gathered in the shade of +trees, and in the ear the ventilator twirled and hummed, and the waiter +in his white linen jacket who brought her strawberries, each one of +which had been examined and passed as fit and sound by the proper +authorities suitably housed in Berlin in buildings erected for the +purpose, was a credit to the Prussian State Railway by-law which +decrees, briefly and implacably, that waiters shall be cool. + +She pulled out one of the blue German hundred mark notes from her blouse +when he brought the bill, and more of them came out with it. + +"What on earth is all that for?" Ingram asked. + +"To pay with. And you must tell me how much my ticket was to--wasn't it +Locarno you said we got out at?" + +"You can't go about with money loose like that. Give it to me. I'll take +care of it for you." + +She gave it to him, nine blue notes out of her blouse and the change of +the tenth out of a little bag she had brought and was finding great +difficulty, so much unused was she to little bags, in remembering. + +"I hope it's enough," she said. "Don't forget I've got to get back +again." + +He laughed, tucking the notes away into his pocket-book. "Enough? It's a +fortune. You can go to the end of the world with this," he said. + +"Isn't it all glorious, isn't it all too wonderful to be true?" she +said, her face radiant. + +"Yes. And the most glorious part of it is that you can't go anywhere +now," he said, putting the pocket-book in his breast pocket and patting +it and looking at her and laughing, "without me." + +"But I don't want to. I'd much _rather_ go with you. It's so +extraordinarily sweet that you want me to. You know, I never can quite +believe it." + +He bent across the table. "Little glory of my heart," he murmured. + +The waiter came back with the change. + +"I wish Robert were here," said Ingeborg, gazing round her out of the +windows with immense contentment. "If only he could have got away I +believe he'd have loved it." + +Ingram pushed back his chair with a jerk. "I don't think he'd have loved +it at all," he said; and going back through the length of the train to +their compartment though he helped her at the difficult places, it was +by putting out his hand behind him for her to clutch, he did not this +time turn round and look into her eyes and laugh. + +It grew very hot as the day wore on, and extremely dusty. The +thunderstorm that had deluged East Prussia had not come that way, and +there had been no rain from the look of things for a long while. The +dust came in in clouds, and they were obliged to shut the windows, but +it still came in through chinks and settled all over them and choked +them, and even lay in the delicate details of Ingeborg's nose. He had +made her take off her hat and veil, so she had nothing to protect her, +and he watched her with a singular annoyance turning gradually +drab-coloured. He wanted to lean forward and dust her, he hated to see +her whiteness being soiled, it fidgeted him intolerably. He himself +stood long train journeys badly; but though it was so hot, so +insufferably hot, she was as active and restless as a child, continually +jumping up and running out into the dreadful blazing corridor to see +what there was to see that side. + +They passed Weimar; and she was of an intemperate zeal on the subject of +Goethe, putting down the window and craning out to look and quoting +_Kennst Du das Land wo die Citrone blüht_--quoting to him, who loathed +quotations even in cool weather. They passed Eisenach; and again she +displayed zeal, talking eagerly of Luther and the Wartburg and the +inkpot and the devil--and of St. Elizabeth, of course: he knew she would +get to St. Elizabeth. She told him the legends--told him who knew all +legends, told him who had a headache and could only keep alive by going +into the lavatory and plunging his head every few minutes into cold +water, and she did not in the least mind when she craned out of the +window to look at things that she should come back into the carriage +again with her hair in every sort of direction and her face not only +dusty but with smuts. + +At the hottest moment of the day he felt for a lurid instant as if it +were not one choir-boy he was with but the entire choir having its +summer treat and being taken by him single-handed for a long dog-day to +the Crystal Palace; but that was after luncheon in the restaurant car, a +luncheon that seemed to his fevered imagination to consist of bits of +live cinder served in sulphur and eaten in a heaving, swaying lake of +brimstone. Even the waiter who attended to their table was, in the teeth +of regulations, a melted man; and when the inspector passed through, +looking about him with the eye of a Prussian eagle to see that all was +in order and the standard set by law was being reached of cool waiters +and hot food and tepid passengers, he instantly pounced on the +manifestly melted waiter who, unable to deny the obvious fact that he +was beaded, put his heels together and endeavoured to escape a fine by +anxious explanation that he knew he was in a perspiration but that it +was a cold one. + +They were having tea when they passed Frankfurt, and dinner when they +passed Heidelberg. A great full moon was rising behind the castle at +Heidelberg, and the Neckar was a streak of light. The summer day was +coming to an end in perfect calm. The quiet roads leading away into +woods and through orchards were starred on either side with white +flowers. In the dusk it was only the white flowers that still shone, the +stitchworts, the clusters of Star of Bethlehem, the spikes of white +helleborine; and all the colours of the day, the blue of the chickory +and delicate lilac of dwarf mallows, the bright yellow of wood +loosestrife and rose-colour of campions, were already put out for the +night. + +Ingeborg gazed through the window with the face of a happy goblin. Her +eyes looked brighter than ever out of their surrounding smuts, and her +hair was all ends, little upright ends that stirred in the draught. The +dreadful day, the hours and hours of heat and choking airlessness, had +made no impression on her apparently, except to turn her from clean to +dirty, while Ingram lay back in his corner a thing hardly human, wanting +nothing now in the world but cold water poured over him and he to lie +while it was poured on a slab of iced marble. But the sun was down at +last, dew was falling and quieting the dust, and the final journey to +the restaurant car had been made, a journey on which it was Ingeborg who +opened the doors and nobody helped anybody at the crossings. He had +walked behind her, and had fretfully observed her dress and how odd it +was, like old back numbers of illustrated papers, the sleeves wrong, the +skirt wrong, too much of it in places, too little in others, but mostly +there was too much, for it was the year when women were skimpy. + +"You'll have to get some clothes in Italy," he said to her at dinner. + +"What for?" she asked, surprised. + +"What for? To put on," he said with a limp acerbity. + +But now at last between Strassburg and Bâle, when all glare had finally +departed and the lamp in their compartment was muffled into grateful +gloom by the shade he drew across it, and the windows were wide open to +the great dusky starry night, and a thousand dewy scents were stirred in +the fields as the train passed through them, he began to feel better. + +At his suggestion she had gone out and washed her face, so that he could +look at it again, delicately fair in the dusk, with satisfaction. And +presently because of some curves the rails took the moon shone in on her +while he still sat in shadow, and her face, turned upwards to the stars +with the wonder on it of her happiness, once more seemed to him the most +spiritual thing he had yet found in a woman--unconscious spirit, +exquisitely independent and aloof. He watched her out of the shadow of +his corner for a long time, taking in every curve and line, trying to +fix her look of serenity and clear content on his memory, the expression +of an inner tranquillity, of happy giving oneself up to the moment that +he had not seen before except in children. To watch her like that +soothed him gradually quite out of the fever and fret of the day. As his +habit was, he forgot his other mood as if he had never had it. Growing +cool and comfortable with the growing coolness of the night, his +irritations, and impatiences, and desire--it had for several hours in +the afternoon been paramount with him--for personal absence from her, +were things wiped out of recollection. He forgot, in the quiet of her +attitude, that she had ever been restless, and in her expressive and +beautiful silence that she had ever quoted, and, watching her whiteness, +that she had ever been drab. She was, he thought considering her, his +head very comfortable now on the cushions and a most blessed draught +deliciously lifting his hair, like the soft breast of a white bird. She +was like diamonds, only that she was kind and gentle. She was like +spring water on a thirsty day. She was like a very clear, delicate white +wine. Yes; but what was it she was most like? + +He searched about for it in his mind, his eyes on her face; and +presently he found it, and leaned forward out of the shadow to tell her. + +"Ingeborg," he said, and at the moment he entirely meant it, "you are +like the peace of God." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +At Bâle there was hurry and bustle, the half hour they ought to have had +there wasted away by some unaccountable loosening of the bandages of +discipline on the German side to four minutes--the conductor when +questioned said the engine had gone wrong, and explained, with a shrug +that was to help hide his shame in this failure of the infallible, that +engines were but human--and again there was an undignified scamper down +steps and up steps and along platforms, and they arrived panting, pushed +in by porters, only just in time into a compartment studded round with +sleeping Swiss. + +Ingram left Ingeborg sitting temporarily on the edge of the seat +clasping her umbrella and coat and little bag, while he walked through +the train in search of more space, refusing to believe such a repulsive +thing could happen to him as that he should be obliged to travel to +Bellinzona with four sleeping Swiss; but the train seemed to be a +popular one, else a national festival was preparing or some other +upheaval that caused people to move about that night in numbers, and all +the compartments were full. + +He went back to Ingeborg in a condition of resentful gloom. The four +Swiss were sleeping in the four corners, and the carriage smelt of +crumbs. He opened the window, and there was an immediate simultaneous +resurrection of the four Swiss into angry life. Ingram, fluent in +French, met them with an equal volubility, standing with his back to the +open window protecting it from their assaults, while Ingeborg looked on +in alarm; but the conductor when he came pronounced in favour of the +four Swiss. Pacified, they instantly fell asleep again; and Ingram, at +least not taking care of their legs, strode out into the corridor, where +he stood staring through the open window at midnight nature and cursing +himself for not having broken the journey at Bâle, while Ingeborg peeped +anxiously at his back round her coat and her umbrella. + +From Bâle to Lucerne he was as unaware of her as if he had never met +her, so very angry was he and so very tired. Then at Lucerne two of the +Swiss got out, and turning round he saw her asleep in the compartment, +tumbled over a little to one side, still holding her things, and once +again she filled his heart. She was utterly asleep, in the most +uncomfortable position, dropped away in the middle of how she happened +to be sitting like a child does or a puppy; and he went in and sat down +beside her and lifted her head very cautiously and gently on to his arm. + +She opened her eyes and looked up at him along his sleeve without +moving, in a sort of surprise. + +"This is Lucerne," he whispered, bending down; how soft she was, and how +little! + +"Is it? Why, that's where Robert and I--" + +But she was asleep again. + +She slept till he woke her up before Bellinzona, and so she never knew +the moment she had thrilled to think of when they would in the dawn of +the summer morning come out on the other side of the St. Gothard into +what, in spite of anything the Swiss might say, was Italy; and still +half asleep, mechanically putting on her hat and pausing to rub her eyes +while he urged her to be quick, she did not realise where she was. When +she did, and looked eagerly at the window, it was to turn to him +immediately in consternation. + +"_Oh!_" she said. + +"Yes," said Ingram, passing his hand quickly over his hair, a gesture of +his when annoyed. + +It was raining. + +They got out on to what seemed the most melancholy platform in the +world, a grey wet junction with a grey level sky low down over it and +over all the country round it. The Locarno train was waiting, and they +went to it in silence. It was a quarter to six, a difficult time of day. +The train, almost empty, jogged slowly through the valley of the Ticino. +Down the windows raindrops chased each other. On the road alongside the +railway, a road bound also for Locarno and dreary with brown puddles, an +occasional high cart crawled drawn by a mule and driven by a huddled +human being beneath a vast umbrella. The lake when they came in sight of +it was a yawn of mist. + +Ingeborg stared out at these things in silence. It was incredible that +this should be Italy--again in spite of anything the Swiss might +say--while on the other side of the Alps all Germany, including +Kökensee, lay shimmering in light and colour. Ingram sat in the farthest +corner of the carriage, his hands thrust in his pockets, his hat pulled +over his eyes, looking straight in front of him. He was a mass of varied +and profound exasperations. Everything exasperated him, even to the long +trickle slowly creeping towards him down the floor from Ingeborg's wet +umbrella. There was nothing she could have said or done at that moment +that would not have rubbed his exasperation into a flame of swift and +devastating speech. Luckily she said and did nothing, but sat quite +silent with her face turned away towards the blurred window panes. But +if she did not speak or do she yet was; and he was acutely conscious, +though he never took his eyes off the cushions opposite, of every detail +of her in that grey and horrible light, of her crumpled clothes, her +drooping smudgedness, her hat grown careless, and her hair in wisps. He +had wanted to show her Italy, he had extraordinarily wanted to show her +Italy in its summer magnificence, and there was--this. As a result what +he now extraordinarily wanted was to upbraid her. He did not stop to +analyse why. + +At the hôtel in Locarno where they went for baths and breakfast--he had +planned originally to show her the beautiful walk from there along the +side of the lake to Cannobio, but now beyond baths and breakfast he had +no plan--a person in shirt sleeves and a green apron who inadequately +represented the hall-porter, for it was not yet seven and the +hall-porter was still in bed, unintelligently and unfortunately spoke to +Ingeborg of Ingram in his hearing as _Monsieur votre père_. + +This strangely annoyed Ingram. "It's your short skirt," he said, with +suppressed sulphur. "You positively must get some clothes. Dressed like +that you suggest perambulators." + +"But this is my _best_ dress," she protested. "It's quite new. I mean, +I've never had it on before since it was made." + +And with the easy tactlessness of one who has not yet learned to be +afraid, she looked at him and laughed. + +"Why," she said, "this morning I'm perambulators and only last night, +quite late last night, I was the peace of God." + +To this, however, he did not trust himself to reply, but vanished with a +kind of pounce into his bathroom. + +He came to breakfast clean, but in a mood that could bear nothing, least +of all good temper. Ingeborg was by nature good tempered. She sat there +pleased and refreshed--after all, he remembered resentfully, she had had +five hours' sleep in the train while he had not had a wink--gaily making +the best of things. She pointed out the strength of the coffee and the +crispness of the rolls. She asked him if he did not think it a nice +hôtel. She did not agree when he alluded to the waiter as blighted. She +predicted a break in the weather at eleven, and said that it had always +come true what her old nurse used to tell her, that rain at seven meant +fine at eleven. + +He hated her old nurse. + +Until he had had some sleep, a long steady sleep, he would, he knew, be +nothing but jarred nerves. When then after breakfast she inquired, with +a cheerful air of being ready for anything, what they were going to do +next, he briefly announced that he was going to sleep. + +"Oh? Shall I have to go, too?" she asked, her face falling. + +"Of course not." + +"Then," she said eagerly, "I'll go out and explore." + +"What, in this rain?" + +"Oh, I've got goloshes." + +Goloshes! He retreated into his room. + +It annoyed him intensely that she should be not only ready but pleased +to go out for her first walk in Italy without him. He threw himself +angrily on the bed, rang the bell, and bade the person who answered it, +the same young man in shirt sleeves and a green apron who had welcomed +them, tell Madame that if he were not awake by luncheon time she was not +to wait for him, but was to have luncheon at the proper hour just the +same. + +The young man sought out Ingeborg in her room. She was tugging on her +goloshes, one foot on a chair, her face flushed with effort and +expectancy. + +"_Monsieur votre père_--" he began. + +"_Ce n'est pas mon père_," said Ingeborg, turning an amused face to him +as she tugged. + +"_Monsieur votre mari_--" + +"_Quoi? Certainement pas_," said Ingeborg, who in spite of her prize for +French was unacquainted with the refinements of that language. "_Ce +n'est pas mon mari_," she said, energetically repudiating. + +"_Ah--Monsieur n'est pas le mari de Madame_," said the young man +trippingly. + +"_Certainement pas_," said Ingeborg. "_Mon mari est à la maison_." + +"_Ah--tiens_," said the young man. + +"_C'est mon ami_," said Ingeborg. + +"_Ah--tiens, tiens_," said the young man; and he delivered his message +with a sudden ease and comfort of manner. + +But though the young man's manner grew easy, after his report of this +brief dialogue the hôtel's manner grew stiff, for on the slip of paper +presented to Ingram to be filled in with his name he had, unaware of the +things Ingeborg was saying, described himself and her as Mr. and Mrs. +Dobson, and the hôtel, in which English Church services were held, and +which was at that moment, though the season was over, being stayed in by +several representative English spinsters, and a clergyman also from +England with a wife and grown-up daughters, most respectable nice ladies +who all took him out every day twice, once after breakfast and once +after tea, for a little walk--the hôtel decided, putting its heads +together in the manager's office, that it would, using tact, encourage +the Dobsons to depart. + +It could do nothing, however, for the moment, for the lady had +disappeared with an umbrella into the wet, and the gentleman, it could +hear, was sleeping; and this condition of things continued for many +hours, the lady not coming into luncheon but remaining in the wet, and +the gentleman, it could hear, going on sleeping. Then it became aware +that they were both having tea in a distant corner of the slippery +windowed wilderness of bamboo chairs and tables described in its +prospectus as the Handsome Palmy Lounge, and that they had drawn up a +second table to the one their tea was on and piled it with undesirably +dripping branches of the yellow broom that grew high up in the hills, +and that they were being noticed with suspicion by the hôtel's authentic +guests who were used to having their tea in the silent stupor of the +really married, because the gentleman, contrary to the observed habits +of genuine husbands, was talking to the lady instead of reading the +_Daily Mail_. + +The hôtel was nothing if not competent. It could handle any sort of +situation competently, from runaway couples to that most unpleasant form +of guest of all, the kind that came alive and went away dead. Full of +tact, it allowed the lady and gentleman to finish their tea undisturbed; +then it sent some one sleek to inform them that, most unfortunately, +their rooms had been engaged for weeks beforehand for that very night, +and therefore-- + +But before this person could even begin to be competent the gentleman +requested him to have a carriage round in half an hour as he intended +going on that evening; and thus the parting was accomplished, as all +partings should be, urbanely, and the manager was able to display his +doorstep suavity and bow and wish them a pleasant journey. + +The Dobsons departed in a gay mood, with the branches of yellow broom +rhythmically nodding between them over the edge of the waterproof apron +that buttoned them in. Ingram had slept soundly for seven hours, and +felt altogether renewed. He was taking her to Cannobio, along the road +he had hoped to walk with her in sunshine; but Ingeborg, who had climbed +hills till her blood raced and glowed, saw peculiar beauties even in the +wetness, and would not believe that sun could make things lovelier. +Outside Locarno, in that flat and grassy place beyond the town where the +beautiful small hills draw back for a little from the lake, and the +ox-eyed daisies grow so big, and the roads are strewn white with the +blossoms of acacias, it stopped raining and Ingram had the hood put +down. The mountains on the other side of the lake were indigo-coloured, +with pulled-off tufts of woolly clouds lying along them down near the +water. The lake was a steely black. The valley brooded in sullen +lushness; and the branches of broom they carried with them in the +carriage cut through the sombre background like a golden knife. + +"The one doubt I have," said Ingeborg, breathing in the warm scented air +in long breaths, "is that it's all too good to be true." + +"It isn't," said Ingram, safely disentangled for a while from the +intricate effect on his enthusiasms of fatigue and dirt and headaches, +"it's absolutely good and absolutely true. But only," he said, turning +and looking at her, "because you're here, you dear close sister of my +dreams. Without you it would be nothing but grey empty space in which I +would just hang horribly." + +"You wouldn't. You couldn't not be happy in this," she said, gazing +about her. + +"If you weren't here I wouldn't see it," said Ingram, firmly believing +it in the face of the fact that nothing ever escaped his acute vision. +"I see all this only through you. You are my eyes. Without you I go +blind, I grope about with the light gone out. You don't know what you +are to me, you little shining crystal thing--you don't begin to realise +it, my dear, my dear sweet Found-at-Last." + +"And this morning," said Ingeborg, smiling at him, but only with a +passing smile on her way to all the other things she wanted to look at, +"you said I suggested perambulators." + +For a space they drove on in silence, for he deplored her trick of +reminding him of past moods. But beyond Ascona, where the mountains come +down to the lake and leave only just room enough between them and the +water for the road to twist through, he recovered again, consoled by her +joy in the beauty of the drive and unable to see her happiness without +feeling pleased. After all, what he most loved in her was that she was, +so miraculously, a child; a child with gleams of wisdom flickering like +a lizard's tongue in her mouth, and who even when she was silly was +silly also somehow in gleams--gleams of silver and sunshine. And always +at the back of her, far away, hidden in what he thought of as depths of +burning light, was that elusive thing by which he was so passionately +attracted, the thing he was going to paint, the thing his own secret +self crept to, knowing that here was warmth, here was understanding, her +dear, dear little soul. + +The evening at Cannobio was unsatisfactory. Ingeborg manifestly enjoyed +herself, but it was with an absorption in what she was seeing and an +obliviousness to himself that seemed to him both excessive and tiresome. +Here was everything to make two people so happily alone whisper--warmth, +dusk, the broad shadow of plane-trees, unruffled water, lights +romantically twinkling in corners, the twanging of a distant guitar, +laughter and singing and the glint of red wine from the little lit-up +tables along the front of the restaurants beneath the arcade at the back +of the piazza, and he there, Ingram, after all a person of real +importance, Edward Ingram at her feet, only asking to be allowed to +explain to her in every variety of phrase how sweet she was. But she was +dead to her opportunities. There wasn't another woman in Europe, he told +himself angrily, who would not have whispered. + +They wandered out of their hôtel after dinner, a square pink Italian +albergo facing the lake where the town left off, and free, as indeed +Cannobio altogether was, from transitory English with their awful eyes, +and they strolled about looking at things. He did not look much, for he +knew these Italian sights and sounds by heart, and at that moment only +wanted to look at her; but the least little thing caught her attention +away from him absolutely, to the exclusion of anything he might be +saying. Positively she even preferred to listen to the throb of the +steamer coming nearer from the other end of the lake than to him; and +she interrupted him in the middle of a sentence that intimately +concerned herself to stand still in the piazza and ask him what he +thought of the smells. + +"I don't think about them at all," he said shortly. + +"Oh, but there are such a lot of them," she exclaimed, sorting them out +with her lifted nose. "There's the smell of roses, and the smell of +lake, and the smell of frying, and there's more roses, and then there's +garlic, and then there's a quite dim one, and then there's a little puff +of something else--I don't know what--sheer Italy, I expect. _I_ never +smelt so many smells," she ended, with a gesture of astonishment. + +He tried to get her away from them. He led her to a bench beneath a +plane-tree. "Come and sit by me and I will tell you things," he said, +luring her. "Look, there's the moon got free from the clouds--and do you +see how the coloured lights of the steamer that's coming shine right +down a ladder of light into the water? And what do you think of the feel +of the air, little sister? Isn't it soft and gentle? Doesn't it remind +you of all kind and tender things?" + +"But much the most wonderful of anything are these smells," she said, +absorbed in them. "There are at least twelve different ones." + +"Never mind them. I want to talk." + +"But they're so amusing," she said. "There are interesting ones, and +exciting ones, and beautiful ones, and disquieting ones, and awful ones, +and too-perfect-for-anything ones, and they're all chasing each other up +and down and round and round us." + +He lit a cigarette. "There," he said, "that will blot the whole lot of +them into only one, and you'll talk to me reasonably. Let us talk while +we can, my dear. In a little time we shall be dead to all feeling for +ever and ever." + +"Yes, we shall be little shreds of rottenness," she said placidly. + +"God, who wastes a sunset every night--" he said, getting up to stamp on +the match he had thrown away-- + +"If they were mine," she interrupted, "I'd keep them all in a gallery or +a portfolio." + +"--understands, I suppose," he went on, sitting down again, "why such +dear things as this evening here, this time of being alone together +here, should end and be forgotten." + +"As long as I live," she said with earnestness, "it will not be +forgotten. All my other memories will be like a string of--oh, just +beads and nuts and fir-cones, till I get to this one, and then on the +string there'll be suddenly a shining jewel." + +"Really? Really?" he murmured, stopping to look into her eyes, revived +by this speech. "Little flame in my heart, really?" + +"Oh," said Ingeborg dreamily, in her husky, soft voice, "but the +wonderfullest thing, the wonderfullest jewel. My first Italian +town--Cannobio...." + +He ceased to be revived. He smoked in silence. The effect on her of +Italy was as surprising as it was unexpected. At Kökensee she had been +entirely concentrated on him, eagerly listening only to him, drinking in +only what he said, worshipping. Here she seemed possessed by a rage for +any sights and sounds merely because they were new. There had been +moments from the very start in Berlin when he almost felt of secondary +interest, and they appeared to be becoming permanent. It was disturbing. +It was incredible. It was grotesque. Perhaps it would be as well to take +her away from the lakes, from all that part of the country which +apparently caught her imagination on its most sensitive side. Perhaps +Milan for a while, with pavements and museums. + +"Please, will you give me some of that money?" she asked across his +reflections. + +"Which money?" he said, looking at her. + +"My money." + +"What on earth for?" + +"I want to send Robert a picture postcard." + +He threw his cigarette away. "It would be most improper," he said, +passing his hand rapidly over his hair. "Highly improper." + +"Improper?" she echoed, staring at him. "To send Robert a picture +postcard?" + +"Grossly. It simply isn't done." + +"What? Not send Robert--but he'd like to see where we've got to." + +"For heaven's sake don't _talk_ about Robert," he exclaimed, getting up +quickly; the idea of the picture postcard profoundly shocked him. + +"Not talk about him?" she repeated, staring at him in astonishment. "But +he's my husband." + +"Exactly. That's what makes him so improper." + +"What? Why, I thought husbands were just the very things that never +could be improper." + +"Ingeborg," he said, walking angrily up and down in front of her, "are +you or are you not being taken care of on this--this holiday by me? Are +you or are you not travelling with me?" + +"Yes, I know. But I don't see why I shouldn't send Rob--" + +"Well, then, if you don't see you must believe. You've just got to +believe me when I tell you certain things are impossible." + +"But Robert--" + +"Good heavens, don't _talk_ of Robert. If I beg you not to, if I tell +you it spoils things for me, if I ask you as a favour--" He stopped in +front of her. "My dear, my little mate, my everything that's central and +alive among the husks--" + +"Of course I won't, then. At least, I'll try to remember not to," she +said, looking at him with a smile that had effort in it as well as +surprise. "But I don't see why a picture postcard--" + +The steamer they had seen for so long, the last one of the day from +Arona to Locarno, was nearing the pier, and the piazza suddenly swarmed +with busy groups preparing to go on it or see each other off. + +"Let's come away," said Ingram, impatiently. "Let's come _away_!" he +repeated with a stamp of his foot. "I hate this crowd." + +She got up and walked beside him towards the hôtel, her eyes on the +ground. + +"I really can't see why I shouldn't send Robert--" she began. + +"Oh, damn Robert!" he exclaimed violently. + +She looked at him. "Damn Robert?" she echoed, immensely surprised. +"But--don't you _like_ Robert?" + +"No," said Ingram. "No," he said, even louder. "Not here. Not now. Now +don't," he added in extreme irritation as he saw her mouth opening, "ask +me why, don't ask me to explain. Go to bed, Ingeborg. It's time all +children under ten were in bed. And get up early, please, because we're +going to start the first thing for--anyhow, for somewhere else." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Ingram was not only a great painter, he was practised in minor +accomplishments, and among them was the art of running away. He had done +it several times and had attained fluency. Indeed, so easy had practice +made it that it grew to be hardly running so much as walking. He walked +away, at last quite leisurely, from an uncommenting wife to a lady whose +affection for him was invariably already so great that there was nothing +left for it to do but to decline; and when it had declined, assisted and +encouraged in various ways by him, the chief cooling factor being his +expressed impatience to get to his painting again undisturbed by +non-essentials--each lady found it cooling to be called a +non-essential--he avoided the part that is sometimes a little difficult, +the part in which recriminations are apt to gather like clouds about a +sunset, the part that lies round ends, by skilful treatment, by a +gradual surrounding of her who was now not so much a lover as a patient +with an atmosphere of affection for her home. She came by imperceptible +degrees to thirst for her home. She came to thirst, and such was his +skill that she thirsted healthily, for her husband or her father or +whoever it was she had left, for worries, catastrophes, disgrace--for +anything so long as it was so obliging as not to be love. If poorer in +other ways she departed at least richer in philosophy, without a trace +of jealousy of what he might do next, not minding what he did if only +she did not have to do it, too, and he, until such time as he again was +lured from paths of austerity and work by the hope that he had found the +one predestined mate, enjoyed the condition in which he was altogether +happiest, the freedom of spirit that disdains love. + +But how different from those comfortable excursions, as straightforward +and as uneventful to him in their transitory salubrious warming as bread +and milk, was this running away! It was distressingly different. Almost, +except that he had no desire to laugh, ridiculously different. The first +step, the process of the actual removal from Kökensee to Berlin, from +legality to illicitness, had in its smoothness been positively glib; and +he had supposed that, once alone together, love-making, which was the +very marrow of running away--else why run?--would follow with a similar +glibness. Nothing, however, seemed less inclined to follow. The only +things that did follow were two confused exasperating days in which his +moods varied with every hour, almost at last with everything she said. +The capaciousness of her beliefs and acceptances amazed him. They were +as capacious as her enthusiasms. She believed so firmly what he had told +her over there away in Kökensee, where of course a man had to say things +in order to get a beginning made, about the friendly frequent +journeyings of other people, she had so heartily accepted his assurance +that it was absurd and disgraceful in its suggestion of evil-mindedness +not to travel frankly anywhere with anybody--"Are we not the children of +light, you and I?" he had asked her--the things a man says! he thought; +but they should not be brought up against him in this manner, clad in an +invincible armour of acceptance--"And shall we be hindered in our free +comings and goings by the dingy scruples of those heavy others, the +groping and afraid children of darkness?"--that plainly the idea that +she was doing anything even remotely wrong had not occurred to her. The +basis of her holiday was this belief in frank companionship. She had no +difficulty, he observed, himself infinitely fretted by this constant +closeness to her, in being just a frank companion. She was so carelessly +secure in friendship, so empty of any thought beside, that she could and +did say things to him which said by any other woman in the same +situation would have instantly led to lovemaking. But Ingram, who was +fastidious, could no more make love to her, violently begin, robustly +stand no nonsense, so long as she was steeped in obliviousness, than he +could to a child or a chair. There must be some response, some +consciousness. Her obtuseness to the real situation was so terribly +healthy minded that it was almost a disease; the awful candour of soul +of bishops' daughters and pastors' wives appalled him. + +For three days the weather continued heavy, pressing down on his eyes. +He did not sleep. He was all nerves. In the morning, a time he had not +yet known her in, for at Kökensee they were together only in the +afternoons, she produced the effect on him of some one different and in +some subtle annoying way strange. Was it because she flickered more in +the mornings? He could not describe it better than that--she flickered. +She always flickered mentally, her thoughts just giving each subject a +little lick and then blowing off it to something else, but in the +afternoons and evenings the flickering was often beautiful, or at those +warmer more indulgent hours it seemed so, and in the morning it was not. +A man in the morning wants somebody pinned down for a companion, +somebody reasonable and fixed. Nothing but a rather silent +reasonableness, and if enunciations are unavoidable brief ones, go well +with coffee and with rolls. At breakfast he found he could hardly speak +to her so exceedingly then was she on his nerves--her dreadful healthy +restedness when he had been tossing all night, her fearful readiness for +the new day when he had not even begun to recover from the old one, her +regularity of enthusiasm, her punctual happiness. And every evening he +was in love with her. + +He was exasperated. This being with her among the hills and lakes of +Italy that he had thought of as going to be the sweetest time he had +known was sheer exasperation; for even in the evenings when he was in +love with her--the condition, indeed, set in at any time from tea +onwards, and could on occasion be induced before tea if she happened to +say the right things--he was irritably in love, and hardly knew whether +it would give him more satisfaction to shake her or to kiss her. And +annoying and perplexing as her untroubled conscience was it was yet not +so annoying and perplexing as her wild joy in Italy. Who would not be +galled by the discovery that he has become a background? Who would have +supposed that she who in Kökensee thought him so wonderful, so clearly +realised who he was, who walked with him there in the rye-fields and +offered him every sort of incense that sweet words could invent, would, +let loose in Italy, take the background he had so carefully chosen for +his lovemaking and hug it to her heart and be absorbed in it and adore +it beyond reason, and that he himself would turn into the +background--incredible as it seemed, into just the background of his own +background? + +When he took her up into the hills, into solitary places where the +chestnut woods went on for miles and no one ever came but +charcoal-burners, he was not, as it were, there. When he took her on the +lake in a sailing-boat and they hung motionless on the goodwill of the +wind, he was not there, either. When they rested after a hot climb, deep +in some high meadow not yet reached by the ascending haymakers, and +through the stalks of its bee-haunted flowers, its delicate bending +scabious and frail ragged-robins, could see little bits of lake far +below and the white villages on the mountains opposite, and the whole +world was only asking to be made a frame of for love, where, he inquired +of himself, in the picture that was in her mind and irradiating her +eyes, was he? He had not imagined, so far behind him were his own +discoveries of the new, that any one could be so greedily absorbed. +Watching her, while she watched everything except him, he decided he +would take her to Milan. He would try something ugly. Milan this heavy +hot weather ought to give her back to him if anything would. They would +stay in a street where there were tramcars and noises, and they would +frequent museums. They would walk much on pavements, and have their food +in English tea-rooms. While the cure was in progress she might be +getting herself some decent clothes, for really her clothes were +distressing, and when it was accomplished, and she was thoroughly bored +with things, and had come back to being aware of him, he would carry her +off to Venice and begin work--work, the best thing in life, the one +thing that keeps on yet is never monotonous, the supreme thing always +new and joyful. But he was afraid of Venice. Venice was too beautiful. +She would not sit quiet there while he painted her; she would want to go +out and look. Impossible to take her there until she had learned to blot +out everything in the world with his image alone. This blotting out, he +perceived, would have to be achieved in Milan, and quickly. He was +starving for his work. So acute was his hunger to begin the great +picture that right underneath all his other emotions and wishes and +moods was a violent impatience at being kept from it by what his +subconsciousness alluded to with resentful incorrectness as a parcel of +women. + +It was the evening at Luino that he definitely decided on Milan. + +They had walked that day along the wooded paths that lead ultimately +across to Ponte Tresa, and she had once again, on returning to Luino and +seeing a revolving column of picture postcards outside a tobacconist's +shop and catching sight of some that showed the place of rocks and +falling water in which they had eaten their luncheon, wanted to send one +to Robert. She had not said so, but she had hovered round the column +looking hungry. Picture postcards seemed to have a dreadful fascination +for her; and as for Ingram, the mere sight of them at this point of +their journey made him see red. He had instantly observed her hungry +hovering, and had flared out into a leaping rebuke in which there was +more of the angry schoolmaster than the lover. He had felt it himself, +and seen, quick as he was to see, a little look of surprised and +questioning fear for a moment in her eyes. + +"Well, it's because you're always thinking of Robert," he flashed at her +in an attempt that caught fire on the way to apologise. + +"Not _always_," she said hesitatingly, with a smile that for the first +time was propitiating; and the accidents of the pavement making him walk +for a few yards in front of her she found herself looking at his back, +his high thin shoulders and the rims of his ears, with a startled +feeling of entire strangeness. + +A dim thought rose and disappeared again somewhere in the back of her +mind, a whisper of a thought, hardly breathed and gone again--"I'm +_used_ to Robert." + +He took her to Milan next day. That loud and sweltering city was, by its +hot dulness, to bore her into awareness of him, to toss her by sheer +elimination of other interests to his breast. Inexorably he kept her on +the steamer and turned a deaf ear to her prayers that they might land +when it stopped at attractive villages on its journey down the lake. She +thought this unreasonable; for why come at all to these lovely places, +come so close that one could almost touch them, and then whisk away and +hardly let one look? And she could not help feeling, after he had been +short with her about the Borromean Islands, at one of which +unfortunately the steamer touched, that it would be both blessed and +splendid to travel round here alone--free, able to get out at islands if +one wanted to. + +"Yes, those are islands," he said, when first they loomed on her +enraptured gaze. "Yes, one can land on them, but we're not going to. +Yes, yes, beautiful--but we've got to catch the train." + +She began to turn a slightly perplexed attention to him. Surely he was +different from what he was at Kökensee! And there were the Borromean +Islands slipping away, the beautiful islands; there they were being +passed, going out of her life; it was unlikely she would ever see them +again.... + +To Ingram on that leaden afternoon the lake looked like a coffin, and +the islands as dull and shabby as three nails in it; to Ingeborg they +looked like three little miracles of God. Just as he who for the first +time goes abroad would give up Rome if he might stop at Calais, so did +Ingeborg hanker after detailed exploration of new places she was +inexorably whisked away from. The Borromean Islands were beautiful, but +if they had been dull she still would have hankered after them. +Beautiful or dull they were different from Kökensee; and when the +travelled Ingram put his hopes in Milan he did not realise how great on +Ingeborg after her strictly cloistered Kökensee existence was the effect +of the merely different. The platform at Arona, the flat fields the +train presently lumbered across, the factories and suburbs of Milan, the +noisy streets throbbing heavily with heat that grey and lowering +afternoon, the shapes of things, of dull things, of tramcars and cabs +and washerwomen, the shop windows, the behaviour and foreign faces of +dogs, the behaviour of children, the Italian eyes all turned to her, all +staring at her--they fascinated and absorbed her like the development of +a vivid dream. Who were these people? What would they all do next? What +were they feeling, thinking, saying? Where were they going, what had +they had for breakfast, what were the rooms like they had just come out +of, what sorts of things did they keep in their cupboards? + +"If one of them would lend me a cupboard," she exclaimed to Ingram, "and +leave me alone with what it has got inside it, I believe I'd know all +Italy by the time I'd done with it. Everything, everything--the desires +of its soul and its body, and what it works at and plays at and eats, +and what it hopes is going to happen to it after it is dead." + +And he had been supposing, from her silence as she walked beside him, +that she was finding Milan dull. Hastily he led her away from the +streets into an English tea-room and made her sit with her back to the +window and gave her rusks. + +But though her childhood had been spent among these objects, which were +esteemed at the Palace because falling just short at the last moment of +quite sweetness and quite niceness they discouraged sinful gorging, they +had none of their ancient sobering effect on her there in Milan. She ate +them and ate them, and remained as brightly detached from them as +before. Their dryness choked out none of her lively interest, their +reminiscent flavour did not quiet her, not even when combined, as it +presently was, with the sound of church bells floating across the roofs. +She might have been in Redchester with those Sunday bells ringing and +all the rusks. Sitting opposite to her at the marble-topped table in the +deserted shop Ingram decided he would give her no meals more amusing +than this in Milan. So long as she kept him there she should, except +breakfast, have all her meals in that one place: modest meals, meals +damping to the spirits and surely in the long run lowering, the most +inflaming dish provided by the tea-room being--it announced it on its +wall--poached eggs. + +He kept her there as long as he could, long after the tea was cold, and +tried, so deeply upset was he becoming by the delays her curious +immaturity was causing in the normal development of running away, +actually in that place of buns to make love to her. But how difficult it +was! He, too, had eaten rusks. He wanted to tell her he adored her, and +it reached her across the teapot in the form of comments on the +uncertainties of her behaviour. He wanted to tell her her body was as +delicate as flowers and delightful as dawn, and it came out a criticism +of the quality--also the quantity--of her enthusiasms. He endeavoured to +sing the praise of the inmost core of her, the inexpressible, +illuminating, understanding, and wholly sweet core, and instead he found +himself acidly deprecating her clothes. + +Ingeborg sat listening with half an ear and eyes bright with longing to +be out in the streets again. She was fidgeting to get away from the +shop, and was sorry he should choose just that moment to smoke so great +a number of cigarettes. Even the young lady who guarded the cakes +appeared to think the visit for one based only on tea and rusks had +lasted long enough, and came and cleared away and inquired in English, +it being her native tongue, whether she could not, now, get them +anything else. + +"The curious admixture in you," said Ingram, starting out with the +intention of comparing her to light in the darkness and immediately +getting off the rails, "the curious admixture in you of streaks of +childishness and spasmodic maturity! You are at one moment so entirely +impulsive and irresponsible, and a moment before you were quite +intelligent and reasonable, and a moment afterwards you are splendid in +courage and recklessness." + +"When was I splendid in courage and recklessness?" she asked, bringing +more attention to bear on him. + +"When you left your home to come to me. The start off was splendid. Who +could dream it would fizzle out into--well, into this?" + +"But has it fizzled out? You're not"--she leaned across the table a +little anxiously--"you're not scolding me?" + +"On the contrary, I'm trying to tell you all you are to me." + +"Oh," said Ingeborg. + +"I intend somehow to isolate my consciousness of your streaks--" + +"Streaks?" + +"As bees wax up a dead invader." + +"Oh--a dead invader?" + +"I don't, you see, believe in the damning effect of one specific +outbreak, nor of one or two--" + +"You're not--you're not _really_ scolding me?" she asked, again a little +anxiously. + +"On the contrary, I'm believing in and clinging to your dear innermost." + +"Oh," said Ingeborg. + +"I believe these streaks and patches and spots your superficial self has +may be good in their ultimate effect, may save us, by interrupting, from +those too serene spells that dogs'-ear love with usage and +carelessness." + +She gazed at him, her mouth a little open. He lit yet another cigarette. + +"But it's rather like," he said, flinging the match away into a corner +whither the young lady followed it and with a pursed reproachfulness +trod it out, "it's rather like finding a crock of gold in one's garden +and only being able to peep at it sometimes, and having to go away and +work very hard for eleven shillings a week." + +She went on gazing at him in silence. + +"And not even for eleven shillings," said Ingram, reflecting on all he +had already endured. "Work very hard for nothing." + +She leant across the table again. "I never _mean_ to be tiresome," she +said. + +"Little star," he said stoutly. + +"It's always involuntary, my tiresomeness," she said, addressing him +earnestly. "Oh, but it's so involuntary--and the dull surfaces I know I +have, and the scaly imperfections--" + +He knocked the ashes off his cigarette with unnecessary vigour, almost +as though they were bits of an annoying relative's body. + +"I'm warped, and encrusted, and blundering," went on Ingeborg, who was +always thorough when it came to adjectives. + +In his irritable state, to have her abjectly cheapening herself vexed +him as much as everything else she had done that day had vexed him. He +might, under provocation, point out her weaknesses, but she must not +point them out to him. He wanted to worship her, and she persisted in +preventing him. Distressing to have a god who refuses to sit quiet on +its pedestal, who insists on skipping off it to show you its +shortcomings and beg your pardon. How could he make love to her if she +talked like this? It would be like trying to make love to a Prayer-book. + +"Is it because it is Sunday," he said, "that you are impelled to +acknowledge and confess your faults? You make me feel as if a verger had +passed by and pushed me into a pew." + +"Well, but I _am_ warped and encrusted and blundering," she persisted. + +"You are not!" he said irritably. "Haven't I told you you are my star +and my miracle?" + +"Yes, but--" + +"I tell you," he said, determined to believe it, "that you are the very +bath of my tired spirit." + +"How kind you are!" she said. "You're as kind to me as if you were my +brother. Sometimes I think you are rather like my brother. I never _had_ +a brother, but you're very like, I think, the one I would have had if I +had had one." She warmed to the idea. "I feel as if my brother--" she +said, preparing to launch into enthusiasm; but he interrupted her by +getting up. + +"It seems waste," he said, reaching for his hat, "to talk about your +brother, as you've never had him. Shall we go?" + +She jumped up at once with the air of one released. He himself could not +any longer endure the tea-room or he would have stayed in it. Gloomily +he went out with her into the streets again and noted that if anything +she seemed more active and eager than before--thoroughly, indeed, rested +and refreshed. Gloomily he realised during the next hour or two that she +had an eye for buildings, and that they were always the wrong ones. +Gloomily he discovered an odd liking in her for anything, however bad, +that was wrought in iron. He could not get her past some of the iron +gates of the palaces. He hated bad gates. Without experience she could +not compare and did not select, and her interest was all-embracing, +indiscriminating as a child's. He took pains to avoid the Piazza del +Duomo, but by some accident of a twisting street and a momentary +inattentiveness he did find himself at last, after much walking as he +had thought away from it, all of a sudden facing it. Urging her on by +her elbow he hurried her nervously across it, hoping she would not see +the Cathedral; but the Cathedral being difficult not to see she did see +it, and remained, as he had feared she would, rooted. + +"Ingeborg," he exclaimed, "if you tell me you like that--" + +"Oh, let me look, let me look," she cried, holding his sleeve while he +tried to get her away. "It's so funny--it's so _different_--" + +"Ingeborg--" he almost begged; but from its outside to its inside was an +inevitable step, and that she should gasp on first getting in seemed +also, after she had done it, inevitable. + +Ingram found himself sight-seeing; looking at windows; following her +down vaults; towed by beadles. He rubbed his hand violently over his +hair. + +"But this is intolerable!" he cried aloud to himself. "I shall go mad--" + +And he strode after her and caught her arm just as she was disappearing +over the brim of the crypt. + +"Ingeborg," he said, his eyes blazing at her in a bright astonishment, +"do you mean to tell me that I shall not reach _you_, that I'm not going +to get ever at _you_ till I paint you?" + +She turned in the gloom and looked up at him. + +"Oh, I know I'll get you then," he went on excitedly, while the +interrupted beadle impatiently rattled his keys. "Nothing can hide you +away from me then. I don't paint, you see, by myself--" + +She stared up at him. + +"And all this you're doing, all this waste of running about--have you +then forgotten the picture?" + +It was as though he had shaken her suddenly awake. She stared at him in +a shock of recollection. Why, of course--the picture. Why--incredible, +but she had forgotten it. Actually forgotten it in the wild excitement +of travelling; actually she had been wanting to linger at each new +place, she who had only ten days altogether, she who had come only after +all because of the picture, the great picture, the first really great +thing that had touched her life. And here she was with him, its waiting +creator, dragging him about who held future beauty in his cunning guided +hand among all the mixed stuff left as a burden on the generations by +the past, curious about the stuff with an uneducated stupid curiosity, +wasting time, ridiculously blocking the way to something great, to the +greatest of the achievements of a great artist. + +She was sobered. She was overcome by the vivid recognition of her cheap +enthusiasm. + +"Oh," she said, staring up at him, wide awake, entirely ashamed, "how +_patient_ you've been with me!" + +And as he still held her by the arm, his eyes blazing down at her from +the top step of the crypt, she could find no way of expressing her shame +and contrition except by bending her head and laying her cheek on his +hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +They stood there for what seemed to the beadle at the bottom an +intolerable time, the lady, evidently nobody certificated, with her +cheek on the gentleman's hand, and he himself, as honest a man as ever +wanted to get his tip and be done with it, kept waiting with nothing to +do but curse and rattle his keys; and though it was summer the crypt was +cold, and so would his feet be soon; and what could the world be coming +to when people carried their caressings even into crypts? Becoming +maddened by these delays the beadle cursed them both, their present, +past, and future, roundly and thoroughly and also profanely--for by the +accident of his calling he was very perfect in profanity--beneath his +breath. + +"I'm so sorry, so sorry," Ingeborg was murmuring, who did nothing by +halves, neither penitence, nor humility, nor gratitude. + +"My worshipped child," whispered Ingram, immensely moved by this swift +change in her, and changed as swiftly himself by the softness of her +cheek against his hand. + +"Oughtn't we to go to Venice to-night?" she asked, still standing in +that oddly touching attitude of apology. + +"Not to-night." + +"But how can a picture get painted in just that little time?" + +"Ah, but you know I'm good at pictures." + +"But I can't stay a minute longer than Thursday. I have to be back on +Saturday at the very latest." + +"You'll see. It will all be quite easy." + +"But to think that I _forgot_ the picture!" she said, looking up at him +shocked, while the ancient humility in which the Bishop had so carefully +trained her descended on her once more, only four-fold this time, like a +garment grown voluminous since last it was put on. + +They had for some reason been talking in murmurs, and the embittered +beadle, losing his self-control, began to say things audibly. Strong in +the knowledge of tourist ignorance when it came to real language in +Italian, he said exactly what he thought; and what he thought was so +monstrous, so inappropriate to beadles and to the atmosphere of a crypt, +besides being so extremely and personally rude, that it roused Ingram, +who knew Italian almost better than the beadle--for his included +scholarly by-ways in vituperation, strange and curious twists beyond the +reach of the uneducated--to pour a sudden great burning blast of red-hot +contumely down on to his head; and having done this he turned, and +holding Ingeborg's hand led her up the steps again, leaving the beadle +at the bottom, solitary, shrivelled, and singed. + +They thought no more of crypts and beadles. They looked neither to the +right nor to the left. Ingram held her by the hand all the way down the +Cathedral, and the piazza when they came out on to it with its crowds of +vociferating men and bell-ringing tramcars and sellers of souvenirs +seemed to Ingeborg nothing now but a noisy irrelevance. Whole strips of +postcards were thrust unnoticed into her face. The purpose of her +journey was the picture. Marvellous that she should have lost sight of +it and of the wonder and pride of being needed for it--needed at last +for anything, she who so profoundly had longed to be needed, but needed +for this, as a collaborator actually, even though passive and humble, in +the creation of something splendid. + +He put her into a cab and drove with her away from the fuss and din. She +was exquisite again to him, adorable altogether. The memory of the fret +and hot irritation of the day was wiped out as though it had never been +by that other memory of her sweet apology on the steps of the crypt. He +told the driver, for it was towards evening, to take them to those +gardens described by the guide-book as probably the finest public park +in Italy; and presently, as they walked together in the remoter parts, +the dusk dropped down like a curtain between them and the Sunday night +crowd collecting round the fountains. Tall trees, and clumps of box, and +rose-bushes shut out everything except mystery; and she in that quiet +place of trickling water and dim flowers began again to talk to him as +she had talked at Kökensee, softly, deliciously, about nothing except +himself. It was like the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land; it +was infinite refreshment and relief. + +She talked about the picture, with reverence, adoringly. She told him +how in the rush of new impressions she had been forgetting everything +that really mattered, not only that greatest of them all, but the other +things she had to thank him for besides--Italy, her unexpected holiday, +due so entirely to him. She said, her husky voice softer than ever with +gratitude, "You have been giving me happiness and happiness. You've +heaped happiness on me with both your hands." She said, searching only +for words that should be sweet enough, "Do you know I could cry to think +of it all--of all you've been to me since you came to Kökensee. When I'm +back there again, this time with you will be like a hidden precious +stone, and when I'm stupid and thinking that life is dull I'll get it +out and look at it, and it will flash colour and light at me." + +"When you talk like that," said Ingram, greatly stirred, "it is as +though a little soul had come back into a deserted and forgotten body." + +"Is it?" she murmured, so glad that she could please him, perfectly +melted into the one desire to make up. + +"When you talk like that," he said, "life becomes a thing so happy that +it shines golden inside. You have the soul I have always sought, the +thing that comes through me like light through a stained-glass window, +so that I am lit, so that my heart is all sweet fire." + +"And you," said Ingeborg, picking up his image as she so often +irritatingly did, only now it did not irritate him, and flinging it back +with a fresh adornment, "the thought of you, the memory of you when I've +gone back to my everyday life, will be like a perfect rose-window in a +grey wall." + +"As though we could be separated again. As though being in love with +somebody miles away isn't just intolerable ache. Oh, my dear, why do you +look at me?" he asked with a large simplicity of manner that made her +ashamed of her surprise; "because I talk of being in love? Why shouldn't +two people simply love each other and say so? And if I love you it isn't +with the greedy possessive love I've had for women before, but as though +the feeling one has for the light on crystals or for clear shining after +rain, the feeling of beauty in deep and delicate things, has become +personified and exalted." + +She made a little deprecating gesture. He was almost too kind to her; +too kind. But nobody could reasonably object to being loved like +crystals and clearness after rain. Robert couldn't possibly mind that. + +She cast about for things to say back, shining things to match his, but +he found them all first; it was impossible to keep up with him. + +"You are delicate and fine, like translucent gold," he said. "And you +are brave, and various, and alive. And you are full of sweet little +fancies, little swirls of mood, kind eager things. Never in my life is +there the remotest chance that I shall meet so good and deep a happiness +as you again, and I put my heart once and for all between your dear cool +little hands." + +She felt bent beneath this generosity, she who had been so tiresome; and +not only tiresome, but she who had had doubts, unworthy ones she now +saw, round about breakfast time, for instance, piercing through her +silly delight in Italy, as to whether she were giving even any +satisfaction. + +"I perceive," he went on, "I've never really loved before. I've played +with dolls, and expressed myself to dummies--like a boy with a ball he +_must_ play with, and failing a playfellow he bumps it against a wall +and catches it again. But you play back, my living dear heart--" + +More and more was she invaded by a happy surprise. The _things_ she had +been doing without knowing it! All the right ones, apparently, the whole +time--playing back, coming up to his expectations; and moments such as +those at the Borromean Islands, and when there were picture postcards, +and just recently in the tea-room, had not in the least been what she +supposed. She had not understood. She glowed to think she had not +understood. + +"I've been so wearied and distressed with life," he went on, talking in +a low, moved voice. "It has seemed at last such an old hairy thing of +jealousies and shame and disillusionments, and work falling short of its +best, and endless coming and going of people, and me for ever left with +a blunted edge. And now you come, you, and are like a great sweet wind +blowing across it, and like clear skies, and a moon rising before +sunset. It is as though you had taken up a brush and painted out the old +ugly tangles and made a new picture of me in luminous, clear +watercolour." + +Her surprise grew and grew, and her gladness that she had been mistaken. + +"Those streaks," she thought. "He didn't really _mean_ what he said +about those streaks--" + +"Somehow, though quite intelligent all along," continued Ingram, "I've +been shallow and hard in my feelings about everything. Now I feel love +like a deep soft river flowing through my heart. I love every one +because I love you. I can set out to make people happy, I can do and say +fine and generous things because of the love of you shining in my +heart--" + +"That beadle," she thought, "he didn't really _mean_ what he said to +that beadle--" + +"You're what I've been looking for in women all my life," he went on. +"You're the dream come true. I've only tried to love before. And now +you've come, and made me love, which we all dream of doing, and given me +love, which we all dream of getting--" + +Her pleasure became tinged with a faint uneasiness, for she wouldn't +have thought, left to herself, that she had been giving him love. +Pastors' wives didn't give love except to their pastors. Friendship, +yes; she had given him warm friendship, and an abject admiration +of his gifts, and pride, and gratefulness--oh, such pride and +gratefulness--that he should like being with her and saying lovely +things to her; but love? She had supposed love was reserved for lovers. +Well, if he liked to call it love ... one must not be miss-ish it was +very kind of him.... It was, also, more and more wonderful to her that +she had been doing and being and giving all these things without knowing +it. Her suddenly discovered accomplishments staggered her. "Is it +possible," she thought with amazement, "that I'm _clever_?" + +And as if he had heard the word lovers in her mind he said it. + +"Other lovers," he said, "are engaged perpetually in sycophantic +adaptations--" + +"In what?" + +She thought he had been going to say engaged to be married, for though +she had known even at Redchester, in spite of the care taken to shut +such knowledge out, that the world included wicked persons who loved +without engagements or marriages, sometimes indeed even without having +been properly introduced, persons who were afterwards punished by the +correctly plighted by not being asked to tea, they were, the Bishop +informed an anxious inquirer once when he had supposed her out of the +room, in God's infinite mercy numerically negligible. + +But Ingram did not heed her. "Except us," he went on. + +"Us?" she echoed. Well, if one took the word in its widest sense. + +"We fit," he said. "We fit, and reflect each other. I in your heart, you +in my heart, like two mirrors that hang opposite one another for ever." + +A doubt as to the expediency of so much talk of hearts and love crept +into her mind, but she quieted it by remembering how much worse the Song +of Solomon was--"And yet so respectable really," she said, continuing +her thought aloud, "and all only about the Church." + +"What is so respectable? Come and sit on that seat by the bush covered +with roses," he said. "Look--in this faint light they are as white and +delicate as you." + +"The Song of Solomon. It--just happened to come into my head. Things +do," she added, beginning to lay hold of the first words that occurred +to her, no longer at her ease. + +She sat down on the edge of the seat where he put her. + +"It's stone," she said nervously, looking up at him, for he had taken a +step back and was considering her, his head on one side. "Do you think +it's good for us?" + +"You beautiful little thing," he murmured, considering her. "You +exquisite little lover." + +Her hands gripped the edge of the seat more tightly. A sudden very +definite longing for Robert seized her. + +"Oh, but--" she began, and faltered. + +She tried again. "It's so _kind_ of you, but--you know--but I don't +think--" + +"What don't you think, my dear, my discoverer, my creator, my +restorer--" + +"Oh, I know there was Solomon," she faltered, holding on to the seat, +"saying things, too, and they meant something else, but--but isn't this +different? Different because--well, I suppose through my not being the +Church? I'm very _sorry_," she added apologetically, "that I'm not the +Church--because then I suppose nothing would really matter?" + +"You mean you don't want me to call you lover?" + +"Well, I am _married_," she said, in the voice of one who apologised for +drawing his attention to it. "There _is_ no getting away from that." + +"But we have got away from it," said Ingram, sitting down beside her and +loosening the hand nearest him from its tight hold on the seat and +kissing it, while she watched him in an uneasiness and dismay that now +were extreme. "That's exactly what we have done. Oh," he went on, +kissing her hand with what seemed to her a quite extraordinary emotion, +"you brave, beautiful little thing, you must know--you can't not +know--how completely and gloriously you have burned your ships!" + +"Ships?" she echoed. + +She stared at him a moment, then added with a catch in her breath: + +"Which--ships?" + +"Ingeborg, Ingeborg, my fastness, my safety, my darling, my reality, my +courage--" said Ingram, kissing her hand between each word. + +"Yes," she said, brushing that aside, "but which ships?" + +"My strength, my helper, friend, sister, lover, unmerited mate--" + +"Yes, but won't you leave off a minute? It--it would be _convenient_ if +you'd leave off a minute and tell me which ships?" + +He did leave off, to look into her eyes in the dusk, eyes fixed on him +in a concentration of questioning that left his epithets on one side as +so much irrelevant lumber. + +"Little worshipful thing," he said, still gripping her hand, "did you +really think you could go back? Did you really think you could?" + +"Go back where?" + +"To that unworthy rubbish heap, Kökensee?" + +She stared at him. Their faces, close together, were white in the dusk, +and their eyes looking into each other's were like glowing dark patches. + +"Why should I not think so?" she said. + +"Because, you little artist in recklessness, you've burned your ships." + +She made an impatient movement, and he tightened his hold on her hand. + +"Please," she said, "do you mind _telling_ me about the ships?" + +"One of them was this." + +"Was what?" + +"Coming to Italy with me." + +"You said heaps of people--" + +"Oh, yes, I know--a man has to say things. And the other was writing +that letter to Robert. If you'd left it at boots and Berlin!" + +He laughed triumphantly and kissed her hand again. + +"But that wouldn't have helped, either, really," he went on, "because +directly the ten days were up and you hadn't come back he'd have +known--" + +"Hadn't come back?" + +"Oh, Ingeborg--little love, little Parsifal among women, dear divine +ignorance and obtuseness--I adore you for believing the picture could be +done in a week!" + +"But you _said_--" + +"Oh, yes, yes, I know--a man has to say things at the beginning--" + +"What beginning?" + +"Of this--of love, happiness, all the wonders of joy we're going to +have--" + +"Please, do you mind not talking about those other things for a minute? +Why do you tell me I can't go back, I can't go home?" + +"They wouldn't have you. Isn't it ridiculous--isn't it glorious?" + +"What, not have me _home_? They wouldn't _have_ me? Who wouldn't? There +isn't a they. I've only got Robert--" + +"_He_ wouldn't. After that letter he couldn't. And Kökensee wouldn't and +couldn't. And Glambeck wouldn't and couldn't. And Germany, if you like, +wouldn't and couldn't. The whole world gives you to me. You're my mate +now for ever." + +She watched him kissing her hand as though it did not belong to her. She +was adjusting a new thought that was pushing its way like a frozen spear +into her mind, trying to let it in, seeing, she could not keep it out, +among all those happy thoughts so warmly there already about Ingram and +her holiday and the kindness and beauty of life, without its too cruelly +killing too many of them too quickly. "Do you mean--" she began; then +she stopped, because what was the use of asking him what he meant? Quite +suddenly she knew. + +An immense slow coldness, an icy fog, seemed to settle down on her and +blot out happiness. All the dear accustomed things of life, the small +warm things of quietness and security, the everyday things one nestled +up to and knew, were sliding away from her. "So that," she heard herself +saying in a funny clear voice, "there's only God?" + +"How, only God?" he asked, looking up at her. + +"Only God left who wouldn't call it adultery?" + +The word in her mouth shocked him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +She sat quite still after that while he talked. After that one +deplorable bald word she said no more at all; and Ingram's passionate +explanations and asseverations only every now and then caught her ear. +She was going home. That was all she knew and could think of. Back to +Robert. Away from Ingram. Somehow. At once. Robert would turn her +out--Ingram was saying so, she heard that. Robert might kill her--Ingram +was saying so, she heard that, too; he didn't say kill, he called it +ill-using, but whatever it was who cared? She would at least, she +thought with a new grimness, be killed legitimately. She was going back +to Robert, going to tell him she was sorry. Anyhow that. Then he could +do what he chose. But how to get to him? Oh, how to get to him? Her +thoughts whirled. Ingram wouldn't let her go, but she was going. Ingram +had her money, but she was going. That very night. Her thoughts, +whirling and whizzing, went breathless here in dark, terrifying places. +And while she was flying along on them like a leaf on a hurricane blast, +Ingram was still kissing her hand, still pouring out phrases as he had +been doing ever since--surely ever since Time began? She stared at him, +remembering him in a kind of wonder. She caught a word here and there: +pellucid, he was saying something was, translucent. She felt no +resentment. She had deserved all she had got. Not Ingram and what he had +told her or not told her mattered, but Robert. How to reach Robert, how +to get near enough to him to say, "See--I've come back. Draggled and +muddied. Everybody believes it. You'll believe it, though I tell you +it's not true. And if you believe it or not it's your ruin. You'll have +to leave this place, and all your work and hopes. Now kill me." + +"A man," she heard Ingram going on, still passionately explaining what +was so completely plain, "must pretend things at the beginning to get +his dear woman--" + +"Of course, of course," nodded her thoughts in hurried agreement, +rushing past him to the swift turning over of ways of reaching +Robert--who cared about dear women?--how to hide from Ingram that she +was going, how to keep him from suspecting her, from watching her every +instant.... + +A vision of herself in the restaurant car handing him over the money she +had, chaining herself of her own accord to him, rose for a +moment--danced mockingly, it was so ludicrously important an action and +at the same time so small and natural--before her eyes. The chances of +life! The way small simplicities worked out great devastations. She +threw back her head in a brief, astonished laugh. + +Instantly Ingram kissed her throat. + +"I--I--" she gasped, getting up quickly. + +"It--has been so hot all day," she said with a little look of +apologising, remembering to gather her terror and misery tightly round +her like a cloak, so that it should not touch him, so that he should not +by so much as a flutter of it feel that it was there; for then he would +watch her, and she--she gripped her hands together--would be lost, +lost.... + +"I think I'm--tired," she said. + +He became immediately all reasonableness, the kindly reasonableness of +one who has cleared away much confusion and can now afford to wait. + +He got up, too, agreeing about the heat of the day, and reminding her +also of its length, of the journeys by land and water it had contained, +and of the inadequate meal of rusks that had been their sole support for +nearly six hours. No wonder she was tired. He was tenderness and concern +itself. "Poor little _dear_ thing," he whispered, drawing her hand +through his arm and holding it there clasped in his other hand as he led +her away towards the entrance and went with her out into the streets +again, making her walk slowly lest she should be more tired, restraining +her when she tried to hurry; and seeing a cheerful restaurant with +crowded tables on the pavement in front of it, he suggested they should +stop at it and have supper. + +But Ingeborg said in a low voice, kept carefully controlled, that she +was afraid she would go to sleep over supper she was so tired; might she +have some milk at the hôtel and go to bed? + +His tenderness for her as he conceded the milk was nurse-like. + +But he, she murmured, he must have supper--would he not send her back in +a cab and stay here and have some? + +No, he would certainly not trust a thing so precious to some careless +cabman; he would take her back to the hôtel, and then perhaps have food. + +But the hôtel, she murmured, was so stuffy--did he think he would like +food there? + +Well, perhaps when she was safely in it he would come out again to one +of these pavement places. + +She seemed more pliantly feminine as she went with quiet steps through +the streets on his arm than he had yet known her. It was as though she +had wonderfully been converted from boyhood to womanhood, smitten +suddenly with womanhood there in those gardens, and every muscle of her +mind and will had relaxed into a sweet fatigue of abandonment. He adored +her like that, so gentle, giving no trouble, accepting the situation and +his comfortings and his pattings of the hand on his arm and all his +further explanations and asseverations with a grown-up dear +reasonableness he had not yet seen in her. In return he took infinite +care of her, protective and possessive, whenever they came to a crowd or +a puddle. And he stroked her hand, and looked into her face, demanding +and receiving an answering obedient smile. And he wanted her and asked +her to lean heavily on his arm so that she should not be so tired. In a +word, he was fond. + +They were staying at an hôtel near the station, just off the station +square down a side street, a place frequented by middle-class Italians +and commercial travellers, noisy with passing tramcars, and of little +promise in the matter of food. Ingram had taken rooms there that +afternoon when the determination was strong upon him that Ingeborg, in +Milan, should not be comfortable. Now he was sorry; for the happy turn +things had taken, the immense stride he had made in the direction of +Venice by opening her eyes to the facts of the situation, made this +excess of martyrdom unnecessary. But there they were, the rooms, engaged +and unpacked in, on the first floor almost, on a level with the +ceaseless passing tops of the bumping tramcars, and it was too late that +night to change. + +He felt, however, very apologetic now as he went with her up the dingy +stairs to the door of her room in case some too cheery commercial +traveller should meet her on the way and dare to look at her. + +"It's an unworthy place for my little shining mate," he said, "but +Venice will make up for it all. You'll love my rooms there--the +spaciousness of them, and the sunset on the lagoons from the windows. +To-morrow we'll go--" + +He searched her face as she stood in the crude top light of the +corridor. Naturally she was tired after such a day, but he observed a +further dimness about her, a kind of opaqueness, like that of a lamp +whose light has been put out, and it afflicted him. The light would be +lit again, he knew, and burn more brightly than ever, but it afflicted +him that even for a moment it should go out; and swiftly glancing up and +down the passage he took both her hands in his and kissed them. + +"Little dear one," he said, "little sister--you do forgive me?" + +"Oh, but of course, of course," said Ingeborg quickly, with all her +heart; and she felt for a moment the acute desolation of life, the +inevitable hurtings, the eternal impossibility, whatever steps one took, +of not treading to death something that, too, was living and +beautiful--this thing or that thing, one or the other. + +Her eyes as she looked at him were suddenly veiled with tears. Her +thoughts stopped swirling round ways of escape. And very vivid was the +perception that her escape, if she did succeed in it, was going to be +from something she would never find again, from a light and a warmth, +however fitful, and a greatness.... If he had been her brother she would +have put her arms round him and kissed him. If she had been his mother +she would have solemnly blessed him. As it was there was nothing to be +done but the bleak banality of turning away into her room and shutting +the door. + +She heard his footsteps going down the passage. She went to the window, +and saw him going down the street. There was not an instant to lose--she +must find out a train now, while he was away, have that at least ready +in her mind for the moment when she somehow had got the money. First +that; then think out how to get the money. + +She stole into the passage again--stole, for she felt a breathless fear +that in spite of his being so manifestly gone he yet would hear her +somehow if she made a noise and come back--stole along it and down the +stairs into the entrance hall where hung enormously a giant time-table, +conspicuous and convenient in an hôtel that supplied no _concierge_ to +answer questions, and whose _clientèle_ was particularly restless. + +Nobody was in the hall. It was not an hour of arrival or departure; and +the man in the green apron she had seen there before, who at odd moments +became that which in better hôtels is uninterruptedly a _concierge_, was +nowhere to be seen, either. She had to get on a chair, the trains to +Berlin were so high up on the great sheet, and tremblingly she kept an +eye on the street door, through whose glass panels she could see people +passing up and down the street, and they in their turn could and did see +her. Yes--there was a night train at 1.30. It came from Rome. Travellers +might arrive by it. The hôtel door would be open. Her thoughts flew. It +got to Berlin at six something of the morning after the next morning. + +Suddenly the glass door opened, and she jumped so violently that she +nearly fell off her chair, and she fled upstairs, panic-stricken, +without even looking to see if it were Ingram. + +Safe in her room she was horrified at herself for such a panic. How was +she going to do everything there was to be done if she were like that? +She stood in the middle of the floor twisting her hands. If in her life +she had needed complete self-control and clear thinking and calm acting +she knew it was now. But how to keep calm and clear when her body was +shaking with fear? She felt, standing there struggling with herself, so +entirely forlorn, so entirely cut off from warmth and love, so horribly +with nothing she could look back to and believe in and nothing she could +look forward to and hope in, that just to speak to somebody, just to +speak to a stranger who because he was a stranger would have no +prejudices against her, would simply recognise a familiar distress--for +surely the other human beings in the hôtel must all at some time have +been unhappy?--seemed a thing of comfort beyond expressing. Her longing +was intolerable to get close for a moment to another human soul, to ask +of it how it had fared when it, too, went down into the sea without +ships, leaving its ships all burned behind it, and yet its business had +inexorably been in deep waters. "Oh, haven't you been unhappy, too?" she +wanted to ask of it "haven't you sometimes been very unhappy? Dear +fellow-soul--please--tell me--haven't you sometimes felt _bitter_ cold?" + +But there was no one; there was no brotherhood in the world, except at +the rare obvious moments of common catastrophes and deaths. + +She began to walk up and down the room. Half-past one that night was the +hour of her escape, and somehow between now and then she must get the +money. Perhaps by some chance he had left it in his room? Forgotten in a +moment of carelessness in the pocket of the coat he had changed when +they arrived that afternoon? It was not likely, for he was, she had +noticed, of an extreme neatness and care about all such things. He never +forgot. He never mislaid. Still--there was the chance. + +She opened the door again, this time in deadly fear, for perhaps he +would be coming back, not choosing after all to stay out there having +supper. + +There was no one in the passage. His room, she knew, was farther down; +she had seen him going into it, four doors down on the same side as +hers. She went out and stood a moment listening, then began to walk +along towards it with an air of unconcern as though rightfully going +down the corridor till she came to his door; then with her heart in her +mouth she bolted in. + +The lights from the street and the houses opposite shone in through the +unshuttered window, and she could see into every corner of the shabby +hôtel bedroom, a reproduction of the one she was in herself, trailed +over dingily by traces of hundreds of commercial travellers and smelling +memorially, as hers did, too, of their smoke and their pomades. She was +hot and cold with fear; guilty as a thief. His coat hung behind the +door. She ran her trembling fingers over it. Not a thing in any of his +pockets. Nowhere anything that she could see. His unpacking had been +done with orderliness itself. Of course he would not forget his +pocket-book. With a gasp that was almost relief she slipped out of the +room, shut the door quickly behind her, and assuming what she tried to +hope was an unconcerned swagger, a sort of "I am-as-good-as-you-are" air +for the impressing of any one she might meet, walked down the passage +again. + +Just as she reached her door Ingram appeared, hurrying up the stairs two +steps at a time. + +She clutched hold of the handle of her door, suddenly unable to stand. + +"I--I--" she began. + +But he did not seem surprised to see her there; he was intent on +something else. + +"Just think," he said, coming quickly towards her. "I left my +pocket-book in my room, full of notes. The whole afternoon lying in the +drawer of the table. I wonder--" + +He hurried past her almost at a run. + +She got into her room somehow, feeling Heaven had forsaken her. + +After a minute or two she heard him coming along again. He stopped at +her door and called to her softly: + +"It's all right. It was still there. Wasn't it lucky?" + +"Very," said Ingeborg; but so faintly that he did not hear. + +"Good night, my Little One," she heard him say. "Now I'm going out to +get that supper." + +"Good night," said Ingeborg, again so faintly that he heard nothing; and +after a pause of listening he went away. + +She tumbled down on to the bed. She felt sick. It was a quarter past +ten. She had three hours to wait. She knew what she was going to do, try +to do. At one o'clock she would take off her shoes and go down the +passage and see if his door were locked. He would be asleep. He must, +oh, he must be asleep--she twisted about in the terror that smote her at +the thought that he might perhaps not be asleep.... + +"God _does_ love me," she said to herself, "I _am_ His child. Haven't I +sinned and repented? Haven't I done all the things? He's bound to help +me, to save me. It _is_ the wicked He saves--I _am_ wicked--" + +Her heart stood still at the fearful thought that perhaps she had not +yet been after all wicked enough, not wicked enough to be saved. + +People belonging to the other rooms began to come back to bed. Somebody +in the next room sang while he was undressing, a gay Italian song, and +presently he smoked, and the smoke came in under the door between her +room and his. + +She lay in the dark, or rather in the lights and shadows of the +uncurtained room, and every two or three minutes a tramcar passed and +shut out other sounds. Ingram must have come in long ago. When it was +midnight she got up and arranged her shoes and hat just inside the door +so that she could seize them as she came back, supposing she had been +successful, and rush on straight downstairs and out and to the station. +All other thoughts were now lost in the intentness with which she was +concentrated on what she had to do exactly next. She would not let +herself look aside at the abyss yawning if she were not successful. She +gripped hold of the thing she had to do, the getting of the money, and +fixed her whole self on that alone. + +She lay down on the bed again, her hands clenched as though in them she +held her determination. Once her thoughts did slip off to Robert, to the +extreme desolation of what was waiting for her there, and tears came +through her tightly shut eyelids. + +"It's what you've deserved," she whispered, struggling to stop them. +"Yes, but _he_ hasn't deserved it. Robert hasn't deserved it--you've +ruined _him_--" she was forced to go on. + +She shook off the unnerving thoughts. By her watch it was a quarter to +one. + +She stood up and began to listen. + +The tramcars passed now only every ten minutes. In between their passing +the hôtel was quiet. She would wait for the approach of the next one--in +the stillness she could hear it coming a long way off--then she would +run down the passage in her stockinged feet to Ingram's door and open it +just as the noise was loudest. + +An icy hand seemed holding her heart, so icy that it burned. She had not +known she had so many pulses in her body. They shook her and shook her; +great, heavy, hammering things. She crept to her door and opened it a +chink. There was a dim light in the passage. She heard the distant +rumbling of a tramcar. Now--she must run. + +But she could not. She stood and shook. There it was, coming nearer, and +not another for ten minutes. She began to sob and say prayers. The +tramcar struck its bell sharply, it had reached the corner of the +piazza, it would be passing in another minute. She wrenched the door +open and ran like a flying shadow down the passage, and just as the car +was at its loudest turned the handle of Ingram's door. + +It was not locked. She stood inside. The tramcar rumbled away into the +distance. Ingram--she nearly wept for relief--was breathing deeply, was +asleep. + +"But how funny," she thought, after one terrified glance at him as he +lay in the bar of light the street lamp cast on the bed, thinking with a +top layer of attention while underneath she was entirely concentrated on +the pocket-book, "how funny to go to bed in one's beard!..." + +She stole over to the table and peered about frantically among the +things scattered on it, saw nothing, began with breathless care to try +to open its drawer noiselessly, listening all the while for the least +pause in the breathing on the bed, and all the while with the foolish +detached layer of thoughts running in her head like some senseless +tune-- + +"_Funny_ to go to bed in a beard--_funny_ to sleep in a thing like +that--_funny_ not to take it off at night and hang it up outside the +door with one's clothes and have it properly brushed--" + +The drawer creaked as it opened. The regular breathing paused. She stood +motionless, hit rigid with terror. Then the breathing began again; and, +after all, there was nothing in the drawer. + +She looked round the room in despair. On the little table by his pillow +lay his watch and handkerchief. Nothing else. But in the table was a +small drawer. She must look in that, too; she must go over and look in +that; but how to open it so close to his head without walking him? She +crept across to it, stopping at each step. Holding her breath she waited +and listened before daring to take another. The drawer was not quite +shut, and the slight noise of pulling its chink a little wider did not +interrupt Ingrain's breathing. She put in her hand and drew out the +pocket-book, drew out some notes--Italian notes, the first she found, a +handful of them--pushed the pocket-book into the drawer again, and was +in the act of turning to run when she was rooted to the floor. + +Ingram was looking at her. + +His eyes were open, and he was looking at her. Sleepily, hardly awake, +like one trying to focus a thought. She stood fascinated with horror, +staring at him, not able to move, her hand behind her back clutching the +money. Then he put out his arm and caught her dress. + +"Ingeborg?" he said in a sleepy wonder, still half in the deep dreams he +had come up out of, "You? My little angel love--you? You've come?" + +"Yes--yes," she stammered, trying to pull her dress away, wild with +fear, flinging herself as usual in extremity on to the first words that +came into her head--"Yes, yes, but I must go back to my room a +minute--just one minute--please let me go--just one minute--I--I've +forgotten my toothbrush--" + +And Ingram, steeped in the heaviness of the first real sleep he had had +for nights and only half awake, murmured, with the happy, foolish +reasonableness of that condition-- + +"Don't be long, then, sweetest little mate," and let her go. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Two days later the porter at the Meuk station beheld Frau Pastor Dremmel +trying to open the door of a third-class compartment in the early +afternoon train from Allenstein, and going to her assistance, there +being no other passenger to distract him, was surprised to find she had +no luggage. Yet only the week before with his own hands he had put in a +trunk for her and labelled it Berlin. With the interest of a lonely man +whose time is his own, he inquired whether she had lost it and was +surprised to find she did not answer. He then told her, or rather called +after her, for she was moving away, that the pastoral carriage had not +yet come for her, and was surprised again, for again she did not answer. +He stood watching her, wondering what was wrong. He was too much +accustomed to dilapidations and dirt in himself to see them in others, +so that these outer signs of exhaustion and prolonged travelling escaped +him. Puzzled, he shook his head as she disappeared through the station +door; then he remembered that the poor lady was an _Engländerin_, and +was able to turn away calmed, with the satisfaction of him who has found +the right label and stuck it on. + +Meuk, as she passed through it, shook its head over her, too, consoling +itself when she returned no greetings, did not even seem to see +greetings, with the same explanation and shrug--_Engländerin_. Robertlet +and Ditti, walking along neatly to afternoon school, and suddenly aware +of the approach down the street towards them of a disordered parent who +not only did not stop but apparently did not see them, murmured to each +other, being by now well instructed by their grandmother, the same +explanation--_Engländerin_. Frau Dremmel, leaning on her window-sill to +watch her charges safely round the corner, and lingering a moment in the +mellow summer air, explained her daughter-in-law, who went by without a +glance, walking conspicuously in the middle of the road, with no parcel +in her hand to legitimise her being out and not so much as an umbrella +to give her a countenance, just with empty ungloved hands hanging down, +and a scandalous scarcity of hairpins, and her clothes all twisted, in +the same brief manner, _Engländerin_. Baroness Glambeck, driving towards +the town along the shade-flecked highroad, bent on one of those errands +of mercy that are forced at intervals upon the great, with a basket of +the properties, principally home-made jam and mittens, at her feet, +endeavoured though vainly to mitigate the shock she received on being +cut by her own pastor's wife, and a pastor's wife producing curiously +the effect of somehow being in tatters, by using the same word to the +female dependent who accompanied her on these occasions because somebody +had to carry the jam--_Engländerin_. The very birds in the branches, +being German birds, were no doubt singing it; the dogs, as they met her, +scented misfortune and barked furiously, instantly detecting the alien, +angered by her batteredness, discovering nothing in her clothes however +diligently they sniffed that an honest German dog could care about; and +when on a lonely stretch of the road she came to a tramp, instead of +begging he offered her a drink. + +The lane turning off to Kökensee was so lovely that afternoon in the +bright bravery of early summer, and so glanced and shone and darted with +busy birds and insects and the glory of young leaves in the sun, that +the dingy human figure faltering along it seemed an indecency. In that +vigorous world what place was there for blind fatigue? In that world of +triumph what place for a failure? It was the sort of day that used to +make Ingeborg's heart lift up; now she saw nothing, felt nothing, except +that the sand was deep. + +She began to cry presently because the sand was deep. It seemed to give +way on purpose beneath her feet, try on purpose to make her stumble and +not get home. The line of roofs up against the afternoon sky did not +appear to come any nearer, and yet she kept on trying to get home. The +tears fell down her face as she laboured along. She was afraid she +wouldn't get home in time before she had to leave off walking because +she couldn't walk any farther. It seemed to her a dreadful thing that +she who could walk so well should not be able to walk now and get home. +And this white sand--how fine it was, how it slid away on each side of +one's feet wherever one put them! And it got into one's shoes, and one +couldn't stop and empty them for fear if one sat down one wouldn't be +able to get up again, and then one wouldn't get home. Slower and more +slowly she laboured along. By the time she reached the steep part just +before the village she was crawling like a hurt insect. She had +forgotten to eat on the journey, and in Milan there had only been the +rusks. + +The street was asleep, empty that fine afternoon, the inhabitants away +at work in the fields, and only the pig and the geese were visible in +the parsonage yard. Luckily the gate in the wire-netting fence that shut +off the house and garden was not latched, for she could not have opened +it, but would have stood there holding on to it and foolishly sobbing +till some one came and helped. The least obstacle now would be a thing +that in no way could be got over. The front door was shut, and sooner +than go up the steps and try to get it open, she went round the path to +the side of the house where the lilacs grew and Robert's window was. +That way she could reach the kitchen, whose door stood always open and +was level with the garden. Robert would be out in his fields. She would +go into his laboratory and wait for him. Nobody but Robert _knew_ yet. +She had come back before the end of her leave. His shame was not yet +public property. If he just beat her, she thought, in a disinterested +weak way, and there was an end of it, wouldn't that do? Then no one need +ever know, and he could stay on in Kökensee and go on with his work, and +she wouldn't have ruined him. It was the thought of having ruined Robert +that clove her heart in two. To have ruined him, when all her ambition +and all her hope had been to make him so happy.... + +Well did she know that a pastor whose wife had broken the seventh +commandment would be driven out, would be impossibly scandalous in any +parish. And her not having broken it was quite beside the point; it +didn't matter what you didn't do so long as you looked as though you had +done it. And if Robert killed her it wouldn't help him, either; he would +have done the only decent thing, as the Baroness and her son Hildebrand +had said that time long ago, and avenged his honour in the proper German +way, but there were drawbacks to avenging one's honour--one was, +illogically, punished for doing it, and even though it were mild +punishment, any punishment ended a pastor's career. + +She crept round the corner of the house. She was so tired that if she +had to wait for him long in his laboratory she felt sure she wouldn't be +able to keep awake. Well, if he came in and killed her while she was +asleep it would be for her the pleasantest thing; she was so very tired +that it would be nice, she thought vaguely, to wake up afterwards, and +find oneself comfortably dead. But Robert was not in his fields. From +the path beneath his window she could see his head, as she had seen it +hundreds of times, bending over his desk. + +At the sight she stopped, and her heart seemed to shrink into quite a +little, scarcely beating thing. There he was, her dishonoured husband, +the being who in her life had been kindest to her, had loved her most, +still working, still going on doggedly among the ruins she had created, +up to the last moment when public opinion, brutal and stupid, making her +the chief thing when she so utterly was not, while it thrust her and her +wishes and intimate knowledge aside as not mattering when, as in the +question of more children, or no more children, they so utterly did, +would on her sole account, on the sole account of what seemed to her at +that moment the most profoundly naturally unimportant thing in life, a +woman who had been silly, put a stop to his fine work and refuse to give +the world a chance to profit by his brains. + +Well, she couldn't think about that now. She couldn't hold on to any of +her thoughts for more than an instant. She only knew that the moment had +come for facing him, and that she was very tired. She really was +extraordinarily tired. Her mind was just as dim and reluctant to move as +her body. Whatever Robert was going to do to her she would cling to him +with her arms round his neck while he did it. She was so tired that she +thought if he didn't mind her just putting her arms round his neck she +would very likely go to sleep while he beat her. But poor Robert, she +thought--how hot it was going to make him to have to be violent, to have +to beat! It was not at all good beating weather.... And it was almost a +pity to waste punishment on somebody too tired to be able properly to +appreciate it, to take it, as it were, properly in. + +She moved along down the path towards the back door. When one came to +think of it it was a strange thing to be going in to Robert to be hurt. +Well, but she had deserved it; she perfectly understood about his honour +and its needs. Oh, yes, she perfectly understood that. A man has +to--what had she just been going to think? What does a man have to? Oh, +well. If only what he did to her could blot out every consequence of +what she had done to him, be a full, perfect, and sufficient--no, that +was profane; tiresome how one thought in the phrases of the Prayer-book +and how difficult it was if one had had much to do with prayer-books not +to be profane. As it was, her punishment wouldn't do anybody any good +that she could see. Funny, the punishment idea. Of what use was it +really? The consequences of the things one did were surely enough in +their devastating effect; why increase devastation? And forgiveness +didn't seem to be of much use, either. It blotted out the past, she had +heard people in pulpits say, but it didn't blot out the future, that +daily living among consequences which she perceived was going to be so +dreadful. + +Well, she couldn't think now. And here was the kitchen door; and +here--yes, wasn't that Klara, staring at her open-mouthed, arrested in +the middle of emptying a bucket? Why did she stare at her? Did she then +_know_? + +"_Allmächtiger Gott_" exclaimed Klara, dropping the bucket. + +Yes, evidently Klara knew, she thought, dragging her dusty feet across +the kitchen into the passage, and _allmächtiger Gott_ was what one said +in Germany when one's disgraced mistress came back, instead of _guten +Tag_. Well, it didn't matter. The dark little passage; one almost had to +grope one's way along it when the front door was shut. And it had not +been aired apparently since she went away, and it was heavy and choked +with kitchen smell. She supposed it must be this thickness of atmosphere +that made her, on Robert's doormat with her hand on the latch, feel +suddenly so very like fainting. And it really was dark; surely it didn't +only seem dark because she suddenly couldn't see? Alarmed, she +remembered how she had fainted after her conscience-stricken journey +back from Lucerne. Was she then to go through life making at intervals +conscience-stricken journeys back, and fainting at the critical moment +at their end? + +In terror lest she should do it now if she waited a moment longer, and +so twist things round in that dishonourable womanly way which commits +the wrong and then bringing in the appeal of bodily weakness secures the +comforting, secures, almost, the apology, she seized all her courage, +swept its fragments together into a firm clutching, and opened the door. + +Herr Dremmel was at his table, writing. He did not look up. + +"Robert," she said faintly, her back against the door, her hands behind +her spread out and clinging to it, here I am. + +Herr Dremmel continued writing. He was, to all appearances, absorbed; +and his forehead, that hot afternoon, was covered with the drops of +concentration. + +"Robert," she said at last again, in a voice that shook however hard she +tried to keep it steady, "here I am." + +Herr Dremmel finished his sentence. Then he raised his head and looked +at her. + +Staring back at him in misery and fear, and yet beside the fear with a +dreadful courage, she recognised the look. It was the look he had when +he was collecting his attention, bringing it up from distant deep places +to the surface, to herself. How strange that he should at this moment +have to collect it, that it did not instantly spring at her, that she +and the havoc she had brought into his life should not be soaked into +every part of his consciousness! + +"What did you say, Ingeborg?" he said, looking at her with that so +recognisable look. + +For all her study of him she felt she did not yet know Robert. + +"I only said," she stammered, "that I--that here--that here I _was_." + +He looked at her for a further space of silence. Then it flashed upon +her that he was, dreadfully, pretending. He was acting. He was going to +torment her before punishing her. He was going to be slowly cruel. + +Herr Dremmel, as though he were gathering himself together--gathering +himself, she thought watching him and growing cold at his uncanniness, +for a horrible spring--inquired of her if she had walked. + +"Yes," said Ingeborg even more faintly, her eyes full of watchful fear. + +He continued to look at her, but his hand while he did so felt about on +the table for the pen he had laid down. + +She recognized this look, too--amazing, horrible, how he could act--it +was the one he had when, talking to somebody, a new illumination of the +subject he was writing about came into his mind. + +She felt sure now that the worst was going to happen to her; but first +there was to be torture, a long playing about. These revealed depths of +cunning cruelty in him, of talent for cleverest acting, froze her blood. +Where was Robert, the man of large simplicities she believed she had +known? It was a strange man, then, she had been living with? He had +never, through all the years, been the one she thought she had married. + +"Please--" she said, holding out both her hands, "Robert--don't. Won't +you--won't you be natural?" + +He still looked at her in silence. Then he said with a sudden air of +remembering, "Did you get your boots, Ingeborg?" + +This was dreadful. That he should even talk about the boots! Throw in +her face that paltry preliminary lying. + +"You _know_ I didn't," she said, tears of shame for him that he could be +so cruel coming into her eyes. + +Again Herr Dremmel looked at her as though collecting, as though +endeavouring to remember and to find. + +"I know?" he repeated, after a pause of reflective gazing during which +Ingeborg had flushed vividly and gone white again, so much shocked was +she at the glimpse she was getting into inhumanity. It was devilish, she +thought. But Robert devilish? Her universe seemed tumbling about her +ears. + +"I think," she said, lifting her head with the pride he ought to have +felt and so evidently, so lamentably, didn't, "one should give one's +punishment like a man." + +There was another pause, during which Herr Dremmel, with his eyes on +hers, appeared to ruminate. + +Then he said, "Did you have a pleasant time?" + +This was fiendish. Even when acting, thought Ingeborg, there were depths +of baseness the decent refused to portray. + +"I think," she said in a trembling voice, "if you wouldn't mind leaving +off pretending--oh," she broke off, pressing her hands together, "what's +the good, Robert? What's the _good_? Don't let us waste time. Don't make +it worse, more hideous--you got my letter--you know all about it--" + +"Your letter?" said Herr Dremmel. + +She begged him, she entreated him to leave off pretending. "Don't, don't +keep on like this," she besought--"it's such a dreadful way of doing +it--it's so unworthy--" + +"Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, "will you not cultivate calm? _You_ have +journeyed and you have walked, but you have done neither sufficiently to +justify intemperateness. Perhaps, if you must be intemperate, you will +have the goodness to go and be so in your own room. Then we shall +neither of us disturb the other." + +"No," said Ingeborg, wringing her hands, "no. I won't go. I won't go +into any other room till you've finished with me." + +"But," said Herr Dremmel, "I have finished with you. And I wish," he +added, pulling out his watch, "to have tea. I am driving to my fields at +five o'clock." + +"Oh, Robert," she begged, inexpressibly shocked, he meant to go on +tormenting her then indefinitely? "please, please do whatever you're +going to do to me and get it over. Here I am only _waiting_ to be +punished--" + +"Punished?" repeated Herr Dremmel. + +"Why," cried Ingeborg, her eyes bright with grief and shame for this +steady persistence in baseness, "why, I don't think you're to punish me! +You're not _fit_ to punish a decent woman. You're contemptible!" + +Herr Dremmel stared. "This," he then said, "is abuse. At least," he +added, "it bears a close resemblance to that which in a reasonable human +being would be abuse. However, Ingeborg, speech in you does not, as I +have often observed, accurately represent meaning. I should rather say," +he amended, "a meaning." + +She moved across to the table to him, her eyes shining. He held his pen +ready to go on writing so soon as she should be good enough to leave off +interrupting. + +"Robert," she said, leaning with both hands on the table, her voice +shaking, "I--I never thought I'd have to be _ashamed_ of you. I could +bear anything but having to be _ashamed_ of you--" + +"Perhaps, then, Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, "you will have the +goodness to go and be ashamed of me in your own room. Then we shall +neither of us disturb the other." + +"You are being so horrible that you're twisting things all wrong, and +putting me in the position of having to forgive _you_ when it's _you_ +who've got to forgive _me_--" + +"Pray, then, Ingeborg, go and forgive me in your own room. Then we shall +neither of us--" + +"You're being cruel--oh, but it's unbelievable--you, my husband--you're +playing with me like a cat with a miserable mouse, a miserable, sorry +mouse, something helpless that can't do anything back and wouldn't if it +could--and see how you make me talk, when it's you who ought to be +talking! Do, do, Robert, begin to talk--begin to say things, do things, +get it over. You've had my letter, you know perfectly what I did--" + +"I have had no letter, Ingeborg." + +"How dreadful of you to say that!" she cried, her face full of horror at +him. "When you know you have and you know I know you have--that letter I +left for you--on this table--" + +"I have seen no letter on this table." + +"But I _put_ it here--I put it _here_--" + +She lifted her hand to point out passionately the very spot to him; and +underneath her hand was the letter. + +Her heart gave one great bump and seemed to stop beating. The letter was +where she had put it and was unopened. + +She looked up at Herr Dremmel. She turned red; she turned white; she +tasted the very extremity of shame. "I--beg your pardon," she whispered. + +Herr Dremmel wore a slight air of apology. "One omits, occasionally, to +notice," he said. + +"Yes," breathed Ingeborg. + +She stood quite still, her eyes on his face. + +He pulled out his watch. "Perhaps now, Ingeborg," he said, "you will be +so good as to see about tea. I am driving to my fields--" + +"Yes," breathed Ingeborg. + +He bent over his work and began writing again. + +She put out her hand and slowly took up the letter. Tradition, copious +imbibing of the precepts of bishops, were impelling her towards that +action frequently fatal to the permanent peace of families, the making +of a clean breast. + +"Do you--do you--do you want to--" she began tremblingly, half holding +out the letter. + +Then her voice failed; and her principles failed; and the precepts of a +lifetime failed; and she put it in her pocket. + +"It's--stale," she whispered, explaining. + +But Herr Dremmel went on writing. He had forgotten the letter. + +She turned away and went slowly towards the door. + +In the middle of the room she hesitated, and looked back. "I--I'd _like_ +to kiss you," she faltered. + +But Herr Dremmel went on writing. He had forgotten Ingeborg. + + +THE END + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASTOR'S WIFE ***
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