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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Watersprings, by Arthur Christopher Benson
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+Title: Watersprings
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+Author: Arthur Christopher Benson
+
+Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext# 4510]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Watersprings, by Arthur Christopher Benson
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+Edited by Charles Aldarondo Aldarondo@yahoo.com
+          Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.ca
+
+
+
+
+WATERSPRINGS
+
+
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
+
+
+"For in the wilderness shall waters
+break out, and streams in the desert"
+
+
+1913
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE SCENE
+
+
+
+
+
+The bright pale February sunlight lay on the little court of
+Beaufort College, Cambridge, on the old dull-red smoke-stained
+brick, the stone mullions and mouldings, the Hall oriel, the ivied
+buttresses and battlements, the turrets, the tiled roofs, the
+quaint chimneys, and the lead-topped cupola over all. Half the
+court was in shadow. It was incredibly picturesque, but it had
+somehow the look of a fortress rather than of a house. It did not
+exist only to be beautiful, but had a well-worn beauty of age and
+use. There was no domestic adornment of flower-bed or garden-
+border, merely four squares of grass, looking like faded carpets
+laid on the rather uncompromising pebbles which floored the
+pathways. The golden hands of the clock pointed to a quarter to
+ten, and the chimes uttered their sharp, peremptory voices. Two or
+three young men stood talking at the vaulted gateway, and one or
+two figures in dilapidated gowns and caps, holding books, fled out
+of the court.
+
+A firm footstep came down one of the stairways; a man of about
+forty passed out into the court--Howard Kennedy, Fellow and
+Classical Lecturer of the College. His thick curly brown hair
+showed a trace of grey, his short pointed beard was grizzled, his
+complexion sanguine, his eyebrows thick. There were little vague
+lines on his forehead, and his eyes were large and clear; an
+interesting, expressive face, not technically handsome, but both
+clever and good-natured. He was carelessly dressed in rather old
+but well-cut clothes, and had an air of business-like decisiveness
+which became him well, and made him seem comfortably at home in the
+place; he nodded and smiled to the undergraduates at the gate, who
+smiled back and saluted. He met a young man rushing down the court,
+and said to him, "That's right, hurry up! You'll just be in time,"
+a remark which was answered by a gesture of despair from the young
+man. Then he went up the court towards the Hall, entered the
+flagged passage, looked for a moment at the notices on the screen,
+and went through into the back court, which was surrounded by a
+tiny cloister.
+
+Here he met an elderly man, clean-shaven, fresh-coloured, acute-
+looking, who wore a little round bowler hat perched on a thick
+shock of white hair. He was dressed in a black coat and waistcoat,
+with a black tie, and wore rather light grey trousers. One would
+have taken him for an old-fashioned country solicitor. He was, as a
+matter of fact, the Vice-Master and Senior Fellow of the College--
+Mr. Redmayne, who had spent his whole life there. He greeted the
+younger man with a kindly, brisk, ironical manner, saying, "You
+look very virtuous, Kennedy! What are you up to?"
+
+"I am going for a turn in the garden," said Howard; "will you come
+with me?"
+
+"You are very good," said Mr. Redmayne; "it will be quite like a
+dialogue of Plato!"
+
+They went down the cloister to a low door in the corner, which
+Howard unlocked, and turned into a small old-fashioned garden,
+surrounded on three sides by high walls, and overlooking the river
+on the fourth side; a gravel path ran all round; there were a few
+trees, bare and leafless, and a big bed of shrubs in the centre of
+the little lawn, just faintly pricked with points of green. A few
+aconites showed their yellow heads above the soil.
+
+"What are those wretched little flowers?" said Mr. Redmayne,
+pointing at them contemptuously.
+
+"Oh, don't say that," said Howard; "they are always the first to
+struggle up, and they are the earliest signs of spring. Those are
+aconites."
+
+"Aconites? Deadly poison!" said Mr. Redmayne, in a tone of horror.
+"Well, I don't object to them,--though I must say that I prefer the
+works of man to the works of God at all times and in all places. I
+don't like the spring--it's a languid and treacherous time; it
+always makes me feel that I wish I were doing something else."
+
+They paced for some minutes round the garden gossiping, Redmayne
+making very trenchant criticisms, but evidently enjoying the
+younger man's company. At something which he said, Howard uttered a
+low laugh, which was pleasant to hear from the sense of contented
+familiarity which it gave.
+
+"Ah, you may laugh, my young friend," said Redmayne, "but when you
+have reached my time of life and see everything going to pieces
+round you, you have occasionally to protest against the general
+want of backbone, and the sentimentality of the age."
+
+"Yes, but you don't REALLY object," said Howard; "you know you
+enjoy your grievances!"
+
+"Well, I am a philosopher," said Mr. Redmayne, "but you are
+overdoing your philanthropics. Luncheon in Hall for the boys,
+dinner at seven-thirty for the boys, a new cricket-ground for the
+boys; you pamper them! Now in my time, when the undergraduates
+complained about the veal in Hall, old Grant sent for us third-year
+men, and said that he understood there were complaints about the
+veal, of which he fully recognised the justice, and so they would
+go back to mutton and beef and stick to them, and then he bowed us
+out. Now the Bursar would send for the cook, and they would mingle
+their tears together."
+
+Howard laughed again, but made no comment, and presently said he
+must go back to work. As they went in, Mr. Redmayne put his hand in
+Howard's arm, and said, "Don't mind me, my young friend! I like to
+have my growl, but I am proud of the old place, and you do a great
+deal for it."
+
+Howard smiled, and tucked the old man's hand closer to his side
+with a movement of his arm. "I shall come and fetch you out again
+some morning," he said.
+
+He got back to his rooms at ten o'clock, and a moment afterwards a
+young man appeared in a gown. Howard sat down at his table, pulled
+a chair up to his side, produced a corrected piece of Latin prose,
+made some criticisms and suggestions, and ended up by saying,
+"That's a good piece! You have improved a good deal lately, and
+that would get you a solid mark." Then he sat for a minute or two
+talking about the books his pupil was reading, and indicating the
+points he was to look out for, till at half-past ten another youth
+appeared to go through the same process. This went on until twelve
+o'clock. Howard's manner was kindly and business-like, and the
+undergraduates were very much at their ease. One of them objected
+to one of his criticisms. Howard turned to a dictionary and showed
+him a paragraph. "You will see I am right," he said, "but don't
+hesitate to object to anything I say--these usages are tricky
+things!" The undergraduate smiled and nodded.
+
+Just before twelve o'clock he was left alone for five minutes, and
+a servant brought in a note. Howard opened it, and taking a sheet
+of paper, began to write. At the hour a youth appeared, of very
+boyish aspect, curly-haired, fresh-looking, ingenuous. Howard
+greeted him with a smile. "Half a minute, Jack!" he said. "There's
+the paper--not the Sportsman, I'm afraid, but you can console
+yourself while I just finish this note." The boy sat down by the
+fire, but instead of taking the paper, drew a solemn-looking cat,
+which was sitting regarding the hearth, on to his knee, and began
+playing with it. Presently Howard threw his pen down. "Come along,"
+he said. The boy, still carrying the cat, came and sat down beside
+him. The lesson proceeded as before, but there was a slight
+difference in Howard's manner of speech, as of an uncle with a
+favourite nephew. At the end, he pushed the paper into the boy's
+hand, and said, "No, that isn't good enough, you know; it's all too
+casual--it isn't a bit like Latin: you don't do me credit!" He
+spoke incisively enough, but shook his head with a smile. The boy
+said nothing, but got up, vaguely smiling, and holding the cat
+tucked under his arm--a charming picture of healthy and indifferent
+youth. Then he said in a rich infantile voice, "Oh, it's all right.
+I didn't do myself justice this time. You shall see!"
+
+At this moment the old servant came in and asked Howard if he would
+take lunch.
+
+"Yes; I won't go into Hall," said Howard. "Lunch for two--you can
+stay and lunch with me, Jack; and I will give you a lecture about
+your sins."
+
+The boy said, "Yes, thanks very much; I'd love to."
+
+Jack Sandys was a pupil of Howard's in whom he had a special
+interest. He was the son of Frank Sandys, the Vicar of the
+Somersetshire parish where Mrs. Graves, Howard's aunt, lived at the
+Manor-house. Frank Sandys was a cousin of Mrs. Graves' deceased
+husband. She had advised the Vicar to send Jack to Beaufort, and
+had written specially commending him to Howard's care. But the boy
+had needed little commendation. From the first moment that Jack
+Sandys had appeared, smiling and unembarrassed, in Howard's room, a
+relation that was almost filial and paternal had sprung up between
+them. He had treated Howard from the outset with an innocent
+familiarity, and asked him the most direct questions. He was not a
+particularly intellectual youth, though he had some vague literary
+interests; but he was entirely healthy, good, and quite
+irresistibly charming in his naivete and simplicity. Howard had a
+dislike of all sentimentality, but the suppressed paternal instinct
+which was strong in him had been awakened; and though he made no
+emotional advances, he found himself strangely drawn to the boy,
+with a feeling for which he could not wholly account. He did not
+care for Jack's athletic interests; his tastes and mental processes
+were obscure to him. Howard's own nature was at once intellectual
+and imaginative, but he felt an extreme delight in the fearless and
+direct confidence which the boy showed in him. He criticised his
+work unsparingly, he rallied him on his tastes, he snubbed him, but
+all with a sense of real and instinctive sympathy which made
+everything easy. The boy never resented anything that he said,
+asked his advice, looked to him to get him out of any small
+difficulties that arose. They were not very much together, and
+mostly met only on official occasions. Howard was a busy man, and
+had little time, or indeed taste, for vague conversation. Jack was
+a boy of natural tact, and he treated all the authorities with the
+same unembarrassed directness. Undergraduates are quick to remark
+on any sort of favouritism, but only if they think that the
+favoured person gets any unfair advantage by his intimacy. But
+Howard came down on Jack just as decisively as he came down on
+anyone else whose work was unsatisfactory. It was known that they
+were a sort of cousins; and, moreover, Jack Sandys was generally
+popular, though only in his first year, because he was free from
+any touch of uppishness, and of an imperturbable good-humour.
+
+But his own feeling for the boy surprised Howard. He did not think
+him very interesting, nor had they much in common except a perfect
+goodwill. It was to Howard as if Jack represented something beyond
+and further than himself, for which Howard cared--as one might love
+a house for the sake of someone that had inhabited it, or because
+of events that had happened there. He tried vaguely to interest
+Jack in some of the things he cared about, but wholly in vain. That
+cheerful youth went quietly on his own way--modest, handsome,
+decided, knowing exactly what he liked, with very material tastes
+and ambitions, not in the least emotional or imaginative, and yet
+with a charm of which all were conscious. He was bored by any
+violent attempts at friendship, and quite content in almost
+anyone's company, naturally self-contained and temperate, making no
+claims and giving no pledges; and yet Howard was deeply haunted by
+the sense that Jack stood for something almost bewilderingly fine
+which he himself could not comprehend or interpret, and of which
+the boy himself was wholly and radiantly unconscious. It gave him,
+indeed, a sudden warmth about the heart to see Jack in the court,
+or even to think of him as living within the same walls; but there
+was nothing jealous or exclusive about his interest, and when they
+met, there was often nothing particular to say.
+
+Presently lunch was announced, and Howard led the way to a little
+panelled parlour which looked out on the river. They both ate with
+healthy appetites; and presently Jack, looking about him, said,
+"This room is rather nice! I don't know how you make your rooms so
+nice?"
+
+"Mostly by having very little in them except what I want," said
+Howard. "These panelled rooms don't want any ornaments; people
+spoil rooms by stuffing them, just as you spoil my cat,"--Jack was
+feeding the cat with morsels from his plate.
+
+"It's a nice cat," said Jack; "at least I like it in your rooms. I
+wouldn't have one in my rooms, not if I were paid for it--it would
+be what the Master calls a serious responsibility." Presently,
+after a moment's silence, Jack said, "It's rather convenient to be
+related to a don, I think. By the way, what sort of screw do they
+give you--I mean your income--I suppose I oughtn't to ask?"
+
+"It isn't usually done," said Howard, "but I don't mind your
+asking, and I don't mind your knowing. I have about six hundred a
+year here."
+
+"Oh, then I was right," said Jack. "Symonds said that all the dons
+had about fifteen hundred a year out of the fees; he said that it
+wouldn't be worth their while to do it for less. But I said it was
+much less. My father only gets about two hundred a year out of his
+living, and it all goes to keep me at Cambridge. He says that when
+he is vexed about things; but he must have plenty of his own. I
+wish he would really tell me. Don't you think people ought to tell
+their sons about their incomes?"
+
+"I am afraid you are a very mercenary person," said Howard.
+
+"No, I'm not," said Jack; "only I think one ought to know, and then
+one could arrange. Father's awfully good about it, really; but if
+ever I spend too much, he shakes his head and talks about the
+workhouse. I used to be frightened, but I don't believe in the
+workhouse now."
+
+When luncheon was over, they went back to the other room. It was
+true that, as Jack had said, Howard managed to make something
+pleasant out of his rooms. The study was a big place looking into
+the court; it was mostly lined with books, the bookcases going
+round the room in a band about three feet from the floor and about
+seven feet high. It was a theory of Howard's that you ought to be
+able to see all your books without either stooping or climbing.
+There was a big knee-hole table and half a dozen chairs. There was
+an old portrait in oils over the mantelpiece, several arm-chairs,
+one with a book-rest. Half a dozen photographs stood on the
+mantelpiece, and there was practically nothing else in the room but
+carpets and curtains. Jack lit a cigarette, sank into a chair, and
+presently said, "You must get awfully sick of the undergraduates, I
+should think, day after day?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Howard; "in fact I must confess that I like
+work and feel dull without it--but that shows that I am an elderly
+man."
+
+"Yes, I don't care about my work," said Jack, "and I think I shall
+get rather tired of being up here before I have done with it. It's
+rather pointless, I think. Of course it's quite amusing; but I want
+to do something real, make some real money, and talk about
+business. I shall go into the city, I think."
+
+"I don't believe you care about anything but money," said Howard;
+"you are a barbarian!"
+
+"No, I don't care about money," said Jack; "only one must have
+enough--what I like are REAL things. I couldn't go on just learning
+things up till I was twenty-three, and then teaching them till I
+was sixty-three. Of course I think it is awfully good of you to do
+it, but I can't think why or how you do it."
+
+"I suppose I don't care about real things," said Howard.
+
+"No, I can't quite make you out," said Jack with a smiling air,
+"because of course you are quite different from the other dons--
+nobody would suppose you were a don--everyone says that."
+
+"It's very kind of you to say so," said Howard, "but I am not sure
+that it is a compliment--a tradesman ought to be a tradesman, and
+not to be ashamed of it. I'm a sophist, of course."
+
+"What's a sophist?" said Jack. "Oh, I know. You lectured about the
+sophists last term. I don't remember what they were exactly, but I
+thought the lecture awfully good--quite amusing! They were a sort
+of parsons, weren't they?"
+
+"You are a wonderful person, Jack!" said Howard, laughing. "I
+declare I have never had such extraordinary things said to me as
+you have said in the last half-hour."
+
+"Well, I want to know about people," said Jack, "and I think it
+pays to ask them. You don't mind, do you? That's the best thing
+about you, that I can say what I think to you without putting my
+foot in it. But you said you were going to lecture me about my
+sins--come on!"
+
+"No," said Howard, "I won't. You are not serious enough to-day, and
+I am not vexed enough. You know quite well what I think. There
+isn't any harm in you; but you are idle, and you are inquisitive. I
+don't want you to be very different, on the whole, if only you
+would work a little more and take more interest in things."
+
+"Well," said Jack, "I do take interest--that's the mischief; there
+isn't time to work--that's the truth! I shall scrape through the
+Trip, and then I shall have done with all this nonsense about the
+classics; it really is humbug, isn't it? Such a fuss about nothing.
+The books I like are those in which people say what they might say,
+not those in which they say what they have had days to invent. I
+don't see the good of that. Why should I work, when I don't feel
+interested?"
+
+"Because whatever you do, you will have to do things in which you
+are not interested," said Howard.
+
+"Well, I think I will wait and see," said Jack. "And now I must be
+off. I really have said some awful things to you to-day, and I must
+apologise; but I can't help it when I am with you; I feel I must
+say just what comes into my head; I must fly; thank you for lunch;
+and I truly will do better, but mind only for YOU, and not because
+I think it's any good." He put down the cat with a kiss. "Good-bye,
+Mimi," he said; "remember me, I beseech you!" and he hurried away.
+
+Howard sat still for a minute or two, looking at the fire; then he
+gave a laugh, got up, stretched himself, and went out for a walk.
+
+Even so quiet a thing as a walk was not unattended by a certain
+amount of ceremonial. Howard passed some six or seven men of his
+acquaintance, some of whom presented a stick or raised a stiff hand
+without a smile or indeed any sign of recognition; one went so far
+as to say, "Hullo, Kennedy!" and one eager conversationalist went
+so far as to say, "Out for a walk?" Howard pushed on, walking
+lightly and rapidly, and found himself at last at Barton, one of
+those entirely delightful pastoral villages that push up so close
+to Cambridge on every side; a vague collection of quaint irregular
+cottages, whitewashed and thatched, with bits of green common
+interspersed, an old manorial farm with its byres and ricks,
+surrounded by a moat fringed with little pollarded elms. The plain
+ancient tower of the church looked gravely out over all. In the
+distance, over pastoral country, rose low wolds, pleasantly shaped,
+skirted with little hamlets, surrounded by orchards; the old
+untroubled necessary work of the world flows on in these fields and
+villages, peopled with lives hardly conscious of themselves, with
+no aims or theories, just toiling, multiplying, dying, existing, it
+would seem, merely to feed and clothe the more active part of the
+world. Howard loved such little interludes of silence, out in the
+fresh country, when the calm life of tree and herb, the delicate
+whisper of dry, evenly-blowing breezes, tranquillised and hushed
+his restless thoughts. He lost himself in a formless reverie,
+exercising no control over his trivial thoughts.
+
+By four o'clock he was back, made himself some tea, put on a cap
+and gown, and walked out to a meeting. In a high bare room in the
+University offices the Committee sat. The Vice-Chancellor, a big,
+grave, solid man, Master of St. Benedict's, sat in courteous state.
+Half a dozen dons sat round the great tables, ranged in a square.
+The business was mostly formal. The Vice-Chancellor read the points
+from a paper in his resonant voice, comments and suggestions were
+made, and the Secretary noted down conclusions. Howard was struck,
+as he often had been before, to see how the larger questions of
+principle passed almost unnoticed, while the smaller points, such
+as the wording of a notice, were eagerly and humorously debated by
+men of acute minds and easy speech. It was over in half an hour.
+Howard strolled off with one of the members, and then, returning to
+his rooms, wrote some letters, and looked up a lecture for the next
+day, till the bell rang for Hall.
+
+Beaufort was a hospitable and sociable College, and guests often
+appeared at dinner. On this night Mr. Redmayne was in the chair, at
+the end of a long table; eight or ten dons were present. A gong was
+struck; an undergraduate came up and scrambled through a Latin
+Grace from a board which he held in his hand. The tables filled
+rapidly with lively young men full of talk and appetite. Howard
+found himself sitting next one of his colleagues, on the other side
+of him being an ancient crony of Mr. Redmayne's, the Dean of a
+neighbouring College. The talk was mainly local and personal,
+diverging at times into politics. It was brisk, sensible, good-
+natured conversation, by no means unamusing. Mr. Redmayne was an
+unashamed Tory, and growled denunciations at a democratic
+Government, whom he credited with every political vice under the
+sun, depicting the Cabinet as men fishing in troubled seas with
+philanthropic baits to catch votes. One of the younger dons, an
+ardent Liberal, made a mild protest. "Ah," said Mr. Redmayne, "you
+are still the prey of idealistic illusions. Politics are all based,
+not on principles or programmes, but on the instinctive hatred of
+opponents." There was a laugh at this. "You may laugh," said Mr.
+Redmayne, "but you will find it to be true. Peace and goodwill are
+pretty words to play with, but it is combativeness which helps the
+world along; not the desire to be at peace, but the wish to maul
+your adversary!"
+
+It was the talk of busy men who met together, not to discuss, but
+to eat, and conversed only to pass the time. But it was all good-
+humoured enough, and even the verbal sharpness which was employed
+was evidence of much mutual confidence and esteem.
+
+Howard thought, looking down the Hall, when the meal was in full
+fling, what a picturesque, cheerful, lively affair it all was. The
+Hall was lighted only by candles in heavy silver candlesticks,
+which flared away all down the tables. In the dark gallery a couple
+of sconces burned still and clear. The dusty rafters, the dim
+portraits above the panelling, the gleam of gilded cornices were a
+pleasant contrast to the lively talk, the brisk coming and going,
+the clink and clatter below. It was noisy indeed, but noisy as a
+healthy and friendly family party is noisy, with no turbulence.
+Once or twice a great shout of laughter rang out from the tables
+and died away. There was no sign of discipline, and yet the whole
+was orderly enough. The carvers carved, the waiters hurried to and
+fro, the swing-doors creaked as the men hurried out. It was a very
+business-like, very English scene, without any ceremony or parade,
+and yet undeniably stately and vivid.
+
+The undergraduates finished their dinners with inconceivable
+rapidity, and the Hall was soon empty, save for the more
+ceremonious and deliberate party at the high table. Presently these
+adjourned in procession to the Parlour, a big room, comfortably
+panelled, opening off the Hall, where the same party sat round the
+fire at little tables, sipped a glass of port, and went on to
+coffee and cigarettes, while the talk became more general. Howard
+felt, as he had often felt before, how little attention even able
+and intellectual Englishmen paid to the form of their talk. There
+was hardly a grammatical sentence uttered, never an elaborate one;
+the object was, it seemed, to get the thought uttered as quickly
+and unconcernedly as possible, and even the anecdotes were pared to
+the bone. A clock struck nine, and Mr. Redmayne rose. The party
+broke up, and Howard went off to his rooms.
+
+He settled down to look over a set of compositions. But he was in a
+somewhat restless frame of mind to-night, and a not unpleasant mood
+of reflection and retrospect came over him. What an easy, full,
+lively existence his was! He seemed to himself to be perfectly
+contented. He remembered how he, the only son of rather elderly
+parents, had gone through Winchester with mild credit. He had never
+had any difficulties to contend with, he thought. He had been
+popular, not distinguished at anything--a fair athlete, a fair
+scholar, arousing no jealousies or enmities. He had been naturally
+temperate and self-restrained. He had drifted on to Beaufort as a
+Scholar, and it had been the same thing over again--no ambitions,
+no failures, friends in abundance. Then his father had died, and it
+had been so natural for him, on being elected to a Fellowship, just
+to carry on the same life; he had to settle to work at once, as his
+mother was not well off and much invalided. She had not long
+survived his father. He had taught, taken pupils, made a fair
+income. He had had no break of travel, no touch with the world;
+a few foreign tours in the company of an old friend had given
+him nothing but an emotional tincture of recollections and
+associations--a touch of varnish, so to speak. Suddenly the
+remembrance of some of the things which Jack Sandys had said that
+morning came back to him; "real things" the boy had said, so
+lightly and yet so decisively. He wondered; had he himself ever had
+any touch with realities at all? He had been touched by no
+adversity or tragedy, he had been devastated by no disappointed
+ambitions, shattered by no emotions. His whole life had been
+perfectly under his control, and he had grown into a sort of
+contempt for all unbalanced people, who were run away with by their
+instincts or passions. It had been a very comfortable, sheltered,
+happy life; he was sure of that; he had enjoyed his work, his
+relations with others, his friendships; but had he ever come near
+to any fulness of living at all? Was it not, when all was said and
+done, a very empty affair--void of experience, guarded from
+suffering? "Suffering?" he hardly knew the meaning of the word. Had
+he ever felt or suffered or rebelled? Yes, there was one little
+thing. He had had a small ambition once; he had studied comparative
+religion very carefully at one time to illustrate some lectures,
+and a great idea had flashed across him. It was a big, a fruitful
+thought; he had surveyed that strange province of human emotion,
+the deepest strain of which seemed to be a disgust for mingling
+with life, a loathing of bodily processes and instincts, which
+drove its votaries to a deliberate sexlessness, and set them at
+variance with the whole solid force of Nature, the treacherous and
+alluring devices by which she drove men to reproduction with an
+insatiable appetite; that mystical strain, which appeared at all
+times and in all places, a spiritual rebellion against material
+bondage, was not that the desperate cry of the fettered spirit? The
+conception of sin, by which Nature traversed her own activities and
+made them void--there was a great secret hidden here. He had
+determined to follow this up, and to disguise with characteristic
+caution and courtesy a daring speculation under the cloak of
+orthodox research.
+
+He had begun his work in a great glow of enthusiasm; but it had
+been suspended time after time. He had sketched his theory out; but
+it lay there in one of his table-drawers, a skeleton not clothed
+with words. Why had he let this all drop? Why had he contented
+himself with the easy, sociable life? Effective though he was as a
+teacher, he had no real confidence in the things which he taught.
+They only seemed to him a device of reason for expending its
+energies, just as men deprived by complex life of manual labour
+sought to make up for the loss by the elaborate pursuit of games.
+He did not touch the springs of being at all. He had collapsed, he
+felt, into placid acquiescence; Nature had been too strong for him.
+He had fitted so easily into the pleasant scheme of things, and he
+was doing nothing in the world but helping to prolong the delusion,
+just as men set painted glass in a window to shut out the raincloud
+and the wind. He was a conformist, he felt, in everything--in
+religion, intellect, life--but a sceptic underneath. Was he not
+perhaps missing the whole object and aim of life and experience, in
+a fenced fortress of quiet? The thought stung him suddenly with a
+kind of remorse. He was doing no part of the world's work, not
+sharing its emotions or passions or pains or difficulties; he was
+placidly at ease in Zion, in the comfortable city whose pleasures
+were based on the toil of those outside. That was a hateful
+thought! Had not the boy been right after all? Must one not somehow
+link one's arm with life and share its pilgrimage, even in
+weariness and tears?
+
+There came a tap at the door, and one of his shyest pupils entered--
+a solitary youth, poor and unfriended, who was doing all he could
+to get a degree good enough to launch him in the world. He came to
+ask some advice about work. Howard entered into his case as well as
+he could, told him it was important that he should get certain
+points clear, gave him an informal lecture, distinctly and
+emphatically, and made a few friendly remarks. The man beamed with
+unexpressed gratitude.
+
+"What solemn nonsense I have been talking!" thought Howard to
+himself as the young man slipped away. "Of course he must learn all
+this--but what for? To get a mastership, and to retail it all over
+again! It's a vicious circle, this education which is in touch with
+nothing but the high culture of a nation which lived in ideas;
+while with us culture is just a plastering of rough walls--no part
+of the structure! Why cannot we put education in touch with life,
+try to show what human beings are driving at, what arrangements
+they are making that they may live? It is all arrangements with us--
+the frame for the picture, the sheath for the sword--and we leave
+the picture and the sword to look after themselves. What a wretched
+dilettante business it all is, keeping these boys practising
+postures in the anteroom of life! Cannot we get at the real thing,
+teach people to do things, fill their minds with ideas, break down
+the silly tradition of needless wealth and absurd success? And I
+must keep up all this farce, simply because I am fit for nothing
+else--I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed. Oh, hold your tongue, you
+ass!" said Howard, apostrophising his rebellious mind. "Don't you
+see where you are going? You can't do anything--it is all too big
+and strong for you. You must just let it alone."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+RESTLESSNESS
+
+
+
+
+
+A few days later the term drew to an end, and both dons and
+undergraduates, whose tempers had been wearing a little thin, got
+suddenly more genial, like guests when a visit draws to a close,
+and disposed to think rather better of each other.
+
+Howard had made no plans; he did not wish to stay on at Cambridge,
+but he did not want to go away: he had no relations to whose houses
+he naturally drifted; he did not like the thought of a visit; as a
+rule he went off with an undergraduate or two to some lonely inn,
+where they fished or walked and did a little work. But just now he
+had a vague feeling that he wanted to be alone; that he had
+something to face, some reckoning to cast up, and yet he did not
+know what it was.
+
+One afternoon--the spring was certainly advancing, and there was a
+touch of languor in the air, that heavenly languor which is so
+sweet a thing when one is young and hopeful, so depressing a thing
+when one is living on the edge of one's nervous force--he paid a
+call, which was not a thing he often did, on a middle-aged woman
+who passed for a sort of relation; she was a niece of his aunt's
+deceased husband, Monica Graves by name. She was a woman of
+independent means, who had done some educational work for a time,
+but had now retired, lived in her own little house, and occupied
+herself with social schemes of various sorts. She was a year or two
+older than Howard. They did not very often meet, but there was a
+pleasant camaraderie between them, an almost brotherly and sisterly
+relation. She was a small, quiet, able woman, whose tranquil manner
+concealed great clear-headedness and decisiveness. Howard always
+said that it was a comfort to talk to her, because she always knew
+what her own opinion was, and did what she intended to do. He found
+her alone and at tea. She welcomed him drily but warmly. Presently
+he said, "I want your advice, Monnie; I want you to make up my mind
+for me. I have a feeling that I need a change. I don't mean a
+little change, but a big one. I am suddenly aware that I am a
+little stale, and I wish to be freshened up."
+
+Monica looked at him and said, "Yes, I expect you are right! You
+know I think we ought all to have one big change in our lives,
+about your age, I mean. Why don't you put in for a head-mastership?
+I have often thought you have rather a gift that way."
+
+"I might do that," said Howard vaguely, "but I don't want a change
+of work so much as a change of mind. I have got suddenly bored, and
+I am a little vexed with myself. I have always rather held with
+William Morris that people ought to live in the same place and do
+the same things; and I had no intention of being bored--I have
+always thought that very feeble! But I have fallen suddenly into
+the frame of mind of knowing exactly what all my friends here are
+going to say and think, and that rather takes the edge off
+conversation; and I have learned the undergraduate mind too. It's
+an inconsequent thing, but there's a law in inconsequence, and I
+seem to have acquired a knowledge of their tangents."
+
+"I must consider," said Monica with a smile, "but one can't do
+these things offhand--that is worse than doing nothing. I'll tell
+you what to do NOW. Why not go and stay with Aunt Anne? She would
+like to see you, I know, and I have always thought it rather lazy
+of you not to go there--she is rather a remarkable woman, and it's
+a pretty country. Have you ever been there?"
+
+"No," said Howard, "not to Windlow; I stayed with them once when I
+was a boy, when Uncle John was alive--but that was at Bristol. What
+sort of a place is Windlow? I suppose Aunt Anne is pretty well
+off?"
+
+"I'm not very good at seeing the points of a place," said Monica;
+"but it's a beautiful old house, though it is rather too low down
+for my taste; and she lives very comfortably, so I think she must
+be rich; I don't know about that; but she is an interesting woman--
+one of the few really religious people I know. I am not very
+religious myself, but she makes it seem rather interesting to me--
+she has experiences--I don't quite know what they are; but she is a
+sort of artist in religion, I think. That's a bad description,
+because it sounds self-conscious; and she isn't that--she has a
+sense of humour, and she doesn't rub things in. You know how if one
+meets a real artist in anything--a writer, a painter, a musician--
+and finds them at work, it seems almost the only thing worth doing.
+Well, Aunt Anne gives me the same sort of sense about religion when
+I am with her; and yet when I come away, and see how badly other
+people handle it, it seems a very dull business."
+
+"That's interesting," said Howard musingly; "but I am really
+ashamed to suggest going there. She has asked me so often, and I
+have sent such idiotic excuses."
+
+"Oh, you needn't mind that," said Monica; "she isn't a huffy
+person. I know she would like to see you--she said to me once that
+the idea of coming didn't seem to amuse you, but she seemed
+disposed to sympathise with you for that. Just write and say you
+would like to go."
+
+"I think I will," said Howard, "and I have another reason why I
+should like to go. You know Jack Sandys, your cousin, now my pupil.
+He is rather a fascinating youth. His father is parson there, isn't
+he?"
+
+"Yes," said Monica; "there are two hamlets, Windlow and Windlow
+Malzoy, both in the same parish. The church and vicarage are at
+Malzoy; but Frank is rather a terror--my word, how that man talks!
+But I like Jack, though I have only seen him half a dozen times--
+that reminds me that I must have him to dinner or something--and I
+like his sister even better. But I am afraid that Jack may turn out
+a bore too--he is rather charming at present, because he says
+whatever comes into his head; and it's all quite fresh; but that is
+what poor Cousin Frank does--only it's not at all fresh! However,
+there's nothing like living with a bore to teach one the merits of
+holding one's tongue. Poor old Frank! I thought he would be the
+death of us all one evening at Windlow. He simply couldn't stop,
+and he had a pathetic look in his eye, as if he was saying, 'Can't
+anyone assist me to hold my tongue?'"
+
+Howard laughed and got up. "Well," he said, "I'll take your advice.
+I don't know anyone like you, Monnie, for making up one's mind. You
+crystallise things. I shall like to see Aunt Anne, and I shall like
+to see Jack at home; and meanwhile will you think the matter over,
+and give me a lead? I don't want to leave Cambridge at all, but I
+would rather do that than go sour, as some people do!"
+
+"Yes," said Monica, "when you get beneath the surface, Cambridge is
+rather a sad place. There are a good many disappointed men here--
+people who wake up suddenly in middle life, and realise that if
+they had gone out into the world they would have done better; but I
+like Cambridge; you can do as you like here--and then the rainfall
+is low."
+
+Howard went back to his rooms and wrote a short note to Mrs. Graves
+to suggest a visit; he added that he felt ashamed of himself for
+never coming, "but Monica says that you would like to see me, and
+Monica is generally right."
+
+That evening Jack came in to say good-bye. He did not look forwards
+to the vacation at all, he said; "Windlow is simply the limit! I
+believe it's the dullest place in the kingdom!"
+
+"What would you feel if I told you that we shall probably meet?"
+said Howard. "I am going to stay with Mrs. Graves--that is, if she
+will have me. I don't mind saying that the fact that you are close
+by is a considerable reason why I think of going."
+
+"That's simply splendid!" said Jack; "we will have no end of a
+time. Do you DO anything in particular--fish, I mean, or shoot?
+There's some wretched fishing in the river, and there is some
+rabbit-shooting on the downs. Mrs. Graves has a keeper, a shabby
+old man who shoots, as they say, for the house. I believe she
+objects to shooting; but you might persuade her, and we could go
+out together."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I do shoot and fish in a feeble way. We will
+see what can be done."
+
+"There are things to see, I believe," said Jack, "churches and
+houses, if you like that sort of thing--I don't; but we might get
+up some expeditions--they are rather fun. I think you won't mind my
+sister. She isn't bad for a woman. But women don't understand men.
+They are always sympathising with you or praising you. They think
+that is what men like, but it only means that it is what they would
+like. Men like to be left alone--but I daresay she thinks I don't
+understand her. Then there's my father! He is quite a good sort,
+really; but by George, how he does talk! I often think I'd like to
+turn him loose in the Combination Room. No one would have a chance.
+Redmayne simply wouldn't be in it with my father. I've invented
+rather a good game when he gets off. I try to see how many I can
+count before I am expected to make a remark. I have never quite got
+up to a thousand, but once I nearly let the cat out by saying nine
+hundred and fifty, nine hundred and fifty-one, when my father
+stopped for breath. He gave me a look, I can tell you, but I don't
+think he saw what I was after. Maud was seized with hysterics. But
+he isn't a bad sort of parent, as they go; he fusses, but he lets
+one do as one wants. I suppose I oughtn't to give my people away;
+but I never can see why one shouldn't talk about one's people just
+as if they were anybody else. I don't think I hold things sacred,
+as the Dean says: 'Reticence, reticence, the true characteristic of
+the English gentleman and the sincere Christian!'" and Jack
+delivered himself of some paragraphs of the Dean's famous annual
+sermon to freshmen.
+
+"It's abominable, the way you talk," said Howard; "you will corrupt
+my ingenuous mind. How shall I meet your father if you talk like
+this about him?"
+
+"You'll have to join in my game," said Jack. "By George, what
+sport; we shall sit there counting away alternately, and we will
+have some money on the run. You have got to say all the figures
+quite distinctly to yourself, you know!"
+
+Presently Jack said, "Why shouldn't we go down together? No, I
+suppose you would want to go first? I can't run to that. But you
+must come as soon as you can, and stay as long as you can. I had
+half promised to go and stay a week with Travers. But now I won't.
+By George, there isn't another don I would pay that compliment to!
+It would simply freeze my blood if the Master turned up there. I
+shouldn't dare to show my face outside the house; that man does
+make me sweat! The very smell of his silk gown makes me feel
+faint."
+
+"I'll tell you what I will do," said Howard, "I'll give you some
+coaching in the mornings. If anyone ever wanted coaching, it is
+you!"
+
+Jack looked rather blue at this, but he said, "It will have to be
+gratis, though! I haven't a cent. Besides, I am going to do better.
+I have a growing sense of duty!"
+
+"It's not growing very FAST!" said Howard, "and it's a feeble
+motive at best, you will find; you will have to get a better reason
+than that--it won't carry you far. Why not do it to please me?"
+
+"All right," said Jack; "will you scribble me a list of books to
+take down? I had meant to have a rest; but I would do a good deal
+of work to get a reasonable person down at Windlow. I simply
+daren't ask my friends there; my father would talk their hindlegs
+off but he isn't a bad old bird."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+WINDLOW
+
+
+
+
+
+Mrs. Graves wrote back by return of post that she was delighted to
+think that Howard was coming. "I am getting an old woman," she
+said, "and fond of memories: and what I hear of you from your
+enthusiastic pupil Jack makes me wish to see my nephew, and proud
+of him too. This is a quiet house, but I think you would enjoy it;
+and it's a real kindness to me to come. I am sure I shall like you,
+and I am not without hopes that you may like me. You need not tie
+yourself down to any dates; just come when you can, and go when you
+must."
+
+Howard liked the simplicity of the letter, and determined to go
+down at once. He started two days later. It was a fine spring day,
+and it was pleasant to glide through the open country all
+quickening into green. He arrived in the afternoon at the little
+wayside station. It was in the south-east corner of Somersetshire,
+and Howard liked the look of the landscape, the steep green downs,
+with their wooded dingles breaking down into rich undulating
+plains, dappled with hedgerow trees and traversed by gliding
+streams. He was met at the station by an old-fashioned waggonette,
+with an elderly coachman, who said that Mrs. Graves had hoped to
+come herself, but was not very well, and thought that Mr. Kennedy
+would prefer an open carriage.
+
+Howard was astonished at the charm of the whole countryside. They
+passed through several hamlets, with beautiful old houses, built of
+a soft orange stone, weathering to a silvery grey, with evidences
+of careful and pretty design in their mullioned windows and arched
+doorways. The churches, with their great richly carved towers,
+pierced stone shutters, and clustered pinnacles, pleased him
+extremely, and he liked the simple and courteous greetings of the
+people who passed them. He had a sense, long unfamiliar to him, as
+though he were somehow coming home. The road entered a green valley
+among the downs. To the left, an outstanding bluff was crowned with
+the steep turfed bastions of an ancient fort, and as they went in
+among the hills, the slopes grew steeper, rich with hanging woods
+and copses, and the edges of the high thickets were white with
+bleached flints. At last they passed into a hamlet with a church,
+and a big vicarage among shrubberies; this was Windlow Malzoy, the
+coachman said, and that was Mr. Sandys' house. Howard saw a girl
+wandering about on the lawn--Jack's sister, he supposed, but it was
+too far off for him to see her distinctly; five minutes later they
+drove into Windlow. It lay at the very bottom of the valley; a
+clear stream ran beneath the bridge. There were but half a dozen
+cottages, and just ahead of them, abutting on the road, appeared
+the front of a beautiful simple house of some considerable size,
+with a large embowered garden behind it bordering on the river;
+Howard was astonished to see what a large and ancient building it
+was. The part on the road was blank of windows, with the exception
+of a dignified projecting oriel; close to which was a high Tudor
+archway, with big oak doors standing open. There were some plants
+growing on the coping--snapdragon and valerian--which gave it a
+look of age and settled use. The carriage drove in under the arch,
+and a small courtyard appeared. There was a stable on the right,
+with a leaded cupola; the house itself was very plain and stately,
+with two great traceried windows which seemed to belong to a hall,
+and a finely carved outstanding porch. The whole was built out of
+the same orange stone of which the churches were built, stone-
+tiled, all entirely homelike and solid.
+
+He got down at the door, which stood open. An old man-servant
+appeared, and he found himself in a flagged passage, with a plain
+wooden screen on his left, opening into the hall. It had a
+collegiate air which he liked. Then he was led out at the opposite
+end of the vestibule, the servant saying, "Mrs. Graves is in the
+garden, sir." He stepped out on to a lawn bordered with trees;
+opposite him was a stone-built Jacobean garden-house, with stone
+balls on the balustraded coping. Two ladies were walking on the
+gravel path; the older of the two, who walked with a stick, came up
+to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and gave him a kiss in a
+simple and motherly way, saying, "So here you actually are, my dear
+boy, and very much welcome." She then presented the other lady, a
+small, snub-nosed, middle-aged woman, saying, "This is Miss Merry,
+who lives with me, and keeps me more or less in order; she is quite
+excited at meeting a don; she has a respect for learning and
+talent, which is unhappily rare nowadays." Miss Merry shook hands
+as a spaniel might give its paw, and looked reverentially at
+Howard. His aunt put her hand through his arm, and said, "Let us
+walk about a little. I live by rule, you must know--that is, by
+Miss Merry's rule; and we shall have tea in a few minutes."
+
+She pointed out one or two of the features of the house, and said,
+in answer to Howard's loudly expressed admiration, "Yes, it is a
+nice old house. Your uncle had a great taste for such things in
+days when people did not care much about them. He bought this very
+cheap, I believe, and was much attached to it; but he did not live
+long to enjoy it, you know. He died nearly thirty years ago. I
+meant to sell it, but somehow I did not, and now I hope to end my
+days here. It is not nearly as big as it looks, and a good deal of
+it consists of unused granaries and farm buildings. I sometimes
+think it is selfish of me to go on occupying it--it's a house that
+wants CHILDREN; but one isn't very consistent; and somehow the
+house is used to me, and I to it; and, after all, it is only
+waiting, which isn't the worst thing in the world!"
+
+When Howard found an opportunity of scrutinising his aunt, which he
+did as she poured out tea, he saw a very charming old lady, who was
+not exactly handsome, but was fresh-coloured and silvery-haired,
+and had a look of the most entire tranquillity and self-possession.
+She looked as if she had met and faced trouble at some bygone time;
+there were traces of sorrow about the brow and eyes, but it was a
+face which seemed as if self had somehow passed out of it, and was
+yet strong with a peculiar kind of fearless strength. She had a
+lazy and contented sort of laugh, and yet gave an impression of
+energy, and of a very real and vivid life. Her eyes had a great
+softness and brilliancy, and Howard liked to feel them dwelling
+upon him. As they sat at tea she suddenly put her hand on his and
+said, "My dear boy, how you remind me of your mother! I suppose you
+hardly even remember her as a young woman; but though you are half
+hidden in that beard of yours, you are somehow just like her, and I
+feel as if I were in the schoolroom again at Hunsdon in the old
+days. No, I am not sentimental. I don't want it back again, and I
+don't hate the death that parts us. One can't go back, one must go
+forward--and, after all, hearts were made to love with, and not to
+break!"
+
+They spent a quiet evening in the still house. Mrs. Graves said to
+Howard, "I know that men always want to go and do something
+mysterious after tea; but to-night you must just sit here and get
+used to me. You needn't be afraid of having to see too much of me.
+I don't appear before luncheon, and Jane looks after me; and you
+must get some exercise in the afternoons. I don't go further than
+the village. I expect you have lectures to write; and you must do
+exactly what you like." They sat there, in the low panelled room,
+and talked easily about old recollections. They dined in simple
+state in the big hall with its little gallery, at a round table in
+the centre, lighted by candles. The food was simple, the wine was
+good.
+
+"Marengo chicken," said Mrs. Graves as a dish was handed round.
+"That's one of Jane's historical allusions. If you don't know why
+it is called Marengo, Jane will rejoice to enlighten you." After
+the meal she begged him to smoke. "I like it," said Mrs. Graves; "I
+have even smoked myself in seclusion, but now I dare not--it would
+be all over the parish to-morrow."
+
+After dinner they went back to the drawing-room, and Miss Merry
+turned out to be quite a good pianist, playing some soft old music
+at the end of the gently lighted room. Mrs. Graves went off early.
+"You had better stop and smoke here," she said to Howard. "There's
+a library where you can work and smoke to-morrow; and now good
+night, and let me say how I delight to have you here--I really
+can't say how much!"
+
+Howard sat alone in the drawing-room. He had an almost painful
+faculty of minute observation, and the storage of new impressions
+was a real strain to him. To-day it seemed that they had poured in
+upon him in a cataract, and he felt dangerously wakeful; why had he
+been such a fool as to have missed this beautiful house, and this
+home atmosphere of affection? He could not say. A stupid
+persistence in his own plans, he supposed. Yet this had been
+waiting for him, a home such as he had never owned. He thought with
+an almost terrified disgust of his rooms at Beaufort, as the logs
+burned whisperingly in the grate, and the smoke of his cigarette
+rose on the air. Was it not this that he had been needing all
+along? At last he rose, put out the candles, and made his way to
+the big panelled bedroom which had been given him. He lay long
+awake, wondering, in a luxurious repose, listening to the whisper
+of the breeze in the shrubberies, and the faint murmur of the water
+in the full-fed stream.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE POOL
+
+
+
+
+
+Very early in the morning Howard woke to hear the faint twittering
+of the birds begin in bush and ivy. It was at first just a fitful,
+drowsy chirp, a call "are you there? are you there?" until, when
+all the sparrows were in full cry, a thrush struck boldly in, like
+a solo marching out above a humming accompaniment of strings. That
+was a delicious hour, when the mind, still unsated of sleep, played
+softly with happy, homelike thoughts. He slept again, but the sweet
+mood lasted; his breakfast was served to him in solitude in a
+little panelled parlour off the Hall; and in the fresh April
+morning, with the sunlight lying on the lawn and lighting up the
+old worn detail of the carved cornices, he recovered for a time the
+boyish sense of ecstasy of the first morning at home after the
+return from school. While he was breakfasting, a scribbled note
+from Jack was brought in.
+
+
+"Just heard you arrived last night; it's an awful bore, but I have
+to go away to-day--an old engagement made, I need hardly say, FOR
+me and not BY me; I shall turn up to-morrow about this time. No
+WORK, I think. A day of calm resolution and looking forward
+manfully to the future! My father and sister are going to dine at
+the Manor to-night. I shall be awfully interested to hear what you
+think of them. He has been looking up some things to talk about,
+and I can tell you, you'll have a dose. Maud is frightened to
+death.--Yours "Jack.
+
+"P.S.--I advise you to begin COUNTING at once."
+
+
+A little later, Miss Merry turned up, to ask Howard if he would
+care to look round the house. "Mrs. Graves would like," she said,
+"to show it you herself, but she is easily tired, and can't stand
+about much." They went round together, and Howard was surprised to
+find that it was not nearly as large a house as it looked. Much
+space was agreeably wasted in corridors and passages, and there
+were huge attics with great timbered supports, needed to sustain
+the heavy stone tiling, which had never been converted into living
+rooms. There was the hall, which took up a considerable part of one
+side; out of this, towards the road, opened the little parlour
+where he had breakfasted, and above it was a library full of books,
+with its oriel overhanging the road, and two windows looking into
+the garden. Then there was the big drawing-room. Upstairs there
+were but a half a dozen bedrooms. The offices and the servants'
+bedrooms were in the wing on the road. There was but little
+furniture in the house. Mr. Graves had had a preference for large
+bare rooms; and such furniture as there was, was all for use and
+not for ornament, so that there was a refreshing lack of any
+aesthetic pose about it. There were but few pictures, but most of
+the rooms were panelled and needed no other ornament. There was a
+refreshing sense of space everywhere, and Howard thought that he
+had never seen a house he liked so well. Miss Merry chirped away,
+retailing little bits of history. Howard now for the first time
+learned that Mr. Graves had retired early from business with a
+considerable fortune, and being fond of books and leisure, and
+rather delicate in health, had established himself in the house,
+which had taken his fancy. There were some fifteen hundred acres of
+land attached, divided up into several small farms.
+
+Miss Merry was filled with a reverential sort of adoration of Mrs.
+Graves; "the most wonderful person, I assure you! I always feel she
+is rather thrown away in this remote place."
+
+"But she likes it?" said Howard.
+
+"Yes, she likes everything," said Miss Merry. "She makes everyone
+feel happy: she says very little, but you feel somehow that all is
+right if she is there. It's a great privilege, Mr. Kennedy, to be
+with her; I feel that more and more every day."
+
+This artless praise pleased Howard. When he was left alone he got
+out his papers; but he found himself restless in a pleasant way; he
+strolled through the garden. It was a singular place, of great
+extent; the lawn was carefully kept, but behind the screen of
+shrubs the garden extended far up the valley beside the river in a
+sort of wilderness; and he could see by the clumps of trees and the
+grassy mounds that it must have once been a great formal
+pleasaunce, which had been allowed to follow its own devices; at
+the far end of it, beside the stream, there was a long flagged
+terrace, with a stone balustrade looking down upon the stream, and
+beyond that the woods closed in. He left the garden and followed
+the stream up the valley; the downs here drew in and became
+steeper, till he came at last to one of the most lovely places he
+thought he had ever set eyes upon. The stream ended suddenly in a
+great clear pool, among a clump of old sycamores; the water rose
+brimming out of the earth, and he could see the sand fountains
+rising and falling at the bottom of the basin; by the side of it
+was a broad stone seat, with carved back and ends. There was not a
+house in sight; beyond there was only the green valley-end running
+up into the down, which was here densely covered with thickets. It
+was perfectly still; and the only sound was the liquid springing of
+the water in the pool, and the birds singing in the bushes. Howard
+had a sudden sense that the place held a significance for him. Had
+he been there before, in some dream or vision? He could not tell;
+but it was strangely familiar to him. Even so the trees had leaned
+together, and the clear ripples pulsed upon the bank. Something
+strange and beautiful had befallen him there. What was it? The mind
+could not unravel the secret.
+
+He sat there long in the sun, his eyes fixed upon the pool, in a
+blissful content that was beyond thought. Then he slowly retraced
+his steps, full of an intense inner happiness.
+
+He found his aunt in the garden, sitting out in the sun. He bent
+down to kiss her, and she detained his hand for a moment. "So you
+are at home?" she said, "and happy?--that is what I had wished and
+hoped. You have been to the pool--yes, that is a lovely spot. It
+was that, I think, which made your uncle buy the place; he had a
+great love of water--and in my unhappy days here, when I had lost
+him, I used often to go there and wish things were otherwise. But
+that is all over now!"
+
+After luncheon, Miss Merry excused herself and said she was going
+to the village to see a farm-labourer's wife, who had lost a child
+and was in great distress. "Poor soul!" said Mrs. Graves. "Give her
+my love, and ask her to come and see me as soon as she can."
+Presently as they sat together, Howard smoking, she asked him
+something about his work. "Will you tell me what you are doing?"
+she said. "I daresay I should not understand, but I like to know
+what people are thinking about--don't use technical terms, but just
+explain your idea!"
+
+Howard was just in the frame of mind, trying to revive an old train
+of thought, in which it is a great help to make a statement of the
+range of a subject; he said so, and began to explain very simply
+what was in his mind, the essential unity of all religion, and his
+attempt to disentangle the central motive from outlying schemes and
+dogmas. Mrs. Graves heard him attentively, every now and then
+asking a question, which showed that she was following the drift of
+his thought.
+
+"Ah, that's very interesting and beautiful," she said at last. "May
+I say that it is the one thing that attracts me, though I have
+never followed it philosophically. Now," she went on, "I am going
+to reduce it all to practical terms, and I don't want to beat about
+the bush--there's no need for that! I want to ask you a plain
+question. Have you any religion or faith of your own?"
+
+"Ah," said Howard, "who can say? I am a conformist, certainly,
+because I recognise in religion a fine sobering, civilising force
+at work, and if one must choose one's side, I want to be on that
+side and not on the other. But religion seems to me in its essence
+a very artistic thing, a perception of effects which are hidden
+from many hearts and minds. When a man speaks of definite religious
+experience, I feel that I am in the presence of a perception of
+something real--as real as music and painting. But I doubt if it is
+a sense given to all, or indeed to many; and I don't know what it
+really is. And then, too, one comes across people who hold it in an
+ugly, or a dreary, or a combative, or a formal way; and then
+sometimes it seems to me almost an evil thing."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "I understand that. May I give you an
+instance, and you will see if I perceive your thought. The good
+Vicar here, my cousin Frank, Jack's father--you will meet him to-
+night--is a man who holds a rigid belief, or thinks he holds it. He
+preaches what he calls the sinew and bone of doctrine, and he is
+very stern in the pulpit. He likes lecturing people in rows! But in
+reality he is one of the kindest and vaguest of men. He preached a
+stiff sermon about conversion the other day--I am pretty sure he
+did not understand it himself--and he disquieted one of my good
+maids so much that she went to him and asked what she could do to
+get assurance. He seems to have hummed and hawed, and then to have
+said that she need not trouble her head about it--that she was a
+good girl, and had better be content with doing her duty. He is the
+friendliest of men, and that is his real religion; he hasn't an
+idea how to apply his system, which he learned at a theological
+college, but he feels it his duty to preach it."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "that is just what I mean; but there must be
+some explanation for this curious outburst of forms and doctrines,
+so contradictory in the different sects. Something surely causes
+both the form of religion and the force of it?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "just as in an engine something causes
+both the steam and the piston-rod; it's an intelligence somewhere
+that fits the one to the other. But then, as you say, what is the
+cause of all this extravagance and violence of expression?"
+
+"That is the human element," said Howard--"the cautious,
+conservative, business-like side that can't bear to let anything
+go. All religion begins, it seems to me, by an outburst of moral
+force, an attempt to simplify, to get a principle; and then the
+people who don't understand it begin to make it technical and
+defined; uncritical minds begin to attribute all sorts of vague
+wonders to it--things unattested, natural exaggerations, excited
+statements, impossible claims; and then these take traditional
+shape and the poor steed gets hung with all sorts of incongruous
+burdens."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "but the force is there all the time; the
+old hard words, like regeneration and atonement, do not mean
+DEFINITE things--that is the mischief; they are the receipts made
+up by stupid, hard-headed people who do not understand; but they
+stand for large and wonderful experiences and are like the language
+of children telling their dreams. The moral genius who sees through
+it all and gives the first impulse is trying to deal with life
+directly and frankly; and the difficulty arises from people who see
+the attendant circumstances and mistake them for the causes. But I
+do not see it from that side, of course! I understand what you are
+aiming at. You are trying to disentangle all the phenomena, are you
+not, and referring them to their real causes, instead of lumping
+them all together as the phenomena of religion?"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "that is what I am doing. I suppose I am
+naturally sceptical; but I want to put aside all that stands on
+insecure evidence, and all the sham terminology that comes from a
+muddled delight in the supernatural. I want to give up and clear
+away all that is not certain--material things must be brought to
+the test of material laws--and to see what is left."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Graves, "now I will tell you my own very simple
+experience. I began, I think, with a very formal religion, and I
+tried in my youth to attach what was really instinctive to
+religious motives. It got me into a sad mess, because I did not
+dare to go direct to life. I used to fret because your uncle seemed
+so indifferent to these things. He was a wise and good man, and
+lived by a sort of inner beauty of character that made all mean
+cruel spiteful petty things impossible to him. Then when he died, I
+had a terrible time to go through. I felt utterly adrift. My old
+system did not give me the smallest help. I was trying to find an
+intellectual solution. It was then that I met Miss Gordon, the
+great evangelist. She saw I was unhappy, and she said to me one
+day: 'You have no business to be unhappy like this. What you want
+is STRENGTH, and it is there all the time waiting for you! You are
+arguing your case with God, complaining of the injustice you have
+received, trying to excuse yourself, trying to find cause to blame
+Him. Your life has been broken to pieces, and you are trying to
+shelter yourself among the fragments. You must cast them all away,
+and thank God for having pierced through the fortress in which you
+were imprisoned. You must just go straight to Him, and open your
+heart, as if you were opening a window to the sun and air.' She did
+not explain, or try to give me formulas or phrases, she simply
+showed me the light breaking round me.
+
+"It came to me quite suddenly one morning in my room upstairs. I
+was very miserable indeed, missing my dear husband at every turn,
+quite unable to face life, shuddering and shrinking through the
+days. I threw it all aside, and spoke to God Himself. I said, 'You
+made me, You put me here, You sent me love, You sent me prosperity.
+I have cared for the wrong things, I have loved in the wrong way.
+Now I throw everything else aside, and claim strength and light. I
+will sorrow no more and desire no more; I will take every day just
+what You send me, I will say and do what You bid me. I will make no
+pretences and no complaints. Do with me what You will.'
+
+"I cannot tell you what happened to me, but a great tide of
+strength and even joy flowed into my whole being; it was the water
+of life, clear as crystal; and yet it was myself all the time! I
+was not different, but I was one with something pure and wise and
+loving and eternal.
+
+"That has never left me. You will ask why I have not done more,
+bestirred myself more; because that is just what one cannot do. All
+that matters nothing. The activities which one makes for oneself,
+they are the delusions which hide God from us. One must not strive
+or rebuke or arrange; one must simply love and be. Let me tell you
+one thing. I was haunted all my early life with a fear of death. I
+liked life so well, every moment of it, every incident, that I
+could not bear to think it should ever cease; now, though I shrink
+from pain as much as ever, I have no shrinking whatever from death.
+It is the perfectly natural and simple change, and one is with God
+there as here. The soul and God--those are the two imperishable
+things; one has not either to know or to act--one has only to
+feel."
+
+She ceased speaking, and sat for a moment upright in her chair.
+Then she went on. "Now the moment I saw you, my dear boy, I loved
+you--indeed I have always loved you, I think, and I have always
+felt that some day in His good time God would bring us together.
+But I see too that you have not found the strength of God. You are
+not at peace. Your life is full and active and kind; you are
+faithful and pure; but your self is still unbroken, like a crystal
+wall all round you. I think you will have to suffer; but you will
+believe, will you not, that you have not seen a half of the wonder
+of life? You are full of happy experience, but you have begun to
+feel the larger need. And I knew that when you began to feel that
+need, you would be brought to me, not to be given it, but to be
+shown it. That is all I can say to you now, but you will know the
+fulness of life. It is not experience, action, curiosity, ambition,
+desire, as many think, that is fulness of life; those are
+delusions, things through which the soul has to pass, just that it
+may learn not to rest in them. The fulness of life is the stillest,
+quietest, inner joy, which nothing can trouble or shadow; love is a
+part of it, but not quite all--for there is a shadow even in love;
+and this is the larger peace."
+
+Howard sat amazed at the fire and glow of the words that came to
+him. He did not fully understand all that was said, but he had a
+sense of being brought into touch with a very tremendous and
+overwhelming force indeed. But he could not for the moment revise
+his impressions; he only perceived that he had come unexpectedly
+upon a calm and radiating centre of energy, and it seemed in his
+mind that the pool which he had seen that morning was an allegory
+of what he had now heard. The living water, breaking up so clearly
+from underground in the grassy valley, and passing downwards to
+gladden the earth! It would be used, be tainted, be troubled, but
+he saw that no soil or stain, no scattering or disruption, could
+ever really intrude itself into that elemental purity. The stream
+would reunite itself, the impregnable atom would let the staining
+substance fall unheeded. He would have to consider all that,
+scrutinise his life in a new light. He felt that he had been living
+on the surface of things, relying on impression, living in
+impression, missing the strong central current all the time. He
+rose, and taking his aunt's hand, kissed her cheek.
+
+"Those are my thanks!" he said smiling. "I can't express my
+gratitude, but you have given me so much to think about and to
+ponder over that I can say no more now. I do indeed feel that I
+have missed what is perhaps the greatest thing in the world. But I
+ask myself, Can I attain to this, is it for me? Am I not condemned
+by temperament to live in the surface-values?"
+
+"No, dear child," said Mrs. Graves, looking at him, so that for an
+instant he felt like a child indeed at a mother's knee; "we all
+come home thus, sooner or later; and the time has come for you. I
+knew it the moment I opened your letter. He is at the gate, I said,
+and I may have the joy of being beside him when the door is
+opened."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+ON THE DOWN
+
+
+
+
+
+Howard was very singularly impressed by this talk. It seemed to
+him, not certainly indeed, but possibly, that he had stumbled,
+almost as it were by accident, upon a great current of force and
+emotion running vehemently through the world, under the calm
+surface of things. How many apparently unaccountable events it
+might explain! one saw frail people doing fine things, sensitive
+people bearing burdens of ill-health or disappointment, placidly
+and even contentedly, men making gallant, unexpected choices, big
+expansive natures doing dull work and living cheerfully under
+cramped conditions. He had never troubled to explain such
+phenomena, beyond thinking that for some reason such a course of
+action pleased and satisfied people. Of course everyone did not
+hide the struggle; there were men he knew who had a grievance
+against the world, for ever parading a valuation of themselves with
+which no one concurred. But there were many people who had the
+material for far worse grievances, who never seemed to nourish
+them. Had they fought in secret and prevailed? Had they been
+floated into some moving current of strength by a rising tide? Were
+they, like the man in the Gospel, conscious of a treasure hidden in
+a field which made all other prizes tame by comparison? Was the
+Gospel in fact perhaps aiming at that--the pearl of price? To be
+born again--was that what had happened? The thought cast a light
+upon his own serene life, and showed him that it was essentially a
+pagan sort of life, temperate perhaps and refined, but still unlit
+by any secret fire. It was not that his life was wrong, or that an
+abjuration was needed; it was still to be lived, and lived more
+intently, but no longer merely self-propelled. . . .
+
+He needed to be alone, to consider, to focus his thought; he went
+off for a walk by himself among the hills, past the spring, up the
+valley, till he came to a place where the down ran out into the
+plain, the bluff crowned with a great earthwork. An enormous view
+lay spread out before him. To left and right the smooth elbows of
+the uplands ran down into the plain, their skirts clothed with
+climbing woods and orchards, hamlets half-hidden, with the smoke
+going up from their chimneys; further out the cultivated plain rose
+and fell, field beyond field, wood beyond wood, merging at last in
+a belt of deep rich colour, and beyond that, blue hills of hope and
+desire, and a pale gleam of sea beyond all. The westering sun
+filled the air with a golden haze, and enriched the land with soft
+rich shadows. There was life spread out before him, just so and not
+otherwise, life organised and constructed into toil and a certain
+order, out of what dim concourse and strife! For whatever reason,
+it was there to be lived; one could not change the conditions of
+it, the sun and the rain, the winter and the spring; but behind all
+that definite set of forces, was there perhaps a stronger and
+larger force still, a brimming tide of energy, that clasped life
+close and loved it, and yet regarded something through it and
+beyond it that was not yet? His heart seemed full of a great
+longing, not to avoid life, but to return and live it in a larger
+way, at once more engaged in it, and more detached from it, each
+quality ministering to the other. It seemed to him that afternoon
+that there was something awaiting him greater than anything which
+had yet befallen him--an open door, through which he might pass to
+see strange things.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE HOME CIRCLE
+
+
+
+
+
+He returned somewhat late, to find tea over and Mrs. Graves gone to
+her room; but there was tea waiting for him in the library; he went
+there, and for a while turned over his book, which seemed to him
+now to be illumined with a new light. It was this that he had been
+looking for, this gift of power; it was that which lay behind his
+speculations; he had suspected it, inferred it, but not perceived
+it; he saw now whither his thought had been conducting him, and why
+he had flagged in the pursuit.
+
+He went up to dress for dinner, and came down as soon as the bell
+rang. He found that Jack's father and sister had arrived. He went
+into the dimly lighted room. Mr. Sandys, a fine-looking robust man,
+clean-shaven, curly-haired, carefully and clerically dressed, was
+standing by Mrs. Graves; he came forward and shook hands. "I am
+delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy," he said, "though
+indeed I seem to know a great deal about you from Jack. You are
+quite a hero of his, you know, and I want to thank you for all your
+kindness to him. I am looking forward to having a good talk with
+you about his future. By the way, here is my daughter, Maud, who is
+quite as anxious to see you as I am." A figure sitting in a corner,
+talking to Miss Merry, rose up, came forward into the light, and
+held out her hand with rather a shy smile.
+
+Howard was amazed at what he saw. Maud had an extraordinary
+likeness to her brother, but with what a difference! Howard saw in
+an instant what it was that had haunted him in the aspect of Jack.
+This was what he seemed to have discerned all the time, and what
+had been baffling him. He knew that she was nineteen, but she
+looked younger. She was not, he thought, exactly beautiful--but how
+much more than beautiful; she was very finely and delicately made,
+and moved with an extraordinary grace; pale and fair, but with a
+look of perfect health; her features were very small, and softly
+rather than finely moulded; she had the air of some flower--a lily
+he thought--which was emphasised by her simple white dress. The
+under-lip was a little drawn in, which gave the least touch of
+melancholy to the face; but she had clear blue trustful eyes, the
+expression of which moved him in a very singular manner, because
+they seemed to offer a sweet and frank confidence. Her self-
+possession gave the least little sense of effort. He took the small
+firm and delicate hand in his, and was conscious of something
+strong and resolute in the grasp of the tiny fingers. She murmured
+something about Jack being so sorry to be away; and Howard to
+recover himself said: "Yes, he wrote to me to explain--we are going
+to do some work together, I believe."
+
+"Yes, it's most kind of you," said Mr. Sandys, putting his arm
+within his daughter's with a pleasant air of fatherliness. "I am
+afraid industry isn't Jack's strong point? Of course I am anxious
+about his future--you must be used to that sort of thing! but we
+will defer all this until after dinner, when Mrs. Graves will allow
+us to have a good talk."
+
+"We will see," said Mrs. Graves, rising; "Howard is here for a
+holiday, you know. Howard, will you lead the way; you don't know
+how my ceremonial soul enjoys having a real host to preside!"
+
+Maud took Howard's arm, and the touch gave him a quite unreasonable
+thrill of pleasure; but he felt too quite insupportably elderly.
+What could he find to talk to this enchanting child about? He
+wished he had learned more about her tastes and ideas. Was this the
+creature of whom Jack had talked so patronisingly? He felt almost
+angry with his absent pupil for not having prepared him for what he
+would meet.
+
+As soon as they were seated Mr. Sandys launched into the talk, like
+an eagle dallying with the wind. He struck Howard as an extremely
+good-natured, sensible, buoyant man, with a perpetual flow of
+healthy interests. Nothing that he said had the slightest
+distinction, and his power of expression was quite unequal to the
+evident vividness of his impressions. He had a taste for
+antithesis, but no grasp of synonyms. Every idea in Mr. Sandys'
+mind fell into halves, but the second clause was produced, not to
+express any new thought, but rather to echo the previous clause. He
+began at once on University topics. He had himself been a Pembroke
+man, and it had cost him an effort, he said, to send Jack
+elsewhere. "I don't take quite the orthodox view of education," he
+said, "in fact I am decidedly heterodox about its aims and the
+object that it has. It ought not to fall behind its object, and all
+this specialisation seems to me to be dangerous, and in fact
+decidedly perilous. My own education was on the old classical
+lines--an excellent gymnastic, I think, and distinctly fortifying.
+The old masterpieces, you know, Thucydides and so forth--they
+should be the basis--the foundation so to speak. But we must not
+forget the superstructure, the house of thought, if I may use the
+expression. You must forgive my ventilating these crude ideas, Mr.
+Kennedy. I went in myself, after taking my degree, for a course of
+general reading. Goethe and Schiller, you know. Yes, how fine that
+all is, though I sometimes feel it is a little Teutonic? One needs
+to correct the Teutonic bias, and it is just there that the
+gymnastic of the classics comes in; it gives one a standard--a
+criterion in fact. One must have a criterion, mustn't one, or it is
+all loose, and indeed, so to speak, illusive? I am all for
+formative education; and it is there that women--I speak frankly in
+the presence of three intelligent women--it is there that they
+suffer. Their education is not formative enough--not formal enough,
+in fact! Now, I have tried with dear Maud to communicate just that
+touch of formality. You would be surprised, Mr. Kennedy, to know
+what Maud has read under my guidance. Not learned, you know--I
+don't care for that--but with a standard, or if I may revert to my
+former expression, a criterion."
+
+He paused for a moment, saw that he was belated, and finished his
+soup hastily.
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "of course that is the real problem of
+education--to give a standard, and not to extinguish the taste for
+intellectual things, which is too often what we contrive to do."
+
+"Now we must not be too serious all at once," said Mrs. Graves. "If
+we exhaust ourselves about education, we shall have nothing to fall
+back upon--we shall be afraid to condescend. I am deplorably ill-
+educated myself. I have no standard whatever. I have to consult
+dear Jane, have I not? Jane is my intellectual touchstone, and
+saves me from entire collapse."
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Sandys good-humouredly, "Mr. Kennedy and I
+will fight it out together sometime. He will forgive an old
+Pembroke man for wanting to know what is going forward; for
+scenting the battle afar off, in fact."
+
+Mr. Sandys found no lack of subjects to descant upon; but voluble,
+and indeed absurd as he was, Howard could not help liking him; he
+was a good fellow, he could see, and managed to diffuse a geniality
+over the scene. "I am interested in most things," he said, at the
+end of a breathless harangue, "and there is something in the
+presence of a real live student, from the forefront of the
+intellectual battle, which rouses all my old activities--stimulates
+them, in fact. This will be a memorable evening for me, Mr.
+Kennedy, and I have abundance of things to ask you." He did indeed
+ask a good many things, but he was content to answer them himself.
+Once indeed, in the course of an immense tirade, in which Mr.
+Sandys' intellectual curiosity took a series of ever-widening
+sweeps, Howard caught his neighbour regarding him with a half-
+amused look, and became aware that she was wondering if he were
+playing Jack's game. Their eyes met, and he knew that she knew that
+he knew. He smiled and shook his head. She gave him a delighted
+little smile, and Howard had that touch of absurd ecstasy, which
+visits men no longer young, when they find themselves still in the
+friendly camp of the young, and not in the hostile camp of the
+middle-aged.
+
+Presently he said to her something about Jack, and how much he
+enjoyed seeing him at Cambridge. "He is really rather a wonderful
+person," he added. "There isn't anyone at Beaufort who has such a
+perfectly defined relation to everyone in the college, from the
+master down to the kitchen-boys. He talks to everyone without any
+embarrassment, and yet no one really knows what he is thinking! He
+is very deep, really, and I think he has a fine future before him."
+
+Maud lighted up at this, and said: "Do you really think so?" and
+added, "You know how much he admires you?"
+
+"I am glad to be assured of it," said Howard; "you would hardly
+guess it from some of the things he says to me. It's awful, but he
+can't be checked--and yet he never oversteps the line, somehow."
+
+"He's a queer boy," said Maud. "The way he talked to the Archdeacon
+the other day was simply fearful; but the Archdeacon only laughed,
+and said to papa afterwards that he envied him his son. The
+Archdeacon was giggling half the afternoon; he felt quite youthful,
+he said."
+
+"It's the greatest gift to be able to do that," said Howard; "it's
+a sort of fairy wand--the pumpkin becomes a coach and four."
+
+"Jack's right ear must be burning, I think," said Maud, "and yet he
+never seems to want to know what anyone thinks about him."
+
+That was all the talk that Howard had with her at dinner. After the
+ladies had gone, Mr. Sandys became very confidential about Jack's
+prospects.
+
+"I look upon you as a sort of relation, you see," he said, "in fact
+I shall make bold to drop the Mr. and I hope you will do the same?
+May we indeed take a bold step into intimacy and be 'Howard' and
+'Frank' henceforth? I can't, of course, leave Jack a fortune, but
+when I die the two dear children will be pretty well off--I may say
+that. What do you think he had better go in for? I should like him
+to take holy orders, but I don't press it. It brings one into touch
+with human beings, and I like that. I find human beings very
+interesting--I am not afraid of responsibility."
+
+Howard said that he did not think Jack inclined to orders.
+
+"Then I put that aside," cried the good-natured Mr. Sandys. "No
+compulsion for me--the children may do as they like, live as they
+like, marry whom they like. I don't believe in checking human
+nature. Of course if Jack could get a Fellowship, I should like him
+to settle down at Cambridge. There's a life for you! In the
+forefront of the intellectual battle! It is what I should have
+liked myself, of all things. To hear what is going on in the
+intellectual line, to ventilate ideas, to write, to teach--that's a
+fine life--to be able to hold one's own in talk and discussion--
+that's where we country people fail. I have plenty of ideas, you
+know, myself, but I can't put them into shape, into form, so to
+speak."
+
+"I think Jack would rather like a commercial career," said Howard.
+"It's the only thing he has ever mentioned; and I am sure he might
+do well if he could get an opening; he likes real things, he says."
+
+"He does!" said Mr. Sandys enthusiastically--"that's what he always
+says. Do you know, if you won't think me very vain, Howard, I
+believe he gets that from me. Maud is different--she takes after
+her dear mother--whose loss was so irreparable a calamity--my dear
+wife was full of imagination; it was a beautiful mind. I will show
+you some of her sketches when you come to see us--I am looking
+forward to that--not much technique, perhaps, but a real instinct
+for beauty; to be just, a little lacking in form, but full of
+feeling. Well, Jack, as I was saying, likes reality. So do I! A
+firm hold on reality--that's the best thing; I was not intellectual
+enough for the life of thought, and I fell back on humanity--vastly
+engrossing! I assure you, though you would hardly think it, that
+even these simple people down here are most interesting: no two of
+them alike. My old friends say to me sometimes that I must find
+country people very dull, but I always say, 'No two of them alike!'
+Of course I try to keep my intellectual tastes alive--they are only
+tastes, of course, not faculties, like yours--but we read and talk
+and ventilate our ideas, Maud and I; and when we are tired of
+books, why I fall back on the great book of humanity. We don't
+stagnate--at least I hope not--I have a horror of stagnation. I
+said so to the Archdeacon the other day, and he said that there was
+nothing stagnant about Windlow."
+
+"No, I am quite sure there is not," said Howard politely.
+
+"It's very good of you to say so, Howard," said Mr. Sandys
+delightedly. "Really quite a compliment! And I assure you, you
+don't know what a pleasure it is to have a talk like this with a
+man like yourself, so well-read, so full of ideas. I envy Jack his
+privileges. I do indeed. Now dear old Pembroke was not like that in
+my days. There was no one I could talk to, as Jack tells me he
+talks to you. A man like yourself is a vast improvement on the old
+type of don, if I may say so. I'm very free, you see! And so you
+think Jack might do well in commerce? Well, I quite approve. All I
+want is that he should not be out of touch with human beings. I'm
+not a metaphysician, but it seems to me that that is what we are
+here for--touch with humanity--of course on Church of England
+lines. I'm tolerant, I hope, and can see the good side of other
+creeds; but give me something comprehensive, and that is the glory
+of our English Church. Well, you have given me a lot to think of,
+Howard; I must just take it all away and think it over. It's well
+to do that, I think? Not to be in a hurry, try to see all round a
+question? That is my line always!"
+
+They walked into the drawing-room together; and Howard felt
+curiously drawn to the warm-hearted and voluble man. Perhaps it was
+for the sake of his children, he thought. There must be something
+fine about a man who had brought up two such children--but that was
+not all; the Vicar was enthusiastic; he revelled in life, he adored
+life; and Howard felt that there was a real fund of sense and even
+judgment somewhere, behind the spray of the cataract. He was a man
+whom one could trust, he believed, and whom it was impossible not
+to like.
+
+When they reached the drawing-room, Mrs. Graves called the Vicar
+into a corner, and began to talk to him about someone in the
+village; Howard heard his talk plunge steadily into the silence.
+Miss Merry flitted about, played a few pieces of music; and Howard
+found himself left to Maud. He went and sate down beside her. In
+the dim light the girl sate forward in a big arm-chair; there was
+nothing languorous or listless about her. She seemed all alert in a
+quiet way. She greeted him with a smile, and sate turned towards
+him, her chin on her hand, her eyes upon him. Her shining hair fell
+over the curves of her young and pure neck. She was holding a
+flower, which Mrs. Graves had given her, in her other hand, and its
+fragrance exhaled all about her. Once or twice she checked him with
+a little gesture of her hand, when Miss Merry began to play, and he
+could see that she was much affected by the music.
+
+"It seems to me so wrong to talk during music," she said; "perhaps
+it wasn't polite of me to stop you, but I can't bear to interrupt
+music--it's like treading on flowers--it can't come again just like
+that!"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I know exactly what you mean; but I expect it
+is a mistake to think of a beautiful thing being wasted, if we
+don't happen to hear or see it. It isn't only meant for us. It is
+the light or the sound or the flower, I think, being beautiful
+because it is glad."
+
+"Yes," said the girl, "perhaps it is that. That is what Mrs. Graves
+thinks. Do you know, it seems to me strange that you have never
+been here before, though you are almost her only relation. She is
+the most wonderful person I have ever seen. The only person I know
+who seems always right, and yet never wants anyone else to know she
+is right."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I feel that I have been very foolish--but it
+has been going on all the time, like the music and the light. It
+hasn't been wasted. I have had a wonderful talk with her to-day--
+the most wonderful talk, I think, I have ever had. I can't
+understand it all yet--but she has given me the sense of some fine
+purpose--as if I had been kept away for a purpose, because I was
+not ready; and as if I had come here for a purpose now."
+
+The girl sate looking at him with open eyes, and with some strange
+sense of surprise. "Yes," she said, "it is just like that; but that
+you could have seen it so soon amazes me. I have known her all my
+life, and could never have put that into words. Do you know how
+things seem to come and go and shift about without any meaning? It
+is never so with her; she sees what it all means. I cannot explain
+it."
+
+They sate in silence for a moment, and then Howard said: "It is
+very curious to be here; you know, or probably you don't know, how
+much interested I am in Jack; and somehow in talking to him I felt
+that there was something behind--something more to know. All this"--
+he waved his hand at the room--"my aunt, your father, yourself--it
+does not seem to me new and unfamiliar, but something which I have
+always known. I can't tell you in what a dream I have seemed to be
+moving ever since I came here. I have been here for twenty-four
+hours, and yet it seems all old and dear to me."
+
+"I know that feeling," said the girl, "one dips into something that
+has been going on for ever and ever--I feel like that to-night. It
+seems odd to talk like this, but you must remember that Jack tells
+me most things, and I seem to know you quite well. I knew it would
+be all easy somehow."
+
+"Well, we are a sort of cousins," said Howard lightly. "That's such
+a comfort; it needn't entail anything, but it can save one all
+sorts of fencing and ceremony. I want to talk to you about Jack. He
+is a little mysterious to me still."
+
+"Yes," she said, "he is mysterious, but he really is a dear: he was
+the most aggravating boy that ever lived, and I sometimes used
+really to hate him. I am afraid we used to fight a great deal; at
+least I did, but I suppose he was only pretending, for he never
+hurt me, and I know I used to hurt him--but then he deserved it!"
+
+"What a picture!" said Howard, smiling; "no wonder that boys go to
+their private schools expecting to have to fight for their lives. I
+never had a sister; and that accounts perhaps for my peaceful
+disposition." He had a sudden sense as he spoke that he was talking
+as if to an undergraduate in friendly irony. To his surprise and
+pleasure he saw that his thought had translated itself.
+
+"I suppose that is how you talk to your pupils," said the girl,
+smiling; "I recognise that--and that's what makes it easy to talk
+to you as Jack does--it's like an easy serve at lawn-tennis."
+
+"I am glad it is easy," said Howard, "you don't know how many of my
+serves go into the net!"
+
+"Lawn-tennis!" said Mr. Sandys from the other side of the room.
+"There's a good game, Howard! I am not much of a hand at it myself,
+but I enjoy playing. I don't mind making a spectacle of myself. One
+misses many good things by being afraid of looking a fool. What
+does it matter, I say to myself, as long as one doesn't FEEL a
+fool? You will come and play at the vicarage, I hope. Indeed, I
+want you to go and come just as you like. We are relations, you
+know, in a sort of way--at least connections. I don't know if you
+go in for genealogy--it's rather a hobby of mine; it fills up
+little bits of time, you know. I could reel you off quite a list of
+names, but Mrs. Graves doesn't care for genealogy, I know."
+
+"Oh, not that!" said Mrs. Graves. "I think it is very interesting.
+But I rather agree with the minister who advised his flock to pray
+for good ancestors."
+
+"Ha! ha!" said Mr. Sandys, "excellent, that; but it is really very
+curious you know, that the further one goes back the more one's
+ancestors increase. Talk of over-population; why if one goes back
+thirty or forty generations, the world would be over-populated with
+the ancestors of any one of us. I remember posing a very clever
+mathematician with that once; but, as a fact, it's quite the
+reverse, one finds. Are you interested in neolithic men, Howard?
+There are graves of them all over the down--it is not certain if
+they were neolithic, but they had very curious burial customs.
+Knees up to the chin, you know. Well, well, it's all very
+fascinating, and I should like to drive you over to Dorchester to
+look at the museum there--there are some questions I should like to
+ask you. But we must be off. A delightful evening, cousin Anne; a
+delightful evening, Howard. I feel quite rejuvenated--such a lot to
+ponder over."
+
+Howard went to the door to see them off, and was rewarded by a
+parting smile from Maud, which made him feel curiously elated. He
+went back to the drawing-room with that faint feeling of flatness
+which comes of parting with lively guests; and yet it somehow gave
+him a pleasant sense of being at home.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Graves, "so now you have seen the Sandys
+interior. Dear Frank, how he does chatter, to be sure! but he is
+all alive too in his own way, and that is what matters. What did
+you think of Maud? I want you to like her--she is a great friend of
+mine, and really a fine creature. Not very happy just now, perhaps.
+But while dear old Frank never sees past the outside of things--
+what a lot of things he does see!--she sees inside, I think. But I
+am tired to death. I always feel after talking to Frank as if I had
+been driving in a dog-cart over a ploughed field!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+COUNTRY LIFE
+
+
+
+
+
+Howard woke early, after sweet and wild dreams of great landscapes
+and rich adventures; as his thoughts took shape, he began to feel
+as if he had passed some boundary yesterday; escaped, as a child
+escapes from a familiar garden into great vague woodlands. There
+was his talk with Mrs. Graves first--that had opened up for him a
+new region, indeed, of the mind and soul, and had revealed to him
+an old force, perhaps long within his grasp, but which he had never
+tried to use or wield. And the vision too of Maud crossed his mind--
+a perfectly beautiful thing, which had risen like a star. He did
+not think of it as love at all--that did not cross his mind--it was
+just the thought of something enchantingly and exquisitely
+beautiful, which disturbed him, awed him, threw his mind off its
+habitual track. How extraordinarily lovely, simple, sweet, the girl
+had seemed to him in the dim room, in the faint light; and how
+fearless and frank she had been! He was conscious only of something
+adorable, which raised, as beautiful things did, a sense of
+something unapproachable, some yearning which could not be
+satisfied. How far away, how faded and dusty his ordinary contented
+Cambridge life now seemed to him!
+
+He breakfasted alone, read a few letters which had been forwarded
+to him, and went to the library. A few minutes later Miss Merry
+tapped at the door, and came in.
+
+"Mrs. Graves asked me to say--she was sorry she forgot to mention
+it--that if you care for shooting or fishing, the keeper will come
+in and take your orders. She thinks you might like to ask Jack to
+luncheon and go out with him; she sends you her love, and wants you
+to do what you like."
+
+"Thank you very much!" said Howard, "I rather expect Jack will be
+round here and I will ask him. I know he would like it, and I
+should too--if you are sure Mrs. Graves approves."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Miss Merry, smiling, "she always approves of people
+doing what they like."
+
+Miss Merry still hesitated at the door. "May I ask you another
+question, Mr. Kennedy--I hope I am not troublesome--I wonder if you
+could suggest some books for us to read? I read a good deal to Mrs.
+Graves, and I am afraid we get rather into a groove. We ought to
+read some of the new books; we want to know what people are saying
+and thinking--we don't want to get behind."
+
+"Why, of course," said Howard, "I shall be delighted--but I am
+afraid I am not likely to be of much use; I don't read as much as I
+ought; but if you will tell me the sort of things you care about,
+and what you have been reading, we will try to make out a list.
+Won't you sit down and see what we can do?"
+
+"Oh, I don't like to interrupt you," said Miss Merry. "But if you
+would be so kind."
+
+She sat down at the far end of the table, and Howard was dimly and
+amusedly conscious that this tete-a-tete was of the nature of a
+romantic adventure to the little lady. He was surprised, when they
+came to talk, to find how much they appeared to have read of a
+solid kind. He asked if they had any plan.
+
+"No, indeed," said Miss Merry, "we just wander on; one thing
+suggests another. Mrs. Graves likes LONG books; she says she likes
+to get at a subject quietly--that there ought not to be too many
+good things in books; she likes them slow and spacious."
+
+"I am afraid one has to go back a good way for that!" said Howard.
+"People can't afford now to know more than a manual of a couple of
+hundred pages can tell them about a subject. I can tell you some
+good historical books, and some books of literary criticism and
+biography. I can't do much about poetry or novels; and philosophy,
+science, and theology I am no use at all for. But I could get you
+some advice if you like. That's the best of Cambridge, there are so
+many people about who are able to tell what to read."
+
+While they were making out a list, Jack arrived breathlessly, and
+Miss Merry shamefacedly withdrew. Howard said: "Perhaps that will
+do to go on with--we will have another talk to-morrow. I begin to
+see the sort of thing you want."
+
+Jack was in a state of high excitement.
+
+"What on earth were you doing," he said, as the door closed, "with
+that sedate spinster?"
+
+"We were making out a list of books!"
+
+"Ah," said Jack with a profound air, "books are dangerous things--
+that's the intellectual way of making love! You must be a great
+excitement here, with all your ideas!--but now," he went on, "here
+I am--I hurried back the moment breakfast was over. I have been
+horribly bored--a lawn-tennis party yesterday, the females much to
+the fore--it's no good that, it's not the game; at least it's not
+lawn-tennis; it's a game all right, but I much suspect it has to do
+with love-making rather than exercise."
+
+"You seem very suspicious this morning," said Howard; "you accuse
+me of flirting to begin with, and now you suspect lawn-tennis."
+
+Jack shook his head. "I do hate love-making!" he said, "it spoils
+everything--it gets in the way, and makes fools of people; the
+longer I live, the more I see that most of the things that people
+do are excuses for doing something else! But never mind that! I
+said I had got to get back to be coached; I said that one of our
+dons was staying in the village and had his eye on me. What I want
+to know is whether you have made any arrangements about shooting or
+fishing? You said you would if you could."
+
+"The keeper is coming in," said Howard, "and we will have a talk to
+him; but mind, on one condition--work in the morning, exercise in
+the afternoon; and you are to stop to lunch."
+
+"Cousin Anne is bursting into hospitality," said Jack, "because
+Maud is coming in for the afternoon. I haven't had time to pump
+Maud yet about you, but, by George, I'm going to pump you about her
+and father. Did you have a very thick time last night? I could see
+father was rather licking his lips."
+
+"Now, no more chatter," said Howard; "you go and get some books,
+and we will set to work at once." Jack nodded and fled.
+
+When he came back the keeper was waiting, a friendly old man, who
+seemed delighted at the idea of some sport. Jack said, "Look here,
+I have arranged it all. Shooting to-day, and you can have father's
+gun; he hardly ever uses it, and I have my own. Fishing to-morrow,
+and so on alternately. There are heaps of rabbits up the valley--
+the place crawls with them."
+
+Howard taught Jack for an hour, as clearly and briskly as he could,
+making him take notes. He found him quick and apt, and at the end,
+Jack said, "Now if I could only do this every day at Cambridge, I
+should soon get on. My word, you do do it well! It makes me shudder
+to think of all the practice you must have had."
+
+Howard set Jack down to prepare some further work by himself, and
+attacked his own papers; and very soon it was time for lunch.
+
+Mrs. Graves greeted Jack with much affectionateness, and asked what
+they had arranged for the afternoon. Howard told her, and added
+that he hoped she did not object to shooting.
+
+"No, not at all," said Mrs. Graves, "if YOU can do it
+conscientiously--I couldn't! As usual I am hopelessly inconsistent.
+I couldn't kill things myself, but as long as I eat meat, I can't
+object. It's no good arguing about these things. If one begins to
+argue about destroying life, there are such excellent reasons for
+not eating anything, or wearing anything, or even crossing the
+lawn! I have long believed that plants are conscious, but we have
+got to exist somehow at each other's expense. Instinct is the only
+guide for women; if they begin to reason, they get run away with by
+reason; that is what makes fanatics. I won't go so far as to wish
+you good sport, but you may as well get all the rabbits you can;
+I'll send them round the village, and try to salve my conscience
+so."
+
+They talked a little about the books Howard had been recommending,
+but Mrs. Graves was bent on making much of Jack.
+
+"I don't get you here often by yourself," she said. "I daren't ask
+a modern young man to come and see two old frumps--one old frump, I
+mean! But I gather that you have views of your own, Jack, and some
+day I shall try to get at them. I suppose that in a small place
+like this we all know a great deal more about each other than we
+suspect each other of knowing. What a comfort that we have tongues
+that we can hold! It wouldn't be possible to live, if we knew that
+all the absurdities we pride ourselves on concealing were all
+perfectly well known and canvassed by all our friends. However, as
+long as we only enjoy each other's faults, and don't go in for
+correcting them, we can get on. I hope you don't DISAPPROVE of
+people, Jack! That's the hopeless attitude."
+
+"Well, I hate some people," said Jack, "but I hate them so much
+that it is quite a pleasure to meet them and to think how infernal
+they are; and when it's like that, I should be sorry if they
+improved."
+
+"I won't go as far as that," said Howard. "The most I do is to be
+thankful that their lack of improvement can still entertain me. One
+can never be thankful enough for really grotesque people. But I
+confess I don't enjoy seeing people spiteful and mean and vicious.
+I want to obliterate all that."
+
+"I want it to be obliterated," said Mrs. Graves; "but I don't feel
+equal to doing it. Oh, well, we mustn't get solemn over it; that's
+the mischief! But I mustn't keep you gentlemen from more serious
+pursuits--'real things,' I believe, Jack?"
+
+"Mr. Kennedy has been sneaking on me," said Jack. "I don't like to
+see people mean and spiteful. It gives me pain. I want all that
+obliterated."
+
+"This is what happens to my pupils," said Howard. "Come on, Jack,
+you shall not expose my methods like this."
+
+They went off with the old keeper, who carried a bag of writhing
+ferrets, and was accompanied by a boy with a spade and a line and a
+bag of cartridges. As they went on, Jack catechised Howard closely.
+
+"Did my family behave themselves?" he said. "Did you want them
+obliterated? I expect you had a good pull at the Governor, but
+don't forget he is a good chap. He is so dreadfully interested, but
+you come to plenty of sense last of all. I admit it is last, but
+it's there. It's no joke facing him if there's a row! he doesn't
+say much then, and that makes it awful. He has a way of looking out
+of the window, if I cheek him, for about five minutes, which turns
+me sick. Up on the top he is a bit frothy--but there's no harm in
+that, and he keeps things going."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I felt that, and I may tell you plainly I
+liked him very much, and thought him a thoroughly good sort."
+
+"Well, what about Maud?" said Jack.
+
+Howard felt a tremor. He did not want to talk about Maud, and he
+did not want Jack to talk about her. It seemed like laying hands on
+something sacred and secluded. So he said, "Really, I don't know as
+yet--I only had one talk with her. I can't tell. I thought her
+delightful; like you with your impudence left out."
+
+"The little cat!" said Jack; "she is as impudent as they make them.
+I'll be bound she has taken the length of your foot. What did she
+talk about? stars and flowers? That's one of her dodges."
+
+"I decline to answer," said Howard; "and I won't have you spoiling
+my impressions. Just leave me alone to make up my mind, will you?"
+
+Jack looked at him,--he had spoken sharply--nodded, and said, "All
+right! I won't give her away. I see you are lost; but I'll get it
+all out of you some time."
+
+They were by this time some way up the valley. There were rabbit
+burrows everywhere among the thickets. The ferrets were put in.
+Howard and Jack were posted below, and the shooting began. The
+rabbits bolted well, and Howard experienced a lively satisfaction,
+quite out of proportion, he felt, to the circumstances, at finding
+that he could shoot a great deal better than his pupil. The old
+knack came back to him, and he toppled over his rabbits cleanly and
+in a masterly way.
+
+"You are rather good at this!" said Jack. "Won't I blazon it abroad
+up at Beaufort. You shall have all the credit and more. I can't see
+how you always manage to get them in the head."
+
+"It's a trick," said Howard; "you have got to get a particular
+swing, and when you have got it, it's difficult to miss--it's only
+practice; and I shot a good deal at one time."
+
+Howard was unreasonably happy that afternoon. It was a still, sunny
+day, and the steep down stretched away above them, an ancient
+English woodland, with all its thorn-thickets and elder-clumps. It
+had been like this, he thought, from the beginning of history,
+never touched by the hand of man. The expectant waiting, the quick
+aim, the sudden shot, took off the restlessness of his brain; and
+as they stood there, often waiting for a long time in silence, a
+peculiar quality of peace and contentment enveloped his spirit. It
+was all so old, so settled, so quiet, that all sense of retrospect
+and prospect passed from his mind. He was just glad to be alive and
+alert, glad of his friendly companion, robust and strong. A few
+pictures passed before his mind, but he was glad just to let his
+eyes wander over the scene, the steep turf ramparts, the close-set
+dingles, the spring sunshine falling softly over all, as the sun
+passed over and the shadows lengthened. At last a ferret got hung
+up, and had to be dug out. Howard looked at his watch, and said
+they must go back to tea. Jack protested in vain that there was
+plenty of light left. Howard said they were expected back. They
+left the keeper to recover the ferret, and went back quickly down
+the valley. Jack was in supreme delight.
+
+"Well, that's an honest way of spending time!" he said. "My word,
+how I dangle about here; it isn't good for my health. But, by
+George, I wish I could shoot like you, Mr. Kennedy, Sir."
+
+"Why this sudden obsequiousness?" said Howard.
+
+"Oh, because I never know what to call you," said Jack. "I can't
+call you by your Christian name, and Mr. Kennedy seems absurd. What
+do you like?"
+
+"Whatever comes naturally," said Howard.
+
+"Well, I'll call you Howard when we are together," said Jack. "But
+mind, not at Beaufort! If I call you anything, it will have to be
+Mr. Kennedy. I hate men fraternising with the Dons. The Dons rather
+encourage it, because it makes them feel youthful and bucks them
+up. The men are just as bad about Christian names. Gratters on
+getting your Christian name, you know! It's like a girls' school. I
+wonder why Cambridge is more like a girls' school than a public
+school is? I suppose they are more sentimental. I do loathe that."
+
+When they got back they found Maud at tea; she had been there all
+the afternoon; she greeted Howard very pleasantly, but there was a
+touch of embarrassment created by the presence of Jack, who
+regarded her severely and called her "Miss."
+
+"He's got some grudge against me," said Maud to Howard. "He always
+has when he calls me Miss."
+
+"What else should I call you?" said Jack; "Mr. Kennedy has been
+telling me that one should call people by whatever name seems
+natural. You are a Miss to-day, and no mistake. You are at some
+game or other!"
+
+"Now, Jack, be quiet!" said Mrs. Graves; "that is how the British
+paterfamilias gets made. You must not begin to make your womankind
+uncomfortable in public. You must not think aloud. You must keep up
+the mysteries of chivalry!"
+
+"I don't care for mysteries," said Jack, "but I'll behave. My
+father says one mustn't seethe the kid in its mother's milk. I will
+leave Miss to her conscience."
+
+"Did you enjoy yourself?" said Mrs. Graves to Howard.
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid I did," said Howard, "very much indeed."
+
+"Some book I read the other day," said Mrs. Graves, "stated that
+men ought to do primeval things, eat under-done beef, sleep in
+their clothes, drink too much, kill things. It sounds disgusting;
+but I suppose you felt primeval?"
+
+"I don't know what it was," said Howard. "I felt very well
+content."
+
+"My word, he can shoot!" said Jack to Mrs. Graves; "I'm a perfect
+duffer beside him; he shot four-fifths of the bag, and there's a
+perfect mountain of rabbits to come in."
+
+"Horrible, horrible!" said Mrs. Graves, "but are there enough to go
+round the village?"
+
+"Two apiece," said Jack, "to every man a damsel or two! Now, Maud,
+come on--ten o'clock, to-morrow, Sir--and perhaps a little fishing
+later?"
+
+"You had better stay to lunch, whenever you come and work in the
+morning, Jack," said Mrs. Graves; "and I'll turn you inside out
+before very long."
+
+Howard went off to his work with a pleasant sense of the open air.
+They dined together quietly; after dinner he went and sate down by
+Mrs. Graves.
+
+"Jack's a nice boy," she said, "very nice--don't make him pert!"
+
+"I am afraid I shan't MAKE him anything," said Howard. "He will go
+his own way, sure enough; but he isn't pert--he comes to heel, and
+he remembers. He is like the true gentleman--he is never
+unintentionally offensive."
+
+Mrs. Graves laughed, and said, "Yes, that is so."
+
+Howard went on, "I have been thinking a great deal about our talk
+yesterday, and it's a new light to me. I do not think I fully
+understand, but I feel that there is something very big behind it
+all, which I want to understand. This great force you speak of--is
+it an AIM?"
+
+"That's a good question," said Mrs. Graves. "No, it's not an aim at
+all. It's too big for that; an aim is quite on a lower level.
+There's no aim in the big things. A man doesn't fall ill with an
+aim--he doesn't fall in love with an aim. It just comes upon him."
+
+"But then," said Howard, "is it more than a sort of artistic gift
+which some have and many have not? I have known a few real artists,
+and they just did not care for anything else in the world. All the
+rest of life was just a passing of time, a framework to their work.
+There was an artist I knew, who was dying. The doctor asked him if
+he wanted anything. 'Just a full day's work,' he said."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is like that in a way; it is the one
+thing worth doing and being. But it isn't a conscious using of
+minutes and opportunities--it isn't a plan; it is just a fulness of
+life, rejoicing to live, to see, to interpret, to understand. It
+doesn't matter what life you live--it is how you live it. Life is
+only the cup for the liquor which must else be spilled. I can only
+use an old phrase--it is being 'in the spirit': when you ask
+whether it is a special gift, of course some people have it more
+strongly and consciously than others. But it is the thing to which
+we are all tending sooner or later; and the mysterious thing about
+it is that so many people do not seem to know they have it. Yet it
+is always just the becoming aware of what is there."
+
+"How do you account for that?" said Howard.
+
+"Why," said Mrs. Graves, "to a great extent because religion is in
+such an odd state. It is as if the people who knew or suspected the
+secret, did all they could to conceal it--just as parents try to
+keep their children ignorant of the ideas of sex. Religion has got
+so horribly mixed up with other things, with respectability, social
+order, conventions, doctrines, metaphysics, ceremony, music--it has
+become so specialised in the hands of priests who have a great
+institution to support, that dust is thrown in people's eyes--and
+just as they begin to think they perceive the secret, they are
+surrounded by tiresome dogmatists saying, 'It is this and that--it
+is this doctrine, that tradition.' Well, that sort of religion IS a
+very special accomplishment--ecclesiastical religion. I don't deny
+that it has artistic qualities, but it is a poor narrow product;
+and then the technically religious make such a fuss if they see the
+shoal of fish escaping the net, and beat the water so vehemently
+that the fish think it safer to stay where they are, and so you get
+sardines in tins!" said Mrs. Graves with a smile--"by which I mean
+the churches."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "that is perfectly true! Christianity was at
+first the most new, radical, original, anarchical force in the
+world--it was the purest individualism; it was meant to over-ride
+all human combinations by simply disregarding them; it was not a
+social reform, and still less a political reform; it was a new
+spirit, and it was meant to create a new kind of fellowship, the
+mere existence of which would do away with the need for
+organisation; it broke meekly, like water, through all human
+partitions, and I suppose it has been tamed."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is not now the world against religion.
+It is organised religion against real religion, because religion is
+above and apart from all institutions. Christ said, 'When they
+persecute you in one city, flee into another'; and the result of
+that is the Monroe doctrine!"
+
+"But are you not a Christian?" said Howard.
+
+"I believe myself to be one," said Mrs. Graves; "and no doubt you
+will say, 'Why do you live in wealth and comfort?' That's a
+difficulty, because Christ meant us to be poor. But if one hands
+over one's money to Christian institutions now, one is subsidising
+the forces of the world--at least so I think. It's very difficult.
+Christ said that we should bestow our goods upon the poor; but if I
+were to divide my goods to-morrow among my neighbours, they would
+be only injured by it--it would not be Christian of them to take
+them--they have enough. If they have not, I give it them. It does
+less harm to me than to them. But this I know is very irrational;
+and the point is not to be affected by that. I could live in a
+cottage tomorrow, if there was need."
+
+"Yes, I believe you could," said Howard.
+
+"As long as one is not dependent upon money," said Mrs. Graves, "it
+doesn't very much matter. The real point is to take the world as it
+comes, and to be sure that one is on the side of what is true and
+simple and sincere; but I do not pretend to have solved everything,
+and I am hoping to learn more. I do learn more every day. One can't
+interfere with the lives of people; poverty is not the worst evil.
+It is nice to be clean, but I sometimes think that the only good I
+get from money is cleanliness--and that is only a question of
+habit! The real point is to be in life, to watch life, to love it,
+to live it; to be in direct relations with everyone, not to be
+superior, not to be KIND--that implies superiority. I just plod
+along, believing, fearing, hoping, loving, glad to live while I
+may, not afraid to die when I must. The only detachment worth
+having is the detachment from the idea of making things one's own.
+I can't appropriate the sunset and the spring, the loves and cares
+of others; it is all divided up, more fairly than we think. I have
+had many sorrows and sufferings; but I am more interested than ever
+in life, glad to help and be helped, ready to change, desiring to
+change. It isn't a great way of living; but one must not want that--
+and believe me, dear Howard, it is the only way."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+
+
+The first day or two of Howard's stay at Windlow seemed like a
+week, the succeeding week seemed like a day, as soon as he had
+settled down to a certain routine of life. He became aware of a
+continued sympathetic and quite unobtrusive scrutiny of him, his
+ways, his tastes, his thoughts, on the part of his aunt--her
+questions were subtle, penetrating, provocative enough for him to
+wish to express an opinion. He did not dislike it, and used no
+diplomacy himself; he found his aunt's mind shrewd, fresh,
+unaffected, and at the same time inspiring. She habitually spoke
+with a touch of irony--not bitter irony, but the irony that is at
+once a compliment and a sign of affection, such as Socrates used to
+the handsome boys that came about him. She was not in the smallest
+degree cynical, but she was very decidedly humorous. Howard thought
+that she did people even more than justice, while she was frankly
+delighted if they also provided her with amusement. She held
+nothing inconveniently sacred, and Howard admired the fine balance
+of interest and detachment which she showed, her delight in life,
+her high faith in something large, eternal, and advancing. Her
+health was evidently very frail, but she made light of it--it was
+almost the only thing she did not seem to find interesting. How
+could this clever, vivacious woman, Howard asked himself, retain
+this wonderful freshness and sweetness of mind in such solitude and
+dulness of life? He could imagine her the centre of a salon--she
+had all the gifts of a saloniste, the power of keeping a talk in
+hand, of giving her entire thought to her neighbour, and yet
+holding the whole group in view. Solitary, frail, secluded as she
+was, she was like an unrusted sword, and lavished her wit and her
+affection on all alike, callers, villagers, servants; and yet he
+never saw her tired or depressed. She took life as she found it,
+and was delighted with its simplest combinations. He found her
+company entirely absorbing and inspiring. He told her, in answer to
+her frank interest--she seemed to be interested on her own account,
+and not to please him--more about his own life than he had ever
+told a human being. She always wanted facts, impressions, details:
+"Enlarge that--describe that--tell me some more particulars," were
+phrases often on her lips. And he was delighted, too, by the belief
+that her explorations into his mind and life pleased and satisfied
+her. It dawned on him gradually that she was a woman of rich
+experience, and that her tranquillity was an aftergrowth, a
+development--"That was in my discontented days," she said once. "It
+is impossible to think of you as discontented," he had said. "Ah,"
+she said lightly, "I had my dreams, like everyone else; but I saw
+at last that one must TAKE life--one can't MAKE it--and accept its
+limitations with enjoyment."
+
+One morning, when he was called, the butler gave him a letter--he
+had been there about a fortnight--from his aunt. He opened it,
+expecting that it was to say that she was ill. He found that it ran
+as follows:
+
+
+"MY DEAR BOY,--I always think that business is best done by letter
+and not by conversation. I am getting an old woman and my life is
+uncertain. I want to make a statement of intentions. I may tell you
+that I am a comparatively wealthy woman; my dear husband left me
+everything he had; including what he spent on this place, it came
+to about sixty thousand pounds. Now I intend to leave that back to
+his family; there are several sisters of his alive, and they are
+not wealthy people; but I have saved money too; and it is my wish
+to leave you this house and the residue of my fortune, after
+arranging for some small legacies. The estate is not worth very
+much--a great deal of it is wild downland. But you would have the
+place, when I died, and about twelve hundred a year. It would be
+understood that you should live here a certain amount--I don't
+believe in non-resident landlords. But I do not mean to tie you
+down to live here altogether. It is only my wish that you should do
+something for your tenants and neighbours. If you stayed on at
+Cambridge you could come here in vacations. But my hope would be
+that you might marry. It is a house for a family. If you do not
+care to live here, I would rather it were sold. While I live, I
+hope you will be content to spend some time here, and make
+acquaintance with our neighbours, by which I mean the village
+people. I shall tell Cousin Frank my intentions, and that will
+probably suffice to make it known. I have a very great love for the
+place, and as far as I can see, you will be likely to have the
+same.
+
+"You need not feel overburdened with gratitude. You are my only
+near relation; and indeed I may say that if I were to die before I
+have signed my will, you would inherit all my fortune as next-of-
+kin. So you will see that instead of enriching you, I am to a great
+extent disinheriting you! Just tell me simply if you acquiesce. I
+want no pledges, nor do I want to bind you in any way. I will not
+say more, except that it has been a very deep delight to me to find
+a son in my old age. I had always hoped it would turn out so; and
+in my experience, God is very careful to give us our desires, just
+or unjust, great or small.--Your loving Aunt,
+
+"ANNE GRAVES."
+
+
+Howard was stupefied for a moment by this communication, but he was
+more affected by the love and confidence it showed than by the
+prospect of wealth--wealth was not a thing he had ever expected, or
+indeed thought much about; but it was a home that he had found. The
+great lack of his life had been a local attachment, a place where
+he had reason to live. Cambridge with all its joys had never been
+quite that. A curious sense of emotion at the thought that the
+sweet place, the beautiful old house, was to be his own, came over
+him; and another far-off dream darted into his mind as well, which
+he did not dare to shape. He got up and wrote a short note.
+
+
+"MY DEAR AUNT,--Your letter fills me with astonishment. I can only
+say that I accept in love and gratitude what you offer me. The
+feeling that I have found a home and a mother, so suddenly and so
+unexpectedly, fills me with joy and happiness. I think with sadness
+of all the good years I have missed, by a sort of stupid
+perversity; but I won't regard that now. I will only thank you once
+more with all my heart for the proof of affection which your letter
+gives me.--Your grateful and affectionate nephew,
+
+"HOWARD KENNEDY."
+
+
+The old house had a welcoming air as he passed through it that
+morning; it seemed to hold him in its patient embrace, to ask for
+love. He spent the morning with Jack, but in a curiously distracted
+mood.
+
+"What has happened to you?" said Jack at the end of the morning.
+"You have not been thinking about what you are doing. You seem like
+a man who has been stroking a winning crew. Has the Master been
+made a Dean, and have you been elected Master? They say you have a
+chance."
+
+Howard laughed and said, "You are very sharp, Jack! I have NOT been
+attending. Something very unexpected has happened. I mustn't tell
+you now, but you will soon know. I have drawn a prize. Now don't
+pump me!"
+
+"Here's another prize!" said Jack. "You are to lunch with us to-
+morrow, and to discuss my future career. There's glory for you! I
+am not to be present, and father is scheming to get me invited to
+luncheon here. If he fails, I am to take out some sandwiches and to
+eat them in the kitchen garden. Maud is to be present, and
+'CONFER,' he says, 'though without a vote'!"
+
+Howard met Mrs. Graves in the drawing-room; she kissed him, and
+holding his hand for a moment said, "Thank you for your note, my
+dear boy. That's all settled, then! Well, it's a great joy to me,
+and I get more than I give by the bargain. It's a shameless bribe,
+to secure the company of a charming nephew for a sociable old
+woman. Some time I shall want to tell you more about the people
+here--but I won't bore you; and let us just get quietly used to it
+all. One must not be pompous about money; it is doing it too much
+honour; and the best of it is that I have found a son." Howard
+smiled, kissed the hand which held his, and said no more.
+
+The Vicar turned up in the afternoon, and apologised to Mrs. Graves
+for asking Howard to luncheon on the following day. "The fact is,"
+he said, "that I am anxious to have the benefit of his advice about
+Jack's future. I think we ought to look at things from all sorts of
+angles, and Howard will be able, with his professional knowledge of
+young men, to correct the tendency to parental bias which is so
+hard to eliminate. I am a fond father--fond, but I hope not
+foolish--and I trust we shall be able to arrive at some
+conclusion."
+
+"Then Jack and Maud can come and lunch with me," said Mrs. Graves;
+"you won't want them, I am sure."
+
+"You are a sorceress," said Mr. Sandys, "in the literary sense of
+course--you divine my thought!"--but it was evident that he had
+much looked forward to using a little diplomacy, and was somewhat
+disappointed. He went on, "It will be very kind of you to have
+Jack, but I think I shall want Maud's assistance. I have a great
+belief in the penetration--in the observation of the feminine mind;
+more than I have, if you will excuse my frankness, in their power
+of dealing with a practical situation. Woman to interpret events,
+men to foresee contingencies. Woman to indicate, man to predicate--
+perhaps I mean predict! No matter; the thought, I think, is clear.
+Well, then, that is settled! I claim Howard for luncheon--a very
+simple affair--and for a walk; and by five o'clock we shall have
+settled this important matter, I don't doubt."
+
+"Very well," said Mrs. Graves; "but before you go, I must claim YOU
+for a short stroll. I have something to tell you; and as Howard and
+Jack are dying to get away to deprive some innocent creatures of
+the privilege of life, they had better go and leave us."
+
+That evening Howard had a long, quiet talk to his aunt. She said,
+"I am not going to talk business. Our lawyer is coming over on
+Saturday, and you had better get all the details from him. You must
+just go round the place with him, and see if there is anything you
+would like to see altered. It will be an immense comfort to put all
+that in your hands. Mind, dear boy," she said, "I want you to begin
+at once. I shall be ready to do whatever is necessary." Then she
+went on in a different strain. "But there is one other thing I want
+to say now, and that is that I should above all things like to see
+you married--don't, by the way, fall in love with dear Jane, who
+worships the ground you tread on! I have been observing you, and I
+feel little doubt that marriage is what you most need. I don't
+expect it has been in your mind at all! Perhaps you have not had
+enough to marry on, but I am not sorry for that, for a special
+reason; and I think, too, that men who have the care of boys and
+young men have their paternal instinct to a large extent satisfied;
+but that is only a small part of marriage! It isn't only that I
+want this house to be a home--that's merely a sentimental feeling--
+but you need to love and be loved, and to have the anxious care of
+someone close to you. There is nothing like marriage. It probably
+is not quite as transcendental an affair as you think. That's the
+mistake which intellectual people so often make--it's a very
+natural and obvious thing--and of course it means far more to a
+woman than to a man. But life is not complete without it. It is the
+biggest fact which happens to us. I only want you just to keep it
+in your mind as a possibility. Don't be afraid of it! My husband
+was your age when he married me, and though I was very unreasonable
+in those days, I am sure it was a happy thing for him, though he
+thought he was too old. There, I don't want to press you, in this
+or in anything. I do not think you will be happy living here
+without a wife, even if you go on with Cambridge. But one can't
+mould things to one's wishes. My fault is to want to organise
+everything for everybody, and I have made all my worst blunders so.
+I hope I have given up all that. But if I live to see it, the day
+when you come and tell me that you have won a wife will be the next
+happiest day to the day when I found a son of my heart. There, dear
+boy, I won't sentimentalise; but that's the truth; I shall wake up
+to-morrow and for many days, feeling that some good fortune has
+befallen me; but we should have found each other some time, even if
+I had been a poor and miserable old woman. You have given me all
+that I desired; give me a daughter too, if you can!"
+
+"Well," said Howard, smiling, "I have no theory on the subject. I
+never regarded marriage as either impossible or possible. It seemed
+to me that one was either caught away in a fiery chariot, or else
+was left under one's juniper tree; and I have been very comfortable
+there. I thought I had all I wanted; and I feel a little dizzy now
+at the way in which my cup of life has suddenly been seized and
+filled with wine to the brim. One doesn't find a home and a mother
+and a wife in a fortnight!"
+
+"I don't know!" said Mrs. Graves, smiling at him. "Some of the best
+marriages I know have been made in haste. I remember talking to a
+girl the other day who was engaged to a man within ten days of the
+time they had met. I said, 'Well, you have not wasted time.' 'Oh,'
+she said, apparently rather hurt, 'I kept Henry waiting a long
+time. I had to think it all over. I wasn't by any means sure I
+wanted to marry him.' I quoted a saying of an old friend of mine
+who when he was asked why he had proposed to a girl he had only
+known three days, said, 'I don't know! I liked her, and thought I
+should like to see more of her!'"
+
+"I think I must make out a list of possible candidates," said
+Howard, smiling. "I dare say your Jane would help me. I could mark
+them for various qualities; we believe in marks at Cambridge. But I
+must have time to get used to all my new gifts."
+
+"Oh, one doesn't take long to get used to happiness," said Mrs.
+Graves. "It always seems the most natural thing in the world.
+Tennyson was all wrong about sorrow. Sorrow is always the casual
+mistress, and not the wife. One recovers from everything but
+happiness; that is one's native air."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE VICAR
+
+
+
+
+
+The Vicarage was a pleasant house, with an air of comfort and
+moderate wealth about it. It was part of Frank Sandys' sense,
+thought Howard, that he was content to live so simple and retired a
+life. He did not often absent himself, even for a holiday. Howard
+was shown into the study which Mr. Sandys had improved and
+enlarged. It was a big room, with an immense, perfectly plain deal
+table in the middle, stained a dark brown; and the Vicar showed
+Howard with high glee how each of the four sides of the table was
+consecrated to a different avocation. "My accounts end!" he said,
+"my sermon side! my correspondence end! my genealogical side!"
+There were a number of small dodges, desks for holding books, flaps
+which could be let up and down, slits in the table through which
+papers could be dropped into drawers, a cord by which the bell
+could be rung without rising from his place, a cord by which the
+door could be bolted. "Not very satisfactory, that last," said the
+Vicar, "but I am on the track of an improvement. The worst of it
+is," said the good man, "that I have so little time. I make
+extracts from the books I read for my sermons, I cut out telling
+anecdotes from the papers. I like to raise questions every now
+and then in the Guardian, and that lets me in for a lot of
+correspondence. I even, I must confess, sometimes address questions
+to important people about their public utterances, and I have an
+interesting volume of replies, mostly from secretaries. Then I am
+always at work on my Somersetshire genealogies, and that means a
+mass of letters. The veriest trifles, of course, they will seem to
+a man like yourself; but I fail in mental grasp--I keep hammering
+away at details; that is my line; and after all it keeps one alert
+and alive. You know my favourite thesis--it is touch with human
+nature that I value, and I am brought into contact with many minds.
+I don't exaggerate the importance of my work, but I enjoy it; and
+after all, that is the point! I daresay it would be more dignified
+if I pretended to be a disappointed man," said the Vicar, with a
+smile which won Howard's heart, "but I am not--I am a very happy
+man, as busy as the fabled bee! I shouldn't relish a change. There
+was some question, I may tell you, at one time, of my becoming
+Archdeacon, but it was a relief to me when it was settled and when
+Bedington was appointed. I woke up in the morning, I remember, the
+day after his appointment was announced, and I said to myself--
+'Why, it's a relief after all!' I don't mean that I shouldn't have
+enjoyed it, but it would have meant giving up some part of my work.
+I really have the life I like, and if my dear wife had been spared
+to me, I should be the happiest of men; but that was not to be--and
+by the way, I must recollect to show you some of her drawings. But
+I must not inflict all this upon you--and by the way," said the
+Vicar, "Mrs. Graves did me the honour of telling me yesterday her
+intentions with regard to yourself, and I told her I was heartily
+glad to hear it. It is an immense thing for the place to have some
+one who will look into things a little, and bring a masculine mind
+to bear on our simple problems. For myself, it will be an untold
+gain to be brought in touch with a more intellectual atmosphere. I
+foresee a long perspective of stimulating discussions. I will
+venture to say that you will be warmly welcomed here, and indeed
+you seem quite one of us already. But now we must go and get our
+luncheon--we have much to discuss; and you will not mind Maud being
+present, I know; the children are devoted to each other, and though
+I have studied their tastes and temperaments very closely, yet
+'crabbed age and youth' you know, and all that--she will be able, I
+think, to cast some light on our little problem."
+
+They went together into the drawing-room, a pleasant old-fashioned
+room--"a temple of domestic peace," said the Vicar, "a pretty
+phrase of Carlyle's that! Maud has her own little sitting-room--the
+old schoolroom in fact--which she will like to show you. I think it
+very necessary that each member of a family should if possible have
+a sanctum, a private uninvaded domain--but in this room the
+separate strains unite."
+
+Maud was sitting near the window when the two came in. She got up
+and came quickly forward, with a smile, and shook hands with
+Howard. She had just the same look of virginal freshness and
+sweetness in the morning light--a little less mysterious, perhaps;
+but there came upon Howard a strange feeling, partly of intense
+admiration, partly a sort of half-jealousy that he should know so
+little of the girl's past, and a half-terror of all other
+influences and relations in the unknown background of her life. He
+wanted to know whom and what she cared about, what her hopes were,
+what her thoughts rested upon and concerned themselves with. He had
+never felt any such emotion before, and it was not wholly agreeable
+to him. He felt thrown off his balance, interfered with, diverted
+from his normal course. He wanted to do and say something which
+could claim her attention and confidence; and the frank and almost
+sisterly regard she gave him was not wholly to his mind. This was
+mingled, too, with a certain fear of he knew not what; he feared
+her criticism, her disapproval; he felt his own dulness and
+inelasticity. He seemed to himself empty, heavy, awkward,
+disconcerted by her quiet and expectant gaze. This came and went
+like a flash, and gave him an almost physical uneasiness.
+
+"Well, here we are," said the Vicar. "I must say this is very
+comfortable--a sort of family council, with matters of importance
+to discuss." Maud led the way to the dining-room. "I said we would
+have everything put on the table," said the Vicar, "and wait on
+ourselves; that will leave us quite free to talk. It's not a lack
+of any respect, Howard--quite the contrary; but these honest people
+down here pick up all sorts of gossip--in a quiet life, you know, a
+little gossip goes a long way; and even my good maids are human--I
+should be so in their place! Howard, a bit of this chicken--our own
+chickens, our own vegetables, our country cider--everything home-
+grown; and now to business, and we will settle Master Jack in a
+turn. My own belief is, in choosing a profession, to think of all
+possibilities and eliminate them one by one."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "but we are met by this initial difficulty;
+that one might settle a dozen professions for Jack, and there is
+not the smallest guarantee that he would choose any of them. I
+think he will take his own line. I never knew anyone who knew so
+definitely what he intended to do, and what he did not intend to
+do!"
+
+"You have hit it," said the Vicar, "and I do not think you could
+have said anything which could please me more. He is independent;
+it is my own temperament over again! You will forgive a touch of
+vanity, Howard, but that is me all over. And that simplifies our
+plan of action very considerably, you know!"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "it undoubtedly does. I have no doubt from what
+Jack told me that he intends to make money. It isn't, in him, just
+the vague desire to have the command of money, which most young men
+have. I have to talk over their careers with a good many young men,
+and it generally ends in their saying they would like a
+secretaryship, which would give them interesting work and long
+holidays and the command of much of their time, and lead on to
+something better, with a prospect of early retirement on a
+pension."
+
+The Vicar laughed loudly at this. "Excellent!" he said, "a very
+human view; that's a real bit of human nature."
+
+"But Jack," said Howard, "isn't like that. He enjoys his life and
+gets what fun out of it he can; but he thinks Cambridge a waste of
+time. I don't know any young man who is so perfectly clear that he
+wants real work. He is not idle as many young men are idle,
+prolonging the easy days as long as they can. He is an
+extraordinary mixture; he enjoys himself like a schoolboy, and yet
+he wants to get to work."
+
+"Well, I think that a very encouraging picture!" said the Vicar;
+"there is something very sensible about that. I confess I have
+mostly seen the schoolboy side of Jack, and it delights one to know
+that there is a serious side! Let us hear what Maud thinks; this
+kind of talk is really very enjoyable."
+
+"Yes," said Maud, looking up. "I am sure that Mr. Kennedy is quite
+right. I believe that Jack would like to go into an office to-
+morrow."
+
+"There," said the Vicar, "you see she agrees with you. It is really
+a pleasure to find oneself mistaken. I confess I had not discerned
+this quality in Jack; he had seemed to me much set on amusement."
+
+"Oh yes," said Howard, "he likes his fun, and he is active enough;
+but it is all passing the time."
+
+"Well, this is really most satisfactory," said the Vicar. "So you
+really think he is cut out for business; something commercial?
+Well, I confess I had rather hankered after something more
+definitely academic and scholastic--something more intellectual!
+But I bow to your superior knowledge, Howard, and we must think of
+possible openings. Well, I shall enjoy that. My own money, what
+there is of it, was made by my grandfather in trade--the
+manufacture of cloth, I believe. Would cloth now, the manufacture
+of cloth, appear to provide the requisite opening? I have some
+cousins still in the firm."
+
+"I think it would do as well as anything else," said Howard, "and
+if you have any interest in a particular business, it would be
+worth while to make inquiries."
+
+"Before I go to bed to-night," said the Vicar, "I will send a
+statement of the case to my cousin; that will set the ball
+rolling."
+
+"Won't you have a talk with Jack first?" said Howard. "You may
+depend upon it he will have some views."
+
+"The very thing," said the Vicar. "I will put aside all my other
+work, and talk to Jack after tea; if any difficulty should arise, I
+may look to you for further counsel. This is really most
+satisfactory. This matter has been in my mind in a nebulous way for
+a long time; and you enter the scene with your intellectual grip,
+and your psychological penetration--if that is not too intricate a
+word--and the situation is clear at once. Well, I am most grateful
+to you."
+
+The talk then became general, or rather passed into the Vicar's
+hands. "I have ventured," he said, "to indicate to Maud what Cousin
+Anne was good enough to tell me last night--she laid no embargo on
+the news--and a few particulars about your inheritance will not be
+lacking in interest--and on our walk this afternoon, to which I am
+greatly looking forward, we will explore your domains."
+
+This simple compliment produced a curious effect on Howard. He
+realised as he had not done before the singular change in his
+position that his aunt's announcement had produced: a country
+squire, a proprietor--he could not think of himself in that light--
+it was like a curious dream.
+
+After luncheon, Mr. Sandys excused himself for a few minutes; he
+had to step over and speak to the sexton. Maud would take Howard
+round the garden, show him her room, "just our simple background--
+we want you to realise that!"
+
+As soon as they were alone together, Howard said to Maud, "We seem
+to have settled Jack's affairs very summarily. I hope you do agree
+with me?"
+
+"Yes," said Maud, "I do indeed. It is wonderful to me that you
+should know so much about him, with all your other pupils to know.
+He isn't a boy who talks much about himself, though he seems to;
+and I don't think my father understood what he was feeling. Jack
+doesn't like being interfered with, and he was getting to resent
+programmes being drawn up. Papa is so tremendously keen about
+anything he takes up that he carries one away; and then you come
+and smooth out all the difficulties. It isn't always easy--" she
+broke off suddenly, and added, "That is what Jack wants, what he
+calls something REAL. He is bored with the life here, and yet he is
+always good about it."
+
+"Do you like the life here?" said Howard. "I can't tell you what an
+effect it all produces on me; it all seems so simple and beautiful.
+But I know that one mustn't trust first impressions. People in
+picturesque surroundings don't always feel picturesque. It is very
+pleasant to make a drama out of one's life and to feel romantic--
+but one can't keep it up--at least I can't. That must come of
+itself."
+
+Howard felt that the girl was watching him with a look of almost
+startled interest. She said in a moment, "Yes, that's quite true,
+and it IS a difficulty. I should like to be able to talk to you
+about those things--I hear so much about you, you know, from Jack,
+that you are not like a stranger at all. Now papa has got the gift
+of romance; every bit of his life is interesting and exciting to
+him--it's perfectly splendid--but Jack has not got that at all. I
+seem to understand them both, and yet I can't explain them to each
+other. I don't mean they don't get on, but neither can quite see
+what the other is aiming at. And I have felt that I ought to be
+able to do something. I can't understand how you have cleared it
+up; but I am very glad and grateful about it: it has been a trouble
+to me. Cousin Anne is wonderful about it, but she seems able to let
+things alone in a way I can't dare to."
+
+"Oh, one learns that as one gets older," said Howard. "One can't
+argue things straight. One can only go on hoping and wishing, and
+if possible understanding. I used to make a great mess of it with
+my pupils at one time, by thinking one could talk them round; but
+one can't persuade people of things, one can only just suggest, and
+let it be; and after all no one ever resents finding himself
+interesting to some one else; only it has got to be interest, and
+not a sense of duty."
+
+"That is what Cousin Anne says," said Maud, "and when I am with
+her, I think so too; and then something tiresome happens and I
+meddle, I meddle! Jack says I like ruling lines, but that it is no
+good, because people won't write on them."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+WITH MAUD ALONE
+
+
+
+
+
+They were suddenly interrupted by the inrush of the Vicar. "Maud,"
+he said with immense zest, "I find old Mrs. Darby very ill--she had
+a kind of faint while I was there. I have sent off Bob post haste
+for Dr. Grierson." The Vicar was evidently in the highest spirits,
+like a general on the eve of a great battle. "There isn't a moment
+to be lost," he continued, his eye blazing with energy. "Howard, my
+dear fellow, I fear our walk must be put off. I must go back at
+once. There she lies, flat on her back, just where I laid her! I
+believe," said the Vicar, "it's a touch of syncope. She is blue,
+decidedly blue! I charged them to do nothing, but if I don't get
+back, there's no knowing what they won't pour down her throat--
+decoction of pennyroyal, I dare say; and if the woman coughs, she
+is lost. This is the sort of thing I enjoy--of course it is very
+sad--but it is a tussle with death. I know a good deal about
+medicine, and Grierson has more than once complimented me on my
+diagnosis--he said it was masterly--forgive a touch of vanity! But
+you mustn't lose your walk. Maud, dear, you take Howard out--I am
+sure he won't mind for once. You could walk round the village, or
+you could go and find Jack. Now then, back to my post! You must
+forgive me, Howard, but my flock are paramount."
+
+"But won't you want me, papa?" said Maud. "Couldn't I be of use?"
+
+"Certainly not," said the Vicar; "there's nothing whatever to be
+done till Grierson arrives--just to ward off the ministrations of
+the relatives. There she must lie--I feel no doubt it is syncope;
+every symptom points to syncope--poor soul! A very interesting
+case."
+
+He fled from the room like a whirlwind, and they heard him run down
+the garden. The two looked at each other and smiled. "Poor Mrs.
+Darby!" said Maud, "she is such a nice old woman; but papa will do
+everything that can be done for her; he really knows all about it,
+and he is splendid in illness--he never loses his head, and he is
+very gentle; he has saved several lives in the village by knowing
+what to do. Would you really like to go out with me? I'll be ready
+in a minute."
+
+"Let us go up on the downs," said Howard, "I should like that very
+much. I daresay we shall hear Jack shooting somewhere."
+
+Maud was back in a moment; in a rough cloak and cap she looked
+enchanting to Howard's eyes. She walked lightly and quickly beside
+him. "You must take your own pace," said Howard, "I'll try to keep
+up--one gets very lazy at Cambridge about exercise--won't you go on
+with what you were saying? I know your father has told you about my
+aunt's plan. I can't realise it yet; but I want to feel at home
+here now--indeed I do feel that already--and I like to know how
+things stand. We are all relations together, and I must try to make
+up for lost time. I seem to know my aunt so well already. She has a
+great gift for letting one see into her mind and heart--and I know
+your father too, and Jack, and I want to know you; we must be a
+family party, and talk quite simply and freely about all our
+concerns."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed I will," said Maud--"and I find myself wondering
+how easy it is to talk to you. You do seem like a relation; as if
+you had always been here, indeed; but I must not talk too much
+about myself--I do chatter very freely to Cousin Anne; but I don't
+think it is good for one to talk about oneself, do you? It makes
+one feel so important!"
+
+"It depends who one talks to," said Howard, "but I don't believe in
+holding one's tongue too much, if one trusts people. It seems to me
+the simplest thing to do; I only found it out a few years ago--how
+much one gained by talking freely and directly. It seems to me an
+uncivilised, almost a savage thing to be afraid of giving oneself
+away. I don't mind who knows about my own concerns, if he is
+sufficiently interested. I will tell you anything you like about
+myself, because I should like you to realise how I live. In fact, I
+shall want you all to come and see me at Cambridge; and then you
+will be able to understand how we live there, while I shall know
+what is going on here. And I am really a very safe person to talk
+to. One gets to know a lot of young men, year by year--and I'm a
+mine of small secrets. Don't you know the title so common in the
+old Methodist tracts--'The life and death and Christian sufferings
+of the Rev. Mr. Pennefather.' That's what I want to know about
+people--Christian sufferings and all."
+
+Maud smiled at him and said, "I am afraid there are not many
+Christian sufferings in my life; but I shall be glad to talk about
+many things here. You know my mother died more than ten years ago--
+when I was quite a little girl--and I don't remember her very well;
+I have always said just what I thought to Jack, and he to me--till
+quite lately; and that is what troubles me a little. Jack seems to
+be rather drifting away from me. He gets to know so many new
+people, and he doesn't like explaining; and then his mind seems
+full of new ideas. I suppose it is bound to happen; and of course I
+have very little to do here; papa likes doing everything, and doing
+it in his own way. He can't bear to let anything out of his hands;
+so I just go about and talk to the people. But I am not a very
+contented person. I want something, I think, and I don't know what
+it is. It is difficult to take up anything serious, when one is all
+alone. I should like to go to Newnham, but I can't leave father by
+himself; books don't seem much use, though I read a great deal. I
+want something real to do, like Jack! Papa is so energetic; he
+manages the house and pays all the bills; and there doesn't seem
+any use for me--though if I were of use, I should find plenty of
+things to do, I believe."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I quite understand, and I am glad you have
+told me. You know I am a sort of doctor in these matters, and I
+have often heard undergraduates say the same sort of thing. They
+are restless, they want to go out into life, they want to work; and
+when they begin to work all that disquiet disappears. It's a great
+mercy to have things to do, whether one likes it or not. Work is an
+odd thing! There is hardly a morning at Cambridge when, if someone
+came to me and offered me the choice of doing my ordinary work or
+doing nothing for a day, I shouldn't choose to do nothing. And yet
+I enjoy my work, and wouldn't give it up for anything. It is odd
+that it takes one so long to learn to like work, and longer still
+to learn that one doesn't like idleness. And yet it is to win the
+power of being idle that makes most people work. Idleness seems so
+much grander and more dignified."
+
+"It IS curious," said Maud, "but I seem to have inherited papa's
+taste for occupation, without his energy. I wish you would advise
+me what to do. Can't one find something?"
+
+"What does my aunt say?" said Howard.
+
+"Oh, she smiles in that mysterious way she has," said Maud, "and
+says we have to learn to take things as they come. She knows
+somehow how to do without things, how to wait; but I can't do that
+without getting dreary."
+
+"Do you ever try to write?" said Howard.
+
+"Yes," said Maud, laughing, "I have tried to write a story--how did
+you guess that? I showed it to Cousin Anne, and she said it was
+very nice; and when I showed it to Jack, and told him what she had
+said, he read a little, and said that that was exactly what it
+was."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, smiling, "I admit that it was not very
+encouraging! But I wish you would try something more simple. You
+say you know the people here and talk to them. Can't you write down
+the sort of things they say. the talks you have with them, the way
+they look at things? I read a book once like that, called Country
+Conversations, and I wondered that so few people ever tried it. Why
+should one try to write improbable stories, even NICE stories, when
+the thing itself is so interesting? One doesn't understand these
+country people. They have an idea of life as definite as a dog or a
+cat, and it is not in the least like ours. Why not take a family
+here; describe their house and possessions, what they look like,
+what they do, what their history has been, and then describe some
+talks with them? I can't imagine anything more interesting. Perhaps
+you could not publish them at present; but they wouldn't be quite
+wasted, because you might show them to me, and I want to know all
+about the people here. You mustn't pass over things because they
+seem homely and familiar--those are just the interesting things--
+what they eat and drink and wear, and all that. How does that
+strike you?"
+
+"I like the idea very much indeed," said Maud. "I will try--I will
+begin at once. And even if nothing comes of it, it will be nice to
+think it may be of use to you, to know about the people."
+
+"Very well," said Howard, "that is a bargain. It is exactly what I
+want. Do begin at once, and let me have the first instalment of the
+Chronicles of Windlow."
+
+They had arrived by this time at a point high on the downs. The
+rough white road, full of flints, had taken them up by deep-hedged
+cuttings, through coverts where the spring flowers were just
+beginning to show in the undergrowth, and out on to the smooth turf
+of the downs. They were near the top now, and they could see right
+down into Windlow Malzoy, lying like a map beneath them; the top of
+the Church tower, its leaden roof, the roofs of the Vicarage, the
+little straggling street among its orchards and gardens; farther
+off, up the valley, they could see the Manor in its gardens; beyond
+the opposite ridge, a far-off view of great richness spread itself
+in a belt of dark-blue colour. It was a still day; on the left hand
+there was a great smooth valley-head, with a wood of beeches, and
+ploughed fields in the bottom. They directed their steps to an old
+turfed barrow, with a few gnarled thorn trees, wind-swept and
+stunted round it.
+
+"I love this place," said Maud; "it has a nice name, the 'Isle of
+Thorns.' I suppose it is a burial-place--some old chief, papa says--
+and he is always threatening to have him dug up; but I don't want
+to disturb him! He must have had a reason for being buried here,
+and I suppose there were people who missed him, and were sorry to
+lay him here, and wondered where he had gone. I am sure there is a
+sad old story about it; and yet it makes one happy in a curious way
+to think about it all."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "'the old, unhappy, far-off things,' that turn
+themselves into songs and stories! That is another puzzle; one's
+own sorrows and tragedies, would one like to think of them as being
+made into songs for other people to enjoy? I suppose we ought to be
+glad of it; but there does not seem anything poetical about them at
+the time; and yet they end by being sweeter than the old happy
+things. The 'Isle of Thorns'! Yes, that IS a beautiful name."
+
+Suddenly there came a faint musical sound on the air, as sweet as
+honey. Howard held up his hand. "What on earth or in heaven is
+that?" he said.
+
+"Those are the chimes of Sherborne!" said Maud. "One hears them
+like that when the wind is in this quarter. I like to hear them--
+they have always been to me a sort of omen of something pleasant
+about to happen. Perhaps it is in your honour to-day, to welcome
+you!"
+
+"Well," said Howard, "they are beautiful enough by themselves; and
+if they will bring me greater happiness than I have, I shall not
+object to that!"
+
+They smiled at each other, and stood in silence for a little, and
+then Maud pointed out some neighbouring villages. "All this," she
+said, "is Cousin Anne's--and yours. I think the Isle of Thorns is
+yours."
+
+"Then the old chief shall not be disturbed," said Howard.
+
+"How curious it is," said Maud, "to see a place of which one knows
+every inch laid out like a map beneath one. It seems quite a
+different place! As if something beautiful and strange must be
+happening there, if only one could see it!"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "it is odd how we lose the feeling that a place
+is romantic when we come to know it. When I first went up to
+Cambridge, there were many places there that seemed to me to be so
+interesting: walls which seemed to hide gardens full of thickets,
+strange doorways by which no one ever passed out or in, barred
+windows giving upon dark courts, out of which no one ever seemed to
+look. But now that I know them all from the inside, they seem
+commonplace enough. The hidden garden is a place where Dons smoke
+and play bowls; the barred window is an undergraduate's gyp-room;
+there's no mystery left about them now. This place as I see it to-
+day--well, it seems the most romantic place in the world, full of
+unutterable secrets of life and death; but I suppose it may all
+come to wear a perfectly natural air to me some day."
+
+"That is what I like so much about Cousin Anne," said Maud;
+"nothing seems to be commonplace to her, and she puts back the
+mystery and wonder into it all. One must learn to do that for
+oneself somehow."
+
+"Yes, she's a great woman!" said Howard; "but what shall we do
+now?"
+
+"Oh, I am sorry," said Maud, "I have been keeping you all this
+time--wouldn't you like to go and look for Jack? I think I heard a
+shot just now up the valley."
+
+"No," said Howard, looking at her and smiling, "we won't go and
+look for Jack to-day; he has quite enough of my company. I want
+your company to-day, and only yours. I want to get used to my new-
+found cousin."
+
+"And to get rid of the sense of romance about her?" said Maud with
+a smile; "you will soon come to the end of me."
+
+"I will take my chance of that," said Howard. "At present I feel on
+the other side of the wall."
+
+"But I don't," said Maud, laughing; "I can't think how you slip in
+and fit in as you do, and disentangle all our little puzzles as you
+have done. I thought I should be terrified of you--and now I feel
+as if I had known you ever so long. You are like Cousin Anne, you
+know."
+
+"Perhaps I am, a little," said Howard, "but you are not very much
+like Jack! Show me Mrs. Darby's house, by the way. I wonder how
+things are going."
+
+"There it is," said Maud, pointing to a house not far from the
+Vicarage, "and there is Dr. Grierson's dogcart. I am afraid I had
+not been thinking about her; but I do hope it's all right. I think
+she will get over this. Don't you always have an idea, when people
+are ill, whether they will get well or not?"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I do; but it doesn't always come right!"
+
+They lingered long on the hill, and at last Maud said that she must
+return for tea. "Papa will be sure to bring Dr. Grierson in."
+
+They went down the hill, talking lightly and easily; and to Howard
+it was more delightful than anything he had known to have a peep
+into the girl's frank and ingenuous mind. She was full of talk--
+spontaneous, inconsequent talk--like Jack; and yet with a vast
+difference. Hers was not a wholly happy temperament, Howard
+thought; she seemed oppressed by a sense of duty, and he could not
+help feeling that she needed some sort of outlet. Neither the Vicar
+nor Jack were people who stood in need of sympathy or affection. He
+felt that they did not quite understand the drift of the girl's
+mind, which seemed clear enough to him. And yet there fell on him,
+for all his happiness, a certain dissatisfaction. He would have
+liked to feel less elderly, less paternal; and the girl's frank
+confidence in him, treating him as she might have treated an uncle
+or an elder brother, was at once delightful and disconcerting. The
+day began to decline as they walked, and the light faded to a
+sombre bleakness. Howard went back to the Vicarage with her, and,
+at her urgent request, went in to tea. They found the Vicar and Dr.
+Grierson already established. Mrs. Darby was quite comfortable, and
+no danger was apprehended. The Vicar's diagnosis had been right,
+and his precautions perfect. "I could not have done better myself!"
+said Dr. Grierson, a kindly, bluff Scotchman. Howard became aware
+that the Vicar must have told the Doctor the news about his
+inheritance, and was subtly flattered at being treated by him with
+the empressement reserved for squires. Jack came in--he had been
+shooting all afternoon--and told Howard he was improving. "I shall
+catch you up," he said. He seemed frankly amused at the idea of
+Howard having spent the afternoon with Maud. "You have got the
+whole family on your back, it seems," he said. Maud was silent, but
+in her heightened colour and sparkling eye Howard discerned a touch
+of happiness, and he enjoyed the quiet attention she gave to his
+needs. The Vicar seemed sorry that they had not made a closer
+inspection of the village. "But you were right to begin with a
+general coup d'oeil," he said; "the whole before the parts! First
+the conspectus, then the details," he added delightedly. "So you
+have been to the Isle of Thorns?" he went on. "I want to rake out
+the old fellow up there some day--but Cousin Anne won't allow it--
+you must persuade her; and we will have a splendid field-day there,
+unearthing all the old boy's arrangements; I am sure he has never
+been disturbed."
+
+"I am afraid I agree with my aunt," said Howard, shaking his head.
+
+"Ah, Maud has been getting at you, I perceive," said the Vicar. "A
+very feminine view! Now in the interests of ethnology we ought to
+go forward--dear me, how full the world is of interesting things!"
+
+They parted in great good-humour. The whole party were to dine at
+the Manor next day; and Howard, as he said good-bye to Maud,
+contrived to add, "Now you must tell me to-morrow that you have
+made a beginning." She gave him a little nod, and a clasp of the
+hand that made him feel that he had a new friend.
+
+That evening he talked to his aunt about Maud. He told her all
+about their walk and talk. "I am very glad you gave her something
+to do," she said--"that is so like a man! That is just where I
+fail. She is a very interesting and delightful girl, Howard; and
+she is not quite happy at home. Living with Cousin Frank is like
+living under a waterfall; and Jack is beginning to have his own
+plans, and doesn't want anyone to share them. Well, you amaze me! I
+suppose you get a good deal of practice in these things, and become
+a kind of amateur father-confessor. I think of you at Cambridge as
+setting the lives of young men spinning like little tops--small
+human teetotums. It's very useful, but it is a little dangerous! I
+don't think you have suffered as yet. That's what I like in you,
+Howard, the mixture of practical and unpractical. You seem to me to
+be very busy, and yet to know where to stop. Of course we can't
+make other people a present of experience; they have to spin their
+own webs; but I think one can do a certain amount in seeing that
+they have experience. It would not suit me; my strength is to sit
+still, as the Bible says. But in a place like this with Frank
+whipping his tops--he whips them, while you just twirl them--
+someone is wanted who will listen to people, and see that they are
+left alone. To leave people alone at the right minute is a very
+great necessity. Don't you know those gardens that look as if they
+were always being fussed and slashed and cut about? There's no
+sense of life in them. One has to slash sometimes, and then leave
+it. I believe in growth even more than in organisation. Still, I
+don't doubt that you have helped Maud, and I am very glad of it. I
+wanted you to make friends with her. I think the lack in your life
+is that you have known so few women; men and women can never
+understand each other, of course; but they have got to live
+together and work together; and one ought to live with people whom
+one does not understand. You and your undergraduates don't yield
+any mysteries. You, no doubt, know exactly what they are thinking,
+and they know what you are thinking. It's all very pleasant and
+wholesome, but one can't get on very far that way. You mustn't
+think Maud is a sort of undergraduate. Probably you think you know
+a great deal about her already--but she isn't the least what you
+imagine, any more than I am. Nor are you what I imagine; but I am
+quite content with my mistaken idea of you."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+JACK
+
+
+
+
+
+The next day's dinner was a disappointment. The Vicar expatiated,
+Jack counted, and became so intent on his counting that he hardly
+said a word; indeed Howard was not sure that he was wholly pleased
+with the turn affairs had taken; he was rather touched by this than
+otherwise, because it seemed to him that Jack was really, if
+unconsciously, a little jealous. His whole visit had been rather
+too much of a success: Jack had expected to act as showman of his
+menagerie, and to play the principal part; and Howard felt that
+Jack suspected him of having taken the situation too much into his
+own hands. He felt that Jack was not pleased with his puppets; his
+father had needed no apologies or explanations, Maud had been
+forward, he himself had been donnish.
+
+The result was that Howard hardly got a word with Maud; she did
+indeed say to him that she had made a beginning, and he was aware
+of a pleasant sense of trustfulness about her; but the party had
+been involved in vague and general talk, with a disturbing element
+somewhere. Howard found himself talking aimlessly and flatly, and
+the net result was a feeling of dissatisfaction.
+
+When they were gone, Mrs. Graves said to Howard, "Jack is rather a
+masterful young man, I think. He has no sense of respect in his
+composition. Were you aware of the fact that he had us all under
+his thumb this evening?"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "it was just what I was thinking!"
+
+"He wants work," said Mrs. Graves; "he ought not to dangle about at
+home and at Cambridge; he wants tougher material to deal with; it's
+no use snubbing him, because he is on the right tack; but he must
+not be allowed to interfere too much. He wants a touch of
+misfortune to bring him to himself; he has a real influence over
+people--the influence that all definite, good-humoured, outspoken
+people have; it is easier for others to do what he likes than to
+resist him; he is not irritable, and he is pertinacious. He is the
+sort of man who may get very much spoilt if he doesn't marry the
+right woman, because he is the sort of person women will tell lies
+to rather than risk displeasing him. If he does not take care he
+will be a man of the world, because he will not see the world as it
+is; it will behave to him as he wishes it to behave."
+
+"I think," said Howard, "that he has got good stuff in him; he
+would never do anything mean or spiteful; but he would do anything
+that he thought consistent with honour to get his way."
+
+"Well, we shall see," said Mrs. Graves; "but he is rather a bad
+influence for Maud just now. Maud doesn't suspect his strength, and
+I can't have her broken in. Mind, Howard, I look to you to help
+Maud along. You have a gift for keeping things reasonable; and you
+must use it."
+
+"I thought you believed in letting people alone!" said Howard.
+
+"In theory, yes," said Mrs. Graves, smiling; "I certainly don't
+believe in influencing people; but I believe very much in loving
+them: it's what I call imaginative sympathy that we want. Some
+people have imagination enough to see what other people are
+feeling, but it ends there: and some people have unintelligent
+sympathy, and that is only spoiling. But one must see what people
+are capable of, and what their line is, and help them to find out
+what suits them, not try to conform them to what suits oneself; and
+that isn't as easy as it sounds."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+DIPLOMACY
+
+
+
+
+
+A few days later Howard was summoned back to Cambridge. One of his
+colleagues was ill, and arrangements had to be made to provide for
+his work. It astonished him to find how reluctant he was to return;
+he seemed to have found the sort of life he needed in this quiet
+place. He had walked with the Vicar, and had been deluged with
+interesting particulars about the parish. Much of it was very
+trivial, but Howard saw that the Vicar had a real insight into the
+people and their ways. He had not seen Maud again to speak to, and
+it vexed him to find how difficult it was to create occasions for
+meeting. His mind and imagination had been taken captive by the
+girl; he thought of her constantly, and recalled her in a hundred
+charming vignettes; the hope of meeting her was constantly in his
+mind; he had taught Jack a good deal, but he became more and more
+aware that for some reason or other his pupil was not pleased with
+him.
+
+He and Jack were returning one day from fishing, and they had come
+nearer than Howard had liked to having a squabble. Howard had said
+something about an undergraduate, a friend of Jack's. Jack had
+seemed to resent the criticism, and said, "I am not quite sure
+whether you know so much about him as you think. Do you always
+analyse people like that? I sometimes feel with you as if I were in
+a room full of specimens which you were showing off, and that you
+knew more about them dead than alive."
+
+"That's rather severe!" said Howard; "I simply try to understand
+people--I suppose we all do that."
+
+"No, I don't," said Jack; "I think it's rather stuffy, if you want
+to know. I have a feeling that you have been turning everyone
+inside out here. I think one ought to let people alone."
+
+"Well," said Howard, "it all depends upon what one wants to do with
+people. I think that, as a matter of fact, you are really more
+inclined to deal with people, to use them for your own purposes,
+than I am. You know what you want, and other people have got to
+follow. Of course, up at Beaufort, it's my business to try to do
+that to a certain extent; but that is professional, and a matter of
+business."
+
+"But the worst of doing it professionally," said Jack, "is that you
+can't get out of the way of doing it unprofessionally. You seem to
+me to have rather purchased this place. I know you are to be
+squire, and all that; but you want to make yourself felt. I am not
+sure that you aren't rather a Jesuit."
+
+"Come," said Howard, "that's going too far--we can't afford to
+quarrel. I don't mind your saying what you think; but if you have
+the right to take your own line, you must allow the same right to
+others."
+
+"That depends!" said Jack, and was silent for a moment. Then he
+turned to Howard and said, "Yes, you are quite right! I am sorry I
+said all that. You have done no end for me, and I am an ungrateful
+little beast. It is rather fine of you not to remind me of all the
+trouble you have taken; there isn't anyone who would have done so
+much; and you have really laid yourself out to do what I liked
+here. I am sorry, I am truly sorry. I suppose I felt myself rather
+cock of the walk here, and am vexed that you have got the whole
+thing into your hands!"
+
+"All right," said Howard, "I entirely understand; and look here, I
+am glad you said what you did. You are not wholly wrong. I have
+interfered perhaps more than I ought; but you must believe me when
+I say this--that it isn't with a managing motive. I like people to
+like me; I don't want to direct them; only one can overdo trying to
+make people like one, and I feel I have overdone it. I ought to
+have gone to work in a different way."
+
+"Well, I have put my foot in it again," said Jack; "it's awful to
+think that I have been lecturing one of the Dons about his duty. I
+shall be trying to brighten up their lives next. The mischief is
+that I don't think I do want people to like me. I am not
+affectionate. I only want things to go smoothly."
+
+They drew near to the Manor, and Jack said, "I promised Cousin Anne
+I would go in to tea. She has designs on me, that woman! She
+doesn't approve of me; she says the sharpest things in her quiet
+way; one hardly knows she has done it, and then when one thinks of
+it afterwards, one finds she has drawn blood. I am cross, I think!
+There seems to be rather a set at me just now; she makes me feel as
+if I were in bed, being nursed and slapped."
+
+"Well," said Howard, "I shall leave you to her mercies. I shall go
+on to the Vicarage, and say good-bye. I shan't see them again this
+time. You don't mind, I hope? I will try not to use my influence."
+
+"You can't help it!" said Jack with a grimace. "No, do go. You will
+touch them up a bit. I am not appreciated there just now."
+
+Howard walked on up to the Vicarage. He was rather disturbed by
+Jack's remarks; it put him, he thought, in an odious light. Was he
+really so priggish and Jesuitical? That was the one danger of the
+life of the Don which he hoped he had successfully avoided. He was
+all for liberty, he imagined. Was he really, after all, a mild
+schemer with an ethical outlook? Was he bent on managing and
+uplifting people? The idea sickened him, and he felt humiliated.
+
+When he arrived at the Vicarage, he found the Vicar out. Maud was
+alone. This was, he confessed to himself with a strange delight,
+exactly what he most desired. He would not be paternal or
+formative. He would just make friends with his pretty cousin as he
+might with a sensible undergraduate. With this stern resolve he
+entered the room.
+
+Maud got up hastily from her chair--she was writing in a little
+note-book on her knee. "I thought I would just come in and say
+good-bye," he said. "I have to go back to Cambridge earlier than I
+thought, and I hoped I might just catch you and your father."
+
+"He will be so sorry," said Maud; "he does enjoy meeting you. He
+says it gives him so much to think about."
+
+"Oh, well," said Howard, "I hope to be here again next vacation--in
+June, that is. I have got to learn my duties here as soon as I can.
+I see you are hard at work. Is that the book? How do you get on?
+You have promised to send it me, you know, as soon as you have
+enough in hand."
+
+"Yes," said Maud, "I will send it you. It has done me good already,
+doing this. It is very good of you to have suggested it--and I like
+to think it may be of some use."
+
+"I have been with Jack all the afternoon," said Howard, "and I am
+afraid he is rather vexed with me. I can't have that. He drew a
+rather unpleasant picture of me; he seemed to think I have taken
+this place rather in hand from the Don's point of view. He thinks I
+should die if I were unable to improve the occasion."
+
+Maud looked up at him with a troubled and rather indignant air.
+"Jack is perfectly horrid just now," she said; "I can't think what
+has come over him; and considering that you have been coaching him
+every day, and getting him shooting and fishing, it seems to me
+quite detestable! I oughtn't to say that; but you mustn't be angry
+with him, Mr. Kennedy. I think he is feeling very independent just
+now, and he said to me that it made him feel that he was back at
+school to have to go up with his books to the Manor every morning.
+But he is all right really. I am sure he is grateful; it would be
+too shameful if he were not. Please don't be vexed with him."
+
+Howard laughed. "Oh, I am not vexed! Indeed, I am rather glad he
+spoke out--at my age one doesn't often get the chance of being
+sincerely scolded by a perfectly frank young man. One does get
+donnish and superior, no doubt, and it is useful to find it out,
+though it isn't pleasant at the time. We have made it up, and he
+was quite repentant; I think it is altogether natural. It often
+happens with young men to get irritated with one, no doubt, but as
+a rule they don't speak out; and this time he has got me between
+the joints of my armour."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" said Maud, "I think the world is rather a difficult
+place! It seems ridiculous for me to say that in a place like this,
+when I think what might be happening if I were poor and had to earn
+my living. It is silly to mind things so; but Jack accuses me of
+the same sort of thing. He says that women can't let people alone;
+he says that women don't really want to DO anything, but only to
+SEEM to have their way."
+
+"Well, then, it appears we are both in the same box," said Howard,
+"and we must console each other and grieve over being so much
+misunderstood."
+
+He felt that he had spoken rather cynically, and that he had
+somehow hurt and checked the girl. He did not like the thought; but
+he felt that he had spoken sensibly in not allowing the situation
+to become sentimental. There was a little silence; and then Maud
+said, rather timidly: "Do you like going back?"
+
+"No," said Howard, "I don't. I have become curiously interested in
+this place, and I am lazy. Just now the life of the Don seems to me
+rather intolerable. I don't want to teach Greek prose, I don't want
+to go to meetings; I don't want to gossip about appointments, and
+little intrigues, and bonfires, and College rows. I want to live
+here, and walk on the Downs and write my book. I don't want to be
+stuffy, as Jack said. But it will be all right, when I have taken
+the plunge; and after I have been back a week, this will all fade
+into a sort of impossibly pleasant dream."
+
+He was again conscious that he had somehow hurt the girl. She
+looked at him with a troubled face, and then said, "Yes, that is
+the advantage which men have. I sometimes wonder if it would not be
+better for me to have some work away from here. But there is
+nothing I could do; and I can't leave papa."
+
+"Oh, it will all come right!" said Howard feebly; "there are fifty
+things that might happen. And now I must be off! Mind, you must let
+me have the book some time; that will serve to remind me of Windlow
+in the intervals of Greek prose."
+
+He got up and shook hands. He felt he was behaving stupidly and
+unkindly. He had meant to tell Maud how much he liked the feeling
+of having made friends, and to have talked to her frankly and
+simply about everything. He had an intense desire to say that and
+more; to make her understand that she was and would be in his
+thoughts; to ascertain how she felt towards him; to assure himself
+of their friendship. But he would be wise and prudent; he would not
+be sentimental or priggish or Jesuitical. He would just leave the
+impression that he was mildly interested in Windlow, but that his
+heart was in his work. He felt sustained by his delicate
+consideration, and by his judicious chilliness. And so he turned
+and left her, though an unreasonable impulse seized him to take the
+child in his arms, and tell her how sweet and delicious she was.
+She had held the little book in her hand as they sate, as if she
+had hoped he would ask to look at it; and as he closed the door, he
+saw her put it down on the table with a half-sigh.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+GIVING AWAY
+
+
+
+
+
+He was to go off the next day; that night he had his last talk to
+his aunt. She said that she would say good-bye to him then, and
+that she hoped he would be back in June. She did not seem quite as
+serene as usual, but she spoke very affectionately and gently of
+the delight his visit had been. Then she said, "But I somehow feel--
+I can't give my reasons--as if we had got into a mess here. You
+are rather a disturbing clement, dear Howard! I may speak plainly
+to you now, mayn't I? I think you have more effect on people than
+you know. You have upset us! I am not criticising you, because you
+have exceeded all my hopes. But you are too diffident, and you
+don't realise your power of sympathy. You are very observant, very
+quick to catch the drift of people's moods, and you are not at all
+formidable. You are so much interested in people that you lead them
+to reveal themselves and to betray themselves; and they don't find
+quite what they expect. You are afraid, I think, of caring for
+people; you want to be in close relation with everyone, and yet to
+preserve your own tranquillity. You are afraid of emotion; but one
+can't care for people like that! It doesn't cost you enough! You
+are like a rich man who can afford to pay for things, and I think
+you rather pauperise people. Here you have been for three weeks;
+and nobody here will be able to forget you; and yet I think you may
+forget us. One can't care without suffering, and I think that you
+don't suffer. It is all a pleasure and delight to you. You win
+hearts, and don't give your own. Don't think I am ungrateful. You
+have made a great difference already to my life; but you have made
+me suffer too. I know that like Telemachus in Tennyson's poem you
+will be 'decent not to fail in offices of tenderness'--I know I can
+depend on you to do everything that is kind and considerate and
+just. You won't disappoint me. You will do out of a natural
+kindliness and courtesy what many people can only do by loving. You
+don't claim things, you don't lay hands on things; and it looks so
+like unselfishness that it seems detestable of me to say anything.
+But you will have to give yourself away, and I don't think you have
+ever done that. I can say all this, my dear, because I love you, as
+a mother might; you are my son indeed; but there is something in
+you that will have to be broken; we have all of us to be broken. It
+isn't that you have anything to repent of. You would take endless
+trouble to help anyone who wanted help, you would be endlessly
+patient and tender and strong; but you do not really know what love
+means, because it does not hurt or wound you. You are like
+Achilles, was it not, who had been dipped in the river of death,
+and you are invulnerable. You won't, I know, resent my saying this?
+I know you won't--and the fact that you will not makes it harder
+for me to say it--but I almost wish it WOULD wound you, instead of
+making you think how you can amend it. You can't amend it, but God
+and love can; only you must dare to let yourself go. You must not
+be wise and forbearing. There, dear, I won't say more!"
+
+Howard took her hand and kissed it. "Thank you," he said, "thank
+you a hundred times for speaking so. It is perfectly true, every
+word of it. It is curious that to-day I have seen myself three
+times mirrored in other minds. I don't like what I see--I am not
+complacent--I am not flattered. But I don't know what to do! I feel
+like a patient with a hopeless disease, who has been listening to a
+perfectly kind and wise physician. But what can I do? It is just
+the vital impulse which is lacking. I will be frank too; it is
+quite true that I live in the surface of things. I am so much
+interested in books, ideas, thoughts, I am fascinated by the study
+of human temperament; people delight me, excite me, amuse me; but
+nothing ever comes inside. I don't excuse myself, but I say: 'It is
+He that hath made us and not we ourselves.' I am just so, as you
+have described, and I feel what a hollow-hearted sort of person I
+am. Yet I go on amusing myself with friendships and interests. I
+have never suffered, and I have never loved. Well, I would like to
+change all that, but can I?"
+
+"Ah, dear Howard," said his aunt, "that is the everlasting
+question. It is like you to take this all so sweetly and to speak
+so openly. But further than this no one can help you. You are like
+the young man whom Jesus loved who had great possessions. You do
+not know how much! I will not tell you to follow Him; and your
+possessions are not those which can be given away. But you must
+follow love. I had a hope, I have a hope--oh, it is more than that,
+because we all find our way sooner or later--and now that you know
+the truth, as I see you know it, the light will not be long in
+coming. God bless you, dearest child; there is pain ahead of you;
+but I don't fear that--pain is not the worst thing or the last
+thing!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+BACK TO CAMBRIDGE
+
+
+
+
+
+"I HAD a hope . . . I have a hope," these words of his aunt's
+echoed often through Howard's brain, in the wakeful night which
+followed. Nothing was plain to himself except the fact that things
+were tangled; the anxious exaltation which came to him from his
+talk with his aunt cleared off like the dying away of the flush of
+some beaded liquor. "I must see into this--I must understand what
+is happening--I must disentangle it," he said again and again to
+himself. He was painfully conscious, as he thought and thought, of
+his own deep lack both of moral courage and affection. He liked
+nothing that was not easy--easy triumph, easy relations. Somehow
+the threads of life had knotted themselves up; he had slipped so
+lightly into his place here, he had taken up responsibilities as he
+might have taken up a flower; he had meant to be what he called
+frank and affectionate all round, and now he felt that he was going
+to disappoint everyone. Not till the daylight began to outline the
+curtain-rifts did he fall asleep; and he woke with that excited
+fatigue which comes of sleeplessness.
+
+He came down, he breakfasted alone in the early morning freshness.
+The house was all illumined by the sun, but it spread its beauties
+in vain before him. The trap came to the door, and when he came out
+he found to his surprise that Jack was standing on the steps
+talking to the coachman. "I thought I would like to come to the
+station with you," said Jack. Howard was pleased at this. They got
+in together, and one by one the scenes so strangely familiar fled
+past them. Howard looked long at the Vicarage as he passed,
+wondering whether Maud was perhaps looking out. That had been a
+clumsy, stupid business--his talk with her! Presently Jack said,
+"Look here, I am going to say again that I was perfectly hateful
+yesterday. I don't know what came over me--I was thinking aloud."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter a bit!" said Howard; "it was my fault
+really. I have mismanaged things, I think; and it is good for me to
+find that out."
+
+"No, but you haven't," said Jack. "I see it all now. You came down
+here, and you made friends with everyone. That was all right; the
+fact simply is that I have been jealous and mean. I expected to
+have you all to myself--to run you, in fact; and I was vexed at
+finding you take an interest in all the others. There, it's better
+out. I am entirely in the wrong. You have been awfully good all
+round, and we shall be precious dull now that you are going. The
+truth is that we have been squabbling over you."
+
+"Well, Jack," said Howard, smiling, "it's very good of you to say
+this. I can't quite accept it, but I am very grateful. There WAS
+some truth in what you said--but it wasn't quite the whole truth;
+and anyhow you and I won't squabble--I shouldn't like that!"
+
+Jack nodded and smiled, and they went on to talk of other things;
+but Howard was pleased to see that the boy hung about him,
+determined to make up for his temper, looked after his luggage, saw
+him into the train, and waved him a very ingenuous farewell, with a
+pretence of tears.
+
+The journey passed in a listless dream for Howard, but everything
+faded before the thought of Maud. What could he do to make up for
+his brutality? He could not see his way clear. He had a sense that
+it was unfair to claim her affection, to sentimentalise; and he
+thought that he had been doubly wrong--wrong in engaging her
+interest so quickly, wrong in playing on her unhappiness just for
+his own enjoyment, and doubly wrong in trying to disengage their
+relation so roughly. It was a mean business; and yet though he did
+not want to hold her, he could not bear to let her go.
+
+As he came near Cambridge and in sight of the familiar landscape,
+the wide fields, the low lines of far-off wolds, he was surprised
+to find that instead of being depressed, a sense of comfort stole
+over him, and a feeling of repose. He had crammed too many
+impressions and emotions into his visit; and now he was going back
+to well-known and peaceful activities. The sight of his rooms
+pleased him, and the foregathering with the three or four of his
+colleagues was a great relief. Mr. Redmayne was incisive and
+dogmatic, but evidently pleased to see him back. He had not been
+away, and professed that holidays and change of scene were
+distracting and exhausting. "It takes me six weeks to recover from
+a holiday," he said. He had had an old friend to stay with him, a
+country parson, and he had apparently spent his time in elaborate
+manoeuvres to see as little of his guest as possible. "A worthy
+man, but tedious," he said, "wonderfully well preserved--in body,
+that is; his mind has entirely gone to pieces; he has got some
+dismal notions in his head about the condition of the agricultural
+poor; he thinks they want uplifting! Now I am all for the due
+subordination of classes. The poor are there, if I may speak
+plainly, to breed--that is their first duty; and their only other
+duty that I can discover, is to provide for the needs of men of
+virtue and intelligence!"
+
+Later on, Howard was left alone with him, and thought that it would
+please the old man to tell him of the change in his own position.
+
+"I am delighted to hear it," said Mr. Redmayne: "a landed
+proprietor, that's a very comfortable thing! Now how will that
+affect your position here? Ah yes, I see--only the heir-apparent at
+present. Well, you will probably find that the estate has all been
+run on very sentimental lines by your worthy aunt. You take my
+advice, and put it all on a business-like footing. Let it be clear
+from the first that you won't stand any nonsense. Ideas!" said Mr.
+Redmayne in high disdain, "that's the curse of the country. Ideas
+everywhere, about the empire, about civic rights and duties, about
+religion, about art"--he made a long face as though he had
+swallowed medicine. "Let us all keep our distance and do our work.
+Let us have no nonsense about the brotherhood of man. I hope with
+all my heart, Howard, that you won't permit anything of that kind.
+I don't feel as sure of you as I should like; but this will be a
+very good thing for you, if it shows you that all this stuff will
+not do in practice. I'm an honest Whig. Let everyone have a vote,
+and let them give their votes for the right people, and then we
+shall get on very well."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+JACK'S ESCAPADE
+
+
+
+
+
+The college slowly filled; the term began; Howard went back to his
+work, and the perplexities of Windlow rather faded into the
+background. He would behave very differently when he went there
+next. It should all be cool, friendly, unemotional. But in spite of
+everything, his aunt's words came sometimes into his mind,
+troubling it with a sudden thrill. "Power, spirit, the development
+of life,"--were these real things, had one somehow to put oneself
+into touch with them? Was the life of serene and tranquil work but
+marking time, wasting opportunity? Had one somehow to be stirred
+into action and reality? Was there something in the background,
+which did not insist or drive or interfere with one's inclinations,
+because it knew that it would be obeyed and yielded to some time?
+Was it just biding its time, waiting, impelling but not forcing one
+to change? It gave him an impulse to look closer at his own views
+and aims, to consider what his motives really were, how far he
+could choose, how much he could prevail, to what extent he could
+really do as he hoped and desired. He was often haunted by a sense
+of living in a mechanical unreality, of moving simply on lines of
+easy habit. That was a tame, a flat business, perhaps; but it was
+what seemed to happen.
+
+And yet all the time he was more and more haunted by the thought of
+Maud. He could not get her out of his head. Over and over again he
+lived through the scenes of their meetings. Against the background
+of the dusk, that slender figure outlined itself, the lines of her
+form, her looks, her smiles; he went again and again through his
+talks with her--the walk on the down, the sight of her in the
+dimly-lighted room; he could hear the very tones of her low voice,
+and see the childlike appeal of her eyes. Worst of all the scene at
+the Vicarage, the book held in her slender fingers, her look of
+bewilderment and distress--what a pompous ass he had been, how
+stupid and coarse! He thought of writing to her; he did write--but
+the dignified patronage of his elder-brotherly style sickened him,
+and he tore up his unfinished letter. Why could he not simply say
+that he cared for her, and was miserable at having hurt her? That
+was just, he thought, what he must not do; and yet the idea that
+she might be making other friends and acquaintances was a jealous
+horror to him. He thought of writing to his aunt about it--he did
+write regularly to her, but he could not explain what he had done.
+Strangest of all, he hardly recognised it as love. He did not face
+the idea of a possible life with Maud. It was to be an amiable and
+brotherly relation, with a frank confidence and an outspoken
+affection. He lost his old tranquil spirits in these reveries. It
+was painful to him to find how difficult it was becoming to talk to
+the undergraduates; his mild and jocose ironies seemed to have
+deserted him. He saw little of Jack; they were elaborately
+unaffected with each other, but each felt that there had been a
+sort of exposure, and it seemed impossible to regain the old
+relation.
+
+One morning he had an unpleasant surprise. The Dean of the College,
+Mr. Gretton, a tall, rather grimly handsome man, who was immensely
+conscientious and laborious, and did his work as well as a virtuous
+man could, who was not interested in education, and frankly bored
+by the irresponsibility of undergraduates, walked into his rooms
+one morning and said, "I hope I don't interrupt you? I want to have
+a word with you about Sandys, as he is your cousin. There was a
+dinner in College last night--a club, I think--Guthrie and that
+lot--and Sandys got undeniably drunk. They were making a horrible
+row about two o'clock, and I went down and dispersed them. There
+were some outside men there whose names I took; but Sandys was
+quite out of control, and spoke very impertinently to me. He must
+come and apologise, or I shall ask that he may be sent down. He is
+a respectable man on the whole, so I shall not push it to extremes.
+But he will be gated, of course, and I shall write to his father. I
+thought you had better see him, and try if you can do anything. It
+is a great nuisance, and the less said about it the better; but of
+course we can't stand this kind of thing, and it had better be
+stopped at once."
+
+"Yes, I will see him at once," said Howard. "I am very sorry. I did
+not think he would play the fool like that."
+
+"One never knows!" said the Dean; "to speak plainly, I don't think
+he is doing much good here. Rather too much a man of the world for
+my taste. But there is nothing particular against him, and I don't
+want to be hard on him."
+
+Howard sent for Jack at once. He came in, in an obviously
+rebellious frame of mind.
+
+"I know," he said. "Yes, of course I was a fool; but it isn't worth
+making a row about. I don't go in for soaking, like some of the men
+who don't get caught, and I have no intention of going to the bad,
+if that is what you mean."
+
+"You are an ass!" said Howard, "a real ass! Now don't say a word
+yet, till I have told you what I think. You may have your say
+afterwards. I don't care twopence about your getting drunk once in
+a way. It's a stupid thing to do, to my mind, and I don't see the
+point of it. I don't consider you a reprobate, nor am I going to
+take a high line about drunkenness; I know perfectly well that you
+are no more likely to take to drink than the Master is. But it
+isn't good enough. You put yourself on the wrong side, you give
+people a wrong idea of yourself. You get disapproved of by all the
+stupid and ordinary people who don't know you. Your father will be
+in an awful state of mind. It's an experiment, I suppose? I imagine
+you thought you would like to see how it felt to be drunk? Well,
+living at close quarters like this, that sort of thing can't be
+done. And then you were rude to Gretton. What's the point of that?
+He is a very good fellow, minds his own business, doesn't
+interfere, and keeps things very straight here. That part of it
+seems to me simply ungentlemanly. And in any case, you have no
+business to hurt the people who care for you, even if you think
+they ought not to be distressed. I don't say it is immoral, but I
+say it is a low business from beginning to end."
+
+Jack, who bore signs of his overnight experience, gave Howard a
+smile. "That's all right!" he said. "I don't object to that! You
+have rather taken the wind out of my sails. If you had said I was a
+sensual brute, I should have just laughed. It is such NONSENSE the
+way these men go on! Why I was lunching with Gretton the other day,
+and Corry told a story about Wordsworth as an undergraduate getting
+drunk in Milton's rooms at Christ's, and how proud the old man was
+of it to the end of his life. Gretton laughed, and thought it a
+joke; and then when one gets roaring drunk, they turn up their eyes
+and say it is unmanly and so on. Why can't they stick to one line?
+If you go to bump-suppers and dinners, and just manage to carry
+your liquor, they think you a good sort of fellow, with no sort of
+nonsense about you--'a little natural boyish excitement'--you know
+the sort of rot. One glass more, and you are among the sinners."
+
+"I know," said Howard, "and I perceive that I have had the benefit
+of your thought-out oration after all!"
+
+Jack smiled rather sheepishly, and then said, "Well, what's to be
+done? Am I to be sent down?"
+
+"Not if you do the right thing," said Howard. "You must just go to
+Gretton and say you are very sorry you got drunk, and still more
+sorry you were impertinent. If you can contrive to show him that
+you think him a good fellow, and are really vexed to have been such
+a bounder, so much the better. That I leave to your natural
+eloquence. But you will be gated, and he will write to your
+father."
+
+Jack whistled. "I say, can't you stop that?" he said. "Father will
+be fearfully upset."
+
+"No, I can't," said Howard, "and I wouldn't if I could. This is the
+music, and you have got to face it."
+
+"Very well," said Jack rather glumly, "I suppose I must pay the
+score. I'll go and grovel to Gretton. I was simply beastly to him.
+My frank nature expanded in his presence."
+
+Howard laughed. "Well, be off with you!" he said. "And I will tell
+you what. I will write to your father, and tell him what I think."
+
+"Then it will be all right," said Jack, greatly relieved. "Anything
+to stop the domestic howl. I'll write too. After all, it is rather
+convenient to have a cousin among the Dons; and, anyhow, you have
+had your innings now. I was a fool, I admit. It won't happen
+again."
+
+Howard wrote at once to the Vicar, and was rewarded by a long and
+grateful letter. "It is a disreputable affair," he wrote, "and it
+has upset me very much, and Maud even more. But you have put it in
+the right light, and I am very grateful to you for your good
+offices. I couldn't have believed it of Jack, but I look back to
+dear old Pembroke, and I remember there was one occasion--but I
+need not revive ancient memories, and I am sufficiently versed in
+human nature not to waste indignation over a boyish escapade. I
+have ventured to address letters to Mr. Gretton and the Master on
+the subject, apologising for Jack's misdemeanour, and saying how
+much I appreciate the excellence of the tone that prevails in the
+College."
+
+What, however, pleased Howard still more was that Gretton spoke to
+him after Hall and said, "I am much obliged to you, Kennedy, for
+your prompt action. Sandys came and apologised to me in a very
+proper manner, and entirely removed the disagreeable impression
+from my mind. I owe this to your kindly intervention; and I must
+honestly say that I thought well of Sandys. He did not attempt to
+excuse himself, or to extenuate his fault. He showed very good
+feeling, and I believe that henceforth his influence will be on the
+side of order. I was really pleased with him."
+
+Howard spoke to Jack again the following day, and said he was glad
+he had done the thing thoroughly.
+
+"Thoroughly?" said Jack; "I should think I did. I fairly licked the
+old man's boots. We had quite an affecting scene. I rather think he
+gave me his blessing, and I went away feeling that I had been
+almost recommended to repeat my performance. Gretton's a sensible
+man. This is a good College. The thing would have been mismanaged
+anywhere else; but now I have not only an unblemished character,
+but I am like gold tried in the furnace."
+
+"One more thing," said Howard; "why not get your people to come up
+for two or three days? It will clear off the whole affair. I think
+they would like to be asked, and I should be very glad to help to
+look after them."
+
+"It will be a bore," said Jack, making a grimace; "it wrecks my
+health to take people round to King's and Trinity. It simply knocks
+me up; but I expect you are right, and I will ask them. You won't
+fail me? When I go off duty, you will go on? If that is clearly
+understood, they shall come. I know Maud would like to realise my
+background, as she says; and my father will rush to the 'Varsity
+Library, and break the spirit of the Pemmer Dons. He'll have the
+time of his life; but he deserves a treat--he really wrote me a
+very decent letter. By George, though, these emotional experiences
+are not in my line, though they reveal the worth of suffering, as
+the Chaplain said in his Hospital Sermon last Sunday."
+
+Howard wrote a further note, saying that he hoped that Mr. Sandys
+and Maud would be able to come; and it was soon arranged that they
+should spend the inside of a week at Cambridge, before the May
+week, as the Vicar said he had little taste for social pleasures,
+and had some matters of considerable importance to turn up in the
+Library, to say nothing of the intellectual stimulus he
+anticipated.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE VISIT
+
+
+
+
+
+THE visit began on the usual lines of such visits, the home team,
+so to speak--Howard and Jack--having to fit a round of festivities
+into a life which under normal circumstances was already, if
+anything, too full, with the result that, at all events, Howard's
+geniality was tense, and tended to be forced. Only in youth can one
+abandon oneself to high spirits; as one grows older one desires
+more to contemplate one's own mirth, and assure oneself that it is
+genuine.
+
+Jack met them at the station, and they had tea in his rooms, Howard
+refusing firmly to come.
+
+"You must just give them a chance of a private word or two!" he
+said.
+
+"Why, that's exactly what I want to avoid!" said Jack. "Besides, my
+family is never private--we haven't any company manners. But I
+expect you are right. Father will want one innings, and I think
+it's fair he should have it!"
+
+They were, however, to dine with Howard, who, contrary to his wont,
+lavished some care on flowers and decorations, to make the place
+unobtrusively pretty and home-like, and he determined that he would
+be as quiet and straightforward as he could, but promised himself
+at least one afternoon with Maud strolling round the place. But
+this was all to happen as if by chance, and with no scheming or
+diplomacy.
+
+They came; and Howard saw at once that Maud was timid and somewhat
+out of spirits; she looked tired, and this, so far from diminishing
+her charm, seemed to Howard to make it almost intolerably appealing
+to him. He would have desired to take her in his arms, like a
+child, to pet and caress her into happiness. Jack was evidently
+feeling the weight of his responsibilities, and was frankly bored;
+but never had Howard been more grateful for Mr. Sandys' flow of
+spirits than he was that evening. Mr. Sandys was thirsting for
+experience and research, and he was also in a state of jubilant
+sentimentality about Cambridge and his old recollections. He told
+stories of the most unemphatic kind in the most emphatic way, and
+Howard was amused at the radiant hues with which the lapse of time
+had touched the very simplest incidents of his career. Mr. Sandys
+had been, it seemed, a terrible customer at Cambridge--disobedient,
+daring, incisive, the hero of his contemporaries, the dread of the
+authorities; but all this on high-minded lines. Moreover, he had
+brought with him a note-book of queries, to be settled in the
+Library; while he had looked up in the list of residents everyone
+with whom he had been in the remotest degree acquainted, and a long
+vista of calls opened out before him. It was a very delightful
+evening to Howard, in spite of everything, simply because Maud was
+there; and he found himself extraordinarily conscious of her
+presence, observant of all she said and did, glad that her eyes
+should rest upon his familiar setting; and when they sat afterwards
+in his study and smoked, he saw that her eyes travelled with a
+curious intentness over everything--his books, his papers, his
+furniture. He had no private talk with her; but he was glad just to
+meet her glance and hear her low replies--glad too to find that, as
+the evening wore on, she seemed less distraite and tired.
+
+They went off early, Mr. Sandys pleading fatigue for Maud, and the
+necessity for himself of a good night's rest, that he might ride
+forth on the following day conquering and to conquer.
+
+The next day they lunched with Jack. When Howard came into the room
+he was not surprised to find that two undergraduates had been
+asked--Jack's chief allies. One was a big, good-humoured young man,
+who was very shy and silent; the other was one Fred Guthrie, who
+was one of the nicest men in the College; he was a Winchester boy,
+son of a baronet, a Member of Parliament, wealthy and distinguished.
+Guthrie had a large allowance, belonged to all the best clubs,
+played cricket with the chance of a blue ahead of him, and had,
+moreover, a real social gift. He had a quite unembarrassed manner
+and, what is rare in a young man, a strong sense of humour. He was a
+prominent member of the A. D. C., and had a really artistic gift of
+mimicry; but there was no touch of forwardness or conceit about him.
+He had been in for some examination or other; and when Howard came
+in he was describing his experiences. "What sort of questions?" he
+was saying. "Oh, you know the kind--an awful quotation, followed by
+the question, 'Who said this, and under what circumstances, and why
+did they let him?'" He made himself entirely at home, he talked to
+Mr. Sandys as if he were welcoming an old family friend, and he was
+evidently much attracted by Maud, who found it remarkably easy to
+talk to this pleasant and straightforward boy. He described with
+much liveliness an interview between Jack and the Master on the
+subject of reading the lessons in chapel, and imitated the suave
+tones of that courteous old gentleman to the life. "Far be it from
+me to deny it was dramatic, Mr. Sandys, but I should prefer a
+slightly more devotional tone." He related with great good-humour
+how a heavy, well-meaning, and rather censorious undergraduate had
+waited behind in his room on an evening when he had been
+entertaining the company with some imitations, and had said, "You
+are fond of imitating people, Guthrie, and you do it a great deal;
+but you ought to say who it is you are imitating, because one can't
+be quite sure!"
+
+Mr. Sandys was immensely amused by the young man, and had related
+some of his own experiences in elocution--how his clerk on the
+first occasion of reading the lesson at Windlow was reported to
+have said, "Why, you might think he had been THERE, in a manner of
+speaking."
+
+Guthrie was not in the least concerned to keep the conversation in
+his own hands, and received Mr. Sandys' stories with exactly the
+right amount of respectful interest and amusement. But the result
+of all this upon Howard was to make him feel extraordinarily heavy
+and elderly. He felt that he and Mr. Sandys were the make-weights
+of the party, and he was conscious that his own contributions were
+wanting in liveliness.
+
+Maud was extraordinarily amused by the bits of mimicry that came
+in, because it was so well done that it inspired everyone with the
+feeling that mimicry was the one art worth practising; and Mr.
+Sandys himself launched into dialect stories, in which Somersetshire
+rustics began by saying, "Hoots, mon!" and ended by saying, "The
+ould divil hissilf."
+
+After luncheon it became clear that Jack had given up the afternoon
+as a bad job, and suggested that they should all go down to the
+river. The rowing man excused himself, and Howard followed his
+example, pleading occupation of a vague kind. Mr. Sandys was
+enchanted at the prospect, and they went off in the charge of
+Guthrie, who was free, promising to return and have tea in his
+rooms. Guthrie, who was a friend of Howard's, included him in the
+invitation, but Howard said that he could not promise, but would
+look in if he could.
+
+As a matter of fact, he went out for a lonely walk, ashamed of
+himself for his stupidity. He could not put himself in the
+position, he dismally thought, of competing for Maud's attention.
+
+He walked off round by Madingley, hardly aware of what road he was
+taking. By the little chalk-pit just outside the village a rustic
+pair, a boy and girl, stood sheepishly clasped in a dull and silent
+embrace. Howard, to whom public exhibitions of emotion were
+distasteful, walked swiftly by with averted eyes, when suddenly a
+poignant thought came on him, causing him to redden up to the roots
+of his hair, and walk faster than ever. It was this, then, that was
+the matter with him--he was in love, he was jealous, he was the
+victim of the oldest, simplest, commonest, strongest emotion of
+humanity. His eyes were opened. How had he not seen it before? His
+broodings over the thought of Maud, the strange disturbance that
+came on him in her presence, that absurd desire to do or say
+something impressive, coupled with that wretched diffidence that
+kept him silent and helpless--it was love! He became half dizzy
+with the thought of what it all meant; and at the same instant,
+Maud seemed to recede from him as something impossibly pure, sweet,
+and unapproachable. All that notion of a paternal close friendship--
+how idiotic it was! He wanted her, at every moment, to share every
+thought with her, to claim every thought of hers, to see her, to
+clasp her close; and then at the same moment came the terrible
+disillusionment; how was he, a sober, elderly, stiff-minded
+professional person, to recommend himself? What was there in him
+that any girl could find even remotely attractive--his middle-aged
+habits, his decorous and conventional mind, his clumsy dress, his
+grizzled hair? He felt of himself that he was ravaged with age and
+decrepitude, and yet in his folly he had suggested this visit, and
+he had thrown the girl he loved out of her lonely life, craving for
+sympathy and interest, into a set of young men all apt for passion
+and emotion. The thought of Guthrie with his charm, his wealth, his
+aplomb, fell cold on his heart. Howard's swift imagination pictured
+the mutual attraction of the two, the enchanting discoveries, the
+laughing sympathy. Guthrie would, no doubt, come down to Windlow.
+It was exactly the kind of match that Mr. Sandys would like for
+Maud; and this was to be the end of this tragic affair. How was he
+to endure the rest of the days of the visit? This was Tuesday, and
+they were not to go till Saturday; and he would have to watch the
+budding of a romance which would end in his choosing Maud a
+wedding-present, and attending at Windlow Church in the character
+of the middle-aged squire, beaming through his glasses on the young
+people.
+
+In such abject reflections the walk passed away. He crept into
+College by the side-entrance, settled down to his evening work with
+grim tenacity, and lost himself in desperate imaginings of all the
+pleasant things that might be happening to the party. They were to
+dine at a restaurant, he believed, and probably Guthrie would be
+free to join them.
+
+Late that night Jack looked in. "Is anything the matter?" he said.
+"Why didn't you come to Guthrie's? Look here, you are going to play
+fair, aren't you? I can't do all the entertaining business myself.
+I really must have a day off to-morrow, and get some exercise."
+
+"All right," said Howard, "I'll take them on. Suppose you bring
+them to luncheon here. And I will tell you what I will do. I will
+be responsible for to-morrow afternoon. Then on Thursday you shall
+come and dine here again; and on Friday I will try to get the
+Master to lunch--that will smooth things over a bit."
+
+"Thanks very much," said Jack; "that's splendid! I wish we hadn't
+let ourselves in for quite so much. I'm not fit to lead a double
+life like this. I'm sure I don't grudge them their outing, but, by
+George, I shall be glad to see the last of them, and I daresay you
+will be too. It's the hardest work I've had for a long time."
+
+The two came and lunched with Howard. After luncheon he said, "Now,
+I am absolutely free to-day--Jack has got a lawn-tennis match on--
+what shall we do?"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Sandys genially, "I will be entirely selfish for
+once. I have come on the track of some very important matters in
+the Library, and I see they are going to take up my time. And then
+I am going in to have a cup of tea at Pembroke with the Dean, an
+old friend of mine. There, I make no excuses! I did suggest to
+Herries that I had a daughter with me; but he rather pointedly
+didn't ask her. Women are not in his line, and he will like a quiet
+talk with me. Now, what do you say to that, Howard?"
+
+"Well, if Miss Maud will put up with me," said Howard, "we will
+stroll about, and we might go to King's Chapel together. I should
+like to show her that, and we will go to see Monica Graves, and get
+some tea there."
+
+"Give Monica my love," said Mr. Sandys, "and make what excuses you
+can. Better tell her the truth for once! I will try to look in upon
+her before I go."
+
+Maud assented very eagerly and gratefully. They walked together to
+the Library, and Mr. Sandys bolted in like a rabbit into its hole.
+Howard was alone with her.
+
+She was very different, he thought, from what she had seemed that
+first night. She was alert, smiling, delighted with everything and
+everybody about the place. "I think it is all simply enchanting!"
+she said; "only it makes me long to go to Newnham. I think men do
+have a better time than women; and, what is more, no one here seems
+to have anything whatever to do!"
+
+"That's only our unselfishness," said Howard. "We get no credit!
+Think of all the piles of papers that are accumulating on my table.
+The other day I entertained with all the virtue and self-sacrifice
+at my command a party of working-men from the East end of London at
+luncheon in my rooms, and took them round afterwards. They knew far
+more than I did about the place, and I cut a very poor figure. At
+the end the Secretary, meaning to be very kind to me, said that he
+was glad to have seen a glimpse of the cultured life. 'It is very
+beautiful and distinguished,' he added, 'but we of the democracy
+shall not allow it to continue. It is always said that the Dons
+have nothing to do but to read and sip their wine, and I am glad to
+see it all for myself. To think of all these endowments being used
+like this! Not but what we are very grateful to you for your
+kindness!'"
+
+They strolled about. Cambridge is not a place that puts its
+characteristic beauties in the forefront. Some of the most charming
+things lurk unsuspected beyond dark entries and behind sombre
+walls. They penetrated little mouldering courts; they looked into
+dim and stately halls and chapels; they stood long on the bridge of
+Clare, gazing at that incomparable front, with all the bowery
+gardens and willow-shaded walks, like Camelot, beside the slow,
+terraced stream.
+
+It was a tortured kind of delight for Howard to feel the girl
+beside him; but she showed no wish to talk intimately or
+emotionally. She asked many questions, and he could see that she
+drank in eagerly the beauty of the place, understanding its charm
+in a moment. They went in to see Monica, who was in a mood of dry
+equanimity, and rallied Howard on the success of his visit to
+Windlow. "I hear you entered on the scene like a fairy prince," she
+said, "and charmed an estate out of Cousin Anne in the course of a
+few hours. Isn't he magnificent, Maud? You mustn't think he is a
+typical Don: he is quite one of our brightest flowers."
+
+"When am I to come again to Windlow?" she added; "I suppose I must
+ask Howard's leave now? He told me, you know," she said to Maud,
+"that he wanted a change--he was bored with his work; so I
+abandoned Aunt Anne to him; and he set up his flag in a moment.
+There are no diplomatists like these cultured and unworldly men,
+Maud! It was noble of me to do as I did. If I had exercised my
+persuasion on Aunt Anne, and kept Howard away, I believe she would
+have turned over Windlow to me, and I would have tried a social
+experiment there. It's just the place for an inebriate home; no
+public-houses, and plenty of fine spring water."
+
+Maud was immensely amused by Monica. Howard contented himself by
+saying that he was much misinterpreted; and presently they went off
+to King's together.
+
+Maud was not prepared for King's Chapel, and indeed the tame,
+rather clumsy exterior gives very little hint of the wonders
+within.
+
+When they passed the swing-door, and saw the fine soaring lines
+leading to the exquisite intricacies of the roof, the whole air
+full of rich colour; the dark carved screen, with the gleaming
+golden trumpets of the angels on the organ, Howard could see her
+catch her breath, and grow pale for an instant at the crowded
+splendour of the place.
+
+They sat in the nave; and when the thin bell died down, and the
+footsteps passed softly by, and the organ uttered its melodious
+voice as the white-robed procession moved slowly in, Howard could
+see that the girl was almost overcome by the scene. She looked at
+him once with a strange smile, a smile which he could not
+interpret; and as the service slowly proceeded--to Howard little
+more than a draught of sweet sensation--he could see that Maud was
+praying earnestly, deeply, for some consecration of hope and
+strength which he could not divine or guess at.
+
+As they came away, she hardly spoke--she seemed tired and almost
+rapt out of herself. She just said, "Ah, I am glad I came here with
+you. I shall never forget this as long as I live--it is quite
+beyond words."
+
+He took her back to the lodgings where they were staying. She shook
+hands with him, smiled faintly, almost tearfully, and went in
+without a word. Howard went back in a very agitated frame of mind.
+He did not understand what was in the girl's mind at all. She was
+different, utterly different. Some new current of thought had
+passed through her mind. He fancied that the girl, after her
+secluded life, with so many richly perceptive faculties half
+starved, had awakened almost suddenly to a sense of the crowded
+energies and joys of life, that youth and delight had quickened in
+her; that she foresaw new relations, and guessed at wonderful
+secrets. But it troubled him to think that she had not seemed to
+wish to revive their former little intimacy; she had seemed half
+unconscious of his presence, and all alive with new pleasures and
+curiosities. The marvellous veil of sex appeared to have fallen
+between them. He had made friends with her, as he would have made
+friends with some ingenuous boy; and now something wholly new,
+mysterious, and aloof had intervened.
+
+The rest of the visit was uneventful enough. Maud was different--
+that was plain--not less delightful, indeed even more so, in her
+baffling freshness; but Howard felt removed from her, shut out from
+her mind, kept at arm's length, even superseded.
+
+The luncheon with the Master as guest was a success. He was an old
+bachelor clergyman, white-haired, dainty, courteous, with the
+complexion of a child. He was very gracious to Mr. Sandys, who
+regarded him much as he might have regarded the ghost of Isaiah, as
+a spirit who visited the earth from some paradisiacal retreat, and
+brought with him a fragrance of heaven. The thought of a Doctor of
+Divinity, the Head of a College, full of academical learning, and
+yet perfectly courteous and accessible, filled Mr. Sandys' cup of
+romance to the brim. He seemed to be storing his memory with the
+Master's words. The Master was delighted with Maud, and treated her
+with a charming and indulgent gaiety, which Howard envied. He asked
+her opinion, he deferred to her, he made her come and sit next to
+him, he praised Jack and Howard, and at the end of the luncheon he
+filled Mr. Sandys with an almost insupportable delight by saying
+that the next time he could visit Cambridge he hoped he would stay
+at the Lodge--"but not unless you will promise to bring Miss Sandys
+as well--Miss Sandys is indispensable." Howard felt indeed grateful
+to the gallant and civil old man, who had so clear an eye for what
+was tender and beautiful. Even Jack, when the Master departed, was
+forced to say that he did not know that the old man had so much
+blood in him!
+
+That night Mr. Sandys finished up his princely progress by dining
+in Hall with the Fellows, and going to the Combination Room
+afterwards. He was not voluble, as Howard had expected. He was
+overcome with deference, and seized with a desire to bow in all
+directions at the smallest civility. He sat next to the Vice-
+Master, and Mr. Redmayne treated him to an exhibition of the driest
+fireworks on record. Mr. Sandys assented to everything, and the
+number of times that he exclaimed "True, true! admirably said!"
+exceeded belief. He said to Howard afterwards that the unmixed wine
+of intellect had proved a potent beverage. "One must drink it
+down," he said, "and trust to assimilating it later. It has been a
+glorious week for me, my dear Howard, thanks to you! Quite
+rejuvenating indeed! I carry away with me a precious treasure of
+thought--just a few notes of suggestive trains of inquiry have been
+scribbled down, to be dealt with at leisure. But it is the
+atmosphere, the rarefied atmosphere of high thought, which has
+braced and invigorated me. It has entirely obliterated from my mind
+that odious escapade of Jack's--so judiciously handled! The
+kindness of these eminent men, these intellectual giants, is
+profoundly touching and inspiring. I must not indeed hope to
+trespass on it unduly. Your Master--what a model of self-effacing
+courtesy--your Vice-Master--what a fine, rugged, uncompromising
+nature; and the rest of your colleagues"--with a wave of his hand--
+"what an impression of reserved and restrained force it all gives
+one! It will often sustain me," said the good Vicar in a burst of
+confidence, "in my simple labours, to think of all this tide of
+unaffected intellectual life ebbing and flowing so tranquilly and
+so systematically in old alma mater! The way in which you have laid
+yourself out to entertain me is indeed gratifying. If there is a
+thing I reverence it is intellect, especially when it is framed in
+modesty and courtesy."
+
+Howard went with him to his lodgings, and just went in to say good-
+bye to Maud. Jack had been dining with her, but he was gone. He and
+Guthrie were going to the station to give them a send-off. "A
+charming young fellow, Guthrie!" said Mr. Sandys. "He has been
+constantly with us, and it is very pleasant to find that Jack has
+such an excellent friend. His father is, I believe, a man of wealth
+and influence? You would hardly have guessed it! That a young man
+of that sort should have given up so much time to entertaining a
+country parson and his daughter is really very gratifying--a sign
+of the growing humanity of the youth of England. I fear we should
+not have been so tolerant at dear old Pembroke. I like your young
+men, Howard. They are unduly careless, I think, about dress; but in
+courtesy and kindness, irreproachable!"
+
+Howard only had a few words with Maud, of a very commonplace kind.
+She had enjoyed herself very much, and it was good of him to have
+given up so much time to them. She seemed to him reserved and
+preoccupied, and he could not do anything to restore the old sense
+of friendship. He was tired himself; it had been a week of great
+strain. Far from getting any nearer to Maud, he felt that he had
+drifted away from her, and that some intangible partition kept them
+apart. The visit, he felt, had been a mistake from beginning to
+end.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+SELF-SUPPRESSION
+
+
+
+
+
+As soon as the term was over, Howard went down to Windlow. He was
+in a very unhappy frame of mind. He could not capitulate; but the
+more that he thought, the more that he tried to analyse his
+feelings, the more complex they became. It really seemed to him at
+times as if two perfectly distinct people were arguing within him.
+He was afraid of love; his aim had always been to simplify his life
+as far as possible, and to live in a serene and cheerful spirit,
+for the day and in the day. His work, his relations with colleagues
+and pupils, had all amused and interested him; he had cared for
+people, he had many friends; but it was all a cool, temperate,
+unimpassioned kind of caring. People had drifted in and out of his
+life; with his frank and easy manner, his excellent memory for the
+characteristics and the circumstances of others, it had been easy
+for him to pick up a relationship where he had laid it down; but it
+was all a very untroubled business, and no one had ever really
+entered into his life; he did not like dropping people, and took
+some trouble by means of letters to keep up communication with his
+old pupils; but his friendships had never reached the point at
+which the loss of a friend would have been a severe blow. He felt
+that he was always given credit for more affection than he
+possessed, and this had made him careful not to fail in any duty of
+friendship. He was always ready to take trouble, to advise, to help
+his old pupils in their careers; but it had been done more from a
+sense of courtesy than from any deeper motive.
+
+Now, however, it was very different; he felt himself wholly
+preoccupied by the thought of Maud; and he found himself looking
+into the secret of love, as a man might gaze from a hill-top into a
+chasm where the rocky ridges plunged into mist, doubting of his
+way, and mistrusting his own strength to pursue the journey. He did
+not know what the quality of his love was; he recognised an intense
+kind of passion, but when he looked beyond that, and imagined
+himself wedded to Maud, what was the emotion that would survive the
+accomplishment of his desires? Would he find himself longing for
+the old, comfortable, isolated life again? did he wish his life to
+be inextricably intertwined with the life of another? He was not
+sure. He had a dread of having to concede an absolute intimacy, he
+wished to give only as much as he chose; and then, too, he told
+himself that he was too old to marry so young a girl, and that she
+would be happier if she could find a more equal partner for her
+life. Yet even so the thought of yielding her to another sickened
+him. He believed that she had been attracted by Guthrie, and that
+he had but to hold his hand and keep his distance, and the relation
+might broaden into marriage. He wondered if love could begin so, so
+easily and simply. He would like to have believed it could not, yet
+it was just so that love did begin! And then, too, he did not know
+what was the nature of Maud's feelings to himself. He thought that
+she had been attracted to him, but in a sisterly sort of way; that
+he had come across her when she was feeling cramped and
+dissatisfied, and that a friendship with him had seemed to offer
+her a chance of expansion and interest.
+
+He often thought of telling the whole story to his aunt; but like
+many people who seem extraordinarily frank about their feelings and
+fancies, and speak easily even of their emotions, he found himself
+condemned to silence about any emotion or experience that had any
+serious or tragic quality. Most people would have thought him
+communicative, and even lacking in reticence. But he knew in
+himself that it was not so; he could speak of his intimate ideas
+very readily upon slight acquaintance, because they were not to him
+matters of deep feeling; but the moment that they really moved him,
+he felt absolutely dumb and tongue-tied.
+
+He established himself at Windlow, and became at once aware that
+his aunt perceived that there was something amiss. She gave him
+opportunities of speaking to her, but he could not take them. He
+shrank with a painful dumbness from displaying his secret wound. It
+seemed to him undignified and humiliating to confess his weakness.
+He hoped vaguely that the situation would solve itself, and spare
+him the necessity of a confession.
+
+He tried to occupy himself in his book, but in vain. Now that he
+was confronted with a real and urgent dilemma, the origins of
+religion seemed to him to have no meaning or interest. He did not
+feel that they had any bearing whatever upon life; and his pain
+seemed to infect all his perceptions. The quality of beauty in
+common things, the hill-shapes, the colour of field and wood, the
+lights of dawn and eve, the sailing cloud, the tints of weathered
+stone, the old house in its embowered garden, with the pure green
+lines of the down above, had no charm or significance for him any
+more. Again and again he said to himself, "How beautiful that would
+be, if I could but feel it to be so!" He saw, as clearly and
+critically as ever, the pleasant forms and hues and groupings of
+things, but it was dull and savourless, while all the attractive
+ideas that sprang up like flowers in his mind, the happy trains of
+thought, in which some single fancy ramified and extended itself
+into unsuspected combinations and connections, these all seemed
+hardly worth recognising or pursuing. He found himself listless and
+distracted, just able by an effort to talk, to listen, to exchange
+thoughts, but utterly without any zest or energy.
+
+Jack had gone off for a short visit, and Howard was thus left
+mostly alone. He went once or twice to the Vicarage, but found Mr.
+Sandys an unmixed trial; there seemed something wholly puerile
+about his absurd energies and activities. The only boon of his
+society was that he expected no reply to his soliloquies. Maud was
+there too, a distant graceful figure; but she, too, seemed to have
+withdrawn into her own thoughts, and their talk was mostly formal.
+Yet he was painfully and acutely conscious of her presence. She,
+too, seemed to be clouded and sad. He found himself unable to talk
+to her unconstrainedly. He could only dumbly watch her; she
+appeared to avert her eyes from him; and yet he drew from these
+meetings an infinite series of pictures, which were as if engraved
+upon his brain. She became for him in these days like a lily
+drooping in a shadowed place and in a thunderous air; something
+fading away mutely and sorrowfully, like the old figure of Mariana
+in the Grange, looking wearily through listless hours for something
+which had once beckoned to her with a radiant gesture, but which
+did not return. There were brighter hours, when in the hot July
+days a little peace fell on him, a little sense of the fragrance
+and beauty of the world. He took to long and solitary walks on the
+down in search of bodily fatigue. There was one day in particular
+which he long remembered, when he had gone up to the camp, and sate
+in the shade of the thicket on the crisp turf, looking out over the
+valley, unutterably quiet and peaceful in the hot air. The trees
+were breathlessly still; the hamlet roofs peeped out above the
+orchards, the hot air quivered on the down. There were little
+figures far below moving about the fields. It all looked lost in a
+sweetness of serene repose; and the thoughts that had troubled him
+rose with a bitter poignancy, that was almost a physical pain. The
+contrast between the high summer, the rich life of herb and tree,
+and his own weary and arid thoughts, fell on him like a flash.
+Would it not be better to die, to close one's eyes upon it all, to
+sink into silence, than thus to register the awful conflict of will
+and passion with the tranquil life that could not surrender its
+dreams of peace? What did he need and desire? He could not tell; he
+felt almost a hatred of the slender, quiet girl, with her sweet
+look, her delicate hands, her noiseless movements. She had made no
+claim, she did not come in radiant triumph, with impressive
+gestures and strong commanding influences into his life; she had
+not even cried out passionately, demanded love, displayed an urgent
+need; there had been nothing either tragic or imperious, nothing
+that called for instant solution; she was just a girl, sweet,
+wayward, anxious-minded, living a trivial, simple, sheltered life.
+What had given her this awful power over him, which seemed to have
+rent and shattered all his tranquil contentment, and yet had
+offered no splendid opportunity, claimed no all-absorbing devotion,
+no magnificent sacrifice? It was a sort of monstrous spell, a
+magical enchantment, which had thus made havoc of all his plans and
+gentle schemes. Life, he felt, could never be the same for him
+again; he was in the grip of a power that made light of human
+arrangements. The old books were full of it; they had spoken of
+some hectic mystery, that seized upon warriors and sages alike,
+wasted their strength, broke their energies, led them into crime
+and sorrow. He had always rather despised the pale and hollow-eyed
+lovers of the old songs, and thought of them as he might think of
+men indulging in a baneful drug which filched away all manful
+prowess and vigour. It was like La Belle Dame sans merci after all,
+the slender faring child, whose kiss in the dim grotto had left the
+warrior 'alone and palely loitering,' burdened with sad thoughts in
+the wintry land. And yet he could not withstand it. He could see
+the reasonable and sensible course, a placid friendship, a long
+life full of small duties and quiet labours;--and then the thought
+of Maud would come across him, with her shining hair, her clear
+eyes, holding a book, as he had seen her last in the Vicarage, in
+her delicate hands, and looking out into the garden with that
+troubled inscrutable look; and all the prudent considerations fell
+and tumbled together like a house of cards, and he felt as though
+he must go straight to her and fall before her, and ask her to give
+him a gift the very nature of which he did not know, her girlish
+self, her lightly-ranging mind, her tiny cares and anxieties, her
+virginal heart--for what purpose? he did not know; just to be with
+her, to clasp her close, to hear her voice, to look into her eyes,
+to discourse with her some hidden secret of love. A faint sense of
+some infinite beauty and nearness came over him which, if he could
+win it, would put the whole of life into a different plane. Not a
+friendly combination, but an absolute openness and nakedness of
+soul, nothing hidden, nothing kept back, everything confessed and
+admitted, a passing of two streams of life into one.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE PICNIC
+
+
+
+
+
+Jack arrived at Windlow in due course, and brought with him Guthrie
+to stay. Howard thought, and was ashamed of thinking, that Jack had
+some scheme on foot; and the arrival of Guthrie was embarrassing to
+him, as likely to complicate an already too complicated situation.
+
+A plan was made for a luncheon picnic on the hill. There was a
+tower on the highest eminence of the down, some five miles away, a
+folly built by some wealthy squire among woodlands, and commanding
+wide views; it was possible to drive to a village at the foot, and
+to put up vehicles at a country inn; and it was proposed that they
+should take luncheon up to the tower, and eat it there. The Sandys
+party were to drive there, and Howard was to drive over with Miss
+Merry and meet them. Howard did not at all relish the prospect. He
+had a torturing desire for the presence of Maud, and yet he seemed
+unable to establish any communication with her; and he felt that
+the liveliness of the young men would reduce him to a condition of
+amiable ineffectiveness which would make him, as Marie Bashkirtseff
+naively said, hardly worth seeing. However, there was no way out,
+and on a delicious July morning, with soft sunlight everywhere, and
+great white clouds floating in a sky of turquoise blue, Howard and
+Miss Merry started from Windlow. The little lady was full of
+decorous glee, and her mirth, like a working cauldron, threw all
+her high-minded tastes to the surface. She asked Howard's opinion
+about quite a number of literary masterpieces, and she ingenuously
+gave utterance to her meek and joyful views of life, the privileges
+she enjoyed, and the inspiration which she derived from the ethical
+views of Robert Browning. Howard found himself wondering why it was
+all so dreadfully uninteresting and devoid of charm; he asked
+himself whether, if the little spinster had been personally more
+attractive, her optimistic chirpings would have seemed to have more
+significance. Miss Merry had a perfectly definite view of life, and
+she made life into a distinct success; she was a happy woman,
+sustained by an abundance of meek enthusiasm. She accepted
+everything that happened to her, whether good or evil, with the
+same eager interest. Suffering, according to Miss Merry, had an
+educative quality, and life was haunted for her by echoes of
+excellent literature, accurately remembered. But Howard had a
+feeling that one must not swallow life quite so uncritically, that
+there ought somehow to be more discrimination; and Miss Merry's
+eager adoration of everything and everybody reduced him to a
+flatness which he found it difficult to conceal. He could not think
+what was the matter with her views. She revelled in what she called
+problems, and the more incomplete that anything appeared, the more
+certain was Miss Merry of ultimate perfection. There did not seem
+any room for humanity, with its varying moods, in her outlook; and
+yet Howard had the grace to be ashamed of his own sullen
+dreariness, which certainly did not appear to lend any dignity to
+life. But he had not the heart to spoil the little lady's pleasure,
+and engaged in small talk upon moderately abstract topics with
+courteous industry. "Of course," said his companion confidingly,
+"all that I do is on a very small scale, but I think that the
+quality of it is what matters--the quality of one's ideal, I mean."
+Howard murmuringly assented. "I have sometimes even wished," she
+went on, "that I had some real trouble of my own--that seems
+foolish to you, no doubt, because my life is such an easy one--but
+I do feel that my happiness rather cuts me off from other people--
+and I don't want to be cut off from other people; I desire to know
+how and why they suffer."
+
+"Ah," said Howard, "while you feel that, it is all right; but the
+worst of real suffering is, I believe, that it is apt to be
+entirely dreary--it is not at all romantic, as it seems from the
+outside; indeed it is the loss of all that sense of excitement
+which makes suffering what it is. But really I have no right to
+speak either, for I have had a very happy life too."
+
+Miss Merry heard him moist-eyed and intent. "Yes, I am sure that is
+true!" she said. "I suppose we all have just as much as we can use--
+just as much as it is good for us to have."
+
+They found that the others had arrived, and were unpacking the
+luncheon. Maud greeted Howard with a shy expectancy; but the sight
+of her, slender and fresh in her rough walking-dress, renewed his
+strange pangs. What did he want of her, he asked himself; what was
+this mysterious and unmanning sense, that made him conscious of
+every movement and every word of the girl? Why could he not meet
+her in a cheerful, friendly, simple way, and make the most of her
+enchanting company?
+
+Mr. Sandys was in great spirits, revelling in arrangements and
+directions. But the wind was taken out of his sails by the two
+young men, who were engaged in enacting a bewildering kind of
+drama, a saga, of which the venerable Mr. Redmayne appeared to be
+the hero. Guthrie, who was in almost overpowering spirits, took the
+part of Mr. Redmayne, whom he imitated with amazing fidelity. He
+had become, it seemed, a man of low and degrading tastes--'Erb
+Redmayne, he was called, or old 'Erb, whose role was to lead the
+other authorities of the college into all kinds of disreputable
+haunts, to prompt them to absurd misdeeds, to take advantage of
+their ingenuousness, to make scapegoats of them, and to adroitly
+evade justice himself.
+
+On this occasion 'Erb Redmayne seemed to have inveigled the Master,
+whose part was taken by Jack, to a race-meeting, to be introducing
+him to the Most unsatisfactory company, to force him to put money
+on certain horses, to evade the payment of debts incurred, to be
+detected in the act of absconding, and to leave the unfortunate
+Master to bear the brunt of public indignation. Guthrie seemed at
+first a little shy of enacting this drama before Howard, but Jack
+said reassuringly, "Oh, he won't give us away--it will amuse him!"
+This extravaganza continued with immense gusto and emphasis all the
+way to luncheon, 'Erb Redmayne treating the Master with undisguised
+contempt, and the Master performing meekly his bidding. Mr. Sandys
+was in fits of laughter. "Excellent, excellent!" he cried among his
+paroxysms. "You irreverent young rascals--but it was just the sort
+of thing we used to do, I am afraid!"
+
+There was no doubt that it was amusing; in another mood Howard
+would have been enchanted by the performance, and even flattered at
+being allowed to overhear it. Mr. Redmayne was admirably rendered,
+and Jack's performance of the anxious and courteous Master,
+treading the primrose path reluctantly and yet subserviently, was
+very nearly as good. But Howard simply could not be amused, and it
+made it almost worse for him to see that Maud was delighted, while
+even Miss Merry was obviously though timidly enjoying the
+enlargement of her experience, and exulting in her freedom from any
+priggish disapproval.
+
+They made their way to the top and found the tower, a shell of
+masonry, which could be ascended by a winding staircase in a
+turret. The view, from the platform at the summit, was certainly
+enchanting. The tower stood in an open heathery space, with woods
+enclosing it on every side; from the parapet they looked down over
+the steeply falling tree-tops to an immense plain, where a river
+widened to the sea. Howard, side by side with Maud, gazed in
+silence. Mr. Sandys identified landmarks with a map. "How nice it
+is to see a bit of the world!" said Maud, "and how happy and
+contented it all looks. It seems odd to think of men and women down
+there, creeping about their work, going to and fro as usual, and
+not aware that they are being looked down upon like this. It all
+seems a very simple business."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "that is the strange thing. It does seem so
+simple and tranquil! and yet one knows that down there people have
+their troubles and anxieties--people are ill, are dying--are
+wondering what it all means, why they are set just there, and why
+they have so short a time to stay!"
+
+"I suppose it all fits into itself," said Maud, "somehow or other.
+I don't think that life really contradicts itself!"
+
+"I don't know," said Howard, with a sudden access of dreariness;
+"that is exactly what it DOES seem to do--that's the misery of it!"
+
+The girl looked at him but did not speak; he gave her an uneasy
+smile, and she presently turned away and looked over her father's
+map.
+
+They went down and lunched on a green bank among the fern, under
+some old oaks. The sunlight fell among the glades; a flock of tits,
+chirruping and hunting, rushed past them and plunged downward into
+the wood. They could hear a dove in the high trees near them,
+crooning a song of peace and infinite content. Mr. Sandys, stung by
+emulation, related a long story, interspersed with imitations, of
+his undergraduate days; and Howard was content to sit and seem to
+listen, and to watch the light pierce downwards into the silent
+woodland. An old woodman, grey and bent and walking painfully, in
+great leather gloves and gaiters, carrying a chopper, passed slowly
+along the ride and touched his hat. Jack insisted on giving him
+some of the luncheon, and made up a package for him which the old
+man put away in a pocket, making some remarks about the weather,
+and adding with a senile pride that he was over seventy, and had
+worked in the woodland for sixty years and more. He was an almost
+mediaeval figure, Howard thought--a woodman five centuries ago would
+have looked and spoken much the same; he knew nothing of the world,
+or the thoughts and hopes of it; he was almost as much of the soil
+as the very woods themselves, in his dim mechanical life; was man
+made for that after all? How did that square with Miss Merry's
+eager optimism? What was the meaning of so unconscious a figure, so
+obviously without an ethical programme, and yet so curiously
+devised by God, patiently nurtured and preserved?
+
+In the infinite peace, while the flies hummed on the shining
+bracken, and the breeze nestled in the firs like a falling sea,
+Howard had a spasm of incredulous misery. Could any heart be so
+heavy, so unquiet as his own?--life suddenly struck so aimless,
+with but one overmastering desire, which he could not fulfil. He
+was shocked at his feebleness. A year ago he could have devised no
+sweeter or more delicious day than this, with such a party, in the
+high sunlit wood. . . .
+
+The imitations began again.
+
+"I don't believe there's anyone you could not imitate!" said Mr.
+Sandys rapturously.
+
+"Oh, it's only a knack," said Guthrie, "but some people are easier
+than others."
+
+Howard bestirred himself to express some interest.
+
+"Why, he can imitate YOU to the life," said Jack.
+
+"Oh, come, nonsense!" said Guthrie, reddening; "that is really low,
+Jack."
+
+"I confess to a great curiosity about it," said Mr. Sandys.
+
+"Oh, don't mind me," said Howard; "it would amuse me above
+everything--like catching a glance at oneself in an unexpected
+mirror!"
+
+Guthrie, after a little more pressing, yielded. He said a few
+sentences, supposed to be Howard teaching, in a rather soft voice,
+with what seemed to Howard a horribly affected and priggish
+emphasis. But the matter displeased him still more. It was
+facetious, almost jocose; and there was a jerky attempt at academic
+humour in it, which seemed to him particularly nauseous, as of a
+well-informed and quite superior person condescending to the
+mildest of witticisms, to put himself on a level with juvenile
+minds. Howard had thought himself both unaffected and elastic in
+his communications with undergraduates, and this was the effect he
+produced upon them! However, he mastered his irritation; the others
+laughed a little tentatively; it was felt for a moment that the
+affair had just passed the limits of conventional civility. Howard
+contrived to utter a species of laugh, and said, "Well, that's
+quite a revelation to me. It never occurred to me that there could
+be anything to imitate in my utterance; but then it is always
+impossible to believe that anyone can find anything to discuss in
+one behind one's back--though I suppose no one can escape. I must
+get a stock of new witticisms, I think; the typical ones seem a
+little threadbare."
+
+"Oh no, indeed," said Miss Merry, gallantly; "I was just thinking
+how much I should like to be taught like that!"
+
+The little incident seemed rather to damp the spirits of the party.
+Guthrie himself seemed deeply annoyed at having consented: and it
+was a relief to all when Mr. Sandys suddenly pulled out his watch
+and said, "Well, all pleasant things come to an end--though to be
+sure there is generally another pleasant thing waiting round the
+corner. I have to get back, but I am not going to spoil the party.
+I shall enjoy a bit of a walk."
+
+"Well," said Howard, "I think I will set you on your way. I want a
+talk about one or two things; but I will come back to chaperon Miss
+Merry--I suppose I shall find you somewhere about?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Merry, "I am going to try a sketch--but I must not
+have anyone looking over my shoulder. I am no good at sketching--
+but I like to be made to look close at a pretty thing. I am going
+to try the chalk-pit and thicket near the tower--chalk-pits suit my
+style, because one can leave so much of the paper white!"
+
+"Very well," said Howard, "I will be back here in an hour."
+
+Howard and Mr. Sandys started off through the wood. Mr. Sandys was
+full of communications. He began to talk about Guthrie. "Such a
+good friend for Jack!" he said; "I hope he bears a good character
+in the college? Jack seems to be very much taken up with him, and
+says there is no nonsense about him--almost the highest
+commendation he has in his power to bestow--indeed I have heard him
+use the same phrase about yourself! Young Guthrie seems such a
+natural and unaffected fellow--indeed, if I may say so, Howard, it
+seemed to me a high compliment to yourself, and to speak volumes
+for your easy relation with young men, that he should have ventured
+to take you off to your face just now, and that you should have
+been so sincerely amused. It isn't as if he were a cheeky sort of
+boy--if I may be allowed such an expression. He treats me with the
+pleasantest deference and respect--and when I think of his father's
+wealth and political influence, that seems to me a charming trait!
+There is nothing uppish about him."
+
+"No, indeed," said Howard; "he is a thoroughly nice fellow!"
+
+"I am delighted to hear you say so," said Mr. Sandys, "and your
+kindness emboldens me to say something which is quite confidential;
+but then we are practically relations, are we not? Perhaps it is
+only a father's partiality; but have you noticed, may I say,
+anything in his manner to my dear Maud? It may be only a passing
+fancy, of course. 'In the spring,' you remember, 'a young man's
+fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love'--a beautiful line that,
+though of course it is not strictly applicable to the end of July.
+I need hardly say that such a connection would gladden my heart. I
+am all for marriage, Howard, for early marriage, the simplest and
+best of human experiences; of course it has more sides than one to
+it. I should not like it to be supposed that a country parson like
+myself had in the smallest degree inveigled a young man of the
+highest prospects into a match--there is nothing of the matchmaker
+about me; but Maud is in a degree well-connected; and, as you know,
+she will be what the country people here call 'well-left'--a terse
+phrase, but expressive! I do not see that she would be in any way
+unworthy of the position--and I feel that her life here is a little
+secluded--I should like her to have a little richer material, so to
+speak, to work in. Well, well, we mustn't be too diplomatic about
+these things. 'Man proposes'--no humorous suggestion intended--'and
+God disposes'--but if it should so turn out, without any scheming
+or management--things which I cordially detest--if it should open
+out naturally, why, I should be lacking in candour if I pretended
+it would not please me. I believe in early engagements, and
+romance, and all that--I fear I am terribly sentimental--and it is
+just the thing to keep a young man straight. Sir Henry Guthrie
+might be disposed to view it in that light--what do you think?"
+
+This ingenuous statement had a very distressing effect on Howard.
+It is one thing to dally with a thought, however seriously, in
+one's own mind, and something quite different to have it presented
+in black and white through the frank conjecture of another. He put
+a severe constraint upon himself and said, "Do you know, Frank, the
+same thought had occurred to me--I had believed that I saw
+something of the kind; and I can honestly say that I think Guthrie
+a very sound fellow indeed in every way--quite apart from his
+worldly prospects. He is straight, sensible, good-humoured,
+capable, and, I think, a really unselfish fellow. If I had a
+daughter of my own I could not imagine a better husband."
+
+"You delight me inexpressibly," said Mr. Sandys. "So you had
+noticed it? Well, well, I trust your perception far more than my
+own; and of course I am biassed--you might almost incline to say
+dazzled--by the prospect: heir to a baronetcy (I could wish it had
+been of an earlier creation), rich, and, as you say, entirely
+reliable and straight. Of course I don't in any way wish to force
+matters on. I could not bear to be thought to have unduly
+encouraged such an alliance--and Maud may marry any nice fellow she
+has a fancy to marry; but I think that she is rather drawn to young
+Guthrie--what do you think? He amuses her, and she is at her best
+with him--don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I had thought so. I think she likes him very
+much."
+
+"Well, we will leave it at that," said Mr. Sandys in high gusto.
+"You don't mind my confiding in you thus, Howard? Somehow, if I may
+say it, I find it very easy to speak confidentially to you. You are
+so perceptive, so sympathetic! We all feel that it is the secret of
+your great influence."
+
+They talked of other matters after this as they walked along the
+crest of the downs; and where the white road began to descend into
+the valley, with the roofs of Windlow glimmering in the trees a
+little to the north, Howard left the Vicar and retraced his steps.
+
+He was acutely miserable; the thing had come upon him with a shock,
+and brought the truth home to him in a desperate way. But he
+experienced at the same time a certain sensation, for a moment, of
+grim relief. His fancy, his hope--how absurd and idiotic they had
+been!--were shattered. How could he ever have dreamed that the girl
+should come to care for him in that way--an elderly Don of settled
+habits, who had even mistaken a pompous condescension to the young
+men of his College for a natural and sympathetic relation--that was
+what he was. The melancholy truth stared him in the face. He was
+sharply disillusioned. He had lingered on, clinging pathetically to
+youth, and with a serene complacency he had overlooked the flight
+of time. He was a dull, middle-aged man, fond of sentimental
+relations and trivial confidences, who had done nothing, effected
+nothing; had even egregiously failed in the one thing he had set
+himself to do, the retaining his hold on youth. Well, he must face
+it! He must be content to settle down as a small squire; he must
+disentangle himself from his Cambridge work gradually--it sickened
+him to think of it--and he must try to lead a quiet life, and
+perhaps put together a stupid book or two. That was to be his
+programme. He must just try to be grateful for a clear line of
+action. If he had had nothing but Cambridge to depend upon, it
+would have been still worse. Now he must settle down to county
+business if he could, and clear his mind of all foolish regrets.
+Love and marriage--he was ten years too late! He had dawdled on,
+taking the line of least resistance, and he was now revealed to
+himself in a true and unsparing light. He paced swiftly on, and
+presently entered the wood. His feet fell soft on the grassy road
+among the coverts.
+
+Suddenly, as he turned a corner, he saw a little open glade to the
+right. A short way up the glade stood two figures--Guthrie and
+Maud--engaged in conversation. They were standing facing each
+other. She seemed to be expostulating with him in a laughing way;
+he stood bareheaded, holding his hat in his hand, eagerly defending
+himself. The pose of the two seemed to show an easy sort of
+comradeship. Maud was holding a stick in both hands behind her, and
+half resting upon it. They seemed entirely absorbed in what they
+were saying. Howard could not bear to intrude upon the scene. He
+fell back among the trees, retraced his steps, and then sat down on
+a grassy bank, a little off the path, and waited. It was the last
+confirmation of his fears. It was not quite a lover-like scene, but
+they evidently understood each other, and were wholly at their ease
+together, while Guthrie's admiring and passionate look did not
+escape him. He rested his head in his hands, and bore the truth as
+he might have borne a physical pain. The summer woods, the green
+thickets, the sunlight on the turf, the white clouds, the rich
+plain just visible through the falling tree-trunks, all seemed to
+him like a vision seen by a spirit in torment, something horribly
+unreal and torturing. The two streams of beauty and misery appeared
+to run side by side, so distinct, so unblending; but the horrible
+fact was that though sorrow was able not only to assert its own
+fiery power, like the sting of some malignant insect, it could also
+obliterate and efface joy; it could even press joy into its
+service, to accentuate its torment; while the joy and beauty of
+life seemed wholly unable to soothe or help him, but were brushed
+aside, just as a stern soldier, armed and mailed, could brush aside
+the onslaught of some delicate and frenzied boy. Was pain the
+stronger power, was it the ultimate power? In that dark moment,
+Howard felt that it was. Joy seemed to him like a little pool of
+crystalline water, charming enough if tended and sheltered, but a
+thing that could be soiled and scattered in a moment by the onrush
+of some foul and violent beast.
+
+He came at last to the rendezvous. Miss Merry sat at her post
+transferring to a little block of paper a smeared and streaky
+picture of the chalk-pit, which seemed equally unintelligible at
+whatever angle it might be held. Jack was couched at a little
+distance in the heather, smoking a pipe. Howard went and sat down
+moodily beside him. "An odd thing, a picnic," said Jack musingly;
+"I am not sure it is not an invention of the devil. Is anything the
+matter, Howard? You look as if things had gone wrong. You don't
+mind that nonsense of Guthrie's, do you? I was an ass to get him to
+do it; I hate doing a stupid thing, and he is simply wild with me.
+It's no good saying it is not like, because it is in a way, but of
+course it's only a rag. It isn't absurd when you do it, only when
+someone else does."
+
+"Oh no, I don't mind about that," said Howard; "do make that plain
+to Guthrie. I am out of sorts, I think; one gets bothered, you
+know--what is called the blues."
+
+"Oh, I know," said Jack sympathetically; "I don't suffer from them
+myself as a rule, but I have got a touch of them to-day. I can't
+understand what everyone is up to. Fred Guthrie has got the jumps.
+It looks to me," he went on sagely, "as if he was what is commonly
+called in love: but when the other person is one's sister, it seems
+strange. Maud isn't a bad girl, as they go, but she isn't an angel,
+and still less a saint; but Fred has no eyes for anyone else; I
+can't screw a sensible word out of him. These young people!" said
+Jack with a sour grimace; "you and I know better. One ought to
+leave the women alone; there's something queer about them; you
+never know where you are with them."
+
+Howard regarded him in silence for a moment: it did not seem worth
+while to argue; nothing seemed worth while. "Where are they?" he
+said drearily.
+
+"Oh, goodness knows!" said Jack; "when I last saw them he was
+beating down the ferns with a stick for Maud to go through. He's
+absolutely demented, and she is at one of her games. I think I
+shall sheer off, and go to visit some sick people, like the
+governor; that's about all I feel up to."
+
+At this moment, however, the truants appeared, walking silently out
+of a glade. Howard had an obscure feeling that something serious
+had happened--he did not know what. Guthrie looked dejected, and
+Maud was evidently preoccupied. "Oh, damn the whole show!" said
+Jack, getting up. "Let's get out of this!"
+
+"We lost our way," said Maud, rather hurriedly, "and couldn't find
+our way back."
+
+Maud went up to Miss Merry, asked to see her sketch, and indulged
+in some very intemperate praise. Guthrie came up to Howard, and
+stammered through an apology for his rudeness.
+
+"Oh, don't say anything more," said Howard. "Of course I didn't
+mind! It really doesn't matter at all."
+
+The day was beginning to decline; and in an awkward silence, only
+broken by inconsequent remarks, the party descended the hill,
+regained the carriages, and drove off in mournful silence. As the
+Vicarage party drove away, Jack glanced at Howard, raised his eyes
+in mock despair, and gave a solemn shake of his head.
+
+Howard followed with Miss Merry, and talked wildly about the future
+of English poetry, till they drove in under the archway of the
+Manor and his penance was at an end.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+DESPONDENCY
+
+
+
+
+
+Howard spent some very unhappy days after that, mostly alone. They
+were very active at the Vicarage making expeditions, fishing,
+playing lawn-tennis, and once or twice pressed him to join them.
+But he excused himself on the ground that he must work at his book;
+he could not bear to carry his despondency and his dolorous air
+into so blithe a company; and he was, moreover, consumed by a
+jealousy which humiliated him. If Guthrie was destined to win
+Maud's love he should have a fair field; and yet Howard's
+imagination played him many fevered tricks in those days, and the
+thought of what might be happening used to sting him into
+desperation. His own mood alternated between misery and languor. He
+used to sit staring at his book, unable to write a word, and became
+gradually aware that he had never been unhappy in his life before.
+That, then, was what unhappiness meant, not a mood of refined and
+romantic melancholy, but a raging fire of depression that seemed to
+burn his life away, both physically and mentally, with intervals of
+drowsy listlessness.
+
+He would have liked to talk to his aunt, but could not bring
+himself to do so. She, on the other hand, seemed to notice nothing,
+and it was a great relief to him that she never commented upon his
+melancholy and obvious fatigue, but went on in her accustomed
+serene way, which evoked his courtesy and sense of decorum, and
+made him behave decently in spite of himself. Miss Merry seemed
+much more inclined to sympathise, and Howard used to intercept her
+gaze bent upon him in deep concern.
+
+One afternoon, returning from a lonely walk, he met Maud going out
+of the Manor gate. She looked happy, he thought. He stopped and
+made a few commonplace remarks. She looked at him rather strangely,
+he felt, and seemed to be searching his face for some sign of the
+old goodwill; but he hardened his heart, though he would have given
+worlds to tell her what was in his mind; but he felt that any
+reconstruction of friendship must be left till a later date, when
+he might again be able to conciliate her sisterly regard. She
+seemed to him to have passed through an awakening of some kind, and
+to have bloomed both in mind and body, with her feet on the
+threshold of vital experience, and the thought that it was Guthrie
+who could evoke this upspringing of life within her was very bitter
+to him.
+
+He trod the valley of humiliation hour by hour, in these lonely
+days, and found it a very dreary place. It was wretched to him to
+feel that he had suddenly discovered his limitations. Not only
+could he not have his will, could not taste the fruit of love which
+had seemed to hang almost within his reach, but the old contented
+life seemed to have faded and collapsed about him.
+
+That night his aunt asked him about his book, and he said he was
+not getting on well with it. She asked why, and he said that he had
+been feeling that it was altogether too intellectual a conception;
+that he had approached it from the side of REASON, as if people
+argued themselves into faith, and had treated religion as a thesis
+which could be successfully defended; whereas the vital part of it
+all, he now thought, was an instinct, perhaps refined by inherited
+thought, but in its practical manifestations a kind of choice,
+determined by a natural liking for what was attractive, and a
+dislike of what was morally ugly.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "that is true, I am sure. But it can be
+analysed for all that, though I agree with you that no amount of
+analysis will make one act rightly. But I believe," she went on,
+"that clearness of view helps one, though not perhaps at the time.
+It is a great thing to see what motives are merely conventional and
+convenient, and to find out what one really regards as principles.
+To look a conventional motive in the face deprives it of its power;
+and one can gradually disencumber oneself of all sorts of
+complicated impulses, which have their roots in no emotion. It is
+only the motives which are rooted in emotion that are vital."
+
+Then, after a pause, she said, "Of course I have seen of late that
+you have been dissatisfied with something. I have not liked to ask
+you about it; but if it would help you to talk about it, I hope you
+will. It is wonderful how talking about things makes one's mind
+clear. It isn't anything that others say or advise that helps one,
+yet one gains in clearness. But you must do as you like about this,
+Howard. I don't want to press you in any way."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Howard. "I know that you would hear me
+with patience, and might perhaps advise me if anyone could; but it
+isn't that. I have got myself into a strange difficulty; and what I
+need is not clearness, but simply courage to face what I know and
+perceive. My great lack hitherto is that I have gone through things
+without feeling them, like a swallow dipping in a lake; now I have
+got to sink and drown. No," he added, smiling, "not to drown, I
+hope, but to find a new life in the ruins of the old. I have been
+on the wrong tack; I have always had what I liked, and done what I
+liked; and now when I am confronted with things which I do not like
+at all, I have just got to endure them, and be glad that I have
+still got the power of suffering left."
+
+Mrs. Graves looked at him very tenderly. "Yes," she said,
+"suffering has a great power, and one doesn't want those whom one
+loves not to suffer. It is the condition of loving; but it must be
+real suffering, not morbid, self-invented torture. It's a great
+mistake to suffer more than one need; one wastes life fast so. I
+would not intervene to save you from real suffering, even if I
+could; but I don't want you to suffer in an unreal way. I think you
+are diffident, too easily discouraged, too courteous, if that is
+possible--because diffidence, and discouragement, and even
+courtesy, are not always unselfish things. If one renounces
+anything one has set one's heart upon one must do so for its own
+sake, and not only because the disapproval and disappointment of
+others makes life uncomfortable. I think that your life has tended
+to make you value an atmosphere of diffused tranquillity too much.
+If one is sensitive to the censure or the displeasure of others, it
+may not be unselfish to give up things rather than provoke it--it
+may only be another form of selfishness. Some of the most unworldly
+people I know have not overcome the world at all; they have merely
+made terms with it, and have found that abnegation is only more
+comfortable than conquest. I do not know that you are doing this,
+or have done it, but I think it likely. And in any case I think you
+trust reason too much, and instinct too little. If one desires a
+thing very much, it is often a proof that one needs it. One may not
+indeed be able to get it, but to resign it is sometimes to fail in
+courage. I can see that you are in some way discontented with your
+life. Don't try to mend it by a polite withdrawal. I am going to
+pay you a compliment. You have a wonderful charm, of which you are
+unconscious. It has made life very easy for you--but it has
+responsibilities too. You must not create a situation, and then
+abandon it. You must not disappoint people. I know, of course, only
+too well, that charm in itself largely depends on a tranquil mind;
+and it is difficult to exercise it when one is sad and unhappy; but
+let me say that unhappiness does not deprive YOU of this power.
+Does it seem impossible to you to believe that I have loved you far
+better, and in a way which I could not have thought possible, in
+these last weeks, when I have seen you were unhappy? You do not
+abandon yourself to depression; you make an effort; you recognise
+other people's rights to be happy, not to be clouded by your own
+unhappiness; and you have done more to attach us all to you in
+these days than before, when you were perhaps more conscious of
+being liked. Liking is not loving, Howard. There is no pain about
+liking; there is infinite pain about loving; that is because it is
+life, and not mere existence."
+
+"Ah," said Howard, "I am indeed grateful to you for speaking to me
+thus--you have lifted my spirit a little out of the mire. But I
+can't be rescued so easily. I shall have a burden to bear for some
+time yet--I see no end to it at present: and it is indeed my own
+foolish trifling with life that has brought it on me. But, dearest
+aunt, you can't help me just now. Let me be silent a little longer.
+I shall soon, I think, be able to speak, and then I will tell you
+all; and meanwhile it will be a comfort to me to think that you
+feel for me and about me as you do. I don't want to indulge in
+self-pity--I have not done that. There is nothing unjust in what
+has happened to me, nothing intolerable, no specific ill-will. I
+have just stumbled upon one of the big troubles of life, suddenly
+and unexpectedly, and I am not prepared for it by any practice or
+discipline. But I shall get through, don't be afraid--and presently
+I will tell you everything." He took his aunt's hand in his own,
+and kissed her on the cheek.
+
+"God bless you, dear boy!" she said; "I won't press you to speak;
+and you will know that I have you in mind now and always, with
+infinite hope and love."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+HIGHMINDEDNESS
+
+
+
+
+
+Howard on thinking over this conversation was somewhat bewildered
+as to what exactly was in his aunt's mind. He did not think that
+she understood his feeling for Maud, and he was sure that she did
+not realise what Maud's feelings about Freddy Guthrie were. He came
+to the conclusion eventually that Maud had told her about the
+beginnings of their friendship; that his aunt supposed that he had
+tried to win Maud's confidence, as he would have made friends with
+one of his young men; and that she imagined that he had found that
+Maud's feeling for him had developed in rather too confidential a
+line, as for a father-confessor. He thought that Mrs. Graves had
+seen that Maud had been disposed to adopt him as a kind of ethical
+director, and had thought that he had been bored at finding a
+girl's friendship so much more exacting than the friendship of a
+young man; and that she had been exhorting him to be more brotherly
+and simple in his relations with Maud, and to help her to the best
+of his ability. He imagined that Maud had told Mrs. Graves that he
+had been advising her, and that she had perhaps since told her of
+his chilly reception of her later confidences. That was the
+situation he had created; and he felt with what utter clumsiness he
+had handled it. His aunt, no doubt, thought that he had been
+disturbed at finding how much more emotional a girl's dependence
+upon an older man was than he had expected. But he felt that when
+he could tell her the whole story, she would see that he could not
+have acted otherwise. He had been so thrown off his balance by
+finding how deeply he cared for Maud, that he had been simply
+unable to respond to her advances. He ought to have had more
+control of himself. Mrs. Graves had not suspected that he could
+have grown to care for a girl, almost young enough to be his
+daughter, in so passionate a way. He wished he could have explained
+the whole to her, but he was too deeply wounded in mind to confess
+to his aunt how impulsive he had been. He had now no doubt that
+there was an understanding between Maud and Guthrie. Everyone else
+seemed to think so; and when once the affair was happily launched,
+he would enjoy a mournful triumph, he thought, by explaining to
+Mrs. Graves how considerately he had behaved, and how painful a
+dilemma Maud would have been placed in if he had declared his
+passion. Maud would have blamed herself; she might easily, with her
+anxious sense of responsibility, have persuaded herself into
+accepting him as a lover; and then a life-long penance might have
+begun for her. He had, at what a cost, saved Maud from the chance
+of such a mistake. It was a sad tangle; but when Maud was happily
+married, he would perhaps be able to explain to her why he had
+behaved as he had done; and she would be grateful to him then. His
+restless and fevered imagination traced emotional and dramatic
+scenes, in which his delicacy would at last be revealed. He felt
+ashamed of himself for this abandonment to sentiment, but he seemed
+to have lost control over the emotional part of his mind, which
+continued to luxuriate in the consciousness of his own self-
+effacement. He had indeed, he felt, fallen low. But he continued to
+trace in his mind how each of the actors in the little drama--Mr.
+Sandys, Jack, Guthrie himself, Maud, Mrs. Graves--would each have
+reason to thank him for having held himself aloof, and for
+sacrificing his own desires. There was comfort in that thought; and
+for the first time in these miserable weeks he felt a little glow
+of self-approval at the consciousness of his own prudence and
+justice. The best thing, he now reflected, would be to remove
+himself from the scene altogether for a time, and to return in
+radiant benevolence, when the affair had settled itself: but Maud--
+and then there came over him the thought of the girl, her
+sweetness, her eager delight, her adorable frankness, her
+innocence, her desire to be in affectionate relations with all who
+came within reach of her; and the sense of his own foresight and
+benevolence was instantly and entirely overwhelmed at the thought
+of what he had missed, and of what he might have aspired to, if it
+had not been for just the wretched obstacle of age and
+circumstance. A few years younger--if he had been that, he could
+have followed the leading of his heart, and--he dared think no more
+of what might have been possible.
+
+But what brought matters to a head was a scene that he saw on the
+following day. He was in the library in the morning; he tried to
+work, but he could not command his attention. At last he rose and
+went to the little oriel, which commanded a view of the village
+green. Just as he did so, he caught sight of two figures--Maud and
+Guthrie--walking together on the road which led from the Vicarage.
+They were talking in the plainest intimacy. Guthrie seemed to be
+arguing some point with laughing insistence, and Maud to be
+listening in amused delight. Presently they came to a stop, and he
+could see Maud hold up a finger. Guthrie at once desisted. At this
+moment a kitten scampered across the green to them sideways, its
+tail up. Guthrie caught it up, and as he held it in his arms.
+Howard saw Maud bend over it and caress it. The scene brought an
+instant conviction to his mind; but presently Maud said a word to
+her companion, and then came across the green to the Manor, passing
+in at the gate just underneath him. Howard stood back that he might
+not be observed. He saw Maud come in under the gateway, half
+smiling to herself as at something that had happened. As she did
+so, she waved her hand to Guthrie, who stood holding the kitten in
+his arms and looking after her. When she disappeared, he put the
+kitten down, and then walked back towards the Vicarage.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE AWAKENING
+
+
+
+
+
+Howard spent the rest of the morning in very bitter cogitation;
+after luncheon, during which he could hardly force himself to
+speak, he excused himself on the plea of wanting exercise.
+
+It was in a real agony of mind and spirit that he left the house.
+He was certain now; and he was not only haunted by his loss, but he
+was horrified at his entire lack of self-control and restraint. His
+thoughts came in, like great waves striking on a rocky reef, and
+rending themselves in sheets of scattered foam. He seemed to
+himself to have been slowly inveigled into his fate by a worse than
+malicious power; something had planned his doom. He remembered his
+old tranquillities; his little touch of boredom; and then how easy
+the descent had been! He had been drawn by a slender thread of
+circumstance into paying his visit to Windlow; his friendship with
+Jack had just toppled over the balance; he had gone; then there had
+come his talk with his aunt, which had wrought him up into a mood
+of vague excitement. Just at that moment Maud had come in his way;
+then friendship had followed; and then he had been seized with this
+devouring passion which had devastated his heart. He had known all
+the time that he was too late; and even so he had gone to work the
+wrong way: it was his infernal diplomacy, his trick of playing with
+other lives, of yielding to emotional intimacies--that fatal desire
+to have a definite relation, to mean something to everyone in his
+circle. Then this wretched, attractive, pleasant youth, with his
+superficial charm, had intervened. If he had been wise he would
+never have suggested that visit to Cambridge. Maud had hitherto
+been just like Miranda on the island; she had never been brought
+into close contact with a young cavalier; and the subtle instinct
+of youth had done the rest, the instinct for the equal mate, so far
+stronger and more subtle than any reasonable or intellectual
+friendship. And then he, devoured as he had been by his love, had
+been unable to use his faculties; he could do nothing but glare and
+wink, while his treasure was stolen from him; he had made mistakes
+at every turn. What would he not give now to be restored to his
+old, balanced, easy life, with its little friendships and duties.
+How fantastic and unreal his aunt's theories seemed to him,
+reveries contrived just to gild the gaps of a broken life, a
+dramatisation of emptiness and self-importance. At every moment the
+face and figure of Maud came before him in a hundred sweet,
+spontaneous movements--the look of her eyes, the slow thrill of her
+voice. He needed her with all his soul--every fibre of his being
+cried out for her. And then the thought of being thus pitifully
+overcome, humiliated and degraded him. If she had not been
+beautiful, he would perhaps never have thought of her except with a
+mild and courteous interest. This was the draught of life which he
+had put so curiously to his lips, sweet and heady to taste, but
+with what infinite bitterness and disgust in the cup. It had robbed
+him of everything--of his work, of his temperate ecstasies in sight
+and sound, of his intellectual enthusiasm. His life was all broken
+to pieces about him; he had lost at once all interest and all sense
+of dignity. He was simply a man betrayed by a passion, which had
+fevered him just because his life had been so orderly and pure. He
+was not strong enough even to cut himself adrift from it all. He
+must just welter on, a figure visibly touched by depression and
+ill-fortune, and hammering out the old grammar-grind. Had any
+writer, any poet, ever agonised thus? The people who discoursed
+glibly about love, and wove their sorrows into elegies, what sort
+of prurient curs were they? It was all too bad to think of, to
+speak of--a mere staggering among the mudflats of life.
+
+In this raging self-contempt and misery, he drew near to the still
+pool in the valley; he would sit there and bleed awhile, like the
+old warrior, but with no hope of revisiting the fight: he would
+just abandon himself to listless despair for an hour or two, while
+the pleasant drama of life went on behind him. Why had he not at
+least spoken to Maud, while he had time, and secured her loyalty?
+It was his idiotic deliberation, his love of dallying gently with
+his emotions, getting the best he could out of them.
+
+Suddenly he saw that there was some one on the stone seat by the
+spring, and in a moment he saw that it was Maud--and that she had
+observed him. She looked troubled and melancholy. Had she stolen
+away here, had she even appointed a place of meeting with the
+wretched boy? was she vexed at his intrusion? Well, it would have
+to be faced now. He would go on, he would say a few words, he would
+at least not betray himself. After all, she had done no wrong, poor
+child--she had only found her mate; and she at least should not be
+troubled.
+
+She rose up at his approach; and Howard, affecting a feeble
+heartiness, said, "Well, so you have stolen away like me! This is a
+sweet place, isn't it; like an old fairy-tale, and haunted by a
+Neckan? I won't disturb you--I am going on to the hill--I want a
+breath of air."
+
+Maud looked at him rather pitifully, and said nothing for a moment.
+Then she said, "Won't you stay a little and talk to me?--I don't
+seem to have seen you--there has been so much going on. I want to
+tell you about my book, you know--I am going on with that--I shall
+soon have some more chapters to show you."
+
+She sate down at one end of the bench, and Howard seated himself
+wearily at the other. Maud glanced at him for a moment, but he said
+nothing. The sight of her was a sort of torture to him. He longed
+with an insupportable longing to fling himself down beside her and
+claim her, despairingly and helplessly. He simply could not frame a
+sentence.
+
+"You look tired," said Maud. "I don't know what it is, but it seems
+as if everything had gone wrong since we came to Cambridge. Do tell
+me what it all is--you can trust me. I have been afraid I have
+vexed you somehow, and I had hoped we were going to be friends."
+She leaned her head on her hand, and looked at him. She looked so
+troubled and so frail, that Howard's heart smote him--he must make
+an effort; he must not cloud the child's mind; he must just take
+what she could give him, and not hamper her in any way. The one
+thing left him was a miserable courtesy, on which he must somehow
+depend. He forced a sort of smile, and began to talk--his own voice
+audible to him, strained and ugly, like the voice of some querulous
+ghost.
+
+"Ah," he said, "as one gets older, one can't always command one's
+moods. Vexed? Of course, I am not vexed--what put that into your
+head? It's this--I can tell you so much! It seems to me that I have
+been drawn aside out of my old, easy, serene life, into a new sort
+of life here--and I am not equal to it. I had got so used, I
+suppose, to picking up other lives, that I thought I could do the
+same here--and I seem to have taken on more than I could manage. I
+forgot, I think, that I was getting older, that I had left youth
+behind. I made the mistake of thinking I could play a new role--and
+I cannot. I am tired--yes, I am deadly tired; and I feel now as if
+I wanted to get out of it all, and just leave things to work
+themselves out. I have meddled, and I am being punished for
+meddling. I have been playing with fire, and I have been burnt. I
+had thought of a new sort of life. Don't you remember," he added
+with a smile, "the monkey in Buckland's book, who got into the
+kettle on the hob, and whenever he tried to leave it, found it so
+cold outside, that he dared not venture out--and he was nearly
+boiled alive!"
+
+"No, I DON'T understand," said Maud, with so sudden an air of
+sorrow and unhappiness that Howard could hardly refrain from taking
+her into his arms like a tired child and comforting her. "I don't
+understand at all. You came here, and you fitted in at once, seemed
+to understand everyone and everything, and gave us all a lift. It
+is miserable--that you should have brought so much happiness to us,
+and then have tired of it all. I don't understand it in the least.
+Something must have happened to distress you--it can't all go to
+pieces like this!"
+
+"Oh," said Howard, "I interfered. It is my accursed trick of
+playing with people, wanting to be liked, wanting to make a
+difference. How can I explain? . . . Well, I must tell you. You
+must forgive me somehow! I tried--don't look at me while I say it--
+I have tried to interfere with YOU. I tried to make a friend of
+you; and then when you came to Cambridge, I saw I had claimed too
+much; that your place was not with such as myself--the old, stupid,
+battered generation, fit for nothing but worrying along. I saw you
+were young, and needed youth about you. God forgive me for my
+selfish plans. I wanted to keep your friendship for myself, and
+when I saw you were attracted elsewhere, I was jealous--horribly,
+vilely jealous. But I have the grace to despise myself for it, and
+I won't hamper you in any way. You must just give me what you can,
+and I will be thankful."
+
+As he spoke he saw a curious light pass into the girl's face--a
+light of understanding and resolution. He thought that she would
+tell him that he was right; and he was unutterably thankful to
+think that he had had the courage to speak--he could bear anything
+now.
+
+Suddenly she made a swift gesture, bending down to him. She caught
+his hand in her own, and pressed her lips to it. "Don't you SEE?"
+she said. "Attracted by someone . . . by whom? . . . by that
+wretched little boy? . . . why he amuses me, of course, . . . and
+you would stand aside for that! You have spoken and I must speak.
+Why you are everything, everything, all the world to me. It was
+last Sunday in church . . . do you remember . . . when they said,
+'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth' . . .
+I looked up and caught your eye, and wondered if you DID
+understand. But it is enough--I won't hamper you either. If you
+want to go back to the old life and live it, I won't say a word. I
+will be just your most faithful friend--you will allow that?"
+
+The heaven seemed to open over Howard, and the solid earth reeled
+round him where he sate. It was so, then! He sate for a moment like
+a man stunned, and then opened his eyes on bliss unutterable. She
+was close to him, her breath on his cheek, her eyes full of tears.
+He took her into his arms, and put his lips to hers. "My dearest
+darling child," he said, "are you sure? . . . I can't believe
+it. . . . Oh my sweetest, it can't be true. Why, I have loved you
+with all my soul since that first moment I saw you--indeed it was
+before; and I have thought of nothing else day and night. . . .
+What does it all mean . . . the well of life?"
+
+They sate holding each other close. The whole soul of the girl rose
+to clasp and to greet his, in that blest fusion of life which seems
+to have nothing hidden or held back. She made him tell her over and
+over again the sweet story of his love.
+
+"What COULD I do?" she said. "Why, when I was at Cambridge that
+week, I didn't dare to claim your time and thought. Why CAN'T one
+make oneself understood? Why, my one hope, all that time, was just
+for the minutes I got with you; and yet I thought it wasn't fair
+not to try to seem amused; then I saw you were vexed at something--
+vexed that I should want to talk to you--what a WRETCHED business!"
+
+"Never mind all that now, child," said Howard, "it's a perfect
+nightmare. Why can't one be simple? Why, indeed? and even now, I
+simply can't believe it--oh, the wretched hours when I thought you
+were drifting away from me; do men and women indeed miss their
+chances so? If I had but known! Yet, I must tell you this--when I
+first came to this spring here, I thought it held a beautiful
+secret for me--something which had been in my life from
+everlasting. It was so, and this was what it held for me."
+
+The afternoon sped swiftly away, and the shadow of the western
+downs fell across the pool. An immense and overpowering joy filled
+Howard's heart, and the silent world took part in his ecstasy.
+
+"You remember that first day?" said Maud. "I had felt that day as
+if some one was coming to me from a long way off drawing nearer. . . .
+I saw you drive up in the carriage, and I wondered if we should
+be friends."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "it was you on the lawn--that was when I saw
+you first!"
+
+"And now we must go back and face the music," said Howard. "What do
+you think? How shall we make it all known? I shall tell Aunt Anne
+to-night. I shall be glad to do that, because there has fallen a
+veil between us. Don't forget, dear child, how unutterably wretched
+and intolerable I have been. She tried to help me out, but I was
+running with my head down on the wrong track. Oh, what a miserable
+fool I was! That comes of being so high-minded and superior. If you
+only knew how solemn I have been! Why couldn't I just speak?"
+
+"You might have spoken any time," said Maud. "Why, I would have
+walked barefoot to Dorchester and back to please you! It does seem
+horrible to think of our being apart all that time, out of such
+beautiful consideration--and you were my own, my very own all the
+time, every moment."
+
+"I will come and tell your father to-morrow," said Howard
+presently. "How will Master Jack take it? Will he call you Miss?"
+
+"He may call me what he likes," said Maud. "I shan't get off
+easily."
+
+"Well, we have an evening and a night and a morning for our
+secret," said Howard. "I wish it could be longer. I should like to
+go on for ever like this, no one knowing but you and me."
+
+"Do just as you like, my lord and master," said Maud.
+
+"I won't have you talk like that," said Howard; "you don't know
+what you give me. Was ever anyone in the world so happy before?"
+
+"There's one person who is as happy," said Maud; "you can't guess
+what I feel. Does it sound absurd to say that if you told me to
+stand still while you cut me into little bits, I should enjoy it?"
+
+"I won't forget that," said Howard; "anything to please you--you
+need not mind mentioning any little wishes you may have of that
+kind."
+
+They laughed like children, and when they came to the village, they
+became very ceremonious. At the Vicarage gate they shook hands, and
+Howard raised his hat. "You will have to make up for this dignified
+parting some time," said Howard. "Sleep well, my darling child! If
+you ever wake, you will know that I am thinking of you; not far
+apart! Good-night, my sweet one, my only darling."
+
+Maud put one hand on his shoulder, but did not speak--and then
+slipped in light-footed through the gate. Howard walked back to the
+Manor, through the charmed dusk and the fragrance of hidden
+flowers, full of an almost intolerable happiness, that was akin to
+pain. The evening star hung in liquid, trembling light above the
+dark down, the sky fading to a delicious green, the breeze rustled
+in the heavy-leaved sycamores, and the lights were lit in the
+cottage windows. Did every home, every hearth, he wondered, mean
+THAT? Was THAT present in dim and dumb lives, the spirit of love,
+the inner force of the world? Yes, it was so! That was the secret
+hidden in the Heart of God.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+LOVE AND CERTAINTY
+
+
+
+
+
+The weeks that followed were a time for Howard of very singular
+happiness--happiness of a quality of which he had not thought
+himself capable, and in the very existence of which he was often
+hardly able to believe. He had never known what intimate affection
+was before; and it was strange to him, when he had always been able
+to advance so swiftly in his relations with others to a point of
+frankness and even brotherliness, to discover that there was a
+whole world of emotion beyond that. He was really deeply reserved
+and reticent; but he admitted even comparative strangers so easily
+and courteously to his house of life, that few suspected the
+existence of a secret chamber of thought, with an entrance
+contrived behind the pictured arras, which was the real fortress of
+his inner existence, and where he sate oftenest to contemplate the
+world. That chamber of thought was a place of few beliefs and fewer
+certainties; if he adopted, as he was accustomed to do,
+conventional language and conventional ideas, it was only to feel
+himself in touch with his fellows; for Howard's mind was really a
+place of suspense and doubt; his scepticism went down to the very
+roots of life; his imagination was rich and varied, but he did not
+trust his hopes or even his fears; all that he was certain of was
+just the actual passage of his thought and his emotion; he formed
+no views about the future, and he abandoned the past as one might
+abandon the debris of the mine.
+
+It was delicious to him to be catechised, questioned, explored by
+Maud, to have his reserve broken through and his reticence
+disregarded; but what oftenest brought the great fact of his love
+home to him with an overpowering certainty of joy was the girl's
+eager caresses and endearing gestures. Howard had always curiously
+shrunk from physical contact with his fellows; he had an almost
+childishly observant eye, and his senses were abnormally alert;
+little bodily defects and uglinesses had been a horror to him; and
+the way in which Maud would seek his embrace, clasp his hand, lay
+her cheek to his, as if nestling home, gave him an enraptured sense
+of delight that transcended all experience. He was at first in
+these talks very tender of what he imagined her to believe; but he
+found that this did not in the least satisfy her, and he gradually
+opened his mind more and more to her fearless view.
+
+"Are you certain of nothing?" she asked him one day, half
+mirthfully.
+
+"Yes, of one thing," he said, "of YOU! You are the only real and
+perfect thing and thought in the world to me--I have always been
+alone hitherto," he added, "and you have come near to me out of the
+deep--a shining spirit!"
+
+Howard never tired of questioning her in these days as to how her
+love for him had arisen.
+
+"That is the mystery of mysteries!" he said to her once; "what was
+it in me or about me to make you care?"
+
+Maud laughed. "Why, you might as well ask a man at a shop," she
+said, "which particular coin it was that induced him to part with
+his wares--it's just the price! Why, I cared for you, I think,
+before I ever saw you, before I ever heard of you; one thinks--I
+suppose everyone thinks--that there must be one person in the world
+who is waiting for one--and it seems to me now as if I had always
+known it was you; and then Jack talked about you, and then you
+came; and that was enough, though I didn't dare to think you could
+care for me; and then how miserable I was when you began by seeming
+to take an interest in me, and then it all drifted away, and I
+could do nothing to hold it. Howard, why DID you do that?"
+
+"Oh, don't ask me, darling," he said. "I thought--I thought--I
+don't know what I did think; but I somehow felt it would be like
+putting a bird that had sate to sing to me into a cage, if I tried
+to capture you; and yet I felt it was my only chance. I felt so
+old. Why you must remember that I was a grown-up man and at work,
+when you were in long clothes. And think of the mercy of this--if I
+had come here, as I ought to have done, and had known you as a
+little girl, you would have become a sort of niece to me, and all
+this could never have happened--it would all have been different."
+
+"Well, we won't think of THAT," said Maud decisively. "I was rather
+a horrid little girl, and I am glad you didn't see me in that
+stage!"
+
+One day he found her a little sad, and she confessed to having had
+a melancholy dream. "It was a big place, like a square in a town,
+full of people," she said. "You came down some steps, looking
+unhappy, and went about as if you were looking for me; and I could
+not attract your attention, or get near you; once you passed quite
+close to me and our eyes met, and I saw you did not recognise me,
+but passed on."
+
+Howard laughed. "Why, child," he said, "I can't see anyone else but
+you when we are in the same room together--my faculty of
+observation has deserted me. I see every movement you make, I feel
+every thought you think; you have bewitched me! Your face comes
+between me and my work; you will quite ruin my career. How can I go
+back to my tiresome boys and my old friends?"
+
+"Ah, I don't want to do THAT!" said Maud. "I won't be a hindrance;
+you must just hang me up like a bird in a cage--that's what I am--
+to sing to you when you are at leisure."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE WEDDING
+
+
+
+
+
+The way in which the people at Windlow took the news was very
+characteristic. Howard frankly did not care how they regarded it.
+Mr. Sandys was frankly and hugely delighted. He apologised to
+Howard for having mentioned the subject of Guthrie to him.
+
+"The way you took it, Howard," he said, "was a perfect model of
+delicacy and highmindedness! Why, if I had dreamed that you cared
+for my little girl, I would have said, and truly said, that the
+dearest wish of my heart had been fulfilled. But one is blind, a
+parent is blind; and I had somehow imagined you as too sedate, as
+altogether too much advanced in thought and experience, for such a
+thing. I would rather have bitten out my tongue than spoken as I
+did to you. It is exactly what my dear girl needs, some one who is
+older and wiser than herself--she needs some one to look up to, to
+revere; she is thoughtful and anxious beyond her years, and she is
+made to repose confidence in a mind more mature. I do not deny, of
+course, that your position at Windlow makes the arrangement a still
+more comfortable one; but I have always said that my children must
+marry whom they would; and I should have welcomed you, my dear
+Howard, as a son-in-law, under any circumstances."
+
+Jack, on the contrary, was rather more cautious in his
+congratulations. "I am all for things being fixed up as people
+like," he said, "and I am sure it's a good match for Maud, and all
+that. But I can't put the two ends together. I never supposed that
+you would fall in love, any more than that my father would marry
+again; and when it comes to your falling in love with Maud--well,
+if you knew that girl as I do, you would think twice! I can't
+conceive what you will ever have to talk about, unless you make her
+do essays. It is really rather embarrassing to have a Don for a
+brother-in-law. I feel as if I should have to say 'we' when I
+talked to the other Dons, and I shall be regarded with suspicion by
+the rest of the men. But of course you have my blessing, if you
+will do it; though if you like to cry off, even now, I will try to
+keep the peace. I feel rather an ass to have said that about Fred
+Guthrie; but of course he is hard hit, and I can't think how I
+shall ever be able to look him in the face. What bothers me is that
+I never saw how things were going. Well, may it be long before I
+find myself in the same position! But you are welcome to Missy, if
+you think you can make anything of her."
+
+Mrs. Graves did little more than express her delight. "It was what
+I somehow hoped from the first for both of you," she said.
+
+"Well," said Howard, "the only thing that puzzles me is that when
+you saw--yes, I am sure you saw--what was happening, you didn't
+make a sign."
+
+"No," said Mrs. Graves, "that is just what one can't do! I didn't
+doubt that it would come right, I guessed what Maud felt; but you
+had to find the way to her yourself. I was sure of Maud, you see;
+but I was not quite sure of you. It does not do to try experiments,
+dear Howard, with forces as strong as love; I knew that if I told
+you how things stood, you would have felt bound out of courtesy and
+kindness to speak, and that would have been no good. If it is
+illegal to help a man to commit suicide, it is worse, it is wicked
+to push a man into marriage; but I am a very happy woman now--so
+happy that I am almost afraid."
+
+Howard talked over his plans with Mrs. Graves; there seemed no sort
+of reason to defer his wedding. He told her, too, that he had a
+further plan. There was a system at Beaufort by which, after a
+certain number of years' service, a Fellow could take a year off
+duty, without affecting his seniority or his position. "I am going
+to do this," he said. "I do not think it is unwise. I am too old, I
+think, both to make Maud's acquaintance as I wish, and to keep my
+work going at the same time. It would be impossible. So I will
+settle down here, if you will let me, and try to understand the
+place and the people; and then if it seems well, I will go back to
+Cambridge in October year, and go on with my work. I hope you will
+approve of that?"
+
+"I do entirely approve," said Mrs. Graves. "I will make over to you
+at once what you will in any case ultimately inherit--and I believe
+your young lady is not penniless either? Well, money has its uses
+sometimes."
+
+Howard did this. Mr. Redmayne wrote him a letter in which affection
+and cynicism were curiously mingled.
+
+"There will be two to please now instead of one," he wrote. "I do
+not, of course, approve of Dons marrying. The tender passion is, I
+believe, inimical to solid work; this I judge from observation
+rather than from experience. But you will get over all that when
+you are settled; and then if you decide to return--and we can ill
+spare you--I hope you will return to work in a reasonable frame of
+mind. Pray give my respects to the young lady, and say that if she
+would like a testimonial to your honesty and sobriety, I shall be
+happy to send her one."
+
+All these experiences, shared by Maud, were absurdly delightful to
+Howard. She was rather alarmed by Redmayne's letter.
+
+"I feel as if I were doing rather an awful thing," she said, "in
+taking you away like this. I feel like Hotspur's wife and Enid
+rolled into one. I shouldn't DARE to go with you at once to
+Cambridge--I should feel like a Pomeranian dog on a lead."
+
+And so it came to pass that on a certain Monday in the month of
+September a very quiet little wedding took place at Windlow. The
+bells were rung, and a hideous object of brushwood and bunting,
+that looked like the work of a bower-bird, was erected in the road,
+and called a triumphal arch. Mr. Redmayne insisted on coming, and
+escorted Monica from Cambridge, "without in any way compromising my
+honour and virtue," he said: "it must be plainly understood that I
+have no INTENTIONS." He made a charming speech at the subsequent
+luncheon, in which he said that, though he personally regretted the
+turn that affairs had taken, he could not honestly say that, if
+matrimony were to be regarded as advisable, his friends could have
+done better.
+
+The strange thing to Howard was the contrast between his own acute
+and intolerable nervousness, and the entire and radiant self-
+possession of Maud. He had a bad hour on the morning of the
+wedding-day itself. He had a sort of hideous fear that he had done
+selfishly and perversely, and that it was impossible that Maud
+could really continue to love him; that he had sacrificed her youth
+to his fancy, and his vivid imagination saw himself being wheeled
+in a bath-chair along the Parade of a health-resort, with Maud in
+melancholy attendance.
+
+But when he saw his child enter the church, and look up to catch
+his eye, his fears melted like a vapour on glass; and his love
+seemed to him to pour down in a sudden cataract, too strong for a
+human heart to hold, to meet the exquisite trustfulness and
+sweetness of his bride, who looked as though the gates of heaven
+were ajar. After that he saw and heard nothing but Maud. They went
+off together in the afternoon to a little house in Dorsetshire by a
+lonely sea-cove, which Mr. Sandys had spent many glorious and
+important hours in securing and arranging. It was only an hour's
+journey. If Howard had needed reassuring he had his desire; for as
+they drove away from Windlow among the thin cries of the village
+children, Howard put his arm round Maud, and said "Well, child?"
+upon which she took his other hand in both of her own, and dropping
+her head on his shoulder, said, "Utterly and entirely and
+absolutely proud and happy and content!" And then they sate in
+silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+DISCOVERIES
+
+
+
+
+
+It was a time of wonderful discoveries for Howard, that month spent
+in the little house under the cliff and beside the cove. It was a
+tiny hamlet with half a dozen fishermen's cottages and two or three
+larger houses, holiday-dwellings for rich people; but there was no
+one living there, except a family of children with a governess. The
+house they were in belonged to an artist, and had a big studio in
+which they mostly sate. An elderly woman and her niece were the
+servants, and the life was the simplest that could be imagined.
+Howard felt as if he would have liked it prolonged for ever. They
+brought a few books with them, but did little else except ramble
+through the long afternoons in the silent bays. It was warm, bright
+September weather, still and hazy; and the sight of the dim golden-
+brown promontories, with pale-green grass at the top, stretching
+out one beyond another into the distance, became for Howard a
+symbol of all that was most wonderful and perfect in life.
+
+He could not cease to marvel at the fact that this beautiful young
+creature, full of tenderness and anxious care for others, and with
+love the one pre-occupation of her life, should yield herself thus
+to him with such an entire and happy abandonment. Maud seemed for
+the time to have no will of her own, no thought except to please
+him; he could not get her to express a single preference, and her
+guileless diplomacy to discover what he preferred amused and
+delighted him. At the same time the exploration of Maud's mind and
+thought was an entire surprise to him--there was so much she did
+not know, so many things in the world, which he took for granted,
+of which she had never heard; and yet in many ways he discovered
+that she knew and perceived far more than he did. Her judgment of
+people was penetrating and incisive, and was formed quite
+instinctively, without any apparent reason; she had, too, a
+charming gift of humour, and her affection for her own circle did
+not in the least prevent her from perceiving their absurdities. She
+was not all loyalty and devotion, nor did she pretend to be
+interested in things for which she did not care. There were many
+conventions, which Howard for the first time discovered that he
+himself unconsciously held, which Maud did not think in the least
+important. Howard began to see that he himself had really been a
+somewhat conventional person, with a respect for success and
+position and dignity and influence. He saw that his own chief
+motive had been never to do anything disagreeable or unreasonable
+or original or decisive; he began to see that his unconscious aim
+had been to fit himself without self-assertion into his circle, and
+to make himself unobtrusively necessary to people. Maud had no
+touch of this in her nature at all; her only ambition seemed to be
+to be loved, which was accompanied by what seemed to Howard a
+marvellous incapacity for being shocked by anything; she was wholly
+innocent and ingenuous, but yet he found to his surprise that she
+knew something of the dark corners of life, and the moral problems
+of village life were a matter of course to her. He had naturally
+supposed that a girl would have been fenced round by illusions; but
+it was not so. She had seen and observed and drawn her conclusions.
+She thought very little of what one commonly called sins, and her
+indignation seemed aroused by nothing but cruelty and treachery. It
+became clear to Howard that Mr. Sandys and Mrs. Graves had been
+very wise in the matter, and that Maud had not been brought up in
+any silly ignorance of human frailty. Her religion was equally a
+surprise to him. He had thought that a girl brought up as Maud had
+been would be sure to hold a tissue of accepted beliefs which he
+must be careful not to disturb. But here again she seemed to have
+little but a few fine principles, set in a simple Christian
+framework. They were talking about this one day, and Maud laughed
+at something he said.
+
+"You need not be so cautious," she said, "though I like you to be
+cautious--you are afraid of hurting me; but you won't do that!
+Cousin Anne taught me long ago that it was no use believing
+anything unless you understood more or less where it was leading
+you. It's no good pretending to know. Cousin Anne once said to me
+that one had to choose between science and superstition. I don't
+know anything about science, but I'm not superstitious."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I see--I won't be fussy any more; I will just
+speak as I think. You are wiser than the aged, child! You will have
+to help me out. I am a mass of crusted prejudices, I find; but you
+are melting them all away. What beats me is how you found it all
+out."
+
+Thus the hours they spent together became to Howard not only a
+source of joy, but an extraordinary simplification of everything.
+Maud seemed to have lived an absolutely uncalculating life, without
+any idea of making any position for herself at all; and it sickened
+Howard to think how so much of his own existence had been devoted
+to getting on the right side of people, driving them on a light
+rein, keeping them deftly in his own control. Maud laughed at this
+description of himself, and said, "Yes, but of course that was your
+business. I should have been a very tiresome kind of Don; we don't
+either of us want to punish people, but I want to alter them. I
+can't bear stupid people, I think. I had rather people were clever
+and unsatisfactory than dull and good. If they are dull there's no
+reason for their being good. I like people to have reasons!"
+
+They talked--how often they did that!--about the complications that
+had beset them.
+
+"The one thing I can't make out," said Maud, "is how or why you
+ever thought I cared for that little boy. He was such a nice boy;
+but he had no reasons. Oh, dear, how wretched he made me!"
+
+"Well," said Howard, "I must ask you this--what did really happen
+on that awful afternoon at the Folly?"
+
+Maud covered her face with her hands. "It was too dreadful!" she
+said. "First of all, you were looking like Hamlet--you don't know
+how romantic you looked! I did really believe that you cared for me
+then--I couldn't help it--but there was some veil between us; and
+the number of times I telegraphed from my brain to you that day,
+'Can't you understand?' was beyond counting. I suppose it was very
+unmaidenly, but I was past that. Then there was that horrible
+imitation; such a disgusting parody! and then I was prouder of you
+than ever, because you really took it so well. I was too angry
+after that for anything, and when you went off with father, and
+Monica sketched and Jack lay down and smoked, Freddy Guthrie walked
+off with me, and I said to him, 'I really cannot think how you
+dared to do that--I think it was simply shameful!' Well, he got
+quite white, and he did not attempt to excuse himself; and I
+believe I said that if he did not put it straight with you, I would
+never speak to him again: and then I rather repented; and then he
+began making love to me, and said the sort of things people say in
+books. Howard, I believe that people really do talk like books when
+they get excited--at all events it was like a bad novel! But I was
+very stern--I can be very stern when I am angry--and said I would
+not hear another word, and would go straight back if he said any
+more; and then he said something about wanting to be friends, and
+wanting to have some hope; and then I got suddenly sorry about it
+all--it seemed such a waste of time--and shook hands with him,
+feeling as if I was acting in an absurd play, and said that of
+course we were friends; and I think I insisted again on his
+apologising to you, and he said that I seemed to care more for your
+peace of mind than his; and I simply walked away and he followed,
+and I shouldn't be surprised if he was crying; it was all like a
+nightmare; but I did somehow contrive to make it up with him later,
+and told him that I thought him a very nice boy indeed."
+
+"I daresay that was a great comfort to him," said Howard.
+
+"I meant it to be," said Maud, "but I did not feel I could go on
+acting in a sort of melodrama."
+
+"Now, I am very inquisitive," said Howard, "and you needn't answer
+me if you don't like--but that day that I met you going away from
+Aunt Anne--oh, what a pig I was! I was at the top of my highminded
+game--what had happened then?"
+
+"Of course I will tell you," said Maud, "if you want to know. Well,
+I rather broke down, and said that things had gone wrong; that you
+had begun by being so nice to me, and we seemed to have made
+friends; and that then a cloud had come between us: and then Cousin
+Anne said it would be all right, she KNEW; and she said some things
+about you I won't repeat, to save your modesty; and then she said,
+'Don't be AFRAID, Maud! don't be ashamed of caring for people!
+Howard is used to making friends with boys, and he is puzzled by
+you; he wants a friend like you, but he is afraid of caring for
+people. You are not afraid of him nor he of you, but he is afraid
+of his own fear.' She did not seem to know how I cared, but she put
+it all right somehow; she prayed with me, for courage and patience;
+and I felt I could afford to wait and see what happened."
+
+"And then?" said Howard.
+
+"Why, you know the rest!" said Maud. "I saw as we sate by the wall,
+in a flash, that you did indeed care for me, and I thought to
+myself, 'Here is the best thing in the world, and we can't be going
+to miss it out of politeness;' and then it was all over in a
+moment!"
+
+"Politeness!" said Howard, "yes, it was all politeness; that's my
+greatest sin. Yes," he added, "I do thank God with all my heart for
+your sweet courage that day!" He drew Maud's hand into his own, as
+they sate together on the grass just above the shingle of the
+little bay, where the sea broke on the sands with crisp wavelets,
+and ran like a fine sheet of glass over the beach. "Look at this
+little hand," he said, "and let me try to believe that it is given
+me of its own will and desire!"
+
+"Yes," said Maud, smiling, "and you may cut it off at the wrist if
+you like--I won't even wince. I have no further use for it, I
+believe!" Howard folded it to his heart, and felt the little pulse
+beat in the slender wrist; and presently the sun went down, a ball
+of fire into the opalescent sea-line.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+THE NEW KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+
+
+
+But the weeks which followed Howard's marriage were a great deal
+more than a refreshing discovery of companionable and even
+unexpected qualities. There was something which came to him, of
+which the words, the gestures, the signs of love seemed like faint
+symbols; the essence of it was obscure to him; it reminded him of
+how, as a child, a laughing group of which he was one had joined
+hands to receive a galvanic shock; the circle had dislinked again
+in a moment, with cries of surprise and pleasure; but to Howard it
+had meant much more than that; the current gave him a sense of
+awful force and potency, the potency of death. What was this
+strange and fearful essence which could pass instantaneously
+through a group--swifter even than thought--and leave the nerves
+for a moment paralysed and tingling? Even so it was with him now.
+What was happening to him he did not know--some vast and cloudy
+presence, at which he could not even dare to look, seemed winging
+its way overhead, the passage of which he could only dimly discern,
+as a man might discern the flight of an eagle in a breeze-ruffled
+mountain pool.
+
+He had come in contact with a force of incalculable energy and joy,
+which was different, not in degree but in kind, from all previous
+emotional experiences. He understood for the first time the meaning
+of words like "mystical" and "spiritual," words which he had
+hitherto almost derided as unintelligent descriptions of subjective
+impressions. He had thought them to be terms expressive of vague
+and even muddled emotions of which scientific psychology would
+probably dispose. It was a new element and a new force, of which he
+felt overwhelmingly certain, though he could offer no proof,
+tangible or audible, of its existence. He had before always
+demanded that anyone who attempted to uphold the existence of any
+psychic force should at the same time offer an experimental test of
+its actuality. But he was here faced with an experience
+transcendental and subjective, of which he could give no account
+that would not sound like some imaginative exaggeration. He was not
+even sure that Maud felt it, or rather he suspected that the
+experience of wedded love was to her the heightening and
+emphasizing of something which she had always known.
+
+The essence of it was that it was like the inrush of some moving
+tide through an open sluice-gate. Till then it seemed to him that
+his emotions had been tranquilly discharging themselves, like the
+water which drips from the edge of a fountain basin; that now
+something stronger and larger seemed to flow back upon him,
+something external and prodigious, which at the same time seemed,
+not only to invade and permeate his thought but to become one with
+himself; that was the wonder; it did not seem to him like something
+added to his spirit, but as though his soul were enlarged and
+revived by a force which was his own all the time, an unclaimed,
+unperceived part of himself.
+
+He said something of this to Maud, speaking of the happiness that
+she had brought him. She said, "Ah, you can't expect me to realise
+that! I feel as though you were giving everything and receiving
+nothing, as if I were one more of the duties you had adopted. Of
+course, I hope that I may be of some use, some time; but I feel at
+present as if you had been striding on your way somewhere, and had
+turned aside to comfort and help a little child by the roadside who
+had lost his way!"
+
+"Oh," said Howard, "it's not that; it isn't only that you are the
+joy and light of my life; it is as if something very far away and
+powerful had come nearer to both of us, and had lifted us on its
+wings--what if it were God?"
+
+"Yes," said Maud musingly, "I think it is that!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+LOVE IS ENOUGH
+
+
+
+
+
+The days slipped past, one by one, with an incredible swiftness.
+For the first time in his life Howard experienced the extraordinary
+sensation of having nothing to do, no plans ahead, nothing but the
+delight of the hour to taste. One day he said to Maud, "It seems
+almost wicked to be so deliciously idle--some day I suppose we must
+make some plans. But I do not seem ever to have lived before; and
+all that I ever did and thought of seems as small and trivial as a
+little town seen from the top of a tower--one can't conceive what
+the little creatures are about in their tiny slits of streets and
+stuffy houses, crawling about like beetles on some ridiculous
+business. The first thing I shall do when I get back will be to
+burn my old book; such wretched, stodgy, unenlightened stuff as it
+all is; like the fancies of a blind man about the view of a
+landscape."
+
+"Oh no, you mustn't do that," said Maud. "I have set my heart on
+your writing a great book. You must do that--you must finish this
+one. I am not going to keep you all to myself, like a man pushing
+about a perambulator."
+
+"Well, I will begin a new book," said Howard, "and steal an old
+title. It shall be called Love is Enough."
+
+On the last night before they left the cottage they talked long
+about things past, present, and to come.
+
+"Now," said Maud, "I am not going to be a gushing and sentimental
+young bride any more. I am not sentimental, best-beloved! Do you
+believe that? The time we have had here together has been the best
+and sweetest time of my whole life, every minute worth all the
+years that went before. But you must write that down, as Dr.
+Johnson said, in the first page of your pocket-book, and never
+speak of it again. It's all too good and too sacred to talk about--
+almost to think about. And I don't believe in looking BACK, Howard--
+nor very much, I think, in looking forward. I know that I wasted
+ever so much time and energy as a girl--how long ago that seems!--
+in wishing I had done this and that; but it's neither useful nor
+pleasant. Now we have got things to do. There is plenty to do at
+Windlow for a little for you and me. We have got to know everybody
+and understand everybody. And I think that when the year is out, we
+must go back to Cambridge. I can't bear to think I have stopped
+that. I am not going to hoard you, and cling round you. You have
+got things to do for other people, young men in particular, which
+no one else can do just like you. I am not a bit ambitious. I don't
+want you to be M.P., LL.D., F.R.S., &c., &c., &c., but I do want
+you to do things, and to help you to do things. I don't want to be
+a sort of tea-table Egeria to the young men--I don't mean that--and
+I don't wish to be an interesting and radiant object at dinner-
+tables; but I am sure there is trouble I can save you, and I don't
+intend you to have any worries except your own. I won't smudge my
+fingers over the accounts, like that wretched Dora in David
+Copperfield. Understand that, Howard; I won't be your girl-bride. I
+won't promise that I won't wear spectacles and be dowdy--anything
+to be prosaic!"
+
+"You may adorn yourself as you please," said Howard, "and of
+course, dearest child, there are hundreds of things you can do for
+me. I am the feeblest of managers; I live from hand to mouth; but I
+am not going to submerge you either. If you won't be the girl-
+bride, you are not to be the professional sunbeam either. You are
+to be just yourself, the one real, sweet, and perfect thing in the
+world for me. Chaire kecharitoenae--do you know what that means? It
+was the angel's opinion long ago of a very simple mortal. We shall
+affect each other, sure enough, as the days go on. Why what you have
+done for me already, I dare hardly think--you have made a man out
+of a machine--but we won't go about trying to revise each other;
+that will take care of itself. I only want you as you are--the best
+thing in the world."
+
+The last morning at Lydstone they were very silent; they took one
+long walk together, visiting all the places where they had sate and
+lingered. Then in the afternoon they drove away. The old
+maidservant gave them, with almost tearful apologies, two little
+ill-tied posies of flowers, and Maud kissed her, thanked her, made
+her promise to write. As they drove away Maud waved her hand to the
+little cove--"Good-bye, Paradise!" she said.
+
+"No," said Howard, "don't say that; the swallow doesn't make the
+summer; and I am carrying the summer away with me."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE NEW LIFE
+
+
+
+
+
+The installation at Windlow seemed as natural and obvious as any
+other of the wonderful steps of Howard's new life. The only thing
+which bothered him was the incursions of callers, to which his
+marriage seemed to have rendered the house liable. Howard loved
+monotony, and in the little Windlow party he found everything that
+he desired. At first it all rather amused him, because he felt as
+though he were acting in a charming and absurd play, and he was
+delighted to see Maud act her wedded part. Mrs. Graves frankly
+enjoyed seeing people of any sort or kind. But Howard gradually
+began to find that the arrival of county and clerical neighbours
+was a really tiresome thing. Local gossip was unintelligible to him
+and did not interest him. Moreover, the necessity of going out to
+luncheon, and even to dinner, bored him horribly. He said once
+rather pettishly to Maud, after a week of constant interruptions
+and little engagements, that he hoped that this sort of thing would
+not continue.
+
+"It seems to knock everything on the head," he went on; "these
+country idylls are all very well in their way; but when it comes to
+entertaining parties day by day, who 'sit simply chatting in a
+rustic row,' it becomes intolerable. It doesn't MEAN anything; one
+can't get to know these people; if there is anything to know, they
+seem to think it polite to conceal it; it can't be a duty to waste
+all the time that this takes up?"
+
+Maud laughed and said, "Oh, you must forgive them; they haven't
+much to do or talk about, and you are a great excitement; and you
+are really very good to them!"
+
+Howard made a grimace. "It's my wretched habit of civility!" he
+said. "But really, Maud, you can't LIKE them?"
+
+"Yes, I believe I do," said Maud. "But then I am more or less used
+to the kind of thing. I like people, I think!"
+
+"Yes, so do I, in a sort of way," said Howard; "but, really, with
+some of these caravans it is more like having a flock of sheep in
+the place!"
+
+"Well, I like SHEEP, then," said Maud; "I don't really see how we
+can stop it."
+
+"I suppose it's the seamy side of marriage!" said Howard.
+
+Maud looked at him for a moment, and then, getting up from her
+chair and coming across to him, she put her hands on his shoulders
+and looked in his face.
+
+"Are you VEXED?" she said in rather a tragic tone.
+
+"No, of course, not vexed," said Howard, catching her round the
+waist. "What an idea! I am only jealous of everything which seems
+to come in between us, and I have seemed to see you lately through
+a mist of oddly dressed females. It's a system, I suppose, a social
+system, to enable people to waste their time. I feel as if I had
+got caught in a sort of glue--wading in glue. One ought to live
+life, or the best part of it, on one's own lines. I feel as if I
+was on show just now, and it's a nuisance."
+
+"Well," said Maud, "I am afraid I do rather like showing you off
+and feeling grand; but it won't go on for ever. I'll try to
+contrive something. I don't see why you need be drawn in. I'll talk
+to Cousin Anne about it."
+
+"But I am not going to mope alone," said Howard. "Where thou goest,
+I will go. I can't bear to let you out of my sight, you little
+witch! But I feel it is casting pearls before swine--your pearls, I
+mean."
+
+"I don't see what to do," said Maud, looking rather troubled. "I
+ought to have seen that you hated it."
+
+"No, it's my own stupid fault," said Howard. "You are right, and I
+am wrong. I see it is my business at present to go about like a
+dancing bear, and I'll dance, I'll dance! It's priggish to think
+about wasting one's sweetness. What I really feel is this. 'Here's
+an hour,' I say, 'when I might have had Maud all to myself, and she
+and I have been talking about the weather to a pack of unoccupied
+females.'"
+
+"Something comes of it," said Maud. "I don't know what it is, but
+it's a kind of chain. I don't think it matters much what they talk
+about, but there is a sort of kindness about it which I like--
+something which lies behind ideas. These people don't say anything,
+but they think something into one--it's alive, and it moves."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Howard, "it's alive, no doubt. It would amuse me a
+good deal to see these people at home, if I could just be hidden in
+the curtains, and hear what they really talked about, and what they
+really felt. It's when they have their armour on that they bore me.
+It is not a pretty armour, and they don't wear it well; they don't
+fight in it--they only wear it that you mayn't touch them. If they
+would give themselves away and talk like Miss Bates, I could stand
+it."
+
+"Well," said Maud, "I am going to say something rather bold. It
+comes, I think, of living at Cambridge with clever people, and
+having real things to talk about, that makes your difficulty. You
+care about people's minds more than about themselves, perhaps? But
+I'm on their level, and they seem to me to be telling something
+about themselves all the time. Of course it must be GHASTLY for
+you, and we will try to arrange things better."
+
+"No, dearest, you won't, and you mustn't," said Howard. "That's the
+best of marriage, that one does get a glimpse into different
+things. You are perfectly and entirely right. It simply means that
+I can't talk their language, and I will learn it. I am a prig; your
+husband is a prig--but he will try to do better. It isn't a duty,
+and it isn't a pleasure, and it isn't a question of minds at all.
+It is just living life on ordinary terms. I won't have anything
+different at all. I'm ashamed of myself for my moans. When I have
+anything in the way of work to do, it may be different. But now I
+see what I have to do. I am suffering from the stupidity of so-
+called clever people; and you mustn't mind it. Only don't, for
+Heaven's sake, try to contrive, or to spare me things. That is how
+the ugly paterfamilias is made. You mustn't spoil me or manage me;
+if I ever suspect you of doing that, I'll just go back to Cambridge
+alone. I hate even to have made you look at me as you did just now--
+you must forgive me that and many other things; and now you must
+promise just this, that if I am snappish you won't give way; you
+must not become a slipper-warmer."
+
+"Yes, yes, I promise," said Maud, laughing; "here's my hand on it!
+You shall be diligently henpecked. But I am always rather puzzled
+about these things; all these old ideas about mutual consolation
+and advice and improvement and support ought to be THERE--they all
+mean something--they mean a great deal! But the moment they are
+spoken about, or even thought about, they seem so stuffy and
+disgusting. I don't understand it! I feel that one ought to be able
+to talk plainly about anything; and yet the more plainly you talk
+about such things as these, the more hateful you are, and the
+meaner you feel!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE VICAR'S VIEW
+
+
+
+
+
+Another small factor which caused Howard some discomfort was the
+conversation of the Vicar. This, at the first sight of Windlow, had
+been one of the salient features of the scene. It had been amusing
+to see the current of a human mind running so frankly open to
+inspection; and, moreover, the Vicar's constantly expressed
+deference for the exalted quality of Howard's mind and intellectual
+outfit, though it had not been seriously regarded, had at least an
+emollient effect. But it is one thing to sit and look on at a play
+and to be entertained by the comic relief of some voluble
+character, and quite another to encounter that volubility at full
+pressure in private life. There was a certain charm at first in the
+Vicar's inconsequence and volatility; but in daily intercourse the
+good man's lack of proportion, his indiscriminate interest in
+things in general, proved decidedly fatiguing. Given a crisis, and
+the Vicar's view was interesting, because it was, as a rule,
+exactly the view which the average man would be likely to take,
+melodramatic, sentimental, commonplace, with this difference, that
+whereas the average man is tongue-tied and has no faculty of
+expression, the Vicar had an extraordinarily rich and emphatic
+vocabulary; and it was thus an artistic presentment of the ordinary
+standpoint. But in daily life the Vicar talked with impregnable
+continuity about any subject in which he happened to be interested.
+He listened to no comment; he demanded no criticism. If he
+conversed about his parishioners or his fellow-parsons or his
+country neighbours, it was not uninteresting; but when it was
+genealogy or folklore or prehistoric remains, it was merely a
+tissue of scraps, clawed out of books and imperfectly remembered.
+Howard found himself respecting the Vicar more and more; he was so
+kindly, so unworldly, so full of perfectly guileless satisfaction:
+he was conscious too of his own irrepressibility. He said to Howard
+one day, as they were walking together, "Do you know, Howard, I
+often think how many blessings you have brought us--I assure you,
+quiet and modest as you are, you are felt, your influence permeates
+to the very ends of the parish; I cannot exactly say what it is,
+but there's a sense of something that has to be dealt with, to be
+reckoned with, a mind of force and energy in the background; your
+approval is valued, your disapproval is feared. There is a
+consciousness, not perhaps expressed or even actually realised, of
+condescension, of gratification at one from so different a sphere
+coming among us, sharing our problems, offering us, however
+unobtrusively, sympathy and fellow-feeling. It's very human, very
+human," said the Vicar, "and that's a large word! But among all the
+blessings which I say you have brought us, of course my dear girl's
+happiness must come first in my regard; and there I hardly know how
+to express what a marvellous difference you have made! And then I
+feel that I, too, have come in for some crumbs from the feast, like
+the dogs under the table mentioned so eloquently in Scripture--
+sustenance unregarded and unvalued, no doubt, by yourself--cast out
+inevitably and naturally as light from the sun! It is not only the
+actual dicta," said the Vicar, "though these alone are deeply
+treasured; it's the method of thought, the reserve, the refinement,
+which I find insensibly affecting my own mental processes. Before I
+was a mere collector of details. Now I find myself saying, 'What is
+the aim of all this? What is the synthesis? Where does it come in?
+Where does it tend to?' I have not as yet found any very definite
+answer to these self-questionings, but the new spirit, the
+synthetic spirit, is there; and I find myself too concentrating my
+expression; I have become conscious in your presence of a certain
+diffuseness of talk--I used, I think, to indulge much in synonyms
+and parallel clauses--a characteristic, I have seen it said, of our
+immortal Shakespeare himself--but I have found myself lately
+considering the aim, the effect, the form of my utterances, and
+have practised--mainly in my sermons--a certain economy of
+language, which I hope has been perceptible to other minds besides
+my own."
+
+"I always think your sermons very good," said Howard, quite
+sincerely; "they seem to me arrows deliberately aimed at a definite
+target--they have the grace of congruity, as the articles say."
+
+"You are very good," said the Vicar. "I am really overwhelmed; but
+I must admit that your presence--the mere chance of your presence--
+has made me exercise an unwonted caution, and indeed introduce now
+and then an idea which is perhaps rather above the comprehension of
+my flock!"
+
+"But may I go back for one moment?" said Howard. "You will forgive
+my asking this--but what you said just now about Maud interested me
+very much, and of course pleased me enormously. I would do anything
+I could to make her happy in any way--I wish you would tell me how
+and in what you think her more content. I want to learn all I can
+about her earlier days--you must remember that all that is unknown
+to me. Won't you exercise your powers of analysis for my benefit?"
+
+"You are very kind," said the Vicar in high delight; "let me see,
+let me see! Well, dear Maud as a girl had always a very high and
+anxious sense of responsibility and duty. She conceived of herself--
+perhaps owing to some chance expressions of my own--as bound as
+far as possible to fill the place of her dear mother--a gap, of
+course, that it was impossible to fill,--my own pursuits are, you
+will realise, mere distractions, or, to be frank, were originally
+so designed, to combat my sense of loss. But I am personally not a
+man who makes a morbid demand for sympathy--I have little use for
+sympathy. I face my troubles alone; I suffer alone," said the Vicar
+with an incredible relish. "And then Jack is an independent boy,
+and has no taste for being dominated. So that I fear that dear
+Maud's most touching efforts hardly fell on very responsive soil.
+She felt, I think, the failure of her efforts; and kind as Cousin
+Anne is, there is, I think, a certain vagueness of outline about
+her mind. I would not call her a fatalist, but she has little
+conception of the possibility of moulding character;--it's a rich
+mind, but perhaps an indecisive mind? Maud needed a vocation--she
+needed an aim. And then, too, you have perhaps observed--or
+possibly," said the Vicar gleefully, "she has effaced that
+characteristic out of deference to your own great power of amiable
+toleration--but she had a certain incisiveness of speech which had
+some power to wound? I will give you a small instance. Gibbs, the
+schoolmaster, is a very worthy man, but he has a certain
+flightiness of manner and disposition. Dear Maud, talking about him
+one day at our luncheon-table, said that one read in books how some
+people had to struggle with some underlying beast in their
+constitution, the voracious man, let us say, with the pig-like
+element, the cruel man with the tiger-like quality. 'Mr. Gibbs,'
+she said, 'seems to me to be struggling not with a beast, but with
+a bird.' She went on very amusingly to say that he reminded her of
+a wagtail, tripping along with very short steps, and only saved by
+adroitness from overbalancing. It was a clever description of poor
+Gibbs--but I felt it somehow to be indiscreet. Well, you know, poor
+Gibbs came to me a few days later--you realise how gossip spreads
+in these places--and said that he was hurt in his mind to think
+that Miss Maud should call him a water-wagtail. Servants' tattle, I
+suppose. I was considerably annoyed at this, and Maud insisted on
+going to apologise to Gibbs, which was a matter of some delicacy,
+because she could not deny that she had applied the soubriquet--or
+is it sobriquet?--to him. That is just a minute instance of the
+sort of thing I mean."
+
+"I confess," said Howard, "that I do recognise Maud's touch--she
+has a strong sense of humour."
+
+"A somewhat dangerous thing," said Mr. Sandys. "I have a very
+strong sense of humour myself, or rather what might be called
+risibility. No one enjoys a witty story or a laughable incident
+more than I do. But I keep it in check. The indulgence of humour is
+a risky thing; not very consistent with the pastoral office. But
+that is a small point; and what I am leading up to is this, that
+dear Maud's restlessness, and even morbidity, has entirely
+disappeared; and this, my dear Howard, I attribute entirely to your
+kind influence and discretion, of which we are all so conscious,
+and to the consciousness of which it is so pleasant to be able to
+give leisurely expression."
+
+But the Vicar was not always so fruitful a talker as this. The
+difficulty with him was to shift the points. There were long walks
+in Mr. Sandys' company which were really of an almost nightmare
+quality. He had a way of getting into a genealogical mess, in which
+he used to say that it cleared the air to be able to state the
+difficulties.
+
+Howard used to grumble a little over this to Mrs. Graves. "Yes,"
+she said, "if Frank were not so really unselfish a man, he would be
+a bore of purest ray serene; but his humanity breaks through. I
+made a compact with him long ago, and told him plainly that there
+were certain subjects he must not talk to me about. I suppose you
+couldn't do that?"
+
+"No," said Howard, "I can't do that. It's my greatest weakness, I
+believe, that I can't say a good-natured decisive thing, until I am
+really brought to bay--and then I say much more than I need, and
+not at all good-naturedly. I must get what fun out of Frank I can.
+There's a good deal sprinkled about; and one comfort is that Maud
+understands."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "she understands! I know no one who sees
+weaknesses in so absolutely clear a light as Maud, and who can at
+the same time so wholly neglect them in the light of love."
+
+"That's good news for me," said Howard, "and it is absolutely
+true."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+THE CHILD
+
+
+
+
+
+The day on which Howard learned that Maud would bear him a child
+was a day of very strangely mixed emotions. He saw how the hope
+dawned on the spirit of Maud like the rising of a star, and he
+could rejoice in that with whole-hearted joy, in the mere sharing
+of a beautiful secret; but it was strange to him to see how to Maud
+it seemed like the realisation and fulfilling of all desire, the
+entering into a kingdom; it was not only the satisfaction of all
+the deepest vital processes, but something glorious, unthinkable,
+the crowning of destiny, the summit of life. There was no reasoning
+about it; it was the purest and finest instinct. But with Howard it
+was not thus. He could not look beyond Maud; and it seemed to him
+like the dawning of a new influence, a new fealty, which would
+almost come in between him and his wife, a division of her
+affections. She seemed to him, in the few tremulous words they
+spoke, to have her eyes fixed on something beyond him; it was not
+so much a gift that she was bringing him as a claim of further
+devotion. He realised with a shock of surprise that in the books he
+had read, in the imagined crises of life, the thought of the child,
+the heir, the offshoot, was supposed to come as the crown of
+father's and mother's hopes alike, and that it was not so with him.
+Was he jealous of the new claim? It was something like that. He
+found himself resolving and determining that no hint of this should
+ever escape him; he even felt deeply ashamed that such a thought
+should even have crossed his mind. He ought rather to rejoice
+wholly and completely in Maud's happiness; but he desired her
+alone, and so passionately that he could not bear to have any part
+of the current of her soul diverted from him. As he looked forward
+through the years, it was Maud and himself, in scene after scene;
+other relations, other influences, other surroundings might fade
+and decay--but children, however beautiful and delightful, making
+the house glad with life and laughter, he was not sure that he
+wanted them. Yet he had always thought that he possessed a strong
+paternal instinct, an interest in young life, in opening problems.
+Had that all, he wondered, been a mere interest, a thing to
+exercise his energy and amiability upon, and had his enjoyment of
+it all depended upon his real detachment, upon the fact that his
+responsibility was only a temporary one? It was all very
+bewildering to him. Moreover, his quiet and fertile imagination
+flashed suddenly through pictures of what his beloved Maud might
+have to endure, such a frail child as she was--illness,
+wretchedness, suffering. Would he be equal to all that? Could he
+play the role of tranquil patience, of comforting sympathy? He
+determined not to anticipate that, but it blew like a cold wind on
+his spirit; he could not bear that the sunshine of life should be
+clouded.
+
+He had a talk with his aunt on the subject; she had divined, in
+some marvellous way, the fact that the news had disturbed him; and
+she said, "Of course, dear Howard, I quite understand that this is
+not the same thing to you as it is to Maud and me. It is one of the
+things which divide, and must always divide, men from women. But
+there is something beyond what you see: I know that it must seem to
+you as if something almost disconcerting had passed over life--as
+if such a hope must absorb the heart of a mother; but there is a
+thing you cannot know, and that is the infinite dearness in which
+this involves you. You would think perhaps that it could not be
+increased in Maud's case, but it is increased a hundredfold--it is
+a splendour, a worship, as of divine creative power. Don't be
+afraid! Don't look forward! You will see day by day that this has
+brought Maud's love for you to a point of which you could hardly
+dream. Words can't touch these things: you must just believe me
+that it is so. You will think that a childless wife like myself
+cannot know this. There is a strange joy even in childlessness, but
+it is the joy that comes from the sharing of a sorrow; but the joy
+which comes from sharing a joy is higher yet."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I know it, and I believe it. I will tell you
+very frankly that you have looked into my very heart; but you have
+not seen quite into the depths: I see my own weakness and
+selfishness clearly. With every part of my mind and reason I see
+the wonder and strength of this; and I shall feel it presently.
+What has shocked me is just my lack of the truer instinct; but
+then," he added, smiling, "that's just the shadow of comfort and
+ease and the intellectual life: one goes so far on one's way
+without stumbling across these big emotions; and when one does
+actually meet them, one is frightened at their size and strength.
+You must advise and help me. You know, I am sure, that my love for
+Maud is the strongest, largest, purest thing, beyond all comparison
+and belief, that has ever happened to me. I am never for a single
+instant unaware of it. I sometimes think there is nothing else left
+of me; and then this happens, and I see that I have not gone deep
+enough yet."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, smiling, "life is like the sea, I think.
+When one is a child, it is just a great plain of waters, with
+little ships sailing on it: it is pleasant to play by, with
+breaking waves to wade in, and little treasures thrown up on its
+rim; then, as one knows more, one realises that it is another
+world, full of its own urgent life, quite regardless of man, and
+over which man has no power, except by a little trickery in places.
+Man is just a tiresome, far-off incident, his ships like little
+moving shadows, his nets and lines like small fretful devices. But
+the old wise monsters of the depths live their own lives; never
+seen perhaps, or even suspected, by men. That's all very silly and
+fanciful, of course! But old and invalided as I am, I seem to be
+diving deeper and deeper into life, and finding it full of
+surprises and mysteries and utterly unexpected things."
+
+"Well," said Howard, "I am still a child on the shore, picking up
+shells, fishing in the shallows. But I have learned something of
+late, and it is wonderful beyond thought--so wonderful that I feel
+sometimes as if I was dreaming, and should wake up to find myself
+in some other century!"
+
+It did indeed soon dawn upon Howard that there was a change in
+Maud, that their relations had somehow altered and deepened. The
+little barrier of age, for one thing, which he had sometimes felt,
+seemed obliterated. There had been in Howard's mind a sense that he
+had known a number of hard facts and ugly features about life, had
+been aware of mean, combative, fierce, cruel elements which were
+hidden from Maud. Now this all seemed to be purged away; if these
+things were there, they were not worth knowing, except to be
+disregarded. They were base material knowledge which one must not
+even recognise; they were not real forces at all, only ugly,
+stubborn obstacles, through which life must pass, like water
+flowing among rocks; they were not life, only the channel of life,
+through which one passed to something more free and generous. He
+began to perceive that such things mattered nothing at all to Maud;
+that her life would have been just as fine in quality if she had
+lived in the smallest cottage among the most sordid cares. He saw
+that she possessed the wisdom which he had missed, because she
+lived in and for emotion and affection, and that all material
+things existed only to enshrine and subserve emotion.
+
+Their life seemed to take on a new colour and intensity. They
+talked less; up till now it had been a perpetual delight to Howard
+to elicit Maud's thoughts and fancies about a thousand things,
+about books, people, ideas. Her prejudices, ignorances, enthusiasms
+half charmed, half amused him. But now they could sit or walk
+silent together in an even more tranquil happiness; nearness was
+enough, and thought seemed to pass between them without need of
+speech. Howard began to resume his work; it was enough that Maud
+should sit by, reading, working, writing. A glance would pass
+between them and suffice.
+
+One day Howard laid down his pen, and looking up, having finished a
+chapter, saw that Maud's eyes were fixed upon him with an anxious
+intentness. She was sitting in a low chair near the fire, and an
+open book lay disregarded on her knee. He went across to her and
+sat down on a low chair beside her, taking her hand in his.
+
+"What is it, dear child?" he said. "Am I very selfish and stupid to
+sit here without a word like this?"
+
+Maud put her lips to his hand, and laughed a contented laugh. "Oh
+no, no," she said; "I like to see you hard at work--there seems no
+need to say anything--it's just you and me!"
+
+"Well," said Howard, "you must just tell me what you were thinking--
+you had travelled a long way beyond that."
+
+"Not out of your reach," said Maud; "I was just thinking how
+different men and women were, and how I liked you to be different.
+I was remembering how awfully mysterious you were at first--so full
+to the brim of strange things which I could not fathom. I always
+seemed to be dislodging something I had never thought of. I used to
+wonder how you could find time, in the middle of it all, to care
+about me: you were always giving me something. But now it has all
+grown so much simpler and more wonderful too. It's like what you
+said about Cambridge long ago, the dark secret doorways, the hidden
+gardens; I see now that all those ideas and thoughts are only
+things you are carrying with you, like luggage. They are not part
+of you at all. Don't you know how, when one is quite a child, a
+person's house seems to be all a mysterious part of himself? One
+thinks he has chosen and arranged it all, knows where everything is
+and what it means--everything seems to be a sort of deliberate
+expression of his tastes and ideas--and, then one gets older, and
+finds out that people don't know what is in their houses at all--
+there are rooms into which they never go; and then one finds that
+they don't even see the things in their own rooms, have forgotten
+how they came there, wouldn't know if they were taken away. My, I
+used to feel as if the scents and smells of houses were all
+arranged and chosen by their owners. It's like that with you; all
+the things you know and remember, the words you speak, are not YOU
+at all; I see and feel you now apart from all that."
+
+"I am afraid I have lost what novelists call my glamour," said
+Howard. "You have found me out, the poor, shivering, timid thing
+that sits like a wizard in the middle of his properties, only
+hoping that the stuffed crocodile and the skeleton will frighten
+his visitors."
+
+Maud laughed. "Well, I am not frightened any more," she said. "I
+doubt if you could frighten me if you tried. I wonder how I should
+feel if I saw you angry or chilly. Are you ever angry, I wonder?"
+
+"I think some of my pupils would say that I could be very
+disagreeable," said Howard. "I don't think that I was ever very
+fierce, but I have realised that I was on occasions very
+unpleasant."
+
+"Well, I'll wait and see," said Maud; "but what I was going to say
+was that you seem to me different--hardly the person I married. I
+used to wonder a little at first how I had had the impudence . . .
+and then I used to think that perhaps some day you would wake up,
+and find you had come to the bottom of the well, but you never
+seemed disappointed."
+
+"Disappointed!" said Howard; "what terrible rubbish! Why Maud,
+don't you KNOW what you have done for me? You have put the whole
+thing straight. It's just that. I was full of vanities and thoughts
+and bits of knowledge, and I really think I thought them important--
+they ARE important too, like food and drink--one must have them--
+at least men must--but they don't matter; at least it doesn't
+matter what they are. Men have always to be making and doing
+things--business, money, positions, duties; but the point is to
+know that they are unimportant, and yet to go on doing them as if
+they mattered--one must do that--seriously and not solemnly; but
+you have somehow put all that in the right place; and I know now
+what matters and what does not. There, do you call that nothing?"
+
+"Perhaps we have found it out together," said Maud; "the only
+difference is that you have the courage to tell me that you were
+wrong, while I have never even dared to tell you what a hollow sham
+I am, and what a mean and peevish child I was before you came on
+the scene."
+
+"Well, we won't look into your dark past," said Howard. "I am quite
+content with what they call the net result!" and then they sate
+together in silence, and had no further need of words.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+CAMBRIDGE AGAIN
+
+
+
+
+
+Howard was summoned to Cambridge in June for a College meeting. He
+was very glad to see Cambridge and the familiar faces; but he had
+not been parted from Maud for a day since their marriage, and he
+was rather amazed to find, not that he missed her, but how
+continuously he missed her from moment to moment; the fact that he
+could not compare notes with her about every incident seemed to rob
+the incidents of their savour, and to produce a curious hampering
+of his thoughts. A change, too, seemed to have passed over the
+College; his rooms were just as he had left them, but everything
+seemed to have narrowed and contracted. He saw a great many of the
+undergraduates, and indeed was delighted to find how they came in
+to see him.
+
+Guthrie was one of the first to arrive, and Howard was glad to meet
+him alone. Howard was sorry to see that the cheerful youth had
+evidently been feeling acutely what had happened; he had not lost
+his spirits, but he had a rather worn aspect. He inquired about the
+Windlow party, and they talked of indifferent things; but when
+Guthrie rose to go, he said, speaking with great diffidence, "I
+wanted to say one thing to you, and now I do not know how to
+express it; it is that I don't want you to think I feel in any way
+aggrieved--that would be simply absurd--but more than that, I want
+to say that I think you behaved quite splendidly at Windlow--really
+splendidly! I hope you don't think it is impertinent for me to say
+that, but I want you to know how grateful I am to you--Jack told me
+what had happened--and I thought that if I said nothing, you might
+feel uncomfortable. Please don't feel anything of the kind--I only
+wish with all my heart that I could think I could behave as you did
+if I had been in your place, and I want to be friends."
+
+"Yes indeed," said Howard, "I think it is awfully good of you to
+speak about it. You won't expect me," he added, smiling, "to say
+that I wish it had turned out otherwise; but I do hope you will be
+happy, with all my heart; and you will know that you will have a
+real welcome at Windlow if ever you care to come there."
+
+The young man shook hands in silence with Howard, and went out with
+a smile. "Oh, I shall be all right," he said.
+
+Jack sate up late with Howard and treated him to a long grumble.
+
+"I do hope to goodness you will come back to Cambridge," he said.
+"You must simply make Maud come. You must use your influence, your
+beautiful influence, of which we hear so much. Seriously, I do miss
+you here very much, and so does everybody else. Your pupils are in
+an awful stew. They say that you got them through the Trip without
+boring them, and that Crofts bores them and won't get them through.
+This place rather gets on my nerves now. The Dons don't confide in
+me, and I don't see things from their angle, as my father says. I
+think you somehow managed to keep them reasonable; they are narrow-
+minded men, I think."
+
+"This is rather a shower of compliments," said Howard. "But I think
+I very likely shall come back. I don't think Maud would mind."
+
+"Mind!" said Jack, "why you wind that girl round your little
+finger. She writes about you as if you were an archangel; and look
+here, I am sorry I took a gloomy view. It's all right; you were the
+right person. Freddy Guthrie would never have done for Maud--he's
+in a great way about it still, but I tell him he may be thankful to
+have escaped. Maud is a mountain-top kind of girl; she could never
+have got on without a lot of aspirations, she couldn't have settled
+down to the country-house kind of life. You are a sort of
+privilege, you know, and all that; Freddy Guthrie would never have
+been a privilege."
+
+"That's rather a horror!" said Howard; "you mustn't let these
+things out; you make me nervous!"
+
+Jack laughed. "If your brother-in-law mayn't say this to you, I
+don't know who may. But seriously, really quite seriously, you are
+a bigger person than I thought. I'll tell you why. I had a kind of
+feeling that you ought not to let me speak to you as you do, that
+you ought to have snapped my head off. And then you seemed too much
+upset by what I said. I don't know if it was your tact; but you had
+your own way all the time, with me and with everybody; you seemed
+to give way at every point, and yet you carried out your programme.
+I thought you hadn't much backbone--there, the cat's out; and now I
+find that we were all dancing to your music. I like people to do
+that, and it amuses me to find that I danced as obediently as
+anyone, when I really thought I could make you do as I wished. I
+admire your way of going on: you make everyone think that you value
+their opinion, and yet you know exactly what you want and get it."
+
+Howard laughed. "I really am not such a diplomatist as that, Jack!
+I am not a humbug; but I will tell you frankly what happens. What
+people say and think, and even how they look, does affect me very
+much at the time; but I have a theory that most people get what
+they really want. One has to be very careful what one wants in this
+world, not because one is disappointed, but because Providence
+hands it one with a smile; and then it often turns out to be an
+ironical gift--a punishment in disguise."
+
+"Maud shall hear that," said Jack; "a punishment in disguise--that
+will do her good, and take her down a peg or two. So you have found
+it out already?"
+
+"My dear Jack," said Howard, "if you say anything of the kind, you
+will repent it. I am not going to have Maud bothered just now with
+any nonsense. Do you hear that? The frankness of your family is one
+of its greatest charms--but you don't quite know how much the
+frankness of babes and sucklings can hurt--and you are not to
+experiment on Maud."
+
+Jack looked at Howard with a smile. "Here's the real man at last--
+the tyrant's vein! Of course, I obey. I didn't really mean it; and
+I like to hear you speak like that; it's rather fine."
+
+Presently Jack said, "Now, about the Governor--rather a douche, I
+expect? But I see you can take care of yourself; he's hugely
+delighted--the intellectual temperature rises in every letter I get
+from him. But I want to make sure of one thing. I'm not going to
+stay on here much longer. I don't want a degree--it isn't the
+slightest use, plain or coloured. I want to get to work. If you
+come up again next term, I can stand it, not otherwise."
+
+"Very well," said Howard, "that's a bargain. I must just talk
+things over with Maud. If we come up to Cambridge in October, you
+will stay till next June. If we don't, you shall be planted in the
+business. They will take you in, I believe, at any time, but would
+prefer you to finish your time here."
+
+"Yes, that's it," said Jack, "but I want work: this is all right,
+in a way, but it's mostly piffle. How all these Johnnies can dangle
+on, I don't know; it's not my idea of life."
+
+"Well, there's no hurry," said Howard, "but it shall be arranged as
+you wish."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+MAKING THE BEST OF IT
+
+
+
+
+
+Howard became aware that with his colleagues he had suddenly become
+rather a person of importance. His "place" in the country was held
+in some dim way to increase the grandeur of the College. He found
+himself deferred to and congratulated. Mr. Redmayne was both
+caustic and affectionate.
+
+"You look very well, I must say," he said. "You have a touch of the
+landed personage about you which becomes you. I should like you to
+come back here for our sakes, but I shan't press it. And how is
+Madam? I hope you have got rid of your first illusions? No? Well
+you must make haste and be reasonable. I am not learned in the
+vagaries of feminine temperament, but I imagine that the fair sex
+like to be dominated, and you will do that. You have a light hand
+on the reins--I always said that you rode the boys on the snaffle,
+but the curb is there! and in matrimony--well, well, I am an old
+bachelor of course, and I have a suspicion of all nooses. Never
+mind my nonsense, Kennedy--what I like about you, if I may say so,
+is that you have authority without pretensions. People will do as
+you wish, just to please you; now I have always to be cracking the
+whip. These fellows here are very worthy men, but they are not men
+of the world! They are honest and sober--indeed one can hardly get
+one of them to join one in a glass of port--but they are limited,
+very limited. Now if only you could have kept clear of matrimony--
+no disrespect to Madam--what a comfortable time we might have had
+here! Man appoints and God disappoints--I suppose it is all for the
+best."
+
+"Well," said Howard, "I think you will me see back here in October--
+my wife is quite ready to come, and there isn't really much for me
+to do at Windlow. I believe I am to be on the bench shortly; but if
+I live there in the vacations, that will be enough; and I don't
+feel that I have finished with Beaufort yet."
+
+"Excellent!" said Mr. Redmayne. "I commend Madam's good sense and
+discretion. Pray give her my regards, and say that we shall welcome
+her at Cambridge. We will make the best of it--and I confess that
+in your place--well, if all women were like Madam, I could view
+marriage with comparative equanimity--though of course, I make the
+statement without prejudice."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+HOWARD'S PROFESSION
+
+
+
+
+
+When Howard came back from Cambridge he had a long talk with Maud
+over the future; it seemed almost tacitly agreed that he should
+return to his work there, at all events for a time.
+
+"I feel very selfish and pompous about all this," said Howard; "MY
+work, MY sphere--what nonsense it all is! Why should I come down to
+Windlow, take possession, and having picked the sweetest flower in
+the garden, stick it in my buttonhole and march away?"
+
+Maud laughed and said, "Oh, no, it isn't that--it is quite a simple
+matter. You have learnt a trade, a difficult trade; why should you
+give it up? We don't happen to need the money, but that doesn't
+matter. My business is to take off your shoulders, if I can, all
+the trouble entailed on you by marrying me--it's simply a division
+of labour. You can't just settle down in the country as a small
+squire, with nothing much to do. People must do the work they can
+do, and I should be miserable if I thought I had pulled you out of
+your place in the world."
+
+"I don't know," said Howard; "there seems to me to be something
+rather stuffy about it: why can't we just live? Women do; there is
+no fuss made about their work, and their need to express
+themselves; yet they do it even more than men, and they do it
+without priggishness. My work at Cambridge is just what everyone
+else is doing, and if I don't do it, there will be half a dozen men
+capable of doing it and glad to do it. The great men of the world
+don't talk about the importance of their work: they just do
+whatever comes to hand--it's only the second-rate men who say that
+their talents haven't full scope. Do you remember poor Chambers,
+who was at lunch the other day? He told me that he had migrated
+from a town parish to a country parish, and that he missed the
+organisation so much. 'There seems nothing to organise down in the
+country!' he said. 'Now in my town parish there was the whole
+machine to keep going--I enjoyed that, and I don't feel I am giving
+effect to the best part of myself.' That seemed to me such a
+pompous line, and I felt that I didn't want to be like that. One's
+work! how little it matters! No one is indispensable--the
+disappearance of one man just gives another his chance."
+
+"Yes, of course, it is rather hard to draw the line," said Maud,
+"and I think it is a pity to be solemn about it; but it seems to me
+so simple in this case. You can do the work--they want you back--
+there is no reason why you should not go back."
+
+"Perhaps it is mere laziness," said Howard, "but I feel as if I
+wanted a different sort of life now, a quieter life; and yet I know
+that there is a snare about that. I rather mistrust the people who
+say they must get time to think out things. It's like the old
+definition of metaphysics--the science of muddling oneself
+systematically. I don't think one can act by reason; one must act
+by instinct, and reason just prevents one's making a fool of
+oneself."
+
+"I believe the time for the other life will come quite naturally
+later," said Maud. "At your age, you have got to do things. Of
+course it's the same with women in a way, but marriage is their
+obvious career, and the pity is that there don't seem enough
+husbands to go round. I can sit in my corner and placidly survey
+the overstocked market now!"
+
+Howard got up and leaned against the chimneypiece, surveying his
+wife with delight. "Ah, child," he said, "I was lucky to come in
+when I did. I shiver at the thought that if I had arrived a little
+later there would have been 'no talk of thee and me' as Omar says.
+You would have been a devoted wife, and I should have been a
+hopeless bachelor!"
+
+"It's unthinkable," said Maud, "it's horrible even to speculate
+about such things--a mere question of proximity! Well, it can't be
+mended now; and the result is that I not only drive you back to
+work, but you have to carry me back as well, like Sindbad and the
+old man of the sea."
+
+"Yes, it's just like that!" said Howard.
+
+He made several attempts, with Mr. Sandys and with his aunt--even
+with Miss Merry--to get encouragement for his plan; but he could
+obtain no sympathy.
+
+"I'm sick of the very word 'ideal,'" he said to Maud. "I feel like
+a waiter handing about tumblers on a tray, pressing people to have
+ideals--at least that is what I seem to be supposed to be doing. I
+haven't any ideals myself--the only thing I demand and practise is
+civility."
+
+"Yes, I don't think you need bother about ideals," said Maud, "it's
+wonderful the depressing power of words; there are such a lot of
+fine and obvious things in the world, perfectly distinct,
+absolutely necessary, and yet the moment they become professional,
+they deprive one of all spirit and hope--Jane has that effect on
+me, I am afraid. I am sure she is a fine creature, but her view
+always makes me feel uncomfortable--now Cousin Anne takes all the
+things one needs for granted, and isn't above making fun of them;
+and then they suddenly appear wholesome and sensible. She is quite
+clear on the point; now if SHE wanted you to stay, it would be
+different."
+
+"Very well, so be it!" said Howard; "I feel I am caught in feminine
+toils. I am like a child being taught to walk--every step
+applauded, handed on from embrace to embrace. I yield! I will take
+my beautiful mind back to Cambridge, I will go on moulding
+character, I will go on suggesting high motives. But the
+responsibility is yours, and if you turn me into a prig, it will
+not be my fault."
+
+"Ah, I will take the responsibility for that," said Maud, "and, by
+the way, hadn't we better begin to look out for a house? I can't
+live in College, I believe, not even if I were to become a
+bedmaker?"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "a high-minded house of roughcast and tile,
+with plenty of white paint inside, Chippendale chairs, Watts
+engravings. I have come to that--it's inevitable, it just expresses
+the situation; but I mustn't go on like this--it isn't funny, this
+academic irony--it's dreadfully professional. I will be sensible,
+and write to an agent for a list. It had better just be 'a house'
+with nothing distinctive; because this will be our home, I hope,
+and that the official residence. And now, Maud, I won't be tiresome
+any more; we can't waste time in talking about these things. I
+haven't done with making love to you yet, and I doubt if I ever
+shall!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+ANXIETY
+
+
+
+
+
+The months moved slowly on, a time full of deepening strain and
+anxiety to Howard. Maud herself seemed serene enough at first, full
+of hope; she began to be more dependent on him; and Howard
+perceived two things which gave him some solace; in the first place
+he found that, sharp as the tension of anxiety in his mind often
+was, he did not realise it as a burden of which he would be merely
+glad to be rid. He had an instinctive dislike of all painful
+straining things--of responsibilities, disagreeable duties, things
+that disturbed his tranquillity; but this anxiety did not come to
+him in that light at all; he longed that it should be over, but it
+was not a thing which he desired to banish from his mind; it was
+all bound up with love and happy anticipation; and next he learned
+the joy of doing things that would otherwise be troublesome for the
+sake of love, and found them all transmuted, not into seemly
+courtesies, but into sharp and urgent pleasures. To be of use to
+Maud, to entertain her, to disguise his anxieties, to compel
+himself to talk easily and lightly--all this filled his soul with
+delight, especially when he found as the months went on that Maud
+began to look to him as a matter of course; and though Howard had
+been used to say that being read aloud to was the only occupation
+in the world that was worse than reading aloud, he found that there
+was no greater pleasure than in reading to Maud day by day, in
+finding books that she cared for.
+
+"If only I could spare you some of this," he said to her one day,
+"that's the awful thing, not to be able to share the pain of anyone
+whom one loves. I feel I could hold my hand in the fire with a
+smile, if only I knew that it was saving you something!"
+
+"Ah, dearest, I know," said Maud, "but you mustn't think of it like
+that; it INTERESTS me in a curious way--I can't explain--I don't
+feel helpless; I feel as if I were doing something worth the
+trouble!"
+
+At last the time drew near; it was hot, silent, airless weather;
+the sun lay fiercely in the little valley, day by day; one morning
+they were sitting together and Maud suddenly said to him, "Dearest,
+one thing I want to say; if I seem to be afraid, I am NOT afraid:
+will you remember that? I want to walk every step of the way; I
+mean to do it, I wish to do it; I am not afraid in my heart of
+hearts of anything--pain, or even worse; and you must remember
+that, even if I do not seem to remember!"
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "I will remember that; and indeed I know it;
+you even take away my own fears when you speak so; love takes hands
+beneath it all."
+
+But on the following morning--Maud had a restless and suffering
+night--Mrs. Graves came in upon Howard as he tried to read, to tell
+him that there was great anxiety, Maud had had a sudden attack of
+pain; it had passed off, but they were not reassured. "The doctor
+will be here presently," she said. Howard rose dry-lipped and
+haggard. "She sends you her dearest love," she said, "but she would
+rather be alone; she doesn't wish you to see her thus; she is
+absolutely brave, and that is the best thing; and I am not afraid
+myself," she added: "we must just wait--everything is in her
+favour; but I know how you feel and how you must feel; just clasp
+the anxiety close, look in its face; it's a blessed thing, though
+you can't see it as I do--blessed, I mean, that one CAN feel so."
+
+But the fear thickened after this. A carriage drew up, and Howard
+saw two doctors descend, carrying bags in their hands. His heart
+sickened within him, yet he was helped by seeing their
+unembarrassed and cheerful air, the nod that one of them, a big,
+fresh-faced man, gave to the coachman, the look he cast round the
+beautiful old house. People could think of such things, Howard saw,
+in a moment like that. He went down and met them in the hall, and
+had that strange sense of unreality in moments of crisis, when one
+hears one's own voice saying courteous things, without any volition
+of one's own. The big doctor looked at him kindly. "It is all quite
+simple and straightforward!" he said. "You must not let yourself be
+anxious; these times pass by and one wonders afterwards how one
+could have been so much afraid."
+
+But the hours brought no relief; the doctors stayed long in the
+house; something had occurred, Howard knew not what, did not dare
+to conjecture. The silence, the beauty of the whole scene, was
+insupportably horrible to him. He walked up and down in the
+afternoon, gazing at Maud's windows--once a nurse came to the
+window and opened it a little. He went back at last into the house;
+the doctors were there, talking in low tones to Mrs. Graves. "I
+will be back first thing in the morning," said one; the worst,
+then, had not happened. But as he appeared a look of inquiry passed
+between them and Mrs. Graves. She beckoned to him.
+
+"She is very ill," she said; "it is over, and she has survived; but
+the child is dead."
+
+Howard stood blankly staring at the group. "I don't understand," he
+said; "the child is dead--yes, but what about Maud?"
+
+The doctor came up to him. "It was sudden," he said; "she had an
+attack--we had anticipated it--the child was born dead; but there
+is every reason to believe that she will recover; it has been a
+great shock, but she is young and strong, and she is full of pluck--
+you need not be anxious at present; there is no imminent danger."
+Then he added, "Mr. Kennedy, get some rest yourself; she may need
+you, and you must not be useless: I tell you, the first danger is
+over and will not recur; you must just force yourself to eat--try
+to sleep."
+
+"Sleep?" said Howard with a wan smile, "yes, if you could tell me
+how to do that!"
+
+The doctors departed; Howard went off with Mrs. Graves. She made
+him sit down, she told him a few details; then she said, "Dearest
+boy, it's no use wasting words or pity just now--you know what I
+feel; I would tell you plainly if I feared the worst. I do NOT fear
+it, and now let me exercise my art on you, for I am sure I can help
+you a little. One must not play with these things, but this is in
+earnest."
+
+She came and sate down beside him, and stroked his hair, his brow;
+she said, "Just try, if you can, to cast everything out of your
+mind; relax your limbs, be entirely passive; and don't listen to
+what I say--just let your mind float free." Presently she began to
+speak in a low voice to him; he hardly heeded what she said, for a
+strange drowsiness settled down upon him like the in-flowing of
+some oblivious tide, and he knew no more.
+
+A couple of hours later he awoke from a deep sleep, with a sense of
+sweet visions and experiences--he looked round. Mrs. Graves sate
+beside him smiling, but the horror suddenly darted back into his
+mind with a spasm of fear, as if he had been bitten by a poisonous
+serpent.
+
+"What has been happening?" he said.
+
+"Ah," said Mrs. Graves quietly, "you have been asleep. I have some
+power in these things, which I don't use except in times of need--
+some day I will tell you more; I found it out by accident, but I
+have used it both for myself and others. It's just a natural force,
+of which many people are suspicious, because it doesn't seem
+normal; but don't be afraid, dear boy--all goes well; she is
+sleeping quietly, and she knows what has happened."
+
+"Thank you," said Howard; "yes, I am better; but I could almost
+wish I had not slept--I feel the pain of it more. I don't feel just
+now as if anything in the world could make up for this--as if
+anything could make it seem just to endure such misery. What has
+one done to deserve it?"
+
+"What indeed?" said Mrs. Graves, "because the time will come when
+you will ask that in a different sense. Don't you see, dear boy,
+that even this is life's fulness? One mustn't be afraid of
+suffering--what one must be afraid of is NOT suffering; it's the
+measure of love--you would not part with your love if that would
+free you from suffering?"
+
+"No," said Howard slowly, "I would not--you are right. I can see
+that. One brings the other; but I cannot see the need of it."
+
+"That is only because one does not realise how much lies ahead,"
+said Mrs. Graves. "Be content that you know at least how much you
+love--there's no knowledge like that!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+THE DREAM-CHILD
+
+
+
+
+
+For some days Howard was in an intolerable agony of mind about
+Maud; she lay in a sort of stupor of weakness and weariness,
+recognising no one, hardly speaking, just alive, indifferent to
+everything. They could not let him be with her, they would allow no
+one to speak to her. The shock had been too great, and the frail
+life seemed flickering to its close: once or twice he was just
+allowed to see her; she lay like a tired child, her head on her
+hand, lost in incommunicable dreams. Howard dared not leave the
+house, and the tension of his nerves became so acute that the least
+thing--a servant entering the room, or anyone coming out to speak
+with him as he paced up and down the garden--caused him an
+insupportable horror; had they come to summon him to see the end?
+The frightful thing was the silence, the blank silence of the one
+he loved best. If she had moaned or wept or complained, he could
+have borne it better; but she seemed entirely withdrawn from him.
+Even when a little strength returned, they feared for her reason.
+She seemed unaware of where she was, of what had happened, of all
+about her. The night was the worst time of all. Howard, utterly
+wearied out, would go to bed, and sink into sleep, sleep so
+profound that it seemed like descending into some deep and
+oblivious tide; then a current of misery would mingle with his
+dreams, a sense of unutterable depression; and then he would
+suddenly wake in the grip of fear, formless and bodiless fear. The
+smallest sound in the house, the creaking of a door, a footfall,
+would set his heart beating with fierce hammer strokes. He would
+light his candles, wander restlessly about, gaze out from his
+window into the blackness of the garden, where the trees outlined
+themselves against the dark sky, pierced with stars; or he would
+try to read, but wholly in vain. No thought, no imagination seemed
+to have any meaning for him, in the presence of that raging dread.
+Had he, he wondered, come in sight of the ultimate truth of life?
+The pain he suffered seemed to him the strongest thing in the
+world, stronger than love, stronger than death. The thick tides of
+the night swept past him thus, till the light began to outline the
+window crannies; and then there was a new day to face, with failing
+brain and shattered strength.
+
+The only comfort he received was in the presence of his aunt. She
+alone seemed strong, almost serene, till he wondered if she was not
+hard. She did not encourage him to speak of his fears: she talked
+quietly about ordinary things, not demanding an answer; she saw the
+doctors, whom Howard could not bear to see, and told him their
+report. The fear changed its character as the days went on; Maud
+would live, they thought; but to what extent she would regain her
+strength they could not say, while her mental powers seemed in
+abeyance.
+
+Mr. Sandys often looked in, but he seemed at first helpless in
+Howard's presence. Howard used to bestir himself to talk to him,
+with a sickening sense of unreality. Mr. Sandys took a very
+optimistic view of Maud's case; he assured Howard that he had seen
+the same thing a dozen times; she had great reserves of strength,
+he believed; it was but nature insisting upon rest and quiet. His
+talk became a sort of relief to Howard, because he refused to admit
+any possibility of ultimate disaster. No tragedy could keep Mr.
+Sandys silent; and Howard began to be aware that the Vicar must
+have thought out a series of topics to talk to him about, and even
+prepared the line of conversation beforehand. Jack had been sent
+for at the crisis, but when the imminent danger lessened, Howard
+suggested that he should go back to Cambridge, in which Jack
+gratefully acquiesced.
+
+One day Mrs. Graves came suddenly in upon Howard, as he sate
+drearily trying to write some letters, and said, "There is a great
+improvement this morning. I went in to see her, and she has come
+back to herself; she mentioned your name, and the doctor says you
+can see her for a few minutes; she must not talk, but she is
+herself. You may just come and sit by her for a few minutes; it
+will be best to come at once."
+
+Howard got up, and was seized by a sudden giddiness. He grasped his
+chair, and was aware that Mrs. Graves was looking at him anxiously.
+
+"Can you manage it, dear boy?" she said. "You have had a great
+strain."
+
+"Manage it?" said Howard, "why, it's new life. I shall be all right
+in a moment. Does she know what has happened?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "she knows all--it is you she is anxious
+about--she isn't thinking of herself at all."
+
+Howard followed his aunt out of the room, feeling suddenly alert
+and strong. They entered the room; as they did so, Maud turned and
+looked at him--the faintest tinge of colour had returned to her
+face; she held out her hands to him, and let them fall again.
+Howard stepped quickly to the side of the bed, dropped on his
+knees, and took his wife in his arms. She nestled close to him for
+a moment, and then looked at him with a smile--then speaking in a
+very low voice, almost a whisper, she said:
+
+"Yes, I know--you will help me, dearest; yes, I have come back to
+you--I have been wandering far away, with the child--you know--he
+wanted me, I think; but I have left him somewhere, safe, and I am
+sent back--I didn't think I could come back, but I had to choose; I
+have chosen . . ." her voice died away, and she looked long and
+anxiously at him. "You are not well," she said; "it is my fault."
+
+"Ah, you must not talk, darling," said Howard; "we will talk later
+on; just let me be sure that you won't leave me--that is enough,
+that's all I want, just we two together again, and the dear child,
+ours for ever."
+
+"The dear child," said Maud, "that is right--he is ours, beloved. I
+will tell you about him."
+
+"Not now," said Howard, "not now."
+
+Maud gave him a nod, in her old way, just the ghost of a nod; and
+then just put her face beside his own, and lay in silence, till he
+was called away. Then she kissed his hand as he bent over her, and
+said, "Don't be afraid, dearest--I am coming back--it is like a
+great staircase, with light at the top. I went just to the edge--
+it's full of sweet sound there, and now I am coming down again.
+Those are my dreams," she added; "I am not out of my dreams yet."
+
+Howard went out, waving his hand; he found Mrs. Graves beside him.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I have no more fear."
+
+Howard was suddenly seized with faintness, uncontrollable
+dizziness. Mrs. Graves took him to the library, and made him sit
+down, but his weakness continued in spite of himself.
+
+"I really am ashamed of myself," he said, "for this dreadful
+exhibition."
+
+"Exhibition!" said Mrs. Graves, "it's the best thing that can
+happen. I must tell you that I have been even more anxious about
+you than Maud, because you either couldn't or wouldn't break down--
+those are the people who are in danger at a time like this! Why the
+sight of you has half killed me, dear boy! If you had ever said you
+were miserable, or been rude or irritable, or forgotten yourself
+for a moment, I should have been happier. It's very chivalrous and
+considerate, of course; though you will say that you didn't think
+of that; but it's hardly human--and now at last I see you are flesh
+and blood again."
+
+"Well, I am not sure that it isn't what I thought about you," said
+Howard.
+
+"Ah," said Mrs. Graves, "I am an old woman; and I don't think death
+is so terrible to me. Life is interesting enough, but I should
+often be glad to get away; there is something beyond that is a good
+deal easier and more beautiful. But I don't expect you to feel
+that."
+
+"You think she will get well?" said Howard faintly.
+
+"Yes, she will get well, and soon," said Mrs. Graves. "She has been
+resting in her own natural way. The poor dearest baby--you don't
+know, you can't know, what that means to Maud and even to me; you
+will have to be very good to her for a long time yet; you won't
+understand her sorrow--she won't expect you to; but you mustn't
+fail her; and you must do as you are bid. This afternoon you must
+just go out for a walk, and you must SLEEP, dear; that's what you
+want; you don't know what a spectre you are; and you must just get
+well as quick as you can, for Maud's sake and mine."
+
+That afternoon there fell on Howard after his walk--though the
+world was sweet to him and dear again, he was amazed to find how
+weak he was--an unutterable drowsiness against which he could
+hardly fight. The delicious weariness came on him like a summer
+air; he stumbled to bed that night, and oh, the wonder of waking in
+a new world, the incredible happiness that greeted him, happiness
+that merged again in a strange and serene torpor of the senses,
+every sight and sound striking sharp and beautiful on his eye and
+ear.
+
+For some days he was only allowed to see Maud for little
+lengthening periods; they said little, but just sate in silence
+with a few whispered words. Maud recovered fast, and was each day a
+little stronger.
+
+One evening, as he sate with her, she said, "I want to tell you now
+what has been happening to me, dearest. You must hear it all. You
+must not grieve yourself about the little child, because you cannot
+have known it as I did--but you must let me grieve a little . . .
+you will see when I tell you. I won't go back too far. There was
+all the pain first--I hope I did not behave very badly, but I was
+beside myself with pain, and then I went off . . . you know . . . I
+don't remember anything of that . . . and then I came back again,
+feeling that something very strange had happened to me, and I was
+full of joy; and then I saw that something was wrong, and it came
+over me what had happened. The strange thing is that though I was
+so weak--I could hardly think and I could not speak--yet I never
+felt more clear or strong in mind--no, not in mind either, but in
+myself. It seems so strange that I have never even SEEN our child,
+not with my eyes, though that matters little. But then when I
+understood, I did indeed fail utterly; you seemed to me so far
+away; I felt somehow that you were thinking only about me, and I
+could simply think of nothing but the child--my own child, gone
+from me in a moment. I simply prayed with all my soul to die and
+have done with everything, and then there was a strange whirl in
+the air like a great wind, and loud confused noises, and I fell
+away out of life, and thought it was death. And then I awoke again,
+but it was not here--it was in a strange wide place--a sort of
+twilight, and there were hills and trees. I stood up, and suddenly
+felt a hand in my own, and there was a little child beside me,
+looking up at me. I can't tell you what happened next--it is rather
+dim to me, but I sate, or walked, or wandered, carrying the child--
+and it TALKED to me; yes, it talked in a little clear voice, though
+I can't remember anything it said; but I felt somehow as if it was
+telling me what might have been, and that I was getting to KNOW it
+somehow--does that seem strange? It seems like months and years
+that I was with it; and I feel now that I not only love it, but
+know it, all its thoughts, all its desires, all its faults--it had
+FAULTS, dearest; think of that--faults such as I have, and other
+faults as well. It was not quite content, but it was not unhappy;
+but it wasn't a dream-child at all, not like a little angel, but a
+perfectly real child. It laughed sometimes, and I can hear its
+little laughter now; it found fault with me, it wanted to go on--it
+cried sometimes, and nothing would please it; but it loved me and
+wanted to be with me; and I told it about you, and it not only
+listened, but asked me many times over to tell it more, about you,
+about me, about this place--I think it had other things in its
+mind, recollections, I thought, which it tried to tell me; so it
+went on. Once or twice I found myself here in bed--but I thought I
+was dying, and only wanted to lose myself and get back to the
+child--and then it all came to an end. There was a great staircase
+up which we went together; there was cloud at the top, but it
+seemed to me that there was life and movement behind it; there was
+no shadow behind the cloud, but light . . . and there was sound,
+musical sound. I went up with the child's hand clasped close in my
+own, but at the top he disengaged himself, and went in without a
+word to me or a sign, not as if he were leaving me, but as if his
+real life, and mine too, were within--just as a child would run
+into its home, if you came back with it from a walk, and as if it
+knew you were following, and there was no need of good-byes. I did
+not feel any sorrow at all then, either for the child or myself--I
+simply turned round and came down . . . and then I was back in my
+room again . . . and then it was you that I wanted."
+
+"That's all very wonderful," said Howard, musing, "wonderful and
+beautiful. . . . I wish I had seen that!"
+
+"Yes, but you didn't need it," said Maud; "one sees what one needs,
+I think. And I want to add something, dearest, which you must
+believe. I don't want to revert to this, or to speak of it again--I
+don't mean to dwell upon it; it is just enough for me. One mustn't
+press these things too closely, nor want other people to share them
+or believe them. That is the mistake one makes, that one thinks
+that other people ought to find one's own feelings and fancies and
+experiences as real as one finds them oneself. I don't even want to
+know what you think about it--I don't want you to say you believe
+in it, or to think about it at all. I couldn't help telling you
+about it, because it seems as real to me as anything that ever
+happened in my life; but I don't want you to have to pretend, or to
+accept it in order to please me. It is just my own experience; I
+was ill, unconscious, delirious, anything you please; but it is
+just a blessed fact for me, for all that, a gift from God. Do you
+really trust me when I say this, dearest? I don't claim a word from
+you about it, but it will make all the difference to me. I can go
+on now. I don't want to die, I don't want to follow--I only want
+you to feel, or to learn to feel, that the child is a real child,
+our very own, as much a part of our family as Jack or Cousin Anne;
+and I don't even want you to SAY that. I want all to be as before;
+the only difference is that I now don't feel as if I was CHOOSING.
+It isn't a case of leaving him or leaving you. I have you both--and
+I think you wanted me most; and I haven't a wish or a desire in my
+heart but to be with you."
+
+"Yes, dearest," said Howard, "I understand. It is perfect to be
+trusted so. I won't say anything now about it. I could not say
+anything. But you have put something into my heart which will
+spring up and blossom. Just now there isn't room for anything in my
+mind but the fact that you are given back to me; that's all I can
+hold; but it won't be all. I am glad you told me this, and utterly
+thankful that it is so. That you should be here, given back to me,
+that must be enough now. I can't count up my gains; but if you had
+come back, leaving your heart elsewhere, how could I have borne
+that?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+THE POWER OF LOVE
+
+
+
+
+
+It was a few days later that Howard found himself sitting alone one
+evening after dinner, with his aunt.
+
+"There is something that I want to talk to you about," he said. "No
+doubt Maud has told you all about her strange experience? She has
+described it to me, and I don't know what to say or think. She was
+wonderfully fine about it. She said she would not mention it again,
+and she did not desire me to talk about it--or even believe it! And
+I don't know what to do. It isn't the sort of thing that I believe
+in, though I think it beautiful, just because it was Maud who felt
+it. But I can't say what I really believe about it, without seeming
+unsympathetic and even rough; and yet I don't like there being
+anything which means so much to her, which doesn't mean much to
+me."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "I foresaw that difficulty, but I think
+Maud did right to tell you."
+
+"Of course, of course," said Howard, "but I mean much more than
+that. Is there something really THERE, open to all, possible to
+all, from which I am shut out by what the Bible calls my hardness
+of heart? Do you really think yourself that a living spirit drew
+near and made itself known to Maud thus? or is it a beautiful
+dream, a sort of subjective attempt at finding comfort, an
+instinctive effort of the mind towards saving itself from sorrow?"
+
+"Ah," said Mrs. Graves, "who shall say? Of course I do not see any
+real objection to the former, when I think of all the love and the
+emotion that went to the calling of the little spirit from the
+deeps of life; but then I am a woman, and an old woman. If I were a
+man of your age who had lived an intellectual life, I should feel
+very much as you do."
+
+"But if you believe it," said Howard, "can you give me reasons why
+you believe it? I am not unreasonable at all. I hate the attitude
+of mind of denying the truth of the experience of others, just
+because one has not felt it oneself. Here, it seems to me, there
+are two explanations, and my scepticism inclines to what is, I
+suppose, the materialistic one. I am very suspicious of experiences
+which one is told to take on trust, and which can't be
+intellectually expressed. It's the sort of theory that the clergy
+fall back upon, what they call spiritual truth, which seems to me
+merely unchecked, unverifiable experience. I don't, to take a crude
+instance, believe in statues that wink; and yet the tendency of the
+priest is to say that it is a matter of childlike faith; yet to me
+credulity appears to be one of the worst of sins. It is incredulity
+which has disposed of superstition."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves. "I fully agree with you about that; and
+there is a great deal of very objectionable nonsense which goes by
+the name of mysticism, which is merely emotion divorced from
+commonsense."
+
+"Yes," said Howard, "and if I may speak quite frankly, I do very
+much respect your own judgment and your convictions. It seems to me
+that you have a very sceptical turn of mind, which has acted as a
+solvent upon a whole host of stupid and conventional beliefs. I
+don't think you take things for granted, and it always seems to me
+that you have got rid of a great many foolish traditions which
+ordinary people accept--and it's a fine attitude."
+
+"I'm not too old to be insensible to a compliment," said Mrs.
+Graves, smiling. "What you are surprised at is to find that I have
+any beliefs left, I suppose? And I expect you are inclined to think
+that I have done the feminine thing ultimately, and compromised, so
+as to retain just the comfortable part of the affair."
+
+"No," said Howard, "I don't. I am much more inclined to think that
+there is something which is hidden from me; and I want you to
+explain it, if you can and will."
+
+"Well, I will try," said Mrs. Graves. "Let me think." She sate
+silent for a little, and then she said: "I think that as I get
+older, I recognise more and more the division between the rational
+part of the mind and the instinctive part of the mind. I find more
+and more that my deepest convictions are not rational--at least not
+arrived at by reason--only formulated by it. I think that reason
+ought to be able to formulate convictions; but they are there,
+whether expressed or not. Most women don't bring the reason to bear
+at all, and the result is that they hold a mass of beliefs, some
+simply inherited, some mere phrases which they don't understand,
+and some real convictions. A great deal of the muddle comes from
+the feminine weariness of logic, and a great deal, too, from the
+fact that they never learn how to use words--words are the things
+that divide people! But I believe more and more, by experience, in
+the SOUL. I do not believe that the soul begins with birth or ends
+with death. Now I have no sort of doubt in my own mind that the
+soul of your child was a living thing, a spirit which has lived
+before, and will live again. Souls, I believe, come to the brink of
+life, out of some unknown place, and by choice or impelled by some
+need for experience, take shape. I don't know how or why this is--I
+only believe that it is so. If your child had lived, you would have
+become aware of its soul; you would have found it to have perfectly
+distinct qualities and desires and views of its own, not learnt
+from you, and which you could not affect or change. All those
+qualities are in it from the time of birth--but it takes a soul
+some time to learn the use of the body. But the connection between
+the soul and the father and mother who give it a body is a real
+one; I don't profess to know what it is, or why it is that some
+parents have congenial children and some quite uncongenial ones--
+that is only one of the many mysteries which beset us. Holding all
+this, it does not seem to me on the face of it impossible that the
+soul of the child should have been brought into contact with Maud's
+soul; though of course the whole affair is quite capable of a
+scientific and material explanation. But I have seen too many
+strange things in my life to make me accept the scientific
+explanation as conclusive. I have known men and women who, after a
+bereavement, have had an intense consciousness of the presence of
+the beloved spirit with them and near them. I have experienced it
+myself; and it seems to me as impossible to explain as a sense of
+beauty. If one feels a particular thing to be beautiful, one can't
+give good reasons for one's emotion to a person who does not think
+the same thing beautiful; but it appears to me that the duty of
+explaining it away lies on the one who does NOT feel it. One can't
+say that beauty is a purely subjective thing, because when two
+people think a thing beautiful, they understand each other
+perfectly. Do I make myself clear at all, or is that merely a bit
+of feminine logic?"
+
+"No, indeed," said Howard slowly, "I think it is a good case. The
+very last thing I would do is to claim to be fully equipped for the
+understanding of all mysteries. My difficulty is that while there
+are two explanations of a thing--a transcendental one and a
+material one--I hanker after the material one. But it isn't because
+I want to disbelieve the transcendental one. It is because I want
+to believe it so much, that I feel that I must exclude all
+possibility of its being anything else."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "and I think you are perfectly right; one
+must follow one's conscience in this. I don't want you to swallow
+it whole at all. I want you, and I am sure that Maud wants you,
+just to wait and see. Don't begin by denying the possibility of its
+being a transcendental thing. Just hold the facts in your mind, and
+as life goes on, see if your experience confirms it, and until it
+does, do not pretend that it does. I don't claim to be omniscient.
+Something quite definite, of course, lies behind the mystery of
+life, and whatever it is, is not affected by what you or I believe
+about it. I may be wholly and entirely mistaken, and it may be that
+life is only a chemical phenomenon; but I have kept my eyes open,
+and my heart open; and I am as sure as I can be that there is
+something very much bigger behind it than that. I myself believe
+that each being is an immortal spirit, hampered by contact with
+mortal laws, and I believe that consciousness and emotion are
+something superior even to chemistry. But to use emotion to silence
+people would be entirely repugnant to me, and equally to Maud. She
+isn't the sort of woman who would be content if you only just said
+you believed her. She would hate that!"
+
+"Well," said Howard, smiling, "you are two very wonderful women,
+and that's the truth. I am not surprised at YOUR wisdom--it IS
+wisdom--because you have lived very bravely and loved many people;
+but it's amazing to me to find such courage and understanding in a
+girl. Of course you have helped her--but I don't think you could
+have produced such thoughts in her unless they had been there to
+start with."
+
+"That's exactly what I have tried to say," said Mrs. Graves. "Where
+did Maud's fine mixture of feeling and commonsense come from? Her
+mother was a woman of some perception, but after all she married
+Frank, and Frank with all his virtue isn't a very mature spirit!"
+
+"Ah," said Howard, "my marriage has done everything for me! What a
+blind, complacent, petty ass I was--and am too, though I at least
+perceive it! I see myself as an elderly donkey, braying and
+capering about in a paddock--and someone leans over the fence, and
+all is changed. I ought not to think lightly of mysteries, when all
+this astonishing conspiracy has taken place round me, to give me a
+home and a wife and a whole range of new emotions--how Maud came to
+care for me is still the deepest wonder of all--a loveless prig
+like me!"
+
+"I won't be understood to subscribe to all that," said Mrs. Graves,
+laughing, "though I see your point of view; but there's something
+deeper even than that, dear Howard. You care for me, you care for
+Maud; but it's the power of caring that matters more than the power
+of caring for particular people. Does that seem a very hard saying?
+You see I do not believe--what do you say to this--in memory
+lasting. You and I love each other here and now; when I die, I do
+not feel sure that I shall have any recollection of you or Maud or
+my own dear husband--how horrible that would sound to many men and
+nearly all women--but I have learned how to love, and you have
+learned how to love, and we shall find other souls to draw near to
+as the ages go on; and so I look forward to death calmly enough,
+because whatever I am I shall have souls to love, and I shall find
+souls to love me."
+
+"No," said Howard, "I can't believe that! I can't believe in any
+life here or hereafter apart from Maud. It is strange that I should
+be the sentimentalist now, and you the stern sceptic. The thought
+to me is infinitely dreary--even atrocious."
+
+"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Graves, "but that's the last
+sacrifice. That is what losing oneself means; to believe in love
+itself, and not in the particular souls we love; to believe in
+beauty, not in beautiful things. I have learned that! I do not say
+it in any complacency or superiority--you must believe me; but it
+is the last and hardest thing that I have learned. I do not say
+that it does not hurt--one suffers terribly in losing one's dear
+self, in parting from other selves that are even more dear. But
+would one send away the souls one loves best into a loveless
+paradise? Can one bear to think of them as hankering for oneself,
+and lost in regret? No, not for a moment! They pass on to new life
+and love; we cannot ourselves always do it in this life--the flesh
+is weak and dear; and age passes over us, and takes away the close
+embrace and the sweet desire. But it is the awakening of the soul
+to love that matters; and it has been to me one of the sweetest
+experiences of my life to see you and Maud awaken to love. But you
+will not stay there--nothing is ultimate, not the dearest and
+largest relations of life. One climbs from selfishness to liking,
+and from liking to passion, and from passion to love itself."
+
+"No," said Howard, "I cannot rise to that yet; I see, I dimly feel,
+that you are far above me in this; but I cannot let Maud go. She is
+mine, and I am hers."
+
+Mrs. Graves smiled and said, "Well, we will leave it at that. Kiss
+me, dearest boy; I don't love you less because I feel as I do--
+perhaps even more, indeed."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+THE TRUTH
+
+
+
+
+
+It was a sunny day of winter with a sharp breeze blowing, just
+after the birth of the New Year, that Howard and Maud left Windlow
+for Cambridge. The weeks previous had been much clouded for Howard
+by doubts and anxieties and a multiplicity of small business.
+Furnishing even an official house for a life of graceful simplicity
+involved intolerable lists, bills, letters, catalogues of things
+which it seemed inconceivable that anyone should need. The very
+number and variety of brushes required seemed to Howard an outrage
+on the love of cheap beauty, so epigrammatically praised by
+Thucydides; he said with a groan to Maud that it was indeed true
+that the Nineteenth Century would stand out to all time as the
+period of the world's history in which more useless things had been
+made than at any epoch before!
+
+But this morning, for some blessed reason, all his vexations seemed
+to slip off from him. They were to start in the afternoon; but at
+about eleven Maud in cloak and furred stole stepped into the
+library and demanded a little walk. Howard looked approvingly,
+admiringly, adoringly at his wife. She had regained a look of
+health and lightness more marked than he had ever before seen in
+her. Her illness had proved a rest, in spite of all the trouble she
+had passed through. Some new beauty, the beauty of experience, had
+passed into her face without making havoc of the youthful contours
+and the girlish freshness, and the beautiful line of her cheek
+outlined upon the dark fur, with the wide-open eye above it, came
+upon Howard with an almost tormenting sense of loveliness, like a
+chord of far-off music. He flung down his pen, and took his wife in
+his arms for an instant. "Yes," he said in answer to her look,
+"it's all right, darling--I can manage anything with you near me,
+looking like that--that's all I want!"
+
+They went out into the garden with its frost-crisped grass and
+leafless shrubberies, with the high-standing down behind. "How it
+blows!" said Howard:
+
+
+    "''Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
+         When Uricon the city stood:
+      'Tis the old wind, in the old anger,
+         But then it threshed another wood!'
+
+
+How beautiful that is--'the old wind, in the old anger!'--but it
+isn't true, for all that. If one thing changes, everything changes;
+and the wind has got to march on, like you and me: there's nothing
+pathetic about it. The weak thing is to want to stay as we are!"
+
+"Oh yes," said Maud; "one wastes pity. I was inclined myself to be
+pathetic about it all yesterday, when I went up home and looked
+into my little old room. The furniture and books and pictures
+seemed to me to reproach me with having deserted them; but, oh
+dear, what a fantastic, foolish, anxious little wretch I was, with
+all my plans for uplifting everyone! You don't know, dearest, you
+can't know, out of what a stagnant little pool you fished me up!"
+
+"And yet _I_ feel," said Howard, "as if it was you who had saved me
+from a sort of death--what a charming picture! two people who can't
+swim saving each other from drowning."
+
+"Well, that's the way that things are done!" said Maud decisively.
+
+They left the garden, and betook themselves to the pool; the waters
+welled up, green and cold, from the depth, and hurried away down
+their bare channel.
+
+"This is the scene of my life," said Howard; "I WILL be sentimental
+about this! This is where my ghost will walk, if anywhere; good
+heavens, to think that it was not three years ago that I came here
+first, and thought in a solemn way that it was going to have a
+strange significance for me. 'Significance,' that is the mischief!
+But it is all very well, now that every minute is full of
+happiness, to laugh at the old fears--they were very real at the
+time,--'the old wind, in the old anger'--one can't sit and dream,
+though it's pleasant, it's pleasant."
+
+"It was the only time in my life," said Maud, "when I was ever
+brave! Why isn't one braver? It is agreeable at the time, and it is
+almost overpaid!"
+
+"It is like what a doctor told me once," said Howard, "that he had
+never in his life seen a patient go to the operating table other
+than calm and brave. Face to face with things one is all right; and
+yet one never learns not to waste time in dreading them."
+
+They went on in silence up the valley, Maud walking beside him with
+all her old lightness. Howard thought he had never seen anything
+more beautiful. They were out of the wind now, but could hear it
+hiss in the grasses above them.
+
+"What about Cambridge?" said Maud. "I think it will be rather fun.
+I haven't wanted to go; but do you know, if someone came to me and
+said I might just unpack everything, I should be dreadfully
+disappointed!"
+
+"I believe I should be too," said Howard. "My only fear is that I
+shall not be interested--I shall be always wanting to get back to
+you--and yet how inexplicable that used to seem to me, that Dons
+who married should really prefer to steal back home, instead of
+living the free and joyous life of the sympathetic and bachelor;
+and even now it seems difficult to suppose that other men can feel
+as I do about THEIR wives."
+
+"Like the boy in Punch," said Maud, "who couldn't believe that the
+two earwigs could care about each other."
+
+A faint music of bells came to them on the wind. "Hark!" said
+Howard; "the Sherborne chime! Do you remember when we first heard
+that? It gave me a delightful sense of other people being busy when
+I was unoccupied. To-day it seems as if it was warning me that I
+have got to be busy."
+
+They turned at last and retraced their steps. Presently Howard
+said, "There's just one more thing, child, I want to say. I haven't
+ever spoken to you since about the vision--whatever it was--which
+you described to me--the child and you. But I took you at your
+word!"
+
+"Yes," said Maud, "I have always been glad that you did that!"
+
+"But I have wanted to speak," said Howard, "simply because I did
+not want you to think that it wasn't in my mind--that I had cast it
+all lightly away. I haven't tried to force myself into any belief
+about it--it's a mystery--but it has grown into my mind somehow,
+and become real; and I do feel more and more that there is
+something very true and great about it, linking us with a life
+beyond. It does seem to me life, and not silence; love, and not
+emptiness. It has not come in between us, as I feared it might--or
+rather it HAS come in between us, and seems to be holding both our
+hands. I don't say that my reason tells me this--but something has
+outrun my reason, and something stronger and better than reason. It
+is near and dear: and, dearest, you will believe me when I say that
+this isn't said to please you or to woo you--I wouldn't do that! I
+am not in sight of the reality yet, as you have been; but it IS a
+reality, and not a sweet dream."
+
+Maud looked at him, her eyes brimming with sudden tears. "Ah, my
+beloved," she said, "that is all and more than I had hoped. Let it
+just stay there! I am not foolish about it, and indeed the further
+away that it gets, the less I am sure what happened. I shall not
+want you to speak of it: it isn't that it is too sacred--nothing is
+too sacred--but it is just a fact I can't reckon with, like the
+fact of one's own birth and death. All I just hoped was that you
+might not think it only a girl's fancy; but indeed I should not
+have cared if you HAD thought that. The TRUTH--that is what
+matters; and nothing that you or I or anyone, in any passion of
+love or sorrow, can believe about the truth, can alter it; the only
+thing is to try to see it all clearly, not to give false reasons,
+not to let one's imagination go."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Howard, "that's the secret of love and life and
+everything; and yet it seems a hard thing to believe; because if it
+were not for your illusions about me, for instance--if you could
+really see me as I am--you couldn't feel as you do; one comes back
+to trusting one's heart after all--that is the only power we have
+of reading the writing on the wall. And yet that is not all; it IS
+possible to read it, to spell it out; but it is the interpretation
+that one needs, and for that one must trust love, and love only."
+
+They went back to the house in a happy silence; but Maud slipped
+out again, and went to the little churchyard. There behind the
+chancel, in a corner of the buttress, was a little mound. Maud laid
+a single white flower upon it. "No," she said softly, as if
+speaking in the ear of a child, "no, my darling, I am not making
+any mistake. I don't think of you as sleeping here, though I love
+the place where the little limbs are laid. You are awake, alive,
+about your business, I don't doubt. I'd have loved you, guarded
+you, helped you along; but you have made love live for me, and
+that, and hope, are enough now for us both! I don't claim you,
+sweet; I don't even ask you to remember and understand."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Watersprings, by Arthur Christopher Benson
+
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