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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..041e963 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #66071 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66071) diff --git a/old/66071-0.txt b/old/66071-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3c8787a..0000000 --- a/old/66071-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8552 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Seven Ages of Woman, by Compton -MacKenzie - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Seven Ages of Woman - -Author: Compton MacKenzie - -Release Date: August 16, 2021 [eBook #66071] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN AGES OF WOMAN *** - - - - - - THE - SEVEN AGES - OF WOMAN - - _By COMPTON MACKENZIE_ - Author of "Carnival," "Sinister Street," etc. - - - TORONTO - McCLELLAND and STEWART, Limited - PUBLISHERS - - - - - _Copyright, 1923, by_ - Martin Seckar - - _All Rights Reserved_ - - - _Printed in the United States of America_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. The Infant 3 - - II. The Girl 61 - - III. The Maiden 117 - - IV. The Wife 165 - - V. The Mother 213 - - VI. The Widow 257 - - VII. The Grandmother 293 - - - - -_Chapter One_ - -THE INFANT - - - - -THE SEVEN AGES OF WOMAN - - - - -_Chapter One: The Infant_ - - -On a June morning in the year 1859 Sir Richard Flower of Barton -Flowers in the county of Southampton decided that the weather was -propitious for his annual progress on horseback round the confines -of his demesne. The order was given to saddle his gray gelding; Lady -Flower was informed that her husband would dine two hours later than -usual, and upon her expressing alarm at the prospect of so long a fast -for him, she was reassured by a farther announcement that he would -fortify himself against the strain of waiting until six o'clock for -his dinner with light refreshment at one of the outlying farms. Lady -Flower sent back word to say how much she regretted not having known of -Sir Richard's expedition earlier in order that she might have made an -effort to overcome her headache and bid him farewell in person. To this -the baronet replied with a solemn admonition to her ladyship's maid -that her ladyship must on no account do anything to make her headache -worse. The exchange of courtesies being thus complete, Sir Richard -mounted his gray gelding and set out, pausing for a moment at the top -of the drive to look back at the Hall and respond with his crop to a -handkerchief that fluttered from an upper window. In the manner of -shaking his crop Sir Richard succeeded in conveying a reproof for the -indiscretion of rising from bed, affection for his beloved wife, and -gratification at the devotion displayed for himself. Then he turned -his horse's head to the left and cantered down a grassy avenue between -ancient oak trees. - -Sir Richard was accustomed to give much thought to his position -as holder of one of the oldest baronetcies in England, to the -responsibilities that such a position laid upon himself, to the beauty -and fertility of his demesne, to the timbered glories of his Hall, and -to the honorable record of his family; but on the day annually devoted -to riding round his ten thousand acres he never allowed himself to -think about anything else. He even went so far, when in the depths of -the wood neither squirrel moved nor bird chattered and there was none -but the gray gelding to overhear him, as to cry aloud in exultation -the motto of his house _Floreant Flores_. On this day dedicated to -himself, his family, and his land, Sir Richard indulged in so many -whimsicalities of behavior that an observer might have supposed him -the prey of madness or the victim of degraded superstition. Thus at -one point he dismounted from his horse and, kneeling in the middle -of the ride, placed an outspread palm upon the cushions of moss -and incorporated the thousands of green and golden stars within his -allegiance. He went farther; he laid bare the earth beneath and -commanded a congregation of disturbed millipedes to acknowledge him as -master. He made with his hands a cup to contain the black earth, and -let it trickle through his fingers as a miser might play with his gold. -"Mine," he said aloud, and stood for a moment in amazement at one who -owned not merely all the green world within sight, but four thousand -miles of unimaginable territory beneath his feet. "Mine," he repeated, -"and after me John, and after John another Richard. Praise God that -I appreciate the state of life to which He has called me;" with this -apostrophe the baronet swept off his high silk hat to salute his patron. - -Sir Richard kept such extravagance of speech and gesture for the -solitude of the woodland. No sooner had he emerged into one of the -deep, hazel-bordered lanes that intersecting his demesne reminded him, -deserted though they were, of the world beyond his boundaries, than -he became the least fantastic inhabitant of that decorous countryside -of well-tilled farms and preserved coverts. Sir Richard was close on -sixty; but his slim figure, upright carriage, and clear-cut features -enhanced by iron-gray whiskers, bushy enough to show that he was not -afraid of the fashion and yet not so full as to mark him down the slave -of that fashion, made him appear younger at a period when twenty-five -looked middle-aged. Every good horseman gives the impression of being -part of his steed, and Sir Richard on his gray gelding, with his gray -whiskers and gray riding breeches and gray frieze tail-coat was as -natural a centaur as Chiron himself. - -"Good morning, Sir Richard." - -The baronet pulled up to exchange a word with the first of his tenant -farmers he was to meet that day, a bull-necked, stubby man who was -leaning over a gate against a background of bright green barley. - -"Good morning to you, Wilberforce. Your barley's looking uncommonly -well." - -"Beautiful, Sir Richard, beautiful. Some grumbles, but not me, Sir -Richard, not me. May was bad for fruit with all that hail we had. But -the crops didn't suffer. Will you be passing by the farm, Sir Richard?" - -"Not this morning, Wilberforce. I'm taking my annual ride round the -estate. You know my old custom." - -"None better, Sir Richard. And what a one you be for keeping up old -customs, if you'll permit the liberty of the observation, Sir Richard. -And glad I am for one to have such a landlord in these days when Jack -thinks himself so good as his master. And how's Mr. John, Sir Richard?" - -"Mr. John is well, very well. He hopes to be quartered at Aldershot -presently, when we may expect to see something of him." - -"It'll be a grand day for Barton Flowers when the village turns out to -see the conquering hero come. Mr. John must have been proud when Her -Majesty pinned on the Victoria Cross with her own hands at Buckingham -Palace the other day. But, as I said to all of 'em, Her Majesty must -have been proud of Mr. John when she were a-pinning of it on." - -"Yes, I believe he deserved his honor," said the father, trying to -look unconcerned. "Of course you saw the little account of it in the -newspaper?" - -Farmer Wilberforce gave his landlord the pleasure of supposing that he -had not yet read the account, whereupon Sir Richard took a cutting from -his waistcoat pocket and read aloud as follows: - - Lieutenant (now Captain) John Flower, Royal Artillery. - - Date of act of bravery, 5th November, 1854. - - For having at the Battle of Inkerman personally attacked three - Russians, and, with the gunners of his Division of the battery, - prevented the Russians from doing mischief to the guns which they had - surrounded. - - Part of a regiment of English infantry had previously retired through - the battery in front of this body of Russians. - -"He had to wait a long time for his deed to be recognized," said -the father, replacing the slip of paper in his pocket with a sigh -of satisfaction. "Good morning to you, Wilberforce. I mustn't stay -gossiping here any longer. I've a good many miles in front of me, you -know." - -Sir Richard rode on, his mind full of his elder son's valor. He should -be thinking about marriage, though. It was time to see a grandson at -the Hall. One was apt to forget how fast the years were going by. How -old was John now? Thirty. So he was, by gad, thirty. Yes, he must be -getting married. Not much difficulty about that, the proud father -laughed to himself. Handsome, brave, the heir to Barton Flowers! It -was right that he should take his profession seriously, but after -the Crimea and the Mutiny he could claim to have served his country -well, could afford to sell out and prepare himself to administer the -property he would one day inherit. One day ... but not just yet. "No, -not just yet," Sir Richard murmured, gripping the flanks of the gray -horse tightly in pride of his own strength. And perhaps at this moment -when the electric telegram was almost daily bringing news of French -victories in Italy, and when that rascal Napoleon might be forming who -knows what schemes to invade England, yes, perhaps at this moment, -Captain John Flower should stick to his guns. Still, he would talk to -his wife about the boy's marriage. He hoped that when he arrived home -again he should find that headache sufficiently improved to let her -discuss the subject with keenness and intelligence. The right plan -was to invite some eligible young women to visit the Hall during -John's next furlough, and if luck should station him at Aldershot to -take care that whenever he drove over to Barton he should find an -attraction at home. Luckily there were plenty of eligible young women -in the neighborhood. Sir Richard was enumerating the possible wives -for his heir when the disquieting thought occurred to him that John, -like his father before him, might look beyond Hampshire for a wife. -Not that for a single moment he had regretted his own choice; but -what might be done once with success might end in disaster if fortune -were tempted again. Anybody who had been made aware of Sir Richard's -thoughts at this moment might have been pardoned for supposing that -he had found a wife of beauty, merit, and ability in a lower stratum -of society. As a matter of fact, the present Lady Flower was the -daughter of one of Wellington's most gallant officers and a French -lady of rank whose father had taken refuge from the Terror in England, -where he had preferred to remain during the Napoleonic tyranny. It -was the French blood that made Sir Richard feel he was committing a -breach of tradition in marrying Miss Helen Baxter. To have introduced -French blood into the Flowers, notwithstanding the pride of the family -in their Norman origin, still seemed to him an astonishing piece of -audacity; and even now he could shudder to think what his father would -have said, had his father been alive when he married. Yet his wedded -life had been one of unbroken happiness, and Helen had not betrayed -the least sign of her mixed origin unless perhaps in an incurable -propensity to succumb to violent headaches, which she dignified, or as -her husband preferred to think, Frenchified by calling migraines. The -old family doctor attributed them to nerves, and nerves, Sir Richard -felt, were French, not English, so that if Doctor Wilkinson was right, -the headaches must have been inherited from her French mother. There -was nothing of the Frenchman in the elder son John. He never had a -headache in his life, and he had won the Victoria Cross. English to the -backbone was John. But Edward...? - -Sir Richard, who had been trotting gaily along his boundaries, pulled -up his horse to a walk, because the personality and character of -his younger son perplexed him. Edward had headaches, was prone to -day-dreaming, and at twenty-eight showed no sign of making any progress -at the Bar, to which without apparently the slightest taste for a legal -career he had recently been called. Headaches, day-dreams, instability, -these were not English qualities. What had Edward been doing down at -home all the summer? How could he expect to be a successful barrister -if he left his chambers in Pump Court to take care of themselves? If -John had been a barrister, he would have made his mark by now. Yet -Edward had been endowed with more brains than John. John was diligent, -determined; but Edward had the brains. It had been the ancient custom -of the Flowers to send the eldest son to Winchester, the others to -Eton. Sir Richard, who was a Wykhamist, had broken the tradition -by sending John to Eton and Edward to Winchester, partly because -he thought that Winchester would eradicate more sternly any French -symptoms that appeared in Edward, partly because he believed that what -was known as cleverness in a boy would receive more encouragement at -the older foundation. But Edward had been a disappointment. His career -at Winchester had been undistinguished, and he had gone down from New -College without taking a degree. That was the moment when his father -should have been firm with him, when he should have insisted upon -his making his own way in the world without parental assistance. But -Helen had intervened, and she intervened so rarely that when she did -her husband was always defeated. Edward had expressed a half-hearted -desire to read for the Bar, and he had allowed himself to be persuaded -into making the necessary allowance. What was the result? Edward at -twenty-eight as little able to provide for himself as he was at eight! -It had been all very well for his mother to plead for his company over -long months at Barton to console her for the absence of her elder son -first in the Crimea and then in India. But John had been back a year -now, and Edward spent more time than ever at home. Confound it, the -problem of Edward's future was spoiling the day, and in a burst of -irritation the baronet spurred his horse to a canter. - -At this point the boundary of Sir Richard's estate might have been -the subject of litigation had there been enough people interested -to litigate. It was the old dispute over common land which had been -gradually enclosed by the lord of the manor. In this case the issue -was complicated by the fact that the head of the Flowers was as such -himself a commoner, and it was difficult to prove that a commoner had -no right to plant beechwoods if he was so minded. This had been the -Flower method of encroachment. At this date there were only three other -families of commoners left, and inasmuch as these gained a miserable -livelihood by poaching Sir Richard's coverts rather than by pasturing -a few scrawny geese, there was no doubt that before long the landlord -would succeed in fixing his boundary on the far side of the common. At -present the common extended for a mile, a narrow strip of coarse grass -land two hundred yards wide at its greatest breadth along the baronet's -dark beechwoods. Beyond the common the railway cut its track through -the meadows of another landowner, and Sir Richard laughed to think how -twenty years ago he had refused to let the line run through his land. - -"That's the way good estates are ruined," he thought complacently, -urging his horse from a canter to a gallop. - -The wild commoners came out from their hovels to stare at him as he -flew past, and congratulated themselves that he had not noticed how -much turf in excess of their allowance had recently been cut. - -At the end of the gallop Sir Richard reined in his horse to a walk -that he might move slowly and admiringly through a plantation of -larches he had put in ten years ago, which now in its symmetry and -silence impressed him as a painter might be impressed by the beauty -of an early work he had forgotten. Sir Richard regretted that he had -not made a similar plantation near the Hall, so that his wife might -enjoy walking upon this pale grass where the sun shone with so dim -and so diffused a light. He was convinced that the experience would -appeal to that romantic side of her character which expressed itself in -migraines. Yes, it was a pity he had not thought of planting another -within access of the Hall. He was now in the most remote corner of his -demesne, and it would be difficult to drive her to this place without -considerable discomfort. This plantation must be making a fine screen -for old Taylor's orchard by now, thought Sir Richard. The old man had -grumbled when first his landlord had insisted upon afforesting that -useless field, covered with thistles and ragwort; he would admit now -that his landlord had been right. But the old man was always grumbling. -No doubt if he met him to-day he would be full of woe over the thunder -and hail of last month, vowing that none of his blossom had set and -that the season would be a dead loss in consequence. How different -from Wilberforce, who had recognized most sensibly the promise of the -arable crops! The fact of it was, old Taylor was growing too old for -the responsibility of a large farm. Of course he had not the slightest -intention of turning him out, but he did wish that old Taylor showed -more signs of appreciating his landlord's consideration. That was the -trouble with people, Sir Richard sighed to himself, one did all that -was possible for them and received nothing in return. If only some of -the tenants who grumbled at the least delay in carrying out necessary -repairs would try to understand the point of view of the landlord. -Nowadays people only tried to understand their own point of view. Yes, -the age was degenerating, humanity was not what it was. - -The prey of these pessimistic reflections, Sir Richard had allowed the -horse to take his own pace; the progress had been slow and silent; and -when the long central aisle of the plantation made an abrupt curve -at its conclusion Sir Richard found himself in old Taylor's orchard -so suddenly that he had to dismount in a hurry to save his silk hat -from being knocked off by the boughs of the apple trees. As his foot -touched the ground, he saw in a sun-flecked space about eighty yards -from where he was standing two figures disengage from a close embrace. -Sir Richard recognized from the color of her auburn hair old Taylor's -granddaughter, Elizabeth, and he was on the verge of a smile for -youth and love in the summer time when he perceived that the man was -his own son, Edward. He raised his riding-crop with a gesture of rage, -while the lovers as if even a moment's separation were bitter as death -clung together in a fresh embrace, standing heedless of all except -their love, heedless of the young apples that fell from time to time -from every tree, heedless of the noise Sir Richard's horse made in -cropping the tender grass, heedless of Sir Richard's foot stamped upon -the ground in anger, nor even looking round when he jerked his horse's -bridle, remounted, and galloped back the way he had come down the long -central aisle between the larches. - -"The damned philandering puppy," he muttered to himself, as he came out -from the plantation and set the gray to gallop more swiftly than before -over the common land. He paid no attention to the wild commoners, who -seeing the baronet return at this furious pace supposed that he had -been made aware of their depredations upon the turf and ran to hide -from his wrath in the dark bordering beeches. He paid no attention to -the geese that flapped across his path except to give the gelding a -cruel jab when he swerved in his stride. It was barely two o'clock when -Sir Richard reached the Hall, having for the first time in thirty-five -years failed at his yearly task of riding round the confines of his ten -thousand acres. So deeply enraged was he with his son's conduct that he -neither sent up to warn his wife of his early return nor even inquired -after her headache. He shut himself in his big library, pacing up and -down among the rows of books, the titles of which wrote themselves upon -his mind more rapidly but perhaps not less intelligibly than they had -written themselves on the minds of generations of Flowers. Sir Richard -glared at the busts of poets, orators, and philosophers posed with such -unconcern, with such coolness and such contempt above the cornice of -the shelves. If Homer, Demosthenes and Plato had not been out of reach, -the baronet would have swept them from their perch to the ground. -Instead he pulled the bell rope violently. - -"When Mr. Edward comes in," he told the butler, "I wish to see him at -once." - -"Very good, Sir Richard," said the butler apprehensively, and as the -old man went out of the library Sir Richard wondered if his son's -conduct was already a topic in the steward's room and servants' hall. -In the middle of his rage there was a tap at the door, and his wife -entered to a gruff summons. Lady Flower was a small, dainty woman whose -smallness and daintiness was accentuated by the vast crinolines of -the moment. Although she was almost fifty, her black hair lacked the -faintest film of gray, her ivory skin showed few lines. To Sir Richard -she seemed the same as when thirty-one years ago he had married her. -She never came into a room but his mind went back to the first sight -of her dressed in a short flounced skirt with her black hair tied high -with roses and ribands; and it seemed not she but her clothes which had -grown older and more stately with years. - -"My dear, what is the matter?" she asked. "What has upset you?" - -The distressed father poured out his tale. - -"But aren't you taking it all too seriously?" his wife suggested. -"Edward has only found a Graziella at Barton. _Il y a toujours des -petits amoureux...._" - -"For God's sake don't talk French!" Sir Richard burst in. "There's -nothing like French for giving an unpleasant turn to the conversation." - -"It was tactless of me," she apologized, seating herself in a -high-backed chair where she looked as tranquil and as much assured -as one of the classic busts eyeing infinity above the books. "But -seriously the Taylor girl is a pretty little thing, and if Edward is -not imprudent there is most surely no harm in a few kisses." - -"Helen, your remarks border on cynicism," said Sir Richard. "I know -that you have always maintained your right to discuss matters which in -England I think we have reason in not encouraging women to discuss; -but really when your advanced views are applied to your own children -I think it is time for me to protest. After all, if you had a French -mother, my dear, you are quite definitely and unmistakably English -yourself. But please do not let us cover up Edward's behavior with -side issues. You know how much I have deplored his laziness, how much I -have objected to his spending most of his time here, and how necessary -it is for him as a younger son to supplement with a profession any -allowance I am able to give him in the future from my own savings. I -repeat, you know all this, and yet when I discover that the reason for -his continually living with his parents is not the pleasure of their -society, but a low passion for the granddaughter of one of his father's -tenants, it becomes obvious that Edward's behavior can no longer be -tolerated. Of course he has headaches if he behaves like this," Sir -Richard went on indignantly. "Of course he finds the air of Pump -Court too stuffy in June. You must remember, my dear, that Edward is -twenty-eight. We are not discussing the calf love of a schoolboy." - -"Well, all I beg is that you will handle him tactfully," said Lady -Flower. "Now, if I could only persuade you to let me talk to him...." - -"Certainly not. On such a subject most certainly not," Sir Richard -shouted. - -"But if you jump down his throat and treat him like a schoolboy, he may -do something really serious." She paused to sniff a silver vinaigrette, -while the suggestion buried itself like an arrow in the heavy ground of -her husband's mind. - -"Really serious?" he echoed in a moment's perplexity. "Good God! you -are not suggesting that he might want to marry her? That would indeed -be the end of everything." - -"That is precisely what I am trying to tell you," said his wife. "That -is why I am trying to hint that you should not take too high a moral -tone." - -"Good heavens, my dear, what outrageous remarks you do make. And yet on -this occasion I really believe you are justified in making them." - -The baronet sank down into a chair opposite his wife and allowed her to -lean over and pat his cheek as if he were a disconsolate boy. - -"Don't you think it would be wiser for me to carry through this scene?" -she pressed. - -He waved the suggestion aside. "No, no, my dear. I appreciate your -desire to spare me pain, but what I have to say to Edward must be said -as from a man to a man. Hark! I hear his horse coming up the drive. -Leave us together, my dear, leave us, I beg you...." - -Lady Flower hesitated for one moment longer, but perceiving that her -husband was not to be moved from his resolve, acquitted herself of -all responsibility with a gesture of her white hands, and without a -backward glance of entreaty floated from the room. - -Edward Flower resembled his mother in features and complexion, but -in figure he was tall and slim like his father. He seemed to divine -that the interview to which he had been summoned was likely to be -disagreeable, for he waited by the door of the library when he had -closed it behind him as if he hoped that he had made a mistake in thus -intruding. - -"Bates told me you wished to speak to me, sir." - -"I did. I do. Don't let us beat about the bush. And come into the room! -I can't shout what I have to say." - -However discreetly hushed the baronet's voice was going to be when he -attacked his son upon the situation in Taylor's orchard, it was loud -enough at present. - -"I am at your service, sir," said Edward quietly, taking the chair in -which a few minutes ago his mother had been sitting. - -"I started out this morning to ride round the estate," Sir Richard -began. "On my way I passed by Taylor's orchard." He paused with a stern -glance at his son. "Well, sir?" he demanded. - -"And I'm glad you did, papa," said Edward eagerly. The character of -this interview drove him back unconsciously to childhood's manner of -address. - -"You're glad I did?" the baronet echoed. "By gad, sir, you're a cooler -hand at this game than I gave you credit for. I'm thankful I did not -allow your mother to speak to you on this subject." - -"Did my mother wish to speak to me?" Edward broke in. "Ah, she would -understand, and I fear that you, sir, may be prejudiced by the humble -station of the dear girl I am going to marry." - -"Marry!" the baronet shouted. "This is not a moment for levity, sir. I -sent for you to say that I won't have you philandering with the females -on my estate. You know I disapprove of the manner you idle away your -time here when you should be working at your profession. But if you do -stay here, by God you shall stay here like a gentleman and a Flower, -with respect for the domestic happiness of your father's tenants. We've -never yet had a scandal of that kind in our family, and if my son -brings such a scandal about I'll disown him." - -"I have already told you, sir, that the young woman will shortly become -my wife. There is no question of scandal. I love her passionately, -devotedly. She gives me all and more in return. She is a modest and -beautiful girl. I am old enough to know my own mind. I am sorry to seem -disrespectful, sir, but nothing that you can say will alter my resolve." - -"I'll disinherit you." - -"I must put up with that." - -"I'll disown you. You shall never cross the threshold of this house -again." - -"I must put up even with that," said Edward sadly. - -"Thank God I have another son who would never disgrace his father and -his father's name thus." - -"I know that I have been a disappointment to you, sir; but this is -not the moment to make excuses for my carelessness in the past nor to -try your patience with promises of reform in the future. I firmly -believe that marriage with Elizabeth Taylor will give me that very -stability and perseverance in which I have hitherto shown myself so -lacking. If you had evinced less anger at my decision, I should have -enlarged upon this benefit to my character; but in your present mood I -am conscious that anything I say will only serve to enrage you against -me more than ever. Luckily I am not your heir, and my brother, as you -justly observe, will know better than I how to uphold the honor of -your house--since you have disowned me, I hesitate to say _our_ house. -Believe me, my dear, dear father, when I say that only the assurance -of my whole life's happiness depending upon my marriage with Elizabeth -keeps me from obeying your wishes. There is nothing to add except my -deep regret for the secrecy I have maintained throughout. I can assure -you that in acting in what may seem to you an underhand manner I was -endeavoring to spare you pain, so that when the secret had to come out, -which would have been to-morrow, for it is to-morrow that we are to -be married, you would have been spared the annoyance of contesting a -situation which was a _fait accompli_." - -"Damn it, don't talk French, and get out of my sight," Sir Richard -shouted, louder than he had shouted yet, for his son's long speech had -given his rage time to seethe in his breast, and it now burst forth -with double volume. - -Edward bowed his head and rising from his chair went gloomily from the -room. He found his mother standing in the corridor outside, and at a -signal he followed her upstairs to her boudoir. - -Edward contrasted his mother's calm with his father's fury, and yet -when she sat upright on a wide stool, composing her full skirts of -amber sarsanet with hands that seemed incredibly small against the -vast pendulous sleeves from which they emerged, Edward was more uneasy -in presence of that calm than when he was being buffeted by his -father's storms. There was an ivory polish, an ivory hardness, an ivory -resilience about his mother that made his heart beat with a dread of -this delicate creature who within his earliest memories had always come -to the help of his ineffectiveness, but who now sat regarding him from -eyes that seemed as hard as agates. - -"Listen, Edward," she said quickly. "I overheard what your father -said, and I understand that you have announced your resolve to marry -this ..." Lady Flower paused for a second as if she were pondering the -effect upon her son of describing the young woman too brutally ... -"this pretty country girl," she continued, sure now of the key in which -her persuasion should be played, a key of light irony, of compassionate -ridicule which must bring the sensitive Edward to a perception of the -impossibility of what he was proposing. "I think I have seen her once -or twice hanging out the clothes or feeding her grandfather's chickens. -She has red hair, has she not? And is she not much freckled?" - -"She has glorious hair," Edward avowed. "And her complexion is perfect." - -"Red-headed women usually freckle somewhat easily," said his mother -indifferently. "But let that pass, we will admit her beauty. Personally -I distrust red-haired women. There is something of the fox...." - -Lady Flower broke off to shrug her shoulders in distaste. - -"I should hardly describe her hair as red myself," Edward said. "It has -reddish tints, but...." - -"My dear boy, you are not proposing to paint this young woman; you are -proposing to marry her. When your father came home furious because he -had seen you kissing her on a garden-seat or some such romantic spot, -I took your part. Indeed, your father was shocked at my inability to -see much harm in kissing a pretty village maiden. But marriage, ah, -_par example, mais ça c'est un peu fort, tu sais_. Have you really -considered what it will mean in a few years' time when your Graziella -coarsens? You will have to earn your own living, for I know your father -well enough to be sure that if you do marry this girl he will keep his -word and cut you off. That means that you will not have the leisure -to educate her, that you will be dragged down to her level, that you -will...." - -"Please, mamma, please I beg you not to say any more. My mind is made -up, and if I have to renounce my family I want to leave you without -the least bitterness. I will not hear a word against Elizabeth. I adore -her." - -"And where will you live?" his mother inquired, biting her lips. - -"I am going to ask her grandfather if he will take me on at his farm." - -"You are going to live within a few miles of us as a farm hand?" - -"I shall be happy," said Edward, miserably aware of his mother's -contempt. - -"I have always defended you until now. But such ... such.... Oh, I have -no word for such a despicable suggestion. I have finished with you, -Edward. I almost wish I could shout as loudly as your father to tell -you how completely I despise you. Go to that minx, who in a year will -despise you as much as I do, and who will play you false with the first -handsome plowboy she meets. And you'll deserve it, you weakling!" - -Edward rushed from his mother's room, and when he had packed his -possessions went to Bates, the old butler, and asked him for the -servants' cart to take his luggage to Long Orchard Farm. His mother's -last speech had made much easier the task of cutting himself off from -his family, and when he set out down the drive he had not one regret -for what he was losing. Edward depended much on other people, and now -that one of those on whom he had most securely depended had let him -fall, he clung more closely to the other. Elizabeth had long lamented -the worry she was likely to prove to him when his family was informed -of the marriage, and he was glad now to be able to meet her before the -day with the news that he owned no family except hers. How surprised -she would be to see him again so soon, for they had just lived through -that passionate farewell until they should meet to-morrow morning at -the door of the church. A misgiving came over Edward. What if Elizabeth -should be so much distressed by the news of the breach that she should -not keep her word? Was it wise in any case to upset her on the eve -of the wedding? Let her sleep to-night, or if she lay awake on this -vigil let her thoughts be serene as the summer night and radiant as -the summer dawn. He would beg a night's lodging from the Vicar, who -was already so deep in Sir Richard's bad graces that one more act of -defiance could not add to his offense. - -Edward found his friend the Vicar, an old Tractarian who had somehow -eluded Sir Richard's Protestant zeal and been presented to the living -of Barton Flowers, sympathetic and encouraging. The old man sat in his -dusty room amid a chaos of theological tomes and held forth upon the -sacramental wonder of marriage, reaching from time to time for a book -from his shelves, usually the work of some Anglo-Catholic divine of the -seventeenth century, in whose sonorous periods human love was exalted -and sanctified and whose dying cadences showed forth mortality in the -image of Almighty God. - -"Marriage is too sacred a rite to be regulated by worldly -considerations," the priest said. "You are justified by your singleness -of purpose. You have acted loyally to the woman of your choice. You -have nothing to reproach yourself for." - -Edward had been glad to avail himself of the Vicar's help to assure -Elizabeth that she was not outraging decency by marrying him; but he -had never occupied his mind with the demands of religion, and only now -for the first time he was deeply impressed by a sudden consciousness -of what a weight of moral and spiritual support stood behind him in -what he was about to do. From that moment he looked at religion with -new eyes, apprehending in it the possibility of so crystallizing his -indeterminate aspirations as even at this late hour of youth to do -something and be somebody. He went up to bed in a glow of ambition that -lighted his spirit, even as the candle lighted the dark corridors and -stairways of the Vicarage. - -Edward slept tranquilly, and in the morning at eight o'clock he was -married to Elizabeth Taylor, with nobody except her grandfather and a -couple of farm hands to hear their whispers of eternal fidelity, their -murmured promises to have and to hold and to cherish until death. There -was no shouting when they came out arm-in-arm from the church; there -was nothing except the peace of a mid-summer morning, the fragrance of -long grass in the churchyard, the hum of bees in the limes, and in the -distance a sound of lowing cattle. - -The bride and bridegroom had not planned to spend their honeymoon -elsewhere; indeed, they had both been so much preoccupied with the -complications arising out of their simple action that they had thought -of nothing beyond the achievement of the wedding. When old James Taylor -asked them where they intended to pass the night, neither of them could -reply for the moment. At length Edward spoke: - -"I have to explain, Mr. Taylor, that yesterday I had a very unpleasant -scene with Sir Richard, who ordered me out of his house forever." - -"A' look now, that's Sir Richard sure enough," the old man nodded. "The -most unreasonable man that ever owned an acre. Well, I suppose you'd -better bide here." - -Edward explained his project to stay on and help with the farm work, at -which the old man chuckled. - -"You can stay so long as you will, but I don't reckon you'll be much -use on the farm. What's Lizzie say to it?" - -Elizabeth had no words to say, but worlds to look, and since all her -worlds were entirely populated by Edwards, she showed plainly that she -approved of anything Edward proposed to do. - -"'Tis no use at all to look for help from a maid, once she be tied up," -the old man chuckled. "I suppose I might soberly consider myself a -fool to give her to you. But give her I have. You see, Mr. Edward, you -was all her fancy, and ever since my boy died, her fancy has always -been mine. He was a good lad. I miss him sorely now, especially come -seed-time. And couldn't he broadcast a field of oats! Oh dear, oh dear, -none like him! Foxtail oats was his favorites, and wouldn't they come -up thick from his sowing! But, darn'ee, do you think the young chaps -can sow like that now? They cannot!" - -"I'm going to have a good try," Edward vowed. - -"A' look now, that's the way to talk, I'm bothered if it isn't," the -old man exclaimed, pretending to be much impressed, while his blue eyes -twinkled like the sea on a fine morning. - -They had reached the farmhouse by now, and when old James had hung -his big beaver hat on a peg they sat down to the wedding breakfast, -at which the presence of the Vicar compelled a demeanor that might -otherwise have been wanting, because old James on such occasions was -apt to indulge in bucolic freedom of speech. - -"But when parson's there," he said afterwards, "I always sits so dumb -as a rook in a pie. It comes over me to say summat, and then I catches -parson's eye and back the wicked words go into my mouth like rabbits. -He's a good man is parson, but he surely lays on me like snow in a -ditch. Well, now, go out into the fields and lanes and enjoy this fine -summer-time, you two. We can talk about Sir Richard and such sober -topics to-morrow. Come, give I a kiss, my maid. You're looking sweet as -laylock in a garden." - -Edward would not let Elizabeth torment herself about the future, and -she, so deep in love, could not fret for long with Edward hers now -whatever happened ... hers ... ah, could he but know how completely -hers.... - -"Edward, my own, are you sure you love me as much, now that we are -husband and wife?" - -She clung to him in a self-inflicted agony of doubt, knowing full -well that in a moment it would be turned to the warmth of a delicious -security. - -"My foolish Lizzie," he murmured, "I love you a thousand times more." - -"But you seem sad sometimes, as if you half regretted what you had -done." - -"I am not sad, my dearest. If I seem serious, it is because I am awed -by the knowledge that you are mine." - -"Oh, and I am yours, I am indeed yours." - -Edward looked into her burning brown eyes that were unlike any other -brown eyes he had ever seen, because they caught somehow the hues and -shadows of her deep auburn hair, as a woodland pool appears stained -with autumn like the trees above. - -"Your eyes," he murmured, and he felt a longing to drown within their -deeps. - -"Do you like my eyes?" - -"Elizabeth! You vain, vain Elizabeth!" - -They kissed, while a summer wind sang its small song, its intimate and -idle song among the grasses at their feet. - -"Hark to the little wind," said Edward. "Of what does it remind you?" - -"Only of summer," she whispered. - -"Don't you think it is like a child singing to herself while she plays -alone with her toys?" - -"What funny fancies you have, Edward." - -A sudden comprehension of what might be seized him in a rapture, and he -clasped his Elizabeth closer. - -"Can you not tell me of what I am thinking?" he whispered. - -She raised her eyes slowly, divined the thought that was beating from -his heart into hers, blushed as red as her own red heart which now beat -as fast as his, buried her face for a moment in his breast, then looked -up quickly and for answer gave him her lips. - -The moths were dancing over the petunias, when the lovers came home to -the farm. - -"But you'll never have such another day," said old James. "And if -you've missed your tea, you can make up for it with supper. But as for -me, I'm going to bed." - -He lighted his candle and stumped upstairs, chuckling to himself. On -the landing he paused and leaning over the balustrade called down: - -"And if you miss your breakfast, you can make up for it with dinner." - -They could hear him still chuckling to himself long after he had closed -his bedroom door. - -"You know," said Elizabeth, "if anybody didn't know it was grandfather -laughing to himself, they'd surely think it was owls in the roof." - -They sat for a while talking about foolish things like that, and then -they too went upstairs. Through the open lattices of their room the -perfume of the night-scented stocks came up from the garden. Edward saw -with amazement that Elizabeth's hair reached almost to her feet, and -he thought of his mother's remark yesterday. "That little red-haired -girl!" Why, there never was such hair before. Too soon the moment came -to put out the candle and lose those glinting locks. While the odor of -the wick slowly faded upon the cool fragrance blown in upon them by the -night, Edward lay with the last vision of Elizabeth upon his inner eye. -Then turning he clasped her in his arms, and she with all her being -leapt to his as a wave to the shore. - -There was no moon that night, but in every lattice a star or two -twinkled, and in the starshine Elizabeth lay beside him like a warm -shadow. - -"Are you happy, my darling?" - -"Very, very happy." - -Edward could not sleep. He did not want to sleep. He wished to stay -forever like this, with her hair about his face. Dawn was on the -panes, and the sparrows were stirring in the eaves. How still she -lay, how fast she slept! He bent over to kiss her eyelids. She stirred -slightly and put out her hand, clasping his and murmuring a faint -endearment, an echo from her dreams. The first rays of the sun shone -through upon the bed. Her lips in sleep were very crimson, and she woke -up when he kissed them. - -"Are you happy, my darling?" - -"Very, very happy." - -They lay for a long while in each other's arms while the sun climbed -higher, the bland five o'clock sun of June. - -"I must start farming to-day," Edward declared. "They'll be cutting the -hay, I fancy." - -"While the sun shines," she whispered, smiling. - -"My lovely one, my lovely one," he breathed. - - * * * * * - -Edward was not given much time to test his willingness or ability as a -farmer, because as soon as the hay had been carried old James Taylor -was given notice by Sir Richard Flower to quit the farm at Ladyday. He -went up to the Hall to try to see his father and find out if the notice -would be rescinded should he himself give an undertaking to leave -the neighborhood. Sir Richard, however, declined to see his son, and -that evening he sent him his allowance for the next quarter with the -intimation that this was the last money he would ever receive from his -father. When the rent of his chambers and some outstanding debts in -London had been paid and his few possessions sold, Edward found himself -with not much more than one hundred and fifty pounds and without any -prospect of earning a living. It had never occurred to him that his -father would take what he thought so mean a revenge on his wife's -grandfather, and he could not help feeling that at the back of Sir -Richard's action was a desire to get rid of the old man who, as Edward -knew, he considered an unprofitable tenant. James accepted his notice -with admirable calm and dignity. He had not a word of reproach for -Edward or Elizabeth, and upon his landlord's behavior his only comment -was: - -"It was always in my mind that he would give me notice one day. Ever -since I argued the point with him over that larch plantation which I -said was spoiling good grazing he had it in his heart to get rid of I. -He were ashamed for a long time. And I held the farm for thirty years, -and my father before me twenty-five years, and his father before that -thirty-two years." - -Edward was in despair; but neither old James nor Elizabeth would hear -of his reproaching himself. - -"You came like an honest man," said James, "not gallivanting round as -one of the gentry might. That's good enough for I, and that's good -enough for she. Come Lammas I shall be seventy, which is a late age for -making a long journey unless it be that powerful long journey out of -this world into the next. My brother Henry set out forty-three years -ago for Australia, and I've only heard from him once, and that was -Christmas two years ago. I put off answering the letter, for I write -a very crooked hand and was never one for letters. Get the ink-horn, -Lizzie. By God A'mighty, I'll write him now and say we'll pay him a -visit in the spring of the year. I still have a pretty hand wi' sheep, -and I reckon Henry will find us all a job." - -"Why, that's the very thing," cried Edward. "Emigration! What a fool I -was not to have thought of it myself." - -Old James wrote a letter to his brother, who was evidently a squatter -of considerable affluence and who, judging by the cordial tone of -the only letter he had written, would be glad in his old age, being -a childless widower, to welcome his kinsfolk from England. It was -decided to give up the farm at Christmas and to sail as early as -possible in the New Year. Fortune was kind up to the point of granting -old James a good harvest that season, and although the new tenant, -Farmer Wilberforce, did not pay as he ought to have paid for the live -and dead stock, James scraped together enough to enable the three of -them to equip themselves for a long journey and avoid the steerage. It -became important to start as early as possible in the New Year, because -Elizabeth was with child, and it was hoped to leave England in time -to avoid childbirth on the high seas. Edward was painfully conscious -of being able to do very little to help old James, and he tried to -console himself with the belief that once ashore in Australia he would -by his energy make amends for his present helplessness. Places were -secured in the second class of the _Mariana_, a ship of 1,374 tons, -which was due to sail from Liverpool in the first week of January; but -on the night before her departure, when all on board were making merry -to the strains of an emigrant fiddler and an emigrant piper, an alarm -of fire was raised. There was plenty of help at hand from the crowded -shipping of the Mersey; the passengers with their luggage were taken -off by steam-tugs and boats; and the vessel was run ashore, where when -the tide left her high and dry she was gutted by the flames. - -Elizabeth bore the terrifying experience with fortitude, and when the -shipping agents in Liverpool told them of a ship sailing from London -within a few days she was not backward in urging her husband and -grandfather to make every effort to obtain a passage. Nevertheless, the -nervous tension to which she had been exposed proved too much for her, -and even before the train journey was accomplished her travail began -prematurely. There was no time to search for comfortable lodgings. -The first rooms they found in Pomona Terrace, a dreary by-street off -the Euston Road, had to serve their need, and while the landlady, a -good-natured, grubby Irishwoman, helped Elizabeth to bed, Edward -rushed out into the wet foggy night to summon a doctor. - -In a crescent of decaying houses he soon perceived like rubies on the -murky air the lamps of two doctors adjacent. Had his need been less -urgent, such a juxtaposition would have presented an insoluble problem -to Edward whose attitude to life was one long hesitation between his -right and his left. As it was, he hurried up the first pair of steps -and was on the point of pulling the bell, when through a broken slat -of the Venetian blinds he saw the occupant of the room thus revealed -pour himself out a very generous allowance of whisky or brandy from -a dusty decanter unsteadily held in a dirty hand. He paused with his -fingers on the knob of the bell while the occupant of the gas-lit room -held the decanter in mid-air, listening. The face with its expression -of interrupted desire and expectant cunning was so repulsive that -Edward was horrified at the idea of such a creature's attending upon -his beloved Elizabeth, and in a moment he had put his leg over the low -stone parapet that divided the steps of one doctor from the steps of -the other. - -"Yes," the maid told him, "Dr. Harrison is in." - -Edward explained the case to the doctor, while the latter packed his -bag with various instruments, and so much excited was he that he could -hardly refrain from plucking at the doctor's sleeve when they were -hurrying back through the fog to the lodgings in Pomona Terrace. Dr. -Harrison was a young man, scarcely more than thirty, whose manner -carried such assurance that Edward was able to feel that his choice -had been the right one. When they reached the house the doctor was at -once taken upstairs, while Edward, on the suggestion of Mrs. Gallagher, -accommodated himself in the kitchen. Here he found old James Taylor -on one side of the range talking of agriculture to Mr. Gallagher, -a workman in the employ of one of the great railway companies, who -was displaying his agreement or disagreement with, his interest in -or boredom at the farmer's observations only by the way he sucked at -his clay pipe. For an Irishman he was strangely taciturn. From time -to time slatternly young women passed through; but whether they were -the daughters or servants of the Gallaghers or lodgers in the house, -there was no telling. Though Edward took a chair next old Taylor, his -thoughts were upstairs, and the old man's lecture on clovers meant -as little to him as the chirping of the crickets in the walls of the -house. His anxiety over Elizabeth was so sharp that the incongruity -of his surroundings never struck him. His whole being was too much -involved with his wife's for what is called reality to affect him more -nearly than might the incidents of a dream. That he should share a -bedroom with old Taylor, that he should find himself deferring to a -Gallagher, that he should be expected to take his place at an ill-laid -table and eat the malodorous mess there set down by a slut with grimy -hands made no impression upon Edward. Had his mother floated into -this squalid kitchen and pointed a delicate finger in scorn at his -surroundings, he would not have listened one whit less intensely for -the slightest sound from above. Whatever disgusted him in Pomona -Terrace took its place in the general purgatory of deprivation of the -sight of Elizabeth, and the farthest that his mind wandered from that -room upstairs was to that broken slat in the Venetian blinds through -which he had seen that drunken doctor's face. Thank God he had! Thank -God! - -A long time passed. Mr. Gallagher had fallen asleep and was snoring -loudly. Old Taylor was asleep too, his jaw dropped upon his chest, his -whole aspect senility incarnate. The restless slatterns no longer moved -in and out with unwashed dishes and bawdy gigglings. - -Now the crickets were silent in the glooms; Gallagher had ceased to -snore; there was no sound except an occasional cough from the subsiding -fire. So silent was it that Edward could hear his watch ticking with -what seemed a terrible rapidity in the pocket of his waistcoat. At last -the doctor put his head round the door and beckoned. Edward was beside -him in a moment, gasping forth his alarms. - -"She's not dead? Why didn't you call me sooner?" - -The doctor gripped Edward's forearm and bade him pull himself together. -That grip in conjunction with the cold air of the passage kept Edward -from breaking down. He compelled himself to follow what the doctor -with a good deal of technical detail was telling him about Elizabeth's -condition. "And so it may be impossible to save the lives of both," the -doctor was murmuring. "However, as I was saying, there is no need to -decide yet, and I am expecting a new instrument to-morrow, which may do -away with the necessity of such a painful decision. I have sent word to -have any parcel which arrives for me brought here immediately." - -"Decision?" Edward repeated. "What decision do you mean?" - -"Whether we save the life of the mother or the child." - -"Are you drunk or mad?" Edward shouted. "Why, rather than she should -suffer an instant's pain I would have the child cut to pieces. -Decision! I believe you're as drunk as that other fellow next door." - -The young doctor gazed at Edward in astonishment, for he had heard -nothing of the reason for choosing him in preference to his neighbor. - -"I was bound to give you the opportunity of deciding," he explained. -"Naturally I did not for a moment expect you to give any other answer -but the one you have given. I'm sorry to have upset you like this. If -I may offer you some sound advice, I should recommend your staying -quietly in the kitchen. It would be better, of course, if you could -manage to lie down and sleep for a while; but I can understand that -you are too anxious for that. You must not work yourself up into a -state of mind. There is no immediate cause for anxiety. No, certainly -no immediate cause." - -Edward allowed the doctor to steer him back into the kitchen where -their entrance roused old James Taylor and Mr. Gallagher, both of whom -with loud yawns declared their intention of going to bed. Soon Edward -was left alone, for Dr. Harrison went back to his patient, and he -settled himself down to solitary meditation by what was left of the -dead fire in the still fairly warm grate. - -It was easy, thought Edward, very easy for that young doctor to talk -about childbirth as if it were nothing more than buying a doll in a -shop. Doctors soon began to lose their sense of the soul in their -familiarity with the body. What did a man like that know about the -great mystery of human love? Edward's mind went back to his talk with -the Vicar of Barton Flowers on the vigil of his wedding; and now -thinking over his brief married life with Elizabeth he apprehended -all the truth of what the parson had said. He remembered how much the -conversation had elated him at the time and how he had felt an impulse -to submit himself to the promptings of what the Vicar had called the -Grace of the Holy Spirit. That impulse like so many of them, alas, -had gone the way of the rest, had been allowed to expire when the -enthusiasm of thought demanded the breath of action to endure. Edward -vowed that this time if Elizabeth's life should be granted to him he -really would ... what? "I really will grapple with life," he promised -to that nebulous emanation of celestial magic which the ordinary man -calls God. "Before the sun rises to-morrow morning I may be a father. -I shall owe a duty to a human soul which I have brought into the -world." Edward discovered with shame that this child, which might -even at this moment be uttering its first cry to the darkness of the -unimaginable universe around it, had not until this moment presented -itself to him as a fact. He regretted now the way he had answered the -doctor's question a short while ago. He had been sneering to himself -at the doctor's point of view about childbirth; but he should rather -have sneered at himself for what he was, a weak and self-indulgent and -careless egoist that without foresight and without responsibility might -become the parent of a human being from whom in days to come he should -expect gratitude, affection, and obedience. - -Edward made new vows to that dim God beyond the stars that if he were -granted not only the life of his Elizabeth, but also the life of their -child, he would devote his future to a worthy fatherhood, that even -if himself should fail in his contest with life he would ... what? -Edward's mind wandered already to the agony of his adored wife, and he -could not bear to contemplate any future at all until he knew that she -was safe. - -Safe! The word wrote itself in the cracks of the dingy ceiling, in the -pattern of the grimy wall-paper, in the ashes of the dead fire, in the -scrolls of iron-work upon the range, in the patchwork hearthrug, in the -knots and lines of the kitchen table. Safe! The word acquired such a -force and power of its own that Edward almost worshiped it by repeating -aloud the mere sound of it in apostrophe after apostrophe of awful -contemplation. Safe! He clutched at the S as he would have clutched at -a rope to drag himself up from the abyss below. He climbed up the A, -up the F, up the E to stand on the high ground above with Elizabeth -clasped in his arms ... with her ... with his darling ... safe.... - -Edward fell asleep. At four o'clock Mrs. Gallagher came down to tell -him that things were going on as well as could be expected upstairs, -recommending him to be off and lie down on his bed like a Christian. -The only place where Edward wanted to lie down was on the landing -outside the door of Elizabeth's room; but there was still enough left -of the younger son of Sir Richard Flower to keep him from making such a -proposal to the landlady. - -It was like Edward to insist on staying in the kitchen. There was about -it the kind of ineffective Quixotry to which he had been addicted all -his life. At seven Dr. Harrison came in and made him comparatively -happy by asking him to go round to his house, wait for the postal -delivery, and bring back any package that might by good luck be left. -The doctor wanted to add that Edward would do well to ask his servant -to give him some breakfast, there being little likelihood of his eating -any breakfast in Pomona Terrace. On second thoughts, he did not think -the suggestion worth making. He felt too much fatigued by his own -all-night vigil to argue with an unbalanced fool like this husband. -Such was the young doctor's mood on this drear January morning. Edward -hurried through the wet twilight, pale, unshaven, his hair and whiskers -unkempt, his collar dirty, his clothes frowsy from the kitchen where -he had spent the night. At such an hour Manning Crescent looked more -dilapidated than on the night before, and the broken slat in the -Venetian blinds of the drunken doctor next door gave the last touch of -raffish squalor to the row of houses. - -No sooner was Edward seated in the doctor's neat consulting-room than -he fell into a despair, because he had not seen Elizabeth before he -came out. Suppose she were dead when he arrived back? He could hardly -stay in the room; the smell of disinfectants here was stifling him -with an aroma of death. It was only by clutching the arms of the chair -covered with red rep and dinning into his brain the need to wait for -that blessed instrument which was so anxiously awaited by the doctor -that he was able not to desert his post. He rang for the maid to ask -when the parcel delivery might be expected, and upon her telling him -"ten o'clock at the earliest" he groaned aloud. - -It was actually eleven o'clock when Edward, after spending hours of -uncertainty, ran back to Pomona Terrace with a parcel for Dr. Harrison. - -"It has arrived at the very moment I required it," said the doctor, -hurrying upstairs without waiting to give Edward a word of hope about -his wife's condition beyond his satisfied comment on the arrival of the -new instrument. - -On the husband left standing in the dim passage of the Gallaghers' -lodging-house dawned the apprehension of God's mercy to him in -directing his footsteps yesterday evening to where lived probably the -only doctor in the neighborhood who would have a chance of saving that -beloved woman's life. He fell upon his knees where he stood and prayed -that God's mercy should be extended to the fulfillment of all he hoped. -Then he went back to the kitchen. At last Mrs. Gallagher entered all -smiles. - -"You may come up now," she told him. "All's well, praise be to the Holy -Mother of God, and you've a girleen." - -"A what?" shouted old James Taylor from his chair by the fire. - -"'Tis you that's a great-grandfather, Mr. Taylor," she told the old man. - -"A' look now," chuckled old James. "They ought to put I in a show. 'Tis -a state of life you can see in rams and bulls when you've a mind, but -darn'ee, a real great-grandfather is summat to stare at even in London." - -Edward was kneeling beside Elizabeth before the old man had finished -his sentence. The doctor left them together. - -"You haven't asked to look at baby," Elizabeth murmured reproachfully. -She lifted the bedclothes for a moment, while Edward looked. - -"Yours," he murmured. - -"Ours," she corrected. "Ours, my dearest." - -"But it was you that suffered everything!" - -"But you were anxious about me, weren't you, my darling?" she tenderly -asked. - -"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" he cried. - -She knew how much he too had suffered, and because he did not speak of -his emotions she was moved with an immense desire not to let her baby -make her careless of her husband. She put out her hand to stroke his -head. - -"I thought about you all the time," she whispered. "When the pain was -worst I kept saying, 'Edward! Edward!' Nothing else. Only that, my -darling." - -He drew her hands to his lips. - -"And what shall she be christened?" the mother asked. "I'd like her to -be called Mary," she went on breathlessly. "You wouldn't think that a -common name, would you? 'Mary Flower,' I think that's a pretty name." - -The doctor came in at this moment to suggest that Edward had stayed -long enough for the present. The father leant over to kiss the eyes of -that pale mother. - -"Well, have 'ee seen her?" demanded the great-grandfather when Edward -came downstairs. "I suppose it is a girl all right?" - -"Mary," said Edward. - -"Oh, Mary, is it to be? Well, that's a good down-right honest style of -name for a girl. Yes, 'tis a name I like very well. And don't you be -discouraged, Mr. Edward, if she don't look beautiful all at once. A -calf's different. A new-born calf is a pretty sight for any man. So's a -chicken fresh from the egg. But a baby is so ugly as a young rook. Oh -dear, oh dear, there's few more ugly sights for man to look upon than a -new-born baby. Yet I suppose this time come three months we shall all -be looking at kangaroos and wobblies, and they're worse by what one -reads of 'em." - -Old James had got hold of one or two volumes of Antipodean travel, from -dipping into which behind a pair of large horn spectacles he had formed -a picture of Australia as zoölogically rich as a medieval illuminator's -conception of Eden. - -Now that Elizabeth's child was safely born, it was imperative to leave -England before the money gave out, and berths were secured in the -_Wizard Queen_, a 1,000-ton steamer lying in the East India Docks, -which was due to sail on February 18th for the port of Sydney. They -went on board the preceding afternoon; but remembering their last -experience in the _Mariana_ and with a desire to avert ill-luck they -kept themselves out of sight of the other emigrants who, like those on -the Mersey, were drowning the sorrow of departure in music and song. As -a matter of fact, old James could not resist going up on deck to have a -bit of fun, as he called it; but Edward and Elizabeth remained close in -their cabin, and did not even emerge for supper. - -After supper the strains of music that floated down below became more -melancholy, so that Elizabeth shivered. Edward, always solicitous, -begged her to tell him what was the matter. Did she feel nervous after -that alarming night on the Mersey? Did she regret that she had married -him? Was not the baby Mary sleeping soundly in her canvas cot, and was -she not so wonderful a being that sighs should be forgotten in the -contemplation of the future they two would sacrifice all to achieve for -her? - -"I was thinking of you, Edward," she said. "I was wondering if I had -done wrong in marrying you, so that you have had to leave your family -and your country for my sake." - -"It is not your fault," Edward exclaimed, "that we are all going to -Australia. If my father had not shown himself so bitter against me, -if my mother had not lost all affection for me, we should still be in -Long Orchard Farm. I beg you, my dearest, not to distress yourself with -regrets. Besides, look at her." He pointed to the sleeping infant. -"What do we matter now? We have given _her_ to the world. There never -was such a baby girl. Just think, my Elizabeth, what you endured, what -even I endured? And now look at her. Remember how fortune was on her -side. I was never a religious man, but since that night in January I -have been made conscious of a divine power that directs the universe. -In the miracle of that small but perfect being born to you and me I -have understood the great miracle of creation." - -Elizabeth regarded her husband with admiration and awe. - -"You have such noble thoughts," she flattered him. "But I cannot think -like you. I can only remember the meadows where I played as a child -and the clematis over the door and the cocks crowing on fine mornings -in the summer-time. And now I'm leaving all that. And grandfather is -leaving it. And you, my Edward, are being taken far over the sea to -another country, and all because I selfishly loved you and selfishly -let you love me." - -The notes of a melody more sad than any which had yet been played -drifted below from the deck. Elizabeth's tears fell fast like raindrops -upon the petals of a rose. Nor could Edward's most tender words console -her grief, nor could they mitigate her apprehensiveness nor lighten the -gloom in which for her the future was enveloped. It was not until her -grandfather came tapping at their cabin door, in which a moment later -he stood framed with his ruddy and jocund countenance, that she smiled. - -"I've enjoyed myself rarely," he announced. "There's been singing -up there as would put the heart in any man. There was never better -fiddling in Barton Flowers, not when I was a nipper. I'm bothered if I -han't enjoyed myself. Sleep like a top, the saying is. Bothered if I -shan't sleep like a humming-top to-night." - -He wished them well and stumped off to his berth. - -"You see how happy the old man is!" Edward exclaimed. - -And Elizabeth, now that the music had ceased to play upon her emotion, -forgot her fears. In the morning when they went on deck London was -sailing past them on either side of the ship, and a sharp wind from the -northwest made the voyagers long for warm and sunny lands. - -Among the emigrants was a middle-aged couple called Fawcus, both of -whom showed themselves most friendly to the Flowers, and both of whom -much admired the good behavior of the baby girl. Mr. Fawcus was a -large, smooth-faced man of fifty, definitely parsonic in the general -impression he gave with his suit of black broadcloth, a primness of -manner that was noticeable in so large a man, and an inclination to -discourse in rotund sentences. His wife was in every way a contrast to -her husband, being small, restless, and quick-eyed, a woman obviously -belonging to an inferior class, but who in spite of her Cockney accent -and vulgarity was obviously the leader and looked after her husband as -sharply as a capable and well-trained nurse. - -"I hope Mr. Micawber will still be alive when we reach Australia," said -Edward. "Nobody else could keep pace with our friend." - -"You haven't spoken of Mr. Micawber before, dear," said Elizabeth -reproachfully. "I didn't know you had any friends in Australia." - -"Mr. Micawber is a character in one of Mr. Charles Dickens' novels," he -explained. - -"Mr. Dickens who wrote the _Christmas Carol_?" Elizabeth asked. - -"The same." - -"He must be a very nice gentleman," was her murmured comment. - -Edward laughed. - -Mr. Fawcus according to himself had been reduced to emigration by the -devotion of his energy, his talents, and his money to the great cause -of popular education. - -"My survey of history," he told Edward, "taught me that all the -greatest human beings have been teachers. I determined, however humbly, -to follow in their footsteps." - -According to Mrs. Fawcus her husband's mistake had been first in -wasting money on derelict schools, and secondly in destroying whatever -chance such schools had of recovery by preaching in the open air of the -locality on Sundays. - -"People couldn't a-bear to send their children to Mr. Fawcus's school -when they saw him preaching in the market-place like any heathen -missionary. It gave them the idea he was funny, and so the scholars'ud -leave until there wasn't one left, and then Mr. Fawcus had to move to -another town and start over again with another school. Besides, I was -always a hindrance to him." - -"You were never a hindrance, my love." - -"Oh, yes, I was, Mr. Fawcus, and well you know it. The truth is -parents don't want a homely woman like me for a teacher. They look for -something quite different in a school-mistress, something tall and -starchy." - -"And what are you going to do in Australia?" Edward asked. - -"In Australia, my dear sir," Mr. Fawcus boomed, "in Australia I am -going to educate the aborigines, who I understand from the reports of -travelers are considered the most degraded race of human beings on this -earth. Should that prove truer than the majority of travelers' tales -there must be room for education. After my experience with the children -of...." - -"Hush!" his wife interjected. "Hush, Mr. Fawcus!" - -"After my experience with the last school I founded in England the -aborigines of Australia will be easy to manage. Their women, I believe, -are known as ginns. A most unbecoming designation. I shall try to -persuade them to abolish that name. The sea is rising, I observe -with regret. We are liable to pass a rough night, I fear. And I am -usually right. In fact, my intimates often nickname me Mr. Forecast. -My own name, by the way, is remarkable, don't you think? I have been -tempted to speculate upon its origin, and I have sometimes fancied -that it might be found among the _senatus populusque Romanus_. I was -informed the other day, however, by a gentleman of curious etymological -knowledge that it is probably a local variant of Fawkes. You of course -remember Guy of that ilk? Yes, the sky is looking very dirty indeed." - -A steely dusk of northwest weather lay chill upon the _Wizard Queen_ -when she was tossing in the Downs, and by night the wind was blowing -with hurricane fury from the Kentish coast. The music and motion of the -storm kept all on board awake, and when about three o'clock there was -a crash followed by a dreadful sound of grinding timbers, the faces of -the terrified passengers immediately appeared from every cabin. - -Edward bade his wife wrap up the baby while he found out what had -happened, and with only an overcoat over his nightshirt he forced his -way on deck. From the darkness on the port side a shape seemed to carve -itself to the fleeting likeness of another vessel, but it vanished so -quickly that Edward fancied the vision to be a chimera of the night. - -"All hands to lower the boats," a voice cried from forward in the murk -of the night. Figures in dripping oilskins, like monsters risen from -the sea, pushed Edward aside to get at their business; but he managed -to make his way back aft to where from the orange mist above the -saloon-companion a stream of disheveled passengers belched forth like -smoke waving in the blast. As he fought his way down to find Elizabeth -and the old man, he heard another shout for'ard. - -"The port lifeboat was smashed in the collision." - -The saloon was empty when Edward reached it, and he was on the point of -turning back to begin a distracted search on deck when Elizabeth came -out of her cabin carrying the baby, her hair all about her shoulders, -her aspect serene. She looked fragile, ethereal indeed, but amid all -that confusion of human terror into which she must shortly be plunged -she moved forward with the resolution of an angel. Behind her came the -old man wrapped in a plaid shawl above his nightshirt, his face ruddy -as ever, but his old legs appearing thin as twigs beneath, so that it -seemed as if he must be blown away into the night when he should face -the storm. - -The crew was lowering the jolly-boat full of passengers when they -reached the deck. Notwithstanding the peril, for the ship would not -float another ten minutes it was being shouted, two of the sailors were -arguing angrily about the rig of the craft that struck the _Wizard -Queen_. One declared with an oath that it was a schooner; the other -affirmed with equal vigor that it had been a barquantine. A ship's -officer hurrying by fell to cursing them for rascals that they should -stand there arguing when the starboard lifeboat must be launched. - -"Women and children first," the captain thundered. - -A fiercer squall drummed overhead, and the emigrants that still -remained in the ship huddled together in fear of that dreadful brew -of waters upon which they were soon to float away. Somebody urged -Elizabeth toward the lifeboat; but she drew back. - -"Let somebody go instead of me. I'll wait for my husband," she said. - -But it happened that she was the last woman left and that there was -still room for Edward and old James, so that presently all three -climbed into the lifeboat. - -"Lower away!" - -The lifeboat rocked for a moment in the davits; and then just as she -reached the sea, being full in the weather, she was driven with great -force against the ship's side and stove in. She seemed to be brimming -over, but nevertheless the crew managed to shove her off, although by -this time she was so deep in the water that the wretched passengers -sitting on the thwarts were submerged from the waist downwards. It was -only the cork in her compartments that kept her barely afloat. There -were many faces still looking down from the steamer, and all on board -probably went down with her, or if the cutter was launched she must -have been swamped immediately, for a minute or two later the _Wizard -Queen_ rose forward in the air and sank stern first. Now one by one, -as the icy waves broke over them, the women and men in the lifeboat -dropped from exhaustion into the sea. Old James Taylor was among -the first to go, falling backward without a cry, without a word of -reproach, as silently as one of his own red apples might fall at home -in the first October gale. - -"Did the Captain say where we was?" asked the man at the tiller. - -"Abreast of Beachy Head," one shouted in reply, and as he spoke a wave -swept him and a woman and a child into the darkness. - -"O God! he's dead. He's lying dead in my arms!" cried a miserable -father who was holding in his arms a little boy of five or six. - -"Drop the body overboard," the man at the tiller shouted. "Every pound -tells. Lighten the boat," he roared angrily. "Lighten the boat!" - -The wretched father, clasping his dead child more closely, turned away -in indignation at the brutal order; but as he turned a wave swept him -and the body overboard, and the boat was lightened a little more. - -All this time Elizabeth said nothing; but she clung to her place with -one hand and with the other held the baby to her breast beneath her -cloak. All this time Edward said nothing; but he had somehow managed -to wedge his legs round a support, so that whenever Elizabeth trembled -in her seat he could put out two arms to save her from peril. Two -women died of exhaustion from the wash of the sea and the freezing -wind, and their bodies were at once flung overboard. On the other -side of Elizabeth, Mrs. Fawcus, who alone of the women appeared to be -completely dressed, was trying to get off her cloak to throw it round -the mother, and simultaneously making an effort to listen to the plans -of Mr. Fawcus for the future, should the lifeboat ever reach a harbor. - -"I have given up my plan of educating the aborigines of Australia," he -bellowed above the gale, making a megaphone with his hands. - -"Yes, dear, I'm sure I agree with you. Drat this hook! It's so bent I -can't get it out of the eye. And don't put up your hands and shout at -me, Mr. Fawcus. You'll be swept over if you do." - -"What has occurred once," Mr. Fawcus bellowed, "may easily occur again. -I shall inquire for a suitable post in London. I always did execrate -the sea, as you know, my dear." - -Mrs. Fawcus nodded. - -"And I was right," he shouted. "I usually am." But his wife could not -applaud his wisdom, for at that moment Elizabeth, reeling, cried: - -"Take my baby. Edward! My darling, my darling, I ought not to have -married you. It's all my fault." - -As Mrs. Fawcus took the baby, Elizabeth fell, and Edward, throwing -himself backward in a last effort to save his wife, fell with her into -the sea. - -At dawn a small steamer sighted the wreck of the lifeboat and launched -a boat to rescue the four who had survived that night. One was the -man at the tiller; the other three were Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus with Mary -Flower. - - - - -_Chapter Two_ - -THE GIRL - - - - -_Chapter Two: The Girl_ - - -Mary Flower passed the first ten years of her life in the basement of a -publisher's office in Paternoster Row, where every floor as high as the -roof was loaded with the stock of years, so that the earliest defined -fear of her childhood was lest the old house should collapse one night -and bury herself and her uncle and aunt beneath a mountain of books. -This was the result of reading the story of an earthquake in Jamaica; -and the habit thus engendered of brooding upon seismic catastrophes -led Mary soon afterward to prefigure the vaster ruin of St. Paul's -Cathedral, the bulk of which obscured so much of the sky from her -childish vision. - -"You've no right to fill her head with such notions, Uncle William," -said Mrs. Fawcus sharply. "Why, there was no more than a tiny little -crack in the ceiling over her bed, and I'm sure the child regular -worried the life out of me about that blessed crack." - -"That's where you're wrong, Aunt Lucy," replied Mr. Fawcus. "When a -child's interest is aroused in any natural phenomenon it is the duty -of the parent or of the guardian who stands _in loco parentis_ to -cultivate that interest by every means in his power. It is one of the -rudimentary principles of education. Fate directed her to the narrative -of an earthquake in the West Indies, rousing in her breast an ambition -to know more about terrestrial convulsions, to learn about such facts -as their comparative frequency and their geographical distribution. -What has our little Mary learned? She has learned that nothing more -than slight shocks may be expected in the heart of London and that ..." - -"Oh, how you do carry on, Uncle William! The poor child's learned -nothing of the kind. She goes to bed shaking in her shoes every night." - -However, Mary soon forgot all about earthquakes, because a dancing bear -broke loose in St. Paul's Churchyard and created such a panic that for -several weeks she saw bears at the back of every cupboard, and Mrs. -Fawcus had to hide her favorite copy of _Red Riding Hood_ on account of -the tremors set up by the vivid illustrations. It must not be supposed -that she was a very nervous child or that her existence was unusually -spoilt by the incidental alarms of childhood. On the contrary, the -world beheld in the basement of that tall Georgian warehouse was a -placid and cozy world, her place in which she owed to the couple whom -she knew as Uncle William and Aunt Lucy. - -When Mr. Fawcus walked down the gangway of the steamer that rescued him -from the wreck of that lifeboat and felt the terra-firma, as he called -it, of Dover Quay beneath his feet, he knelt down just outside the -Lord Warden Hotel and vowed that he would never attempt to leave his -native land again. - -"I've been teaching all my life," he told Mrs. Fawcus. "But I can still -learn a lesson myself." - -The problem of the future was a difficult one, and it was not -simplified by the responsibility of the baby. - -"Though, mark you," said Mr. Fawcus gravely, "I consider that the -education of one English girl is of more importance than the education -of a thousand Australian aborigines. Unfortunately I have come to the -end of my capital, and in order to educate her it will be necessary for -me to find some kind of moderately remunerative employment." - -"I'm glad to hear you speak so sensible, Mr. Fawcus," said his wife. - -"Bly, my dear, bly. Sensi-bly. Don't let a shipwreck destroy in one -moment what I have spent years in teaching you: the distinction between -an adjective and an adverb." - -During their short intercourse with the Flowers Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus, -or to be accurate Mrs. Fawcus, had elicited an account of the -circumstances which had led up to their emigrating; when it began to -look as if Mr. Fawcus was never going to find a suitable job, his wife -argued that they ought to communicate with the baby's grandfather. - -"If we were going to say anything at all," Mr. Fawcus objected, "we -ought to have written the moment we found ourselves safe on shore. -Having left it so long, we may appear to the eyes of Sir Richard Flower -like kidnappers. She is such a good baby that I hate to give her up, -and besides I did want to try my hand at an education completely -independent of those obstinate and conservative creatures which we know -generically as 'parents.'" - -Nevertheless, Mr. Fawcus, in dread of the uncertain future, was at last -driven by his wife's entreaties into communication with the grandfather -of the baby whose guardianship he had assumed in the presence of death. - - 101 Floral Street, - Near Covent Garden, - _March 3rd, 1860_. - - _Honored Sir_, - - _You have no doubt read with a father's grief, in which I beg leave - most respectfully to share, the melancholy news of the loss of the - emigrant ship, Wizard Queen, by collision off Beachy Head at 3 a.m. - on the morning of the 18th ult., and by this time you have no doubt - abandoned all hope of hearing that your son, Mr. Edward Flower, was - saved. I do not write to raise false hopes in your breast. Alas! - I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing him in the lifeboat - to which we both clung (rather than in which we both sat) swept - overboard in a vain attempt to save his wife from a similar fate. It - may, however, be some mitigation of your sorrow to learn that he - left behind him in the care of myself and wife a baby girl, who is - at present sharing our humble room at the above address. We should - deeply feel parting with the engaging infant; but we respectfully - recognize the superior claims of her grandparents. I have the honor - to await your instructions with regard to her disposal. Will you send - a suitable nurse to convey the infant to your Seat? Or shall my good - wife take upon herself the responsibility of personally delivering - the infant at Barton Hall?_ - - _I must apologize for the delay in notifying you of your - granddaughter's fortunate survival; but I have recently been much - occupied in trying to recover for myself the small niche in England - which I so rashly abandoned in my ambition to put the glories of - education within reach of the aborigines of Australia. In expectation - of shortly hearing from you, I have the honor, Sir, to subscribe - myself_ - - _Your most obedient humble servant, - William Axworthy Fawcus._ - - _P. S.--I should add that I was formerly a schoolmaster, having been - the proud possessor of several private schools in turn. Now for - various reasons I find myself unable to devote myself any longer to - the education of the young idea, and I have this morning entered - into a contract with Messrs. Holland and Brown, the publishers of - Paternoster Row, to invigilate their stock._ - - _W.A. F._ - -To this the baronet replied as follows: - - Barton Hall, - Barton Flowers, Hants, - _March 8, '60_. - - _Sir_, - - _I have no interest in my son's daughter. At the same time, I am not - anxious to be under an obligation to strangers for her maintenance. - If you insist on giving up your care of the baby, I must find some - other worthy couple to look after her. If, on the other hand, you are - willing to accept that responsibility and will let me hear that you - are prepared to do so, I will instruct my lawyers, Messrs. Hepper and - Philcox, to remit you the sum of £100 a year in quarterly instalments - payable in advance until she reaches the age of ten years, when I - shall communicate fresh proposals._ - - _Yours truly, - Richard Flower._ - -Thus it befell that Mary continued to live with Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus, -calling them Uncle William and Aunt Lucy, and indirectly being the -cause of Mrs. Fawcus's getting nearer to an intimate mode of addressing -her husband than she had ever reached before. The contract into which -Mr. Fawcus had entered with Messrs. Holland and Brown might have been -less grandly described as an engagement to be caretaker of their -premises, for which he was paid the sum of eighteen shillings a week -and allotted the basement of kitchen, scullery, two rooms, a cellar, -and a backyard. - -"The task is in some respects a menial task," he told his wife. "But it -is redeemed by the fact that I am a warden of books. Had I been invited -to guard bales of dry goods, I should have declined the offer. I am -ready in the cause of literature and learning to sacrifice what remains -to me of scholastic dignity by exposing myself in the _toga virilis_ of -service, in other words, a green baize apron, punctually at 6.30 a.m. -to the public eye, and if the public eye chooses to regard my daily -renovation of the brass, my _quotidian lustration_ of the steps, as -menial, I merely say with what's his _nomen_ '_per aspera ad astra_.'" - -"Well, all I beg is, Mr. Fawcus"--he had not become Uncle William -yet--"all I beg is," said his wife, "you won't go preaching about St. -Paul's Churchyard of a Sunday morning." - -"In, my love, not about. On, my dear, not of. Your allusion was to the -locality and date, not the subject of my discourse." - -"Don't be so pernickety, Mr. Fawcus. You know quite well what I meant -to say." - -"The Queen's English, my dear, should share with the Queen's Person the -privilege of inviolability. But set your mind at rest. Preserve the -_mens sana in corpore sano_. Now that we have been intrusted with the -nonage of that cherub," he pointed to Mary asleep in her cot, "I do -not intend to jeopardize the material comforts of this basement. _Tu -Marcellus eris!_ In other words, I intend to devote all my persuasive -energy to Mary." - -Mr. Fawcus kept his word. To be sure, he might say to his wife: - -"Holland and Brown are going too far. They are impinging upon my -pride. I felt very much inclined last night to utter a stern _noli me -tangere_. But I thought of Mary, and I refrained. Yes, I thought of our -Mary and I agreed to give the disposal of the day's waste-paper, the -_disjecta membra_ of their correspondence, my personal supervision." - -Mr. Fawcus might complain of the advantage his employers took of his -reduced circumstances; but he never did fail to remember what was owed -to Mary. She was indeed the pivot of that basement in Paternoster -Row, a little household goddess to whom the two old people accorded -divine honors and through whom, brought close together by their common -worship, they grew closer and closer to each other as the years went -by. She was not a spoilt child, or at least she was not spoilt by -anything except such humble treats and toys as her guardians could -afford. Mrs. Fawcus was not a woman to give way out of laziness or -weakness or fond affection to the exactions of childhood. She treated -Mary in the same fashion as she had always treated her husband, that -is to say, she loved and admired her as a superior being to herself, -but she never allowed her to suppose that her behavior could not be -criticized and corrected. - -Mary herself at ten years old was a beautiful child, so beautiful that -the degraded clothes of the period were incapable of concealing her -beauty. From her mother she had inherited that auburn hair with all its -texture of silk and all its abundance, but instead of brown eyes hers -were deep blue, pellucid and round as speedwells. Sir Richard had such -eyes once; and the painter who came to Barton Hall in the summer of -1810, without being afraid of the comparison, had painted him with a -posy of cornflowers, his eyes following the flight of blue butterflies. -Old James Taylor had such eyes to the end; but he was never painted -in tight pantaloons and a frilled collar. If a little girl has auburn -hair, and big deep blue eyes, and a complexion like a malmaison, she -has no need to bother about her features. Actually Mary showed promise -of fine features emerging one day from her dimples, and her hands were -as fine and delicate as her grandmother's. - -From being without the companionship of other children, Mary had -acquired what were called old-fashioned ways, which meant that she -would always join in the conversation of her uncle and aunt, pay much -attention to the deportment of her dolls, and spend a great deal of -time reading fairy tales by the kitchen fire. The basement of a city -warehouse may seem a dreary place for a little girl to spend most -of her time; but Mary found it as full of romance as one of her own -picture books, and apart from such fleeting alarms as the threat of -earthquakes or the dread of sudden and violent robbery, echoes of -which occasionally reached her when Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus discussed -events that near bedtime little girls ought not to overhear, Mary found -her home safe and cosy. The small yard at the back was not so much -overshadowed by the tall houses round as to keep the sun from shining -down upon it in summer; here Mary had several green boxes in which she -grew pansies and creeping jenny, mignonette and red and white double -daisies. Here too in a wicker cage outside the kitchen door lived -Mary's thrush, who sang his country song while Mary sat gazing up at -the golden cross on the dome of St. Paul's and wondering if the thrush -would like to be sitting there and if it would be kinder to set him -free. It was a very small yard; yet it seemed illimitable to Mary, and -every brick in the wall was to her as large and interesting as a field. - -But if the yard seemed vast, how much vaster appeared the upper -portions of the house! Sometimes when work was over Mr. Fawcus would -let Mary accompany him on his tour of inspection round the deserted -premises. She was allowed to climb up ladders and read the names of -books stacked away on the highest shelves, dusty books with titles that -sounded most uninteresting, although the recitation of them evidently -gave great pleasure to Uncle William. And then one day in an attic -she discovered hundreds of picture books, nearly all fairy stories. -When she announced her discovery, Uncle William shook his head and -muttered, "Old stock! Old stock!" - -"But, Uncle William, they're not old. They're quite new. Really they -are--quite bright and not a bit torn. I found _The Three Bears_ and a -story about a mother pig who frightened away a wolf when he came to -gobble up her little pigs. And how do you think she did it? You'll -never guess, Uncle William. Why, she rolled down the hill in a churn. -What is a churn, Uncle William?" - -This was exactly the kind of question dear to the heart of Mr. -Fawcus, and before Mary went to bed that night she had been given an -exhaustive discourse on dairy-farming, so that if she had listened as -attentively as her aunt kept bidding her listen, she would have learned -the difference between curds and whey, and all about rennet, and all -about Stilton cheeses and Devonshire cream, and why butter won't come -sometimes ... but alas! Mary did not listen, because her mind was far -away upstairs in that attic. - -It happened that the very next day she was sent on a message to one -of the offices and that the gentleman to whom she gave the message, a -dried-up gentleman with bright shining spectacles, asked her if she -would like a penny to buy some lollipops. - -"No, thank you, sir," said Mary, curtseying. "I'd like to go upstairs -and look at those picture books at the top of the house." - -Whereupon the dried-up gentleman mysteriously muttered, "Old stock! -Old stock!" just like Uncle William yesterday. - -"Why, you may go there whenever you like, my little maid," he told her. - -"Fancy that!" exclaimed Mrs. Fawcus when she was informed of this by -Mary. "Well, did you ever? I'm sure I never did. I never did know such -an old-fashioned child in my life, Uncle William. Never! Fancy her -asking such a thing of Mr. Bristowe." - -"It's old stock," said Mr. Fawcus. - -And Mary when she had been given leave by her uncle and aunt to avail -herself of Mr. Bristowe's kind offer whispered "old stock" when she -opened the door of that dusty attic, for she felt that it was an -enchanted phrase like Open Sesame. The attic window looked down into -the backyard of the basement, and Mary could not resist opening the -window, for although she felt sure that she ought not to lean out of a -window, inasmuch as she lived in a basement she had never actually been -forbidden to lean out of windows. Yes, there were her flowers, such -tiny specks of color, down below, and there was the dustbin looking -more than ever like a knight in armor, and there was her thrush's cage. -Hark! he was singing. She could hear his song above the thunder of the -London streets. The attic window had a window-seat where Mary spent -long lovely mornings in April reading those dusty picture books one -after another, face to face with the clouds while the golden cross -upon the dome of St. Paul's glittered in the sun. On the sill were the -remains of a battered window-box still half full of earth. In this Mary -sowed nasturtium seeds which grew miraculously, so that soon when Mary -was in the yard she could look up and see the orange and yellow flowers -waving in the wind against the dingy bricks of the warehouse. - -"Rapunzel, Rapunzel," she called. "Let down your golden hair." - -"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Fawcus exclaimed. - -"I'm being the witch," Mary told her. - -"Which what?" - -"The witch. The witch who climbed up to the tower by Rapunzel's golden -hair." - -"Did anybody ever hear anything like it?" - -And when Mrs. Fawcus came out into the yard at Mary's invitation and -looking up saw the nasturtiums, she was more exclamatory than ever. - -"Well, it give me quite a turn," she vowed to Uncle William. "The like -of that child was never known." - -Nearly all the clerks in the office came up to look at Mary's -nasturtiums; and Mr. Bristowe was so much delighted that he gave her a -small red watering-can. - -"It's a wonder the sparrows don't peck them to pieces," said Mr. -Fawcus, when Mary's triumph was being discussed in the basement. - -"If they did, they'd burn their tongues," said Mary. - -"Well, now, did you ever hear a more old-fashioned remark?" - -"_Passer deliciæ meæ puellæ_," boomed Mr. Fawcus. - -Until Mary discovered that new world in the roof, her chief pleasure -apart from the backyard had been a cellar in front of the basement -which was lighted from a square of opaque glass set in the pavement -of the street. She was willing to spend hours here, sitting on an old -footstool, surrounded by her dolls and pretending to be a sea-nymph. -A wet day, and it was chiefly on wet days that Mary frequented this -cellar, heightened the illusion of being under the sea, because the -skylight, if such an aperture may be called a skylight, when blurred -with rain was more than usually aqueous, and the shadows of people -passing overhead were more than usually like fish. Mrs. Fawcus, -when she first heard of Mary's pastime, was moved to utter dark -interpretations of it. - -"Depend upon it, Uncle William, that child's life is going to be mixed -up with deep water. Mark my words, she'll cross the sea many a time -before she goes down to the grave." - -"Do not vaticinate, my dear," her husband commanded. "Absit omen!" - -"I don't know what you're talking about, but when any one thinks of -that night ten years ago and when any one sees that dear innocent -sitting out there and staring up at the fishes, as she calls them, -well, any one may be forgiven for doing what any one's told by their -husband they mustn't do." - -"Ten years ago," Mr. Fawcus repeated. "So it is. I wish you'd keep your -thoughts to yourself sometimes, Aunt Lucy. Ten years ago!" - -She shuddered, for he was thinking of those fresh proposals to be made -in ten years. - -"Here's the money from the lawyers," said Mrs. Fawcus one morning in -March, handing her husband the familiar envelope which had arrived -regularly every quarter-day. - -Mr. Fawcus, on whose countenance a decade of looking after the stock -of Messrs. Holland and Brown had not left a mark, became suddenly old -and flabby when he read through that letter. In that moment even his -Latinity deserted him. The dreadful fact could not be evaded like so -many other facts in his life by ponderous rhetoric and polysyllabic -euphemisms. - -"We've got to give her up," he groaned. - -His wife snatched the letter from him. - -"Where's Mary?" she asked, quickly looking round before she said -anything Mary ought not to hear. - -"She's gone up to her attic to sow the seeds I bought her yesterday. -She wanted to try sweet sultans this year. She's up in the attic sowing -sweet sultans." - -Mr. Fawcus buried his face in his hands and bent low in unutterable -despair, while his wife read the lawyer's letter. - - 151 Lamb's Conduit Street, W.C., - _March 24, 1870_. - - _Dear Sir_, - - _We are instructed by our Client, Lady Flower of Barton Hall, Barton - Flowers, to say that she has decided to receive into her house her - granddaughter, Miss Mary Flower. We beg to enclose in addition to the - usual quarterly allowance of £25 a check for £50, in order that Miss - Mary Flower may be suitably equipped for the journey to Paris, where - Lady Flower is now living and where she wishes her granddaughter to - join her. If you will give us a call at your earliest convenience, - we shall be happy to provide you with any advice you may require in - respect of the journey. Lady Flower desires us to thank you for the - care you have taken of Miss Mary Flower and begs that if you have not - already explained to her the peculiar circumstances in which you took - charge of her you will do so now._ - - _In case you may not be acquainted with the facts, we may add that - a year after Mr. Edward Flower lost his life in the wreck of the - Wizard Queen, his elder brother, Mr. John Flower, was killed in the - hunting-field. By the death of Sir Richard Flower, which occurred - last November, Lady Flower inherited the whole of his property and - she is no doubt anxious to provide suitably for the youngest and - only surviving member of the family._ - - _Yours faithfully, - Hepper and Philcox._ - -Mrs. Fawcus went across to where her husband was still sitting with -bowed head. - -"William!" she murmured. It was the first time in thirty-five years of -married life that she had dared to call him simply that. - -"William!" she repeated more confidently, for the outward semblance -of things had not been changed by her daring address. "You must write -_them_ a letter." - -"It would be useless, my dear," he muttered without raising his head. -"Useless, utterly and completely useless. A labor of Sisyphus, my love." - -Nevertheless, Mr. Fawcus was persuaded to try, and he composed the -following letter to Messrs. Hepper and Philcox: - - c/o Messrs. Holland and Brown, - Publishers, - 95 Paternoster Row, - London, E.C., - _March 25, 1870_. - - _Dear Sirs_, - - _Your communication of the 24th inst. with kind enclosures was duly - received. For the moment I am too much disturbed by the situation - thus created to express worthily my repugnance to the notion of - losing Miss Mary Flower. I should esteem it a favor if you would, so - far as the emotions of a suppositious father can be suitably conveyed - through the medium of legal phraseology, convey to Her Ladyship that - my good wife and myself are most anxious not to part with the child - whom we literally snatched from the angry deep. With all respect - I venture to observe that until this moment none of her relatives - has shown the slightest concern for the child's welfare beyond the - quarterly allowance of £25 sterling. Mrs. Fawcus and myself on the - other hand have never felt anything but the profoundest affection - for her, and I can assure you that we would have left ourselves with - nothing more than the bare necessities of life rather than that she - should have wanted for the least thing._ - - _In the hope of shortly receiving from you a favorable reply to my - request_, - - _I am, Gentlemen, - Your obedient servant, - William Axworthy Fawcus_. - -It was settled not to say anything to Mary until the lawyers wrote -again: - - 151 Lamb's Conduit Street, W.C. - _April 3, 1870._ - - _Dear Sir_, - - _We have to say in answer to your letter of the 25th ult. that we - have communicated the substance of your request to Lady Flower, - and that she is unable to agree to your suggestion that Miss Mary - Flower should remain in your care. We take this opportunity to point - out that when in March, 1860, the late Sir Richard Flower invited - you to look after his granddaughter he made it clear that such an - arrangement was for ten years, at the end of which time he gave you - to understand the future of the child would once more come up for - discussion._ - - _Hoping that we shall hear from you in the course of a day or two, - appointing a time to call upon us_, - - _We are, - Yours faithfully, - Hepper and Philcox_. - -"Who's to tell Mary?" Mrs. Fawcus asked with fear in her voice. - -"Well, I had thought of your telling her," Mr. Fawcus admitted. "But -perhaps the most equitable way would be for us both to tell her." - -The worst of it was that, when they did brace themselves to tell her -and were prepared at whatever cost to themselves to alleviate in every -possible way her grief, Mary herself jumped for joy at the notion of -visiting her grandmother in France. - -"She doesn't mean to be cruel," said Mrs. Fawcus, patting her husband's -arm reassuringly. - -"No, no, certainly not," he agreed. "It's just the heedlessness of -youth." - -Mrs. Fawcus sighed. - -"We were young once ourselves, Mr. Fawcus." The imminent departure of -Mary made "Uncle William" sound ridiculous now, and Mrs. Fawcus went -back to her time-honored mode of address. - -"Many years ago, my love," he said, shaking his head. "And I'm afraid -that you've had much to put up with since then. I have wasted my -opportunities sadly. I ought to have been in a superb position by now." - -"I'm sure I don't wish for anything better than what we've got," Mrs. -Fawcus declared, trying to sound cheerful. "I'm sure as basements go, -one couldn't wish for a nicer basement. It's so lovely and light for -one thing." - -"If I were to die, my dear, I'm convinced that Holland and Brown would -offer you the refusal of my post." - -"Oh, don't talk like that, Mr. Fawcus. Die? What ever next, to be sure?" - -"_Tempora, mutantur nos et mutamur in illis._ It won't be the same -without our Mary." - -"You're going to make me cry if you keep on keeping on so." Mrs. Fawcus -uttered a few warning sniffles. - -At that moment she, who by her reception of the news had added the last -bitterness to the separation, came dancing back from her dolls to whom -as a great secret she had been telling about her departure. - -"Do you think my granny will be like a fairy god-mother?" Mary asked. -"Because if she is I shall ask her to wave her magic wand and bring my -dear Uncle William and my dear Aunt Lucy to France." - -"Will you, Mary, will you? But I'm too old and fat to be waved by fairy -godmothers," said Mr. Fawcus sadly. - -Mary began to understand at last that her going away was a grief to -her kind guardians, and as she had often done before, when it seemed -advisable to propitiate Uncle William, or when Uncle William came -downstairs very angry over some new task that Holland and Brown had -laid upon him, she asked him a question. - -"How big is France, Uncle William?" And folding her hands across her -clean pinafore she composed herself to listen more attentively to a -long account of France than she had ever listened to any of Uncle -William's exegetical discourses before. - -But Uncle William did not answer, and Mary, horrified at his silence, -began to cry. - -"For goodness' sake, child, don't wipe your eyes on your clean -pinafore," Mrs. Fawcus sharply adjured her. It was like Mrs. Fawcus to -have put Mary into a clean pinafore just to learn that she was to be -taken from them. - -A shaft of sunlight, the first of the year to reach the basement, -came glancing through the geraniums in the window and lit up the cosy -kitchen; but it was a cruel shaft, for it lit up also the weary lines -and the baggy eyes of Mr. Fawcus: it lit up the crows-feet and the -wrinkles of his wife; and most cruelly of all it lit up Mary's auburn -hair, reminding the old couple that, though the sun might shine all the -summer through, here it would never shine again upon that auburn hair. - -The next fortnight went by for Mary in such a whirl of exciting new -experiences as no child of ten could be expected not to enjoy, and she -was hardly to be blamed if she did appear hard-hearted in her behavior -on the verge of parting with her guardians. She could hardly be blamed -for not realizing how unlikely it was that she would ever see either -of them again, and in justice to the old couple it must be said that -neither of them tried to gratify their emotion at Mary's expense. Once -the first shock had passed, they did their best to prepare her for a -worthy entrance upon the new scene, at whatever cost to themselves. A -number of dresses were bought, each one more outrageous than the last, -and each one seeming as much more beautiful to Mary. - -"I feel like Cinderella going to the ball," she told Mrs. Fawcus. - -"Ah, my dear, you'll find that life isn't quite such a fairy story as -you think it is now," replied Mrs. Fawcus. - -And this was as near as she got to a hint of cynicism in her advice to -the little girl. - -For the visit to the lawyers Mr. Fawcus arrayed himself in a black -suit he had not worn for eleven years, in fact, not since the annual -prize-giving at the last school he owned. It had been packed in the -bottom of a large trunk to go to Australia, where it was intended to -be worn at the ceremonious welcomes that Mr. Fawcus hoped to receive -in his new country. By good fortune this trunk had missed being put on -board the _Wizard Queen_, and both Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus had been able to -live for ten years on the clothes it had contained. - -Mr. Hepper and Mr. Philcox were even more desiccated than Mr. Bristowe -of Holland and Brown's. Both their waistcoats were dusty with snuff, so -dusty that if Mr. Philcox had not happened to prick his finger while he -was talking to Mary and displayed on the tip of it an infinitesimal but -withal definitely recognizable drop of blood Mary might have thought -that they were stuffed with sawdust like her own dolls. - -"And what arrangements have you made for conveying Miss Flower to her -grandmother?" asked Mr. Hepper. - -"Mrs. Fawcus will conduct her to Paris," said Mr. Fawcus. "I should -have taken her myself if I had not recorded a solemn vow on Dover Quay -ten years ago never to cross the sea again." - -"Ah, that would be after you were wrecked, no doubt," said Mr. Philcox. -"Yes--um--ah! I've never been wrecked myself, Mr. Fawcus." - -"It is an experience which happily falls to the lot of few," said Mr. -Fawcus. - -"Yes--um--ah! Then I may take it as definite that this young lady will -leave by the Dover packet on Wednesday next. How is the glass, Mr. -Hepper?" - -"The glass is steady, Mr. Philcox." - -"The glass augurs well for the voyage across, Mr. Fawcus. You hear what -Mr. Hepper says." - -"Is there anything more you wish to tell me?" Mr. Fawcus inquired, -bowing to each of the partners in turn. - -Mr. Hepper looked at Mr. Philcox, who shook his head. - -"Nothing more, thank you, Mr. Fawcus," they declared in unison. - -Mr. Fawcus was about to take his leave, when Mr. Philcox held up his -hand. - -"But wait a minute. Dear me, we have forgotten something. Yes--um--ah! -Lady Flower instructed us that if on inquiries we should find that you -had suitably performed your duty towards her granddaughter we should -offer you this handsome token of appreciation." - -Mr. Philcox flourished an envelope. - -"I am happy to say, Mr. Fawcus, that our inquiries have proved -perfectly satisfactory, and so perhaps you will take a little peep -inside and also, I think, Mr. Hepper, it might be more in order if Mr. -Fawcus were to sign this little receipt." - -"Please thank her ladyship from me," said Mr. Fawcus grandly, putting -the envelope down on the lawyer's table. "But the only token of -her appreciation that I or Mrs. Fawcus should esteem would be an -occasional communication from her lawyers if she does not care to write -herself letting us know that--er--this young lady is well and happy. I -wish you a very good morning, gentlemen." Mr. Fawcus made a bow, and -left the office with Mary. - -A few days later Mr. Fawcus, from the gliding shore, was waving -farewell to the little girl. - -"Don't forget to water my sweet sultans, Uncle William," Mary cried -above the turmoil of the paddles. - -"The less you say about water to poor Uncle William," Mrs. Fawcus -commented almost sharply, "the better. It must have been just here that -he carried you ashore in his arms ten years ago." - -The steamer backed and brought poor Uncle William within earshot again. - -"I was telling Mary that just about here you carried her ashore," Mrs. -Fawcus called to her husband. - -"_Sunt lacrimæ rerum_," he chanted, and, when this time the paddles -churned up the water in earnest, Mr. Fawcus buried his face in a -bandana handkerchief and waved a limp glove from the receding shore, a -limp glove that pathetically expressed the condition of mind and body -to which its owner was by now reduced. - -The journey was too full of excitement for Mary to be long saddened -by the vision of Mr. Fawcus on the quay. Most children remember their -first Channel crossing; but this great event in Mary's case was made -doubly noteworthy from its being the only adventure of any importance -she had ever known, so placid had been her life in that Paternoster Row -basement. - -"Ah, you wouldn't be dancing about quite so gaily, Miss, if you could -remember the first time you was on the sea," said Mrs. Fawcus. "Still, -I'm bound to say you behaved very well then, all considering. Though -why you didn't die of that perishing wind I'm sure I don't know, and -that's a fact." - -"Shall we be wrecked to-day, Aunt Lucy?" - -"For the love of mercy, don't talk of such things," Mrs. Fawcus begged. -"If you feel sick, chew a bit of lemon peel and let it come. Don't be -afraid. Them as manages this boat have seen thousands of people sick. -They don't consider it any more than blowing the nose, as you might -say." - -But Mary was not sick, and when Mrs. Fawcus came back to Paternoster -Row she told her husband of this convincing indication of a mysterious -bond between Mary and the sea. - -"If I have a window-box in Paris," said Mary, when the chalk cliffs of -England were become ghosts in the mist, "I shall plant sweet williams, -because Uncle William is sweet, isn't he, Aunt Lucy?" - -"Bless your heart, my little treasure," Mrs. Fawcus exclaimed as she -clasped Mary to her heart. "It'll be meat and drink to poor Uncle -William to hear that." - -When the various difficulties of customs and porters and trains and -cabs had been surmounted, and Mary holding tightly to the hand of Mrs. -Fawcus was standing on the steps of her grandmother's house in the -Avenue de Wagram, she felt a sudden desire to turn round and go back to -the basement in Paternoster Row. So far it had all been a delightful -adventure, but now she was tired of the adventure and was thinking -about her thrush which always sang so sweetly in the month of April. - -"Oh dear, I wish it _was_ really a dream and that I was going to wake -up now," she whispered to Mrs. Fawcus; but just then the door opened, -and in a moment Mary was inside her grandmother's house. - -She was vaguely aware, when she was stumping upstairs behind the -footman, of tiger-skins and dark paneled walls and soft carpets; but -before she had time to look round, two great doors had been flung -open, and while Mrs. Fawcus drew back she had to walk over an immense -slippery floor to where in a kind of inner room her grandmother was -reading a yellow book by the fire. She heard from far away in that vast -outer room the sharp whisper of Aunt Lucy: "Run along quick and give -your grandmother a nice kiss." However, Mary did not dare to run, but -stepped very carefully over the head first of a polar bear and then of -a black bear until she stood before her grandmother's chair. - -"I've come to see you, Grandmamma," she announced. - -Lady Flower rose from her chair and looked critically at the little -girl for a moment before she bent over and kissed her cheek. - -"And is this good woman Mrs. Fawcus?" she asked. - -"That's Aunt Lucy," said Mary. - -Lady Flower frowned slightly. - -"I expect you'll like a cup of tea after your journey, Mrs. Fawcus," -she said, pulling a big purple bell-rope that hung before the fireplace. - -"Oh, no, thank you, my lady. Nothing at all, thank you. I think I ought -to be getting back to Mr. Fawcus as soon as possible." - -"Is your husband waiting outside?" Lady Flower inquired. - -"Oh, no, thank you, my lady. He sent many apologies for not coming too, -but he's never been to sea since he was wrecked." - -The footman came in at this moment, and Lady Flower told him to take -Mrs. Fawcus downstairs for a cup of tea. - -"Oh, no, thank you, my lady. Too kind of you, I'm sure, but I'd really -rather be going, now that I've seen Mary safely here. I've arranged to -go back to Calais and wait there the night. Mr. Fawcus thought he'd be -less anxious that way than if I was to stay in Paris all by myself. -We shall miss Mary most terribly, my lady. If I might just kiss her -good-by and be off? I'm sure it's a pity Mr. Fawcus couldn't have -come. He's much superior to me in every way." - -"Well, if you insist on going back at once," said Lady Flower, who -was beginning to think that after all she had nothing to say to Mrs. -Fawcus, and who would have cut out her tongue rather than ask the one -question she wanted to ask about the death of her son. - -"Yes, indeed I think I will, my lady, and thank you kindly, I'm sure, -for the offer of tea." - -Mrs. Fawcus darted forward, kissed Mary passionately several times, and -seemed to slide out of the room across the parquet and out of her life -forever. - -When Lady Flower was alone with her granddaughter she was more at ease. -She was little changed by ten years; she was still the same delicately -ivorine creature as when she banished this child's father from her -heart with words of contempt for this child's mother. Not that she -ever really did banish Edward; the death of her elder son with all -his valor and renown did not touch her half so deeply as the loss of -Edward. If it had not been for Sir Richard's determination to ignore -Edward's offspring she might long ago have sent for Mary. Her husband's -bitterness against Edward, drowned dead though he was by that time, -was intensified when John was killed in the hunting-field. He declared -fiercely to his wife that he was glad Edward had not left a son, for -that he would rather the name and title of the Flowers should perish -utterly than that the fruit of his son's disgraceful alliance with one -of his own tenants should carry on both. - -Mary was astonished to find how young her grandmother was. She -had expected a very old lady--almost she had pictured her with a -spinning-wheel and wearing a steeple-crowned hat--who would be bent -double and talk in a high, cracked voice. Instead of that she found -some one who looked much younger than Aunt Lucy. - -"You'll have to go to school, you know," her grandmother was saying. -"You'll have a great deal to learn. Let me look at your hands, child. -Dear me, I believe you're going to have hands like mine. But your nails -are a little grubby." - -"That's because I've been gardening all last week." - -"Gardening? Where did you garden in London?" - -"In the attic. Mr. Bristowe let me garden there." - -"No wonder your nails are grubby. And who is Mr. Bristowe?" - -"He was the manager of Holland and Brown, where Uncle William was -caretaker." - -Lady Flower shuddered. - -"Listen, Mary. I would rather you gave up calling Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus -uncle and aunt. They are not any relation to you, and now that you are -getting older you must learn to speak of them as Mr. Fawcus and Mrs. -Fawcus." - -"But I always called them Uncle William and Aunt Lucy." - -Lady Flower tapped her foot impatiently. - -"I know that, and that is why I want you to break yourself of the habit -of calling them uncle and aunt. They are good and worthy people, but -you are going to lead quite a different kind of life nowadays, and it -wouldn't do...." - -Lady Flower hesitated. Worldly woman though she was, she hesitated -almost shamefacedly to tell this child gazing up at her with astonished -eyes that Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus were common. She decided to let her -granddaughter learn gradually to be ashamed of the lowly couple who had -watched over her from infancy to girlhood. - -"You have my hands, and you have your father's eyes," said Lady Flower, -changing the subject. - -"And my mother's hair, Aunt Lucy said." - -"Yes, and now I think you'd better go and take off your things. We'll -go shopping to-morrow, and when you're equipped I'll take you myself -to the school where you're going to learn...." Once again Lady Flower -broke off. She had been on the point of saying: "To forget all about -your life in London." Perhaps if she had known that Mary had lived -in a basement she would not have been able to refrain, for life in a -basement would have seemed to Lady Flower unimaginably squalid. - -"Go shopping again?" echoed Mary in amazement. "Why, all these last -days I've been shopping with Aunt Lucy." - -"Yes, I did not want you to arrive in rags." - -Mary found that there were many other things her grandmother did not -want before she had been long in her new home. Accustomed to have her -ordinary behavior regarded with admiration and approval by Mr. and Mrs. -Fawcus, she could not understand that to her grandmother her manners -appeared uncouth, her habit of speech common. She was continually being -reproved for the way she held her knife and fork, or for using a spoon -naturally, that is by putting the narrow end into her mouth first. - -"But if I drink my soup sideways I make a noise," she expostulated. -"And Aunt Lucy--I mean Mrs. Fawcus told me not to make a noise." - -"I do not make a noise, do I?" Grandmamma asked with raised eyebrows. - -Mary longed to tell her that she did make a noise sometimes and that, -when she was drinking, in the silence of the large dining-room it -sounded like pigeons cooing far away. - -"And don't keep pulling up your stockings like that," Grandmamma would -say. - -"But one of them keeps coming down." - -"In that case go to Adèle and ask her to tighten your garter." - -"But it's too tight already," Mary objected. "When I undress you can -see all crinkles where it was round my leg." - -"And don't argue with people older than yourself," Grandmamma would -conclude. - -At first Mary had rather enjoyed the ceremoniousness with which she was -treated by Lady Flower's servants, enjoyed being called Mademoiselle -and having doors flung open for her and never having to get up in the -middle of dinner and fetch clean plates. She felt like one of her own -fairy heroines who had sprung from goose-girl to princess in a night. -But all too soon grandeur began to be wearisome, and when she saw the -maids disappearing into what Lady Flower called "the lower regions" she -felt that she would like to disappear too. - -A warm and cosy smell sometimes penetrated "the upper regions" from the -open door at the head of the staircase leading down to the kitchens, -and this emphasized the frigidity above. At first Mary liked her new -frocks and sashes and ribbons, but she never liked having her hair -brushed and combed by Adèle. And soon she grew to dislike her new -frocks, because they became associated with endless afternoons in the -_salon_, when numbers of ladies chattered French, ladies who either -smelled very strongly of scent or of being ladies and who had not that -pleasant soapy aroma of Aunt Lucy. At first Mary enjoyed walking in -the Parc Monceau with Grandmamma or driving with her to the Bois de -Boulogne; but soon these walks and drives became tiresome, for she -was continually being told to hold herself up or not to turn round -and stare or to talk without shouting. In the basement at Paternoster -Row she had never missed the company of other children; but here in -the Parc Monceau, which was full of children, Mary began to long for -playmates. She took to lingering behind Grandmamma on these walks, and -when she was reproved for doing so she always made the same excuse that -she had waited behind a moment to see what that little boy or that -little girl was doing. Lady Flower had enough sympathy and imagination -to realize that Mary was beginning to feel the need of companions, so -she arranged to have a children's party for her granddaughter. But Mary -did not enjoy this party at all. The little girls invited were so very -well behaved. Nobody romped or did any of the jolly things children -did in books. They treated Mary with grave courtesy, calling her -Mademoiselle, and except that the guests were in short frocks and wore -their hair down there was no difference between this party and one of -Grandmamma's crowded afternoons in the _salon_. - -"I really must make up my mind to take you to Châteaublanc," Grandmamma -proclaimed after Mary had been in Paris for nearly two months. "Did you -tell me that Mr. Fawcus taught you to read and write?" - -"Yes, and he said I learned very quickly." - -"So I should think," Grandmamma commented dryly. "I'm afraid you'll -have a hard time at school." - -Mary began to dread this school which was always being talked about, -and every time with some unpleasant addition to its already long list -of disagreeable potentialities. - -"I didn't intend to go to Aix until late in the summer," said -Grandmamma. "And I had thought of keeping you with me until then, but -perhaps it's unwise to postpone your education any longer. So I'll take -you there next week. I've written to Mademoiselle Lucinge and suggested -that you should stay right on through the summer holidays, so that by -Christmas, when you'll be nearly eleven years old, won't you, I shall -expect to see quite a different Mary." - -Perhaps Mary looked sad at the notion of the change that was to be -wrought in her by so many consecutive months of Mademoiselle Lucinge's -_Pension_. At any rate, Lady Flower became momentarily affectionate, as -she put her arm round Mary and said: - -"It's not your fault, you poor little thing, and you mustn't think I'm -unkind. But I do want you to be able to get a great deal out of life, -and there's nothing that is so terribly able to prevent that as not -knowing exactly how to behave." - -Mary stared at her grandmother, utterly incapable of understanding what -she was talking about. - -The old lady--for when Lady Flower unbent she suddenly became an old -lady--took Mary upon her knee. - -"You funny little thing," she said, "you and I are so very much alone -in the world." - -Then a moment later she disengaged herself from Mary's warm, responsive -embrace and became her ivorine self. - -"When you go to school, I want you to give up writing to Mr. and Mrs. -Fawcus. There will have to come a moment when you quite break off -communication with them, and it had better be sooner than later. They -have both behaved very well, which shows that they understand how -completely the relationship between you and them has changed. Now give -me a kiss and run off to Adèle. It is time you were in bed." - -Mary went sadly upstairs and dreamed of a castle full of dungeons and -of being chased by a crocodile, the castle being the _pension de jeunes -filles_ and the crocodile being Mademoiselle Lucinge herself. - -A week after this Lady Flower succeeded in making up her mind to brave -the long railway journey down through the heart of France and leave her -granddaughter at Châteaublanc. - -"Perhaps after all I could go to Aix earlier this year," she sighed -with the air of proclaiming a martyrdom. - -It was a fine June morning when they set out from the Gare de Lyon; but -Mary became sad and apprehensive as one green mile after another was -left behind under the changeless blue sky, for though she had ceased -to pine for the life of the basement in Paternoster Row, she always -felt while she was still in Paris that she knew the way back and that -if ever she should be faced with something unbearably disagreeable, she -should be able to escape. Now she was being carried farther away every -moment like that bluebottle who was buzzing on the warm glass of the -carriage windows. She began to make up a story about that bluebottle -while Grandmamma dozed among her cushions on the opposite seat--a -story of how this father bluebottle would arrive at Châteaublanc and -try to find the mother bluebottle and all the little bluebottles. Of -course if he knew the way back he would be better off than herself, -because he would be able to fly. But he wouldn't know the way back, -and he would go buzzing about Châteaublanc trying to find his home -until one day he would be killed, and the mother bluebottle and all -the little bluebottles in Paris would never know what had become of -him. Mary was so much moved by the woeful story that she felt a tear -spring to her eyes and a lump in her throat. If only she had thought -of it sooner, she might have let the bluebottle out. Perhaps even now -he would not have traveled too far to know his way back. Mary raised -the blind and tried to help the bluebottle out of the open window with -her handkerchief; but he did not seem able to understand that she was -trying to help him and went buzzing all over the compartment until at -last he buzzed across Grandmamma's nose and woke her up. - -"What are you doing, Mary?" - -Mary did not like to explain just what she was really doing. So she -looked abashed and said that she was doing nothing. - -"Well, don't," said Grandmamma, dozing off again. - -Mary tried to think how one did not do nothing; which raised an old -problem of how one thought about nothing, and she tried once more to -think about nothing. - -"But if I think about nothing," she thought, "I'm thinking about -thinking about nothing. And if I think about thinking about nothing I'm -thinking about something." - -She once asked Uncle William if he could think about nothing and if not -why not. Whereupon Uncle William had told her that Parmenides had been -puzzled by the same problem two thousand years ago and more. - -"Who was Pa Many D's?" Mary had asked, for that was the way she -pictured the name. - -Uncle William had informed her that Parmenides was a philosopher who -founded the Eleatic school. - -"Well, when I'm old I'll marry a philosopher," Mary had announced, -for it sounded a pleasant word to say and a pleasant thing to be, and -Uncle William had founded schools. Mary thought about Pa Many D's now -in the hot dusty railway carriage, and tried to remember what school -he founded. But she could only think of "asthmatic" and "rheumatic," -neither of which sounded right. - -Mary printed S-K-O-O-L on the window with a wet finger, shuddered, and -looking round perceived that the bluebottle had escaped. - -At that moment the train puffed into Dijon station, where Grandmamma -waking up decided it was time to have lunch. Mary enjoyed that while it -lasted. But after lunch Grandmamma went more fast asleep than ever; the -carriage grew hotter and hotter; the country grew greener and greener, -and the sky more blue. - -"Pouff!" Mary sighed. "Pouff-ff-ff!" - -The train reached Macon, when Mary was in the middle of speculating how -many times she had said pouff since Dijon. - -"I must have said a thrillion pouffs," she decided, and wished that -Grandmamma would wake up and be conversational, so that she might -display her acquaintance with that numeral. Or perhaps she had better -reserve it for Mademoiselle Lucinge. How could she bring it in? Mary -began to compose the interview with her mistress. - -"How do you do, my little girl?" - -"I am very well, thank you, Mademoiselle." - -"Did you have a comfortable journey?" - -"Yes, thank you, Mademoiselle. My grandmamma and I passed a very -pleasant day in the train. What a long way off you live! About a -thrillion miles, I suppose." - -Mary decided that this sounded a little too far when it was put into -speech. Perhaps on consideration she had better be content with -impressing Grandmamma. - -"Supposing she never wakes up!" Mary thought in alarm. "Supposing she's -gone to sleep like the Sleeping Beauty for thrillions of years? Only -she's not a Beauty," Mary added to herself in hopeful parenthesis. -However, soon after this Grandmamma did wake up, by which time Mary -herself had fallen asleep, and did not wake until the train reached -Lyon, where they got out and drove in the dusk along the banks first -of one river and then of another equally large until they reached -their hotel. Mary was sent with the chambermaid to have a bath before -she went to bed, and she had to walk along half a dozen dark, crooked -passages before she reached the bathroom, which was full of steam; the -bath itself was covered with a large sheet which floated about in the -water and kept bellying out on either side of Mary as she splashed -about. Her bath seemed to have caused much excitement in the hotel, -for all the time people kept coming to the door and shouting outside -to the chambermaid, who kept shouting back as excitedly while the -pipes on the wall groaned and bubbled and clashed until Mary was glad -when her bath was finished and the chambermaid, after wrapping her in -several towels, picked her up in her arms and carried her back through -the corridors, running fast and shouting to everybody she met to get -out of the way. That night Mary slept in an enormous four-poster with -heavy red curtains, and in the morning she went for a drive with her -grandmother first along the banks of the sluggish, dark green Saône -and then beside the sparkling azure Rhône. But what Mary liked best in -Lyon was the Cathedral on the top of a steep hill, which looked like -an elephant upside down with gilded legs and a golden trunk. After -_déjeuner_ they got into a most extraordinary train with carriages as -tall as houses where passengers sat on top without any roof over them, -in which they were puffed along until they reached their destination. - -Châteaublanc was a small red-roofed town built upon the southern slopes -of a range of low hills that rose not much higher than the rolling -countryside of woodland, pasture, and vineyard, at the foot of which -a small tributary of the Saône ran its shallow course over a bed of -limestone. The ruins of the castle that gave its name to Châteaublanc -still stood like an acropolis above the town, the sight of which -compensated Mary for much, since this must really once upon a time -have been an enchanted castle without any need to pretend that it was -one. In fact, from the moment she alighted at the station Mary liked -Châteaublanc. She liked the wide main street, where the houses dreamed -in the sunlight behind green shutters and Gloire de Dijon roses, and -where in the middle of the front parterres beautiful purple and silver -globes shimmered with the movement of the small world therein reflected. - -"Oh, Grandmamma, how beautiful they are!" she cried, clapping her hands. - -"Yes, you're in roseland here," said Lady Flower. - -"No. Not the roses. They're beautiful too. But those purple balls!" - -"My dear child, you don't mean to say you think those monstrous tinsel -spheres beautiful! Why, they're perfectly hideous!" - -Mary regarded her grandmother in amazement. She must be mad. She must -be upset by the journey. She must be joking. - -"Oh, and look! That garden's got five!" she shrieked, nearly falling -out of the _fiacre_ in her delight. "One purple. One silver. One blue. -One gold. And one red. I hope in heaven there are thrillions and -thrillions of them." - -"God forbid!" exclaimed Lady Flower, sniffing her vinaigrette in dismay -at the picture. "And I suppose you mean trillions." - -Mary was silent after this until the _fiacre_ took them beyond the main -street into an avenue of clipped acacias and limes, from which they -turned aside through wide paths into a curved drive where hydrangeas -bloomed in the beds on either side. - -"What funny flowers!" Mary exclaimed. "They're like the little woman -in a house Uncle ... Fawcus ... Mr. Fawcus gave me. When it was going -to be wet, her bonnet and dress was pink and when it was going to be -fine they were blue. Only really she wasn't ever pink or blue, but like -those flowers, and then she was always wrong." - -The _fiacre_ pulled up before a house with a white portico and French -windows opening to the wide verandah that ran round it. - -"Is this really going to be my school?" Mary asked incredulously. "Why, -I thought it was going to be quite an ugly place. Oh, Grandmamma," she -cried, "how kind of you to give me such a nice school!" - -Lady Flower had been influenced by a number of considerations in her -choice of a school for Mary, but what undoubtedly had least influence -was her granddaughter's point of view in the matter. Nevertheless, -as grown-up people use, she accepted the child's gratitude with -complacency. - -It certainly was a good school. Mademoiselle Lucinge was a woman of -taste and breeding, who when little more than a girl had gone as -governess to the house of an English nobleman, where she had remained -ten years. Having inherited from a distant relative a house and a -small property, she had felt justified in carrying out a project -upon which she had for a long time set her heart. During her stay -in England she had had an opportunity of coming into contact with a -number of distinguished people, and from the moment she had opened her -_pension_ she had been successful. The greater number of her pupils -were English, but many other nationalities were represented; and Lady -Flower, who was prejudiced in favor of a cosmopolitan education, -thought that in Mademoiselle Lucinge she had found the ideal person to -correct in her granddaughter the effects of a deplorable upbringing, -for which, strange to say, she did not in the least blame herself. - -When Mary went to Châteaublanc, she found herself the youngest of -thirty-five girls, and it had been agreed between Lady Flower and -Mademoiselle that for the first two years she was to spend all her -time there. So, when her grandmother bade good-by on the day after her -arrival it was to be a long good-by, although it was understood that -she might expect a visit whenever Lady Flower should be on her way to -Aix. - -Mary was too much delighted with the _pension_ to feel any sorrow at -the prospect of so long a parting. Nor indeed was it to be expected -that in barely three months her grandmother would have become -indispensable to her happiness. Her new surroundings had already begun -even to dim the basement of Paternoster Row. Uncle William and Aunt -Lucy were now far away indeed. It would not be long before Mary would -begin to remember her past life in a few bright patches like the bright -patches of a faded carpet. - -A month after Mary had arrived at the _pension_ war was declared -between France and Prussia. The pupils went home for their summer -holidays, and Mary was left with two girls from South America, both -considerably older than herself. During this time Mademoiselle Lucinge -took a great deal of trouble with Mary's education and was really more -like a private governess in the care she lavished than the proprietress -and headmistress of a fashionable school. The war was going so badly -for France that it seemed more prudent to close the school that autumn. -The two South American girls were sent off to Bordeaux that they might -sail thence for home and relieve the minds of their parents who had -sent a packet of anxious and excited letters. Mademoiselle Lucinge -wrote to her grandmother to ask what she would like Mary to do. Lady -Flower wrote back to say that she was convinced that the French defeats -were of no importance and that very shortly the Prussians would be -driven back over the Rhine. In any case, Paris was no place for her -granddaughter, and in Paris she herself must stay to do her work with -the Red Cross. Would Mademoiselle keep Mary at Châteaublanc? - -Nothing could have fallen out better for Mary. She had now the entire -attention of Mademoiselle; she had a beautiful house and beautiful -gardens to herself; she had as many books to read as she wanted. - -Mademoiselle Lucinge was a devout Catholic, and so were most of -her pupils. As regards Mary's religious teaching, Lady Flower let -Mademoiselle understand that she had no objection to as much religion -being instilled into her granddaughter as was consonant with her social -obligations in days to come; but she particularly requested that no -attempt should be made to lure her into Catholicism. The Papacy was -very unpopular in England at this period, and Lady Flower would have -regarded it as a serious reflection upon her duty as guardian if she -had allowed her granddaughter to enter society under such a handicap. -She herself privately believed in nothing that was not material, even -obvious, but inasmuch as positive scepticism would be considered as -unbecoming as Popish extravagance she conformed to the religious mode -of the time and expected her granddaughter to do the same. - -Mademoiselle had not been a governess in England for ten years without -learning how little the English mind being considered eccentric -abroad, how much they hate to be thought eccentric at home. At the -same time, Mary was the youngest pupil in her school, and she regarded -her own duties of guardianship more gravely than Lady Flower regarded -hers. Whatever might be Mary's life in days to come, Mademoiselle was -determined that she should not be denied in childhood an opportunity to -prepare the soul for those deep consolations of religious belief that -might one day come to her aid in a time of stress. And Mary loved the -quiet hours with Mademoiselle, when in her gray boudoir she spoke to -her about God. - -One mellow Sunday evening in mid-September, when the news from the -seat of war was as bad as it could be and when Mademoiselle's austere -and gracious countenance was lined with care and grief for her country, -Mary had been learning the fifth commandment in the catechism of the -Church of England: - - _Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the - land which the Lord thy God giveth thee._ - -A robin redbreast was singing in the magnolia on the lawn beneath the -turret window of Mademoiselle's gray room, and Mary's thoughts on -seeing the bird went back to the attic in Paternoster Row, where she -had first read of the death of poor Cock Robin. When Mademoiselle's -exposition of filial piety was concluded, Mary asked her if she ought -to honor her grandmother as much as she would have honored her father -and mother were they alive. - -"Quite as much, my child," said Mademoiselle. - -Mary thought for a moment or two. - -"But oughtn't I to honor Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus, who Grandmamma says I -mustn't call Uncle William and Aunt Lucy any more?" - -It was Mademoiselle's turn to think for a moment. - -"You ought to honor their memory," she said at last. - -"But why mayn't I write to them and tell them where I am? And tell -about you, Mademoiselle, and what I'm doing and about the garden and -the lizards and the white cows who pull the carts and about treading on -the grapes and beating the corn with those funny sticks and about my -sabots and the melon I have for breakfast? They would like to hear." - -Mademoiselle could not bear that the gratitude and affection of a -little child should be thus discouraged, although Lady Flower's last -words had been to forbid any communication between Mary and her former -guardians. In the end she compromised by letting Mary write a letter -and writing herself by the same post to Mr. Fawcus, begging him not to -reply and explaining the circumstances in which she had allowed Mary to -write. It was unlike Mademoiselle to compromise; but she was tormented -by the woes of France that autumn and not so much mistress as usual of -her judgment or emotions. Her kindly intention did much harm, for when -Mary received no answer to her letter she was embittered by the thought -that her beloved friends had already forgotten her, and this was the -first disillusion of her life. - -During this time Mary, with the facility of childhood, learned to speak -French, so that before the leaves fell from the trees that year she was -as fluent as if she had been living in Châteaublanc from infancy. One -day in October--it was soon after the news had arrived of Gambetta's -escape from Paris in a balloon--Mary, wandering in a remote corner of -the grounds, discovered a stripling of about sixteen who was digging -holes for young trees to be planted in them when the autumn rains -should have soaked down into the soil. He was a slim, handsome boy with -fine features and dark, silky hair; but it was not his good looks that -interested Mary so much as the fact that he seemed to be working in a -frenzy of despair. - -"_Qu'est-ce que tu as?_" she demanded. - -"_J'ai mal au cœur_," he replied sullenly, wiping a tear from his eye -and bending low over his spade. - -"But why are you crying?" she persisted. She spoke in French, of course. - -"My tears belong to me," he said. "At least the Prussians have left us -our tears." - -"Are you the son of our gardener?" she asked. - -To this ollendorfian query he nodded. - -"Of Monsieur Menard?" - -He nodded again. - -"_Alors, tu es Pierre?_" - -"_Oui, je suis Pierre._" - -Mary produced an apple from the pocket of the hideous crimson pelisse -she was wearing, and while she slowly munched it she regarded the boy -with solemn curiosity. She had heard of young Pierre Menard who had run -away from home to join the troops that were everywhere being recruited -in the provinces to drive the Prussians out of France, and of how his -father had found him in the market-place of Villefranche and brought -him back, because he was too young to be a soldier. - -"I'm sorry you could not go to be a soldier, Pierre," she said at last. -"Would you like the other half of my apple?" - -The boy accepted the proffered fruit with a surly grace, and presently -he was confiding in Mary the tale of his wrecked ambition. - -"If I'm strong enough to plant trees, I'm strong enough to carry a -_chassepot_," he declared. "If I can dig holes for trees, I can dig -graves for Prussians." - -Mary condoled with him, listened to his tales of the Emperor, not the -degenerate captive of the enemy, but the great Napoleon, and lamented -with him the glory of which he was being foiled by his father's cruelty. - -"We must fight on for years, Gambetta says, and, who knows? I may rise -to be a marshal of France before the war comes to an end." - -"You might be Emperor," Mary agreed with enthusiasm. - -Pierre tried to look modest and disclaim so exalted an ambition as -that; but there was in the manner of his disclaimer a suggestion that -he did not think such an altitude impossible. - -Mary saw a good deal of Pierre, because Mademoiselle who was sorry for -the boy raised no objection to her frequenting his company. For a long -time Mary had been anxious to visit the ruined castle on the hill above -the town, and on All Saints' Day she begged and obtained permission -to be escorted there by Pierre. There was not much left of the old -castle beyond crumbling ivy-colored walls and nettle-grown courts, -although there was one round tower, which was still almost intact. -Below the foundations of this tower was a large _oubliette_ bristling -with the very spikes which had impaled unhappy prisoners precipitated -upon them years ago. Mary and Pierre gazed down with awe through the -open trap and imagined that they could still see bones and bloodstains -upon the floor thirty feet below. Immediately beside the trap was a -small embrasure in the thick walls of the tower lighted by a lancet -window through which could be seen a vast expanse of country, meadows -and woods and vineyards and that great serpent the Saône. Hither it -was that the prisoner condemned to die was led up blinking from the -dungeons below to take his last look at France; here he was allowed to -spend a few wistful moments; hence he stepped upon the trap to vanish -forever from the eyes of men. - -There was room for both Mary and Pierre to stand close together in the -embrasure and on this holy morn to gaze out at the russet landscape -breathless beneath the milky blue of the November sky. - -"My little one," said Pierre, "I would rather throw myself down into -that _oubliette_ than stay here any longer while France bleeds to -death. Hark! Do you hear the sound of drums?" - -"Yes, very far away. Trump--trump--trump--trump!" she whispered in awe -of the menacing beat. - -"_Alors, je file!_" he cried. "You can find your way home alone?" - -"But suppose there are cows on the road?" - -"My little one, it is impossible to permit cows to stand in the way of -_la patrie et la gloire_. I will conduct you outside the Castle gates -and you must find your way home. As for me, this time I will go to the -war. _Vive la France!_" - -Mary stood in the ruined gateway, waving her hand to Pierre who went -running and skipping along the white road after those faint-heard, -those elusive drum-taps that might have been anywhere and seemed to be -everywhere. - -"We shall meet again after the war," he had called back to her. - -Mademoiselle sent for Monsieur Menard and begged him not to interfere -again with his son's desire to serve France, and she was so eloquent -that Monsieur Menard gave way. But when peace was signed, Pierre did -not come back to Châteaublanc, because his father vowed that there -would be no doing anything with him nowadays. So through the interest -of one of Mademoiselle's patrons he was found a clerkship in the -English branch of a big French commercial house, and Mary did not see -him again in Châteaublanc. - -But he was her first romance, and the memory of Pierre did not fade -quickly, even when Mademoiselle's house was full of girls again and -Mary's real school life began. - - - - -_Chapter Three_ - -THE MAIDEN - - - - -_Chapter Three: The Maiden_ - - -On a January afternoon, the afternoon of her twentieth birthday, Mary -Flower stood by the drawing-room windows of a house in King's Gate, -staring out across the Knightsbridge road to where in soot and snow the -trees of Hyde Park were etched upon a gray expanse of sky. The house -was very still, for it was the time when old Lady Flower took her daily -nap, to the routine of which she attributed the vitality that enabled -her at seventy to sustain the exertion of arranging an advantageous -marriage for her granddaughter. To-day lunch had been protracted -to celebrate with various dishes Mary's birthday, and to-night a -dinner-party was to be followed by a musical reception. The house, -seeming to conspire with her ladyship's snores, achieved a stillness -that was even more perceptible than usual. - -Mary's meditations were neither so profound nor so romantic as any -passer-by that looked up and glimpsed the form of that beautiful young -woman in her glass world might have imagined. Mostly they were directed -to her new evening gown, a polonaise snatched it might almost be said -prematurely by Lady Flower from the most fashionable of Parisian -costumiers. Mary dreamed of its _passementerie_ of beads and ruching of -Honiton lace, and then with heightened color of the amount of bare arm -it must reveal. She supposed that her grandmother was right and that -she should display as much of the upper part of her arm without risk of -censorious comment, but.... - -Mary wished that Daisy Harland had come up from the country yesterday -instead of waiting until to-night to wish her best friend many happy -returns of the day. Daisy's opinion would have been so valuable. Daisy -was so advanced, so unconventional, and yet always so right. But then -Grandmamma, too, was always right, and Grandmamma had deliberately -chosen the dress. Mary gave up bothering about the problem, which was -no problem at all really, because she must obviously take Grandmamma's -advice as long as Grandmamma was alive to give it. And if Grandmamma -should die? Why, then, in this great house she, Mary Flower, should -be all alone! No wonder Grandmamma was anxious for her to be safely -married. Marriage? That was indeed something to talk about with her -friend. If only the frost would hold so that Daisy might be resigned -to stay in London for a while and spend hours in discussing marriage. -Not of course as the topic had been discussed at school, where nobody -knew anything for certain and the horridest girls vied with one -another in dreadful propoundings. No, not like that, but seriously, -almost religiously--if one could compare two things so far asunder as -religion and marriage. - -Mary contemplated the prospect of marriage with several of the men who -visited the house in King's Gate. None of them considered thus made her -feel at all anxious to be married; rather did each one present himself -to her fancy like an unknown bottle of medicine, the efficacy of which -was guaranteed but of the niceness or nastiness of which there was -nothing to be learned from its external appearance. It was not that -Mary had never imagined herself in love. Like most schoolgirls she -had cherished impossible loyalties and sentimental passions; but the -figures upon which these had been bestowed were like the figures in a -picture book or the remote incarnations that are begotten by music. -Love was an aspiration to a life beyond the present, a kind of yearning -upon immortality; it was never a practical guide to the humdrum, the -yet so intricate humdrum, of existence; it had nothing at all to do -with marriage. - -Lady Flower was responsible for this attitude of her granddaughter. By -living so much in Paris, by allowing the French half of her character -to recover from years of discouragement by her husband, and by brooding -over her son's _mésalliance_--it was typical of the sentimental English -that they should have to borrow the right word from France--the old -lady felt herself more and more definitely inclined to the _mariage de -convenance_. She never let pass an opportunity to impress upon Mary -its superiority. - -"Love, my dear child," she would tell her, "is an invention of the -poets to excuse their own weaknesses." - -This afternoon, as Mary stared out across the wintry park, love did -seem a long way off from King's Gate, and marriage, for all it was such -a mystery, did seem comparatively near. - -"Though suppose nobody ever does propose to me?" Mary thought. She -turned round for reassurance from the large gilded mirror over the -mantelpiece, and wished that she had never seen herself in a glass -before, so that she could arrive at a decision about her beauty. Was -she beautiful? If with six other girls she stood before a mirror for -the first time, so that she did not know which was herself, should she -think herself beautiful? But she should know which was herself, because -she should recognize the other girls, and the stranger in the middle -would be herself. - -"Oh, am I or am I not beautiful?" she asked aloud of her reflection, -standing motionless in that frozen, reflected room where nothing was -alive except the swift pendulum of the ormulu clock on the wall behind -her. "Am I or am I not beautiful?" she repeated with a sigh, as she -took her place once more by the window and gazed out at the black and -white trees in the Park, beneath whose filigree of boughs people were -wandering in couples upon the powdered grass, walking so slowly that -they must be happy, Mary thought. She was filled with envy of those -shadows beyond the railings, who could upon this cold January afternoon -pace up and down with such unhurried steps. They surely must be lovers, -who could find delight in this chill and somber air, who could stroll -arm in arm about this landscape that was sinking beneath the weight of -a leaden sky. There opposite, two shadows were actually sitting upon a -bench, sitting as close as birds sit upon a perch at dusk. They must -love each other very deeply and very dearly, to endure the cold, very -deeply and very dearly to stay there away from the firelight. Beautiful -firelight, Mary thought; and she watched for a while its diminished -reflection lambent within the milky windowpanes. - -"_Miladi_ is awake, Mademoiselle," said Adèle, coming into the room. - -The canaries that lived in the domed conservatory at the back of the -drawing-room began to sing. The depression of the long silence was -broken. - -Mary ran up the cheerful gas-lit stairs to her grandmother. - -Lady Flower had tried to neutralize the fretwork of age by excess of -lace. She was still ivory; but the ivory was scratched, here and there -even badly cracked. The texture of lace seemed more likely than any -other to distract the attention of the observer, to confuse him by its -infinite reticulation and thus provide an illusive calendry for that -wrinkled countenance of hers. - -"Well, dear," she began at once, sitting up among the pillows when Mary -came into the room. "I slept much better than I expected after those -grated chestnuts we had for your birthday lunch. I have an impression -of dreaming a good deal, but I've forgotten what about. So much the -better, for there is nobody so irritating as a _raconteur des rêves_." - -Mary had been half inclined to tell Lady Flower about her own dreams -by the window; but she was deterred by this remark, and perhaps in any -case she would have been too much afraid of the old lady's cynical -toleration to expose those fleeting and intangible shades of romantic -love to her sparrowy eyes and pecks. - -"I'm glad you feel rested," she said. - -"Thank you, my dear." - -They were always very courteous to each other, these two, or rather -Lady Flower was always very courteous to her granddaughter. Mary was -dutiful; and Lady Flower accepted any hint of affection, any display -of sympathy or consideration, as the fruit of a good upbringing. She -had no qualms about the younger generation. In the estimation of Lady -Flower young people existed to show respect and do their duty toward -their elders. Youth and labor at this period were still in bondage. - -"I have invited more people than I intended for this evening," Lady -Flower went on. "I was anxious to give you an opportunity of seeing -various aspects of contemporary life." - -"How kind of you, Grandmamma." - -"Nothing to thank me for; I am doing no more than my duty." - -Lady Flower made this admission a trifle unwillingly; but she thought -it right to let Mary understand that, as she grew older, she, too, -would find duty dogging her like a shadow. She must not be allowed to -suppose that marriage meant freedom. - -"Yes," she continued complacently, "I have invited several artistic -people. They seem to be getting themselves a good deal talked about -nowadays, and I felt you ought to meet some of them. By the way, Mr. -Alison is coming." - -"I'm glad," said Mary. "He's very nice." - -"Very nice, indeed," her grandmother agreed emphatically. "And very -much _beau garçon_. About thirty-five," she went on, meditating aloud. -"About thirty-five, and extremely well off. He wrote to me that he was -returning from the Continent on purpose to be present at your birthday -party. I must say I find that highly significant." - -"Significant of what?" - -"My dear, innocence is a charming and attractive quality; but do not -be too _ingénue_. No, not too _ingénue_. At any rate with me. You must -surely have noticed how _empressé_ he has always been with you? He -admires you, and though of course I do not wish to influence you unduly -or to persuade you into a hasty marriage, at the same time ... however, -there are others every bit as suitable as Mr. Alison. I just happen -to have noticed that he is rather obviously ... however, please, my -dear child, pay no attention to what I was saying, because I should -be unwilling, oh, yes, most unwilling, to precipitate a marriage with -anybody, even a young man so perfectly eligible as Mr. Alison. At the -same time, you are twenty, are you not? And I am seventy. You will of -course inherit a comfortable sum when I die, but that makes it all the -more imperative to choose for your husband a man who has money." - -Mary did not quite see the logic of this; but she had long ago been -successfully cured of asking why; and, since the prospect of marrying -Mr. Alison was at least as pleasant as the prospect of marrying anybody -else, she was not sufficiently interested to pursue the topic. - -But Mr. Alison took Mary into dinner; Lady Flower felt that he deserved -some reward for hurrying back from Nice. - -James Alison, known generally as Jemmie Alison, was a stockbroker who -had succeeded at the age of twenty-seven to a lucrative business. As -a boy, when he had fair, curly hair, he had been definitely handsome. -He was now a florid man with a heavy fair mustache, who was still -good-looking, although his hair was beginning to require some arranging -before it would cover the top of his head, and his features showed -signs of coarsening. From his schooldays at Eton, indeed from the day -he was born, he had never been compelled to deny himself anything, -and like many men who have inherited a fortune early in life he looked -older than he was and felt older than he looked. After dinner he was -separated from Mary for some time; but at last he managed to find a -seat beside her in the conservatory while a famous tenor was singing: - - _I had a message to send her, - To her, whom my soul loved best; - But I had my task to finish, - And she has gone home to rest._ - -"Beautiful song," said Mr. Alison. - -"Exquisite!" Mary sighed. - - _I had a message to send her, - So tender, and true, and sweet, - I longed for an Angel to bear it, - And lay it down at her feet._ - -"Things can be said in songs that can't be said any other way," Mr. -Alison murmured with a sigh. - -Mary appeared wrapt in the melody. - - _I cried, in my passionate longing;-- - "Has the earth no Angel-friend - Who will carry my love the message - That my heart desires to send?"_ - -Mr. Alison looked appealingly at Mary; but she was still wrapt in the -melody. - - _Then I heard a strain of music, - So mighty, so pure, so clear, - That my very sorrow was silent, - And my heart stood still to hear._ - -"One of the loveliest songs I ever heard," Mr. Alison declared. "And he -sings it divinely." - - _And I tenderly laid my message - On the music's outspread wings._ - - _I heard it float farther and farther, - In sound more perfect than speech; - Farther than sight can follow, - Farther than soul can reach._ - -Mary with a tear in each eye was staring up at the dome of the -conservatory. Mr. Alison, although he could not muster a tear even -in one eye, looked in the same direction and derived a great deal of -satisfaction from the thought that he and this beautiful girl by his -side were both staring at the same pane of glass. The singer achieved a -triumphant C. - - _And I know that at last my message - Has passed through the golden gate; - So my heart is no longer restless, - And I am content to wait._ - -"'Content to wait,'" Mr. Alison echoed meaningly, when the applause had -died down. "'Content to wait,'" he repeated. "So long as I know that -somebody has received my message." - -Mary was nearly sure that this was a declaration; but she was not -absolutely sure, and she wished that Daisy Harland had not at the last -moment telegraphed to say that she could not be with her beloved Mary -on her twentieth birthday. - -"Ah, Miss Flower," Mr. Alison continued, shaking his head. "It would -be hard for you to understand the thoughts of a man like myself when -he hears a song like that. At the same time, the moral of it surely is -that, however far away we may seem from heaven, we are not so far away -in reality. We can hope. We can hope, Miss Flower. I wonder if I might -venture to say Mary?" - -"Oh, certainly, please call me Mary," she begged him nervously. - -"Thank you, Mary." - -Mr. Alison wished that he could quote a line of poetry about some -romantic Mary; but he could only think of _Mary had a little lamb_. And -he felt that to sigh this forth with as much passionate emphasis as he -could achieve would sound rather silly. - -"I suppose," he ventured, "you couldn't bring yourself to call me -Jemmie? All my chums call me Jemmie. Jemmie Alison. Nobody ever calls -me James. Nobody ever did call me James except my grandmother on my -father's side. Funny old woman. She simply would not call me Jemmie. -She always said the name reminded her of a fright she had in childhood -when some burglars broke into her father's house, who of course would -have been my great-grandfather. Now that's going back some way. My -father died in '72. He was sixty-three then. So he was born in 1809, -when my grandmother was twenty-one. That makes her born in 1788. So I -suppose this burglary must have happened about 1798. That's a long time -ago, isn't it?" - -"A very long time ago," Mary agreed. She was so much muddled by Mr. -Alison's statistics that if he had told her the burglary took place -shortly after the Battle of Hastings she would have accepted it as a -fact. - -"I wish the old lady could have lived to meet you, Mary," he went on. -"You are just the kind of girl she would have liked me to marry." - -Luckily for Mary, who did not know what comment she ought to make on -this last piece of information, by this time the tenor was off again: - - _Do you grieve no costly offering - To the lady you can make? - One there is, and gifts less worthy - Queens have stooped to take._ - - _Take a Heart of virgin silver, - Fashion it with heavy blows, - Cast it into Love's hot furnace - When it fiercest glows._ - -"Is that your heart or mine?" Mr. Alison asked in a puzzled voice. "I -don't quite get that. I mean, is that his heart or hers?" - -Mary motioned him not to talk, because people were beginning to turn -round and peer at the palms among which they were sitting, curious to -know what discordant mutter was profaning the music. - - _With pain's sharpest point transfix it, - And then carve in letters fair, - Tender dreams and quaint devices, - Fancies sweet and rare._ - - _Set within it Hope's blue sapphire, - Many-changing, opal fears, - Blood-red ruby-stones of daring, - Mixed with pearly tears._ - -"Hope's red ruby!" exclaimed Mr. Alison. "That's really uncommonly -fine, I think." - - _And when you have wrought and labored - Till the gift is all complete, - You may humbly lay your offering - At the Lady's feet._ - - _Should her mood perchance be gracious-- - With disdainful smiling pride, - She will place it with the trinkets - Glittering at her side._ - -"I got muddled in that song," Mr. Alison confessed. "I don't think it's -as good as the first one. Mary, before another song begins, may I tell -you that I love you? May I ask you to be my wife? I know that you do -not love me yet. But you might learn to love me. Mightn't you, Mary? -You're very young. I can wait, now that I have delivered my message at -the golden gate. Now I shall always reverence that song, Mary. To my -dying day. It seems to me sitting here beside you at this moment more -like a sacred song than just ordinary poetry. I wonder who wrote it?" - -"I wonder," echoed Mary, glad to find the conversation turning away -from personalities to literature. - -"I suppose it wasn't Shakespeare?" Mr. Alison hazarded. - -"No, I don't _think_ it was Shakespeare." - -"He wrote such a lot of well-known stuff," said Mr. Alison. "One's -pretty safe five times out of ten to guess Shakespeare. But, Mary, you -have not replied to my question. May I hope? May I set in my heart -Hope's red ruby?" - -"It was Hope's blue sapphire," she corrected. - -"Well, whatever jewel it was, may I hope?" - -"I hadn't expected anything like this," said Mary, wondering whether it -would create general consternation if she were to jump up from her seat -and rush out of the conservatory. - -"I know it seems sudden; but it's not really so sudden. All the time -I've been in the south of France I've been thinking about you. I tried -to drown my despair by playing roulette. In fact, I won quite a lot of -money, because I played so recklessly." - -Mary turned pale. Could her existence really affect a man of the world -like Mr. Alison up to the point of reckless gambling? - -"I felt in my inmost being that you could not love me. You're as much -above me as a--as a--as an angel!" He tried not to look proud of the -simile. "I know I am not worthy of you, Mary. I know that. But I have -said enough. You look agitated. Please do not let my impetuosity -distress you. Hark! Somebody else is going to sing." - -The deep notes of a voluptuous contralto broke into the murmur of small -talk like a dinner-gong. - -"Don't forget, Mary," said Mr. Alison, when the sonorous abracadabra of -an Italian song had died away in loud applause. "I have delivered my -message, and I am content to wait. Shall I take you downstairs and get -you an ice?" - -"Oh, thank you, Mr. Alison." - -"Mary, please!" he moaned reproachfully. "Jemmie. I thought you'd -promised me that much." - -It was lucky the ices were downstairs; for his tone would have melted -the lot had they been in the conservatory. - -"Jemmie," she whispered, feeling exactly as if she had swallowed a pill -without water. - -"You have made me radiantly happy," he affirmed. "By Jove, I feel as -if I never knew my name _was_ Jemmie until this moment." - -As for Mary, she felt nothing except a vague hope that she had not -committed herself too deeply by granting Mr. Alison's desire to be -called Jemmie. Her grandmother might choose to consider that by doing -so she had accepted him. She prayed that Daisy Harland would soon reach -London. Otherwise, at this rate, she would find herself married before -she knew it. - -For the rest of the evening she managed to avoid her suitor, though it -was at the cost of having to endure the dissertative bibble-babble upon -Japanese interiors of a young man with long hair and a double chin, one -of those artistic people whom the hostess had invited to her reception -in order to support a daring social experiment that was having a vogue. - -"Did Mr. Alison give you an amusing account of his tour in France?" -Lady Flower inquired after the sound of the last carriage had died away -on the frosty air. - -"He talked about France. He wasn't very amusing," said Mary. - -"You seemed to be getting on very well together, nevertheless," -observed her grandmother. "In fact, when What's-his-name, the tenor, -was singing it was really quite noticeable that you were too much -occupied with each other to pay any attention to the music." - -"We were discussing the music," Mary said, wishing that her -grandmother would go to bed, and not ask any more questions. - -"I suppose that if he does seriously intend to ask for your hand he -will speak to me first. He's not so young as to be able to neglect -that courtesy. He's not one of the young communards of to-day who -consider they have equal rights with parents and guardians. He'll -be ready to admit that we elders have some authority left. Only -fancy, my dear, Lady Pringle tells me that her daughters demand, yes, -positively demand, to play in a lawn-tennis competition next summer. -A public affair, as far as I can make out. She made me shudder with -her description of it. Young women of breeding and education are to -expose themselves in front of anybody who likes to pay the necessary -charge for admission. Dear me, I remember that your poor grandfather -used sometimes to be shocked by what he considered my ultra-modern and -extravagantly continental ideas. What would he have said, had he been -alive to-day? I do hope your friend, Daisy Harland, won't persuade -_you_ into wanting to appear as a female acrobat. She has always -struck me as the kind of young woman who would do anything. She was a -dreadfully noisy girl, I remember." - -Mary allowed Daisy's character to be sacrificed in order to divert her -grandmother from the discussion of Mr. Alison. Soon she was able to -propose bed and was glad when at last she found herself alone in the -dark with her secret. - -Her first proposal.... - -Only that afternoon she had been wondering if any one would propose to -her, and already on her twentieth birthday she had received one. - -Jemmie.... - -But she did not think of him as Jemmie. Were she to become his wife -to-morrow, she should for a long time think of him as Mr. Alison. - -Mary Alison.... - -That was rather attractive. - -Mrs. Alison.... - -It was in his favor that he had neither father nor mother alive. If -she did make up her mind to marry him, she should not want another -grandmamma in her mother-in-law. - -Mary Alison ... yours most truly, Mary Alison.... - -But marriage meant more than that. Rather horrid intimacies ... -children.... - -"Do I want children?" Mary asked herself. "I don't believe I do at all." - -Pain! And of course, unless she had been utterly misinformed, it must -hurt horribly. - -"I should never have the courage," she told herself. "Never," she -decided, and turning over she was soon fast asleep. - -A week later, Daisy Harland did come to London, and to her in that top -room of the Harlands' house in South Kensington, in that room papered -with hunting scenes, which was bound up more closely with her girlhood -than any room in the world, Mary confided the tale of her first -proposal. - -"He's not so bad," Daisy commented. "He's clean to look at. Pretty well -off too, I should say. But why be in a hurry?" - -"Oh, I'm not in any hurry. It's my grandmother who is so anxious to see -me safely married." - -"I wonder why. I suppose she can't bear the idea of not arranging the -whole matter to please herself." - -Mary gazed down at the garden of the Square, in which little girls well -wrapped up in white furs were running about after large particolored -balls of india rubber, while their nurses gossiped gravely with one -another, moving with slow and stately tread behind their perambulators. -What fun she and Daisy had always had in the Square when she used to -stay with her friend for the holidays! Perhaps it was the bareness -of winter that made it seem so small nowadays; or perhaps everything -shrank as one grew older. - -"Don't you think that a girl ought to love the man she is going to -marry?" Mary pressed. - -"But what is love? Personally I've never been in love." - -"Daisy! You were tremendously in love with Gerald Ashworth. Don't you -remember when you bought that lilac notepaper with two hearts stamped -in the top corner?" - -Her friend laughed. - -"You don't think seriously that the kind of silliness in which one -indulges at fifteen is to be considered an experience?" - -"Yes, I do," Mary insisted. "If I hadn't been in love when I was small, -I shouldn't be bothering now about being in love with Jemmie Alison. I -shouldn't expect anything. As it is, I feel somehow that I want more -than he can give me." - -"If you'd come back with me to Berkshire and hunt, you'd soon forget -all your troubles." - -"Should I? I wonder. Not by hunting, Daisy. You would not enjoy hunting -so much, if you weren't so proud of yourself for learning to ride so -late in life." - -"I wish we'd had our place in Berkshire when I was little," said Daisy -regretfully. "I _should_ have been a horsewoman then. The pater might -just as well have launched out a bit earlier. We didn't really save -anything by living in London." - -"But it was fun when we used to play up here," said Mary. "Do you -remember when we made those paper boxes and filled them with ink and -dropped them on the pavement? Oh, and don't you remember when Eustace -Arnesby came to tea, and he dropped one on an old gentleman's hat?" - -"Eustace is at Sandhurst now," said Daisy. "Talking of young love, I -did have rather a pash for him." - -"Daisy!" - -"What's the matter?" - -"You do say such terrible things." - -"In fact," Daisy continued, "when I look back at my innocent girlhood, -I seem to have spent my time falling in and falling out of love with -lanky boys. And you, my darling Mary, are trying to make out that that -kind of thing is serious. Well, if it was, my young life has been -lived, for at present I couldn't fall in love with anybody." - -"I believe I could," said Mary meditatively. "But not with Jemmie -Alison. If you really think about it, marriage is terrible." - -"Why?" - -Here was Mary's opportunity to ask Daisy a few direct questions; but, -when it came to the point, she could not bring herself to do so. She -could not imagine that she would ever feel more intimate with any other -girl than she felt with Daisy, and if she could not ask Daisy she could -not ask anybody. - -"Why?" her friend repeated. - -"Oh, always being with the same person," said Mary, with this -explanation allowing the opportunity to pass. - -Daisy went back to her hunting; Mary remained in London. - -"We might go to Ventnor in March," said Lady Flower. "I don't feel -inclined to travel far. I really believe that I'm beginning to feel -old. I wish I could see you safely married. You strike me as being -somewhat listless in your manner. That would vanish if you were -married." - -Jemmie Alison ventured to think that Mary was not looking quite -herself. He would have been glad to suggest the same remedy as Lady -Flower; but he lacked the courage and compromised. - -"What you want is a dog," he decided. "A nice little dog. Give you an -excuse for taking a walk every morning in the Park. I should like to -think of you with your little dog under the trees when I'm working in -my office." - -Jemmie Alison proved that he had faith in his prescription by taking -a great deal of trouble to procure for Mary the very dog for the -purpose--a wise Dandie Dinmont not so young as to require the elements -of training, yet not so old as to be fretting for a former mistress or -master. - -"He is called Mac. You don't dislike that name?" the donor asked. - -Mary said that she thought it was a most suitable name. - -"There's so much in a name," he continued meaningly. - -"Yes, and it's so unlucky, I always think, to change a name," Mary -added. - -"Oh, you think it's unlucky?" Jemmie Alison asked in a gloomy tone. - -Mac was a success from the moment of his arrival, and Mary was really -grateful to her friend--friendship was the relation established between -her and Jemmie Alison after several discussions--for the kind thought -that made the dog hers. She was glad when the need of exercising Mac -took her out into Hyde Park where by now, crocuses, a myriad steady -flames, defied the wind and lighted the dim green of the London grass. -There were also white and purple crocuses that gave Mary a keener -pleasure than the yellow ones, for they seemed to be not so much the -first flowers of Spring as the last flowers of Winter, and to express -with their cold hues and tranquillity of form the sharpness of life -that was there all the time. They reminded her somehow of those lovers -who wandered about in the iron chill of that January afternoon, those -regardful lovers whose happy indifference to time or weather she had so -greatly envied. - -One morning the sun was so warm that, tired with throwing sticks -for Mac, Mary sat down on a chair in the Broad Walk, watching the -children bowling their hoops or running about with pink and blue -balloons, while with one splay paw upon his mistress's instep Mac sat -watching the other dogs. Mary from paying attention to the children -and nurses fell to wondering about the fragments of shell that were -mixed with the fresh gravel of the path. From what far-off beach had -they come, or were they fossil shells from the bed of a long-receded -ocean? Whencesoever it came, each fragment had once been part of a -living animal. A living animal. Not a hundred years hence, she, or all -that part of her beheld now by the passers-by, would seem not more -important than one of these shells. Was there not indeed something -more permanent than this bodily husk? Grandmamma did not think so. -Mary was sure of her unbelief, even if every Sunday morning Grandmamma -in sealskin and dove-gray silk did make use of the pew she rented for -herself and Mary in St. Peter's, Knightsbridge. - -"You are seen in church," she told her granddaughter. "One is anxious -for you to be seen." - -With the help of her vinaigrette Lady Flower kept awake during the -sermon and congratulated herself upon the charming appearance of Mary, -when Mary rose to take her share of singing unto the Lord at Morning -Prayer. - -The notion that her granddaughter was contemplating the serious aspect -and expression of religious fervor would have shocked the old lady; the -knowledge that she was sitting in Kensington Gardens asking herself -what she really was would have made Lady Flower think more earnestly -than ever that it was high time her granddaughter was married. - -"It must be for something," Mary told herself, crushing a tiny -scalloped fragment with her toe. "Life must be meant for something." - -Any attempt to solve the riddle of the universe had to be postponed -on account of Mac's suddenly being involved in a desperate fight, for -while his mistress had been lost in meditation he had been exposed to -the insults of an aggressive fox terrier. - -"Bandy-legged Sawney!" the terrier had murmured when he trotted fussily -past with erect tail. Mac's ears had twitched under this reflection -upon his nationality; but he had restrained himself. Presently the -terrier had come trotting back, this time on three legs as if to -insinuate that he was a better dog on three legs than a Dandie Dinmont -on four. - -"Donkey's ears!" he had snarled. - -Even this Mac had endured in patience, for his splay paw was still -reposing on his mistress' instep and he was proud of the pose, too -proud to abandon it for a fox-terrier. But, when his mistress had of -her own accord released him by withdrawing her toe from his protection, -Mac had been able to stand no more. - -"Let him come back and say another word," he had growled to himself, -turning round and round and scratching up the gravel in his irritation. -The fox-terrier had trotted back more aggressive than ever and to -emphasize his contempt of the Dandie Dinmont's short legs he had -swaggered up and down in front of Mac on the tips of his paws, -boastfully snarling. - -Mac rushed in, and the fight began. - -The nearest children climbed hastily over the railings to the safety -of the grass: nurses screamed to their charges: a park-keeper looked -out of the window of his little green room and made ready to effect an -impressive arrival upon the scene when the fight was over. - -"Your dog began it," a weather-beaten woman said angrily to Mary. "I -call all and sundry to witness that it was your dog who deliberately -made an attack upon mine. Trusty! Trusty! Oh, my poor Trusty, he'll be -killed. That other brute's got him down. He's being bitten to pieces, -my poor old Trusty!" - -Mary was hitting both dogs with her whip-lead; but although she felt -that she was using most unfeminine force, such force that the ribbons -of her bonnet came untied and at any moment she expected to find her -hair loose upon her shoulders, her blows had not the slightest effect -upon the dogs. The owner of the fox-terrier was exciting herself more -every moment, and Mary was afraid that presently she should find -herself being rolled over and over among those fragments of shells, her -preoccupation with which had been the cause of Mac's outburst. However, -the Dandie Dinmont was certainly winning; and if the weather-beaten -lady did attack her, perhaps he would have disposed of the fox-terrier -in time to rescue his mistress. At that moment a slim young man rushed -into the middle of the fray and, seizing both dogs by their tails, he -held them apart until he had returned them growling to the arms of -their owners. - -"You can think yourself lucky that I don't take out a summons against -you," said the owner of the fox-terrier, hurrying off, without a word -of thanks to the young man, to bathe Trusty's wounds at the nearest -fountain. - -He was a dark young man with fine features and deep brown eyes, who -spoke English with a French accent. - -"Pardon, Mademoiselle, we have not met before, have we?" he asked, -looking hard at Mary. - -She thought that he was trying to improve the occasion and was on -the point of replying with a cold negative, when she began to wonder -where and how she had met this stranger before. In his frankly puzzled -stare there was not a hint of presumption, and, though to enter into -conversation with a young man who had rendered her a service in a -public park was contrary to the whole spirit of her bringing up, Mary -could not resist her curiosity. - -"Have we met before?" she asked. "I've a feeling that we have -somewhere. You are French, are you not?" - -"From the Lyonnais," he replied. - -"But that's where I was at school." - -"I lived in Châteaublanc," he continued. In a flash she remembered who -he was. - -"Pierre Menard!" she cried. - -"And you are the little English girl with--pardon, Mademoiselle--with -red hair." - -When two old friends meet after a long lapse of time, the years between -are either swept away altogether or their capacity for separation is -doubled. In this case they were obliterated. Here on this fine morning -in early March Pierre stood before Mary as many times he had stood in -the fair landscapes of memory. She heard again the diminishing sound -of the drum that played him on to glory down that winding road ten -years ago; she stood again beside him in that embrasure, gazing at a -world washed with the gold of that breathless and mellow autumn day; -she saw him again in heroic guise and found in his handling of the -dog-fight such an inspired chivalry as she had found in his setting -forth to fight for France. - -"And how well you speak English, Monsieur." - -"I have lived in London for eight years. I'm working with Marechal -et Cie, the big silk merchants. I had some business to transact in -Kensington and took the opportunity of walking through the Gardens this -beautiful day." - -"Then I must not detain you," she murmured. - -With a gesture he disposed of any urgency in his business. - -"You were in a greater hurry last time we were together," Mary reminded -him. - -She blushed at the adverb she had used, for it seemed to sweep them -toward an intimacy that she felt was imprudent. - -"I was not old enough last time, Mademoiselle, to appreciate my good -fortune. And you were, if I may say so, a very little girl in those -days, Mademoiselle." - -While they were talking, they had moved away from the populous Broad -Walk and were wandering now through a grove of elms. Mary looking -round realized that they were as much alone together as if they were in -the country. Yet not for anything would she have been anywhere else, -not for anything would she have missed this new music in the twittering -of the sparrows overhead, this fresh glow in the grass, this sudden -accord of herself with the Spring. - -"I ought really to be going home," she murmured. "I only came out to -give my little dog a run." - -"See how much he is enjoying himself on the grass. I could never have -the heart to deprive him of a moment's pleasure, Mademoiselle. I should -indeed be _ingrat_." - -They were wandering deeper into the green heart of the Gardens. Mary, -looking over her shoulder, saw the houses of Kensington lose themselves -in a mist of bare boughs, heard the traffic sound more faintly, ceased -to feel the slightest desire to solve the riddle of the universe, and -threw all the responsibility of her behavior upon Fate. - -"I've felt for a long time that something was about to happen," -she told herself deliberately without being the least aware of -inconsistency, who only half an hour ago was feeling drearily that -nothing was going to happen. What nice hands Pierre had ... she pulled -herself up for a moment, but a moment later asked herself indignantly -by what other name she should think of him. He had always been Pierre. -Why did he keep staring sideways at her without speaking? She must be -careful to appear utterly unconscious of his glances. - -"I'm trying to tell myself that you are grown up," Pierre said. - -It was so easy to think of him as Pierre. Monsieur Menard would sound -so affected, and Mr. Menard would sound ridiculous. - -"I am grown up. I'm twenty." - -What would Grandmamma say if she could hear her? Yet after all he must -know within a year or two how old she was, so why pretend? - -"I am twenty-seven." - -"I think you look older than that," Mary said judicially. "I should -have guessed you were thirty, if I had not known that you were scarcely -seventeen when you went off to the war." - -Mary felt that it was important to impress on Pierre how much she was -aware of that boy and girl friendship. It would never do for him to -think that she would have allowed herself to walk with him under these -trees because he was what he was now. No sooner had she decided this -than she felt a sharp desire to glance sideways at him, to see more -exactly what he was indeed now. She tried hard to resist the impulse, -but the longer she resisted the more urgent it became, and thus their -eyes met. - -She blushed in confusion, but an instant afterward turned pale with -emotion. - -"Mademoiselle, you are ill," he cried. "Sit here awhile. The sun is -shining. You will not catch cold." - -Why did he call her Mademoiselle? Why did he not say "Mary"? Oh, she -must not think such thoughts. Probably he did not know her name, or if -he ever knew it he must have forgotten it long ago. He was behaving so -well, and she was behaving so badly. - -"I don't know what you must think of me," she murmured. - -"Mademoiselle, I should not dare to say so soon what I thought." - -"Is your opinion of me as bad as all that?" She was behaving like a -coquette. What was happening to her? Mac's fight must have upset her -more than she thought. - -"You are unkind to me," said Pierre with a shrug. - -"Unkind?" she echoed. - -"You taunt me with my position...." He broke off and began to play with -the dog. - -Already a quarrel. How exciting life became when one could quarrel! - -"You misunderstand me, Monsieur," Mary said with a dignity that she -hoped was a match for his. "I had not the least intention of taunting -you. Perhaps you are trying to persuade yourself into thinking that, -because you are afraid that you may have led me to suppose that you -were more interested in thinking about me than you really were." - -"I am too much interested in you," Pierre retorted. "And you with the -cruelty of your sex have perceived that too quickly. But you are right -to make it clear to me that you have only condescended to give me your -company.... Ah, Mademoiselle, do you think I have forgotten that when -you first met me I was the gardener's son?" - -So he was! But he was French. And France was now a republic where all -were equal. - -"I remember perfectly what you were," said Mary. "But I don't remember -that it made any difference to me when I was ten, and I don't see why -it should make any difference when I'm twenty." - -"Mademoiselle," cried Pierre, starting to his feet, "I entreat you not -to mock me. I have no right to say what I feel for you. But at least I -may beg you to spare my feelings." - -"You really do speak English quite perfectly," Mary exclaimed in -obvious, open-eyed admiration of his fluency. - -"Mademoiselle, if I should wish to change my employer, I would beg you -to give me a written testimonial." - -"Ah, now it's you who are sneering at me," said Mary, turning upon -Pierre reproachful eyes. - -He made a gesture that was intended to convey how little it mattered to -her what he did or what he said or what he thought. Who was he in her -world? - -Mary felt that it would give quite a wrong impression of herself -if she did not succeed in convincing him that she despised those -artificial barriers of rank and station to which he evidently supposed -she attached so much importance. - -"I assure you that I never was and never could be conscious of any -difference between us like that," she affirmed. "I look upon you as an -old friend whom Fate--Fate," she repeated emphatically, for she felt -that it was imperative to make it clear from the start that Fate was -going to be accounted culpable for anything that might happen, "whom -Fate has brought once more into my life. I should never have allowed -myself to take this walk with you alone, if I didn't consider you an -old friend. And now I'm sure you ought to be keeping your appointment. -It would never do for you to neglect your business on my account." - -"But shall we ever meet again?" he asked. - -"Fate will decide that," answered Mary demurely. "I dare say, if your -business brings you this way sometimes, we shall meet." - -And of course they did meet, not once but many times that Spring. - -"It was really a happy thought of Mr. Alison's to give you that -odd-looking dog," Lady Flower observed. "Your color is much better -since you've made a habit of exercising that dog in the Park. I really -don't think you'll want to leave town until the season is over. And I -shall not be sorry for an excuse to stay where I am. I find these short -excursions into the country rather a bore nowadays." - -"I'm perfectly well in London," Mary assured her grandmother. "I think -it would be a great mistake to go away." - -Mary did not meet Pierre in the Park every day, but she did meet him -very often; and, although at the back of her mind she had a suspicion -that he must be neglecting his business to be able to meet her as often -as he did, she allowed herself to suppose that it was Fate. And if ever -before her mirror she was tempted by honesty to ask herself what was -going to be the end of it, she always hurried down to dinner and left -Fate to argue it out upstairs. Her friend Daisy had been back in town -a long time before Mary gave the least hint of an interest in life. In -fact, if she had not met Pierre unexpectedly one morning when she was -out walking with Daisy, she would probably never have said anything -about her romance. - -"So that's why you find Jemmie Alison so dull," her friend laughed. - -"My dear, what has he got to do with Jemmie Alison?" - -"A great deal, I should imagine, by your blushes." - -"Did I never tell you about young Menard, when we were at the -_pension_?" - -Daisy shook her head. - -"Of course, it happened before you came. When I was there during the -war." She related briefly the tale of Pierre's determination to fight -for his country. "And the other day we met again quite by accident." - -"And no doubt will go on meeting quite by accident," said Daisy dryly. - -"I must take Mac somewhere," Mary protested. - -Two days later she met Pierre by the banks of the Serpentine on a -May noon that held the city in a web of silver. The tall houses of -Bayswater, reflected in that shimmering expanse of water, appeared like -the battlements of an enchanted palace above the trees that masked -their prosaic beginnings. The white peacocks haunting the slopes toward -Hyde Park made one feel that life was a dream and that the children -and nurses, the meditative loiterers, even the old maids with their -pet dogs, would all presently be turned into birds to fly above this -cloud-cuckoo-town of London. - -No sooner were they seated on two of those green chairs, which in -their emptiness speak as eloquently as musical instruments of latent -emotions, than Pierre took Mary's hand and said: "Mademoiselle, I have -given up Marechal et Cie. Presently I shall find something better to -do. But so long as I was their _employé_ I could not tell you that I -loved you. At this moment I am poor, but I am free. Mary, I hope you -will love me until I can win you in marriage?" - -She let her hand remain in his. Citizen and citizeness of -cloud-cuckoo-town, they floated far above ordinary life. - -"I only know that I love you, Pierre," she whispered. - -He bent over and touched her fingers with his lips. Then for a long -time they sat in silence. - -"You had better come and speak to my grandmother this afternoon." - -He nodded pensively. - -"She might raise some difficulties," Mary went on, trying to realize -that there was another existence outside the serene and silver world in -which the beating of her own heart sounded so loud. "Come about four," -she said, rising. "I will explain how all this has happened." - -He kissed once more her hand and stood watching her as she floated -across the level grass toward home. - -It was only when Mary heard the door of the house in King's Gate close -behind her and the gong chime for lunch that she began to wonder if -it was all going to be as easy as it had seemed by the banks of the -pale blue Serpentine. However, Pierre was coming this afternoon, and -Grandmamma must be warned. Lunch was surely unusually disturbed to-day. -The maids were always in and out with new dishes. Perhaps it would be -best to wait until they went up to the drawing-room for coffee. Would -that mean Grandmamma's missing her nap? If it did, it could not be -helped. At least she must be told that there was such a person. - -"Did I ever tell you about a boy called Pierre Menard?" Mary asked -when she had poured out the coffee. It took a long time to describe -that scene ten years ago when Pierre followed the drum to glory, so -long that Grandmamma was nodding before Mary had finished. But when -Mary added that curiously enough she had met him again the other day, -met him once or twice in fact, and that he had asked her if he could -call this afternoon, Grandmamma sat upright and looked more wide-awake -than Mary had ever seen her yet. - -"Is the young man going to call on you or me?" - -"On you, Grandmamma." - -"Oh," the old lady grimly commented. "Then I'd better go and take my -rest at once." - -Mary could not make up her mind whether she should stay in the -drawing-room until Pierre came or whether it would be wiser to let -him interview her grandmother first. In the end she decided upon the -latter course, and in great agitation of spirit she went upstairs to -her own room where she tried to distract her thoughts by trying on -several new dresses with which Lady Flower had insisted on replenishing -her wardrobe, so that she should not carry an end-of-the-season air -about her, the old lady had said. But the new dresses were incapable -of keeping her from running out on the landing every few minutes to -hear if the front door was being opened. It became impossible to remain -in her room, and she went back to the drawing-room so that she might -see Pierre first and warn him that her grandmother was likely to be -difficult. - -At last Pierre arrived, looking trim and slim in a frock-coat. Mary -was glad that he had dressed ceremoniously, for she knew how much -importance Grandmamma attached to ceremony. - -"Oh, Pierre," she exclaimed. "I only wanted to see you for a moment -just to advise you to talk in French to Lady Flower. She is half French -herself, you know, and I'm sure it will all sound much better in your -own language. It's not that you don't speak English perfectly, but you -might make a slip in a foreign tongue. You might give quite a wrong -impression." - -Pierre agreed with her about the wisdom of this, and then he took her -in his arms. - -"_Ma bien aimée_," he whispered. "Will you give me courage with one -kiss?" - -She fluttered upon his arms more lightly than a bird, more lightly -than a moth, more lightly than a crimson leaf that is blown whispering -along a window-pane. Then hearing her grandmother's step she fled from -the room through the domed conservatory past the staring eyes of the -pelargoniums and the pug-faced, toothless calceolarias. - -Twenty minutes later, Mary found Pierre gone and her grandmother -reading _The Times_ as if she were trying to assure herself that normal -life would continue in spite of a presumptuous young Frenchman, who -without prospects asked for the hand of an heiress. - -"Although, considering what he is," said Lady Flower, "the young man -behaved very well. I was able to show him at once how ridiculous it was -that he should aspire to marry you." - -"But I love him," Mary interposed. - -"I have no doubt that at this moment you do love him. It is my -business, dear child, to protect you against impulse." - -Lady Flower was once more sitting in her boudoir at Barton Hall with -her son before her. She had made the mistake then of sneering at Mary's -mother, and although in this case it was unlikely that Mary would take -matters into her own hand, it would be imprudent to run the risk of -her doing so. With experience of a similar situation she ought to be -able this time to have her own way. The old lady looked at Mary with -an unwonted warmth of affection: Mary was Edward's daughter. The fact -seemed to strike her for the first time. Edward's daughter ... Edward -who was drowned twenty years ago. Poor Edward, so like his mother! And -there was Mary holding her hands just as he had held them on that June -afternoon, the day before he married and tore himself forever from -the bosom of family life, as perhaps she herself might have held her -hands fifty years ago if she had had to oppose the wishes of that stern -old general who fought at Waterloo or of that dainty mother who bred -in exile had yet kept about her the remote grace and grandeur of the -_ancien régime_. - -"It is not that he is of humble birth," she began to explain. -"A Frenchman can surmount that disadvantage more easily than an -Englishman, at any rate in England. But he has no money, and so far -as I can gather no immediate prospects of ever having any money. Even -if I were disposed to give you such a dowry as would enable you to -indulge yourself in the luxury of marriage with a poor man, I should -not permit myself to do so. For I should be wrong. Few men have the -moral strength to live decently upon their wives. I know you will think -that this is only the opinion of a cynical old woman, and I should be -sorry if at your age you thought differently. But at my age one is no -longer shocked by the nakedness of truth; at my age we begin to return -to the shamelessness of childhood. How your dear grandfather would have -disliked that last remark of mine. He had such a profound belief in old -age. Any religious feelings he had, all centered round his respect for -the age of God. Your poor grandfather ... dear me, I am going back into -the past instead of grappling with the present." - -Mary had been listening to her grandmother in astonishment. She had -expected a fierce and bitter opposition, which she had promised herself -to defy; but it seemed that the old lady was going to argue with her, -and that would be disconcerting. Grandmother's arguments were always -so difficult to answer. - -"I think perhaps I won't talk about this business any more to-day," -Grandmamma was saying. "I have to make up my mind whether or not I will -tell you something. Meanwhile, may I ask you not to see the young man -until I have decided what to do?" - -Mary promised this, and wrote to Pierre giving him a tryst by the -Serpentine three days hence. Adèle was sent to beg Daisy Harland to -come at once to talk over some important news Mary had to tell her. -Mary would have gone herself, but she could see that her grandmother -would not be able to avoid being suspicious of her meeting Pierre, and -she did not want to do anything that would prejudice the old lady still -more against him. - -Daisy was much more discouraging than Grandmamma; she thought it was -madness to think of marrying a French clerk who was the son of a common -gardener, and who had at the moment neither money nor employment. - -"My dearest Mary, it's the most absurd idea I ever heard! Why, you -would have to live in squalor unless you lived with Lady Flower, -which of course would be impossible. You're too old for this kind of -foolishness now. I saw no reason for your getting married in such a -hurry. But I begin to understand now why your grandmother is so anxious -to tie you up. She evidently knows you better than I do. Of course, -he's a good-looking and--if that attracts you--a romantic young man. -But there are dozens of them in England. As for being in love, you -know as well as I do that love runs its course like measles or scarlet -fever. You can recover from love, but you can't recover from marriage, -which in this case would be like a serious accident. You'd be lame for -the rest of your life." - -Lady Flower remarked how much surprised she had been to find that -Mary's friend had grown so sensible. - -"It must be hunting, I suppose." - -"You only find her sensible because she dislikes the idea of my -marrying Pierre." - -"She sees the position from the standpoint of an outsider. Listen, -Mary, I have never said anything about your father to you. I don't even -know how much you have guessed." - -Mary blushed hotly. The moment that she had dreaded for years was -upon her. That dreadful secret, the consciousness of which had always -clouded her intimate thoughts, was about to be revealed. She must steel -herself to hear the proclamation of her illegitimacy. The definition in -the dictionary flamed across her memory ... _not authorized by law_ ... -_improper_ ... _not born in lawful wedlock_ ... _bastard_. _Bâtard!_ -How often had she shivered over that in the French dictionary. How -sedulously had she tried to ascertain what it really meant, in the way -that no dictionary dares to reveal. And then those sickening hints -from horrid girls ... the girls who came from South America were always -the horridest.... - -No wonder Grandmamma looked serious and uncomfortable. If only a small -portion of what was hinted were true, she must scarcely know how she -was to look her granddaughter in the face and tell her not merely about -herself, but about life and those mysterious beginnings of life that -seemed to involve men and women in such horrors. - -"I have guessed a good deal," Mary admitted bravely. - -"Naturally, you must have done so. And I dare say those people with -whom you lived. What was their name? Fox? Fawkes?" - -"The Fawcuses," said Mary. From the past the vision of Mrs. Fawcus -came back to her like the page of a fairy tale. In all stories about -illegitimate children, there was a woman like Mrs. Fawcus who looked -after them, kept them hidden, and guarded their secret. Why had she not -made another effort to read _Jane Eyre_ since it was taken away from -her by Mademoiselle Lucinge only the week before she left school? In -that book she might have pierced the dreadful mystery. - -"You may have guessed," Grandmamma was saying, "that your father -married beneath him, married a very beautiful girl, the daughter of one -of our own tenant farmers." - -"Then I'm not illegitimate!" Mary could not help exclaiming. - -"Good gracious me!" said Lady Flower crossly. "What minds modern -young women have. Is no kind of decent veil to be left over the -unpleasant side of life? Why, at your age I did not know the meaning of -illegitimate." - -Mary would have liked to retort that she only knew the endless circle -of a dictionary's definitions, that she did not really know its -meaning. However, let her mother have been never so humble, she was -married to her father. - -"But you cannot have guessed all the misery that your father's marriage -brought in its train. It killed him: it killed your mother: it killed -your mother's father: it might have killed you. Your father was -dependent upon his father. He defied him, and what was the result?" - -Lady Flower left out nothing in the tale of the romantic marriage that -could bring home to her granddaughter what it meant to run in the face -of class tradition. - -"The situation is almost the same now as when I entreated your father -twenty years ago to think what he was doing. But in this case it is -worse, because in this case it is the man who is of lower station. -Mary, I implore you to give up this good-looking but hopelessly -ineligible young Frenchman." - -Lady Flower burst into tears, and Mary, who would have been less amazed -to behold tears run down the cheeks of a marble statue, promised to -give up Pierre. - -This was the letter she wrote: - - 23 King's Gate, W., - _May 22, 1880._ - - _I am afraid that I am not the wonderful being you have so often - told me that I was. I cannot meet you to-morrow on the banks of the - Serpentine, however fine the day is. I do not regret for an instant - that I let myself fall in love with you. No, not for an instant, - Pierre. I don't know why I say "let myself fall in love," because I - could not help it. It was nothing to do with me. But I have promised - my grandmother never to see you again and to give you up. I couldn't - explain why, even if I were to see you. It has nothing to do with - you, but only with me. If I married you I should have to elope, and - though I should be happy when I was with you, I should be feeling - all the while that my grandmother's old age was being made unhappy. - You must not blame her. She is convinced that we are not meant for - each other. My father and mother were drowned many years ago, because - they eloped; she has lost her husband and her eldest son also: she - is entirely alone in the world, and she was kind to me when I was a - little girl. Forget me, Pierre, and try to forgive me. Do not think - that I do not love you. Don't think that, Pierre. I believe that I - have loved you ever since I first saw you at Châteaublanc. Why do I - go on writing? I don't know; but somehow I can't bear to finish this - letter which is the last I shall ever write to you. Don't think of - me too unkindly. If you ever do think of me, think of me that morning - by the Serpentine when you first kissed my hand. Pierre, I can feel - that kiss still. I shall feel it till I'm an old woman. I've nothing - more to say, and yet I can't stop...._ - -Mary put down her pen for a minute, and stared in front of her. -Tick-tick! Tick-tick! Tick-tick! Tick-tick! The ormulu clock swung -Pierre out of her life. She leaned over quickly and wrote: - - _Good-by, good-by, - Mary._ - -Adèle came into the room. - -"Mr. Alison is downstairs in the drawing-room with _Miladi_, -Mademoiselle." - -"I'll come down at once, Adèle. Please take this letter to the post." - -Mac rose from his place on the hearthrug and waddled after his -mistress. - - - - -_Chapter Four_ - -THE WIFE - - - - -_Chapter Four: The Wife_ - - -On a wet November afternoon a brougham drawn by a pair of gray -horses and coming from the direction of Kensington drove along the -Knightsbridge road and pulled up outside Lady Flower's house in King's -Gate. From it alighted a young woman who by some indefinable effect -of maturity, some sedate expression of achievement, revealed that she -was married. The age at which women decide to be matrons varies like -feminine fashions, and in the year 1890 English women still clung, if -less tightly every year, to the fashion of a middle age as long as -Queen Victoria's reign. - -Mary Alison at thirty should have been in the zenith of her beauty. -That auburn hair had deepened in ten years like a gathered chestnut, -but like a chestnut it had preserved the gloss of youth. Experience -had given her blue eyes those profundities of color which inaccurate -and ambitious observers have miscalled violet. Her complexion held the -exquisite translucent hues of a September rose. And yet so much of -her young grace was destroyed by the dress, which made any woman of -the period appear like Noah's wife in a toy Ark, that she seemed less -lovely now than ten years ago when she had stood by the drawing-room -window of this house, up the steps of which she was now walking with -such slow and stately ease of movement. With her long forefinger -pressing the bell, she turned and said to the coachman: - -"Burton, you had better leave Mac at home when you come back for me at -six." - -At the sound of his mistress' voice, the grizzled head of the Dandie -Dinmont gazed anxiously through the closed windows of the brougham. She -raised a warning finger to bid him be good, and a moment later was lost -to sight in the darkling hall. - -"How is her ladyship, Adèle?" - -"_Miladi_ grows very weak, madame," the maid replied, leading the way -upstairs. Across Mary's mind floated the picture of herself as a little -girl in Paris following Adèle upstairs to bed. Even so had she led the -way in those days and from time to time had turned round with flashing, -frightening eyes to see if her charge was close behind her. How shadowy -those days in Paris now, shadowy like this flight of London stairs, on -which Adèle alone stood out clear, with her sallow face and eyebrows -like the hair of a Japanese doll. Shadows.... Shadows.... - -"Mrs. Alison is here, _Miladi_." - -Adèle stood aside to let Mary enter the room, where under a canopy of -purple velvet, looking hardly more substantial than a lace handkerchief -left upon the pillow, Lady Flower sat huddled in her last bed. One hand -fluttered down upon the quilt like a faded white petal to greet her -granddaughter, who took it gently in her own that was still fresh and -taper as a rosebud. - -"I shall die very soon now, Mary," whispered the old lady. "At any -moment. At any moment. Perhaps to-night. Perhaps this afternoon. Did -you tell Burton to wait?" - -"No. I sent him back to Campden Hill. I wanted to stay with you till -you went to sleep." - -"To sleep," her grandmother echoed. "I feel disinclined to sleep. I -have such a long sleep before me." - -Mary could not bring herself to make the conventionally optimistic -reply. It did not seem worth while to pretend with phrases in the -presence of this old woman already seemingly discarnate for that -obscure event of death. - -"A long sleep," the old lady went on in her tenuous voice. "A very long -sleep. And yet I wonder. Ah, well, it was all said by Shakespeare, was -it not? Though frankly I never cared greatly for Shakespeare. It is all -too excitable. And yet I wonder." - -"What are you wondering, Grandmamma?" - -"If this really is the end. There might be something else, you know. -Give me my vinaigrette." - -The old lady sniffed it as if she would ward off the odors of eternity, -just as twenty years ago she had used it against the odors of a much -shorter journey to Lyons. She had been only too anxious to sleep then. -But now.... How bright her eyes were, like precious stones, like pools -of water holding out against the encroaching frost of death. - -"I do not really want to die," she said. "It seems such a little -while since I began to feel younger again. Of late lying here I have -remembered so much that I had forgotten. Odd little incidents of -childhood have come back to me so sharply, so very vividly and clearly. -Earlier this afternoon, before you came, I saw my father in that corner -in his Hessian boots and cocked hat; and he said to me, 'Where's your -Mamma?' It was so vivid that I made a movement to get out of bed and -run to look for her. And then he asked me to fill his snuff-box with -maccaboy. I have often wondered why a man so particular about his -personal appearance should be a slave to snuff. But he was. Do you know -what maccaboy is?" - -Mary shook her head. - -"It is a snuff scented with attar of roses, of which he was -passionately fond. He acquired the habit when he was fighting in the -West Indies. Long ago. Long ago. And of course this vision of him was -nothing but an hallucination caused by weakness. Nothing but that. -There cannot be anything before us when we lie like this. And yet I -wonder. I cannot feel perfectly sure." - -Mary did not know what to say. Here was really an opportunity for -a clergyman to be useful; but she was afraid of suggesting such a -visitor. Yet her grandmother might be hoping that somebody would -suggest a clergyman; for, although she would be too proud to ask for -one herself, she might want one to be pressed upon her just as she had -wanted the doctor pressed upon her. - -Mary decided to risk the proposal. - -"A clergyman?" echoed the old lady, clutching at her vinaigrette. -"A clergyman?" she repeated. "Thank you, my dear, but I should find -a clergyman in my bedroom as uncomfortable as I should find a large -black retriever dog, and about as useful. I'm afraid that my wandering -conversation has given you the impression that my mind is wandering. I -thought I had made it perfectly plain that I considered the vision of -my father an hallucination." - -Mary begged her grandmother's pardon, and after a short silence the old -lady inquired graciously after the children. - -"What a pity," she said, "that Richard will not become Sir Richard when -I die. I am sorry now that I allowed Barton to be sold. I think, had I -known how much of a Flower I was going to have for a great-grandson, I -should not have done so. However, regrets are useless. You are happy, -are you not?" - -"Why, yes, Grandmamma. What makes you ask that?" - -The old lady's voice was sounding more remote every minute that she -went on talking, and the furtive November dusk which had long been -hiding in corners of the room now crept boldly forth and climbed the -velvet curtains of the canopy above the bed. Mary wanted to light the -gas, but her grandmother waved her hand to signify that she preferred -the gloom. - -"I have wondered sometimes lately if you ever think of that young -Frenchman whom I dissuaded you from marrying." - -"Why, no, Grandmamma," said Mary. "Or if I do, only as one might think -of anybody in the past." - -"You are happy, really happy? Your marriage has brought you happiness?" - -"Yes, yes, indeed, Grandmamma. Could anybody be unhappy with Richard -and Geoffrey and Muriel?" - -"You are happy because of the children?" Lady Flower persisted. "Your -husband does not count?" - -"But you know how fond I am of Jemmie." - -"Fond, fond," the old lady murmured. "Looking back, I wonder if that -means anything. Mary, you must be prepared for your children to bring -you unhappiness. I do not say that they will. I hope that they will -not. But you must be ready for that trial." She suddenly sat forward in -the bed. "Hark! Do you hear a sound?" - -"No, I hear nothing, Grandmamma." - -"I hear a sound like the sea. Plainly! Yes, yes, quite plainly, the -noise of the sea. Edward, forgive me if I was wrong," she cried. "I -have tried to watch over your little girl. Pray do not light the gas, -Mary. Give me your hand instead. Put me back among my pillows. And do -not light the gas. I cannot bear the idea of your seeing me die. And -this is death. I know...." - -Mary laid her grandmother gently back on the pillows, felt a swift -trembling through the frail body, and speaking to her received no -answer. - -It was the first time in her life that Mary had come into the presence -of death, and she sat for some time near that silence on the bed, -wondering at her own calm. Were people always as calm as this when they -beheld death? But even as she was congratulating herself she was seized -with a panic and ran madly from the room out on the landing, the rosy -gaslight of which in response to her cries was soon populated by maids -in their black dresses and white caps. - -Mary supposed that the correct thing would be to send a message for -her husband to come immediately to King's Gate and take charge of the -house, the servants, and herself. In fact, when Adèle with tear-swollen -eyes came to tell her that the carriage was at the door, she asked if -Madame would not like the coachman to drive back to Madame's house -and fetch Monsieur. By Adèle's manner Mary realized that since her -grandmother's death she was being accorded a respect almost as great as -that which had formerly been accorded to the dead woman. - -But what could Jemmie do? He would be extremely bored by being -dragged out before dinner. He would not know what he ought to do, -and irritated by not knowing he would certainly do the wrong thing. -Moreover, she did not feel that she wanted Jemmie. She was anxious to -be quiet and avoid any discussion of her inheritance, any speculation -upon its exact amount, any plans of Jemmie to build this house or buy -that property. In fact, she should like to stay at King's Gate to-night -by herself and sleep in her old room upstairs. She desired to make -amends to her grandmother's memory for that unwonted display of terror -in which she had indulged herself. She sent a note by Burton to say -that she should not be back at Woodworth Lodge until the next morning. - - * * * * * - -Mr. Alison was displeased by his wife's message. If it would not have -involved him in what might have been the unpleasantness of a houseful -of hysterical servants, he would have driven back to King's Gate to -protest against her action. It would have been sufficiently annoying -to receive word that she might be late for dinner, or even that she -might not be back at all for dinner; but to stay the night for no -purpose except to gratify a whim of piety, that did strike Mr. Alison -as unreasonable. He hoped that Mary was not going to turn religious, to -start getting up early in the morning for Communion and all that kind -of thing. One never knew what a woman might do after thirty. Or take -up with spiritualism. He would soon put a stop to that. Table-turning -and tambourine playing ... long-haired mediums and goggle-eyed women -with skinny necks and Oriental beads ... she had the children, and they -ought to be enough. - -"Did Burton say why your mistress had to stay?" he asked the parlormaid. - -"No, sir; he said no more than give me Meddem's note." - -Mr. Alison strode across the room in irritation, and nearly tripped -over Mac, who squealed in alarm. - -"Confound the dog! Take him downstairs, Pinkney," he called to the -retreating maid. "He's getting much too old to be allowed all over the -house. And what is the matter with the gas to-night?" - -"It do seem to burn a bit dim, sir. I think Mac has gone and hid under -your chair, sir." - -"Come out of that, you brute," Mr. Alison shouted angrily. - -There was a low growl in response. - -"Did you hear him, Pinkney?" - -The maid was stricken by awe. - -"He deliberately growled at me." - -Mr. Alison rocked the chair violently in order to frighten Mac into the -open; when at last he had succeeded in driving him out of the room and -was alone, he made up his mind to tell Mary on her return that her dog -must be put away. It was not safe to have a dog like that about with -children in the house. In any case it was too old. It was over a year -old when he gave it to Mary nearly eleven years ago. Dogs ought not -to be allowed to grow old. Mr. Alison smoothed his ruffled brow and -patted his bald head. - -"That new hair-restorer is as much of a fraud as the rest of them," he -thought. "One of these days somebody will prosecute a hair-restorer -for obtaining money under false pretences. Personally I don't believe -that, when a man has lost his hair so completely as I have, anything in -the world will bring it back. That's where I take exception to their -advertisements. They're dishonest." - -Pondering the inclination of humanity to grow more dishonest daily, Mr. -Alison looked at his watch and saw that there was still half an hour to -dinner-time. - -"She might easily have come back," he complained to himself. - -He had looked forward to telling her about that extremely satisfactory -bit of business with Moss, Doddington & Co. What was the use of slaving -all day in the City to keep a wife and family and carriage and a large -house? Women were apparently incapable of grasping what a serious -strain it put on a man to work for hours under a load of domestic -responsibility. If Mary really appreciated what he was doing for her, -she would have let nothing interfere with her being at home to-night. -He was very sorry of course about her grandmother's death. But after -all the old lady was getting on for eighty-one. At such an age her -death was to be expected at any moment. By the way, he must go to his -tailor to-morrow on the way down to Throgmorton Street. Nothing looked -worse than resuscitated mourning. - -"I wonder how much money the old lady will leave after all. A decent -amount, I fancy. Odd that she never asked me to look after her affairs. -She knew I was a good man of business. Business! It was a pity that -Mary did not have to go to the City and work for a while. She would -know herself then how dreary it was to come home and find the house -deserted. - -"Ah, nurse, are the children ready for their romp?" he asked as the -door opened. - -"Miss Muriel and Master Geoffrey said you promised to play tigers with -them to-night, sir. I'm sure I don't know where they get hold of their -wild ideas. And Master Richard went on at me till I said I would ask -you if he might come down to dessert and have an extra quarter of an -hour when he's done his homework." - -"Not to-night, nurse. Not to-night. I'm dining out. In fact, I must go -and dress at once. Tell the children I'll play with them to-morrow, and -tell cook, will you, please, that there will be no dinner to-night. -Mrs. Alison is staying at King's Gate. Her ladyship is dead." - -"Oh dear, sir, I am sorry to hear that. My mistress will be very upset. -Though I suppose with such an old lady and all it was to be expected." - -"Yes, yes, quite so," said Mr. Alison. "By the way, I shouldn't tell -the children to-night." - -"No, sir, it might make them a bit creepy as they say." - -"But I don't think I ought to play with them. I'm sure Mrs. Alison -would rather they went to bed very quietly to-night. You'd better say -that we've both had to go out to dinner. Oh, and, nurse, it would be as -well not to let Mac go into the nursery or schoolroom. He seems to be -turning savage. Poor old dog, he was my first present to your mistress -before we were married." - -"So I've heard my mistress say, sir. Poor old dog! Dear me, it's always -one thing on top of another, as they say. And I'm sure I've passed the -remark a score of times that it never rains but what it pours." - -"Good night, nurse." - -"Good night, sir. I'll see that the children keep very quiet. I was -going to give Miss Muriel and Master Geoffrey both a dose of medicine -to-morrow night, and they may jee-ust as well have it to-night." - -Mr. Alison dressed in a state of astonishment at himself. "I can't -think what made me so suddenly decide to dine out," he exclaimed aloud. -"Talking to myself now," he continued. "I'm thoroughly upset. That's -what I am. It's a good thing I _am_ going out." - -A few minutes later he was walking briskly down Campden Hill, conscious -of the perfume of autumnal trees, vaguely excited by the sound of the -distant traffic in Kensington High Street that with every step became -more distinct. It was a mistake to coop oneself up too much. He was -falling into the habit of thinking that the day was over when he sat -back in the railway carriage and opened the _St. James's Gazette_. He -ought to be careful. What was that he was reading the other day about -keeping young by refusing to be old? How true! It was the fault of -marriage. Yes, marriage was responsible. Bachelors did not grow old. -Responsibility, that was what did it. How free, for instance, he felt -to-night just because Mary had sent word that she was not coming home. -The message had annoyed him just at first; but now he was on the whole -rather glad. The street lamps were twinkling; there must be a touch of -frost in the air. So much the better. Far more healthy than the muggy -weather they had been having. By Jove, the crispness made one feel -ten years younger. Where should he go to-night? Dinner at the Savoy? -Rather late perhaps for that. Why not a few oysters with half a pint of -champagne, and then a theater followed by supper? A theater? Perhaps it -was hardly the thing to go to a theater to-night. No, he would dine at -the Savoy. - -"Hansom! Savoy!" - -"Right you are, sir." - -"And you can drive fairly fast. I'm in a hurry." - -It was a comfortable hansom behind a good horse; and Jemmie Alison, -once again the authentic Jemmie, leaning forward over the apron gazed -out at the glittering life he had too long forsaken. - - * * * * * - -Mary lay awake most of the night in the strangeness of her old room. -She tried to concentrate her mind piously upon her dead grandmother, -but all her thoughts came back to herself. She now asked herself the -question to which, when her grandmother asked it, she had returned -so confident an affirmative. Would she not, if she were really happy -with Jemmie, resent being away from him even for a single night? And -was she not actually taking pleasure in being away from him? There -was about the air of this old room of hers something delightfully -fresh and invigorating. She felt much more herself. All these years -of marriage she had been letting her personality be slowly submerged -in her husband, in the cares of a household, and in her children. -She must not forget _them_, the darlings! Should she have loved them -more if their father had been somebody else? If Pierre had been their -father, for instance? But then they would not be Richard, Geoffrey, and -Muriel. And how could she love any other children better than those -three tousle-heads? Besides, what nonsense it was to be speculating -like this. She had not thought of Pierre for years, except casually -to wonder sometimes where he was and if he ever thought of her. She -could not deceive herself into imagining that she was still in love -with Pierre, still less that she was pining for him. All the same, she -wished that she had understood a little more about life before she -married Jemmie. Daisy Harland, who had been so full of good worldly -advice, had not made much of a success with her own marriage. Daisy, -who had been so confident that love was a passing malady, had thrown -over everything for love, had let herself be dragged through the -divorce court for a man who when it was all over had married another -woman. Poor Daisy, was she happier now, somewhere on the Continent, -always wondering if her friends would put up their parasols when they -passed her on some sunny promenade? - -And if she had not married Jemmie, she would never have had her beloved -Richard. She thought of his coming back from one of his first days at -school and of his news of being placed in an unusually high class for -French and of his having to write out the verb _porter_. - -"All the verb, darling?" she had asked. - -"Well, that's what I couldn't ergzactly make out, Mum. Mr. Osbourne -just said write out _porter_: _to carry_, and I think he only meant one -of those lines of verbs like you see in the grammar book." - -"It wouldn't do to make a mistake, dearest," she had said anxiously. - -"No, it wouldn't, would it, Mummie? Perhaps I'd better write out -everything, though it's pages and pages!" - -And she had sat with him while he laboriously wrote the French and -English of every tense and of every person in that tense. _That I -might have been carrying. That thou mightest have been carrying_.... -What a sleepy little boy she had tucked up that night! And next day he -had come back to lunch with a woeful face to say that it was only the -single line of principal tenses which had been set and that he had not -liked to expose himself to the ridicule of his classmates by showing up -his toilsome pages. - -"But how did you explain you had nothing to show your master?" - -"I said I'd left it at home, Mum, and he told me to bring it this -afternoon. It won't take me hardly a minute to do." - -No, no, it was unimaginable that she should not be the mother of -Richard: and, pleasant though it was to be sleeping alone in her old -room, Richard belonged to Jemmie as much as to herself. - -Should she when at last she lay dying, for though the attempt to -realize the inevitableness of death caught the breath and eluded the -mind's grasp, the ultimate death of herself was a fact that must be -believed, should she in that solemn hour ask a granddaughter--Richard's -or dear fat Geoffrey's child--such questions as her own grandmother -had asked her? Should she when an old woman look back at her life with -doubt and forward to the grave with apprehension? And where now was the -spirit of that cold body downstairs? - -Pleasant to be lying like this by oneself. Pleasant ... very pleasant -... the sheets cool and pleasant ... a delicious privacy. Yes, it was -wrong not to tell girls more about the actualities of existence. Would -she tell Muriel one day? That dear dumpling! But, almost before she -knew it, Muriel would be thinking about marriage. In another ten years, -only as long as she had been married, Muriel would be fifteen. Ten -years went by quickly enough, especially when three of them were spent -in having babies. And she might have another baby. Jemmie did not seem -to mind. "The more the merrier," he would say, as he had so often said -before. How insensitive men were. And gross. Men? What did she know -about men? Jemmie looked so much like other men that he was probably -representative of the sex. Pierre had been different. But would he -have been different if she had married him? When she kissed him that -afternoon, when she gave him that one swift kiss, she had not known to -what such a kiss might not be the prelude. Would not the knowledge have -destroyed all its fairy quality? Was it possible to experience romance -unless one was innocent? Oh, that sweet illusion of first love! Even -Grandmamma once upon a time must have known that. While she was lying -there in that dusky room, did she feel faintly upon her withered lips -some blushful kiss of sixty years ago? Did she, ah, did she, and was -it for that she doubted her wisdom in persuading her granddaughter to -marry Jemmie Alison? Anyway, the marriage was accomplished. There was -no use now to repent. Yet people who had enjoyed grand passions did -exist. - -"Love, my dear, was invented by the poets to excuse their own -weaknesses." - -Something like that Grandmamma had once observed. Were she alive now -and should she make the same remark now, Mary would reply that marriage -without love was invented by ... but she was unable to think of a -suitable mordant retort before she fell asleep in her own room. - - * * * * * - -It seemed as if the death of Lady Flower had acted upon husband and -wife like an Horatian maxim that would remind humanity of time's -swift flight. In the case of Alison the money they inherited made him -feel more keenly how much of his life was being wasted in the pursuit -of wealth. There was now no need for him to devote so much of his -attention to business, and by taking a partner younger than himself -he was able to spend less time in the office. Having once dined out -away from home, he began to make a habit of dining out; and Mary in -her turn began to wonder what she should do with her life. Occasional -dinner-parties and occasional visits to the opera or the theater did -not seem enough to fill existence at thirty. There were the children -of course, as Jemmie was always reminding her when she seemed inclined -to ask unanswerable questions about the end and meaning of human -existence. But children, when there were nurses and nurse-maids and -governesses and schoolmasters all easily obtainable, did not occupy -a woman's life fully. Besides, well-brought-up children went to bed -early, and was there nothing better to do with life than sit at home -reading novels that were only the least bit less dull than life itself? -Jemmie often looked at his reflection in the glass and exclaimed upon -the approach of age. But Jemmie was forty-five with a man's life behind -him, even if he had been cooped up, as sometimes now in moments of -irritation he implied that he had been cooped up by marriage. If Jemmie -was concerned about the vanishing years, it was because he looked back -with regret to the joys and freedom of his youth. But she, on what -could she look back? One kiss briefer than a shooting-star, swifter -than a swallow's flight, yet in remembrance, ah, how sweet! - -So passed the winter of that year; and, when in February the white and -purple crocuses pied the lawns of Woodworth Lodge, husband and wife -both resolved that the year should pay them with what it brought forth. - -"One must do something," Mary agreed with Mrs. Wryford, who considered -herself Mary's most intimate friend, because she always stayed longer -than any of the other visitors that haunted Mary's Friday afternoons. - -"Of course! It's our duty. Now why don't you have a club like me? My -dear, until I started my club for waitresses I was at a loose end. -And it's so interesting. Why, I've been brought into close contact -with people I should never have seen otherwise except across a crumby -table. I assure you, it's been quite a revelation to me. You'd be -surprised to find how different my girls are, one from another. Oh yes, -indeed, quite distinguishable, I assure you; and I think I can really -claim to know each one individually. And many of them have learned to -confide in me quite a lot." - -"Now that must be fascinating," said Mary. - -"Yet it's hardly surprising when you think of their homes. Of course -I never go to their homes. Oh no, I make a point of never doing that. -I say to myself, 'Two nights a week, Ella, you are pledged to your -girls.' And I can assure you, Mary, that I never fail to be with them -unless I have a dinner-party or some social engagement. Do, my dear, -take my advice and start a club. You speak French well, don't you? Why -not found a club for French seamstresses in Soho? And now I simply must -run. Good-by, you dear attractive creature," Mrs. Wryford exclaimed, -kissing Mary warmly on each cheek. In the door she stopped a moment. "I -always say and I always shall say that I enjoy the few minutes we have -together every Friday more than anything in the week. Good-by, you dear -thing. It's still quite light. I always think it's a sign of spring -when the days really begin to draw out. Good-by! Good-by!" - -How Grandmamma used to dislike women of the type of Mrs. Wryford, Mary -thought. - -"And I expect in another thirty years I shall dislike them just as much -as she did." - -At dinner that night Mary broached the subject of a club for girls to -her husband. - -"French seamstresses!" he exclaimed. "What on earth next will you be -wanting to do? Aren't the children enough of a responsibility?" - -"They're no responsibility at all," Mary argued. "You won't allow them -to be. Don't you remember what a fuss you made when you discovered I -was taking out Geoffrey and Muriel every afternoon?" - -"I didn't make a fuss. I never do make a fuss. I don't suppose that -a less fussy man than myself exists. I merely observed that for you -to wear yourself out looking after children while a mob of nurses -and nurse-maids were eating off their heads doing nothing at home -was ridiculous. Surely there's a happy medium between dragging a -perambulator round Kensington Gardens and founding clubs for French -seamstresses?" - -Mary sat silent for a while pondering her tactics, while Jemmie, with -what she felt was unnecessary gusto, ate a large slice of turbot. - -"I don't think there's any need to sulk ..." he began: but at the -moment one of the parlormaids came within range of the conversation, -and, as Mary thought cynically, her husband had not yet reached such a -pitch of married boredom as would let him be rude to her in front of -the servants. - -When they were left alone with the dessert, Mary returned to the attack. - -"You see, lately, Jemmie, you've left me so much alone in the evening -that I suppose it's natural for me to sit here and make plans for -myself." - -The husband glanced up sharply: never until now had his wife thrown -out a hint that she had noticed his increasingly frequent withdrawals -from the fire-side. Could she be jealous? Had any rumor of that phaeton -he bought last week reached Mary? Gossip sprung up no one knew how. -It might be that one of her friends, one of those confounded women -that seemed to spend their lives visiting other women, had warned her -to keep an eye on her husband. It would be awkward if Mary seriously -intended to press him on the subject of dining out, and, more than -dining out, of staying away from home for a couple of nights often -enough. Mary herself would never suspect him of infidelity. Infidelity? -Bosh! There was nothing serious to it. Maudie did not expect him -to face a scandal on her account. He should be middle-aged almost -immediately. This was his last love-affair; and dash it, the little -girl was fond of him. Who could say why? Women were strange creatures. -But it certainly was not for his money. Poor little Maudie! The walnut -he was cracking suddenly burst in fragments upon his plate. He looked -up guiltily. - -"What were you saying, dear? I beg your pardon for not answering. I -couldn't crack this nut." - -"I said that it was natural for me to make plans for myself," Mary -answered. She perceived that Jemmie was embarrassed and went on more -boldly. "I don't in the least expect you to stay at home because I am -in the house. But surely you can have no objection to my occupying -myself somehow, and this club would be the very thing." - -"I daresay you're right," said the husband. After all, it was politic -to give his wife some latitude. "Yes, I daresay you're right. I was a -little taken aback for the moment, and I didn't want you to overtire -yourself slaving for people who have no gratitude. You know, the more -you do for people, the less they give you in return. Did I tell you -about Jackson, our head clerk? We raised his salary last month, and -yesterday he calmly tells me that he has accepted another place at -a larger salary. What do you think of that? That's gratitude! In my -opinion the world's going downhill. Now my father's head clerk stayed -with him till he died and never had a rise of salary all the time. -Didn't want it. Content. But you don't get that type of man nowadays." - -Husband and wife rose from their dessert. Husband and wife sat down -in the drawing-room. Wife sang "Three Roses" with an obligato of -kettle-drums from husband's manipulation of _The Times_. - - _Just when the red June Roses blow - She gave me one,--a year ago, - A Rose whose crimson breath revealed - The secret that its heart concealed, - And whose half-shy, half-tender grace - Blushed back upon the giver's face. - To hope was not to know._ - -_Tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle!_ - -"Poor little Maudie," thought an infatuated man of forty-five. "Poor -little girl, she'll miss me to-night." - - _Just when the Red June Roses blow - I plucked her one a month ago. - Its half-blown crimson to eclipse, - I laid it on her smiling lips: - - The balmy fragrance of the south - Drew sweetness from her sweeter mouth, - Swiftly do golden hours creep, - To hold is not to keep._ - - _Tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle!_ - -"I mustn't neglect Maudie," thought a sentimental man of forty-five. -"Poor little lonely Maudie! It's a wonderful thing for a man to be -loved as she loves me." - - _Tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle!_ - - _The red June Roses now are past, - This very day I broke the last-- - And now its perfumed breath is hid, - With her, with her, beneath a coffin lid: - Ah--h--h--h--h--h,_ - - _There will its petals fall apart, - And wither on her icy heart:-- - At three red Roses' Roses' cost - My world was gained, my world was gained - And lost!_ - - _Tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle--tinkle---tinkle-tink!_ - -"That's a very pretty song, you know," said Jemmie. "I enjoyed that. I -wish you'd sing oftener of an evening." - -Mary looked round in perplexity. - -"I haven't sung after dinner for five years," she reminded him coldly. - -"As long as that? Surely not as long ago as that?" - -"Five years ago, Jemmie, you asked me if it was necessary every evening -to sit down immediately after dinner at the piano." - -"I must have had a headache or something," he protested. - -"Yet you never noticed that I no longer sang." - -"I suppose I took it for granted that you didn't want to sing. But I -thoroughly enjoyed it this evening. I don't know, I suppose I was in -the mood for singing. Why don't you sing another?" - -She lifted the seat of the music-stool, and after rummaging among a -pile of tattered songs she found the one she wanted: - - _I had a message to send her, - To her whom my heart loved best._ - -When the last tinkle had died away, Jemmie, who had stopped crackling -_The Times_ because there was nothing more to read that interested -him, asked his wife if he had not heard the song before somewhere. She -smiled ironically. - -"I expect I've heard you sing it," he hastened to add apologetically. - -"No. Not me." - -Good heavens, could it be that he had heard Maudie sing that song? -Maudie did sometimes sing sentimental songs on wet afternoons. -Nonsense! If Maudie had sung it, Mary could not know that. Gossip could -effect a good deal, but gossip could not discuss Maudie's choice of -music. - -"Well, I don't know where I heard it," he declared. - -"And I certainly shall never reveal where or when it was," she murmured. - -While that night Mary was brushing her chestnut hair before the big -oval mirror of her dressing-table her husband came and, bending over, -kissed the tip of her ear. - -"Please! please!" she exclaimed, drawing away. "I did not sing to -attract you, but to amuse myself." - -"Well, really you know, dash it, Mary, you do say the most cutting -things sometimes. What have I done to deserve that?" - -"Now, Jemmie, don't pretend you mind whether I say cutting things or -not. What do you care nowadays?" - -Jemmie sighed to himself and, deliberately omitting his good night -kiss, turned over and buried his head ostentatiously in the pillow. - -"I'm not at all sure that she isn't jealous," he confided to himself, -as he set out to keep an appointment with Maudie in dreamland. - -Mary lay for some time watching with a weary regard that amorphous -back, like a wayfarer who sees another hill before him and the end of -the journey not yet in sight. - -Mrs. Wryford's prophecy that Mary would derive much pleasure from -getting to know individually the various girls in whom she avowed a -general interest by the act of founding for them a club was fulfilled. -Indeed it was more than fulfilled, for Mrs. Wryford certainly never -expected that her friend would find romance for herself in the lives of -French seamstresses, a vicarious romance it might be, but its effect -was to mitigate for Mary much of the dreariness that she was beginning -to think life ended in after one was thirty. Thirty! At this period the -woman of thirty was not considered a romantic subject; indeed, if any -woman of thirty had pretended to romance she would have been considered -a reader of French novels, and as such faintly tinged with impropriety. - -However, it was not enough for Mary's philanthropic zeal to sit -listening to the tale of Henri and Jeanne, or of Armand and Virginie. -She must educate her girls. She must provide them with an outlook. -She must widen their horizon. She must teach them that the world was -not bounded by Oxford Street on the north and Shaftesbury Avenue on -the south. With this purpose in view she took them on one Saturday -afternoon to the Zoological Gardens, on another to the Egyptian Hall, -and once again to hear Moore and Burgess Minstrels. Then Mrs. Wryford -brought news of a series of lectures at which various distinguished -travelers with the aid of a magic-lantern would personally conduct -whosoever would fare with them to the uttermost parts of the earth. - -"Last week we went to Greenland, Labrador, and Alaska. I can assure -you, my dear Mary, the tints upon the ice were exquisite. I rarely -enjoyed an evening more. Why don't you take your girls next week? -Madagascar is the subject. I hear that the lecturer, who is a -Frenchman, speaks English with quite remarkable fluency." - -"What's his name?" - -"Now, my dear Mary, do you expect me to remember the name of a -Frenchman?" - -Thus it was that Pierre Menard, lean, tropically brown, his hair about -the temples white and everywhere streaked with gray, his mustache and -imperial still black, entered Mary's life again. Mary was glad that the -auditorium was darkened when she saw him first, not so much because she -feared that anybody would notice her agitation, but because she wanted -to stare hard at Pierre without being oppressed by the consciousness -of her surroundings. It seemed to her that he must be aware of her -regard and that presently over a hundred heads he would glance back his -recognition. - -"_Dis, Madeleine, n'est-ce pas qu'il est beau?_" one of the girls -whispered to her neighbor. - -It was that nice and pretty creature Yvonne who had spoken. She had -always been one of Mary's favorites. - -Driving back to Campden Hill, while street-lamp after street-lamp -tossed its bouquet of golden light into the brougham, Mary pondered -the course of her behavior in the near future. It might be that Pierre -would scornfully reject the proffer of renewed friendship. If he had -remembered her at all, she might be now a bitter memory; if he had -forgotten her so completely that a letter from her would bring a -puzzled frown to his brow.... Oh, it was difficult to decide what she -ought to do. Mary did not consider the effect upon herself of bringing -Pierre back into her life. It was of nothing except her effect upon him -that she thought during that black and golden drive to Campden Hill. - -At home she found Adèle, who was her maid these days, waiting up. -Madame must prepare herself for a shock; Madame must have courage; -Madame must not give way to grief at the news she must break to Madame. - -"Nothing has happened to the children?" Mary exclaimed in terror. - -"_Ah, mais non, grâce à Dieu._ Nothing to them. It is the poor little -Mac who is dead. He was run over, Madame, and must be shot, Monsieur -said." - -"Where is Monsieur?" - -"Monsieur has been called away on business and will not be here until -Monday evening. Monsieur told me to tell Madame." - -"And where is Mac?" - -"He is buried in the garden. I will show Madame where is his grave in -the morning." - -"No, no, show me now." - -Adèle looked for a moment as often in Mary's childhood she had been -wont to look when her charge had expressed a desire to do something -that Adèle considered unreasonable. However, nowadays it was she who -must obey, and by the light of a foggy London moon she led the way -across the lawn to where in the shadow of a grimy aucuba the mound was -heaped above Mac's grave. - -Mary gazed at it for a minute or two in silence, and without a word -turned and walked back to the house. - -"You can go to bed, Adèle. I shall not want you any more to-night." - -While Mary brushed her hair before the oval mirror, the scenes of the -life she had spent with Mac moved across her brain like the slides of a -magic-lantern. She saw Jemmie arrive with him in a hansom-cab, saw him -trying to coax him upstairs to the drawing-room at King's Gate. - -"I've bought you a little dawg, Mary." - -How hard she had tried to express her thanks by addressing him as -Jemmie without letting him see what an effort it was, for she had -known that nothing could please him more. Somehow she gulped out the -Christian name. How happy he had been. And with what grateful affection -he had patted Mac good-by. - -The picture faded, and now there behind her stood Daisy Harland -examining Mac critically in the manner of one who knew all that there -was to be known about dogs. - -"Not a bad little pup. Come here, boy, and say how-do to your Aunt -Daisy." - -But Mac simply would not go and say "how-do" to his Aunt Daisy, and -from the first had attached himself exclusively to his mistress. - -There he was now growling in Pierre's arms on the day of the dog-fight -in Kensington Gardens. - -Pierre? - -Strange that to-night Mac should die, to-night when he who had entered -her life with Mac's help should now stand once more upon its threshold. -Pierre? Why should she not write to Pierre? No harm would come from -that. If he refused to answer her letter, nobody would be any the wiser. - -"Mac! Mac! Mac!" - -Silence. No pitter-pat of dear bandy legs. He was lying out there in -the cold garden. - -"Mac, you clumsy old darling, you must not keep lying on my train." - -How restless and unhappy he had been on that wedding morning! How he -had hated it! And when he was left behind to stay at home in charge of -Adèle during the honeymoon, what a howling he had set up! She had heard -him above the noisy guests bidding her good-by on the steps of the -house in King's Gate. - -"Poor little dawg," Jemmie had exclaimed. "We really ought to have -taken him with us. I owe a lot to that little dawg. I owe you to him," -he had murmured with a sound in his voice that had frightened her -rather. But she must let him kiss her now. She had no right to refuse. -She was married. How glad Mac was to see her when she came back, and -how he had enjoyed his first scamper in the garden of Woodworth Lodge. -For him the lawn here must have seemed as large as the Park. Dear old -dog, with what zest he used to chase the sparrows and how good he was -with cats! He hated cats really; but he knew that his mistress loved -them, and he would deny himself the most tempting pursuits to oblige -her. - -Jemmie had always liked the old dog until the night Richard was born, -when Mac lying outside her bedroom door had growled at Jemmie, who -had come up to see how she was. No, after that Jemmie had never liked -him, had always talked about its being a mistake to have a dog in a -house where there were children. As if he would ever have hurt the -children! It was only Jemmie he disliked. Yes, it was strange how much -he disliked Jemmie. And now Jemmie had had him shot. Had it really -been necessary ... no, that was unfair. She ought not even in thought -to accuse Jemmie of anything like that. How sad the children would be -to-morrow! Their beloved Mac. That was the kind of irritating thing -Jemmie did. Fancy his telling nurse that the dear little dog was not -to be allowed in the nursery! And nurse had given herself airs of such -importance, because Jemmie had told her this himself. Ridiculous woman! - -"Mac! Mac!" - -Could it really be true that she should never again see that grizzled -head and those faithful eyes? - -If Pierre did come to see her, would he ask after Mac, would he -remember him? - -Pierre? - -Eleven years. Not quite eleven years since she saw him last. It was not -a very long time really. So distinguished as he had looked! How had he -come to find himself in Madagascar? He must have gone there after she -had told him that everything was over. - -Pierre? - -It might seem less than eleven years to him. She tossed her hair back -over her shoulders and rose from the dressing-table. - -In the benign gaslight her bureau stood invitingly open. - -"Yes, I will," she declared, and sitting down she wrote this note: - - Woodworth Lodge, - Campden Hill, W. - _May 3rd, 1891._ - - _Dear Pierre_, - - _I was at your lecture to-night. If you remember who I am after - eleven years and feel inclined to renew an old acquaintance, won't - you come and have tea with us on Wednesday next any time after four? - I should so much enjoy to hear more about your adventure._ - - _Yours sincerely, - Mary Alison._ - -There was no answer by post, but on Wednesday afternoon when she was -sitting in the drawing-room, counting over to herself the woolen -spiders and butterflies crawling up and down her curtains, he came. - -Once in the early days of marriage Mary had taken part with her -husband in some amateur theatricals, in the course of which she had -been attacked by stage fright and stood speechless on the stage for -what seemed an age of agony before she regained her voice. It was the -first time Jemmie was angry with her, and she had resolved never to act -again. Now when Pierre was shown into the room she felt just as she -felt then. Fortunately he was more at ease than she was, and under his -guidance of the conversation Mary slowly recovered her self-possession. - -All the time that Pierre was talking Mary became more and more -conscious of him as a man. She had never regarded Jemmie except as an -institution. These eyes that looked so eagerly into hers and at the -same time beyond hers to remote shores and distant mountain-peaks made -her heart beat faster, her breath come and go. Yet, he was only talking -to her as he had talked to an audience the other night. There was -nothing personal, still less intimate, in his words. - -"I was very lucky to arrive in Madagascar just before we went to war -with Queen Ranavalona--a very remarkable woman. So was her niece who -succeeded her. I was also lucky to know English so well, because you -English were always there behind the scenes with your officers in -the Malagasy army; besides, there were always negotiations with your -consular officials. We shall have war again in Madagascar soon." - -"Again?" Mary echoed in alarm. - -Pierre made a gesture of contempt. - -"It will not be a very dangerous war for us," he laughed. - -At this moment Jemmie, to his wife's regret, came in unexpectedly early. - -"This is Monsieur Menard," she said, introducing the stranger with an -air of faint embarrassment as if she were explaining the presence -of some odd new decorative addition to the drawing-room of Woodworth -Lodge. "Monsieur Menard visited us in King's Gate before we were -married. He has been abroad for ten years." - -"Charmed to make your acquaintance," said Pierre, bowing. - -Jemmie shook hands with English awkwardness, evidently wondering how -on earth he was expected to reply to the exaggerated courtesy of the -stranger. - -"I was wondering what night would suit Monsieur Menard to come and dine -with us." - -Jemmie glared at his wife in amazement; but without being openly rude -he did not know how to dispose of the unwelcome invitation. - -"What in creation put it in your head to ask that fellow to dinner?" he -demanded when Pierre was gone. "You might have guessed that he would -accept. He was probably afraid to refuse for fear of being rude." - -"On the contrary, I think he was agreeably surprised to find that -somebody in this house was polite enough to invite him," said Mary. - -"That's meant for me, I suppose? If I were you, Mary, I should keep -a check on my tongue. A sharp tongue doesn't add to a woman's charm. -Where did you pick this fellow up?" - -"I told you. He used to visit us at King's Gate before we were married." - -"I don't see why we should have all your grandmother's foreign friends -and acquaintances foisted on us for the rest of our lives," Jemmie -grumbled. "And I wish you'd answer my question. Where did you meet him -again?" - -"At a lecture on Madagascar to which I took my girls." - -Jemmie threw up his eyebrows to express compassion for human folly. - -"You'll be bringing Barnum and Bailey back to dinner next," he -prophesied. "Or one of the keepers at the Zoo. I don't want this house -filled with showmen and cranks. I knew what it would be when you -started that club of yours. I should have thought three children was -enough for any woman. But go your own way. Don't let anything I say -interfere with your pleasures. From what I can see of it the women will -be ruling the men before long." - -Mary let her husband grumble on for a while. Then she suggested a few -names for a dinner-party. - -"I don't want a dinner-party," he declared angrily. "I'm terribly -overworked just now, and I like to rest whenever I can. You know how -late I've been kept every day this week at the office. We get quite -enough dinner-parties that we have to give and go to without letting -ourselves in for any more than are necessary." - -"Very well then," said Mary, "I'll ask nobody else." - -"A jolly evening for me to look forward to," grumbled her husband. -"Very jolly." - -"You'll find Monsieur Menard most interesting, I assure you. His -adventures in Madagascar...." - -"Madagascar!" Jemmie interrupted angrily. "What do I care about -Madagascar! I'm not a girl's club. You'll be suggesting in a minute -that I should read _Robinson Crusoe_ on my way to the office." - -Mary began to laugh, upon which her husband retired in dudgeon to the -billiard-room, where he succeeded in making a break of thirty-one -by the indiscriminate use of both white balls and was comparatively -pleasant when he emerged again. - -On the evening that Pierre was invited to dinner at eight, Mary -began to dress at half-past six; by a quarter-past seven Adèle was -in despair, and the room was littered with discarded frocks. While -the discussion was proceeding, with Adèle becoming more voluble every -moment, a note arrived by messenger boy from Jemmie to say he was -afraid that he should not be able to get home to-night, as he had to go -down into the country upon very important business. He asked Mary to -make his apologies to Mr. Menard. - -"Unusually polite," she thought, and went back to a consideration of -her dress for to-night. Since her husband's note that problem assumed -an even greater importance. In the end she chose light blue as the -color, and the sash of a darker shade tied in a large bow over her -left hip made her seem much younger. Adèle declared that she had not -changed in ten years, and Mary blushed with pleasure at the obvious -compliment. - -"And I really do feel quite young to-night," she assured her maid. - -During dinner Pierre talked away about Madagascar as if there were -no other topic in the world. Mary, watching him in the rubied shadow -above the candles, did not really pay much attention to what he was -saying, but thought all the time how distinguished he looked and how -like an Englishman in evening dress, notwithstanding the imperial. -And Grandmamma had laid stress on his inferiority to herself. What a -fool she had been to listen to her! In any gathering who would have -stood out more clearly, Jemmie or Pierre? Why, Jemmie looked like a -poulterer beside him. If only she had known enough about the world to -argue with her grandmother then! How Pierre must have despised her! Did -he despise her now, or was he simply not interested in her? Perhaps he -was interested in nothing except Madagascar. He never seemed to look -at her while he was talking, but always at an audience; he must have -fallen into that habit from lecturing. Or perhaps he did not wish to -embarrass her. Yes, probably that was the reason why he continued to -talk about Madagascar without looking at her. She must remember that -eleven years had gone by. Eleven years, during which he had had all -these adventures of which he was talking. Eleven years, during which -she had married and had had three children. It was only the suddenness -of meeting again after so long which made her forget the sundering -years ... the years ... the irrevocable years.... Odd that Jemmie -should have decided not to come back to-night. Would he have come back -if he had known that once, eleven years ago, this despised Frenchman -had possessed her heart and that no one else had ever touched it since? -Would he be jealous? Pierre was pledging her in a glass of port wine. -She never drank red wine, but to-night she must take a sip in response. -Would the maids think it odd if she drank Pierre's health? No, no, they -would attribute it to foreign ways. - -"_Salut_," she murmured. - -"_Trinquez_," he laughed, raising his glass to meet hers. There was a -faint tinkle, and for a brief moment their fingers touched. - -"Let us go into the drawing-room for coffee," she said, "unless you -would rather sit here and finish your wine." - -He shook his head and followed her from the table. - -"_Enfin_," he said when the coffee had been brought in and they were -sitting alone together in the drawing-room. "_Enfin_, here we are!" - -"After eleven years, Pierre." - -"After eleven years, Mary. Yet you have scarcely changed." - -"Oh yes, I have changed a great deal, Pierre." - -"Is the old lady still alive, Mary?" - -"She died last autumn, Pierre." - -"She was no friend to me, Mary." - -Each of them used the other's Christian name in every sentence as if -the uttermost advantage must be taken of an opportunity that neither -of them had hoped to enjoy over again. Each of them seemed to feel the -propriety, the necessity indeed, of giving way to sentiment on such an -occasion. - -"She believed that she was acting for the best." - -"And was she?" he asked, looking at the woman of whom, once the -illusion of her love was shattered and the first chagrin was allayed, -he had scarcely thought in all those years. - -"It's hardly fair to ask me that now, Pierre. You forget that I am -married and the mother of three children." - -"I am not married," he murmured, drawing his chair a little closer. - -"You have been otherwise occupied." - -"I had to occupy myself." - -By now Pierre's chair had made a ruck in the carpet, at which he would -have to put it like a horse at a fence if he wished to draw still -closer to Mary; but rising boldly he seated himself in another chair at -least three feet nearer. - -"I had to occupy myself," he repeated. "When you wrote me that letter -I was ... but what right have I to speak of my feelings now? I must -consider myself lucky that I was able to forget them in my new career." - -"Time works miracles," Mary sighed. "I've often wondered where you were -and what you were doing." - -"I have wondered about you. _Mon Dieu_, how I have wondered! And I used -to think about Mac." - -Mary's eyes filled with tears. - -"Pierre! You remembered my little dog! He only died last week. He was -run over, and my husband had to shoot him." - -"Your husband," he repeated in gloomy tones. "I do not have to refer to -my wife. I have never married." - -"You did not remain single on my account," she said. - -Pierre paused for a moment as if he were trying to resist the -temptation to tell her that it was on her account. But the forms of -Malagasy maidens floated within the smoke of his cigarette, and forbade -him to claim too straight a fidelity. - -"If I had ever found the right woman, I suppose I should have married. -But the kind of life I was leading demanded the right kind of woman to -share it. Ah, Mary, if only you could have shared it! If only...." - -He leaned over, and taking her hand from the arm of her chair upon -which it was resting he raised it slowly to his lips. - -Mary was not so much astonished at herself as she felt she ought to -be, as perhaps she would have been if Jemmie had not shown so clearly -his indifference to her during these last few months. Pierre could not -have been holding her hand like this if Jemmie had come back to dinner. - -"Ought you to be taking my hand like this?" she asked. - -He paid no attention to the question, but went on talking. - -"With the right kind of woman at one's side what might not a man -achieve?" he demanded. "Here are you in London leading the life of -thousands of other women, when with me you might have become as famous -as the wife of Garibaldi." - -"I don't think I should care to be famous, Pierre," she murmured with a -shake of the head. "I'd like you to be famous. But I don't want fame." - -"No, no, you want love," he cried. "And it is not too late even now." - -"Oh yes, it is," she whispered with a sad smile. "Years too late, -Pierre. Besides, I'm not the sort of woman who could bear the burden -of an illicit love-affair. I should be afraid of it. I did wrong in -thrusting myself into your life again. I had no courage then. I have no -courage now." - -When she spoke thus, he rose from his chair and kneeling beside her -drew her lips down to meet his own. - -"Are you sure you have no courage?" he asked breathlessly. "Mary, we -are still young. We could still be happy together. In my life there -has been no other woman but you. Have you loved any one as you loved -me, as you still love me at this moment while I hold you closer to my -heart than I have ever held you? Come away with me, Mary. Come away -with me to-night, now. Leave behind you all this." - -While Pierre was talking, Mary felt that she was nothing more than a -doll that a child was vainly trying to wake to life. - -A child? - -"Hush! Did you hear somebody calling?" she asked in sudden apprehension. - -"Come to the open window. The air in this room is hot. Come and look at -the May moon, _ma bien aimée_". - -She let him draw her arm through his and lead her to the window, where -they stood a while in the lilac-scented hush of what could scarcely be -imagined a London night. - -"The world is so much bigger than this room," he proclaimed. - -"I need no lover to tell me that," she whispered. - -How wonderful it would be to go right away ... right away.... - -She allowed herself to be enfolded in his arms. Moonlight and the -perfume of lilac and a tale of green islands murmured in her ear held -her entranced. Bewitched by the imagination of love enduring forever, -she looked up at him. Her hands were upon his shoulders in appeal, and -then there was a tap on the door. Mary sprang away from Pierre and -stood quivering like a sapling released from the woodcutter's grasp. - -"What is it, nurse?" - -"If you please, ma'am, I shan't rest till you've had a look at Master -Richard. After he came back from school he said he had a headache, but -I didn't like to worry you without cause. Only now he says his throat -is so bad, and really I don't like the looks of him at all." - -Mary did not wait to make any apologies to Pierre, but hurried upstairs -to where in his little room, of which he was so proud, her eldest son -was tossing upon his bed and muttering rapid nonsense with fever's -thick and troubled accents. - -"Dearest boy, is your throat very bad? Let me look at your chest. Turn -the gas higher, nurse. I want to see if there's any rash. Give me your -hand, Richard. Lie still, my darling, a minute. Mother wants to feel -your pulse. Nurse, ring for Pinkney and tell her to go at once for Dr. -Marlow." - -Nurse hurried away. - -"Is your throat very bad, Richard darling?" - -"Worse and worse," the little boy whispered. - -"My loved one, mother's so dreadfully sorry. Never mind. The doctor -will soon be here. Could you open your mouth and let mother look at it? -All right, my sweetheart, don't agitate yourself. I won't fuss you, but -when the doctor comes you must try to let him see what's the matter. -Darling boy, mother's so dreadfully sorry it hurts." - -She sat by the bed keeping the yellow curls from his eyes and soothing -him with her voice. - -Presently nurse came back. - -"Pinkney's gone just as she is, ma'am, without waiting to pop on -anything. Let's hope Dr. Marlow is at home. And what about the -gentleman in the drawing-room, do you wish for him to do anything?" - -"Apologize to him, please, nurse, from me for leaving him so abruptly -and explain about Master Richard. Say how sorry I am not to be able to -say good night myself. How very sorry.... What is it, Richard darling? -It's mother beside you. Try to lie still, dearest. I know it hurts -horribly. But try to lie still." - - - - -_Chapter Five_ - -THE MOTHER - - - - -_Chapter Five: The Mother_ - - -In the rich light of a September afternoon of the year 1900 Mary Alison -slowly paced the grass walk along the phlox border at High Corner, -wondering why everybody was so late for tea, even Jemmie, who nowadays -was not often late for a meal. At that moment her husband appeared, -looking as hot and red as the reddest phlox in the border. - -"Tea ready?" he gasped. "By George, I'm baked!" - -He slipped his overheated tweed-covered arm into hers so cool in -its muslin; thus, affectionately, they strolled together in the -direction of the big mulberry tree on the lawn, beneath whose shade, -notwithstanding the way the ripe fruit at this season sometimes tumbled -into the cups, they always sat for tea. - -"You know, I'll tell you what it is," said Jemmie, cramming his mouth -with bread and butter. "I'll tell you what it is, Mary. I took up golf -too late. That's what I did. Too old. I shall never be any good at it. -I'd give it up, if I didn't think it kept my weight down." - -"But I think it's so clever of you to play at all," said his wife -consolingly. "I was thinking I should have to take it up myself. Women -are beginning to play quite a lot everywhere. I'm sure I should never -get on half so well as you did when you began." - -"Ah, you're too sympathetic, my dear. Yes, that's what you are. You -should hear Muriel sneering at her poor old father's efforts. As for -Geoffrey, he declines to play with me. 'Pon my word, he does. Yes, he -told me last week that people on the links stared so. I said, 'They -stare at your ties, my boy.' Ha-ha! I rather had him there, I flatter -myself. Ha-ha-ha! Yes, I said, 'It's your ties and stockings that make -'em stare, my boy, not your father's driving.' By the way, where are -the two of them?" - -"I was wondering," Mary said. "It's odd, isn't it, dear, that neither -of them ever seems to bother at all about us? You'd think when Muriel -was going back to school next week that she'd want to spend some of her -time with her father and mother. She does give _you_ a little of it; -but I hardly see her between breakfast and dinner." - -"Young, you know. She's young," the father apologized. "We must try to -remember that. You'd think that Geoffrey would be glad to play a round -with me; but if he can dodge it, he will. I saw a bit of him last week, -because there was a fellow staying at the hotel who offered to give me -some advice about the proper allowance to make him at Oxford when he -goes up in October. I can't help feeling that two hundred and fifty -pounds a year is enough. But this fellow says, 'No, you can't do on -less than three hundred pounds at a college like St. Mary's.' Well, I -suppose I shall have to give it to him." - -"Yes," Mary sighed, "children are strange. They seem quite suddenly not -to belong to one, and to be almost complete strangers. Thank heaven, -Richard at any rate has never learnt to do without me entirely." - -"Ah, Richard!" her husband laughed. "But we were discussing ordinary -boys and girls, common or garden boys and girls, not paragons. Though, -by George, I've no right to tease you about him, for he is a fine lad. -There's no doubt about that. Well, he'll be here to-morrow. Yet not for -long, I'm afraid. You mark my words, he'll be gazetted almost at once. -They've a good many losses to make up in South Africa." - -"Jemmie, don't! It's too horrible to think of." - -"Duty, my dear," said the father sternly. "You must be glad in your -heart that Richard is going to do his duty. We shall be proud of him if -he gets out there." - -"I should be just as proud of him at home," said the mother. - -Further discussion of Richard was interrupted by the arrival of -Geoffrey and Muriel, who immediately sat down to tea and exclaimed at -the coldness of the scones. - -"Did you expect us to wait any longer?" their mother asked. "It's -half-past five, dear children." - -"Sorry," muttered Geoffrey, who was a plump youth, but good-looking in -a fair florid style. He greatly resembled his father at the same age; -and though to hear Jemmie talk about his youth now was to conjure up -a half-heroic figure of mythical prowess and virtue, it is probable -that the son equally resembled in character his father at the same -age. Muriel, who was fifteen, did not resemble either of her parents -much, although in figure, if the figure of a girl of fifteen may be -granted the name, she seemed likely to take after her father. She was -very fair, round-faced and blue-eyed, reputed clever, an admirable -athlete, and immensely popular at school. Her mother never felt really -at ease with Muriel, though she never could satisfactorily explain to -herself why this should be so; it seemed absurd to allow herself to bow -embarrassed before that pitiless judgment of youth; but bow she did, -and the consciousness of her position often made her irritable. Not -that any display of irritation affected Muriel, who would merely stare -at her mother, slightly knitting the fair brows above those eyes of -porcelain blue. - -"I'm beginning to be afraid that Muriel may be difficult," Mary -confided in her husband that evening, when she came to bid him good -night. - -"Oh no, I don't think so. Several of my family have been very clever, -but it never led to anything unpleasant. They were clever, but always -very womanly women. I think she's a nice straightforward, clean-minded -English girl. Oh no, I don't believe she'll be difficult." - -"I find her very hard to understand," Mary complained. "All the time I -have a feeling that she is building up a wall between herself and me." - -"Know what it is?" Jemmie asked. "Know what's the matter with you? -You're growing old." - -"Jemmie, what a horrible thing to tell me." - -"Never mind, old lady. It's got to be. We're both growing old. I tell -you I realize it more and more when I'm playing golf. Good night, my -dear." - -He offered himself to her salute without rising from the chair in -which he was smoking his final cigar before a light autumnal fire in -the library--the Badminton Library, as Muriel called it, for that -collection of authoritative treatises on sport, together with some -bound volumes of _Punch_ and the _Illustrated London News_, _Handley -Cross_, and a few novels by writers like Frank Smedley, constituted her -father's literary environment. - -"Growing old?" Mary repeated to herself on the way upstairs to her -room. "Growing old?" she echoed once more when she stood in front of -her mirror. The candlelight, apricot-shaded, flattered her reflection. -Growing old at forty? What nonsense Jemmie talked! He forgot that he -was fifteen years older than she. Now he certainly _was_ growing old. -How much he had aged just lately and how much he had improved with age! -Dear old Jemmie, he really needed her far more than Geoffrey or Muriel -needed her. He was much more a child to her than either of them. If it -were not for Richard, she might begin to wonder if children were much -of a consolation for growing old. And Richard would be here to-morrow. -But for how long? Mary felt sick and dizzy in a sudden thought of how -brief his stay might be. If he really were ordered to the front? Was -it credible that he should be? Richard in danger, and Richard how many -thousand miles away! She had been proud and glad when he chose to be -a soldier; but war had been so remote then. It seemed only yesterday -that Jemmie bought High Corner, so that the children might always spend -their holidays out of London. And now the eldest of those children was -liable to be sent abroad to fight for his country. High Corner without -children would not be High Corner any longer. But perhaps the war -would soon be over. She must read the papers more carefully. She must -not skip them as she did now. She must not rely on gossip about the -duration of the war. She must learn to judge for herself. And Richard -would be here to-morrow. - -"I must not lie awake fretting," she decided. "I must get to sleep -quickly. It will be time to fret when Richard is ordered abroad." - -He arrived when the sun was driving away the wraiths of morning mist -and when the others were all at golf. For her, when she saw him, so -tall and straight and slim and fair, coming toward her along that green -walk by the phloxes, he was more radiant than the sun. - -"Hark, mother, do you hear that robin? That's the first I've heard -this autumn," he exclaimed as he bent to kiss her. - -In the silence of their first embrace the birdsong passed into the -dim green recesses of the day, vanishing like the voice of her son's -vanishing childhood. - -"Do you remember that fatal day when I killed a robin?" he asked. - -"No, dearest, I'd forgotten that you'd ever killed anything." - -"Why, mother, when I had that air-gun I killed everything I saw until -that day." - -"How you exaggerate, my Richard." - -"Yes, I did indeed. But that day I'd missed everything, and then -sitting on a branch of that oak, the one Geoff and I planted to shade -us in our old age, I saw a robin. I fired and killed him, and I was so -shocked at what I'd done that I've never really been able to kill even -a partridge since with any pleasure." - -"Always such a dear little boy," she exclaimed, holding tight to her -son's arm. - -"Was I?" Richard laughed. "I'm afraid I must always have kept my good -behavior for you. Aren't your phloxes splendid this year? Best I've -ever seen." - -They paced the walk arm-in-arm, admiring the glow of color. At last -Richard said: - -"Mother, I've got something to tell you." - -She knew immediately what it was. - -"You're going to South Africa." - -"Yes. I'm in the _Gazette_ this morning. I thought you'd all have seen -it." - -"They went out to golf without reading the papers," she said, trying to -keep her voice from trembling. "What regiment, darling?" - -"Rifle brigade." - -"Are you pleased?" - -"Pleased to be a rifleman? Mother, of course I am!" - -"I'm glad you're pleased about it, darling. I'm glad you've got what -you wanted." - -"My battalion is at the front." - -She braced herself for the next question. - -"And when do you think you'll have to go, darling?" - -"Rather soon," he told her in his gentlest voice. - -"Rather soon," she echoed in a whisper. "Shall we go and sit somewhere -in the shade? The sun is so hot along this wall. I wonder the phloxes -can stand it without wilting." - -"There was a heavy dew this morning," he reminded her. - -A heavy dew this morning? It was a day then, a real day in time. The -date was in the almanac. It was not a dream. There was a heavy dew this -morning, and Richard would be on his way to South Africa rather soon. - -"And I suppose you'll have to go up to town about your uniform?" she -asked. - -"Yes, I shall have to see about my kit." - -"And that will mean some of the little time we have left will be taken -away from us." - -"You could come up to town with me and we could have lunch somewhere," -he suggested. - -Yes, they could have lunch together, and then a week or two later he -would be gone. - -"Richard!" - -He looked round in astonishment at the poignant exclamation of his name. - -"No, I did not want to say anything," she told him with a sad smile. -"Nothing more than 'Richard,' while you can still look round at me like -that, while you are still here to look round at me." - -The fine autumn weather lasted until Richard left for South Africa. -His mother at his earnestly expressed desire did not go to Southampton -to wave the last farewell. When he was trying to dissuade her from -the journey, she felt as she used to feel when as a boy he had always -tried to dissuade her from coming to Paddington to bid him good-by on -the platform before he went back to Eton. They parted on the steps of -Woodworth Lodge, and the carriage drove off with ghostly quietude along -the road that was littered with dead leaves, drove off with her Richard -in the yellow light of an October morning. - -"Seems strange without him," said Jemmie, taking his wife's arm -affectionately and guiding her when she stumbled on the stairs because -the tears in her eyes obscured all objects familiar and unfamiliar, -all life indeed for the moment. - -"Geoffrey's off to Oxford to-morrow, and then you and I shall be all -alone, old lady, just as we used to be when we were first married -twenty years ago." - -Jemmie was evidently anxious to free his mind of the emotional -discomfort that Richard's departure provoked by directing his emotion -into the channels of a sentimentalized past; but Mary refused to follow -his lead. She had only one idea, which was to be alone with her grief. -She had no superfluity of idle regret, no lachrymatories of stale tears -to be unsealed for Jemmie's gratification. She was inconsolable. - - _My darling Mother_, - - _I hope you got my post-card from Capetown. Here I am at last with my - regiment in the field. It was awfully nervous work finding out where - they were, and I felt an awful fool when I had to walk into the mess - after riding about ten miles and explain who I was. They were awfully - decent to me, however, and luckily there was quite a decent dust-up - with the Boers soon after I arrived. I was glad to get it all over at - once. I mean both my joining up and going into action for the first - time. Love to everybody and lots to yourself. I'll write a better - letter when I'm more settled. I hear that we are going off chasing - De Wet presently. They say we've really got him in a corner this - time. It doesn't look as if the war would go on for much longer. I'm - really a year too late. That's the bad luck of it. Of course, there's - still plenty to do, but it's nothing to what it was, they tell me. - The regiment fought splendidly at Spion Kop. I wish I'd been there!_ - - _Don't read this letter to anybody except Father, and don't let him - have it to take with him when he goes to golf. Just read it to him at - home. Once more with lots of love,_ - - _Your loving son, - Richard._ - - _My dearest Mother_, - - _I've quite settled down at St. Mary's. I'm sorry I've not written - more often this term. I shall be going down next week and I've been - asked to spend the week before Christmas with a man in my year called - Whittington-Jones, an old Carthusian. His people have a rather decent - shoot in Norfolk. I wonder if you could get Father to lend me his - guns. He practically never shoots now. I suppose you wouldn't mind - if I asked Whittington-Jones to come to Woodworth Lodge soon after - Christmas? He is rather keen to trot around the theaters, and so am - I, I'm bound to admit._ - - _I wonder if you could manage to lend me £100? I know this sounds - rather a large sum to want in my first term, but the fact is I seem - to have spent rather more than I meant, and I had to borrow £75 from - a man in my year. I bought one or two pictures for my rooms, and I - also lost a bit at roulette one night at the House. I didn't really - mean to play, but I couldn't very well sit looking on without seeming - rude, because I had been dining with a House man. I lost more than I - meant. I don't like to ask Father for the money because he'll jump - to the conclusion that I'm gambling, which of course I need hardly - say is not the case. If you could manage to get me out of rather an - awkward hole just this once I promise not to run any risks again. - Will you let me know as soon as you can about Whittington-Jones - coming to us after Christmas and also about the £100? The extra £25 - is for expenses during the vac. I shall have some tipping to do in - Norfolk. If Father consults you about a present for me at Christmas, - would you mind suggesting a check? It's awfully hard to choose a - suitable present, though of course there are lots of things I should - like for my rooms. But a check would really be more useful. I don't - think there's much to tell you about Oxford. It's been very foggy - there for the last few days._ - - _Your loving son, - Geoffrey._ - - _My dear Mother_, - - _I'm sorry I have waited so long to answer your last letter, but we - have been fearfully busy rehearsing for our Break-up. I am acting - Gratiano in the trial scene from "The Merchant of Venice." Celia - Wentworth, the girl who plays Shylock, is most dreadfully good. Miss - Bewick considers her simply marvelous. She says that ever since she - has been elocution mistress at the school she never has known such - a good Shylock. I wonder if I could invite Celia to spend a few days - with us during the Christmas holidays. She is fearfully keen to see - some theaters, and we've made out a gorgeous list of things we're - simply dying to see. Celia says that the way I play Gratiano helps - her most frightfully, and Miss Bewick was tremendously complimentary. - The blot on the performance is the Doge played by a girl I hate - called Marjorie Lane. She simply won't learn her words, and at the - first rehearsal without books she cut out all the middle of her long - speech and said "the world thinks and I think so too, we all expect - a gentle answer, Jew." You should have seen Miss Bewick's face. Of - course we all snorted like anything, and Marjorie could only sit - there and giggle in that affected way she does. Celia says she hopes - she won't do that on the afternoon of Break-up, because the audience - is sure to laugh, and Celia thinks it may spoil her performance. I - hope you and Father are going to turn up in force, and when you come - do please invite Celia to stay with us in January._ - - _Your loving daughter, - Muriel._ - -Geoffrey and Muriel had their friends to stay with them as they -wanted; and continuous chatter about the world of Oxford and the world -of school, from both of which worlds their mother perceived herself -infinitely remote, made her feel still more hopelessly banished from -the only world where she cared to live, the world of South Africa and -war. Perhaps if her two younger children had been able or anxious to -appreciate what she was suffering from Richard's absence she would not -have grudged them their gayety. It was not that she wanted them to -devote themselves entirely to her. That would be an unworthy maternal -egotism. But such a complete absorption already in other interests was -surely not what most mothers had to endure from their children. - - * * * * * - -"Muriel, haven't you anything to tell me about your life at school?" - -"Oh, mother, I'm always telling you things." - -"But only about the other girls, dear child." - -"Well, what else is there to tell you?" Muriel countered. - -"Don't you ever want to tell me anything about yourself and your -thoughts and what you would like to do when you grow up?" her mother -persisted. - -Muriel frowned. - -"I wish you wouldn't always be imagining that I have any thoughts as -you call them. You always ask such impossible questions, mother." - -Mary turned away with a sigh. It was not thus that she had pictured her -daughter at fifteen when ten years ago she used to enter the nursery on -tiptoe and steal through the dim hush to where in her cot Muriel lay -sleeping as still as a gathered carnation. It was not for this Muriel -that she had peered into the future, not for this Muriel that she had -stood in the door on her way out and looked back to see that the night -light was burning faithfully in the glimmering saucer. - -"Geoffrey, you and your friend Mr. Whittington-Jones, never seem to -talk about anything except horses and cards." - -Geoffrey, remembering that he owed his mother a hundred pounds and that -a time might come when he should wish to extend this obligation, tried -not to look irritated by the question. The result was an expression of -patient long-suffering, which irritated her. - -"Really, my dear boy," she exclaimed, "there is no occasion for you to -assume that expression of injured innocence. You do talk a great deal -about horses and cards." - -"Well, the men I know best are interested in horses," Geoffrey -muttered. "And surely one can be interested in horses without being -jumped on?" - -"I'm not jumping on you, dear Geoffrey. I don't think I ever jumped on -anybody. Sometimes I think it would be better if I did jump on people. -I do hope that you will try to make the best of your time at Oxford. It -would be such a pity if you wasted these years. You would always regret -them and wish you could have them all over again." - -Geoffrey removed his weight from his right leg and put it upon his -left. - -"I know it's boring," his mother went on, "very boring to have a mother -who tries to interfere with a young man's natural amusements. I don't a -bit want to be a spoil-sport, but you know how horrified father would -be if he thought you were gambling. Luckily I was able to help you out -with that money. But I shan't always be able to help you, and I do so -want you to help yourself." - -Mary had tried not to bring Richard into the conversation in order to -make a comparison. But before she could stop herself the comparison was -made. - -"Richard!" Geoffrey echoed, flushing. "I've never pretended to compete -with him. And anyway you wouldn't expect a soldier on active service to -have the temptations I have at the 'Varsity." - -"What a mean remark! Unworthy of a brother!" - -Geoffrey shifted back from his left leg to his right. - -"Whatever I do and whatever I say is sure to be wrong," he muttered. - -Mary turned away with a sigh. It was not thus she had pictured her -second son at eighteen when ten years ago she had sat in the shade of -the mulberry tree at High Corner, during that first delicious summer -of their possession, and watched him turning somersaults on the bright -lawn. Then her only fear for Geoffrey was that the blood might rush to -his head from the energy of his exercise. How foolish an apprehension -that seemed compared with the present dread for Geoffrey's future! - -Later in that month Queen Victoria died, and on the gray February -morning when the funeral procession crossed London Mary found herself -kept by the press of people from reaching Grosvenor Place, where Jemmie -had been lent a window to watch with his family the passing of a great -period, the end of a mighty reign, the obsequies of an august and noble -woman. She turned aside into Hyde Park, vexed with herself for making a -muddle of the occasion; but when she was out of the crowd and walking -in comfort under the bare trees she was glad that she had not succeeded -in reaching Grosvenor Place, for out of the gray air beyond the fume of -gray boughs sounded the lament of Chopin's Funeral March, not as if it -was being played by mortal instruments, but like a coronach wailed by -remote winds, a threnody uttered by unimaginable waves. - -Mary looked round her. There was no longer a human being in sight; -there was only tree after tree in audience of that melodious -lamentation. For a while her fancy was caught by the picture of that -grave pageant moving across London to the music of those poignant -cadences. Her mind went back to a year or two ago when she had seen the -Queen driving along Kensington High Street, a little old woman in black -nodding to right and left in acknowledgment of her subjects' welcome. -Now that little old woman in black was being borne on a gun-carriage, -nothing left of her domination save the orb and scepter upon the coffin -in which she lay dead. The funeral strains of Chopin died away, and -their place was taken by the heavier grief of Handel's Dead March, so -solemn that one seemed to hear above the crash of cymbals the tread of -mourning emperors and kings. Mary felt it was wrong of her not to have -made certain of beholding the procession, that she had no business to -be standing here alone among the trees. She started to hurry forward -in the direction of the music, so that above the crowd she might catch -a glimpse of the plumes and helmets and perhaps even of the white pall -itself. It began to seem of the greatest importance that she should -have this glimpse, for she was thinking that without it she should -miss the most important public event in her time. To-day would surely -be a landmark in time to which everything in contemporary life would -be referred. She must hurry. Already Handel's solemn beat was becoming -muffled and dying into silence beyond the Marble Arch. This silence was -tremendous. She hurried on, panting for breath. There at last was that -endless mourning edge of black spectators, and there above them the -plumes and the helmets of the cavalry flashing and rippling. Had the -coffin passed? Once more the silence was rent by the plangent strains -of Chopin. - -Mary turned away from the people and the procession; with all the air -behind her melodious with grief, she sought again the holy quiet of -the bare trees. A little child, too young for the pomps of death, was -running after a gay ball, while a Dandie Dinmont jumped in circles -round her barking. In a moment Mary was walking under these very trees, -herself of twenty years ago! How little they had changed, but herself -how much. The melody in which at first she had found the expression of -a world's sorrow for the death of a Queen, now rose with its yearning -and fell with its despair upon her own life. It was identified with -herself and so much the more poignant in consequence. It no longer -expressed a nation's grief, but voiced instead all the regrets for -what might have befallen herself. She was back again among these -trees twenty-one years ago with Mac. It was a month later than this, -she reminded herself, and although the trees were just as bare, the -crocuses were in full bloom then. Yes, Mac was barking there beside -her, and children were running after brightly painted balls. Still -that wailing of the Funeral March! What did twenty years ago matter -now? What did they count for now? More sharply sad, more passionately -wistful in one supreme melodious sigh the refrain, seeking to express -an incommunicable grief, died away into silence. If only Richard had -not been ordered abroad! He would have been with her to-day. He would -have waited for her this morning. Richard was not like Geoffrey and -Muriel, not so forgetful of his mother as they were. Yet perhaps -she was unfair to her younger children. Perhaps, in her devotion to -Richard, she had let them understand too well that she cared more -deeply for him than for them. It might be her own fault if they were -forgetful. And ten years ago she had not been fair to Jemmie. She -had a great deal for which to blame herself. From to-day onward she -would think more about other people and not be so ready to blame them, -when it was she herself who was at fault. This was a solemn day in -the history of England. She would try to make it a solemn day in the -history of herself. - -The mellow form of Kensington Palace came into sight. It looked exactly -the same as it always looked. It was strange to think that more than -sixty years ago the little old woman now being borne to the grave -should have been a young girl in that Palace and there received the -news of her accession. Here was no noise of music for the dead, but -like the sound of running water the ripple of children's laughter. In -the precincts of Kensington Palace the children were playing as usual -with their hoops and their balls. The Queen herself may have played -here as a child long before she was a queen. It was a spot sacred to -children, not to the dead; sacred to the future, not to the past. - -"Let me remember that thought," Mary said to herself. "And when I think -of the day of the Queen's funeral I will always remember that I am not -dead yet and that while I am alive I have a future. I must be more -sympathetic with Muriel, more patient with Geoffrey, more solicitous -for Jemmie. And I must not fret for Richard, for my boy." - -It was a pity that Geoffrey went back to Oxford the day after the -funeral and that Muriel went back to school. Mary felt that from the -state of mind she had achieved on that day she might have drawn closer -to her children. - -The first year of the new century came to its Spring, blossomed and -shed its blossom, opened to its Summer and reached its Autumn without -Mary's hopes of a deeper intimacy being realized. She began to wonder -if Richard would return from South Africa as much a stranger as the -other two. His letters betrayed no falling off in affection; but -affectionate letters might be the result of habit and not reflect the -man that was being wrought out of her boy, down there beneath the -unfamiliar Southern stars. - -In her maternal loneliness Mary found herself more than ever inclined -to adopt Jemmie. He would really have been a most satisfactory child if -he would only have abstained from continually reminding her that age -was creeping fast upon both of them. It was difficult to be motherly to -a man who would talk all the time about his stiff joints and hardening -arteries, who would grunt and groan when he rose from an arm-chair, -and who after dinner had scarcely read half a dozen headlines of _The -Times_ before he was fast asleep. Mary did not want to be as old as -all that, and she wished that her husband would remember that there -were fifteen years between them. Fifteen long years. Or was it only -because Richard was away that the years seemed longer nowadays? They -had fled by so swiftly when he was little. She must go in for gardening -more seriously this Autumn. If Richard came back next Spring, he would -appreciate her English flowers after Africa; and if he did not come -back, the flowers would be a small consolation. It was a pity that she -had begun so early to work among girls. That club would have been such -an interesting occupation for the present. But if she began again now, -it would mean arguments with Jemmie, who would never understand why, -when he was always at home, she wanted to wear herself out ministering -to a lot of strange girls. Strangeness was Jemmie's bugbear. Strange -people, strange ideas, strange manners, strange places, strange -clothes, they were all equally abhorrent to Jemmie nowadays. - -"I may not be very distinguished or anything like that," he boasted. -"But at any rate I'm not always running after new-fangled ideas. Some -people would call me old-fashioned and consider me out of date; but -I don't care what they call me or what they think me. When I was at -school we used to kick fellows who tried to be original. We were rough -and ready in those days, my dear, but, by George, we were men! Yes, by -George, m-e-n. Men!" - -"I thought you were boys," Mary laughed. - -"Now, my dear, you know perfectly well what I mean." - -"Yes, yes, you foolish old thing, of course I know what you mean. And I -wish you could make Geoffrey a little less original." - -"Ah, Geoffrey! Geoffrey is becoming a problem. I cannot think where he -inherits his low tastes." - -"Haven't we agreed to call him original?" said Mary. "Don't let's -bother about the hereditary side of his misbehavior. You and I -between us must be responsible for him, and we ought to shoulder our -responsibility. I really am worried about his future." - -They were sitting in the garden of High Corner on a fine afternoon at -the end of September, and surely never had the phloxes been finer than -they were this Autumn. If Richard admired them last year, what would he -have said if he could have seen them now? - -Muriel had already gone back to school, so that Geoffrey, as the only -child at home, became for the time the chief object of his parents' -solicitude. - -"You've always taken his part when I've tried to be severe with him," -the father pointed out. - -"Yes, I know I have, and I think rather foolishly. But I suppose it's -natural for a mother. It's what remains of the instinct to defend one's -young. I wish he were a little boy again. I believe I should bring him -up quite differently, if I had another chance." - -Jemmie shook his head. - -"Ah, if," he murmured sapiently. "If if's were horses, old lady, -beggars might ride." - -"Yes, and I think I've been rather foolish," Mary continued, "in -keeping from you certain things about Geoffrey. You know, three times -already since he went to Oxford I've lent him comparatively large sums -for him to pay his debts. Gambling debts, I'm afraid." - -"Gambling debts?" Jemmie echoed. "You don't mean to tell me that the -young fool has been gambling? Gambling debts at nineteen? Why, the -notion is ridiculous. Think of me. There was I, my own master from the -time I left school. But I never had any gambling debts. I never had any -debts at all. Why, when I was not much older than Geoffrey, my poor old -father died and I was left in sole charge of the business. Suppose I -had had gambling debts? A pretty stockbroker I should have made." - -"There's no need for you to imagine that I'm trying to defend Geoffrey -for running into debt," Mary observed. - -"But why did you keep it from me? Why didn't you tell me before?" - -"I know it was silly of me. I've admitted it was silly. Let that pass." - -"How much have you paid for him?" - -"About three hundred pounds." - -"Three hundred what? Did you say three hundred pounds, or am I going -mad and deaf? Three hundred pounds? Why, that's nearly a whole year's -allowance. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you've allowed -Geoffrey to play ducks and drakes with three hundred pounds of your -money?" - -"Frankly, Jemmie, I don't think that the amount matters," she said. -"Three hundred pounds or three hundred pence, if he can't pay, the -large sum is morally no worse than the smaller." - -Jemmie began to splutter. - -"Now that's a woman all over. No idea whatever of the value of money. -It's not a question of morality, my dear. It's a question of finance. -He knows very well, even if you don't, that he has no more business to -risk three hundred pounds than I have to risk three thousand. A fine -father my children would call me if I started gambling and gambled away -all their inheritance." - -"Jemmie dear, there is really no need for you to get angry with me," -she protested. "I am as well aware as you how wrong it is of Geoffrey -to gamble. But I do blame my own indulgence. I ought to have refused -to give him the money and sent him to you. I don't know why I didn't. -I suppose it was an absurd kind of jealousy. I suppose really that I -hoped to make him fonder of me by giving him the money he wanted." - -"But why have you told me now?" her husband asked in sudden -bewilderment. - -Mary looked unhappy. - -"Promise me," she began, "that if I tell you something more you won't -fly into a rage with Geoffrey and by losing your temper perhaps do -him more harm than good. Promise me that, Jemmie, before I tell you -anything more." - -"He's not been stealing? He hasn't committed forgery or anything like -that, has he?" stammered an apprehensive father. - -"No, it's not quite so bad as that," she laughed sadly. "But you -haven't promised." - -"As long as it's nothing criminal, I promise to do my utmost to be -patient with the boy." - -Mary hesitated for a few moments, half regretting that she had raised -the subject of Geoffrey's behavior. Then she plunged. - -"It's this girl at the White Hart. Mrs. Woldingham came to see me this -morning...." - -"Girl at the White Hart?" Jemmie interrupted. "What has Mrs. Woldingham -got to do with girls at the White Hart, even if she is the Rector's -wife?" - -"Jemmie, I must beg you not to interrupt me. If you will have the -patience to let me say what I was going to say, you'll hear. Mrs. -Woldingham, who came to see me about the Bazaar which is being got -up for the debt on the new peal of bells, spoke very nicely about -Geoffrey, and I'm sure she had not the least idea of making mischief -or repeating village gossip. But people are beginning to talk about -Geoffrey's being seen so often at the White Hart." - -"Drinking too!" the father apostrophized. "Great Heavens, my second son -appears to have every vice." - -"No, not drinking," Mary contradicted irritably. "At least Mrs. -Woldingham did not suggest that he was drinking. The attraction is this -girl." - -"What girl?" - -"The girl at the White Hart." - -"Do you mean the barmaid?" - -"I suppose that's what she is. I really don't know anything more except -that Geoffrey is credited with having a love affair with some girl at -the White Hart." - -Jemmie shook his head to Heaven. - -"I really don't know what's happening to the young men of to-day. They -stop at nothing. Still, I'm relieved to hear it's only that. At least, -I suppose it's only that." - -"Only what?" Mary asked frowning. - -"Only a flirtation with a barmaid. Of course, he ought not to do that -kind of thing in his own village; but I'm relieved to hear it's only -that." - -"That was all Mrs. Woldingham said." - -"She didn't suggest that there was the likelihood of an open scandal?" - -Mary looked puzzled. - -"Come, come," her husband scoffed. "You are not a schoolgirl. I suppose -Mrs. Woldingham didn't suggest that the young woman was going to have -a child?" - -"Jemmie, sometimes you really are unnecessarily coarse in the way you -blurt things out. No, Mrs. Woldingham didn't say anything about that -or indeed hint anything of the sort. At least, I don't think she did. -But, oh dear, what a horrible notion! Please, I do beg of you, speak -seriously to Geoffrey. If there were anything like that he would have -to admit it to you." - -When Mary was alone, she reproached herself for being so disloyal to -Geoffrey as to tell his father about the money she had given him. -It was no use trying to pretend to herself that her only motive -for telling was a desire for Geoffrey to make a complete avowal of -everything and after he had been forgiven to be able to start fair in -his first encounter with life. She had not had the least temptation to -say a word about his debts until Mrs. Woldingham had thrown out those -hints about his behavior at the White Hart. - -"I really believe I was jealous," she told herself. Jealous? Could she -possibly be jealous of this girl? It sounded too absurd when stated in -words. But there certainly had been an impulse to hurt Geoffrey and -a desire to punish him not for his generally unsatisfactory behavior -so much as for presuming at his age to fancy himself in love. It -was not the knowledge that people were talking which had roused her -indignation, but the suggestion that Geoffrey was madly in love with -this girl, this common, crude, flamboyant creature, this barmaid. Even -now her heart was beating fast with rage at the thought of such a -disgraceful entanglement. - -"Of course, my dear Mrs. Alison, it may be nothing but a youthful -infatuation. At the same time I think I ought to warn you that they do -say he has proposed to the girl." - -She had not told Jemmie that. She had unjustly allowed him to suppose -that the only scandal to be feared was Geoffrey's treatment of the -girl. Jemmie had jumped to the commonplace conclusion, and she had -been able to do no more than simulate the shocked feelings of a prude. -She had been annoyed by her husband's clumsy assumption of Geoffrey's -guilt, and she had found no better way to display her annoyance than by -that pretense of delicacy. - -"One always thinks that one is going to find it easier to be better in -a few years' time; but, when the few years roll by, there is always a -new trap for one's self-confidence," Mary reflected. - -She made up her mind to be patient with Geoffrey, and went down to -dinner with the intention of persuading Jemmie to be as patient as -she hoped to be herself. But her good intentions were frustrated by -Geoffrey's failure to appear. - -"Keep nothing hot for Mr. Geoffrey," his father commanded. - -Mary realized the extent of his wrath from this order, for nothing in -life seemed more important to Jemmie than the temperature of food. -Deliberately to let his son's dinner spoil was in his case almost the -equivalent of open excommunication. Another sign of his anger was -manifested after dinner, when, before he fell asleep in his chair, -instead of reading the headlines of _The Times_, the list of killed and -wounded in South Africa, and the sum of Roberts' points at billiards, -he neither read nor slept; when instead he paced up and down the -drawing-room, always tripping on the same head of a grizzly bear shot -by himself long ago in the Rocky Mountains, always saying "damn," -always begging his wife's pardon for the oath with an implication that -Cæsar as well as Cæsar's wife should be above suspicion in dealing with -Cæsar's son. - -"This is a bit too much of a good thing," he declared when the clock -struck ten without Geoffrey's arrival. "A little bit too much of a -good thing, by George! He's staying down at that confounded inn till -closing-time. That's what he's doing, you mark my words." - -Half-past ten struck; but there was still no sign of Geoffrey. - -"If his highness thinks that he's going to keep the whole household up -while he wanders about with that girl in the moonlight, he's mistaken. -I'll lock him out. By George, I will." - -"But Jemmie, he may have had an accident." - -"Fiddlesticks, my dear. If he'd had an accident, we should have heard -of it by now. I'll give him until eleven. If he isn't home by then, -the house shall be locked against him. I'll give him a lesson. I'll -frighten him this time." - -The clock struck eleven; but Geoffrey did not come. His father rang the -bell. - -"Please, Jemmie," his wife expostulated. "I'd rather you didn't say too -much in front of the servants." - -"You're weakening. You're not backing me up. You're perfectly ready to -let him in. I tell you he has got to have a lesson." - -"But the servants...." - -"Bother the servants. I decline to let Geoffrey flout me, because I'm -afraid of the servants." - -However, Jemmie did so far humor his wife as to imply when he was -giving orders to lock up the house, that he and she knew where their -son was. - -"Although I was in half a mind to forbid anybody in the house to go -downstairs and let him in when he does come." - -"I'm glad you didn't," Mary said. "I think that would only have made -ourselves look ridiculous." - -She resolved not to go to sleep, so that when Geoffrey did come back, -she should hear him herself and be able to go downstairs and let him -in. She felt certain that she should be able to do this and that -Jemmie, who had announced his own intention of admitting this errant -son, would be fast asleep by that time. Jemmie must be very sleepy by -now, for he had been awake ever since dinner. - -But Geoffrey did not come back at all that night, and in the morning -his mother received a letter. - - Hawkins' Hotel, - Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C. - _Sept. 27th, 1901._ - - _My dearest Mother_, - - _I find this a very difficult letter to write, but it has got to be - written, and you may as well know at once that by the time you get - this letter I shall be married to Mary Wyatt who was at the White - Hart Inn. I made up my mind to do this a month ago and I would have - told you if I had not been afraid that somehow or other I would have - been prevented. Of course I know that you and Father will be angry, - but it can't be helped. It's done now. At least it will be by the - time you get this. I'm going out to make arrangements now. Of course - I'm rather worried about what you will say, but she is a charming - girl and if you could only get over your prejudice and meet her I - think you would agree with me. She is only three years older than me. - Of course I cannot dictate what you are or are not to do. But unless - you can see your way to being decent to Mary I would rather cut - myself off from the family altogether. It would only make me angry - if I thought she was being snubbed, and she is very sensitive. I am - sorry for the way I am getting married, but please do not think that - I am sorry about getting married, if you can understand what I mean. - If I am old enough to know what profession I want to choose, I am - old enough to know what wife I want to choose. I mention this because - Father said to me last week that if I hadn't made up my mind yet - what I wanted to do with my life, I never would make up my mind. I'm - afraid this letter sounds rather defiant, but it's not meant to be - defiant. Only I do want you both to understand that I'm in earnest. I - will spare you the boredom of hearing how fond I am of Mary, partly - because I know it would probably bore you and partly because I could - not possibly express what I would like to say about her in writing. - I know that this will mean giving up Oxford. But I do not mind about - that. I think most people stay there too long. It's no good doing - nothing for three years. We are going to stay for three or four - days in London, and then we are going to spend our honeymoon in the - village where Mary lives in Berkshire. After that I had an idea of - emigrating to Canada._ - - _Your loving son, - Geoffrey._ - -Mary gave this letter to her husband without comment and left him to -read it alone. She did not feel that there was any possible comment -except an outburst of bad language, and she was sure that Jemmie would -manage that better than herself. When she rejoined him, he was still -spluttering with rage, damning and disinheriting his son with equal -fervor. For one thing Mary was grateful. He did not say it was all due -to the way she had spoilt him. Indeed, he offered no reproaches. The -blow was as inevitable as an apoplexy. There was no human being to be -blamed apart from the unhappy principal. - -"Married at nineteen to a barmaid! What a future! It isn't as if -I'd set him a bad example. I can't blame myself. It's his natural -wickedness and selfishness. It's the sort of thing young men do -nowadays. No sense of decency. Want of proportion. Form ... no good -form. Fancy comparing the choice of a profession with the choice of -a wife! You can't compare things like that. The boy's mad. He's been -touched by the sun playing golf. He's not normal. I consider we might -get the marriage annulled on the ground that he was _non compos_ when -he committed it. Yes, _non compos_! We'll shut him up in a nursing-home -for a couple of months. A rest cure. He's mad. The damned lunatic! -Emigrate indeed? Canada! He might as well talk of emigrating to the -moon. In fact, it strikes me that's the place to which his brains have -emigrated...." - -Jemmie went on railing like this until his wife interposed with -a suggestion that she should go up to town this very morning and -interview Geoffrey. There was just a chance he was not married yet. He -probably had not realized how hard it was to get married without some -preparation. Yes, there was just a chance that he was still free, and -that if he were tactfully handled he might consent to remain free. - -"You see, he's evidently nervous about us," Mary pointed out. "He had -to run away in order to bring himself to do it. I expect the girl is a -hussy. I expect she hooked him. Oh dear, how vulgar it makes oneself, -when one mixes oneself up with vulgarity. Hooked him! And yet there's -no other word for it." - -"He's no longer a son of mine," the father swore. "By George, Mary, -he is no longer my son. A lazy spendthrift who gets married with less -preparation than he would give to ordering himself a lunch. This money -he's been wheedling out of you. Depend upon it, his gambling debts -were nothing but an excuse, a mean subterfuge. If he'd really been -losing money at roulette, he'd have come to me. He'd have known that I -wouldn't be hard on him." - -"I should prefer to think that the money I gave him was spent upon -getting married," said Mary unreasonably. "I loathed the idea of my -son's being a weak gambler." - -"Well, don't let you and me start arguing. Whatever he did with it, -he has had the money. A barmaid! A girl who spends her day listening -to beastly chaff! A crimped, corseted, vulgar barmaid to be my -daughter-in-law! It's incredible." - -"But there is a slight chance that she is not your daughter-in-law -yet. So, if you've no objection, dear, I think I'll catch the midday -train and go straight to this hotel in the Strand. I will take my -dressing-case, and if necessary I can stay in town. I might go to -Morley's Hotel. That would be close by." - -Hawkins' Hotel was a tall, narrow, gloomy house with a German porter, -sluttish chambermaids, and a manageress like a large doll with hair -of tow. In the lower half of the house there was a perpetual odor of -vegetables being cooked, and in the upper part there was a smell of -dusty muslin. - -Mary was shown into what was called the writing-room while inquiries -were made for Number Nineteen, which was as far as Geoffrey's -individuality was recognized. In each of the windows of the -writing-room there was a frayed aspidistra growing apparently in a -compost of cigarette-ends, matches, and old plaster. In one corner of -the room a man in a stained check-suit with cuffs that were continually -trying to swallow his hands was seated at a spindle-shanked desk -working out from a Bradshaw fifteen months old a railway journey across -country. - -"Number Nineteen's gone out," announced the waiter, who looked like the -negative of a photograph, so black were his face and shirt-front, so -greasy and begrimed were his clothes. - -Mary told him that she would wait and asked him to bring her a cup -of tea, which he brought half an hour later in a breakfast cup with -blunted lumps of dead-looking sugar lying in the saucer beside it, and -a hare-lipped jug of pale blue milk. - -"I'll bring the bread and butter in a minute," he promised, and though -Mary told him that she did not want anything to eat, he brought her -four slices a quarter of an hour later. - -It was growing dusk in the writing-room of Hawkins' Hotel; the man in -the check-suit, unable to read the figures in the railway-guide, was -moping in an arm-chair by the empty grate, before Geoffrey came in -followed by the waiter, who lighted the two burners of the gaselier -which had been fitted with incandescent mantles and pulled down the -blinds. - -"We can't talk here," said Mary, glancing across at the man in the -check-suit, who as soon as the room was lighted up had returned to his -railway-guide. "You'd better walk round with me to Morley's Hotel, -where I'm staying for to-night." - -"I can't leave Mary alone here," Geoffrey replied. - -His mother winced at the name. - -"If you want to talk private," said the man with the railway-guide, -"I'll leave you to yourselves. I've found what I was looking for." - -He pushed his cuffs well up with the aid of the edge of the desk, and, -whistling "The Honeysuckle and the Bee," went out of the room, leaving -mother and son together. - -"Geoffrey, are you married?" - -"Well, as a matter of fact, no, I'm not," he admitted sulkily. -"Apparently you have to live in a parish for a certain amount of -time first. One would imagine it was a crime to get married by the -difficulties the parson made." - -"Then you'll think better of it?" his mother pleaded. "You'll change -your mind and come back with me to High Corner? Father will say -nothing. Your mad freak shall be forgiven and forgotten." - -"Steady on, Mother. I can't leave Mary like that. You see, it's a bit -awkward. I thought I should have been married to-day, and so we should -have been if I hadn't made a muddle about the license. I wanted to be -married in a register office, but Mary stuck out for a church. She -can't believe that any other kind of marriage is genuine. Besides, I -don't want to give her up, if that's what you mean by coming back to -High Corner." - -His mother argued with him in vain. He did not attempt to answer her, -but stood sulkily first on his right leg, then on his left leg until -she stopped talking. - -"I don't agree with you that she'll drag me down, as you say. I think -it will buck me up to be married." - -"But, my dear boy, look at your surroundings already. Look at this -horrible hotel. How on earth did you ever come to discover such a -place? It's like some dreadful place in a French novel." - -"The bedrooms are all right," Geoffrey said. "And we've been eating -out. I think if you'd let me bring Mary down to see you, you wouldn't -be so much upset by the prospect of my future. Anyway, you needn't -think I'll disgrace the family. I've made up my mind to emigrate. It's -a funny thing, but when a fellow does what he thinks is the right thing -to do, he gets more blamed than if he just plays about with a girl." - -"Geoffrey," said his mother, "I'm grieved that I cannot see things -from your point of view; but you are too young, my dear boy, to hamper -yourself like this so early in your life. I have never told you -before; but I think that it is only fair that I should tell you about -your grandfather. He quarreled with his father because he insisted on -marrying my mother. They emigrated, and both he and my mother were -drowned. I was a baby then, and I was about the only person saved from -the wreck." - -"Well, it's much safer traveling nowadays," argued Geoffrey -obstinately. "And anyway I don't see that it did you much harm." - -"But it caused infinite misery to others. My grandmother never really -got over it. It brought about the extinction of the Flowers." - -"I'm sorry, Mother, but I can't go back on my word. Besides, we've been -living here as man and wife. It wouldn't be right." - -This boy of nineteen to be talking of living here as man and wife! - -Mary was suddenly chilled. - -"Very well, Geoffrey, if you will not listen to me, I must see what -your father can do. You must remember that you are not yet of age, and -if your father sees fit to exercise his authority you will _have_ to -obey. I shall telegraph for him at once." - -"Perhaps Father will condescend to see Mary before he does anything," -Geoffrey said. "Perhaps he won't judge her as you have judged her -without seeing her." - -Mary turned away from her son and went quickly from the room. She -felt when she walked up Buckingham Street as if she was struggling up -through some horrible drain to reach the air. - -In the hall of her own hotel the porter told her that Mr. Alison had -arrived and was waiting for Mrs. Alison in Mrs. Alison's room. Mary -went upstairs, glad that he had come, because he might do something -with Geoffrey. He might remonstrate with the girl and persuade her to -give him up. In books it would have been herself who would have done -that; but books seemed to forget that a mother could be as proud as -anybody when her deepest feelings were outraged. - -"Mary, my poor little wife, prepare yourself for a dreadful shock," -Jemmie cried when she entered her room. - -In an instant she guessed that it was bad news about Richard. - -"South Africa," she heard herself murmur with a tongue that was parched -with apprehension and horror. - -"A telegram from the War Office." - -"Jemmie, he's not dead? He's only wounded?" - -"My poor darling Mary, our boy is dead." - -"Richard! Richard! Richard!" she wailed to the roar of London, the -cruel roar of London which let young men die to keep the city roaring. - -"It wasn't even in battle. He was in charge of a convoy. He was -ambushed. By God, Mary, I'd like to burn the scoundrels in Parliament -who talk about brother Boer. I'd like to throw them down into Trafalgar -Square from the top of Nelson's Column. Lloyd George and the whole -skulking crew. It's they who are encouraging the Boers to go on with -this guerilla warfare. Mary, don't look so white. Shall I ring for some -brandy? Did you do anything about Geoffrey and this marriage?" - -"Geoffrey!" the mother echoed, and her voice was like the tinkling of -broken ice. "Let him do what he likes, and go where he likes, and die -where he likes. I want Richard. Do you hear? I want Richard. I want -him. I want him. He's mine. He can't really be taken away from me like -this. There must be some mistake in the name. Mistakes are made. We -must go to Africa and make sure. _We'll_ emigrate," she laughed, and -then mercifully the tears began to flow. - - - - -_Chapter Six_ - -THE WIDOW - - - - -_Chapter Six: The Widow_ - - -Jemmie Alison had been buried a fortnight. The rays of the fallow -November sun lighted the table in the window of his old study at which -his widow was seated engaged upon the task of sorting out his papers. -Mary's hands frilled with snowy organdie were now the hands of her -grandmother when _she_ was fifty, fifty years ago. Otherwise she did -not resemble Lady Flower, being of a fairer complexion with roses -still fresh upon her cheeks and rich brown hair on which the gossamer -spun by age was less conspicuous than the first rime upon October -leaves. She had paused for a moment from her task and was staring out -at the drooping chrysanthemums that gave to the garden of Woodworth -Lodge such an aspect of mournfulness and decay. Why did not Markham -take them up? There was nothing so melancholy as flowers which had -outstayed their season. Winter was at hand. Of what use was it to try -to prolong the illusion of summer? Winter was not to be cajoled by such -pretenses. Besides, chrysanthemums were at best funereal blossoms. -How high they had been heaped a fortnight ago, wreath upon wreath, on -Jemmie's coffin.... She turned back to her task of sorting out the -papers; but a minute or two later she stopped to reproach herself, as -she had reproached herself many times daily since her husband's death -with having failed to be as deeply moved by it as she ought. No doubt -the protracted illness, when he lingered month by month after the -doctors had declared that he could not survive another week, was partly -responsible for the absence of emotion. She had been preparing so long -for the death that, when at last he did die, she discovered that there -was no emotion which she had not already exhausted. Yes, although while -he lay dying all those weeks she had fought against a monstrous and -wicked hope that the agony would not be too long protracted, at the end -her only definite feeling had been one of relief. Poor old Jemmie, he -had been so good throughout those weary weeks. The nurses had assured -her that they had never known such a patient. It was strange that a man -who throughout his life had allowed himself to be disconcerted by the -smallest interference with his minor comforts should be able to endure -without a murmur months of fierce pain. There must have been something -fundamentally noble about Jemmie, some bedrock of character impervious -alike to violent passions and the fretful whims of ordinary existence. -Impervious at any rate to the latter. It was verging on the ludicrous -to associate violent passions with Jemmie, for surely no man ever lived -less subject to the stress of the unattainable. Not that his exemption -should detract at all from her admiration of his suffering. On the -contrary she should yield him a greater respect, because he could never -have been tested in the whole of his life as he was tested every hour -of that last illness. But herself? Had that endlessly drawn out vigil -revealed in herself any fundamental nobility of character? Outwardly -she had been all devotion. She had accepted the flattery of the nurses, -the laudation of her friends, the pathetic gratitude of her husband -for the care she lavished, the zeal with which she waited on him, the -affection never in all their married life so freely given as when he -lay dying. Yet always at the back of her mind had lurked the question -when it would be over, the desire to be quit of her obligation, the -longing to be herself for the remainder of her life. Or was she doing -herself an injustice in thinking that? Was it not really the nervous -strain of expecting the inevitable for so long which made her sigh -for that consummation to achieve itself? It was foolish to exaggerate -one's deficiencies. It savored of a morbid self-interest. These inward -contests in which women permitted themselves to indulge, especially -in books, were nothing more than a subtle form of self-flattery. They -were another aspect of the schoolgirl's habit of talking a situation -to death. The female mind could never resist the remnants of a -conversation a whit more easily than it could resist a July sale. - -Mary compelled herself to concentrate upon the task she had taken in -hand, and for a while she was able to keep her thoughts fixed upon -her husband's papers. How neatly he had kept his receipted bills until -January of this year. Here was a thin sheaf for 1910, the record of -the last month he spent walking about before he took to his bed. There -had been plenty of bills all through this year for doctors and nurses -and medicine, and at last for the funeral. But it was she who had kept -them, so they were lying about anyhow. How vexed Jemmie would have been -with her if he had known that she had already mislaid the undertaker's -receipt. - -"I wish you would try to be more business-like." - -She could hear his voice so plainly that she looked round the room, -and noted with a pang of regret that this pallid sunshine was not so -weak but that it lighted up the dust upon his empty pipes. Was it -conceivable that Jemmie was regarding her at this moment from another -sphere? Was there really anything in spiritualism? She had wished to -experiment with it after Richard was killed; but Jemmie had been so -contemptuous of the idea and so profoundly convinced of the fraud it -was, that she had lacked the courage for a real investigation. There -was no Jemmie now to deter her. She must have a talk with Mrs. Hippisle -who so firmly believed in the possibility of communicating with the -dead ... yes, it would make such a difference if one could only be sure. - -1909? Nothing but bills in that file. It would be prudent to keep them. -Not that it was likely one of Jemmie's tradesmen would be dishonest. -He had always patronized the oldest and most respectable firms in -London. Still, there might be a clerical mistake. Better to keep 1909. -1908? She turned the leaves of that file. To one Angora coat ... to -cuffs for same ... to one large bottle of Crinum ... to one large -bottle of Doctor Gunter's Hair Tonic ... to one large bottle ... Jemmie -had never ceased to abuse hair-restorers, but in his sixty-third year -he was still the victim of their audacious promises. - -If she did decide to take up spiritualism, she should not be so -gullible as that. Why, Jemmie had begun to lose his hair before he was -married! 1907, 1906, 1905, 1904. All receipted bills. 1904? A letter in -Geoffrey's handwriting. That was queer. - - Hopkinsville, - Ontario, - _April 4th_. - - _My dear Father_, - - _Thank you very much for the check you sent me. I am hoping very much - that the milk business will turn out as well as I hope. I now owe - you £420. Do you want me to send you a formal I.O.U.? Or will this - acknowledgment by letter be enough?_ - - _Your affectionate son, - Geoffrey._ - -It was strange that Jemmie should never have mentioned that he was -giving Geoffrey money. And stranger still that he should keep his son's -letter with the receipted bills of hatters and hosiers. Perhaps there -were other letters. Mary examined again more carefully the recent -files. Yes, here was another that spoke of receiving money two years -later, written from Winnipeg. And here, why here in 1909 was a letter -from London! - - 45 Almond Terrace, - Wood Green, - _November 15_. - - _My dear Father_, - - _Thank you very much for the £100 which brings up my debt to £930. I - shouldn't have bothered you again, but the expenses of getting back - from Canada and the birth of our little girl have made things rather - difficult. I am going in for the cinematographic business which from - what I can see looks like being the business of the future. I've got - a job as studio manager with a new firm who I hope will prove to have - some staying power. I don't think any good purpose would be served by - my coming to see you. I've kept out of your way for so long now that - it's better to keep out of the family for good. It would be useless - to pretend that Mary doesn't feel a certain amount of resentment, - and now that we have our little girl we get on very happily. Please - do not misunderstand my motive in writing to you like this. If it - was only you I might take a different course. But there is Mother - to be considered. She would feel--quite rightly from her point of - view--that the baby ought to be brought up in different surroundings. - This would only cause bad feeling between her and Mary, which I would - not like. I haven't made such a terrific success of my life, and so - I am perhaps a bit oversensitive. It seems very ungrateful to write - like this after your kindness, but I hope you will understand that - I'm trying to act for the best. I am sorry to hear that you've not - been feeling quite yourself lately. I hope it's nothing more than - the effect of the beastly weather we've been having. I'm glad to be - back in England again. I don't know what made me choose Canada as a - country to settle in._ - - _Your affectionate son, - Geoffrey._ - -Geoffrey had written this only a year ago. Perhaps he was still at the -same address. Mary felt inclined to order the car so that she could -drive immediately to Wood Green, wherever Wood Green was, and find out. -She had risen from the table before she remembered that Muriel had -taken the car for the afternoon. But to-morrow she would go. Nothing -should stop her to-morrow. - -Poor old Jemmie, he must have been pining for his son. He must have had -a vague presentiment of his last illness. And how extraordinary that -he should have said nothing about the birth of Geoffrey's little girl. -To have lain there all these months silent about that great event! It -was strange too that he should not have left any money to Geoffrey. -Perhaps he had known when he left in his will everything to her that -she would find out from his papers about Geoffrey and the little girl, -and had trusted to her to make some provision for them. It might be -that all those years he had been anxious for a reconciliation and that -he had waited for a word from herself to give him an excuse to make the -first move. He would have been too proud of his own accord to propose -the reconciliation; but if he could have salved his pride by pretending -that he was receiving Geoffrey back into the family on her account, -there was no doubt that he would have done so. Oh, it was clearly her -duty to go to-morrow and find out if Geoffrey was still in Wood Green. -It was her duty to the dead man and to her own self. Few might be the -gray hairs of her head, but heavy had been the frost upon her heart -all these years of middle-age. The more she thought about it, the more -remarkable appeared Jemmie's secretiveness. What could have been at the -back of his mind? To be sure, when first Geoffrey married, it was she -who had been of all the bitterest against him. But there had been some -justification then. She had not stayed implacable. Yet she had never -suggested a reconciliation, which it was her place to do. Jemmie might -be pardoned for supposing that she did not want one. But what a pity! -He would have died more happily if he had been friends at the last with -the only son left to him. How much she hoped that he could be looking -down from that mysterious hinterland of death, and that he might behold -her setting out to-morrow on her mission of good-will. - -How far had she got with the papers? Oh yes, 1904. 1903? Nothing from -Geoffrey in 1903. Nothing from him in 1902 either. She wished that -Jemmie had kept his first letters from Canada, for there must have -been earlier letters. Those first hundreds of pounds must have been -begged for with tales of misfortune in Canada. Or had Geoffrey written -casually in the beginning as he used to write to her from Oxford for a -hundred pounds? Perhaps that was the reason why his father had always -spoken bitterly of him in those first years of the marriage. 1901. -Mary turned pale. Here was the bill for Richard's uniform. _Received -with compliments and thanks_ ... the money that equipped her boy to be -killed. The paper with its royal warrants was as fresh as the day on -which it was printed. But Richard! Her Richard! What was Richard now? -And here in the file for 1900 was the bill for Richard's uniform as -a cadet at Sandhurst. All these years going backward from this date -held something of Richard. 1899? White waistcoats for Richard when he -got into Pop at Eton. How delighted he had been! 1898? 1897? 1896? -Tophats for Richard every year. 1895? The right kind of Eton jacket, -"because a chap at my private school told me to be jolly careful about -that, mother." And Jemmie had remembered from his own Eton days how -important it was to be jolly careful about that. 1894? School fees. -1893? Richard's straw hat with the second eleven ribbon of his private -school. That hot summer of 1893 when they had moved in to High Corner -for the holidays. 1892? School fees, and the bill for a bicycle in -which Jemmie had invested to reduce his growing stoutness. That bicycle -with cushion tires of which Jemmie had been so proud, but which almost -immediately became old-fashioned by the invention of pneumatic tires. -How Richard and Geoffrey had scorned his offer of it to them! They -would not be seen dead on such an out-of-date old boneshaker; and -two years later Richard had been given £7 10s. to buy from a friend -at school a second-hand one with huge pneumatic tires. His first big -present. It had made both him and his mother feel so very old. - -1891? The doctor's bill when Richard had diphtheria. That was the year -when she might have changed the whole course of her life. Ought she -to have confessed the impulse of that May evening to Jemmie before he -died? From the file of bills dropped a lilac-hued and even after twenty -years still faintly lilac-scented scrap of notepaper. - - Frivolity Theater, - _May? Wednesday_. - - _Darling old Podge_, - - _I can get away to-night, so you must come. Thanks everso for the - duck of a ring. My eye, won't it dazzle some of the mashers in the - front row when we open next week. Lots of love._ - - _From - Maudie._ - -1891? May, 1891? It could not be just a coincidence that this old -letter was in the file of 1891. That must have been the year when -Jemmie received it. And the month was May. That was the time when -Jemmie was so frequently having to be away for the night on business. -But why should he have filed only this note? It surely had no more -sentimental value than many others he must have received from this -Maudie. It must have been put away with his papers by accident. Perhaps -this was the very note that kept him from coming home to dinner that -night when Pierre came and when Richard fell ill. - -"If I had known of the existence of this Maudie, would anything have -kept me from going away that night?" Mary asked herself. - -The sere chrysanthemums were lost in the wan radiance of the November -sunlight: the sodden lawn and greasy London trees vanished: the -outlines of other houses no longer affronted the vision. Mighty palms -cooled the fervid air with their green and glittering fans: their -trunks were wreathed with odorous trumpet-flowers to steal whose honey -came fluttering a myriad humming-birds with breasts of emerald and -lapis-lazuli, and rubied wings, and tails of fire. - -"My boys have cut a path before us through the forest. Let us ride -through, my love, to the sea." - -Perfume on perfume, color on color, with the forest stretching behind -them and before them. - -"You are tired, my love. Dismount. Here is a filanjàna in which you may -travel through the forest to the sea." - -A filanjàna, a filanjàna. Thus had Pierre named the palanquin in which -he promised that she should travel with him in Madagascar. A filanjàna! -A filanjàna! Swaying lightly in a filanjàna, she traveled on through -the forest to the sea. Sun-birds and parroquets and purple kingfishers -flew down the forest glade on either side of the gently swaying -filanjàna; and so at last they came to the sea ... the sea ... to the -nipped and withered chrysanthemums and the slimy city trees. - -"If I had known that Richard would be killed ten years later, and that -Geoffrey would run off with a barmaid, would I have gone away that -night?" - -"No." - -"Why not?" - -"Because I should have known that one day I should be fifty." - -"Am I really fifty?" - -"Yes. I am fifty, fifty, fifty. How strange that I should have -remembered that word filanjàna. It had been hidden away all these years -in a secret room of memory like a bit of jewelry that one buys on a -voyage." - -"Yes, but if I'm fifty, Maudie can't be much less. What happened then -to her and what happened then to me matters nothing, to either of us." - -"Poor Maudie!" - -She could not have had any illusions about Jemmie, or she would never -have called him Podge. It was not a name that could share a grand -passion. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Still, Podge -and Juliet. No, whatever Juliet might think about roses and Montagues, -she would never have called Romeo Podge. - -"But I need not reproach myself with not having told him about Pierre." - -How long had Maudie lasted? Probably until Jemmie took up golf, and -that was soon after they bought High Corner in 1893. He must have -forgotten all about her, or he surely could not have been so indignant -with Geoffrey when he was first told about the girl at the White Hart. -Yet if Jemmie did involve himself in a romance, it was her own fault. -She had never encouraged him to be romantic with her. When they were -first married she had let him think that any kind of affectionate -demonstrativeness was distasteful to her. It had been. She had known -nothing of life. Muriel was different. Somehow girls nowadays seemed -able to find out much more. One could not imagine Muriel's marrying -anybody, because her mother advised it. But it was time for Muriel -to think about marriage. She was twenty-five. The modern girl was -inclined to cherish her independence too long and too dearly. Next -season it would be well to make a point of inviting suitable young men -to the house. Perhaps, with the strain of Jemmie's illness, she had -allowed Muriel's interests to be neglected. And Muriel herself was -discouraging. She had always been remote even at school; but Newnham -had made her more than remote. She was now as unapproachable as the -inhabitant of a star. Jemmie, dead though he was, seemed nearer to -her than Muriel. It was not surprising that she was still unmarried. -Young men must stand in awe of her. Those calm cold eyes lacked any -expression that might lead even the most self-confident young man to -suppose that she could be thought of in connection with marriage. No -doubt, as she grew older, she would acquire the warmth of humanity; but -at present she was a statue. And then there was her Socialism. That was -a very unattractive side of Muriel. That continuous drip of ice-cold -water upon all existing laws and institutions, upon all creeds and -sentiments and political opinions, could not but be alarming to the -average young man. Why should she be so hostile to established beliefs? -It was not as if she had too much church-going forced upon her when -she was small. She had had to go to church once every Sunday; but -the rest of the day, at any rate when she was at home, had been hers -without Puritanical restrictions to sicken her of religion for the rest -of her life. Yet the contempt with which she spoke of Christians was -quite unpleasant to hear. Moreover, she had a habit of attributing the -worst motives to many dull but essentially worthy people, a trick of -assuming that they did not in their hearts believe what they professed. -According to Muriel the world consisted of idiots and hypocrites, an -opinion which was not calculated to make young men fall in love with -her. Nowadays, girls were really as great a problem as boys. No wonder -people were beginning to have fewer children. - -1890 ... 1889 ... 1888 ... these early bills could all be burnt. Ah, -there was Markham setting to work at last to clear the borders of the -chrysanthemums. - -Mary did not change her mind about her visit to Wood Green; nor did -she allow herself to be deterred by Muriel's indignation at not being -able to have the car in order to drive round the sights of London the -Northern delegates to a conference that was being held in town. - -"It's very inconvenient, Mother," she protested. - -"I daresay it is, dear. But it would be still more inconvenient for me -not to have the car this afternoon." - -"You see I'd promised the committee...." - -"I'm sorry, Muriel dear, but I am unable to let you have the car this -afternoon. And your committee cannot complain. They are doing their -best to make it impossible for people to keep cars. So really while -they allow us to keep them, we had better make the most of them. You'll -have to take your party from Sheffield in an omnibus. You can really -see more of London from the top of an omnibus." - -"The point is that it makes me look somewhat ridiculous," said Muriel. - -"No more ridiculous than you would look tearing about London with these -gentlemen in your mother's car." - -Driving along to Wood Green, Mary wondered why they allowed trams on -these crowded roads. They made it most dangerous for a car to drive -fast; now that she was on her way to heal a breach that had endured ten -years, every minute gained seemed of the utmost importance. It would -be terrible to find that Geoffrey had left Almond Terrace a month ago -for some unknown destination. He must have read in the _Morning Post_ -or in _The Times_ the announcement of his father's death, and if he was -still in London it was strange that he had not attended the funeral. A -quarrel should not be allowed to endure after death. Of course, there -was a chance that Geoffrey had missed the announcement and that he -was actually unaware of his father's death. London was so huge. One -realized how large it was when one drove along roads like this, past -clanging trams full of people, past side-street after side-street, each -of them leading to other side-streets which led to others full of human -beings who all lived in London just as one lived in London oneself. If -Geoffrey had left Almond Terrace, she should never find him; and she -might die without his knowing that she was dead, without his knowing -that she had sought him out for a reconciliation. - -"Does Mr. Geoffrey Alison live here?" - -"Ye-es," grudgingly admitted what was evidently a landlady of the -common vulturine type, beneath whose outspread apron lurked a -fledgling. "Ye-es," she repeated. "Was you wanting to see him about -anything?" - -"Please." - -"Well, he's out," said the landlady with a triumphant sniff. "And not -likely to be back till late, what's more. Yes, he was out soon after -ten this morning. Soon after ten--well, it was about five after as -near as a touch--soon after ten, he was out. I suppose you're from the -Pictures where he works? Any message, of course, as you care to leave -with me I'll see he 'as it, and no one can't do more than that." - -"But I wanted to see him myself," said Mary, pausing undecided upon the -steps of the little two-storied house. - -"Ah, there you are," the landlady rejoined. "Well, I can't do no more -than what I've said. Leave off, do, Eric," she exclaimed, slapping her -son's hand for some misdeed committed upon the apron that sheltered -him from observation. "One don't know which way to turn with children -sometimes, and that's a fact." - -"Perhaps I could see ... Mrs. Alison?" Mary suggested. - -Little did the landlady know how much it cost her to make that simple -inquiry. - -"Mrs. Alison?" the woman echoed with a return of that first suspicion -in her manner. "Well, I'm sure I don't know what to say. Eric! If you -don't give over picking at my boot-buttons, my lad, I'll give you -something to remember with next time. Stand up, you naughty boy. Who -should I say wants to see Mrs. Alison?" - -"I'm Mr. Alison's mother." - -This announcement was altogether too much for the landlady, who without -another word grabbed Eric by the hand and led the way upstairs to the -lodgers' sitting-room. - -"Here's Mr. Alison's mother to see you, Mrs. Alison," she exclaimed in -the doorway, after which thunderclap she returned to her own intimate -glooms at the back of the house, admonishing Eric to ush if he didn't -want to get such a slapping as would properly ush him for a week. - -As Mary entered, the woman who had ruined her son's life rose from an -arm-chair by the fire and putting a finger to her lips pointed to a cot. - -"Molly's asleep," she exclaimed. - -"My granddaughter," said Mary. - -"My little gurl," replied the other with a burr that in these sharp-set -London lodgings sounded strange. There was nothing about her except the -accent to proclaim that she was rural. Mary remembered that Geoffrey -had said she was three years older than himself. That would make -her about thirty-two. She looked nearer forty with her thin-lipped -anxious mouth, her fretful eyes, and needle-like fingers. It was hard -to perceive now what beauty had charmed Geoffrey into marrying her. -However, she did not appear blatant, which was something to be thankful -for. - -The two women had been watching each other in silence, when the -child in the cot gave a low restless cry. At once they both made an -instinctive movement to see what was the matter; but the mother was the -quicker to bend over and murmur a few soothing words. - -"Her teeth are fidgeting her," she explained. "She's been late in -cutting them." In that instant she seemed to think that by saying so -much she was offering her visitor more than she had intended to offer, -and she drew close her eyebrows in a scowl. - -"Not that my little gurl's teeth can interest you," she added -scornfully. - -"On the contrary," said Mary. "They interest me enormously. I did not -know until yesterday that I was a grandmother. As soon as I knew, I -came to see my granddaughter." - -"But you knew that you were a mother ten years ago. You weren't in any -hurry to come then except to try and keep Geoff from marrying me. That -was all your worry then." - -"You must think of the situation from our point of view. Geoffrey was -not even of age. It was our duty to protest against his committing -himself to a marriage before he knew his own mind. But isn't it rather -a mistake to argue about the past now? I am anxious to forget the past." - -"Some people can forget very easily," said the younger woman, "others -can't." - -"You may not know that Geoffrey's father is dead." - -"Geoffrey does know, so there. And he wanted to go to the funeral, but -I said, 'No, you don't want them to think that as soon as your father -died you was looking around for what you might pick up. You let well -alone,' I said, and Geoff he took my advice. 'Your father's been dead -to you,' I said, 'this many a year. There's no call for you,' I said, -'to attend his funeral all on your own. I'm not going to wear black for -him,' I said. 'And I'm not going to his funeral, not if you was to ask -me on your bended knees.'" - -"Whatever you think about me," said Mary, "you've no right to speak -like that about my husband. Why, I've just found out that all these -years he has been helping Geoffrey with money whenever he asked for it." - -"He wouldn't ever have been asked for it, if I'd had my way. I'd sooner -have starved in the gutter, _I_ would. But Geoff's got no pride, Geoff -hasn't." - -"You should be the best judge of that," said Mary. She regretted the -sneer as soon as she had uttered it, not because she minded hurting -the feeling of her son's wife, but because it might jeopardize the -object she had in view, which was nothing less than to be awarded -the guardianship of her granddaughter. An immense jealousy had been -roused in her by the sight of the sleeping child, and she was thinking -how well she should know with all her experience the way to bring -her up. It was imprudent to say anything that might increase her -daughter-in-law's hostility. In order to obtain what she desired Mary -compelled herself to think of this woman as her daughter-in-law. - -"It's no use for you to be sarcastic with me," said Geoffrey's wife. -"Geoff's tried being sarcastic once or twice. But he always got the -worst of it. Always." - -Mary had a vision of Geoffrey's existence during these ten years. She -was filled with a profound pity for him, picturing him forever in -rooms like these, the prey of his wife's tongue, the victim of her -determination to drag him down to her level. It never struck her that -the child in the cot whom she was so eager to take for herself was -probably the only thing that made his life endurable. - -"I'm sure it's a mistake to be sarcastic," Mary admitted. "I'm sorry, -Mary. You know I find it quite difficult to call you Mary, because -it's my own name. I really came this afternoon to try to effect a -reconciliation. I'm anxious to be friends. It's useless to live in -the past. We should all be miserable if we did that, for we all of us -make mistakes. It struck me that it might be difficult for you and -Geoffrey suddenly to re-enter the family circle--a very small circle -nowadays. Only myself and Muriel. So, I didn't suggest that you and -he should come and live at Woodworth Lodge or anything like that. But -what I thought was that perhaps you might be glad to let me assume the -responsibility for that little girl in the cot. If she was allowed to -live with me, you would of course be coming to see her often, and then -gradually we should get to know one another, and this gulf between us -might be bridged." - -"Never!" cried the mother. "I wouldn't let you have my Molly for -nothing. Not if she was going to die the next minute. I'd sooner for -her to die than have her go to you. I suppose you think I'm not fit -to look after my own little gurl? Well, you've made a mistake, let me -tell you. I'm as fit to look after her as what you are. She's mine. -She's not yours. She never shall be yours, not while I'm alive anyway. -I suppose you think I ought to be so proud because I've married a -gentleman that I ought to sit still for the rest of my life with my -hands crossed on my lap and do nothing. Only be proud. But I didn't -marry Geoff because he was a gentleman. I married him because I loved -him. I suppose you think a woman like me can't love? I suppose you -think it's only ladies who can love? But that's just where you're -wrong. I've loved him so much that I've been angry with myself for -being so soft and carried on at him something cruel. You wouldn't have -done that, would you? But I've nagged at him until he's been fit to -jump into the lake, which is near where we were living at Hopkinsville. -Only it isn't like a lake. More like a sea really. I suppose you -think that I wouldn't dare to be jealous, just because I'd married a -gentleman? I suppose you think I ought to have let him do just what he -wanted? Not me. Why, he couldn't be half an hour late without I was -ready to tear his eyes out to know where he'd been and what he'd been -doing. I reckon sometimes he wished he'd never set eyes on me. But I -loved him all the time. You needn't make no mistake about that. I've -wished sometimes he'd beat me, but he never raised his hand to me. Not -once. Though I've nagged him enough to make any man hit me, even though -he might have been a gentleman. And then last year, when I'd given up -all hopes of such things, my little Molly came along, and since she -came I've been better with Geoff. I seemed to feel he belonged to me -at last, because the kid's half him and half me, as I figure it out. -And now you come along and want to carry off my Molly. Never. That's -my last word. Never! Perhaps if you'd come along before my little girl -arrived and wanted to carry off Geoff, I might have let him go. I was -fond enough of him to do that, I believe. Once I'd thought it was -really for his good. But now him and me has never been such friends, -just because we've got the baby. Our baby. His and mine. Not yours, and -she never will be." - -The child whose future was at stake was disturbed by the clamor of her -mother's voice and woke up shrieking. - -Mary waited a moment or two in embarrassment, uncertain how to get -herself out of the room. In the end she went away in silence. - -When she reached home, she sat down and wrote to her daughter-in-law: - - Woodworth Lodge, - Campden Hill, W., - _November 9, 1910_. - - _Dear Mary_, - - _I am afraid that you misunderstood the spirit in which I paid you - my visit to-day. I feel that you may have imagined that my proposal - for you to let me assume the responsibility for Molly's future meant - that the little girl would be taken away from you. What I intended - was that she should be the means of bringing us all together again. - Perhaps in a little time you will be able to look at the situation - with less bitterness. I do so hope that you will. Please accept this - check as a belated wedding present and_ - - _Believe me to be, - Yours affectionately, - Mary Alison._ - -To which she received the following answer from her daughter-in-law: - - _Dear Mrs. Alison_, - - _Thank you for the check which I would rather not accept if you don't - mind. I'm sorry I was rude when you came to see me, but I should only - be rude again, and so it's better for you not to come._ - - _Yours sincerely, - Mary Alison._ - -And from her son: - - _My dear Mother_, - - _I'm afraid you will think us ungracious in the way we've received - your kindness. I'm afraid that Mary allowed herself to give vent to a - good deal of the resentment she has had ten years to accumulate._ - - _I feel I ought to have written to you about poor Father's death, - but for various reasons I was naturally a little shy of intruding - myself at such a moment, which I'm sure you will understand. I expect - you know that from time to time Father very kindly helped me with - loans. I should like to be in a position to repay these, but that is - impossible. However, I seem to be fairly well fixed up now in a job, - and I would rather not incur any more obligations. It is better, I - feel, that Mary and I should continue to lead a life apart from the - rest of the family. Please do not think that I am giving way to a - false pride in taking up this attitude. I do feel that I owe a duty - to Mary as the mother of our little girl. I wish I was a better hand - at explaining myself. But she would never fit into the sort of life - she would have to lead if she were to be "adopted" now. You may say - that she never would have fitted in. I do not wish to give the idea - that I am reproaching you for the past, but I do believe that if that - day you came to the hotel where we were staying you had welcomed her - as a daughter you would have found her responsive. She has become - hard during these ten years, because, poor little girl, she felt that - she had spoilt things for me. She was becoming really quite difficult - to manage in her moods until Molly was born. But now, thank God, we - are quite happy together, and so long as I can keep my job I believe - that we shall go on being happy. I very much fear, however, that if - she felt that she was not considered good enough to bring up her baby - she would sink back into her former state of resentment, and the - peace which we now enjoy would be destroyed._ - - _So please forgive me, dear Mother, for the way we have received your - kind visit. I do often think about you and wish that things had gone - differently. I want you to believe that it is very difficult for me - not to come and see you. But I know that if I did I should be weak - and try to persuade Mary to do what you want. And then there would - be difficulties, and I am so tired of squabbles. I feel wretched at - writing to you like this, but I've braced myself up to do it, and - it's done._ - - _Your loving son, - Geoffrey._ - -Geoffrey's letter did not have the effect upon his mother of a rebuff. -At any rate she had no emotion of mortification or wounded self-esteem -when she read it. She felt as if she had tried to bridge the chasm -between the living and the dead and failed. Geoffrey had passed out -of her life as irrevocably as Richard. She shivered for a moment in -the chill of age and wondered how she should occupy herself for the -remainder of her life. So long as Jemmie had been alive she had always -had somebody who wanted her solicitude, but now that Jemmie was dead -nobody seemed to want her. Yes, she ought to have behaved differently -ten years ago. She ought not to have let the loss of Richard embitter -her like that. It was her own fault that Geoffrey and his wife wanted -to live their life apart from her. She could leave money to her -grandchild. That was something. It was thoughtful of Jemmie not to -attempt to say what was to be done with his money. Her own, of which -he had always had complete control, naturally remained her own. It -was to be hoped that Muriel would soon be cured of this Socialistic -craze. She did not want to have her money spent upon furthering the -schemes of faddists. Jemmie would have hated that. Jemmie was always -so normal and sensible. If he did have that temporary infatuation, it -was her own fault. Twenty years ago she had neglected him, and he had -sought consolation elsewhere. Ten years ago she had neglected Geoffrey, -and he too had found consolation elsewhere. Before it was too late she -must make an effort to understand and sympathize with Muriel. She had -perhaps been too ready to believe that the shyness and awkwardness of -Muriel's youth sprang from a natural lack of affection. Not that Muriel -was so very young nowadays; but the rift had begun when she was still a -schoolgirl, and all rifts tended to widen with time. - -"Dear child, I wish you'd tell me something about the various movements -in which you're interested. I daresay I've been stupidly conservative -in my attitude. You know, everything has changed very much during the -last ten years. You'll have to be patient with people like me who were -brought up to think that Queen Victoria always had been reigning and -always would be reigning." - -Muriel stared at her mother from those candid blue eyes of hers. - -"It's rather difficult to explain suddenly in a few words the -culmination of centuries of human thought," she said. - -Mary laughed. - -"You mustn't snub me like that, Muriel, unless you want me to remain -hidebound by my own prejudices and conventions." - -"But, Mother, it isn't really worth while for you to believe in what I -believe. You must be young to believe it. You must believe that before -you die you'll see your dreams brought to pass." - -"Am I so old then?" - -"You haven't forty years of activity before you. I'm not being very -discouraging when I say that." - -"Have you forty years before you, dear child?" - -"I hope so." - -"1950," her mother mused. "So you think that, when you're fifteen -years older than I, you'll see the millennium? It sounds a long way -off--1950. But, Muriel, you've no idea how near it really is and how -little people will have changed." - -"You said just now how much they had changed in the last ten years." - -"I think that in these ten years they have accomplished what ordinarily -would have begun long before and taken longer. You can't expect to have -another reign like Queen Victoria's." - -"No, thank goodness," said Muriel fervidly. - -"England wouldn't be England without that reign." - -"The question is, 'Is England our England?'" Muriel countered. "I -should say that England belongs to a few rich people and that the -reason why it does was the worship of money during the Victorian Age." - -"I don't think that people worshiped money then more than they did at -any other period of the world's history. People will always worship -money, because people worship themselves, and they think that money -gives them the opportunity to express that worship." - -"It's disgusting," Muriel ejaculated. - -"Yes, but have you ever thought how easy it is to be disgusted by -anything to do with money when one has plenty oneself? I feel that the -best that can be said for your Socialist state is that if nobody could -have more than a certain amount and everybody had that amount it might -end in people's despising money." - -"Oh, my dear mother," Muriel burst in impatiently, "must you really -trot out the old legend that Socialism means equal money for all? It -doesn't really mean anything of the kind." - -In a moment Muriel was embarked upon a passionate disquisition about -the real aims of Socialism; and Mary felt with a thrill of pleasure -that she had lured her daughter into revealing some of herself without -being aware that she was doing so and in the knowledge becoming -self-conscious and reserved. - -After their talk, in which Muriel admitted that her mother displayed -an unusual ability to understand her point of view, there seemed -the likelihood of a friendship springing up between the mother and -daughter. Mary talked to her about Geoffrey, and it was agreed between -them that Muriel should pay a visit to Wood Green. - -"For perhaps with tact Geoffrey's wife may grow less suspicious of my -advances. I was too precipitate when I visited them in November. I was -so much distressed by the rooms and so much upset to think about my -own behavior's being the cause of it all, that I foolishly suggested -bringing the little girl to live with us here. But if you were to go, -dear child, you would manage better than I can to reassure his wife." - -A week or two later Muriel set out to pay her first visit; but when she -reached 45 Almond Terrace the vulturine landlady told her that Mr. and -Mrs. Alison had gone away without an address. - -"There's nothing to be done now," Mary lamented. "I left it until it -was too late." - -"You did all you could, mother." - -"_Now_ when it's too late. By the way, dear, I want to give a few very -quiet dinner-parties during May. You won't find them too much of a -bore?" - -"Not if you want to have dinner-parties, mother." - -"Well, to be frank, I've been telling myself for some time that you -ought to be thinking about getting married. You'll be twenty-six soon, -you know, dear, and I _should_ like to see you happily settled." - -Muriel's face hardened to that old expression her mother knew and -dreaded from her schooldays. - -"Mother, I don't intend to get married. The idea is repugnant to me." - -"But, Muriel dear, you'll forgive me for saying that you cannot -possibly know unless you're married if marriage is repugnant. I can -assure you that it's impossible to say anything about it beforehand. -Now I was brought up in complete ignorance of facts that I know you -consider the merest commonplace of knowledge. I did have a few qualms, -I admit; but in my case those qualms were due to ignorance." - -Muriel thereupon sprang her mine. - -"I hadn't intended to say anything about what I'm going to tell -you until next autumn; but it doesn't seem fair to let you give -dinner-parties under the delusion that you're likely to make a good -match for me by doing so. Mother dear, I've decided to become a -sister-of-mercy, and so marriage is utterly remote from my thoughts." - -Mary stared at her daughter in amazement. - -"Muriel! You extraordinary girl! I thought you hated Christianity. -I thought you abominated clergymen. Why, I thought you were only -interested in Socialism. I'd no conception that you were giving your -mind to religion. The two things seem poles asunder." - -"Do they, mother dear?" said Muriel with a smile. "But now I can't -imagine any socialism worth having unless it is based upon religion. -Equally I can't imagine any religion that isn't the inspiration of a -true socialism. I've been thinking about this for a long time now--ever -since I went to Midnight Mass last Christmas Eve. It reached me like an -inspiration. The truth of it, I mean. My mind is absolutely made up." - -Mary had never been so completely astonished in her life. She herself -during these last months had wished once or twice that she had thought -more about religion, so that now in her loneliness she might have -possessed what was evidently to many women an absolute consolation for -everything. But it was too late to begin, she had decided. And now here -was Muriel wrapped up in religion apparently and taking it so seriously -that she intended to become a sister-of-mercy. - -"But how could you become religious just by going to a service at an -unusual time?" the mother asked. - -"I haven't become religious now," Muriel pointed out. "I hate religious -people. Though that's a silly thing to say, because I am very -'religious' in a different sense. I tell you, I suddenly believed that -Christianity was true; as soon as I believed that I wanted to devote -myself to the service of Christianity. I thought that the life of a -sister-of-mercy was the life for a Christian woman. I realized that all -my theories about human nature were worth nothing without Divine grace -to achieve them." - -Mary had a flash of illumination. - -"Then it was from religious motives that you suddenly became so much -quieter and sweeter. I was congratulating myself on effecting that -change. Dear child, I wish that I could be given an assurance like -yours." - -"I always pray that you may receive it." - -"Thank you, dear child. That is very kind and thoughtful of you. Of -course, I can't argue with you about your resolve. I have really no -right to argue on such a subject. I only hope that you will find as -much happiness in the life you have chosen for yourself as you might -have found in marriage. Which I'm sure you would have found," her -mother added. - -In the autumn Muriel entered the Community she had chosen, and the -widow was left alone in the big house on Campden Hill. - - - - -_Chapter Seven_ - -THE GRANDMOTHER - - - - -_Chapter Seven: The Grandmother_ - - -Mary's visitors had left early that December afternoon, and when -François came in to turn on the light and draw the curtains, she told -him that she would ring for him presently, because she had a slight -headache and preferred to sit for a while quietly _dans la crépuscule_. -The butler, who had a grave, ecclesiastical dignity, bowed and left -Madame to her choice. In the door he turned for a moment and in a tone -which deprecated anything that might savor of officiousness in the -suggestion begged leave to ask if Madame would like her maid summoned. -She shook her head, and he withdrew with another bow that sought -to express his perfect comprehension of Madame's desire to be left -entirely alone. - -Paris was unusually still this afternoon, so still that one seemed to -hear the twilight falling upon the world in blue waves of silence. -Usually at this hour the _salon_ was crowded with voluble women -drinking tea or with men sipping port wine and nibbling ratafias. It -was lucky that this afternoon when she had a headache they should all -have gone so early. What was the time? Only a little after four. She -ought to have told François that she would not be at home to anybody -else who called. She made a movement to ring the bell; but even -so slight an action was seeming a bore, and she sank back again in -the arm-chair, telling herself that François, most accomplished of -servants, would know instinctively that she desired to receive no more -this afternoon. She hoped that the headache would vanish before dinner, -because it was so difficult to have a satisfactory _séance_ unless one -was feeling in just the right mood to concentrate. Madame de Sarlovèze -had been so emphatic about the abilities of the new crystal-gazer who -with remarkable predictions of her clients' futures and even more -remarkable knowledge of her clients' pasts had deeply impressed all -Paris this autumn. The success of a personality like this Sicilian -fortune-teller helped one to realize that the war was over. Not that -fortune-tellers had not flourished during the war. Indeed, they could -never have been so prosperous; but it was like old times to hear one's -friends talking about the latest crystal-gazer, the latest dancer, the -latest tenor, the latest nerve-doctor as if until one had fallen in -with the fashion and succumbed to their performances one was hopelessly -_démodée_. - -From some shadowy corner of the inner _salon_ a Siamese cat advanced -with outwardly an air of the most supercilious indifference, which was -contradicted by miaows of greeting that were to the miaows of ordinary -cats as a violoncello to a violin. - -"Pierrette!" Mary exclaimed gladly. - -The small cat flirted her kinked tail in response, but lest she might -seem to have displayed too much dependence upon a poor human being at -once sat down and began to clean a slim chocolate paw. - -"Pierrette! Aren't you coming to talk to me?" - -The answering miaow was almost too deep for a violoncello's capacity. -Indeed to call it a miaow was an insult to the jungle noise it was. - -"The people have gone, Pierrette. Do come and talk to me. I'll give you -all my attention." - -Pierrette looked steadily at her friend from large round eyes, the -pupils of which distended by the approach of night glowed in the -firelight. Presently she drew near to Mary's chair, upon the brocade of -which she defiantly sharpened her claws before jumping up with a trill -on the black silk lap to which she had been invited. Here she settled -down couchant to regard the fire. - -"Dear little cat," Mary murmured. - -Pierrette's ears twitched back to take in the endearment; the faintest -quiver of her tail showed that she had heard, understood, and agreed -with the description of herself. - -"I was saying to myself that it was getting quite like old times in -Paris." - -The cat began to purr in approbation of European peace. - -Mary stroked Pierrette's back, which was the color of _café-au-lait_, -soft and glossy as chiffon velvet. Contact with the small and shapely -creature upon her knee was soothing. The grace and youth and vitality -of the cat were so superabundant that the human being whom she had -decided to favor by making use of was refreshed. It was impossible -to feel old with this pulsating life so near to one. Mary patted her -affectionately. - -"Darling little cat!" - -Pierrette's tail really wagged in response to such genuine admiration -and love, and because her tail could not express quite all her -appreciation she dug her claws into Mary's knee and pressed her warm -body closer than before, purring now with a steady monotony of pleasure. - -The dusk had deepened, and Mary's head drooped in meditation upon -those old times. Had the move to Paris been a success? Or was not her -enjoyment of life here an illusion caused by the stimulus of the war? -Had her activity, her ceaseless activity during these last six years, -in which her hair had grown white, been genuine or artificial? She -had seen so many women pretending--not wilfully, but mesmerized into -supposing that they really desired to be useful--yes, so many women -pretending an activity that was only another aspect of a woman's lust -for what was the fashion. Had her Red Cross work been anything more -than that? Yet, after all, did the motive matter if the action was -good and useful? Questions these that were unanswerable, questions -that would never be asked if she were not suffering from the reaction. -Thanks to the war her move to Paris had been a success, a great -success. She might have found it hard otherwise to have passed these -last years. When in 1913, bored with the big empty house, she decided -to give up Woodworth Lodge, her imagination had seized upon Paris as -the place to live, because she was already beginning to exist only in -the past. That meant old age. Youth lives in the future; middle-age -stagnates in the present; old age lives again, but alas, in the past, -lives with only the ghost of its former life, always in the past. Her -first year in Paris had been occupied in furnishing the house and -preparing it to be a suitable place in which she might for the rest of -her time here sit by the fire and dream of the past. Then the war had -happened, and for a few years she had felt so much younger, but now, -when it was finished, so much older than the years spent by the war -justified her in feeling. She had made many friends. Indeed, she had -never possessed so many as now. But these friendships formed late in -life had little value. Friendship needed the future. There must exist -in any friendship worth having a kind of physical exultation. She was -fonder of this little cat than of all her Paris friends, much fonder. -Pierrette was young. Youth! Youth! It was not that she longed to be -young again herself. That would be foolish and indeed an undignified -repining; but to be surrounded by youth, that was surely a legitimate -desire. - -"And it's that of which fate has robbed me," she sighed aloud. - -Pierrette wagged her tail. The sound of her friend's voice was so -pleasant to hear, and the silken knee was so delicate a resting-place -for a royal cat. This soft-spoken human being deserved a little -attention. Her hands were tactful. Not like Célestine's hands. -Célestine was the maid who had taken the place of Adèle, dead before -her mistress returned to Paris, a move which would have given Adèle so -much pleasure. Pierrette did not care for Célestine, who was always -lifting her off delightful nests of lace and silk. Célestine, in -Pierrette's opinion, had the hands of a butcher rather than of a lady's -maid. The thought of Célestine gave her a _fisson_, and she yawned in -disgust. - -Mary held Pierrette so that the cat's equilibrium should not be -disturbed while she leaned over to ring the bell. It was morbid to -sit here in the twilight thinking about youth. But when François had -arranged to his satisfaction the folds of the brocaded curtains and -when he had turned on the lights and left the room in a radiancy of -rose, Mary could not think about what she called practical things, -which meant the _séance_ she had arranged for to-night. Her headache -was gone; but the shadows of the past which had crept out of their -lurking-places in the twilight were still in the _salon_, not visible -indeed, but all the more hauntingly insistent because they were not -visible. The room seemed vaster and lonelier now that every corner of -it was illuminated. Mary felt infinitely small and utterly deserted. -It was only the company of the small cat which kept her from getting -up and hurrying away in panic. "_Le demon du midi_," she found herself -repeating. What specter begotten of gloom and shadow could outlive -the horror that existed in a desert of light? Her nerves were upset. -Perhaps she was indulging too frequently in these spiritualistic -experiments. But what else was there to do? If she were to renounce all -activity, she would just sit shriveling slowly before the fire. After -all, sixty was not such a great age. One would have to be at least -seventy before one really considered oneself old. And probably even at -seventy one would find that seventy was by no means the great age it -had formerly seemed. Even eighty? Grandmamma had been eighty when she -died. She had looked very old; but had she really felt old? Did anybody -ever really feel old? What seemed so bad about the arrangement of human -life was the amount of time wasted at the beginning and the end. The -first ten years, for example, what were they worth? Mary was watering -her nasturtiums in that abandoned room of the warehouse in Paternoster -Row. "Old stock!" She could hear the very tones of Mr. Fawcus' voice. -And the sunlight on the golden cross of St. Paul's. It flashed upon her -inner eye more vividly than all the sunlight of the last twenty years -put together. A sudden pity seized her for the two old people who had -fostered her and from whom she had been so abruptly snatched. She saw -Mr. Fawcus with his big bandana handkerchief wiping away the tears -and waving his farewell from Dover Quay. How little she had understood -what it cost them to lose her! How gayly she had set out for Paris! -She ought when she was older to have visited them. It was wrong of her -grandmother to forbid all intercourse. Suppose she should be given the -guardianship of Geoffrey's little daughter, should she try to keep her -away from her mother? Mary tried to think that she would not, although -it was hard to be charitable about Geoffrey's wife. When he was killed -early in 1915, it surely ought not to have been impossible for his -wife to forgive. She had written to her so anxiously. Perhaps it had -been a mistake to inclose another check. A woman like that might have -supposed that she was trying to buy her. Still, to send back the check -torn in half, that surely was not justifiable after so many years. -She had not suggested that the little girl should be handed over to -herself entirely. She had only asked for a few months every year. Would -Geoffrey really have wished that his mother should be debarred from -helping her granddaughter? Had it really been Geoffrey replying the -other evening through the medium of _la planchette_? _Mary must go to -her grandmother._ Nobody except herself knew anything about Geoffrey's -little girl, and she herself had certainly not guided the pencil. -It was all very well for skeptics to say that one guided the pencil -unconsciously. Anything could be explained by auto-suggestion; but it -was not reasonable to explain the inexplicable by something every bit -as inexplicable. If it was auto-suggestion, why had she never succeeded -in getting a communication from Richard's spirit. If ever anybody -desired with all her heart and soul to speak with one dead, she desired -to speak with Richard. Yet he was silent. With all the will she had to -believe that he would come to her out of that immense world of death, -she had never received any message that could possibly be ascribed to -him. How hard she had often tried to twist those unintelligible scrawls -into words of hope and assurance from Richard! If auto-suggestion could -have done it, surely auto-suggestion would have done it. All theories -about the world of spirits were no doubt inadequate; but it seemed -natural to suppose that year by year the dead moved farther and farther -away from the earth, and therefore that Richard was already beyond her -reach. Geoffrey, on the other hand, died comparatively a short time -ago. Moreover, without being ridiculous one might imagine that the -number of people killed every day during the war would produce---- -Mary paused. She could not help feeling that the picture of a crowded -railway junction which her ideas of the confines of eternity implied -was rather absurd. Perhaps the Sicilian crystal-gazer would throw some -light upon the problem this evening. She would make a great effort -to put out of her mind the notion of being given the guardianship -of Geoffrey's little girl. She would concentrate upon something -entirely different. Pierre for instance. He too had been killed out -in West Africa early in the war. It was the end he would have chosen -for himself. It was a fine death for a man over sixty to be killed in -action, a fine death for the boy who fifty years ago had followed the -drum-taps along that white road of France. It had given her a thrill of -pride to read of his career since he and she parted forty years ago. He -was one of those who had helped to prepare his country for the effort -she had to make to save herself from the ancient enemy. Thus had they -written of him who had loved herself as well as his country forty years -ago. Such a little time ago really. If she shut her eyes and thought -for a moment, she could reconjure every moment of that last meeting in -the drawing-room of the King's Gate house. - -"I wonder what you would have thought of Mac?" she asked, stroking -Pierrette, who accepted the caress with a purr that showed how far she -was from grasping the insult of such a question. - -"Mac was a dog, you know. And you don't much care for dogs, do you, my -dear?" - -Pierrette continued to purr when Mary patted her, laughing. - -"Conceited little cat!" - -And then once more her consciousness was flooded with the apprehension -of how much Pierrette meant to her. Those fragile paws soft as -flower-buds with thorns for the unwary, that foolish tail not much -bigger than a small cigar and of the same color, and most of all those -big blue eyes indifferent as chalcedony, supercilious as a prince of -Siam, and for a ball of wool sent rolling across the floor wild as a -leopard that waits to spring upon a sheep, how much they represented in -her lonely existence. - -"Pierrette, would you like to be married?" - -The little cat put out her claws with the air of an affronted virgin. - -"Wouldn't you like to have a nice husband to play with when I'm too -busy to play with you? Wouldn't you like to have dear little snow-white -kittens? Because your kittens would be snow-white when they were born, -you know. Would you be a good mother?" - -Notwithstanding Pierrette's lack of interest in the suggestion, Mary -was much taken up by the notion of obtaining a mate for her. It came to -seem of the utmost importance that Pierrette should hand on her charm -to kittens like herself. The search for a Siamese male as well-bred, -as beautiful, and as intelligent as herself occupied Mary's time more -successfully than spiritualism. It happened that the crystal-gazer -recommended by Madame de Sarlovèze was, at any rate so far as Mary's -_séance_ was concerned, a complete failure and unable to perceive -anything except various indeterminate shapes which she most dubiously -likened to pigeons. When nobody present could muster up the faintest -interest in pigeons, the charlatan (thus already Mary characterized -her entertainer) suggested even more dubiously that they might be swans. - -"Or geese," Mary had muttered sharply, whereupon Madame Diana had -turned sulky and complained that she could not hope to have any success -with the crystal when scoffers were present. - -"The woman's an obvious fraud with her pigeons," Mary declared; and -she turned her attention to a husband for Pierrette, a commodity which -was unprocurable in Paris. A friend assured her that the best European -strain of Siamese cats was to be found in Vienna, and in spite of the -difficulties of traveling Mary would have set out for Vienna if another -friend had not suggested that the famous strain would by now probably -have succumbed to the effects of the war. In the end, she went to -England, accompanied by Pierrette, for by now nothing else mattered -except that Pierrette should have kittens. - -Mary took rooms in the Victoria Palace Hotel overlooking Kensington -Gardens, where with Célestine and Pierrette she settled down to spend -Christmas. The gayety of the golden shops in High Street reminded her -too poignantly of Christmastides when the boys came home from school -for the holidays; and when Muriel who had heard of her mother's arrival -in England wrote to suggest that she should spend Christmas as the -guest of the Community, it seemed a wise way of escaping from the -sadness of memory. - -The house of which Muriel was sister-in-charge was in a remote -Gloucestershire village and was used as a home for old women whom -the Order befriended. Mary felt rather like one of those old women -herself when she attended vespers in the little chapel on the evening -of her arrival. It did not seem credible that the capable sister of -whom everybody, including herself, stood so much in awe was her own -daughter. Muriel appeared not a day older than when she entered the -Order ten years ago. - -"I was wrong, dear," her mother said, when she was sitting in the -parlor with Muriel during recreation on Christmas Eve. "I was quite -wrong, dear, to oppose your becoming a nun. Your intention took me so -completely by surprise that I never had time to imagine the lines on -which you might develop. It is only now when I see you mistress of your -own house, as it were, that I realize how perfectly the life suits your -temperament." - -And that night when after Mass the old women, flotsam from life's -seat at last forever still, knelt round the crib where lay the image -of the infant Saviour, Mary began to apprehend that there was in -the Christian religion something more satisfying than the ambiguous -promises and performances of crystal-gazers, than the always to be -suspected rappings and tappings of mediums. Her mind went back to hours -spent with Mademoiselle Lucinge in her gray room at Châteaublanc when -the garden was melodious with autumnal birdsong and above the notes of -robin-redbreasts Mademoiselle spoke to her about God. This summer she -would revisit Châteaublanc, and perhaps in the little church where her -old school-mistress had prayed for the woes of France to be lightened -she should find that perfect assurance of something beyond which had -been denied to her grandmother, but granted to her own daughter. She -looked across to where in the flickering candlelight Muriel knelt -praying, her eyes turned heavenward and full of tears. Tears for what? -For the mere imagination of the reality of that Divine Infant in the -manger of Bethlehem. To Muriel's limpid faith had been granted all that -motherhood could confer on woman. To her kneeling there belonged a baby -that would never grow up to compass her disillusionment, a baby that -promised to all who believed in Him immortal life. Hers, hers by the -gift of faith. - -Yet when Mary tried to give herself what she was able to understand had -been given to Muriel, she could only perceive the image and miss the -reality it tried to express. The faces of the old women kneeling round -the crib appeared as meaningless as a row of pippins on the shelf of a -store-room. For the sake of a comfortable bed and plenty of food they -would have been every bit as willing to kneel round _la planchette_. - -"Do you believe, dear child, in the possibility of communicating with -the dead?" Mary asked her daughter at the first opportunity she was -given of talking to her in private. - -"If you mean, do I believe in spiritualism, I certainly do not," said -Muriel severely. "And if there _is_ anything in it, I should say that -it was controlled by the spirits of evil. I wish you wouldn't practice -such a wretched substitute for worship," she continued. "I cannot -understand why people who profess to believe in such hocus-pocus do -not submit themselves to the demands of a true religion. It is surely -just as easy to accept the doctrines of Christianity as the frauds of -mediums." - -"There are some people, Muriel, who think that real religion has been -ruined by ecclesiastical bigotry. Personally I have never been able to -accept a man-made religion. You see, dear, I have been so much in the -world. I have suffered so many disappointments and disillusionments -that the notion of a man standing between myself and the hereafter is -repugnant." - -"My dear mother, if you will forgive me for saying so, you are really -talking nonsense. All your life you have been accustomed to rely upon -yourself instead of upon God. You cannot expect to receive faith if you -do not ask for it." - -"Auto-suggestion!" Mary exclaimed. "When I receive a direct -communication from the world of spirits, I am told it is -auto-suggestion. But surely to receive a belief that you expect to -receive can only be called auto-suggestion. Mind, I do not say that -what you believe is not true. I am perfectly sure in any case that it -is highly suitable for you to believe it, for I have never seen you -looking better. Nothing could have given me greater delight than to -behold your happiness in the life to which you have dedicated yourself. -I am only trying to suggest that there may be other ways of approaching -the unseen and, however inadequately, of solving the great problem that -lies before us all, a problem which I am likely to solve, I hope, many -years before you. I hold no brief for spiritualism. In fact, the more -I see of its practice the less I am attracted to it. I envy you your -faith, dear child. I envy and respect it. And I've greatly enjoyed my -little visit." - -"It is very peaceful down here," Muriel agreed with a smile. - -"And old age will have no terrors for you," her mother murmured. -"Because I understand so well that for you old age will simply seem a -slow and tranquil drawing nearer to God. Happy little girl of mine!" - -"Yes, I am happy." - -"And that makes me happy, for it helps me to realize that so far as my -children are concerned I have not been a complete failure. I wish I -could stay here longer, but I've left my little cat in London with only -my maid to look after her, and I think I ought to be getting back." - -Mary perceived that an obligation to a cat was something utterly -incomprehensible to her daughter, and when she kissed her good-by, -kissed those cheeks cold and faintly flushed like the petals of a -Christmas rose, she felt that she was parting from a creature more -remote than either of her dead sons. - -"Flesh of my flesh," Mary thought. "And yet my little cat is nearer -to me. Those are the kind of puzzles that really do make human life a -riddle." - -Mary remembered how sometimes her grandmother had tried to draw near to -herself, because the two of them were all that was left of a family. - -"She must have supposed that my remoteness came from my mother's blood. -But it probably would not have made much difference if I had been her -own daughter. I suppose that we all grow to resent those first years -of dependence upon other people. I suppose we all care only to think -of ourselves as complete personalities. And is there anything more to -come? Is there? Is there? Or do we instinctively know that this life -is the whole of our individual life and for that reason do we cling so -hard to being ourselves while we live it? And when we are growing old, -do we crave for the contact of youth in order to delude ourselves with -the belief that we shall grow young again in death?" - -When Mary reached the hotel, she was met by Célestine with a grave and -frightened countenance. - -In a moment Mary guessed what had happened. "Pierrette is ill." - -The maid burst into tears. - -"Very ill?" - -"_Madame, Pierrette est morte. J'ai télégraphié ce matin. Le medicin -était très brave pour elle, mais la grippe, Madame, la grippe! Elle a -souffert beaucoup, la pauvre petite!_" - -The manager of the hotel drew near to express his condolences and -to explain that he had assisted Mrs. Alison's maid in every way by -telephoning for the best veterinary doctor in Knightsbridge. He had -advised Mrs. Alison's being communicated with by telegram as soon as -the animal's serious condition was obvious. Yesterday it had seemed -unnecessary to summon Mrs. Alison back from the country. Of course, -if he had known then that the illness was likely to terminate fatally -he should have done so. He appreciated what the loss of such a pet -meant. Only this summer his wife had lost a pet cockatoo, and she had -been quite inconsolable for two days. One did not expect a cockatoo -to die suddenly. One always thought of them as living forever. He was -sorry that it had not been possible to keep the dead cat in the hotel, -but Mrs. Alison would understand that it might be liable to create an -unpleasant impression upon the other guests. So many people dreaded -influenza in any shape. It was with the deepest regret that he had -ordered the remains to be taken away; but he was sure that the sight of -the poor little dead animal would have been a grief for Mrs. Alison. -Could he send anything up to her room? It was early for tea; but, after -her journey and the sad news, perhaps Mrs. Alison would like her tea -early. - -"We shall return to Paris to-night," said Mary. "Go and pack my -things, Célestine. I do not wish to go upstairs to my room. I shall -take a little walk in the Gardens by myself. By myself." - -It was an afternoon of silver frost and sunshine under a pale blue -December sky. The walks of Kensington Gardens were thronged with -children whose vivid laughter made Mary feel of less account in the -human scene than one of the skeleton leaves lying on a bed of last -year's flowers. She tried to escape from the sounds of youth and -merriment; but wherever she walked the air was full of laughter, the -crystalline air tinkled with laughter. - -Had Pierrette wanted her at the end? Had she failed the one living -creature in the whole world that might have looked to her? Question for -evermore unanswerable, regret for evermore unquenchable, longing for -evermore unappeasable! - -She had not felt able to revisit the room where she had left Pierrette -sitting so cosily by the fire, when she set out to Gloucestershire; and -yet she had been able to decide to go back to the house in Paris which -without Pierrette would seem emptier, vaster, lonelier than ever. - -If now she could pray! - -For what? - -For mercy upon her old age. - -For something to lead her out of the shadows. - -Darling little cat! Not ever again to feel those silken chocolate paws. -Not ever again to hear that deep miaow, nor behold those unyielding -eyes of blue, nor watch that absurd tail respond to her lightest -murmur on the assumption that any sound uttered in an empty room was -intended for herself. - -An empty room? Empty indeed now, a thousand times emptier now that -Pierrette was dead. - -If she could only pray! - -Would that serene daughter of hers be able to pray if she found herself -alone like this under the trees that looked not a day older than when -forty years ago she had walked beneath their boughs with Mac? Would not -Muriel suffer a dismay? Would not she doubt the value of her prayers? - -There would be no communication with the spirit of Pierrette. There -would be no deep-voiced miaows scrawled by _la planchette_, not with -the help of all the auto-suggestion in her being. She was irrevocably -vanished, as irrevocably as a flower. - -The little cat was not. Her grace and beauty were lost; her lithe and -shapely form was destroyed. Her memory would endure for a little while -until her friend died; and when she died there would never have been a -cat called Pierrette. She would be less than one of the crushed shells -among these myriads of crushed shells that were strewn upon the walks -of Kensington Gardens. How heedless was the laughter of the children -all around her, and yet there were few of those children who would not -themselves know sorrow before they were old. Would they hear then the -echo of their youth's heedless laughter? - -When Mary came back to the house in Paris she found a letter waiting -for her. - - 92 Carminia Road, - Balham, S.W., - _December 26, 1920_. - - _Dear Madam_, - - _This is to inform you that last week Mrs. Alison, your - daughter-in-law, died of the influenza very suddenly the week before - Xmas. As I understood from her who was her sister that you were - anxious to have the care of her little girl, and as me and my husband - cannot undertake the responsibility we are taking the liberty of - asking if you would kindly accept delivery of the little girl as per - this letter. My sister, Mrs. Alison, kept your address in her writing - materials and I have taken the liberty to write to you direct hoping - I may be pardoned for the intrusion. She is a very nice well-behaved - little girl and my husband and me are very sorry to part with her - which we wouldn't want to do if we hadn't six of our own which - makes it a bit difficult in a small house and not being very rich - people. The little girl could be dispatched to Paris to suit your - convenience if you would kindly remit cost of sending her as per your - instructions which we duly await._ - - _And I am, - Yours truly, - Emily Bocock._ - (_Mrs. Alfred Bocock._) - -"Célestine! Célestine!" - -"Madame?" cried Célestine, running to find out what her mistress wanted. - -"Célestine, pack my things, we are going back to London." - -"_Tout de suit, Madame?_" - -"Don't stop to argue, Célestine. Pack! Pack!" - -The preparations for their return to London were no sooner finished -than Mary was seized with nervousness. Suppose she presented herself at -this house to fetch her granddaughter and the little girl, who by now -was twelve and likely to have a mind of her own, refused to accompany -her? It would be a dreadfully inauspicious beginning to what she hoped -was going to be the happiest time since Richard was alive. It would -be easier to welcome the child here by herself. She should feel less -self-conscious, and the child separated from her companions would be -more ready to accept her grandmother. If she had a house in London it -would be different; but she should be afraid to take her to an hotel. -Yes, it was better to be patient for an extra day and send Célestine to -fetch her. Besides, there was much to prepare here. There was Mary's -bedroom to be got ready. She must choose the furniture herself. She -knew exactly what a child of twelve would like. There were toys to -buy. She would not be too old for dolls and a really good doll's-house -and a variety of games which perhaps she would enjoy playing with her -grandmother. It might be advisable to begin looking about for a good -governess. If only she could find somebody like Mademoiselle Lucinge. -Yes, it would be wiser to send Célestine to fetch her. Célestine could -be trusted? Or should she telegraph to Muriel and ask her to arrange -for a trustworthy person to escort the child? No, that might delay -matters. Muriel was so particular, and in Gloucestershire she might not -be able to find the right person at once. No, Célestine must go. - -On New Year's Day Mary was sitting by the fire-side reading a yellow -French novel. The doors of the _salon_ were flung open by François, and -she heard the voice of her maid. - -"_Allez-y, mademoiselle. Voilà Madame qui vous attend._" - -Thin black legs moving in gingerly steps over the gleaming parquet. A -shy face hiding itself in the wraps of the long journey. - -"My darling child, here you are at last!" - -"Oh, grandmother, you've thrown your book in the fire. Shall I pick it -out for you?" - -Yes, a slight Cockney accent, but what did that matter when in her arms -she held youth, when to her heart she pressed youth? - -"My little girl, I'm so glad you're come to live with your old -grandmother." - - -THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN AGES OF WOMAN *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Seven Ages of Woman</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Compton MacKenzie</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 16, 2021 [eBook #66071]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN AGES OF WOMAN ***</div> - - - - - -<p class="ph1"> -THE<br /> -SEVEN AGES<br /> -OF WOMAN</p> - -<p class="ph3"><i>By COMPTON MACKENZIE</i></p> -<p class="ph6">Author of "Carnival," "Sinister Street," etc.</p> - - -<p class="ph5" style="margin-top:10em;">TORONTO</p> -<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">McCLELLAND and STEWART, Limited</span></p> -<p class="ph5">PUBLISHERS</p> - - - - - - -<p class="ph6" style="margin-top:10em;"><i>Copyright, 1923, by</i></p> -<p class="ph5"><span class="smcap">Martin Seckar</span></p> - -<p class="ph6"><i>All Rights Reserved</i></p> - -<p class="ph6"><i>Printed in the United States of America</i></p> - - - - - -<p class="ph2" style="margin-top:10em;">CONTENTS</p> - - - - -<table summary="toc" width="70%"> -<tr><td align="right">CHAPTER</td><td> </td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#Chapter_One"><span class="smcap">The Infant</span></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#Chapter_Two"><span class="smcap">The Girl</span></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td><a href="#Chapter_Three"><span class="smcap">The Maiden</span></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> <td><a href="#Chapter_Four"><span class="smcap">The Wife</span></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">V.</td> <td><a href="#Chapter_Five"><span class="smcap">The Mother</span></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VI.</td> <td><a href="#Chapter_Six"><span class="smcap">The Widow</span></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VII.</td> <td><a href="#Chapter_Seven"><span class="smcap">The Grandmother</span></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr> -</table> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="Chapter_One" id="Chapter_One"></a><i>Chapter One</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE INFANT</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2">THE SEVEN AGES OF WOMAN</p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><i>Chapter One: The Infant</i></p> - - -<p>On a June morning in the year 1859 Sir Richard Flower of Barton -Flowers in the county of Southampton decided that the weather was -propitious for his annual progress on horseback round the confines -of his demesne. The order was given to saddle his gray gelding; Lady -Flower was informed that her husband would dine two hours later than -usual, and upon her expressing alarm at the prospect of so long a fast -for him, she was reassured by a farther announcement that he would -fortify himself against the strain of waiting until six o'clock for -his dinner with light refreshment at one of the outlying farms. Lady -Flower sent back word to say how much she regretted not having known of -Sir Richard's expedition earlier in order that she might have made an -effort to overcome her headache and bid him farewell in person. To this -the baronet replied with a solemn admonition to her ladyship's maid -that her ladyship must on no account do anything to make her headache -worse. The exchange<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> of courtesies being thus complete, Sir Richard -mounted his gray gelding and set out, pausing for a moment at the top -of the drive to look back at the Hall and respond with his crop to a -handkerchief that fluttered from an upper window. In the manner of -shaking his crop Sir Richard succeeded in conveying a reproof for the -indiscretion of rising from bed, affection for his beloved wife, and -gratification at the devotion displayed for himself. Then he turned -his horse's head to the left and cantered down a grassy avenue between -ancient oak trees.</p> - -<p>Sir Richard was accustomed to give much thought to his position -as holder of one of the oldest baronetcies in England, to the -responsibilities that such a position laid upon himself, to the beauty -and fertility of his demesne, to the timbered glories of his Hall, and -to the honorable record of his family; but on the day annually devoted -to riding round his ten thousand acres he never allowed himself to -think about anything else. He even went so far, when in the depths of -the wood neither squirrel moved nor bird chattered and there was none -but the gray gelding to overhear him, as to cry aloud in exultation -the motto of his house <i>Floreant Flores</i>. On this day dedicated to -himself, his family, and his land, Sir Richard indulged in so many -whimsicalities of behavior that an observer might have supposed him -the prey of madness or the victim of degraded superstition. Thus at -one point he dismounted from his horse and, kneeling in the middle -of the ride, placed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> an outspread palm upon the cushions of moss -and incorporated the thousands of green and golden stars within his -allegiance. He went farther; he laid bare the earth beneath and -commanded a congregation of disturbed millipedes to acknowledge him as -master. He made with his hands a cup to contain the black earth, and -let it trickle through his fingers as a miser might play with his gold. -"Mine," he said aloud, and stood for a moment in amazement at one who -owned not merely all the green world within sight, but four thousand -miles of unimaginable territory beneath his feet. "Mine," he repeated, -"and after me John, and after John another Richard. Praise God that -I appreciate the state of life to which He has called me;" with this -apostrophe the baronet swept off his high silk hat to salute his patron.</p> - -<p>Sir Richard kept such extravagance of speech and gesture for the -solitude of the woodland. No sooner had he emerged into one of the -deep, hazel-bordered lanes that intersecting his demesne reminded him, -deserted though they were, of the world beyond his boundaries, than -he became the least fantastic inhabitant of that decorous countryside -of well-tilled farms and preserved coverts. Sir Richard was close on -sixty; but his slim figure, upright carriage, and clear-cut features -enhanced by iron-gray whiskers, bushy enough to show that he was not -afraid of the fashion and yet not so full as to mark him down the slave -of that fashion, made him appear younger at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> a period when twenty-five -looked middle-aged. Every good horseman gives the impression of being -part of his steed, and Sir Richard on his gray gelding, with his gray -whiskers and gray riding breeches and gray frieze tail-coat was as -natural a centaur as Chiron himself.</p> - -<p>"Good morning, Sir Richard."</p> - -<p>The baronet pulled up to exchange a word with the first of his tenant -farmers he was to meet that day, a bull-necked, stubby man who was -leaning over a gate against a background of bright green barley.</p> - -<p>"Good morning to you, Wilberforce. Your barley's looking uncommonly -well."</p> - -<p>"Beautiful, Sir Richard, beautiful. Some grumbles, but not me, Sir -Richard, not me. May was bad for fruit with all that hail we had. But -the crops didn't suffer. Will you be passing by the farm, Sir Richard?"</p> - -<p>"Not this morning, Wilberforce. I'm taking my annual ride round the -estate. You know my old custom."</p> - -<p>"None better, Sir Richard. And what a one you be for keeping up old -customs, if you'll permit the liberty of the observation, Sir Richard. -And glad I am for one to have such a landlord in these days when Jack -thinks himself so good as his master. And how's Mr. John, Sir Richard?"</p> - -<p>"Mr. John is well, very well. He hopes to be quartered at Aldershot -presently, when we may expect to see something of him."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> - -<p>"It'll be a grand day for Barton Flowers when the village turns out to -see the conquering hero come. Mr. John must have been proud when Her -Majesty pinned on the Victoria Cross with her own hands at Buckingham -Palace the other day. But, as I said to all of 'em, Her Majesty must -have been proud of Mr. John when she were a-pinning of it on."</p> - -<p>"Yes, I believe he deserved his honor," said the father, trying to -look unconcerned. "Of course you saw the little account of it in the -newspaper?"</p> - -<p>Farmer Wilberforce gave his landlord the pleasure of supposing that he -had not yet read the account, whereupon Sir Richard took a cutting from -his waistcoat pocket and read aloud as follows:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Lieutenant (now Captain) John Flower, Royal Artillery.</p> - -<p>Date of act of bravery, 5th November, 1854.</p> - -<p>For having at the Battle of Inkerman personally attacked three -Russians, and, with the gunners of his Division of the battery, -prevented the Russians from doing mischief to the guns which they had -surrounded.</p> - -<p>Part of a regiment of English infantry had previously retired through -the battery in front of this body of Russians.</p></blockquote> - -<p>"He had to wait a long time for his deed to be recognized," said -the father, replacing the slip of paper in his pocket with a sigh -of satisfaction.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> "Good morning to you, Wilberforce. I mustn't stay -gossiping here any longer. I've a good many miles in front of me, you -know."</p> - -<p>Sir Richard rode on, his mind full of his elder son's valor. He should -be thinking about marriage, though. It was time to see a grandson at -the Hall. One was apt to forget how fast the years were going by. How -old was John now? Thirty. So he was, by gad, thirty. Yes, he must be -getting married. Not much difficulty about that, the proud father -laughed to himself. Handsome, brave, the heir to Barton Flowers! It -was right that he should take his profession seriously, but after -the Crimea and the Mutiny he could claim to have served his country -well, could afford to sell out and prepare himself to administer the -property he would one day inherit. One day ... but not just yet. "No, -not just yet," Sir Richard murmured, gripping the flanks of the gray -horse tightly in pride of his own strength. And perhaps at this moment -when the electric telegram was almost daily bringing news of French -victories in Italy, and when that rascal Napoleon might be forming who -knows what schemes to invade England, yes, perhaps at this moment, -Captain John Flower should stick to his guns. Still, he would talk to -his wife about the boy's marriage. He hoped that when he arrived home -again he should find that headache sufficiently improved to let her -discuss the subject with keenness and intelligence. The right plan -was to invite some eligible young women to visit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> the Hall during -John's next furlough, and if luck should station him at Aldershot to -take care that whenever he drove over to Barton he should find an -attraction at home. Luckily there were plenty of eligible young women -in the neighborhood. Sir Richard was enumerating the possible wives -for his heir when the disquieting thought occurred to him that John, -like his father before him, might look beyond Hampshire for a wife. -Not that for a single moment he had regretted his own choice; but -what might be done once with success might end in disaster if fortune -were tempted again. Anybody who had been made aware of Sir Richard's -thoughts at this moment might have been pardoned for supposing that -he had found a wife of beauty, merit, and ability in a lower stratum -of society. As a matter of fact, the present Lady Flower was the -daughter of one of Wellington's most gallant officers and a French -lady of rank whose father had taken refuge from the Terror in England, -where he had preferred to remain during the Napoleonic tyranny. It -was the French blood that made Sir Richard feel he was committing a -breach of tradition in marrying Miss Helen Baxter. To have introduced -French blood into the Flowers, notwithstanding the pride of the family -in their Norman origin, still seemed to him an astonishing piece of -audacity; and even now he could shudder to think what his father would -have said, had his father been alive when he married. Yet his wedded -life had been one of un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>broken happiness, and Helen had not betrayed -the least sign of her mixed origin unless perhaps in an incurable -propensity to succumb to violent headaches, which she dignified, or as -her husband preferred to think, Frenchified by calling migraines. The -old family doctor attributed them to nerves, and nerves, Sir Richard -felt, were French, not English, so that if Doctor Wilkinson was right, -the headaches must have been inherited from her French mother. There -was nothing of the Frenchman in the elder son John. He never had a -headache in his life, and he had won the Victoria Cross. English to the -backbone was John. But Edward...?</p> - -<p>Sir Richard, who had been trotting gaily along his boundaries, pulled -up his horse to a walk, because the personality and character of -his younger son perplexed him. Edward had headaches, was prone to -day-dreaming, and at twenty-eight showed no sign of making any progress -at the Bar, to which without apparently the slightest taste for a legal -career he had recently been called. Headaches, day-dreams, instability, -these were not English qualities. What had Edward been doing down at -home all the summer? How could he expect to be a successful barrister -if he left his chambers in Pump Court to take care of themselves? If -John had been a barrister, he would have made his mark by now. Yet -Edward had been endowed with more brains than John. John was diligent, -determined; but Edward had the brains. It had been the ancient custom -of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> Flowers to send the eldest son to Winchester, the others to -Eton. Sir Richard, who was a Wykhamist, had broken the tradition -by sending John to Eton and Edward to Winchester, partly because -he thought that Winchester would eradicate more sternly any French -symptoms that appeared in Edward, partly because he believed that what -was known as cleverness in a boy would receive more encouragement at -the older foundation. But Edward had been a disappointment. His career -at Winchester had been undistinguished, and he had gone down from New -College without taking a degree. That was the moment when his father -should have been firm with him, when he should have insisted upon -his making his own way in the world without parental assistance. But -Helen had intervened, and she intervened so rarely that when she did -her husband was always defeated. Edward had expressed a half-hearted -desire to read for the Bar, and he had allowed himself to be persuaded -into making the necessary allowance. What was the result? Edward at -twenty-eight as little able to provide for himself as he was at eight! -It had been all very well for his mother to plead for his company over -long months at Barton to console her for the absence of her elder son -first in the Crimea and then in India. But John had been back a year -now, and Edward spent more time than ever at home. Confound it, the -problem of Edward's future was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> spoiling the day, and in a burst of -irritation the baronet spurred his horse to a canter.</p> - -<p>At this point the boundary of Sir Richard's estate might have been -the subject of litigation had there been enough people interested -to litigate. It was the old dispute over common land which had been -gradually enclosed by the lord of the manor. In this case the issue -was complicated by the fact that the head of the Flowers was as such -himself a commoner, and it was difficult to prove that a commoner had -no right to plant beechwoods if he was so minded. This had been the -Flower method of encroachment. At this date there were only three other -families of commoners left, and inasmuch as these gained a miserable -livelihood by poaching Sir Richard's coverts rather than by pasturing -a few scrawny geese, there was no doubt that before long the landlord -would succeed in fixing his boundary on the far side of the common. At -present the common extended for a mile, a narrow strip of coarse grass -land two hundred yards wide at its greatest breadth along the baronet's -dark beechwoods. Beyond the common the railway cut its track through -the meadows of another landowner, and Sir Richard laughed to think how -twenty years ago he had refused to let the line run through his land.</p> - -<p>"That's the way good estates are ruined," he thought complacently, -urging his horse from a canter to a gallop.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> - -<p>The wild commoners came out from their hovels to stare at him as he -flew past, and congratulated themselves that he had not noticed how -much turf in excess of their allowance had recently been cut.</p> - -<p>At the end of the gallop Sir Richard reined in his horse to a walk -that he might move slowly and admiringly through a plantation of -larches he had put in ten years ago, which now in its symmetry and -silence impressed him as a painter might be impressed by the beauty -of an early work he had forgotten. Sir Richard regretted that he had -not made a similar plantation near the Hall, so that his wife might -enjoy walking upon this pale grass where the sun shone with so dim -and so diffused a light. He was convinced that the experience would -appeal to that romantic side of her character which expressed itself in -migraines. Yes, it was a pity he had not thought of planting another -within access of the Hall. He was now in the most remote corner of his -demesne, and it would be difficult to drive her to this place without -considerable discomfort. This plantation must be making a fine screen -for old Taylor's orchard by now, thought Sir Richard. The old man had -grumbled when first his landlord had insisted upon afforesting that -useless field, covered with thistles and ragwort; he would admit now -that his landlord had been right. But the old man was always grumbling. -No doubt if he met him to-day he would be full of woe over the thunder -and hail of last month, vowing that none of his blossom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> had set and -that the season would be a dead loss in consequence. How different -from Wilberforce, who had recognized most sensibly the promise of the -arable crops! The fact of it was, old Taylor was growing too old for -the responsibility of a large farm. Of course he had not the slightest -intention of turning him out, but he did wish that old Taylor showed -more signs of appreciating his landlord's consideration. That was the -trouble with people, Sir Richard sighed to himself, one did all that -was possible for them and received nothing in return. If only some of -the tenants who grumbled at the least delay in carrying out necessary -repairs would try to understand the point of view of the landlord. -Nowadays people only tried to understand their own point of view. Yes, -the age was degenerating, humanity was not what it was.</p> - -<p>The prey of these pessimistic reflections, Sir Richard had allowed the -horse to take his own pace; the progress had been slow and silent; and -when the long central aisle of the plantation made an abrupt curve -at its conclusion Sir Richard found himself in old Taylor's orchard -so suddenly that he had to dismount in a hurry to save his silk hat -from being knocked off by the boughs of the apple trees. As his foot -touched the ground, he saw in a sun-flecked space about eighty yards -from where he was standing two figures disengage from a close embrace. -Sir Richard recognized from the color of her auburn hair old Taylor's -granddaughter, Elizabeth, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> he was on the verge of a smile for -youth and love in the summer time when he perceived that the man was -his own son, Edward. He raised his riding-crop with a gesture of rage, -while the lovers as if even a moment's separation were bitter as death -clung together in a fresh embrace, standing heedless of all except -their love, heedless of the young apples that fell from time to time -from every tree, heedless of the noise Sir Richard's horse made in -cropping the tender grass, heedless of Sir Richard's foot stamped upon -the ground in anger, nor even looking round when he jerked his horse's -bridle, remounted, and galloped back the way he had come down the long -central aisle between the larches.</p> - -<p>"The damned philandering puppy," he muttered to himself, as he came out -from the plantation and set the gray to gallop more swiftly than before -over the common land. He paid no attention to the wild commoners, who -seeing the baronet return at this furious pace supposed that he had -been made aware of their depredations upon the turf and ran to hide -from his wrath in the dark bordering beeches. He paid no attention to -the geese that flapped across his path except to give the gelding a -cruel jab when he swerved in his stride. It was barely two o'clock when -Sir Richard reached the Hall, having for the first time in thirty-five -years failed at his yearly task of riding round the confines of his ten -thousand acres. So deeply enraged was he with his son's conduct that he -neither sent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> up to warn his wife of his early return nor even inquired -after her headache. He shut himself in his big library, pacing up and -down among the rows of books, the titles of which wrote themselves upon -his mind more rapidly but perhaps not less intelligibly than they had -written themselves on the minds of generations of Flowers. Sir Richard -glared at the busts of poets, orators, and philosophers posed with such -unconcern, with such coolness and such contempt above the cornice of -the shelves. If Homer, Demosthenes and Plato had not been out of reach, -the baronet would have swept them from their perch to the ground. -Instead he pulled the bell rope violently.</p> - -<p>"When Mr. Edward comes in," he told the butler, "I wish to see him at -once."</p> - -<p>"Very good, Sir Richard," said the butler apprehensively, and as the -old man went out of the library Sir Richard wondered if his son's -conduct was already a topic in the steward's room and servants' hall. -In the middle of his rage there was a tap at the door, and his wife -entered to a gruff summons. Lady Flower was a small, dainty woman whose -smallness and daintiness was accentuated by the vast crinolines of -the moment. Although she was almost fifty, her black hair lacked the -faintest film of gray, her ivory skin showed few lines. To Sir Richard -she seemed the same as when thirty-one years ago he had married her. -She never came into a room but his mind went back to the first sight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> -of her dressed in a short flounced skirt with her black hair tied high -with roses and ribands; and it seemed not she but her clothes which had -grown older and more stately with years.</p> - -<p>"My dear, what is the matter?" she asked. "What has upset you?"</p> - -<p>The distressed father poured out his tale.</p> - -<p>"But aren't you taking it all too seriously?" his wife suggested. -"Edward has only found a Graziella at Barton. <i>Il y a toujours des -petits amoureux....</i>"</p> - -<p>"For God's sake don't talk French!" Sir Richard burst in. "There's -nothing like French for giving an unpleasant turn to the conversation."</p> - -<p>"It was tactless of me," she apologized, seating herself in a -high-backed chair where she looked as tranquil and as much assured -as one of the classic busts eyeing infinity above the books. "But -seriously the Taylor girl is a pretty little thing, and if Edward is -not imprudent there is most surely no harm in a few kisses."</p> - -<p>"Helen, your remarks border on cynicism," said Sir Richard. "I know -that you have always maintained your right to discuss matters which in -England I think we have reason in not encouraging women to discuss; -but really when your advanced views are applied to your own children -I think it is time for me to protest. After all, if you had a French -mother, my dear, you are quite definitely and unmistakably English -yourself. But please do not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> let us cover up Edward's behavior with -side issues. You know how much I have deplored his laziness, how much I -have objected to his spending most of his time here, and how necessary -it is for him as a younger son to supplement with a profession any -allowance I am able to give him in the future from my own savings. I -repeat, you know all this, and yet when I discover that the reason for -his continually living with his parents is not the pleasure of their -society, but a low passion for the granddaughter of one of his father's -tenants, it becomes obvious that Edward's behavior can no longer be -tolerated. Of course he has headaches if he behaves like this," Sir -Richard went on indignantly. "Of course he finds the air of Pump -Court too stuffy in June. You must remember, my dear, that Edward is -twenty-eight. We are not discussing the calf love of a schoolboy."</p> - -<p>"Well, all I beg is that you will handle him tactfully," said Lady -Flower. "Now, if I could only persuade you to let me talk to him...."</p> - -<p>"Certainly not. On such a subject most certainly not," Sir Richard -shouted.</p> - -<p>"But if you jump down his throat and treat him like a schoolboy, he may -do something really serious." She paused to sniff a silver vinaigrette, -while the suggestion buried itself like an arrow in the heavy ground of -her husband's mind.</p> - -<p>"Really serious?" he echoed in a moment's perplexity. "Good God! you -are not suggesting that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> he might want to marry her? That would indeed -be the end of everything."</p> - -<p>"That is precisely what I am trying to tell you," said his wife. "That -is why I am trying to hint that you should not take too high a moral -tone."</p> - -<p>"Good heavens, my dear, what outrageous remarks you do make. And yet on -this occasion I really believe you are justified in making them."</p> - -<p>The baronet sank down into a chair opposite his wife and allowed her to -lean over and pat his cheek as if he were a disconsolate boy.</p> - -<p>"Don't you think it would be wiser for me to carry through this scene?" -she pressed.</p> - -<p>He waved the suggestion aside. "No, no, my dear. I appreciate your -desire to spare me pain, but what I have to say to Edward must be said -as from a man to a man. Hark! I hear his horse coming up the drive. -Leave us together, my dear, leave us, I beg you...."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower hesitated for one moment longer, but perceiving that her -husband was not to be moved from his resolve, acquitted herself of -all responsibility with a gesture of her white hands, and without a -backward glance of entreaty floated from the room.</p> - -<p>Edward Flower resembled his mother in features and complexion, but -in figure he was tall and slim like his father. He seemed to divine -that the interview to which he had been summoned was likely to be -disagreeable, for he waited by the door of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> library when he had -closed it behind him as if he hoped that he had made a mistake in thus -intruding.</p> - -<p>"Bates told me you wished to speak to me, sir."</p> - -<p>"I did. I do. Don't let us beat about the bush. And come into the room! -I can't shout what I have to say."</p> - -<p>However discreetly hushed the baronet's voice was going to be when he -attacked his son upon the situation in Taylor's orchard, it was loud -enough at present.</p> - -<p>"I am at your service, sir," said Edward quietly, taking the chair in -which a few minutes ago his mother had been sitting.</p> - -<p>"I started out this morning to ride round the estate," Sir Richard -began. "On my way I passed by Taylor's orchard." He paused with a stern -glance at his son. "Well, sir?" he demanded.</p> - -<p>"And I'm glad you did, papa," said Edward eagerly. The character of -this interview drove him back unconsciously to childhood's manner of -address.</p> - -<p>"You're glad I did?" the baronet echoed. "By gad, sir, you're a cooler -hand at this game than I gave you credit for. I'm thankful I did not -allow your mother to speak to you on this subject."</p> - -<p>"Did my mother wish to speak to me?" Edward broke in. "Ah, she would -understand, and I fear that you, sir, may be prejudiced by the humble -station of the dear girl I am going to marry."</p> - -<p>"Marry!" the baronet shouted. "This is not a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> moment for levity, sir. I -sent for you to say that I won't have you philandering with the females -on my estate. You know I disapprove of the manner you idle away your -time here when you should be working at your profession. But if you do -stay here, by God you shall stay here like a gentleman and a Flower, -with respect for the domestic happiness of your father's tenants. We've -never yet had a scandal of that kind in our family, and if my son -brings such a scandal about I'll disown him."</p> - -<p>"I have already told you, sir, that the young woman will shortly become -my wife. There is no question of scandal. I love her passionately, -devotedly. She gives me all and more in return. She is a modest and -beautiful girl. I am old enough to know my own mind. I am sorry to seem -disrespectful, sir, but nothing that you can say will alter my resolve."</p> - -<p>"I'll disinherit you."</p> - -<p>"I must put up with that."</p> - -<p>"I'll disown you. You shall never cross the threshold of this house -again."</p> - -<p>"I must put up even with that," said Edward sadly.</p> - -<p>"Thank God I have another son who would never disgrace his father and -his father's name thus."</p> - -<p>"I know that I have been a disappointment to you, sir; but this is -not the moment to make excuses for my carelessness in the past nor to -try your patience with promises of reform in the future. I firmly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> -believe that marriage with Elizabeth Taylor will give me that very -stability and perseverance in which I have hitherto shown myself so -lacking. If you had evinced less anger at my decision, I should have -enlarged upon this benefit to my character; but in your present mood I -am conscious that anything I say will only serve to enrage you against -me more than ever. Luckily I am not your heir, and my brother, as you -justly observe, will know better than I how to uphold the honor of -your house—since you have disowned me, I hesitate to say <i>our</i> house. -Believe me, my dear, dear father, when I say that only the assurance -of my whole life's happiness depending upon my marriage with Elizabeth -keeps me from obeying your wishes. There is nothing to add except my -deep regret for the secrecy I have maintained throughout. I can assure -you that in acting in what may seem to you an underhand manner I was -endeavoring to spare you pain, so that when the secret had to come out, -which would have been to-morrow, for it is to-morrow that we are to -be married, you would have been spared the annoyance of contesting a -situation which was a <i>fait accompli</i>."</p> - -<p>"Damn it, don't talk French, and get out of my sight," Sir Richard -shouted, louder than he had shouted yet, for his son's long speech had -given his rage time to seethe in his breast, and it now burst forth -with double volume.</p> - -<p>Edward bowed his head and rising from his chair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> went gloomily from the -room. He found his mother standing in the corridor outside, and at a -signal he followed her upstairs to her boudoir.</p> - -<p>Edward contrasted his mother's calm with his father's fury, and yet -when she sat upright on a wide stool, composing her full skirts of -amber sarsanet with hands that seemed incredibly small against the -vast pendulous sleeves from which they emerged, Edward was more uneasy -in presence of that calm than when he was being buffeted by his -father's storms. There was an ivory polish, an ivory hardness, an ivory -resilience about his mother that made his heart beat with a dread of -this delicate creature who within his earliest memories had always come -to the help of his ineffectiveness, but who now sat regarding him from -eyes that seemed as hard as agates.</p> - -<p>"Listen, Edward," she said quickly. "I overheard what your father -said, and I understand that you have announced your resolve to marry -this ..." Lady Flower paused for a second as if she were pondering the -effect upon her son of describing the young woman too brutally ... -"this pretty country girl," she continued, sure now of the key in which -her persuasion should be played, a key of light irony, of compassionate -ridicule which must bring the sensitive Edward to a perception of the -impossibility of what he was proposing. "I think I have seen her once -or twice hanging out the clothes or feeding her grandfather's chickens. -She has red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> hair, has she not? And is she not much freckled?"</p> - -<p>"She has glorious hair," Edward avowed. "And her complexion is perfect."</p> - -<p>"Red-headed women usually freckle somewhat easily," said his mother -indifferently. "But let that pass, we will admit her beauty. Personally -I distrust red-haired women. There is something of the fox...."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower broke off to shrug her shoulders in distaste.</p> - -<p>"I should hardly describe her hair as red myself," Edward said. "It has -reddish tints, but...."</p> - -<p>"My dear boy, you are not proposing to paint this young woman; you are -proposing to marry her. When your father came home furious because he -had seen you kissing her on a garden-seat or some such romantic spot, -I took your part. Indeed, your father was shocked at my inability to -see much harm in kissing a pretty village maiden. But marriage, ah, -<i>par example, mais ça c'est un peu fort, tu sais</i>. Have you really -considered what it will mean in a few years' time when your Graziella -coarsens? You will have to earn your own living, for I know your father -well enough to be sure that if you do marry this girl he will keep his -word and cut you off. That means that you will not have the leisure -to educate her, that you will be dragged down to her level, that you -will...."</p> - -<p>"Please, mamma, please I beg you not to say any more. My mind is made -up, and if I have to re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>nounce my family I want to leave you without -the least bitterness. I will not hear a word against Elizabeth. I adore -her."</p> - -<p>"And where will you live?" his mother inquired, biting her lips.</p> - -<p>"I am going to ask her grandfather if he will take me on at his farm."</p> - -<p>"You are going to live within a few miles of us as a farm hand?"</p> - -<p>"I shall be happy," said Edward, miserably aware of his mother's -contempt.</p> - -<p>"I have always defended you until now. But such ... such.... Oh, I have -no word for such a despicable suggestion. I have finished with you, -Edward. I almost wish I could shout as loudly as your father to tell -you how completely I despise you. Go to that minx, who in a year will -despise you as much as I do, and who will play you false with the first -handsome plowboy she meets. And you'll deserve it, you weakling!"</p> - -<p>Edward rushed from his mother's room, and when he had packed his -possessions went to Bates, the old butler, and asked him for the -servants' cart to take his luggage to Long Orchard Farm. His mother's -last speech had made much easier the task of cutting himself off from -his family, and when he set out down the drive he had not one regret -for what he was losing. Edward depended much on other people, and now -that one of those on whom he had most securely depended had let him -fall, he clung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> more closely to the other. Elizabeth had long lamented -the worry she was likely to prove to him when his family was informed -of the marriage, and he was glad now to be able to meet her before the -day with the news that he owned no family except hers. How surprised -she would be to see him again so soon, for they had just lived through -that passionate farewell until they should meet to-morrow morning at -the door of the church. A misgiving came over Edward. What if Elizabeth -should be so much distressed by the news of the breach that she should -not keep her word? Was it wise in any case to upset her on the eve -of the wedding? Let her sleep to-night, or if she lay awake on this -vigil let her thoughts be serene as the summer night and radiant as -the summer dawn. He would beg a night's lodging from the Vicar, who -was already so deep in Sir Richard's bad graces that one more act of -defiance could not add to his offense.</p> - -<p>Edward found his friend the Vicar, an old Tractarian who had somehow -eluded Sir Richard's Protestant zeal and been presented to the living -of Barton Flowers, sympathetic and encouraging. The old man sat in his -dusty room amid a chaos of theological tomes and held forth upon the -sacramental wonder of marriage, reaching from time to time for a book -from his shelves, usually the work of some Anglo-Catholic divine of the -seventeenth century, in whose sonorous periods human love was exalted -and sanctified and whose dying cadences<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> showed forth mortality in the -image of Almighty God.</p> - -<p>"Marriage is too sacred a rite to be regulated by worldly -considerations," the priest said. "You are justified by your singleness -of purpose. You have acted loyally to the woman of your choice. You -have nothing to reproach yourself for."</p> - -<p>Edward had been glad to avail himself of the Vicar's help to assure -Elizabeth that she was not outraging decency by marrying him; but he -had never occupied his mind with the demands of religion, and only now -for the first time he was deeply impressed by a sudden consciousness -of what a weight of moral and spiritual support stood behind him in -what he was about to do. From that moment he looked at religion with -new eyes, apprehending in it the possibility of so crystallizing his -indeterminate aspirations as even at this late hour of youth to do -something and be somebody. He went up to bed in a glow of ambition that -lighted his spirit, even as the candle lighted the dark corridors and -stairways of the Vicarage.</p> - -<p>Edward slept tranquilly, and in the morning at eight o'clock he was -married to Elizabeth Taylor, with nobody except her grandfather and a -couple of farm hands to hear their whispers of eternal fidelity, their -murmured promises to have and to hold and to cherish until death. There -was no shouting when they came out arm-in-arm from the church; there -was nothing except the peace of a mid-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>summer morning, the fragrance of -long grass in the churchyard, the hum of bees in the limes, and in the -distance a sound of lowing cattle.</p> - -<p>The bride and bridegroom had not planned to spend their honeymoon -elsewhere; indeed, they had both been so much preoccupied with the -complications arising out of their simple action that they had thought -of nothing beyond the achievement of the wedding. When old James Taylor -asked them where they intended to pass the night, neither of them could -reply for the moment. At length Edward spoke:</p> - -<p>"I have to explain, Mr. Taylor, that yesterday I had a very unpleasant -scene with Sir Richard, who ordered me out of his house forever."</p> - -<p>"A' look now, that's Sir Richard sure enough," the old man nodded. "The -most unreasonable man that ever owned an acre. Well, I suppose you'd -better bide here."</p> - -<p>Edward explained his project to stay on and help with the farm work, at -which the old man chuckled.</p> - -<p>"You can stay so long as you will, but I don't reckon you'll be much -use on the farm. What's Lizzie say to it?"</p> - -<p>Elizabeth had no words to say, but worlds to look, and since all her -worlds were entirely populated by Edwards, she showed plainly that she -approved of anything Edward proposed to do.</p> - -<p>"'Tis no use at all to look for help from a maid, once she be tied up," -the old man chuckled. "I sup<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>pose I might soberly consider myself a -fool to give her to you. But give her I have. You see, Mr. Edward, you -was all her fancy, and ever since my boy died, her fancy has always -been mine. He was a good lad. I miss him sorely now, especially come -seed-time. And couldn't he broadcast a field of oats! Oh dear, oh dear, -none like him! Foxtail oats was his favorites, and wouldn't they come -up thick from his sowing! But, darn'ee, do you think the young chaps -can sow like that now? They cannot!"</p> - -<p>"I'm going to have a good try," Edward vowed.</p> - -<p>"A' look now, that's the way to talk, I'm bothered if it isn't," the -old man exclaimed, pretending to be much impressed, while his blue eyes -twinkled like the sea on a fine morning.</p> - -<p>They had reached the farmhouse by now, and when old James had hung -his big beaver hat on a peg they sat down to the wedding breakfast, -at which the presence of the Vicar compelled a demeanor that might -otherwise have been wanting, because old James on such occasions was -apt to indulge in bucolic freedom of speech.</p> - -<p>"But when parson's there," he said afterwards, "I always sits so dumb -as a rook in a pie. It comes over me to say summat, and then I catches -parson's eye and back the wicked words go into my mouth like rabbits. -He's a good man is parson, but he surely lays on me like snow in a -ditch. Well, now, go out into the fields and lanes and enjoy this fine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> -summer-time, you two. We can talk about Sir Richard and such sober -topics to-morrow. Come, give I a kiss, my maid. You're looking sweet as -laylock in a garden."</p> - -<p>Edward would not let Elizabeth torment herself about the future, and -she, so deep in love, could not fret for long with Edward hers now -whatever happened ... hers ... ah, could he but know how completely -hers....</p> - -<p>"Edward, my own, are you sure you love me as much, now that we are -husband and wife?"</p> - -<p>She clung to him in a self-inflicted agony of doubt, knowing full -well that in a moment it would be turned to the warmth of a delicious -security.</p> - -<p>"My foolish Lizzie," he murmured, "I love you a thousand times more."</p> - -<p>"But you seem sad sometimes, as if you half regretted what you had -done."</p> - -<p>"I am not sad, my dearest. If I seem serious, it is because I am awed -by the knowledge that you are mine."</p> - -<p>"Oh, and I am yours, I am indeed yours."</p> - -<p>Edward looked into her burning brown eyes that were unlike any other -brown eyes he had ever seen, because they caught somehow the hues and -shadows of her deep auburn hair, as a woodland pool appears stained -with autumn like the trees above.</p> - -<p>"Your eyes," he murmured, and he felt a longing to drown within their -deeps.</p> - -<p>"Do you like my eyes?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Elizabeth! You vain, vain Elizabeth!"</p> - -<p>They kissed, while a summer wind sang its small song, its intimate and -idle song among the grasses at their feet.</p> - -<p>"Hark to the little wind," said Edward. "Of what does it remind you?"</p> - -<p>"Only of summer," she whispered.</p> - -<p>"Don't you think it is like a child singing to herself while she plays -alone with her toys?"</p> - -<p>"What funny fancies you have, Edward."</p> - -<p>A sudden comprehension of what might be seized him in a rapture, and he -clasped his Elizabeth closer.</p> - -<p>"Can you not tell me of what I am thinking?" he whispered.</p> - -<p>She raised her eyes slowly, divined the thought that was beating from -his heart into hers, blushed as red as her own red heart which now beat -as fast as his, buried her face for a moment in his breast, then looked -up quickly and for answer gave him her lips.</p> - -<p>The moths were dancing over the petunias, when the lovers came home to -the farm.</p> - -<p>"But you'll never have such another day," said old James. "And if -you've missed your tea, you can make up for it with supper. But as for -me, I'm going to bed."</p> - -<p>He lighted his candle and stumped upstairs, chuckling to himself. On -the landing he paused and leaning over the balustrade called down:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> - -<p>"And if you miss your breakfast, you can make up for it with dinner."</p> - -<p>They could hear him still chuckling to himself long after he had closed -his bedroom door.</p> - -<p>"You know," said Elizabeth, "if anybody didn't know it was grandfather -laughing to himself, they'd surely think it was owls in the roof."</p> - -<p>They sat for a while talking about foolish things like that, and then -they too went upstairs. Through the open lattices of their room the -perfume of the night-scented stocks came up from the garden. Edward saw -with amazement that Elizabeth's hair reached almost to her feet, and -he thought of his mother's remark yesterday. "That little red-haired -girl!" Why, there never was such hair before. Too soon the moment came -to put out the candle and lose those glinting locks. While the odor of -the wick slowly faded upon the cool fragrance blown in upon them by the -night, Edward lay with the last vision of Elizabeth upon his inner eye. -Then turning he clasped her in his arms, and she with all her being -leapt to his as a wave to the shore.</p> - -<p>There was no moon that night, but in every lattice a star or two -twinkled, and in the starshine Elizabeth lay beside him like a warm -shadow.</p> - -<p>"Are you happy, my darling?"</p> - -<p>"Very, very happy."</p> - -<p>Edward could not sleep. He did not want to sleep. He wished to stay -forever like this, with her hair about his face. Dawn was on the -panes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> and the sparrows were stirring in the eaves. How still she -lay, how fast she slept! He bent over to kiss her eyelids. She stirred -slightly and put out her hand, clasping his and murmuring a faint -endearment, an echo from her dreams. The first rays of the sun shone -through upon the bed. Her lips in sleep were very crimson, and she woke -up when he kissed them.</p> - -<p>"Are you happy, my darling?"</p> - -<p>"Very, very happy."</p> - -<p>They lay for a long while in each other's arms while the sun climbed -higher, the bland five o'clock sun of June.</p> - -<p>"I must start farming to-day," Edward declared. "They'll be cutting the -hay, I fancy."</p> - -<p>"While the sun shines," she whispered, smiling.</p> - -<p>"My lovely one, my lovely one," he breathed.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Edward was not given much time to test his willingness or ability as a -farmer, because as soon as the hay had been carried old James Taylor -was given notice by Sir Richard Flower to quit the farm at Ladyday. He -went up to the Hall to try to see his father and find out if the notice -would be rescinded should he himself give an undertaking to leave -the neighborhood. Sir Richard, however, declined to see his son, and -that evening he sent him his allowance for the next quarter with the -intimation that this was the last money he would ever receive from his -father. When the rent of his chambers and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> some outstanding debts in -London had been paid and his few possessions sold, Edward found himself -with not much more than one hundred and fifty pounds and without any -prospect of earning a living. It had never occurred to him that his -father would take what he thought so mean a revenge on his wife's -grandfather, and he could not help feeling that at the back of Sir -Richard's action was a desire to get rid of the old man who, as Edward -knew, he considered an unprofitable tenant. James accepted his notice -with admirable calm and dignity. He had not a word of reproach for -Edward or Elizabeth, and upon his landlord's behavior his only comment -was:</p> - -<p>"It was always in my mind that he would give me notice one day. Ever -since I argued the point with him over that larch plantation which I -said was spoiling good grazing he had it in his heart to get rid of I. -He were ashamed for a long time. And I held the farm for thirty years, -and my father before me twenty-five years, and his father before that -thirty-two years."</p> - -<p>Edward was in despair; but neither old James nor Elizabeth would hear -of his reproaching himself.</p> - -<p>"You came like an honest man," said James, "not gallivanting round as -one of the gentry might. That's good enough for I, and that's good -enough for she. Come Lammas I shall be seventy, which is a late age for -making a long journey unless it be that powerful long journey out of -this world into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> the next. My brother Henry set out forty-three years -ago for Australia, and I've only heard from him once, and that was -Christmas two years ago. I put off answering the letter, for I write -a very crooked hand and was never one for letters. Get the ink-horn, -Lizzie. By God A'mighty, I'll write him now and say we'll pay him a -visit in the spring of the year. I still have a pretty hand wi' sheep, -and I reckon Henry will find us all a job."</p> - -<p>"Why, that's the very thing," cried Edward. "Emigration! What a fool I -was not to have thought of it myself."</p> - -<p>Old James wrote a letter to his brother, who was evidently a squatter -of considerable affluence and who, judging by the cordial tone of -the only letter he had written, would be glad in his old age, being -a childless widower, to welcome his kinsfolk from England. It was -decided to give up the farm at Christmas and to sail as early as -possible in the New Year. Fortune was kind up to the point of granting -old James a good harvest that season, and although the new tenant, -Farmer Wilberforce, did not pay as he ought to have paid for the live -and dead stock, James scraped together enough to enable the three of -them to equip themselves for a long journey and avoid the steerage. It -became important to start as early as possible in the New Year, because -Elizabeth was with child, and it was hoped to leave England in time -to avoid childbirth on the high seas. Edward was painfully conscious -of being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> able to do very little to help old James, and he tried to -console himself with the belief that once ashore in Australia he would -by his energy make amends for his present helplessness. Places were -secured in the second class of the <i>Mariana</i>, a ship of 1,374 tons, -which was due to sail from Liverpool in the first week of January; but -on the night before her departure, when all on board were making merry -to the strains of an emigrant fiddler and an emigrant piper, an alarm -of fire was raised. There was plenty of help at hand from the crowded -shipping of the Mersey; the passengers with their luggage were taken -off by steam-tugs and boats; and the vessel was run ashore, where when -the tide left her high and dry she was gutted by the flames.</p> - -<p>Elizabeth bore the terrifying experience with fortitude, and when the -shipping agents in Liverpool told them of a ship sailing from London -within a few days she was not backward in urging her husband and -grandfather to make every effort to obtain a passage. Nevertheless, the -nervous tension to which she had been exposed proved too much for her, -and even before the train journey was accomplished her travail began -prematurely. There was no time to search for comfortable lodgings. -The first rooms they found in Pomona Terrace, a dreary by-street off -the Euston Road, had to serve their need, and while the landlady, a -good-natured, grubby Irishwoman, helped Elizabeth to bed, Edward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> -rushed out into the wet foggy night to summon a doctor.</p> - -<p>In a crescent of decaying houses he soon perceived like rubies on the -murky air the lamps of two doctors adjacent. Had his need been less -urgent, such a juxtaposition would have presented an insoluble problem -to Edward whose attitude to life was one long hesitation between his -right and his left. As it was, he hurried up the first pair of steps -and was on the point of pulling the bell, when through a broken slat -of the Venetian blinds he saw the occupant of the room thus revealed -pour himself out a very generous allowance of whisky or brandy from -a dusty decanter unsteadily held in a dirty hand. He paused with his -fingers on the knob of the bell while the occupant of the gas-lit room -held the decanter in mid-air, listening. The face with its expression -of interrupted desire and expectant cunning was so repulsive that -Edward was horrified at the idea of such a creature's attending upon -his beloved Elizabeth, and in a moment he had put his leg over the low -stone parapet that divided the steps of one doctor from the steps of -the other.</p> - -<p>"Yes," the maid told him, "Dr. Harrison is in."</p> - -<p>Edward explained the case to the doctor, while the latter packed his -bag with various instruments, and so much excited was he that he could -hardly refrain from plucking at the doctor's sleeve when they were -hurrying back through the fog to the lodgings in Pomona Terrace. Dr. -Harrison was a young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> man, scarcely more than thirty, whose manner -carried such assurance that Edward was able to feel that his choice -had been the right one. When they reached the house the doctor was at -once taken upstairs, while Edward, on the suggestion of Mrs. Gallagher, -accommodated himself in the kitchen. Here he found old James Taylor -on one side of the range talking of agriculture to Mr. Gallagher, -a workman in the employ of one of the great railway companies, who -was displaying his agreement or disagreement with, his interest in -or boredom at the farmer's observations only by the way he sucked at -his clay pipe. For an Irishman he was strangely taciturn. From time -to time slatternly young women passed through; but whether they were -the daughters or servants of the Gallaghers or lodgers in the house, -there was no telling. Though Edward took a chair next old Taylor, his -thoughts were upstairs, and the old man's lecture on clovers meant -as little to him as the chirping of the crickets in the walls of the -house. His anxiety over Elizabeth was so sharp that the incongruity -of his surroundings never struck him. His whole being was too much -involved with his wife's for what is called reality to affect him more -nearly than might the incidents of a dream. That he should share a -bedroom with old Taylor, that he should find himself deferring to a -Gallagher, that he should be expected to take his place at an ill-laid -table and eat the malodorous mess there set down by a slut with grimy -hands made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> no impression upon Edward. Had his mother floated into -this squalid kitchen and pointed a delicate finger in scorn at his -surroundings, he would not have listened one whit less intensely for -the slightest sound from above. Whatever disgusted him in Pomona -Terrace took its place in the general purgatory of deprivation of the -sight of Elizabeth, and the farthest that his mind wandered from that -room upstairs was to that broken slat in the Venetian blinds through -which he had seen that drunken doctor's face. Thank God he had! Thank -God!</p> - -<p>A long time passed. Mr. Gallagher had fallen asleep and was snoring -loudly. Old Taylor was asleep too, his jaw dropped upon his chest, his -whole aspect senility incarnate. The restless slatterns no longer moved -in and out with unwashed dishes and bawdy gigglings.</p> - -<p>Now the crickets were silent in the glooms; Gallagher had ceased to -snore; there was no sound except an occasional cough from the subsiding -fire. So silent was it that Edward could hear his watch ticking with -what seemed a terrible rapidity in the pocket of his waistcoat. At last -the doctor put his head round the door and beckoned. Edward was beside -him in a moment, gasping forth his alarms.</p> - -<p>"She's not dead? Why didn't you call me sooner?"</p> - -<p>The doctor gripped Edward's forearm and bade him pull himself together. -That grip in conjunction with the cold air of the passage kept Edward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> -from breaking down. He compelled himself to follow what the doctor -with a good deal of technical detail was telling him about Elizabeth's -condition. "And so it may be impossible to save the lives of both," the -doctor was murmuring. "However, as I was saying, there is no need to -decide yet, and I am expecting a new instrument to-morrow, which may do -away with the necessity of such a painful decision. I have sent word to -have any parcel which arrives for me brought here immediately."</p> - -<p>"Decision?" Edward repeated. "What decision do you mean?"</p> - -<p>"Whether we save the life of the mother or the child."</p> - -<p>"Are you drunk or mad?" Edward shouted. "Why, rather than she should -suffer an instant's pain I would have the child cut to pieces. -Decision! I believe you're as drunk as that other fellow next door."</p> - -<p>The young doctor gazed at Edward in astonishment, for he had heard -nothing of the reason for choosing him in preference to his neighbor.</p> - -<p>"I was bound to give you the opportunity of deciding," he explained. -"Naturally I did not for a moment expect you to give any other answer -but the one you have given. I'm sorry to have upset you like this. If -I may offer you some sound advice, I should recommend your staying -quietly in the kitchen. It would be better, of course, if you could -manage to lie down and sleep for a while;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> but I can understand that -you are too anxious for that. You must not work yourself up into a -state of mind. There is no immediate cause for anxiety. No, certainly -no immediate cause."</p> - -<p>Edward allowed the doctor to steer him back into the kitchen where -their entrance roused old James Taylor and Mr. Gallagher, both of whom -with loud yawns declared their intention of going to bed. Soon Edward -was left alone, for Dr. Harrison went back to his patient, and he -settled himself down to solitary meditation by what was left of the -dead fire in the still fairly warm grate.</p> - -<p>It was easy, thought Edward, very easy for that young doctor to talk -about childbirth as if it were nothing more than buying a doll in a -shop. Doctors soon began to lose their sense of the soul in their -familiarity with the body. What did a man like that know about the -great mystery of human love? Edward's mind went back to his talk with -the Vicar of Barton Flowers on the vigil of his wedding; and now -thinking over his brief married life with Elizabeth he apprehended -all the truth of what the parson had said. He remembered how much the -conversation had elated him at the time and how he had felt an impulse -to submit himself to the promptings of what the Vicar had called the -Grace of the Holy Spirit. That impulse like so many of them, alas, -had gone the way of the rest, had been allowed to expire when the -enthusiasm of thought demanded the breath of action to endure. Edward -vowed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> this time if Elizabeth's life should be granted to him he -really would ... what? "I really will grapple with life," he promised -to that nebulous emanation of celestial magic which the ordinary man -calls God. "Before the sun rises to-morrow morning I may be a father. -I shall owe a duty to a human soul which I have brought into the -world." Edward discovered with shame that this child, which might -even at this moment be uttering its first cry to the darkness of the -unimaginable universe around it, had not until this moment presented -itself to him as a fact. He regretted now the way he had answered the -doctor's question a short while ago. He had been sneering to himself -at the doctor's point of view about childbirth; but he should rather -have sneered at himself for what he was, a weak and self-indulgent and -careless egoist that without foresight and without responsibility might -become the parent of a human being from whom in days to come he should -expect gratitude, affection, and obedience.</p> - -<p>Edward made new vows to that dim God beyond the stars that if he were -granted not only the life of his Elizabeth, but also the life of their -child, he would devote his future to a worthy fatherhood, that even -if himself should fail in his contest with life he would ... what? -Edward's mind wandered already to the agony of his adored wife, and he -could not bear to contemplate any future at all until he knew that she -was safe.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> - -<p>Safe! The word wrote itself in the cracks of the dingy ceiling, in the -pattern of the grimy wall-paper, in the ashes of the dead fire, in the -scrolls of iron-work upon the range, in the patchwork hearthrug, in the -knots and lines of the kitchen table. Safe! The word acquired such a -force and power of its own that Edward almost worshiped it by repeating -aloud the mere sound of it in apostrophe after apostrophe of awful -contemplation. Safe! He clutched at the S as he would have clutched at -a rope to drag himself up from the abyss below. He climbed up the A, -up the F, up the E to stand on the high ground above with Elizabeth -clasped in his arms ... with her ... with his darling ... safe....</p> - -<p>Edward fell asleep. At four o'clock Mrs. Gallagher came down to tell -him that things were going on as well as could be expected upstairs, -recommending him to be off and lie down on his bed like a Christian. -The only place where Edward wanted to lie down was on the landing -outside the door of Elizabeth's room; but there was still enough left -of the younger son of Sir Richard Flower to keep him from making such a -proposal to the landlady.</p> - -<p>It was like Edward to insist on staying in the kitchen. There was about -it the kind of ineffective Quixotry to which he had been addicted all -his life. At seven Dr. Harrison came in and made him comparatively -happy by asking him to go round to his house, wait for the postal -delivery, and bring back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> any package that might by good luck be left. -The doctor wanted to add that Edward would do well to ask his servant -to give him some breakfast, there being little likelihood of his eating -any breakfast in Pomona Terrace. On second thoughts, he did not think -the suggestion worth making. He felt too much fatigued by his own -all-night vigil to argue with an unbalanced fool like this husband. -Such was the young doctor's mood on this drear January morning. Edward -hurried through the wet twilight, pale, unshaven, his hair and whiskers -unkempt, his collar dirty, his clothes frowsy from the kitchen where -he had spent the night. At such an hour Manning Crescent looked more -dilapidated than on the night before, and the broken slat in the -Venetian blinds of the drunken doctor next door gave the last touch of -raffish squalor to the row of houses.</p> - -<p>No sooner was Edward seated in the doctor's neat consulting-room than -he fell into a despair, because he had not seen Elizabeth before he -came out. Suppose she were dead when he arrived back? He could hardly -stay in the room; the smell of disinfectants here was stifling him -with an aroma of death. It was only by clutching the arms of the chair -covered with red rep and dinning into his brain the need to wait for -that blessed instrument which was so anxiously awaited by the doctor -that he was able not to desert his post. He rang for the maid to ask -when the parcel delivery might be ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>pected, and upon her telling him -"ten o'clock at the earliest" he groaned aloud.</p> - -<p>It was actually eleven o'clock when Edward, after spending hours of -uncertainty, ran back to Pomona Terrace with a parcel for Dr. Harrison.</p> - -<p>"It has arrived at the very moment I required it," said the doctor, -hurrying upstairs without waiting to give Edward a word of hope about -his wife's condition beyond his satisfied comment on the arrival of the -new instrument.</p> - -<p>On the husband left standing in the dim passage of the Gallaghers' -lodging-house dawned the apprehension of God's mercy to him in -directing his footsteps yesterday evening to where lived probably the -only doctor in the neighborhood who would have a chance of saving that -beloved woman's life. He fell upon his knees where he stood and prayed -that God's mercy should be extended to the fulfillment of all he hoped. -Then he went back to the kitchen. At last Mrs. Gallagher entered all -smiles.</p> - -<p>"You may come up now," she told him. "All's well, praise be to the Holy -Mother of God, and you've a girleen."</p> - -<p>"A what?" shouted old James Taylor from his chair by the fire.</p> - -<p>"'Tis you that's a great-grandfather, Mr. Taylor," she told the old man.</p> - -<p>"A' look now," chuckled old James. "They ought to put I in a show. 'Tis -a state of life you can see in rams and bulls when you've a mind, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> -darn'ee, a real great-grandfather is summat to stare at even in London."</p> - -<p>Edward was kneeling beside Elizabeth before the old man had finished -his sentence. The doctor left them together.</p> - -<p>"You haven't asked to look at baby," Elizabeth murmured reproachfully. -She lifted the bedclothes for a moment, while Edward looked.</p> - -<p>"Yours," he murmured.</p> - -<p>"Ours," she corrected. "Ours, my dearest."</p> - -<p>"But it was you that suffered everything!"</p> - -<p>"But you were anxious about me, weren't you, my darling?" she tenderly -asked.</p> - -<p>"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" he cried.</p> - -<p>She knew how much he too had suffered, and because he did not speak of -his emotions she was moved with an immense desire not to let her baby -make her careless of her husband. She put out her hand to stroke his -head.</p> - -<p>"I thought about you all the time," she whispered. "When the pain was -worst I kept saying, 'Edward! Edward!' Nothing else. Only that, my -darling."</p> - -<p>He drew her hands to his lips.</p> - -<p>"And what shall she be christened?" the mother asked. "I'd like her to -be called Mary," she went on breathlessly. "You wouldn't think that a -common name, would you? 'Mary Flower,' I think that's a pretty name."</p> - -<p>The doctor came in at this moment to suggest that Edward had stayed -long enough for the pres<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>ent. The father leant over to kiss the eyes of -that pale mother.</p> - -<p>"Well, have 'ee seen her?" demanded the great-grandfather when Edward -came downstairs. "I suppose it is a girl all right?"</p> - -<p>"Mary," said Edward.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Mary, is it to be? Well, that's a good down-right honest style of -name for a girl. Yes, 'tis a name I like very well. And don't you be -discouraged, Mr. Edward, if she don't look beautiful all at once. A -calf's different. A new-born calf is a pretty sight for any man. So's a -chicken fresh from the egg. But a baby is so ugly as a young rook. Oh -dear, oh dear, there's few more ugly sights for man to look upon than a -new-born baby. Yet I suppose this time come three months we shall all -be looking at kangaroos and wobblies, and they're worse by what one -reads of 'em."</p> - -<p>Old James had got hold of one or two volumes of Antipodean travel, from -dipping into which behind a pair of large horn spectacles he had formed -a picture of Australia as zoölogically rich as a medieval illuminator's -conception of Eden.</p> - -<p>Now that Elizabeth's child was safely born, it was imperative to leave -England before the money gave out, and berths were secured in the -<i>Wizard Queen</i>, a 1,000-ton steamer lying in the East India Docks, -which was due to sail on February 18th for the port of Sydney. They -went on board the preceding afternoon; but remembering their last -experience in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> <i>Mariana</i> and with a desire to avert ill-luck they -kept themselves out of sight of the other emigrants who, like those on -the Mersey, were drowning the sorrow of departure in music and song. As -a matter of fact, old James could not resist going up on deck to have a -bit of fun, as he called it; but Edward and Elizabeth remained close in -their cabin, and did not even emerge for supper.</p> - -<p>After supper the strains of music that floated down below became more -melancholy, so that Elizabeth shivered. Edward, always solicitous, -begged her to tell him what was the matter. Did she feel nervous after -that alarming night on the Mersey? Did she regret that she had married -him? Was not the baby Mary sleeping soundly in her canvas cot, and was -she not so wonderful a being that sighs should be forgotten in the -contemplation of the future they two would sacrifice all to achieve for -her?</p> - -<p>"I was thinking of you, Edward," she said. "I was wondering if I had -done wrong in marrying you, so that you have had to leave your family -and your country for my sake."</p> - -<p>"It is not your fault," Edward exclaimed, "that we are all going to -Australia. If my father had not shown himself so bitter against me, -if my mother had not lost all affection for me, we should still be in -Long Orchard Farm. I beg you, my dearest, not to distress yourself with -regrets. Besides, look at her." He pointed to the sleeping infant. -"What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> do we matter now? We have given <i>her</i> to the world. There never -was such a baby girl. Just think, my Elizabeth, what you endured, what -even I endured? And now look at her. Remember how fortune was on her -side. I was never a religious man, but since that night in January I -have been made conscious of a divine power that directs the universe. -In the miracle of that small but perfect being born to you and me I -have understood the great miracle of creation."</p> - -<p>Elizabeth regarded her husband with admiration and awe.</p> - -<p>"You have such noble thoughts," she flattered him. "But I cannot think -like you. I can only remember the meadows where I played as a child -and the clematis over the door and the cocks crowing on fine mornings -in the summer-time. And now I'm leaving all that. And grandfather is -leaving it. And you, my Edward, are being taken far over the sea to -another country, and all because I selfishly loved you and selfishly -let you love me."</p> - -<p>The notes of a melody more sad than any which had yet been played -drifted below from the deck. Elizabeth's tears fell fast like raindrops -upon the petals of a rose. Nor could Edward's most tender words console -her grief, nor could they mitigate her apprehensiveness nor lighten the -gloom in which for her the future was enveloped. It was not until her -grandfather came tapping at their cabin door, in which a moment later -he stood framed with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> ruddy and jocund countenance, that she smiled.</p> - -<p>"I've enjoyed myself rarely," he announced. "There's been singing -up there as would put the heart in any man. There was never better -fiddling in Barton Flowers, not when I was a nipper. I'm bothered if I -han't enjoyed myself. Sleep like a top, the saying is. Bothered if I -shan't sleep like a humming-top to-night."</p> - -<p>He wished them well and stumped off to his berth.</p> - -<p>"You see how happy the old man is!" Edward exclaimed.</p> - -<p>And Elizabeth, now that the music had ceased to play upon her emotion, -forgot her fears. In the morning when they went on deck London was -sailing past them on either side of the ship, and a sharp wind from the -northwest made the voyagers long for warm and sunny lands.</p> - -<p>Among the emigrants was a middle-aged couple called Fawcus, both of -whom showed themselves most friendly to the Flowers, and both of whom -much admired the good behavior of the baby girl. Mr. Fawcus was a -large, smooth-faced man of fifty, definitely parsonic in the general -impression he gave with his suit of black broadcloth, a primness of -manner that was noticeable in so large a man, and an inclination to -discourse in rotund sentences. His wife was in every way a contrast to -her husband, being small, restless, and quick-eyed, a woman obviously -belonging to an inferior class, but who in spite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> of her Cockney accent -and vulgarity was obviously the leader and looked after her husband as -sharply as a capable and well-trained nurse.</p> - -<p>"I hope Mr. Micawber will still be alive when we reach Australia," said -Edward. "Nobody else could keep pace with our friend."</p> - -<p>"You haven't spoken of Mr. Micawber before, dear," said Elizabeth -reproachfully. "I didn't know you had any friends in Australia."</p> - -<p>"Mr. Micawber is a character in one of Mr. Charles Dickens' novels," he -explained.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Dickens who wrote the <i>Christmas Carol</i>?" Elizabeth asked.</p> - -<p>"The same."</p> - -<p>"He must be a very nice gentleman," was her murmured comment.</p> - -<p>Edward laughed.</p> - -<p>Mr. Fawcus according to himself had been reduced to emigration by the -devotion of his energy, his talents, and his money to the great cause -of popular education.</p> - -<p>"My survey of history," he told Edward, "taught me that all the -greatest human beings have been teachers. I determined, however humbly, -to follow in their footsteps."</p> - -<p>According to Mrs. Fawcus her husband's mistake had been first in -wasting money on derelict schools, and secondly in destroying whatever -chance such schools had of recovery by preaching in the open air of the -locality on Sundays.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> - -<p>"People couldn't a-bear to send their children to Mr. Fawcus's school -when they saw him preaching in the market-place like any heathen -missionary. It gave them the idea he was funny, and so the scholars'ud -leave until there wasn't one left, and then Mr. Fawcus had to move to -another town and start over again with another school. Besides, I was -always a hindrance to him."</p> - -<p>"You were never a hindrance, my love."</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes, I was, Mr. Fawcus, and well you know it. The truth is -parents don't want a homely woman like me for a teacher. They look for -something quite different in a school-mistress, something tall and -starchy."</p> - -<p>"And what are you going to do in Australia?" Edward asked.</p> - -<p>"In Australia, my dear sir," Mr. Fawcus boomed, "in Australia I am -going to educate the aborigines, who I understand from the reports of -travelers are considered the most degraded race of human beings on this -earth. Should that prove truer than the majority of travelers' tales -there must be room for education. After my experience with the children -of...."</p> - -<p>"Hush!" his wife interjected. "Hush, Mr. Fawcus!"</p> - -<p>"After my experience with the last school I founded in England the -aborigines of Australia will be easy to manage. Their women, I believe, -are known as ginns. A most unbecoming designation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> I shall try to -persuade them to abolish that name. The sea is rising, I observe -with regret. We are liable to pass a rough night, I fear. And I am -usually right. In fact, my intimates often nickname me Mr. Forecast. -My own name, by the way, is remarkable, don't you think? I have been -tempted to speculate upon its origin, and I have sometimes fancied -that it might be found among the <i>senatus populusque Romanus</i>. I was -informed the other day, however, by a gentleman of curious etymological -knowledge that it is probably a local variant of Fawkes. You of course -remember Guy of that ilk? Yes, the sky is looking very dirty indeed."</p> - -<p>A steely dusk of northwest weather lay chill upon the <i>Wizard Queen</i> -when she was tossing in the Downs, and by night the wind was blowing -with hurricane fury from the Kentish coast. The music and motion of the -storm kept all on board awake, and when about three o'clock there was -a crash followed by a dreadful sound of grinding timbers, the faces of -the terrified passengers immediately appeared from every cabin.</p> - -<p>Edward bade his wife wrap up the baby while he found out what had -happened, and with only an overcoat over his nightshirt he forced his -way on deck. From the darkness on the port side a shape seemed to carve -itself to the fleeting likeness of another vessel, but it vanished so -quickly that Edward fancied the vision to be a chimera of the night.</p> - -<p>"All hands to lower the boats," a voice cried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> from forward in the murk -of the night. Figures in dripping oilskins, like monsters risen from -the sea, pushed Edward aside to get at their business; but he managed -to make his way back aft to where from the orange mist above the -saloon-companion a stream of disheveled passengers belched forth like -smoke waving in the blast. As he fought his way down to find Elizabeth -and the old man, he heard another shout for'ard.</p> - -<p>"The port lifeboat was smashed in the collision."</p> - -<p>The saloon was empty when Edward reached it, and he was on the point of -turning back to begin a distracted search on deck when Elizabeth came -out of her cabin carrying the baby, her hair all about her shoulders, -her aspect serene. She looked fragile, ethereal indeed, but amid all -that confusion of human terror into which she must shortly be plunged -she moved forward with the resolution of an angel. Behind her came the -old man wrapped in a plaid shawl above his nightshirt, his face ruddy -as ever, but his old legs appearing thin as twigs beneath, so that it -seemed as if he must be blown away into the night when he should face -the storm.</p> - -<p>The crew was lowering the jolly-boat full of passengers when they -reached the deck. Notwithstanding the peril, for the ship would not -float another ten minutes it was being shouted, two of the sailors were -arguing angrily about the rig of the craft that struck the <i>Wizard -Queen</i>. One declared with an oath that it was a schooner; the other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> -affirmed with equal vigor that it had been a barquantine. A ship's -officer hurrying by fell to cursing them for rascals that they should -stand there arguing when the starboard lifeboat must be launched.</p> - -<p>"Women and children first," the captain thundered.</p> - -<p>A fiercer squall drummed overhead, and the emigrants that still -remained in the ship huddled together in fear of that dreadful brew -of waters upon which they were soon to float away. Somebody urged -Elizabeth toward the lifeboat; but she drew back.</p> - -<p>"Let somebody go instead of me. I'll wait for my husband," she said.</p> - -<p>But it happened that she was the last woman left and that there was -still room for Edward and old James, so that presently all three -climbed into the lifeboat.</p> - -<p>"Lower away!"</p> - -<p>The lifeboat rocked for a moment in the davits; and then just as she -reached the sea, being full in the weather, she was driven with great -force against the ship's side and stove in. She seemed to be brimming -over, but nevertheless the crew managed to shove her off, although by -this time she was so deep in the water that the wretched passengers -sitting on the thwarts were submerged from the waist downwards. It was -only the cork in her compartments that kept her barely afloat. There -were many faces still looking down from the steamer, and all on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> board -probably went down with her, or if the cutter was launched she must -have been swamped immediately, for a minute or two later the <i>Wizard -Queen</i> rose forward in the air and sank stern first. Now one by one, -as the icy waves broke over them, the women and men in the lifeboat -dropped from exhaustion into the sea. Old James Taylor was among -the first to go, falling backward without a cry, without a word of -reproach, as silently as one of his own red apples might fall at home -in the first October gale.</p> - -<p>"Did the Captain say where we was?" asked the man at the tiller.</p> - -<p>"Abreast of Beachy Head," one shouted in reply, and as he spoke a wave -swept him and a woman and a child into the darkness.</p> - -<p>"O God! he's dead. He's lying dead in my arms!" cried a miserable -father who was holding in his arms a little boy of five or six.</p> - -<p>"Drop the body overboard," the man at the tiller shouted. "Every pound -tells. Lighten the boat," he roared angrily. "Lighten the boat!"</p> - -<p>The wretched father, clasping his dead child more closely, turned away -in indignation at the brutal order; but as he turned a wave swept him -and the body overboard, and the boat was lightened a little more.</p> - -<p>All this time Elizabeth said nothing; but she clung to her place with -one hand and with the other held the baby to her breast beneath her -cloak. All this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> time Edward said nothing; but he had somehow managed -to wedge his legs round a support, so that whenever Elizabeth trembled -in her seat he could put out two arms to save her from peril. Two -women died of exhaustion from the wash of the sea and the freezing -wind, and their bodies were at once flung overboard. On the other -side of Elizabeth, Mrs. Fawcus, who alone of the women appeared to be -completely dressed, was trying to get off her cloak to throw it round -the mother, and simultaneously making an effort to listen to the plans -of Mr. Fawcus for the future, should the lifeboat ever reach a harbor.</p> - -<p>"I have given up my plan of educating the aborigines of Australia," he -bellowed above the gale, making a megaphone with his hands.</p> - -<p>"Yes, dear, I'm sure I agree with you. Drat this hook! It's so bent I -can't get it out of the eye. And don't put up your hands and shout at -me, Mr. Fawcus. You'll be swept over if you do."</p> - -<p>"What has occurred once," Mr. Fawcus bellowed, "may easily occur again. -I shall inquire for a suitable post in London. I always did execrate -the sea, as you know, my dear."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fawcus nodded.</p> - -<p>"And I was right," he shouted. "I usually am." But his wife could not -applaud his wisdom, for at that moment Elizabeth, reeling, cried:</p> - -<p>"Take my baby. Edward! My darling, my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> darling, I ought not to have -married you. It's all my fault."</p> - -<p>As Mrs. Fawcus took the baby, Elizabeth fell, and Edward, throwing -himself backward in a last effort to save his wife, fell with her into -the sea.</p> - -<p>At dawn a small steamer sighted the wreck of the lifeboat and launched -a boat to rescue the four who had survived that night. One was the -man at the tiller; the other three were Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus with Mary -Flower.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="Chapter_Two" id="Chapter_Two"></a><i>Chapter Two</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE GIRL</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><i>Chapter Two: The Girl</i></p> - - -<p>Mary Flower passed the first ten years of her life in the basement of a -publisher's office in Paternoster Row, where every floor as high as the -roof was loaded with the stock of years, so that the earliest defined -fear of her childhood was lest the old house should collapse one night -and bury herself and her uncle and aunt beneath a mountain of books. -This was the result of reading the story of an earthquake in Jamaica; -and the habit thus engendered of brooding upon seismic catastrophes -led Mary soon afterward to prefigure the vaster ruin of St. Paul's -Cathedral, the bulk of which obscured so much of the sky from her -childish vision.</p> - -<p>"You've no right to fill her head with such notions, Uncle William," -said Mrs. Fawcus sharply. "Why, there was no more than a tiny little -crack in the ceiling over her bed, and I'm sure the child regular -worried the life out of me about that blessed crack."</p> - -<p>"That's where you're wrong, Aunt Lucy," replied Mr. Fawcus. "When a -child's interest is aroused in any natural phenomenon it is the duty -of the parent or of the guardian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> who stands <i>in loco parentis</i> to -cultivate that interest by every means in his power. It is one of the -rudimentary principles of education. Fate directed her to the narrative -of an earthquake in the West Indies, rousing in her breast an ambition -to know more about terrestrial convulsions, to learn about such facts -as their comparative frequency and their geographical distribution. -What has our little Mary learned? She has learned that nothing more -than slight shocks may be expected in the heart of London and that ..."</p> - -<p>"Oh, how you do carry on, Uncle William! The poor child's learned -nothing of the kind. She goes to bed shaking in her shoes every night."</p> - -<p>However, Mary soon forgot all about earthquakes, because a dancing bear -broke loose in St. Paul's Churchyard and created such a panic that for -several weeks she saw bears at the back of every cupboard, and Mrs. -Fawcus had to hide her favorite copy of <i>Red Riding Hood</i> on account of -the tremors set up by the vivid illustrations. It must not be supposed -that she was a very nervous child or that her existence was unusually -spoilt by the incidental alarms of childhood. On the contrary, the -world beheld in the basement of that tall Georgian warehouse was a -placid and cozy world, her place in which she owed to the couple whom -she knew as Uncle William and Aunt Lucy.</p> - -<p>When Mr. Fawcus walked down the gangway of the steamer that rescued him -from the wreck of that lifeboat and felt the terra-firma, as he called -it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> of Dover Quay beneath his feet, he knelt down just outside the -Lord Warden Hotel and vowed that he would never attempt to leave his -native land again.</p> - -<p>"I've been teaching all my life," he told Mrs. Fawcus. "But I can still -learn a lesson myself."</p> - -<p>The problem of the future was a difficult one, and it was not -simplified by the responsibility of the baby.</p> - -<p>"Though, mark you," said Mr. Fawcus gravely, "I consider that the -education of one English girl is of more importance than the education -of a thousand Australian aborigines. Unfortunately I have come to the -end of my capital, and in order to educate her it will be necessary for -me to find some kind of moderately remunerative employment."</p> - -<p>"I'm glad to hear you speak so sensible, Mr. Fawcus," said his wife.</p> - -<p>"Bly, my dear, bly. Sensi-bly. Don't let a shipwreck destroy in one -moment what I have spent years in teaching you: the distinction between -an adjective and an adverb."</p> - -<p>During their short intercourse with the Flowers Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus, -or to be accurate Mrs. Fawcus, had elicited an account of the -circumstances which had led up to their emigrating; when it began to -look as if Mr. Fawcus was never going to find a suitable job, his wife -argued that they ought to communicate with the baby's grandfather.</p> - -<p>"If we were going to say anything at all," Mr. Fawcus objected, "we -ought to have written the mo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>ment we found ourselves safe on shore. -Having left it so long, we may appear to the eyes of Sir Richard Flower -like kidnappers. She is such a good baby that I hate to give her up, -and besides I did want to try my hand at an education completely -independent of those obstinate and conservative creatures which we know -generically as 'parents.'"</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, Mr. Fawcus, in dread of the uncertain future, was at last -driven by his wife's entreaties into communication with the grandfather -of the baby whose guardianship he had assumed in the presence of death.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -101 Floral Street,<br /> -Near Covent Garden,<br /> -<i>March 3rd, 1860</i>.<br /> -<br /> -<i>Honored Sir</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>You have no doubt read with a father's grief, in which I beg leave -most respectfully to share, the melancholy news of the loss of the -emigrant ship, Wizard Queen, by collision off Beachy Head at 3 a.m. -on the morning of the 18th ult., and by this time you have no doubt -abandoned all hope of hearing that your son, Mr. Edward Flower, was -saved. I do not write to raise false hopes in your breast. Alas! -I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing him in the lifeboat -to which we both clung (rather than in which we both sat) swept -overboard in a vain attempt to save his wife from a similar fate. It -may, however, be some mitigation of your sorrow to learn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> that he -left behind him in the care of myself and wife a baby girl, who is -at present sharing our humble room at the above address. We should -deeply feel parting with the engaging infant; but we respectfully -recognize the superior claims of her grandparents. I have the honor -to await your instructions with regard to her disposal. Will you send -a suitable nurse to convey the infant to your Seat? Or shall my good -wife take upon herself the responsibility of personally delivering -the infant at Barton Hall?</i></p> - -<p><i>I must apologize for the delay in notifying you of your -granddaughter's fortunate survival; but I have recently been much -occupied in trying to recover for myself the small niche in England -which I so rashly abandoned in my ambition to put the glories of -education within reach of the aborigines of Australia. In expectation -of shortly hearing from you, I have the honor, Sir, to subscribe -myself</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Your most obedient humble servant,<br /> -William Axworthy Fawcus.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><i>P. S.—I should add that I was formerly a schoolmaster, having been -the proud possessor of several private schools in turn. Now for -various reasons I find myself unable to devote myself any longer to -the education of the young idea, and I have this morning entered -into a contract with Messrs. Holland and Brown, the publishers of -Paternoster Row, to invigilate their stock.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>W.A. F.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> - -<p>To this the baronet replied as follows:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -Barton Hall,<br /> -Barton Flowers, Hants,<br /> -<i>March 8, '60</i>.<br /> -<br /> -<i>Sir</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I have no interest in my son's daughter. At the same time, I am not -anxious to be under an obligation to strangers for her maintenance. -If you insist on giving up your care of the baby, I must find some -other worthy couple to look after her. If, on the other hand, you are -willing to accept that responsibility and will let me hear that you -are prepared to do so, I will instruct my lawyers, Messrs. Hepper and -Philcox, to remit you the sum of £100 a year in quarterly instalments -payable in advance until she reaches the age of ten years, when I -shall communicate fresh proposals.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Yours truly,<br /> -Richard Flower.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>Thus it befell that Mary continued to live with Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus, -calling them Uncle William and Aunt Lucy, and indirectly being the -cause of Mrs. Fawcus's getting nearer to an intimate mode of addressing -her husband than she had ever reached before. The contract into which -Mr. Fawcus had entered with Messrs. Holland and Brown might have been -less grandly described as an engagement to be caretaker of their -premises, for which he was paid the sum of eighteen shillings a week -and allotted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> the basement of kitchen, scullery, two rooms, a cellar, -and a backyard.</p> - -<p>"The task is in some respects a menial task," he told his wife. "But it -is redeemed by the fact that I am a warden of books. Had I been invited -to guard bales of dry goods, I should have declined the offer. I am -ready in the cause of literature and learning to sacrifice what remains -to me of scholastic dignity by exposing myself in the <i>toga virilis</i> of -service, in other words, a green baize apron, punctually at 6.30 a.m. -to the public eye, and if the public eye chooses to regard my daily -renovation of the brass, my <i>quotidian lustration</i> of the steps, as -menial, I merely say with what's his <i>nomen</i> '<i>per aspera ad astra</i>.'"</p> - -<p>"Well, all I beg is, Mr. Fawcus"—he had not become Uncle William -yet—"all I beg is," said his wife, "you won't go preaching about St. -Paul's Churchyard of a Sunday morning."</p> - -<p>"In, my love, not about. On, my dear, not of. Your allusion was to the -locality and date, not the subject of my discourse."</p> - -<p>"Don't be so pernickety, Mr. Fawcus. You know quite well what I meant -to say."</p> - -<p>"The Queen's English, my dear, should share with the Queen's Person the -privilege of inviolability. But set your mind at rest. Preserve the -<i>mens sana in corpore sano</i>. Now that we have been intrusted with the -nonage of that cherub," he pointed to Mary asleep in her cot, "I do -not intend to jeopardize the material comforts of this basement. <i>Tu -Marcellus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> eris!</i> In other words, I intend to devote all my persuasive -energy to Mary."</p> - -<p>Mr. Fawcus kept his word. To be sure, he might say to his wife:</p> - -<p>"Holland and Brown are going too far. They are impinging upon my -pride. I felt very much inclined last night to utter a stern <i>noli me -tangere</i>. But I thought of Mary, and I refrained. Yes, I thought of our -Mary and I agreed to give the disposal of the day's waste-paper, the -<i>disjecta membra</i> of their correspondence, my personal supervision."</p> - -<p>Mr. Fawcus might complain of the advantage his employers took of his -reduced circumstances; but he never did fail to remember what was owed -to Mary. She was indeed the pivot of that basement in Paternoster -Row, a little household goddess to whom the two old people accorded -divine honors and through whom, brought close together by their common -worship, they grew closer and closer to each other as the years went -by. She was not a spoilt child, or at least she was not spoilt by -anything except such humble treats and toys as her guardians could -afford. Mrs. Fawcus was not a woman to give way out of laziness or -weakness or fond affection to the exactions of childhood. She treated -Mary in the same fashion as she had always treated her husband, that -is to say, she loved and admired her as a superior being to herself, -but she never allowed her to suppose that her behavior could not be -criticized and corrected.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mary herself at ten years old was a beautiful child, so beautiful that -the degraded clothes of the period were incapable of concealing her -beauty. From her mother she had inherited that auburn hair with all its -texture of silk and all its abundance, but instead of brown eyes hers -were deep blue, pellucid and round as speedwells. Sir Richard had such -eyes once; and the painter who came to Barton Hall in the summer of -1810, without being afraid of the comparison, had painted him with a -posy of cornflowers, his eyes following the flight of blue butterflies. -Old James Taylor had such eyes to the end; but he was never painted -in tight pantaloons and a frilled collar. If a little girl has auburn -hair, and big deep blue eyes, and a complexion like a malmaison, she -has no need to bother about her features. Actually Mary showed promise -of fine features emerging one day from her dimples, and her hands were -as fine and delicate as her grandmother's.</p> - -<p>From being without the companionship of other children, Mary had -acquired what were called old-fashioned ways, which meant that she -would always join in the conversation of her uncle and aunt, pay much -attention to the deportment of her dolls, and spend a great deal of -time reading fairy tales by the kitchen fire. The basement of a city -warehouse may seem a dreary place for a little girl to spend most -of her time; but Mary found it as full of romance as one of her own -picture books, and apart from such fleeting alarms as the threat of -earthquakes or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> the dread of sudden and violent robbery, echoes of -which occasionally reached her when Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus discussed -events that near bedtime little girls ought not to overhear, Mary found -her home safe and cosy. The small yard at the back was not so much -overshadowed by the tall houses round as to keep the sun from shining -down upon it in summer; here Mary had several green boxes in which she -grew pansies and creeping jenny, mignonette and red and white double -daisies. Here too in a wicker cage outside the kitchen door lived -Mary's thrush, who sang his country song while Mary sat gazing up at -the golden cross on the dome of St. Paul's and wondering if the thrush -would like to be sitting there and if it would be kinder to set him -free. It was a very small yard; yet it seemed illimitable to Mary, and -every brick in the wall was to her as large and interesting as a field.</p> - -<p>But if the yard seemed vast, how much vaster appeared the upper -portions of the house! Sometimes when work was over Mr. Fawcus would -let Mary accompany him on his tour of inspection round the deserted -premises. She was allowed to climb up ladders and read the names of -books stacked away on the highest shelves, dusty books with titles that -sounded most uninteresting, although the recitation of them evidently -gave great pleasure to Uncle William. And then one day in an attic -she discovered hundreds of picture books, nearly all fairy stories. -When she announced her discovery, Uncle William<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> shook his head and -muttered, "Old stock! Old stock!"</p> - -<p>"But, Uncle William, they're not old. They're quite new. Really they -are—quite bright and not a bit torn. I found <i>The Three Bears</i> and a -story about a mother pig who frightened away a wolf when he came to -gobble up her little pigs. And how do you think she did it? You'll -never guess, Uncle William. Why, she rolled down the hill in a churn. -What is a churn, Uncle William?"</p> - -<p>This was exactly the kind of question dear to the heart of Mr. -Fawcus, and before Mary went to bed that night she had been given an -exhaustive discourse on dairy-farming, so that if she had listened as -attentively as her aunt kept bidding her listen, she would have learned -the difference between curds and whey, and all about rennet, and all -about Stilton cheeses and Devonshire cream, and why butter won't come -sometimes ... but alas! Mary did not listen, because her mind was far -away upstairs in that attic.</p> - -<p>It happened that the very next day she was sent on a message to one -of the offices and that the gentleman to whom she gave the message, a -dried-up gentleman with bright shining spectacles, asked her if she -would like a penny to buy some lollipops.</p> - -<p>"No, thank you, sir," said Mary, curtseying. "I'd like to go upstairs -and look at those picture books at the top of the house."</p> - -<p>Whereupon the dried-up gentleman mysteriously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> muttered, "Old stock! -Old stock!" just like Uncle William yesterday.</p> - -<p>"Why, you may go there whenever you like, my little maid," he told her.</p> - -<p>"Fancy that!" exclaimed Mrs. Fawcus when she was informed of this by -Mary. "Well, did you ever? I'm sure I never did. I never did know such -an old-fashioned child in my life, Uncle William. Never! Fancy her -asking such a thing of Mr. Bristowe."</p> - -<p>"It's old stock," said Mr. Fawcus.</p> - -<p>And Mary when she had been given leave by her uncle and aunt to avail -herself of Mr. Bristowe's kind offer whispered "old stock" when she -opened the door of that dusty attic, for she felt that it was an -enchanted phrase like Open Sesame. The attic window looked down into -the backyard of the basement, and Mary could not resist opening the -window, for although she felt sure that she ought not to lean out of a -window, inasmuch as she lived in a basement she had never actually been -forbidden to lean out of windows. Yes, there were her flowers, such -tiny specks of color, down below, and there was the dustbin looking -more than ever like a knight in armor, and there was her thrush's cage. -Hark! he was singing. She could hear his song above the thunder of the -London streets. The attic window had a window-seat where Mary spent -long lovely mornings in April reading those dusty picture books one -after another, face to face with the clouds while the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> golden cross -upon the dome of St. Paul's glittered in the sun. On the sill were the -remains of a battered window-box still half full of earth. In this Mary -sowed nasturtium seeds which grew miraculously, so that soon when Mary -was in the yard she could look up and see the orange and yellow flowers -waving in the wind against the dingy bricks of the warehouse.</p> - -<p>"Rapunzel, Rapunzel," she called. "Let down your golden hair."</p> - -<p>"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Fawcus exclaimed.</p> - -<p>"I'm being the witch," Mary told her.</p> - -<p>"Which what?"</p> - -<p>"The witch. The witch who climbed up to the tower by Rapunzel's golden -hair."</p> - -<p>"Did anybody ever hear anything like it?"</p> - -<p>And when Mrs. Fawcus came out into the yard at Mary's invitation and -looking up saw the nasturtiums, she was more exclamatory than ever.</p> - -<p>"Well, it give me quite a turn," she vowed to Uncle William. "The like -of that child was never known."</p> - -<p>Nearly all the clerks in the office came up to look at Mary's -nasturtiums; and Mr. Bristowe was so much delighted that he gave her a -small red watering-can.</p> - -<p>"It's a wonder the sparrows don't peck them to pieces," said Mr. -Fawcus, when Mary's triumph was being discussed in the basement.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> - -<p>"If they did, they'd burn their tongues," said Mary.</p> - -<p>"Well, now, did you ever hear a more old-fashioned remark?"</p> - -<p>"<i>Passer deliciæ meæ puellæ</i>," boomed Mr. Fawcus.</p> - -<p>Until Mary discovered that new world in the roof, her chief pleasure -apart from the backyard had been a cellar in front of the basement -which was lighted from a square of opaque glass set in the pavement -of the street. She was willing to spend hours here, sitting on an old -footstool, surrounded by her dolls and pretending to be a sea-nymph. -A wet day, and it was chiefly on wet days that Mary frequented this -cellar, heightened the illusion of being under the sea, because the -skylight, if such an aperture may be called a skylight, when blurred -with rain was more than usually aqueous, and the shadows of people -passing overhead were more than usually like fish. Mrs. Fawcus, -when she first heard of Mary's pastime, was moved to utter dark -interpretations of it.</p> - -<p>"Depend upon it, Uncle William, that child's life is going to be mixed -up with deep water. Mark my words, she'll cross the sea many a time -before she goes down to the grave."</p> - -<p>"Do not vaticinate, my dear," her husband commanded. "Absit omen!"</p> - -<p>"I don't know what you're talking about, but when any one thinks of -that night ten years ago and when any one sees that dear innocent -sitting out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> there and staring up at the fishes, as she calls them, -well, any one may be forgiven for doing what any one's told by their -husband they mustn't do."</p> - -<p>"Ten years ago," Mr. Fawcus repeated. "So it is. I wish you'd keep your -thoughts to yourself sometimes, Aunt Lucy. Ten years ago!"</p> - -<p>She shuddered, for he was thinking of those fresh proposals to be made -in ten years.</p> - -<p>"Here's the money from the lawyers," said Mrs. Fawcus one morning in -March, handing her husband the familiar envelope which had arrived -regularly every quarter-day.</p> - -<p>Mr. Fawcus, on whose countenance a decade of looking after the stock -of Messrs. Holland and Brown had not left a mark, became suddenly old -and flabby when he read through that letter. In that moment even his -Latinity deserted him. The dreadful fact could not be evaded like so -many other facts in his life by ponderous rhetoric and polysyllabic -euphemisms.</p> - -<p>"We've got to give her up," he groaned.</p> - -<p>His wife snatched the letter from him.</p> - -<p>"Where's Mary?" she asked, quickly looking round before she said -anything Mary ought not to hear.</p> - -<p>"She's gone up to her attic to sow the seeds I bought her yesterday. -She wanted to try sweet sultans this year. She's up in the attic sowing -sweet sultans."</p> - -<p>Mr. Fawcus buried his face in his hands and bent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> low in unutterable -despair, while his wife read the lawyer's letter.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -151 Lamb's Conduit Street, W.C.,<br /> -<i>March 24, 1870</i>.<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>Dear Sir</i>,</p> - -<p><i>We are instructed by our Client, Lady Flower of Barton Hall, Barton -Flowers, to say that she has decided to receive into her house her -granddaughter, Miss Mary Flower. We beg to enclose in addition to the -usual quarterly allowance of £25 a check for £50, in order that Miss -Mary Flower may be suitably equipped for the journey to Paris, where -Lady Flower is now living and where she wishes her granddaughter to -join her. If you will give us a call at your earliest convenience, -we shall be happy to provide you with any advice you may require in -respect of the journey. Lady Flower desires us to thank you for the -care you have taken of Miss Mary Flower and begs that if you have not -already explained to her the peculiar circumstances in which you took -charge of her you will do so now.</i></p> - -<p><i>In case you may not be acquainted with the facts, we may add that -a year after Mr. Edward Flower lost his life in the wreck of the -Wizard Queen, his elder brother, Mr. John Flower, was killed in the -hunting-field. By the death of Sir Richard Flower, which occurred -last November, Lady Flower inherited the whole of his property and -she is no doubt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> anxious to provide suitably for the youngest and -only surviving member of the family.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Yours faithfully,<br /> -Hepper and Philcox.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>Mrs. Fawcus went across to where her husband was still sitting with -bowed head.</p> - -<p>"William!" she murmured. It was the first time in thirty-five years of -married life that she had dared to call him simply that.</p> - -<p>"William!" she repeated more confidently, for the outward semblance -of things had not been changed by her daring address. "You must write -<i>them</i> a letter."</p> - -<p>"It would be useless, my dear," he muttered without raising his head. -"Useless, utterly and completely useless. A labor of Sisyphus, my love."</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, Mr. Fawcus was persuaded to try, and he composed the -following letter to Messrs. Hepper and Philcox:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -c/o Messrs. Holland and Brown,<br /> -Publishers,<br /> -95 Paternoster Row,<br /> -London, E.C.,<br /> -<i>March 25, 1870</i>.<br /> -<br /> -<i>Dear Sirs</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>Your communication of the 24th inst. with kind enclosures was duly -received. For the moment I am too much disturbed by the situation -thus created<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> to express worthily my repugnance to the notion of -losing Miss Mary Flower. I should esteem it a favor if you would, so -far as the emotions of a suppositious father can be suitably conveyed -through the medium of legal phraseology, convey to Her Ladyship that -my good wife and myself are most anxious not to part with the child -whom we literally snatched from the angry deep. With all respect -I venture to observe that until this moment none of her relatives -has shown the slightest concern for the child's welfare beyond the -quarterly allowance of £25 sterling. Mrs. Fawcus and myself on the -other hand have never felt anything but the profoundest affection -for her, and I can assure you that we would have left ourselves with -nothing more than the bare necessities of life rather than that she -should have wanted for the least thing.</i></p> - -<p><i>In the hope of shortly receiving from you a favorable reply to my -request</i>,</p> - -<p> -<i>I am, Gentlemen,<br /> -Your obedient servant,<br /> -William Axworthy Fawcus</i>.<br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>It was settled not to say anything to Mary until the lawyers wrote -again:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -151 Lamb's Conduit Street, W.C.<br /> -<i>April 3, 1870.</i><br /> -<br /> -<i>Dear Sir</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>We have to say in answer to your letter of the 25th ult. that we -have communicated the substance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> of your request to Lady Flower, -and that she is unable to agree to your suggestion that Miss Mary -Flower should remain in your care. We take this opportunity to point -out that when in March, 1860, the late Sir Richard Flower invited -you to look after his granddaughter he made it clear that such an -arrangement was for ten years, at the end of which time he gave you -to understand the future of the child would once more come up for -discussion.</i></p> - -<p><i>Hoping that we shall hear from you in the course of a day or two, -appointing a time to call upon us</i>,</p> - -<p> -<i>We are,<br /> -Yours faithfully,<br /> -Hepper and Philcox</i>.<br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>"Who's to tell Mary?" Mrs. Fawcus asked with fear in her voice.</p> - -<p>"Well, I had thought of your telling her," Mr. Fawcus admitted. "But -perhaps the most equitable way would be for us both to tell her."</p> - -<p>The worst of it was that, when they did brace themselves to tell her -and were prepared at whatever cost to themselves to alleviate in every -possible way her grief, Mary herself jumped for joy at the notion of -visiting her grandmother in France.</p> - -<p>"She doesn't mean to be cruel," said Mrs. Fawcus, patting her husband's -arm reassuringly.</p> - -<p>"No, no, certainly not," he agreed. "It's just the heedlessness of -youth."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fawcus sighed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> - -<p>"We were young once ourselves, Mr. Fawcus." The imminent departure of -Mary made "Uncle William" sound ridiculous now, and Mrs. Fawcus went -back to her time-honored mode of address.</p> - -<p>"Many years ago, my love," he said, shaking his head. "And I'm afraid -that you've had much to put up with since then. I have wasted my -opportunities sadly. I ought to have been in a superb position by now."</p> - -<p>"I'm sure I don't wish for anything better than what we've got," Mrs. -Fawcus declared, trying to sound cheerful. "I'm sure as basements go, -one couldn't wish for a nicer basement. It's so lovely and light for -one thing."</p> - -<p>"If I were to die, my dear, I'm convinced that Holland and Brown would -offer you the refusal of my post."</p> - -<p>"Oh, don't talk like that, Mr. Fawcus. Die? What ever next, to be sure?"</p> - -<p>"<i>Tempora, mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.</i> It won't be the same -without our Mary."</p> - -<p>"You're going to make me cry if you keep on keeping on so." Mrs. Fawcus -uttered a few warning sniffles.</p> - -<p>At that moment she, who by her reception of the news had added the last -bitterness to the separation, came dancing back from her dolls to whom -as a great secret she had been telling about her departure.</p> - -<p>"Do you think my granny will be like a fairy god-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>mother?" Mary asked. -"Because if she is I shall ask her to wave her magic wand and bring my -dear Uncle William and my dear Aunt Lucy to France."</p> - -<p>"Will you, Mary, will you? But I'm too old and fat to be waved by fairy -godmothers," said Mr. Fawcus sadly.</p> - -<p>Mary began to understand at last that her going away was a grief to -her kind guardians, and as she had often done before, when it seemed -advisable to propitiate Uncle William, or when Uncle William came -downstairs very angry over some new task that Holland and Brown had -laid upon him, she asked him a question.</p> - -<p>"How big is France, Uncle William?" And folding her hands across her -clean pinafore she composed herself to listen more attentively to a -long account of France than she had ever listened to any of Uncle -William's exegetical discourses before.</p> - -<p>But Uncle William did not answer, and Mary, horrified at his silence, -began to cry.</p> - -<p>"For goodness' sake, child, don't wipe your eyes on your clean -pinafore," Mrs. Fawcus sharply adjured her. It was like Mrs. Fawcus to -have put Mary into a clean pinafore just to learn that she was to be -taken from them.</p> - -<p>A shaft of sunlight, the first of the year to reach the basement, -came glancing through the geraniums in the window and lit up the cosy -kitchen; but it was a cruel shaft, for it lit up also the weary lines -and the baggy eyes of Mr. Fawcus: it lit up the crows-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>feet and the -wrinkles of his wife; and most cruelly of all it lit up Mary's auburn -hair, reminding the old couple that, though the sun might shine all the -summer through, here it would never shine again upon that auburn hair.</p> - -<p>The next fortnight went by for Mary in such a whirl of exciting new -experiences as no child of ten could be expected not to enjoy, and she -was hardly to be blamed if she did appear hard-hearted in her behavior -on the verge of parting with her guardians. She could hardly be blamed -for not realizing how unlikely it was that she would ever see either -of them again, and in justice to the old couple it must be said that -neither of them tried to gratify their emotion at Mary's expense. Once -the first shock had passed, they did their best to prepare her for a -worthy entrance upon the new scene, at whatever cost to themselves. A -number of dresses were bought, each one more outrageous than the last, -and each one seeming as much more beautiful to Mary.</p> - -<p>"I feel like Cinderella going to the ball," she told Mrs. Fawcus.</p> - -<p>"Ah, my dear, you'll find that life isn't quite such a fairy story as -you think it is now," replied Mrs. Fawcus.</p> - -<p>And this was as near as she got to a hint of cynicism in her advice to -the little girl.</p> - -<p>For the visit to the lawyers Mr. Fawcus arrayed himself in a black -suit he had not worn for eleven years, in fact, not since the annual -prize-giving at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> the last school he owned. It had been packed in the -bottom of a large trunk to go to Australia, where it was intended to -be worn at the ceremonious welcomes that Mr. Fawcus hoped to receive -in his new country. By good fortune this trunk had missed being put on -board the <i>Wizard Queen</i>, and both Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus had been able to -live for ten years on the clothes it had contained.</p> - -<p>Mr. Hepper and Mr. Philcox were even more desiccated than Mr. Bristowe -of Holland and Brown's. Both their waistcoats were dusty with snuff, so -dusty that if Mr. Philcox had not happened to prick his finger while he -was talking to Mary and displayed on the tip of it an infinitesimal but -withal definitely recognizable drop of blood Mary might have thought -that they were stuffed with sawdust like her own dolls.</p> - -<p>"And what arrangements have you made for conveying Miss Flower to her -grandmother?" asked Mr. Hepper.</p> - -<p>"Mrs. Fawcus will conduct her to Paris," said Mr. Fawcus. "I should -have taken her myself if I had not recorded a solemn vow on Dover Quay -ten years ago never to cross the sea again."</p> - -<p>"Ah, that would be after you were wrecked, no doubt," said Mr. Philcox. -"Yes—um—ah! I've never been wrecked myself, Mr. Fawcus."</p> - -<p>"It is an experience which happily falls to the lot of few," said Mr. -Fawcus.</p> - -<p>"Yes—um—ah! Then I may take it as definite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> that this young lady will -leave by the Dover packet on Wednesday next. How is the glass, Mr. -Hepper?"</p> - -<p>"The glass is steady, Mr. Philcox."</p> - -<p>"The glass augurs well for the voyage across, Mr. Fawcus. You hear what -Mr. Hepper says."</p> - -<p>"Is there anything more you wish to tell me?" Mr. Fawcus inquired, -bowing to each of the partners in turn.</p> - -<p>Mr. Hepper looked at Mr. Philcox, who shook his head.</p> - -<p>"Nothing more, thank you, Mr. Fawcus," they declared in unison.</p> - -<p>Mr. Fawcus was about to take his leave, when Mr. Philcox held up his -hand.</p> - -<p>"But wait a minute. Dear me, we have forgotten something. Yes—um—ah! -Lady Flower instructed us that if on inquiries we should find that you -had suitably performed your duty towards her granddaughter we should -offer you this handsome token of appreciation."</p> - -<p>Mr. Philcox flourished an envelope.</p> - -<p>"I am happy to say, Mr. Fawcus, that our inquiries have proved -perfectly satisfactory, and so perhaps you will take a little peep -inside and also, I think, Mr. Hepper, it might be more in order if Mr. -Fawcus were to sign this little receipt."</p> - -<p>"Please thank her ladyship from me," said Mr. Fawcus grandly, putting -the envelope down on the lawyer's table. "But the only token of -her appre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>ciation that I or Mrs. Fawcus should esteem would be an -occasional communication from her lawyers if she does not care to write -herself letting us know that—er—this young lady is well and happy. I -wish you a very good morning, gentlemen." Mr. Fawcus made a bow, and -left the office with Mary.</p> - -<p>A few days later Mr. Fawcus, from the gliding shore, was waving -farewell to the little girl.</p> - -<p>"Don't forget to water my sweet sultans, Uncle William," Mary cried -above the turmoil of the paddles.</p> - -<p>"The less you say about water to poor Uncle William," Mrs. Fawcus -commented almost sharply, "the better. It must have been just here that -he carried you ashore in his arms ten years ago."</p> - -<p>The steamer backed and brought poor Uncle William within earshot again.</p> - -<p>"I was telling Mary that just about here you carried her ashore," Mrs. -Fawcus called to her husband.</p> - -<p>"<i>Sunt lacrimæ rerum</i>," he chanted, and, when this time the paddles -churned up the water in earnest, Mr. Fawcus buried his face in a -bandana handkerchief and waved a limp glove from the receding shore, a -limp glove that pathetically expressed the condition of mind and body -to which its owner was by now reduced.</p> - -<p>The journey was too full of excitement for Mary to be long saddened -by the vision of Mr. Fawcus on the quay. Most children remember their -first Channel crossing; but this great event in Mary's case was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> made -doubly noteworthy from its being the only adventure of any importance -she had ever known, so placid had been her life in that Paternoster Row -basement.</p> - -<p>"Ah, you wouldn't be dancing about quite so gaily, Miss, if you could -remember the first time you was on the sea," said Mrs. Fawcus. "Still, -I'm bound to say you behaved very well then, all considering. Though -why you didn't die of that perishing wind I'm sure I don't know, and -that's a fact."</p> - -<p>"Shall we be wrecked to-day, Aunt Lucy?"</p> - -<p>"For the love of mercy, don't talk of such things," Mrs. Fawcus begged. -"If you feel sick, chew a bit of lemon peel and let it come. Don't be -afraid. Them as manages this boat have seen thousands of people sick. -They don't consider it any more than blowing the nose, as you might -say."</p> - -<p>But Mary was not sick, and when Mrs. Fawcus came back to Paternoster -Row she told her husband of this convincing indication of a mysterious -bond between Mary and the sea.</p> - -<p>"If I have a window-box in Paris," said Mary, when the chalk cliffs of -England were become ghosts in the mist, "I shall plant sweet williams, -because Uncle William is sweet, isn't he, Aunt Lucy?"</p> - -<p>"Bless your heart, my little treasure," Mrs. Fawcus exclaimed as she -clasped Mary to her heart. "It'll be meat and drink to poor Uncle -William to hear that."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> - -<p>When the various difficulties of customs and porters and trains and -cabs had been surmounted, and Mary holding tightly to the hand of Mrs. -Fawcus was standing on the steps of her grandmother's house in the -Avenue de Wagram, she felt a sudden desire to turn round and go back to -the basement in Paternoster Row. So far it had all been a delightful -adventure, but now she was tired of the adventure and was thinking -about her thrush which always sang so sweetly in the month of April.</p> - -<p>"Oh dear, I wish it <i>was</i> really a dream and that I was going to wake -up now," she whispered to Mrs. Fawcus; but just then the door opened, -and in a moment Mary was inside her grandmother's house.</p> - -<p>She was vaguely aware, when she was stumping upstairs behind the -footman, of tiger-skins and dark paneled walls and soft carpets; but -before she had time to look round, two great doors had been flung -open, and while Mrs. Fawcus drew back she had to walk over an immense -slippery floor to where in a kind of inner room her grandmother was -reading a yellow book by the fire. She heard from far away in that vast -outer room the sharp whisper of Aunt Lucy: "Run along quick and give -your grandmother a nice kiss." However, Mary did not dare to run, but -stepped very carefully over the head first of a polar bear and then of -a black bear until she stood before her grandmother's chair.</p> - -<p>"I've come to see you, Grandmamma," she announced.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> - -<p>Lady Flower rose from her chair and looked critically at the little -girl for a moment before she bent over and kissed her cheek.</p> - -<p>"And is this good woman Mrs. Fawcus?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"That's Aunt Lucy," said Mary.</p> - -<p>Lady Flower frowned slightly.</p> - -<p>"I expect you'll like a cup of tea after your journey, Mrs. Fawcus," -she said, pulling a big purple bell-rope that hung before the fireplace.</p> - -<p>"Oh, no, thank you, my lady. Nothing at all, thank you. I think I ought -to be getting back to Mr. Fawcus as soon as possible."</p> - -<p>"Is your husband waiting outside?" Lady Flower inquired.</p> - -<p>"Oh, no, thank you, my lady. He sent many apologies for not coming too, -but he's never been to sea since he was wrecked."</p> - -<p>The footman came in at this moment, and Lady Flower told him to take -Mrs. Fawcus downstairs for a cup of tea.</p> - -<p>"Oh, no, thank you, my lady. Too kind of you, I'm sure, but I'd really -rather be going, now that I've seen Mary safely here. I've arranged to -go back to Calais and wait there the night. Mr. Fawcus thought he'd be -less anxious that way than if I was to stay in Paris all by myself. -We shall miss Mary most terribly, my lady. If I might just kiss her -good-by and be off? I'm sure it's a pity Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> Fawcus couldn't have -come. He's much superior to me in every way."</p> - -<p>"Well, if you insist on going back at once," said Lady Flower, who -was beginning to think that after all she had nothing to say to Mrs. -Fawcus, and who would have cut out her tongue rather than ask the one -question she wanted to ask about the death of her son.</p> - -<p>"Yes, indeed I think I will, my lady, and thank you kindly, I'm sure, -for the offer of tea."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fawcus darted forward, kissed Mary passionately several times, and -seemed to slide out of the room across the parquet and out of her life -forever.</p> - -<p>When Lady Flower was alone with her granddaughter she was more at ease. -She was little changed by ten years; she was still the same delicately -ivorine creature as when she banished this child's father from her -heart with words of contempt for this child's mother. Not that she -ever really did banish Edward; the death of her elder son with all -his valor and renown did not touch her half so deeply as the loss of -Edward. If it had not been for Sir Richard's determination to ignore -Edward's offspring she might long ago have sent for Mary. Her husband's -bitterness against Edward, drowned dead though he was by that time, -was intensified when John was killed in the hunting-field. He declared -fiercely to his wife that he was glad Edward had not left a son, for -that he would rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> the name and title of the Flowers should perish -utterly than that the fruit of his son's disgraceful alliance with one -of his own tenants should carry on both.</p> - -<p>Mary was astonished to find how young her grandmother was. She -had expected a very old lady—almost she had pictured her with a -spinning-wheel and wearing a steeple-crowned hat—who would be bent -double and talk in a high, cracked voice. Instead of that she found -some one who looked much younger than Aunt Lucy.</p> - -<p>"You'll have to go to school, you know," her grandmother was saying. -"You'll have a great deal to learn. Let me look at your hands, child. -Dear me, I believe you're going to have hands like mine. But your nails -are a little grubby."</p> - -<p>"That's because I've been gardening all last week."</p> - -<p>"Gardening? Where did you garden in London?"</p> - -<p>"In the attic. Mr. Bristowe let me garden there."</p> - -<p>"No wonder your nails are grubby. And who is Mr. Bristowe?"</p> - -<p>"He was the manager of Holland and Brown, where Uncle William was -caretaker."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower shuddered.</p> - -<p>"Listen, Mary. I would rather you gave up calling Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus -uncle and aunt. They are not any relation to you, and now that you are -get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>ting older you must learn to speak of them as Mr. Fawcus and Mrs. -Fawcus."</p> - -<p>"But I always called them Uncle William and Aunt Lucy."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower tapped her foot impatiently.</p> - -<p>"I know that, and that is why I want you to break yourself of the habit -of calling them uncle and aunt. They are good and worthy people, but -you are going to lead quite a different kind of life nowadays, and it -wouldn't do...."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower hesitated. Worldly woman though she was, she hesitated -almost shamefacedly to tell this child gazing up at her with astonished -eyes that Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus were common. She decided to let her -granddaughter learn gradually to be ashamed of the lowly couple who had -watched over her from infancy to girlhood.</p> - -<p>"You have my hands, and you have your father's eyes," said Lady Flower, -changing the subject.</p> - -<p>"And my mother's hair, Aunt Lucy said."</p> - -<p>"Yes, and now I think you'd better go and take off your things. We'll -go shopping to-morrow, and when you're equipped I'll take you myself -to the school where you're going to learn...." Once again Lady Flower -broke off. She had been on the point of saying: "To forget all about -your life in London." Perhaps if she had known that Mary had lived -in a basement she would not have been able to refrain, for life in a -basement would have seemed to Lady Flower unimaginably squalid.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Go shopping again?" echoed Mary in amazement. "Why, all these last -days I've been shopping with Aunt Lucy."</p> - -<p>"Yes, I did not want you to arrive in rags."</p> - -<p>Mary found that there were many other things her grandmother did not -want before she had been long in her new home. Accustomed to have her -ordinary behavior regarded with admiration and approval by Mr. and Mrs. -Fawcus, she could not understand that to her grandmother her manners -appeared uncouth, her habit of speech common. She was continually being -reproved for the way she held her knife and fork, or for using a spoon -naturally, that is by putting the narrow end into her mouth first.</p> - -<p>"But if I drink my soup sideways I make a noise," she expostulated. -"And Aunt Lucy—I mean Mrs. Fawcus told me not to make a noise."</p> - -<p>"I do not make a noise, do I?" Grandmamma asked with raised eyebrows.</p> - -<p>Mary longed to tell her that she did make a noise sometimes and that, -when she was drinking, in the silence of the large dining-room it -sounded like pigeons cooing far away.</p> - -<p>"And don't keep pulling up your stockings like that," Grandmamma would -say.</p> - -<p>"But one of them keeps coming down."</p> - -<p>"In that case go to Adèle and ask her to tighten your garter."</p> - -<p>"But it's too tight already," Mary objected.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> "When I undress you can -see all crinkles where it was round my leg."</p> - -<p>"And don't argue with people older than yourself," Grandmamma would -conclude.</p> - -<p>At first Mary had rather enjoyed the ceremoniousness with which she was -treated by Lady Flower's servants, enjoyed being called Mademoiselle -and having doors flung open for her and never having to get up in the -middle of dinner and fetch clean plates. She felt like one of her own -fairy heroines who had sprung from goose-girl to princess in a night. -But all too soon grandeur began to be wearisome, and when she saw the -maids disappearing into what Lady Flower called "the lower regions" she -felt that she would like to disappear too.</p> - -<p>A warm and cosy smell sometimes penetrated "the upper regions" from the -open door at the head of the staircase leading down to the kitchens, -and this emphasized the frigidity above. At first Mary liked her new -frocks and sashes and ribbons, but she never liked having her hair -brushed and combed by Adèle. And soon she grew to dislike her new -frocks, because they became associated with endless afternoons in the -<i>salon</i>, when numbers of ladies chattered French, ladies who either -smelled very strongly of scent or of being ladies and who had not that -pleasant soapy aroma of Aunt Lucy. At first Mary enjoyed walking in -the Parc Monceau with Grandmamma or driving with her to the Bois de -Boulogne; but soon these walks and drives became tiresome,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> for she -was continually being told to hold herself up or not to turn round -and stare or to talk without shouting. In the basement at Paternoster -Row she had never missed the company of other children; but here in -the Parc Monceau, which was full of children, Mary began to long for -playmates. She took to lingering behind Grandmamma on these walks, and -when she was reproved for doing so she always made the same excuse that -she had waited behind a moment to see what that little boy or that -little girl was doing. Lady Flower had enough sympathy and imagination -to realize that Mary was beginning to feel the need of companions, so -she arranged to have a children's party for her granddaughter. But Mary -did not enjoy this party at all. The little girls invited were so very -well behaved. Nobody romped or did any of the jolly things children -did in books. They treated Mary with grave courtesy, calling her -Mademoiselle, and except that the guests were in short frocks and wore -their hair down there was no difference between this party and one of -Grandmamma's crowded afternoons in the <i>salon</i>.</p> - -<p>"I really must make up my mind to take you to Châteaublanc," Grandmamma -proclaimed after Mary had been in Paris for nearly two months. "Did you -tell me that Mr. Fawcus taught you to read and write?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, and he said I learned very quickly."</p> - -<p>"So I should think," Grandmamma commented<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> dryly. "I'm afraid you'll -have a hard time at school."</p> - -<p>Mary began to dread this school which was always being talked about, -and every time with some unpleasant addition to its already long list -of disagreeable potentialities.</p> - -<p>"I didn't intend to go to Aix until late in the summer," said -Grandmamma. "And I had thought of keeping you with me until then, but -perhaps it's unwise to postpone your education any longer. So I'll take -you there next week. I've written to Mademoiselle Lucinge and suggested -that you should stay right on through the summer holidays, so that by -Christmas, when you'll be nearly eleven years old, won't you, I shall -expect to see quite a different Mary."</p> - -<p>Perhaps Mary looked sad at the notion of the change that was to be -wrought in her by so many consecutive months of Mademoiselle Lucinge's -<i>Pension</i>. At any rate, Lady Flower became momentarily affectionate, as -she put her arm round Mary and said:</p> - -<p>"It's not your fault, you poor little thing, and you mustn't think I'm -unkind. But I do want you to be able to get a great deal out of life, -and there's nothing that is so terribly able to prevent that as not -knowing exactly how to behave."</p> - -<p>Mary stared at her grandmother, utterly incapable of understanding what -she was talking about.</p> - -<p>The old lady—for when Lady Flower unbent she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> suddenly became an old -lady—took Mary upon her knee.</p> - -<p>"You funny little thing," she said, "you and I are so very much alone -in the world."</p> - -<p>Then a moment later she disengaged herself from Mary's warm, responsive -embrace and became her ivorine self.</p> - -<p>"When you go to school, I want you to give up writing to Mr. and Mrs. -Fawcus. There will have to come a moment when you quite break off -communication with them, and it had better be sooner than later. They -have both behaved very well, which shows that they understand how -completely the relationship between you and them has changed. Now give -me a kiss and run off to Adèle. It is time you were in bed."</p> - -<p>Mary went sadly upstairs and dreamed of a castle full of dungeons and -of being chased by a crocodile, the castle being the <i>pension de jeunes -filles</i> and the crocodile being Mademoiselle Lucinge herself.</p> - -<p>A week after this Lady Flower succeeded in making up her mind to brave -the long railway journey down through the heart of France and leave her -granddaughter at Châteaublanc.</p> - -<p>"Perhaps after all I could go to Aix earlier this year," she sighed -with the air of proclaiming a martyrdom.</p> - -<p>It was a fine June morning when they set out from the Gare de Lyon; but -Mary became sad and apprehensive as one green mile after another was -left<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> behind under the changeless blue sky, for though she had ceased -to pine for the life of the basement in Paternoster Row, she always -felt while she was still in Paris that she knew the way back and that -if ever she should be faced with something unbearably disagreeable, she -should be able to escape. Now she was being carried farther away every -moment like that bluebottle who was buzzing on the warm glass of the -carriage windows. She began to make up a story about that bluebottle -while Grandmamma dozed among her cushions on the opposite seat—a -story of how this father bluebottle would arrive at Châteaublanc and -try to find the mother bluebottle and all the little bluebottles. Of -course if he knew the way back he would be better off than herself, -because he would be able to fly. But he wouldn't know the way back, -and he would go buzzing about Châteaublanc trying to find his home -until one day he would be killed, and the mother bluebottle and all -the little bluebottles in Paris would never know what had become of -him. Mary was so much moved by the woeful story that she felt a tear -spring to her eyes and a lump in her throat. If only she had thought -of it sooner, she might have let the bluebottle out. Perhaps even now -he would not have traveled too far to know his way back. Mary raised -the blind and tried to help the bluebottle out of the open window with -her handkerchief; but he did not seem able to understand that she was -trying to help him and went buzzing all over the compartment un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>til at -last he buzzed across Grandmamma's nose and woke her up.</p> - -<p>"What are you doing, Mary?"</p> - -<p>Mary did not like to explain just what she was really doing. So she -looked abashed and said that she was doing nothing.</p> - -<p>"Well, don't," said Grandmamma, dozing off again.</p> - -<p>Mary tried to think how one did not do nothing; which raised an old -problem of how one thought about nothing, and she tried once more to -think about nothing.</p> - -<p>"But if I think about nothing," she thought, "I'm thinking about -thinking about nothing. And if I think about thinking about nothing I'm -thinking about something."</p> - -<p>She once asked Uncle William if he could think about nothing and if not -why not. Whereupon Uncle William had told her that Parmenides had been -puzzled by the same problem two thousand years ago and more.</p> - -<p>"Who was Pa Many D's?" Mary had asked, for that was the way she -pictured the name.</p> - -<p>Uncle William had informed her that Parmenides was a philosopher who -founded the Eleatic school.</p> - -<p>"Well, when I'm old I'll marry a philosopher," Mary had announced, -for it sounded a pleasant word to say and a pleasant thing to be, and -Uncle William had founded schools. Mary thought about Pa Many D's now -in the hot dusty railway carriage, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> tried to remember what school -he founded. But she could only think of "asthmatic" and "rheumatic," -neither of which sounded right.</p> - -<p>Mary printed S-K-O-O-L on the window with a wet finger, shuddered, and -looking round perceived that the bluebottle had escaped.</p> - -<p>At that moment the train puffed into Dijon station, where Grandmamma -waking up decided it was time to have lunch. Mary enjoyed that while it -lasted. But after lunch Grandmamma went more fast asleep than ever; the -carriage grew hotter and hotter; the country grew greener and greener, -and the sky more blue.</p> - -<p>"Pouff!" Mary sighed. "Pouff-ff-ff!"</p> - -<p>The train reached Macon, when Mary was in the middle of speculating how -many times she had said pouff since Dijon.</p> - -<p>"I must have said a thrillion pouffs," she decided, and wished that -Grandmamma would wake up and be conversational, so that she might -display her acquaintance with that numeral. Or perhaps she had better -reserve it for Mademoiselle Lucinge. How could she bring it in? Mary -began to compose the interview with her mistress.</p> - -<p>"How do you do, my little girl?"</p> - -<p>"I am very well, thank you, Mademoiselle."</p> - -<p>"Did you have a comfortable journey?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, thank you, Mademoiselle. My grandmamma and I passed a very -pleasant day in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> train. What a long way off you live! About a -thrillion miles, I suppose."</p> - -<p>Mary decided that this sounded a little too far when it was put into -speech. Perhaps on consideration she had better be content with -impressing Grandmamma.</p> - -<p>"Supposing she never wakes up!" Mary thought in alarm. "Supposing she's -gone to sleep like the Sleeping Beauty for thrillions of years? Only -she's not a Beauty," Mary added to herself in hopeful parenthesis. -However, soon after this Grandmamma did wake up, by which time Mary -herself had fallen asleep, and did not wake until the train reached -Lyon, where they got out and drove in the dusk along the banks first -of one river and then of another equally large until they reached -their hotel. Mary was sent with the chambermaid to have a bath before -she went to bed, and she had to walk along half a dozen dark, crooked -passages before she reached the bathroom, which was full of steam; the -bath itself was covered with a large sheet which floated about in the -water and kept bellying out on either side of Mary as she splashed -about. Her bath seemed to have caused much excitement in the hotel, -for all the time people kept coming to the door and shouting outside -to the chambermaid, who kept shouting back as excitedly while the -pipes on the wall groaned and bubbled and clashed until Mary was glad -when her bath was finished and the chambermaid, after wrapping her in -several towels,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> picked her up in her arms and carried her back through -the corridors, running fast and shouting to everybody she met to get -out of the way. That night Mary slept in an enormous four-poster with -heavy red curtains, and in the morning she went for a drive with her -grandmother first along the banks of the sluggish, dark green Saône -and then beside the sparkling azure Rhône. But what Mary liked best in -Lyon was the Cathedral on the top of a steep hill, which looked like -an elephant upside down with gilded legs and a golden trunk. After -<i>déjeuner</i> they got into a most extraordinary train with carriages as -tall as houses where passengers sat on top without any roof over them, -in which they were puffed along until they reached their destination.</p> - -<p>Châteaublanc was a small red-roofed town built upon the southern slopes -of a range of low hills that rose not much higher than the rolling -countryside of woodland, pasture, and vineyard, at the foot of which -a small tributary of the Saône ran its shallow course over a bed of -limestone. The ruins of the castle that gave its name to Châteaublanc -still stood like an acropolis above the town, the sight of which -compensated Mary for much, since this must really once upon a time -have been an enchanted castle without any need to pretend that it was -one. In fact, from the moment she alighted at the station Mary liked -Châteaublanc. She liked the wide main street, where the houses dreamed -in the sunlight behind green shutters and Gloire de Dijon roses, and -where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> in the middle of the front parterres beautiful purple and silver -globes shimmered with the movement of the small world therein reflected.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Grandmamma, how beautiful they are!" she cried, clapping her hands.</p> - -<p>"Yes, you're in roseland here," said Lady Flower.</p> - -<p>"No. Not the roses. They're beautiful too. But those purple balls!"</p> - -<p>"My dear child, you don't mean to say you think those monstrous tinsel -spheres beautiful! Why, they're perfectly hideous!"</p> - -<p>Mary regarded her grandmother in amazement. She must be mad. She must -be upset by the journey. She must be joking.</p> - -<p>"Oh, and look! That garden's got five!" she shrieked, nearly falling -out of the <i>fiacre</i> in her delight. "One purple. One silver. One blue. -One gold. And one red. I hope in heaven there are thrillions and -thrillions of them."</p> - -<p>"God forbid!" exclaimed Lady Flower, sniffing her vinaigrette in dismay -at the picture. "And I suppose you mean trillions."</p> - -<p>Mary was silent after this until the <i>fiacre</i> took them beyond the main -street into an avenue of clipped acacias and limes, from which they -turned aside through wide paths into a curved drive where hydrangeas -bloomed in the beds on either side.</p> - -<p>"What funny flowers!" Mary exclaimed. "They're like the little woman -in a house Uncle <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>... Fawcus ... Mr. Fawcus gave me. When it was going -to be wet, her bonnet and dress was pink and when it was going to be -fine they were blue. Only really she wasn't ever pink or blue, but like -those flowers, and then she was always wrong."</p> - -<p>The <i>fiacre</i> pulled up before a house with a white portico and French -windows opening to the wide verandah that ran round it.</p> - -<p>"Is this really going to be my school?" Mary asked incredulously. "Why, -I thought it was going to be quite an ugly place. Oh, Grandmamma," she -cried, "how kind of you to give me such a nice school!"</p> - -<p>Lady Flower had been influenced by a number of considerations in her -choice of a school for Mary, but what undoubtedly had least influence -was her granddaughter's point of view in the matter. Nevertheless, -as grown-up people use, she accepted the child's gratitude with -complacency.</p> - -<p>It certainly was a good school. Mademoiselle Lucinge was a woman of -taste and breeding, who when little more than a girl had gone as -governess to the house of an English nobleman, where she had remained -ten years. Having inherited from a distant relative a house and a -small property, she had felt justified in carrying out a project -upon which she had for a long time set her heart. During her stay -in England she had had an opportunity of coming into contact with a -number of distinguished people, and from the moment she had opened her -<i>pension</i> she had been successful. The greater number of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> pupils -were English, but many other nationalities were represented; and Lady -Flower, who was prejudiced in favor of a cosmopolitan education, -thought that in Mademoiselle Lucinge she had found the ideal person to -correct in her granddaughter the effects of a deplorable upbringing, -for which, strange to say, she did not in the least blame herself.</p> - -<p>When Mary went to Châteaublanc, she found herself the youngest of -thirty-five girls, and it had been agreed between Lady Flower and -Mademoiselle that for the first two years she was to spend all her -time there. So, when her grandmother bade good-by on the day after her -arrival it was to be a long good-by, although it was understood that -she might expect a visit whenever Lady Flower should be on her way to -Aix.</p> - -<p>Mary was too much delighted with the <i>pension</i> to feel any sorrow at -the prospect of so long a parting. Nor indeed was it to be expected -that in barely three months her grandmother would have become -indispensable to her happiness. Her new surroundings had already begun -even to dim the basement of Paternoster Row. Uncle William and Aunt -Lucy were now far away indeed. It would not be long before Mary would -begin to remember her past life in a few bright patches like the bright -patches of a faded carpet.</p> - -<p>A month after Mary had arrived at the <i>pension</i> war was declared -between France and Prussia. The pupils went home for their summer -holidays, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> Mary was left with two girls from South America, both -considerably older than herself. During this time Mademoiselle Lucinge -took a great deal of trouble with Mary's education and was really more -like a private governess in the care she lavished than the proprietress -and headmistress of a fashionable school. The war was going so badly -for France that it seemed more prudent to close the school that autumn. -The two South American girls were sent off to Bordeaux that they might -sail thence for home and relieve the minds of their parents who had -sent a packet of anxious and excited letters. Mademoiselle Lucinge -wrote to her grandmother to ask what she would like Mary to do. Lady -Flower wrote back to say that she was convinced that the French defeats -were of no importance and that very shortly the Prussians would be -driven back over the Rhine. In any case, Paris was no place for her -granddaughter, and in Paris she herself must stay to do her work with -the Red Cross. Would Mademoiselle keep Mary at Châteaublanc?</p> - -<p>Nothing could have fallen out better for Mary. She had now the entire -attention of Mademoiselle; she had a beautiful house and beautiful -gardens to herself; she had as many books to read as she wanted.</p> - -<p>Mademoiselle Lucinge was a devout Catholic, and so were most of -her pupils. As regards Mary's religious teaching, Lady Flower let -Mademoiselle understand that she had no objection to as much re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>ligion -being instilled into her granddaughter as was consonant with her social -obligations in days to come; but she particularly requested that no -attempt should be made to lure her into Catholicism. The Papacy was -very unpopular in England at this period, and Lady Flower would have -regarded it as a serious reflection upon her duty as guardian if she -had allowed her granddaughter to enter society under such a handicap. -She herself privately believed in nothing that was not material, even -obvious, but inasmuch as positive scepticism would be considered as -unbecoming as Popish extravagance she conformed to the religious mode -of the time and expected her granddaughter to do the same.</p> - -<p>Mademoiselle had not been a governess in England for ten years without -learning how little the English mind being considered eccentric -abroad, how much they hate to be thought eccentric at home. At the -same time, Mary was the youngest pupil in her school, and she regarded -her own duties of guardianship more gravely than Lady Flower regarded -hers. Whatever might be Mary's life in days to come, Mademoiselle was -determined that she should not be denied in childhood an opportunity to -prepare the soul for those deep consolations of religious belief that -might one day come to her aid in a time of stress. And Mary loved the -quiet hours with Mademoiselle, when in her gray boudoir she spoke to -her about God.</p> - -<p>One mellow Sunday evening in mid-September,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> when the news from the -seat of war was as bad as it could be and when Mademoiselle's austere -and gracious countenance was lined with care and grief for her country, -Mary had been learning the fifth commandment in the catechism of the -Church of England:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><i>Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the -land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p>A robin redbreast was singing in the magnolia on the lawn beneath the -turret window of Mademoiselle's gray room, and Mary's thoughts on -seeing the bird went back to the attic in Paternoster Row, where she -had first read of the death of poor Cock Robin. When Mademoiselle's -exposition of filial piety was concluded, Mary asked her if she ought -to honor her grandmother as much as she would have honored her father -and mother were they alive.</p> - -<p>"Quite as much, my child," said Mademoiselle.</p> - -<p>Mary thought for a moment or two.</p> - -<p>"But oughtn't I to honor Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus, who Grandmamma says I -mustn't call Uncle William and Aunt Lucy any more?"</p> - -<p>It was Mademoiselle's turn to think for a moment.</p> - -<p>"You ought to honor their memory," she said at last.</p> - -<p>"But why mayn't I write to them and tell them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> where I am? And tell -about you, Mademoiselle, and what I'm doing and about the garden and -the lizards and the white cows who pull the carts and about treading on -the grapes and beating the corn with those funny sticks and about my -sabots and the melon I have for breakfast? They would like to hear."</p> - -<p>Mademoiselle could not bear that the gratitude and affection of a -little child should be thus discouraged, although Lady Flower's last -words had been to forbid any communication between Mary and her former -guardians. In the end she compromised by letting Mary write a letter -and writing herself by the same post to Mr. Fawcus, begging him not to -reply and explaining the circumstances in which she had allowed Mary to -write. It was unlike Mademoiselle to compromise; but she was tormented -by the woes of France that autumn and not so much mistress as usual of -her judgment or emotions. Her kindly intention did much harm, for when -Mary received no answer to her letter she was embittered by the thought -that her beloved friends had already forgotten her, and this was the -first disillusion of her life.</p> - -<p>During this time Mary, with the facility of childhood, learned to speak -French, so that before the leaves fell from the trees that year she was -as fluent as if she had been living in Châteaublanc from infancy. One -day in October—it was soon after the news had arrived of Gambetta's -escape from Paris<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> in a balloon—Mary, wandering in a remote corner of -the grounds, discovered a stripling of about sixteen who was digging -holes for young trees to be planted in them when the autumn rains -should have soaked down into the soil. He was a slim, handsome boy with -fine features and dark, silky hair; but it was not his good looks that -interested Mary so much as the fact that he seemed to be working in a -frenzy of despair.</p> - -<p>"<i>Qu'est-ce que tu as?</i>" she demanded.</p> - -<p>"<i>J'ai mal au cœur</i>," he replied sullenly, wiping a tear from his eye -and bending low over his spade.</p> - -<p>"But why are you crying?" she persisted. She spoke in French, of course.</p> - -<p>"My tears belong to me," he said. "At least the Prussians have left us -our tears."</p> - -<p>"Are you the son of our gardener?" she asked.</p> - -<p>To this ollendorfian query he nodded.</p> - -<p>"Of Monsieur Menard?"</p> - -<p>He nodded again.</p> - -<p>"<i>Alors, tu es Pierre?</i>"</p> - -<p>"<i>Oui, je suis Pierre.</i>"</p> - -<p>Mary produced an apple from the pocket of the hideous crimson pelisse -she was wearing, and while she slowly munched it she regarded the boy -with solemn curiosity. She had heard of young Pierre Menard who had run -away from home to join the troops that were everywhere being recruited -in the provinces to drive the Prussians out of France, and of how his -father had found him in the market-place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> of Villefranche and brought -him back, because he was too young to be a soldier.</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry you could not go to be a soldier, Pierre," she said at last. -"Would you like the other half of my apple?"</p> - -<p>The boy accepted the proffered fruit with a surly grace, and presently -he was confiding in Mary the tale of his wrecked ambition.</p> - -<p>"If I'm strong enough to plant trees, I'm strong enough to carry a -<i>chassepot</i>," he declared. "If I can dig holes for trees, I can dig -graves for Prussians."</p> - -<p>Mary condoled with him, listened to his tales of the Emperor, not the -degenerate captive of the enemy, but the great Napoleon, and lamented -with him the glory of which he was being foiled by his father's cruelty.</p> - -<p>"We must fight on for years, Gambetta says, and, who knows? I may rise -to be a marshal of France before the war comes to an end."</p> - -<p>"You might be Emperor," Mary agreed with enthusiasm.</p> - -<p>Pierre tried to look modest and disclaim so exalted an ambition as -that; but there was in the manner of his disclaimer a suggestion that -he did not think such an altitude impossible.</p> - -<p>Mary saw a good deal of Pierre, because Mademoiselle who was sorry for -the boy raised no objection to her frequenting his company. For a long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> -time Mary had been anxious to visit the ruined castle on the hill above -the town, and on All Saints' Day she begged and obtained permission -to be escorted there by Pierre. There was not much left of the old -castle beyond crumbling ivy-colored walls and nettle-grown courts, -although there was one round tower, which was still almost intact. -Below the foundations of this tower was a large <i>oubliette</i> bristling -with the very spikes which had impaled unhappy prisoners precipitated -upon them years ago. Mary and Pierre gazed down with awe through the -open trap and imagined that they could still see bones and bloodstains -upon the floor thirty feet below. Immediately beside the trap was a -small embrasure in the thick walls of the tower lighted by a lancet -window through which could be seen a vast expanse of country, meadows -and woods and vineyards and that great serpent the Saône. Hither it -was that the prisoner condemned to die was led up blinking from the -dungeons below to take his last look at France; here he was allowed to -spend a few wistful moments; hence he stepped upon the trap to vanish -forever from the eyes of men.</p> - -<p>There was room for both Mary and Pierre to stand close together in the -embrasure and on this holy morn to gaze out at the russet landscape -breathless beneath the milky blue of the November sky.</p> - -<p>"My little one," said Pierre, "I would rather throw myself down into -that <i>oubliette</i> than stay here<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> any longer while France bleeds to -death. Hark! Do you hear the sound of drums?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, very far away. Trump—trump—trump—trump!" she whispered in awe -of the menacing beat.</p> - -<p>"<i>Alors, je file!</i>" he cried. "You can find your way home alone?"</p> - -<p>"But suppose there are cows on the road?"</p> - -<p>"My little one, it is impossible to permit cows to stand in the way of -<i>la patrie et la gloire</i>. I will conduct you outside the Castle gates -and you must find your way home. As for me, this time I will go to the -war. <i>Vive la France!</i>"</p> - -<p>Mary stood in the ruined gateway, waving her hand to Pierre who went -running and skipping along the white road after those faint-heard, -those elusive drum-taps that might have been anywhere and seemed to be -everywhere.</p> - -<p>"We shall meet again after the war," he had called back to her.</p> - -<p>Mademoiselle sent for Monsieur Menard and begged him not to interfere -again with his son's desire to serve France, and she was so eloquent -that Monsieur Menard gave way. But when peace was signed, Pierre did -not come back to Châteaublanc, because his father vowed that there -would be no doing anything with him nowadays. So through the interest -of one of Mademoiselle's patrons he was found a clerkship in the -English branch of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> big French commercial house, and Mary did not see -him again in Châteaublanc.</p> - -<p>But he was her first romance, and the memory of Pierre did not fade -quickly, even when Mademoiselle's house was full of girls again and -Mary's real school life began.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="Chapter_Three" id="Chapter_Three"></a><i>Chapter Three</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE MAIDEN</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><i>Chapter Three: The Maiden</i></p> - - -<p>On a January afternoon, the afternoon of her twentieth birthday, Mary -Flower stood by the drawing-room windows of a house in King's Gate, -staring out across the Knightsbridge road to where in soot and snow the -trees of Hyde Park were etched upon a gray expanse of sky. The house -was very still, for it was the time when old Lady Flower took her daily -nap, to the routine of which she attributed the vitality that enabled -her at seventy to sustain the exertion of arranging an advantageous -marriage for her granddaughter. To-day lunch had been protracted -to celebrate with various dishes Mary's birthday, and to-night a -dinner-party was to be followed by a musical reception. The house, -seeming to conspire with her ladyship's snores, achieved a stillness -that was even more perceptible than usual.</p> - -<p>Mary's meditations were neither so profound nor so romantic as any -passer-by that looked up and glimpsed the form of that beautiful young -woman in her glass world might have imagined. Mostly they were directed -to her new evening gown, a polonaise snatched it might almost be said -prematurely by Lady Flower from the most fashionable of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> Parisian -costumiers. Mary dreamed of its <i>passementerie</i> of beads and ruching of -Honiton lace, and then with heightened color of the amount of bare arm -it must reveal. She supposed that her grandmother was right and that -she should display as much of the upper part of her arm without risk of -censorious comment, but....</p> - -<p>Mary wished that Daisy Harland had come up from the country yesterday -instead of waiting until to-night to wish her best friend many happy -returns of the day. Daisy's opinion would have been so valuable. Daisy -was so advanced, so unconventional, and yet always so right. But then -Grandmamma, too, was always right, and Grandmamma had deliberately -chosen the dress. Mary gave up bothering about the problem, which was -no problem at all really, because she must obviously take Grandmamma's -advice as long as Grandmamma was alive to give it. And if Grandmamma -should die? Why, then, in this great house she, Mary Flower, should -be all alone! No wonder Grandmamma was anxious for her to be safely -married. Marriage? That was indeed something to talk about with her -friend. If only the frost would hold so that Daisy might be resigned -to stay in London for a while and spend hours in discussing marriage. -Not of course as the topic had been discussed at school, where nobody -knew anything for certain and the horridest girls vied with one another -in dreadful propoundings. No, not like that, but seriously, almost -religiously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>—if one could compare two things so far asunder as -religion and marriage.</p> - -<p>Mary contemplated the prospect of marriage with several of the men who -visited the house in King's Gate. None of them considered thus made her -feel at all anxious to be married; rather did each one present himself -to her fancy like an unknown bottle of medicine, the efficacy of which -was guaranteed but of the niceness or nastiness of which there was -nothing to be learned from its external appearance. It was not that -Mary had never imagined herself in love. Like most schoolgirls she -had cherished impossible loyalties and sentimental passions; but the -figures upon which these had been bestowed were like the figures in a -picture book or the remote incarnations that are begotten by music. -Love was an aspiration to a life beyond the present, a kind of yearning -upon immortality; it was never a practical guide to the humdrum, the -yet so intricate humdrum, of existence; it had nothing at all to do -with marriage.</p> - -<p>Lady Flower was responsible for this attitude of her granddaughter. By -living so much in Paris, by allowing the French half of her character -to recover from years of discouragement by her husband, and by brooding -over her son's <i>mésalliance</i>—it was typical of the sentimental English -that they should have to borrow the right word from France—the old -lady felt herself more and more definitely inclined to the <i>mariage de -convenance</i>. She never let pass an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> opportunity to impress upon Mary -its superiority.</p> - -<p>"Love, my dear child," she would tell her, "is an invention of the -poets to excuse their own weaknesses."</p> - -<p>This afternoon, as Mary stared out across the wintry park, love did -seem a long way off from King's Gate, and marriage, for all it was such -a mystery, did seem comparatively near.</p> - -<p>"Though suppose nobody ever does propose to me?" Mary thought. She -turned round for reassurance from the large gilded mirror over the -mantelpiece, and wished that she had never seen herself in a glass -before, so that she could arrive at a decision about her beauty. Was -she beautiful? If with six other girls she stood before a mirror for -the first time, so that she did not know which was herself, should she -think herself beautiful? But she should know which was herself, because -she should recognize the other girls, and the stranger in the middle -would be herself.</p> - -<p>"Oh, am I or am I not beautiful?" she asked aloud of her reflection, -standing motionless in that frozen, reflected room where nothing was -alive except the swift pendulum of the ormulu clock on the wall behind -her. "Am I or am I not beautiful?" she repeated with a sigh, as she -took her place once more by the window and gazed out at the black and -white trees in the Park, beneath whose filigree of boughs people were -wandering in couples upon the powdered grass, walking so slowly that -they must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> be happy, Mary thought. She was filled with envy of those -shadows beyond the railings, who could upon this cold January afternoon -pace up and down with such unhurried steps. They surely must be lovers, -who could find delight in this chill and somber air, who could stroll -arm in arm about this landscape that was sinking beneath the weight of -a leaden sky. There opposite, two shadows were actually sitting upon a -bench, sitting as close as birds sit upon a perch at dusk. They must -love each other very deeply and very dearly, to endure the cold, very -deeply and very dearly to stay there away from the firelight. Beautiful -firelight, Mary thought; and she watched for a while its diminished -reflection lambent within the milky windowpanes.</p> - -<p>"<i>Miladi</i> is awake, Mademoiselle," said Adèle, coming into the room.</p> - -<p>The canaries that lived in the domed conservatory at the back of the -drawing-room began to sing. The depression of the long silence was -broken.</p> - -<p>Mary ran up the cheerful gas-lit stairs to her grandmother.</p> - -<p>Lady Flower had tried to neutralize the fretwork of age by excess of -lace. She was still ivory; but the ivory was scratched, here and there -even badly cracked. The texture of lace seemed more likely than any -other to distract the attention of the observer, to confuse him by its -infinite reticulation and thus provide an illusive calendry for that -wrinkled countenance of hers.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Well, dear," she began at once, sitting up among the pillows when Mary -came into the room. "I slept much better than I expected after those -grated chestnuts we had for your birthday lunch. I have an impression -of dreaming a good deal, but I've forgotten what about. So much the -better, for there is nobody so irritating as a <i>raconteur des rêves</i>."</p> - -<p>Mary had been half inclined to tell Lady Flower about her own dreams -by the window; but she was deterred by this remark, and perhaps in any -case she would have been too much afraid of the old lady's cynical -toleration to expose those fleeting and intangible shades of romantic -love to her sparrowy eyes and pecks.</p> - -<p>"I'm glad you feel rested," she said.</p> - -<p>"Thank you, my dear."</p> - -<p>They were always very courteous to each other, these two, or rather -Lady Flower was always very courteous to her granddaughter. Mary was -dutiful; and Lady Flower accepted any hint of affection, any display -of sympathy or consideration, as the fruit of a good upbringing. She -had no qualms about the younger generation. In the estimation of Lady -Flower young people existed to show respect and do their duty toward -their elders. Youth and labor at this period were still in bondage.</p> - -<p>"I have invited more people than I intended for this evening," Lady -Flower went on. "I was anxious to give you an opportunity of seeing -various aspects of contemporary life."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> - -<p>"How kind of you, Grandmamma."</p> - -<p>"Nothing to thank me for; I am doing no more than my duty."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower made this admission a trifle unwillingly; but she thought -it right to let Mary understand that, as she grew older, she, too, -would find duty dogging her like a shadow. She must not be allowed to -suppose that marriage meant freedom.</p> - -<p>"Yes," she continued complacently, "I have invited several artistic -people. They seem to be getting themselves a good deal talked about -nowadays, and I felt you ought to meet some of them. By the way, Mr. -Alison is coming."</p> - -<p>"I'm glad," said Mary. "He's very nice."</p> - -<p>"Very nice, indeed," her grandmother agreed emphatically. "And very -much <i>beau garçon</i>. About thirty-five," she went on, meditating aloud. -"About thirty-five, and extremely well off. He wrote to me that he was -returning from the Continent on purpose to be present at your birthday -party. I must say I find that highly significant."</p> - -<p>"Significant of what?"</p> - -<p>"My dear, innocence is a charming and attractive quality; but do not -be too <i>ingénue</i>. No, not too <i>ingénue</i>. At any rate with me. You must -surely have noticed how <i>empressé</i> he has always been with you? He -admires you, and though of course I do not wish to influence you unduly -or to persuade you into a hasty marriage, at the same time ... however, -there are others every bit as suitable as Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Alison. I just happen -to have noticed that he is rather obviously ... however, please, my -dear child, pay no attention to what I was saying, because I should -be unwilling, oh, yes, most unwilling, to precipitate a marriage with -anybody, even a young man so perfectly eligible as Mr. Alison. At the -same time, you are twenty, are you not? And I am seventy. You will of -course inherit a comfortable sum when I die, but that makes it all the -more imperative to choose for your husband a man who has money."</p> - -<p>Mary did not quite see the logic of this; but she had long ago been -successfully cured of asking why; and, since the prospect of marrying -Mr. Alison was at least as pleasant as the prospect of marrying anybody -else, she was not sufficiently interested to pursue the topic.</p> - -<p>But Mr. Alison took Mary into dinner; Lady Flower felt that he deserved -some reward for hurrying back from Nice.</p> - -<p>James Alison, known generally as Jemmie Alison, was a stockbroker who -had succeeded at the age of twenty-seven to a lucrative business. As -a boy, when he had fair, curly hair, he had been definitely handsome. -He was now a florid man with a heavy fair mustache, who was still -good-looking, although his hair was beginning to require some arranging -before it would cover the top of his head, and his features showed -signs of coarsening. From his schooldays at Eton, indeed from the day -he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> born, he had never been compelled to deny himself anything, -and like many men who have inherited a fortune early in life he looked -older than he was and felt older than he looked. After dinner he was -separated from Mary for some time; but at last he managed to find a -seat beside her in the conservatory while a famous tenor was singing:</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>I had a message to send her,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>To her, whom my soul loved best;</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>But I had my task to finish,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>And she has gone home to rest.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>"Beautiful song," said Mr. Alison.</p> - -<p>"Exquisite!" Mary sighed.</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>I had a message to send her,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>So tender, and true, and sweet,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>I longed for an Angel to bear it,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>And lay it down at her feet.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>"Things can be said in songs that can't be said any other way," Mr. -Alison murmured with a sigh.</p> - -<p>Mary appeared wrapt in the melody.</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>I cried, in my passionate longing;—</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>"Has the earth no Angel-friend</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Who will carry my love the message</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>That my heart desires to send?"</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>Mr. Alison looked appealingly at Mary; but she was still wrapt in the -melody.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Then I heard a strain of music,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>So mighty, so pure, so clear,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>That my very sorrow was silent,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>And my heart stood still to hear.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>"One of the loveliest songs I ever heard," Mr. Alison declared. "And he -sings it divinely."</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>And I tenderly laid my message</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>On the music's outspread wings.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>I heard it float farther and farther,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>In sound more perfect than speech;</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Farther than sight can follow,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Farther than soul can reach.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>Mary with a tear in each eye was staring up at the dome of the -conservatory. Mr. Alison, although he could not muster a tear even -in one eye, looked in the same direction and derived a great deal of -satisfaction from the thought that he and this beautiful girl by his -side were both staring at the same pane of glass. The singer achieved a -triumphant C.</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>And I know that at last my message</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Has passed through the golden gate;</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>So my heart is no longer restless,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>And I am content to wait.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>"'Content to wait,'" Mr. Alison echoed meaningly, when the applause had -died down. "'Content<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> to wait,'" he repeated. "So long as I know that -somebody has received my message."</p> - -<p>Mary was nearly sure that this was a declaration; but she was not -absolutely sure, and she wished that Daisy Harland had not at the last -moment telegraphed to say that she could not be with her beloved Mary -on her twentieth birthday.</p> - -<p>"Ah, Miss Flower," Mr. Alison continued, shaking his head. "It would -be hard for you to understand the thoughts of a man like myself when -he hears a song like that. At the same time, the moral of it surely is -that, however far away we may seem from heaven, we are not so far away -in reality. We can hope. We can hope, Miss Flower. I wonder if I might -venture to say Mary?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, certainly, please call me Mary," she begged him nervously.</p> - -<p>"Thank you, Mary."</p> - -<p>Mr. Alison wished that he could quote a line of poetry about some -romantic Mary; but he could only think of <i>Mary had a little lamb</i>. And -he felt that to sigh this forth with as much passionate emphasis as he -could achieve would sound rather silly.</p> - -<p>"I suppose," he ventured, "you couldn't bring yourself to call me -Jemmie? All my chums call me Jemmie. Jemmie Alison. Nobody ever calls -me James. Nobody ever did call me James except my grandmother on my -father's side. Funny old woman. She simply would not call me Jemmie. -She always said the name reminded her of a fright she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> had in childhood -when some burglars broke into her father's house, who of course would -have been my great-grandfather. Now that's going back some way. My -father died in '72. He was sixty-three then. So he was born in 1809, -when my grandmother was twenty-one. That makes her born in 1788. So I -suppose this burglary must have happened about 1798. That's a long time -ago, isn't it?"</p> - -<p>"A very long time ago," Mary agreed. She was so much muddled by Mr. -Alison's statistics that if he had told her the burglary took place -shortly after the Battle of Hastings she would have accepted it as a -fact.</p> - -<p>"I wish the old lady could have lived to meet you, Mary," he went on. -"You are just the kind of girl she would have liked me to marry."</p> - -<p>Luckily for Mary, who did not know what comment she ought to make on -this last piece of information, by this time the tenor was off again:</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Do you grieve no costly offering</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>To the lady you can make?</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>One there is, and gifts less worthy</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Queens have stooped to take.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Take a Heart of virgin silver,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Fashion it with heavy blows,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Cast it into Love's hot furnace</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>When it fiercest glows.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Is that your heart or mine?" Mr. Alison asked in a puzzled voice. "I -don't quite get that. I mean, is that his heart or hers?"</p> - -<p>Mary motioned him not to talk, because people were beginning to turn -round and peer at the palms among which they were sitting, curious to -know what discordant mutter was profaning the music.</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>With pain's sharpest point transfix it,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>And then carve in letters fair,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Tender dreams and quaint devices,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Fancies sweet and rare.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Set within it Hope's blue sapphire,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Many-changing, opal fears,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Blood-red ruby-stones of daring,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Mixed with pearly tears.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>"Hope's red ruby!" exclaimed Mr. Alison. "That's really uncommonly -fine, I think."</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>And when you have wrought and labored</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Till the gift is all complete,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>You may humbly lay your offering</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>At the Lady's feet.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Should her mood perchance be gracious—</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>With disdainful smiling pride,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>She will place it with the trinkets</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Glittering at her side.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>"I got muddled in that song," Mr. Alison confessed. "I don't think it's -as good as the first one.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> Mary, before another song begins, may I tell -you that I love you? May I ask you to be my wife? I know that you do -not love me yet. But you might learn to love me. Mightn't you, Mary? -You're very young. I can wait, now that I have delivered my message at -the golden gate. Now I shall always reverence that song, Mary. To my -dying day. It seems to me sitting here beside you at this moment more -like a sacred song than just ordinary poetry. I wonder who wrote it?"</p> - -<p>"I wonder," echoed Mary, glad to find the conversation turning away -from personalities to literature.</p> - -<p>"I suppose it wasn't Shakespeare?" Mr. Alison hazarded.</p> - -<p>"No, I don't <i>think</i> it was Shakespeare."</p> - -<p>"He wrote such a lot of well-known stuff," said Mr. Alison. "One's -pretty safe five times out of ten to guess Shakespeare. But, Mary, you -have not replied to my question. May I hope? May I set in my heart -Hope's red ruby?"</p> - -<p>"It was Hope's blue sapphire," she corrected.</p> - -<p>"Well, whatever jewel it was, may I hope?"</p> - -<p>"I hadn't expected anything like this," said Mary, wondering whether it -would create general consternation if she were to jump up from her seat -and rush out of the conservatory.</p> - -<p>"I know it seems sudden; but it's not really so sudden. All the time -I've been in the south of France I've been thinking about you. I tried -to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> drown my despair by playing roulette. In fact, I won quite a lot of -money, because I played so recklessly."</p> - -<p>Mary turned pale. Could her existence really affect a man of the world -like Mr. Alison up to the point of reckless gambling?</p> - -<p>"I felt in my inmost being that you could not love me. You're as much -above me as a—as a—as an angel!" He tried not to look proud of the -simile. "I know I am not worthy of you, Mary. I know that. But I have -said enough. You look agitated. Please do not let my impetuosity -distress you. Hark! Somebody else is going to sing."</p> - -<p>The deep notes of a voluptuous contralto broke into the murmur of small -talk like a dinner-gong.</p> - -<p>"Don't forget, Mary," said Mr. Alison, when the sonorous abracadabra of -an Italian song had died away in loud applause. "I have delivered my -message, and I am content to wait. Shall I take you downstairs and get -you an ice?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, thank you, Mr. Alison."</p> - -<p>"Mary, please!" he moaned reproachfully. "Jemmie. I thought you'd -promised me that much."</p> - -<p>It was lucky the ices were downstairs; for his tone would have melted -the lot had they been in the conservatory.</p> - -<p>"Jemmie," she whispered, feeling exactly as if she had swallowed a pill -without water.</p> - -<p>"You have made me radiantly happy," he af<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>firmed. "By Jove, I feel as -if I never knew my name <i>was</i> Jemmie until this moment."</p> - -<p>As for Mary, she felt nothing except a vague hope that she had not -committed herself too deeply by granting Mr. Alison's desire to be -called Jemmie. Her grandmother might choose to consider that by doing -so she had accepted him. She prayed that Daisy Harland would soon reach -London. Otherwise, at this rate, she would find herself married before -she knew it.</p> - -<p>For the rest of the evening she managed to avoid her suitor, though it -was at the cost of having to endure the dissertative bibble-babble upon -Japanese interiors of a young man with long hair and a double chin, one -of those artistic people whom the hostess had invited to her reception -in order to support a daring social experiment that was having a vogue.</p> - -<p>"Did Mr. Alison give you an amusing account of his tour in France?" -Lady Flower inquired after the sound of the last carriage had died away -on the frosty air.</p> - -<p>"He talked about France. He wasn't very amusing," said Mary.</p> - -<p>"You seemed to be getting on very well together, nevertheless," -observed her grandmother. "In fact, when What's-his-name, the tenor, -was singing it was really quite noticeable that you were too much -occupied with each other to pay any attention to the music."</p> - -<p>"We were discussing the music," Mary said, wish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>ing that her -grandmother would go to bed, and not ask any more questions.</p> - -<p>"I suppose that if he does seriously intend to ask for your hand he -will speak to me first. He's not so young as to be able to neglect -that courtesy. He's not one of the young communards of to-day who -consider they have equal rights with parents and guardians. He'll -be ready to admit that we elders have some authority left. Only -fancy, my dear, Lady Pringle tells me that her daughters demand, yes, -positively demand, to play in a lawn-tennis competition next summer. -A public affair, as far as I can make out. She made me shudder with -her description of it. Young women of breeding and education are to -expose themselves in front of anybody who likes to pay the necessary -charge for admission. Dear me, I remember that your poor grandfather -used sometimes to be shocked by what he considered my ultra-modern and -extravagantly continental ideas. What would he have said, had he been -alive to-day? I do hope your friend, Daisy Harland, won't persuade -<i>you</i> into wanting to appear as a female acrobat. She has always -struck me as the kind of young woman who would do anything. She was a -dreadfully noisy girl, I remember."</p> - -<p>Mary allowed Daisy's character to be sacrificed in order to divert her -grandmother from the discussion of Mr. Alison. Soon she was able to -propose bed and was glad when at last she found herself alone in the -dark with her secret.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> - -<p>Her first proposal....</p> - -<p>Only that afternoon she had been wondering if any one would propose to -her, and already on her twentieth birthday she had received one.</p> - -<p>Jemmie....</p> - -<p>But she did not think of him as Jemmie. Were she to become his wife -to-morrow, she should for a long time think of him as Mr. Alison.</p> - -<p>Mary Alison....</p> - -<p>That was rather attractive.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Alison....</p> - -<p>It was in his favor that he had neither father nor mother alive. If -she did make up her mind to marry him, she should not want another -grandmamma in her mother-in-law.</p> - -<p>Mary Alison ... yours most truly, Mary Alison....</p> - -<p>But marriage meant more than that. Rather horrid intimacies ... -children....</p> - -<p>"Do I want children?" Mary asked herself. "I don't believe I do at all."</p> - -<p>Pain! And of course, unless she had been utterly misinformed, it must -hurt horribly.</p> - -<p>"I should never have the courage," she told herself. "Never," she -decided, and turning over she was soon fast asleep.</p> - -<p>A week later, Daisy Harland did come to London, and to her in that top -room of the Harlands' house in South Kensington, in that room papered -with hunting scenes, which was bound up more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> closely with her girlhood -than any room in the world, Mary confided the tale of her first -proposal.</p> - -<p>"He's not so bad," Daisy commented. "He's clean to look at. Pretty well -off too, I should say. But why be in a hurry?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, I'm not in any hurry. It's my grandmother who is so anxious to see -me safely married."</p> - -<p>"I wonder why. I suppose she can't bear the idea of not arranging the -whole matter to please herself."</p> - -<p>Mary gazed down at the garden of the Square, in which little girls well -wrapped up in white furs were running about after large particolored -balls of india rubber, while their nurses gossiped gravely with one -another, moving with slow and stately tread behind their perambulators. -What fun she and Daisy had always had in the Square when she used to -stay with her friend for the holidays! Perhaps it was the bareness -of winter that made it seem so small nowadays; or perhaps everything -shrank as one grew older.</p> - -<p>"Don't you think that a girl ought to love the man she is going to -marry?" Mary pressed.</p> - -<p>"But what is love? Personally I've never been in love."</p> - -<p>"Daisy! You were tremendously in love with Gerald Ashworth. Don't you -remember when you bought that lilac notepaper with two hearts stamped -in the top corner?"</p> - -<p>Her friend laughed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> - -<p>"You don't think seriously that the kind of silliness in which one -indulges at fifteen is to be considered an experience?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, I do," Mary insisted. "If I hadn't been in love when I was small, -I shouldn't be bothering now about being in love with Jemmie Alison. I -shouldn't expect anything. As it is, I feel somehow that I want more -than he can give me."</p> - -<p>"If you'd come back with me to Berkshire and hunt, you'd soon forget -all your troubles."</p> - -<p>"Should I? I wonder. Not by hunting, Daisy. You would not enjoy hunting -so much, if you weren't so proud of yourself for learning to ride so -late in life."</p> - -<p>"I wish we'd had our place in Berkshire when I was little," said Daisy -regretfully. "I <i>should</i> have been a horsewoman then. The pater might -just as well have launched out a bit earlier. We didn't really save -anything by living in London."</p> - -<p>"But it was fun when we used to play up here," said Mary. "Do you -remember when we made those paper boxes and filled them with ink and -dropped them on the pavement? Oh, and don't you remember when Eustace -Arnesby came to tea, and he dropped one on an old gentleman's hat?"</p> - -<p>"Eustace is at Sandhurst now," said Daisy. "Talking of young love, I -did have rather a pash for him."</p> - -<p>"Daisy!"</p> - -<p>"What's the matter?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> - -<p>"You do say such terrible things."</p> - -<p>"In fact," Daisy continued, "when I look back at my innocent girlhood, -I seem to have spent my time falling in and falling out of love with -lanky boys. And you, my darling Mary, are trying to make out that that -kind of thing is serious. Well, if it was, my young life has been -lived, for at present I couldn't fall in love with anybody."</p> - -<p>"I believe I could," said Mary meditatively. "But not with Jemmie -Alison. If you really think about it, marriage is terrible."</p> - -<p>"Why?"</p> - -<p>Here was Mary's opportunity to ask Daisy a few direct questions; but, -when it came to the point, she could not bring herself to do so. She -could not imagine that she would ever feel more intimate with any other -girl than she felt with Daisy, and if she could not ask Daisy she could -not ask anybody.</p> - -<p>"Why?" her friend repeated.</p> - -<p>"Oh, always being with the same person," said Mary, with this -explanation allowing the opportunity to pass.</p> - -<p>Daisy went back to her hunting; Mary remained in London.</p> - -<p>"We might go to Ventnor in March," said Lady Flower. "I don't feel -inclined to travel far. I really believe that I'm beginning to feel -old. I wish I could see you safely married. You strike me as being -somewhat listless in your manner. That would vanish if you were -married."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> - -<p>Jemmie Alison ventured to think that Mary was not looking quite -herself. He would have been glad to suggest the same remedy as Lady -Flower; but he lacked the courage and compromised.</p> - -<p>"What you want is a dog," he decided. "A nice little dog. Give you an -excuse for taking a walk every morning in the Park. I should like to -think of you with your little dog under the trees when I'm working in -my office."</p> - -<p>Jemmie Alison proved that he had faith in his prescription by taking -a great deal of trouble to procure for Mary the very dog for the -purpose—a wise Dandie Dinmont not so young as to require the elements -of training, yet not so old as to be fretting for a former mistress or -master.</p> - -<p>"He is called Mac. You don't dislike that name?" the donor asked.</p> - -<p>Mary said that she thought it was a most suitable name.</p> - -<p>"There's so much in a name," he continued meaningly.</p> - -<p>"Yes, and it's so unlucky, I always think, to change a name," Mary -added.</p> - -<p>"Oh, you think it's unlucky?" Jemmie Alison asked in a gloomy tone.</p> - -<p>Mac was a success from the moment of his arrival, and Mary was really -grateful to her friend—friendship was the relation established between -her and Jemmie Alison after several discussions—for the kind thought -that made the dog hers. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> was glad when the need of exercising Mac -took her out into Hyde Park where by now, crocuses, a myriad steady -flames, defied the wind and lighted the dim green of the London grass. -There were also white and purple crocuses that gave Mary a keener -pleasure than the yellow ones, for they seemed to be not so much the -first flowers of Spring as the last flowers of Winter, and to express -with their cold hues and tranquillity of form the sharpness of life -that was there all the time. They reminded her somehow of those lovers -who wandered about in the iron chill of that January afternoon, those -regardful lovers whose happy indifference to time or weather she had so -greatly envied.</p> - -<p>One morning the sun was so warm that, tired with throwing sticks -for Mac, Mary sat down on a chair in the Broad Walk, watching the -children bowling their hoops or running about with pink and blue -balloons, while with one splay paw upon his mistress's instep Mac sat -watching the other dogs. Mary from paying attention to the children -and nurses fell to wondering about the fragments of shell that were -mixed with the fresh gravel of the path. From what far-off beach had -they come, or were they fossil shells from the bed of a long-receded -ocean? Whencesoever it came, each fragment had once been part of a -living animal. A living animal. Not a hundred years hence, she, or all -that part of her beheld now by the passers-by, would seem not more -important than one of these shells.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> Was there not indeed something -more permanent than this bodily husk? Grandmamma did not think so. -Mary was sure of her unbelief, even if every Sunday morning Grandmamma -in sealskin and dove-gray silk did make use of the pew she rented for -herself and Mary in St. Peter's, Knightsbridge.</p> - -<p>"You are seen in church," she told her granddaughter. "One is anxious -for you to be seen."</p> - -<p>With the help of her vinaigrette Lady Flower kept awake during the -sermon and congratulated herself upon the charming appearance of Mary, -when Mary rose to take her share of singing unto the Lord at Morning -Prayer.</p> - -<p>The notion that her granddaughter was contemplating the serious aspect -and expression of religious fervor would have shocked the old lady; the -knowledge that she was sitting in Kensington Gardens asking herself -what she really was would have made Lady Flower think more earnestly -than ever that it was high time her granddaughter was married.</p> - -<p>"It must be for something," Mary told herself, crushing a tiny -scalloped fragment with her toe. "Life must be meant for something."</p> - -<p>Any attempt to solve the riddle of the universe had to be postponed -on account of Mac's suddenly being involved in a desperate fight, for -while his mistress had been lost in meditation he had been exposed to -the insults of an aggressive fox terrier.</p> - -<p>"Bandy-legged Sawney!" the terrier had murmured when he trotted fussily -past with erect tail.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> Mac's ears had twitched under this reflection -upon his nationality; but he had restrained himself. Presently the -terrier had come trotting back, this time on three legs as if to -insinuate that he was a better dog on three legs than a Dandie Dinmont -on four.</p> - -<p>"Donkey's ears!" he had snarled.</p> - -<p>Even this Mac had endured in patience, for his splay paw was still -reposing on his mistress' instep and he was proud of the pose, too -proud to abandon it for a fox-terrier. But, when his mistress had of -her own accord released him by withdrawing her toe from his protection, -Mac had been able to stand no more.</p> - -<p>"Let him come back and say another word," he had growled to himself, -turning round and round and scratching up the gravel in his irritation. -The fox-terrier had trotted back more aggressive than ever and to -emphasize his contempt of the Dandie Dinmont's short legs he had -swaggered up and down in front of Mac on the tips of his paws, -boastfully snarling.</p> - -<p>Mac rushed in, and the fight began.</p> - -<p>The nearest children climbed hastily over the railings to the safety -of the grass: nurses screamed to their charges: a park-keeper looked -out of the window of his little green room and made ready to effect an -impressive arrival upon the scene when the fight was over.</p> - -<p>"Your dog began it," a weather-beaten woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> said angrily to Mary. "I -call all and sundry to witness that it was your dog who deliberately -made an attack upon mine. Trusty! Trusty! Oh, my poor Trusty, he'll be -killed. That other brute's got him down. He's being bitten to pieces, -my poor old Trusty!"</p> - -<p>Mary was hitting both dogs with her whip-lead; but although she felt -that she was using most unfeminine force, such force that the ribbons -of her bonnet came untied and at any moment she expected to find her -hair loose upon her shoulders, her blows had not the slightest effect -upon the dogs. The owner of the fox-terrier was exciting herself more -every moment, and Mary was afraid that presently she should find -herself being rolled over and over among those fragments of shells, her -preoccupation with which had been the cause of Mac's outburst. However, -the Dandie Dinmont was certainly winning; and if the weather-beaten -lady did attack her, perhaps he would have disposed of the fox-terrier -in time to rescue his mistress. At that moment a slim young man rushed -into the middle of the fray and, seizing both dogs by their tails, he -held them apart until he had returned them growling to the arms of -their owners.</p> - -<p>"You can think yourself lucky that I don't take out a summons against -you," said the owner of the fox-terrier, hurrying off, without a word -of thanks to the young man, to bathe Trusty's wounds at the nearest -fountain.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> - -<p>He was a dark young man with fine features and deep brown eyes, who -spoke English with a French accent.</p> - -<p>"Pardon, Mademoiselle, we have not met before, have we?" he asked, -looking hard at Mary.</p> - -<p>She thought that he was trying to improve the occasion and was on -the point of replying with a cold negative, when she began to wonder -where and how she had met this stranger before. In his frankly puzzled -stare there was not a hint of presumption, and, though to enter into -conversation with a young man who had rendered her a service in a -public park was contrary to the whole spirit of her bringing up, Mary -could not resist her curiosity.</p> - -<p>"Have we met before?" she asked. "I've a feeling that we have -somewhere. You are French, are you not?"</p> - -<p>"From the Lyonnais," he replied.</p> - -<p>"But that's where I was at school."</p> - -<p>"I lived in Châteaublanc," he continued. In a flash she remembered who -he was.</p> - -<p>"Pierre Menard!" she cried.</p> - -<p>"And you are the little English girl with—pardon, Mademoiselle—with -red hair."</p> - -<p>When two old friends meet after a long lapse of time, the years between -are either swept away altogether or their capacity for separation is -doubled. In this case they were obliterated. Here on this fine morning -in early March Pierre stood before Mary as many times he had stood in -the fair land<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>scapes of memory. She heard again the diminishing sound -of the drum that played him on to glory down that winding road ten -years ago; she stood again beside him in that embrasure, gazing at a -world washed with the gold of that breathless and mellow autumn day; -she saw him again in heroic guise and found in his handling of the -dog-fight such an inspired chivalry as she had found in his setting -forth to fight for France.</p> - -<p>"And how well you speak English, Monsieur."</p> - -<p>"I have lived in London for eight years. I'm working with Marechal -et Cie, the big silk merchants. I had some business to transact in -Kensington and took the opportunity of walking through the Gardens this -beautiful day."</p> - -<p>"Then I must not detain you," she murmured.</p> - -<p>With a gesture he disposed of any urgency in his business.</p> - -<p>"You were in a greater hurry last time we were together," Mary reminded -him.</p> - -<p>She blushed at the adverb she had used, for it seemed to sweep them -toward an intimacy that she felt was imprudent.</p> - -<p>"I was not old enough last time, Mademoiselle, to appreciate my good -fortune. And you were, if I may say so, a very little girl in those -days, Mademoiselle."</p> - -<p>While they were talking, they had moved away from the populous Broad -Walk and were wandering now through a grove of elms. Mary looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> -round realized that they were as much alone together as if they were in -the country. Yet not for anything would she have been anywhere else, -not for anything would she have missed this new music in the twittering -of the sparrows overhead, this fresh glow in the grass, this sudden -accord of herself with the Spring.</p> - -<p>"I ought really to be going home," she murmured. "I only came out to -give my little dog a run."</p> - -<p>"See how much he is enjoying himself on the grass. I could never have -the heart to deprive him of a moment's pleasure, Mademoiselle. I should -indeed be <i>ingrat</i>."</p> - -<p>They were wandering deeper into the green heart of the Gardens. Mary, -looking over her shoulder, saw the houses of Kensington lose themselves -in a mist of bare boughs, heard the traffic sound more faintly, ceased -to feel the slightest desire to solve the riddle of the universe, and -threw all the responsibility of her behavior upon Fate.</p> - -<p>"I've felt for a long time that something was about to happen," -she told herself deliberately without being the least aware of -inconsistency, who only half an hour ago was feeling drearily that -nothing was going to happen. What nice hands Pierre had ... she pulled -herself up for a moment, but a moment later asked herself indignantly -by what other name she should think of him. He had always been Pierre. -Why did he keep staring sideways at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> her without speaking? She must be -careful to appear utterly unconscious of his glances.</p> - -<p>"I'm trying to tell myself that you are grown up," Pierre said.</p> - -<p>It was so easy to think of him as Pierre. Monsieur Menard would sound -so affected, and Mr. Menard would sound ridiculous.</p> - -<p>"I am grown up. I'm twenty."</p> - -<p>What would Grandmamma say if she could hear her? Yet after all he must -know within a year or two how old she was, so why pretend?</p> - -<p>"I am twenty-seven."</p> - -<p>"I think you look older than that," Mary said judicially. "I should -have guessed you were thirty, if I had not known that you were scarcely -seventeen when you went off to the war."</p> - -<p>Mary felt that it was important to impress on Pierre how much she was -aware of that boy and girl friendship. It would never do for him to -think that she would have allowed herself to walk with him under these -trees because he was what he was now. No sooner had she decided this -than she felt a sharp desire to glance sideways at him, to see more -exactly what he was indeed now. She tried hard to resist the impulse, -but the longer she resisted the more urgent it became, and thus their -eyes met.</p> - -<p>She blushed in confusion, but an instant afterward turned pale with -emotion.</p> - -<p>"Mademoiselle, you are ill," he cried. "Sit here<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> awhile. The sun is -shining. You will not catch cold."</p> - -<p>Why did he call her Mademoiselle? Why did he not say "Mary"? Oh, she -must not think such thoughts. Probably he did not know her name, or if -he ever knew it he must have forgotten it long ago. He was behaving so -well, and she was behaving so badly.</p> - -<p>"I don't know what you must think of me," she murmured.</p> - -<p>"Mademoiselle, I should not dare to say so soon what I thought."</p> - -<p>"Is your opinion of me as bad as all that?" She was behaving like a -coquette. What was happening to her? Mac's fight must have upset her -more than she thought.</p> - -<p>"You are unkind to me," said Pierre with a shrug.</p> - -<p>"Unkind?" she echoed.</p> - -<p>"You taunt me with my position...." He broke off and began to play with -the dog.</p> - -<p>Already a quarrel. How exciting life became when one could quarrel!</p> - -<p>"You misunderstand me, Monsieur," Mary said with a dignity that she -hoped was a match for his. "I had not the least intention of taunting -you. Perhaps you are trying to persuade yourself into thinking that, -because you are afraid that you may have led me to suppose that you -were more interested in thinking about me than you really were."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I am too much interested in you," Pierre retorted. "And you with the -cruelty of your sex have perceived that too quickly. But you are right -to make it clear to me that you have only condescended to give me your -company.... Ah, Mademoiselle, do you think I have forgotten that when -you first met me I was the gardener's son?"</p> - -<p>So he was! But he was French. And France was now a republic where all -were equal.</p> - -<p>"I remember perfectly what you were," said Mary. "But I don't remember -that it made any difference to me when I was ten, and I don't see why -it should make any difference when I'm twenty."</p> - -<p>"Mademoiselle," cried Pierre, starting to his feet, "I entreat you not -to mock me. I have no right to say what I feel for you. But at least I -may beg you to spare my feelings."</p> - -<p>"You really do speak English quite perfectly," Mary exclaimed in -obvious, open-eyed admiration of his fluency.</p> - -<p>"Mademoiselle, if I should wish to change my employer, I would beg you -to give me a written testimonial."</p> - -<p>"Ah, now it's you who are sneering at me," said Mary, turning upon -Pierre reproachful eyes.</p> - -<p>He made a gesture that was intended to convey how little it mattered to -her what he did or what he said or what he thought. Who was he in her -world?</p> - -<p>Mary felt that it would give quite a wrong im<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>pression of herself -if she did not succeed in convincing him that she despised those -artificial barriers of rank and station to which he evidently supposed -she attached so much importance.</p> - -<p>"I assure you that I never was and never could be conscious of any -difference between us like that," she affirmed. "I look upon you as an -old friend whom Fate—Fate," she repeated emphatically, for she felt -that it was imperative to make it clear from the start that Fate was -going to be accounted culpable for anything that might happen, "whom -Fate has brought once more into my life. I should never have allowed -myself to take this walk with you alone, if I didn't consider you an -old friend. And now I'm sure you ought to be keeping your appointment. -It would never do for you to neglect your business on my account."</p> - -<p>"But shall we ever meet again?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Fate will decide that," answered Mary demurely. "I dare say, if your -business brings you this way sometimes, we shall meet."</p> - -<p>And of course they did meet, not once but many times that Spring.</p> - -<p>"It was really a happy thought of Mr. Alison's to give you that -odd-looking dog," Lady Flower observed. "Your color is much better -since you've made a habit of exercising that dog in the Park. I really -don't think you'll want to leave town until the season is over. And I -shall not be sorry for an excuse to stay where I am. I find these short -ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>cursions into the country rather a bore nowadays."</p> - -<p>"I'm perfectly well in London," Mary assured her grandmother. "I think -it would be a great mistake to go away."</p> - -<p>Mary did not meet Pierre in the Park every day, but she did meet him -very often; and, although at the back of her mind she had a suspicion -that he must be neglecting his business to be able to meet her as often -as he did, she allowed herself to suppose that it was Fate. And if ever -before her mirror she was tempted by honesty to ask herself what was -going to be the end of it, she always hurried down to dinner and left -Fate to argue it out upstairs. Her friend Daisy had been back in town -a long time before Mary gave the least hint of an interest in life. In -fact, if she had not met Pierre unexpectedly one morning when she was -out walking with Daisy, she would probably never have said anything -about her romance.</p> - -<p>"So that's why you find Jemmie Alison so dull," her friend laughed.</p> - -<p>"My dear, what has he got to do with Jemmie Alison?"</p> - -<p>"A great deal, I should imagine, by your blushes."</p> - -<p>"Did I never tell you about young Menard, when we were at the -<i>pension</i>?"</p> - -<p>Daisy shook her head.</p> - -<p>"Of course, it happened before you came. When I was there during the -war." She related briefly the tale of Pierre's determination to fight -for his coun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>try. "And the other day we met again quite by accident."</p> - -<p>"And no doubt will go on meeting quite by accident," said Daisy dryly.</p> - -<p>"I must take Mac somewhere," Mary protested.</p> - -<p>Two days later she met Pierre by the banks of the Serpentine on a -May noon that held the city in a web of silver. The tall houses of -Bayswater, reflected in that shimmering expanse of water, appeared like -the battlements of an enchanted palace above the trees that masked -their prosaic beginnings. The white peacocks haunting the slopes toward -Hyde Park made one feel that life was a dream and that the children -and nurses, the meditative loiterers, even the old maids with their -pet dogs, would all presently be turned into birds to fly above this -cloud-cuckoo-town of London.</p> - -<p>No sooner were they seated on two of those green chairs, which in -their emptiness speak as eloquently as musical instruments of latent -emotions, than Pierre took Mary's hand and said: "Mademoiselle, I have -given up Marechal et Cie. Presently I shall find something better to -do. But so long as I was their <i>employé</i> I could not tell you that I -loved you. At this moment I am poor, but I am free. Mary, I hope you -will love me until I can win you in marriage?"</p> - -<p>She let her hand remain in his. Citizen and citizeness of -cloud-cuckoo-town, they floated far above ordinary life.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I only know that I love you, Pierre," she whispered.</p> - -<p>He bent over and touched her fingers with his lips. Then for a long -time they sat in silence.</p> - -<p>"You had better come and speak to my grandmother this afternoon."</p> - -<p>He nodded pensively.</p> - -<p>"She might raise some difficulties," Mary went on, trying to realize -that there was another existence outside the serene and silver world in -which the beating of her own heart sounded so loud. "Come about four," -she said, rising. "I will explain how all this has happened."</p> - -<p>He kissed once more her hand and stood watching her as she floated -across the level grass toward home.</p> - -<p>It was only when Mary heard the door of the house in King's Gate close -behind her and the gong chime for lunch that she began to wonder if -it was all going to be as easy as it had seemed by the banks of the -pale blue Serpentine. However, Pierre was coming this afternoon, and -Grandmamma must be warned. Lunch was surely unusually disturbed to-day. -The maids were always in and out with new dishes. Perhaps it would be -best to wait until they went up to the drawing-room for coffee. Would -that mean Grandmamma's missing her nap? If it did, it could not be -helped. At least she must be told that there was such a person.</p> - -<p>"Did I ever tell you about a boy called Pierre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> Menard?" Mary asked -when she had poured out the coffee. It took a long time to describe -that scene ten years ago when Pierre followed the drum to glory, so -long that Grandmamma was nodding before Mary had finished. But when -Mary added that curiously enough she had met him again the other day, -met him once or twice in fact, and that he had asked her if he could -call this afternoon, Grandmamma sat upright and looked more wide-awake -than Mary had ever seen her yet.</p> - -<p>"Is the young man going to call on you or me?"</p> - -<p>"On you, Grandmamma."</p> - -<p>"Oh," the old lady grimly commented. "Then I'd better go and take my -rest at once."</p> - -<p>Mary could not make up her mind whether she should stay in the -drawing-room until Pierre came or whether it would be wiser to let -him interview her grandmother first. In the end she decided upon the -latter course, and in great agitation of spirit she went upstairs to -her own room where she tried to distract her thoughts by trying on -several new dresses with which Lady Flower had insisted on replenishing -her wardrobe, so that she should not carry an end-of-the-season air -about her, the old lady had said. But the new dresses were incapable -of keeping her from running out on the landing every few minutes to -hear if the front door was being opened. It became impossible to remain -in her room, and she went back to the drawing-room so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> that she might -see Pierre first and warn him that her grandmother was likely to be -difficult.</p> - -<p>At last Pierre arrived, looking trim and slim in a frock-coat. Mary -was glad that he had dressed ceremoniously, for she knew how much -importance Grandmamma attached to ceremony.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Pierre," she exclaimed. "I only wanted to see you for a moment -just to advise you to talk in French to Lady Flower. She is half French -herself, you know, and I'm sure it will all sound much better in your -own language. It's not that you don't speak English perfectly, but you -might make a slip in a foreign tongue. You might give quite a wrong -impression."</p> - -<p>Pierre agreed with her about the wisdom of this, and then he took her -in his arms.</p> - -<p>"<i>Ma bien aimée</i>," he whispered. "Will you give me courage with one -kiss?"</p> - -<p>She fluttered upon his arms more lightly than a bird, more lightly -than a moth, more lightly than a crimson leaf that is blown whispering -along a window-pane. Then hearing her grandmother's step she fled from -the room through the domed conservatory past the staring eyes of the -pelargoniums and the pug-faced, toothless calceolarias.</p> - -<p>Twenty minutes later, Mary found Pierre gone and her grandmother -reading <i>The Times</i> as if she were trying to assure herself that normal -life would continue in spite of a presumptuous young French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>man, who -without prospects asked for the hand of an heiress.</p> - -<p>"Although, considering what he is," said Lady Flower, "the young man -behaved very well. I was able to show him at once how ridiculous it was -that he should aspire to marry you."</p> - -<p>"But I love him," Mary interposed.</p> - -<p>"I have no doubt that at this moment you do love him. It is my -business, dear child, to protect you against impulse."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower was once more sitting in her boudoir at Barton Hall with -her son before her. She had made the mistake then of sneering at Mary's -mother, and although in this case it was unlikely that Mary would take -matters into her own hand, it would be imprudent to run the risk of -her doing so. With experience of a similar situation she ought to be -able this time to have her own way. The old lady looked at Mary with -an unwonted warmth of affection: Mary was Edward's daughter. The fact -seemed to strike her for the first time. Edward's daughter ... Edward -who was drowned twenty years ago. Poor Edward, so like his mother! And -there was Mary holding her hands just as he had held them on that June -afternoon, the day before he married and tore himself forever from -the bosom of family life, as perhaps she herself might have held her -hands fifty years ago if she had had to oppose the wishes of that stern -old general who fought at Waterloo or of that dainty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> mother who bred -in exile had yet kept about her the remote grace and grandeur of the -<i>ancien régime</i>.</p> - -<p>"It is not that he is of humble birth," she began to explain. -"A Frenchman can surmount that disadvantage more easily than an -Englishman, at any rate in England. But he has no money, and so far -as I can gather no immediate prospects of ever having any money. Even -if I were disposed to give you such a dowry as would enable you to -indulge yourself in the luxury of marriage with a poor man, I should -not permit myself to do so. For I should be wrong. Few men have the -moral strength to live decently upon their wives. I know you will think -that this is only the opinion of a cynical old woman, and I should be -sorry if at your age you thought differently. But at my age one is no -longer shocked by the nakedness of truth; at my age we begin to return -to the shamelessness of childhood. How your dear grandfather would have -disliked that last remark of mine. He had such a profound belief in old -age. Any religious feelings he had, all centered round his respect for -the age of God. Your poor grandfather ... dear me, I am going back into -the past instead of grappling with the present."</p> - -<p>Mary had been listening to her grandmother in astonishment. She had -expected a fierce and bitter opposition, which she had promised herself -to defy; but it seemed that the old lady was going to argue with her, -and that would be disconcerting. Grand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>mother's arguments were always -so difficult to answer.</p> - -<p>"I think perhaps I won't talk about this business any more to-day," -Grandmamma was saying. "I have to make up my mind whether or not I will -tell you something. Meanwhile, may I ask you not to see the young man -until I have decided what to do?"</p> - -<p>Mary promised this, and wrote to Pierre giving him a tryst by the -Serpentine three days hence. Adèle was sent to beg Daisy Harland to -come at once to talk over some important news Mary had to tell her. -Mary would have gone herself, but she could see that her grandmother -would not be able to avoid being suspicious of her meeting Pierre, and -she did not want to do anything that would prejudice the old lady still -more against him.</p> - -<p>Daisy was much more discouraging than Grandmamma; she thought it was -madness to think of marrying a French clerk who was the son of a common -gardener, and who had at the moment neither money nor employment.</p> - -<p>"My dearest Mary, it's the most absurd idea I ever heard! Why, you -would have to live in squalor unless you lived with Lady Flower, -which of course would be impossible. You're too old for this kind of -foolishness now. I saw no reason for your getting married in such a -hurry. But I begin to understand now why your grandmother is so anxious -to tie you up. She evidently knows you better than I do. Of course, -he's a good-looking and—if that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> attracts you—a romantic young man. -But there are dozens of them in England. As for being in love, you -know as well as I do that love runs its course like measles or scarlet -fever. You can recover from love, but you can't recover from marriage, -which in this case would be like a serious accident. You'd be lame for -the rest of your life."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower remarked how much surprised she had been to find that -Mary's friend had grown so sensible.</p> - -<p>"It must be hunting, I suppose."</p> - -<p>"You only find her sensible because she dislikes the idea of my -marrying Pierre."</p> - -<p>"She sees the position from the standpoint of an outsider. Listen, -Mary, I have never said anything about your father to you. I don't even -know how much you have guessed."</p> - -<p>Mary blushed hotly. The moment that she had dreaded for years was -upon her. That dreadful secret, the consciousness of which had always -clouded her intimate thoughts, was about to be revealed. She must steel -herself to hear the proclamation of her illegitimacy. The definition in -the dictionary flamed across her memory ... <i>not authorized by law</i> ... -<i>improper</i> ... <i>not born in lawful wedlock</i> ... <i>bastard</i>. <i>Bâtard!</i> -How often had she shivered over that in the French dictionary. How -sedulously had she tried to ascertain what it really meant, in the way -that no dictionary dares to reveal. And then those sickening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> hints -from horrid girls ... the girls who came from South America were always -the horridest....</p> - -<p>No wonder Grandmamma looked serious and uncomfortable. If only a small -portion of what was hinted were true, she must scarcely know how she -was to look her granddaughter in the face and tell her not merely about -herself, but about life and those mysterious beginnings of life that -seemed to involve men and women in such horrors.</p> - -<p>"I have guessed a good deal," Mary admitted bravely.</p> - -<p>"Naturally, you must have done so. And I dare say those people with -whom you lived. What was their name? Fox? Fawkes?"</p> - -<p>"The Fawcuses," said Mary. From the past the vision of Mrs. Fawcus -came back to her like the page of a fairy tale. In all stories about -illegitimate children, there was a woman like Mrs. Fawcus who looked -after them, kept them hidden, and guarded their secret. Why had she not -made another effort to read <i>Jane Eyre</i> since it was taken away from -her by Mademoiselle Lucinge only the week before she left school? In -that book she might have pierced the dreadful mystery.</p> - -<p>"You may have guessed," Grandmamma was saying, "that your father -married beneath him, married a very beautiful girl, the daughter of one -of our own tenant farmers."</p> - -<p>"Then I'm not illegitimate!" Mary could not help exclaiming.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Good gracious me!" said Lady Flower crossly. "What minds modern -young women have. Is no kind of decent veil to be left over the -unpleasant side of life? Why, at your age I did not know the meaning of -illegitimate."</p> - -<p>Mary would have liked to retort that she only knew the endless circle -of a dictionary's definitions, that she did not really know its -meaning. However, let her mother have been never so humble, she was -married to her father.</p> - -<p>"But you cannot have guessed all the misery that your father's marriage -brought in its train. It killed him: it killed your mother: it killed -your mother's father: it might have killed you. Your father was -dependent upon his father. He defied him, and what was the result?"</p> - -<p>Lady Flower left out nothing in the tale of the romantic marriage that -could bring home to her granddaughter what it meant to run in the face -of class tradition.</p> - -<p>"The situation is almost the same now as when I entreated your father -twenty years ago to think what he was doing. But in this case it is -worse, because in this case it is the man who is of lower station. -Mary, I implore you to give up this good-looking but hopelessly -ineligible young Frenchman."</p> - -<p>Lady Flower burst into tears, and Mary, who would have been less amazed -to behold tears run down the cheeks of a marble statue, promised to -give up Pierre.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> - -<p>This was the letter she wrote:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -23 King's Gate, W.,<br /> -<i>May 22, 1880.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I am afraid that I am not the wonderful being you have so often -told me that I was. I cannot meet you to-morrow on the banks of the -Serpentine, however fine the day is. I do not regret for an instant -that I let myself fall in love with you. No, not for an instant, -Pierre. I don't know why I say "let myself fall in love," because I -could not help it. It was nothing to do with me. But I have promised -my grandmother never to see you again and to give you up. I couldn't -explain why, even if I were to see you. It has nothing to do with -you, but only with me. If I married you I should have to elope, and -though I should be happy when I was with you, I should be feeling -all the while that my grandmother's old age was being made unhappy. -You must not blame her. She is convinced that we are not meant for -each other. My father and mother were drowned many years ago, because -they eloped; she has lost her husband and her eldest son also: she -is entirely alone in the world, and she was kind to me when I was a -little girl. Forget me, Pierre, and try to forgive me. Do not think -that I do not love you. Don't think that, Pierre. I believe that I -have loved you ever since I first saw you at Châteaublanc. Why do I -go on writing? I don't know; but somehow I can't bear to finish this -letter which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> is the last I shall ever write to you. Don't think of -me too unkindly. If you ever do think of me, think of me that morning -by the Serpentine when you first kissed my hand. Pierre, I can feel -that kiss still. I shall feel it till I'm an old woman. I've nothing -more to say, and yet I can't stop....</i></p></blockquote> - -<p>Mary put down her pen for a minute, and stared in front of her. -Tick-tick! Tick-tick! Tick-tick! Tick-tick! The ormulu clock swung -Pierre out of her life. She leaned over quickly and wrote:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -<i>Good-by, good-by,<br /> -Mary.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>Adèle came into the room.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Alison is downstairs in the drawing-room with <i>Miladi</i>, -Mademoiselle."</p> - -<p>"I'll come down at once, Adèle. Please take this letter to the post."</p> - -<p>Mac rose from his place on the hearthrug and waddled after his -mistress.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="Chapter_Four" id="Chapter_Four"></a><i>Chapter Four</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE WIFE</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><i>Chapter Four: The Wife</i></p> - - -<p>On a wet November afternoon a brougham drawn by a pair of gray -horses and coming from the direction of Kensington drove along the -Knightsbridge road and pulled up outside Lady Flower's house in King's -Gate. From it alighted a young woman who by some indefinable effect -of maturity, some sedate expression of achievement, revealed that she -was married. The age at which women decide to be matrons varies like -feminine fashions, and in the year 1890 English women still clung, if -less tightly every year, to the fashion of a middle age as long as -Queen Victoria's reign.</p> - -<p>Mary Alison at thirty should have been in the zenith of her beauty. -That auburn hair had deepened in ten years like a gathered chestnut, -but like a chestnut it had preserved the gloss of youth. Experience -had given her blue eyes those profundities of color which inaccurate -and ambitious observers have miscalled violet. Her complexion held the -exquisite translucent hues of a September rose. And yet so much of -her young grace was destroyed by the dress, which made any woman of -the period appear like Noah's wife in a toy Ark, that she seemed less -lovely now than ten years ago when she had stood by the drawing-room -window of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> house, up the steps of which she was now walking with -such slow and stately ease of movement. With her long forefinger -pressing the bell, she turned and said to the coachman:</p> - -<p>"Burton, you had better leave Mac at home when you come back for me at -six."</p> - -<p>At the sound of his mistress' voice, the grizzled head of the Dandie -Dinmont gazed anxiously through the closed windows of the brougham. She -raised a warning finger to bid him be good, and a moment later was lost -to sight in the darkling hall.</p> - -<p>"How is her ladyship, Adèle?"</p> - -<p>"<i>Miladi</i> grows very weak, madame," the maid replied, leading the way -upstairs. Across Mary's mind floated the picture of herself as a little -girl in Paris following Adèle upstairs to bed. Even so had she led the -way in those days and from time to time had turned round with flashing, -frightening eyes to see if her charge was close behind her. How shadowy -those days in Paris now, shadowy like this flight of London stairs, on -which Adèle alone stood out clear, with her sallow face and eyebrows -like the hair of a Japanese doll. Shadows.... Shadows....</p> - -<p>"Mrs. Alison is here, <i>Miladi</i>."</p> - -<p>Adèle stood aside to let Mary enter the room, where under a canopy of -purple velvet, looking hardly more substantial than a lace handkerchief -left upon the pillow, Lady Flower sat huddled in her last bed. One hand -fluttered down upon the quilt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> like a faded white petal to greet her -granddaughter, who took it gently in her own that was still fresh and -taper as a rosebud.</p> - -<p>"I shall die very soon now, Mary," whispered the old lady. "At any -moment. At any moment. Perhaps to-night. Perhaps this afternoon. Did -you tell Burton to wait?"</p> - -<p>"No. I sent him back to Campden Hill. I wanted to stay with you till -you went to sleep."</p> - -<p>"To sleep," her grandmother echoed. "I feel disinclined to sleep. I -have such a long sleep before me."</p> - -<p>Mary could not bring herself to make the conventionally optimistic -reply. It did not seem worth while to pretend with phrases in the -presence of this old woman already seemingly discarnate for that -obscure event of death.</p> - -<p>"A long sleep," the old lady went on in her tenuous voice. "A very long -sleep. And yet I wonder. Ah, well, it was all said by Shakespeare, was -it not? Though frankly I never cared greatly for Shakespeare. It is all -too excitable. And yet I wonder."</p> - -<p>"What are you wondering, Grandmamma?"</p> - -<p>"If this really is the end. There might be something else, you know. -Give me my vinaigrette."</p> - -<p>The old lady sniffed it as if she would ward off the odors of eternity, -just as twenty years ago she had used it against the odors of a much -shorter journey to Lyons. She had been only too anxious to sleep then. -But now.... How bright her eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> were, like precious stones, like pools -of water holding out against the encroaching frost of death.</p> - -<p>"I do not really want to die," she said. "It seems such a little -while since I began to feel younger again. Of late lying here I have -remembered so much that I had forgotten. Odd little incidents of -childhood have come back to me so sharply, so very vividly and clearly. -Earlier this afternoon, before you came, I saw my father in that corner -in his Hessian boots and cocked hat; and he said to me, 'Where's your -Mamma?' It was so vivid that I made a movement to get out of bed and -run to look for her. And then he asked me to fill his snuff-box with -maccaboy. I have often wondered why a man so particular about his -personal appearance should be a slave to snuff. But he was. Do you know -what maccaboy is?"</p> - -<p>Mary shook her head.</p> - -<p>"It is a snuff scented with attar of roses, of which he was -passionately fond. He acquired the habit when he was fighting in the -West Indies. Long ago. Long ago. And of course this vision of him was -nothing but an hallucination caused by weakness. Nothing but that. -There cannot be anything before us when we lie like this. And yet I -wonder. I cannot feel perfectly sure."</p> - -<p>Mary did not know what to say. Here was really an opportunity for -a clergyman to be useful; but she was afraid of suggesting such a -visitor. Yet her grandmother might be hoping that somebody would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> -suggest a clergyman; for, although she would be too proud to ask for -one herself, she might want one to be pressed upon her just as she had -wanted the doctor pressed upon her.</p> - -<p>Mary decided to risk the proposal.</p> - -<p>"A clergyman?" echoed the old lady, clutching at her vinaigrette. -"A clergyman?" she repeated. "Thank you, my dear, but I should find -a clergyman in my bedroom as uncomfortable as I should find a large -black retriever dog, and about as useful. I'm afraid that my wandering -conversation has given you the impression that my mind is wandering. I -thought I had made it perfectly plain that I considered the vision of -my father an hallucination."</p> - -<p>Mary begged her grandmother's pardon, and after a short silence the old -lady inquired graciously after the children.</p> - -<p>"What a pity," she said, "that Richard will not become Sir Richard when -I die. I am sorry now that I allowed Barton to be sold. I think, had I -known how much of a Flower I was going to have for a great-grandson, I -should not have done so. However, regrets are useless. You are happy, -are you not?"</p> - -<p>"Why, yes, Grandmamma. What makes you ask that?"</p> - -<p>The old lady's voice was sounding more remote every minute that she -went on talking, and the furtive November dusk which had long been -hiding in corners of the room now crept boldly forth and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> climbed the -velvet curtains of the canopy above the bed. Mary wanted to light the -gas, but her grandmother waved her hand to signify that she preferred -the gloom.</p> - -<p>"I have wondered sometimes lately if you ever think of that young -Frenchman whom I dissuaded you from marrying."</p> - -<p>"Why, no, Grandmamma," said Mary. "Or if I do, only as one might think -of anybody in the past."</p> - -<p>"You are happy, really happy? Your marriage has brought you happiness?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, yes, indeed, Grandmamma. Could anybody be unhappy with Richard -and Geoffrey and Muriel?"</p> - -<p>"You are happy because of the children?" Lady Flower persisted. "Your -husband does not count?"</p> - -<p>"But you know how fond I am of Jemmie."</p> - -<p>"Fond, fond," the old lady murmured. "Looking back, I wonder if that -means anything. Mary, you must be prepared for your children to bring -you unhappiness. I do not say that they will. I hope that they will -not. But you must be ready for that trial." She suddenly sat forward in -the bed. "Hark! Do you hear a sound?"</p> - -<p>"No, I hear nothing, Grandmamma."</p> - -<p>"I hear a sound like the sea. Plainly! Yes, yes, quite plainly, the -noise of the sea. Edward, forgive me if I was wrong," she cried. "I -have tried to watch over your little girl. Pray do not light the gas, -Mary. Give me your hand instead. Put me back among my pillows. And do -not light the gas.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> I cannot bear the idea of your seeing me die. And -this is death. I know...."</p> - -<p>Mary laid her grandmother gently back on the pillows, felt a swift -trembling through the frail body, and speaking to her received no -answer.</p> - -<p>It was the first time in her life that Mary had come into the presence -of death, and she sat for some time near that silence on the bed, -wondering at her own calm. Were people always as calm as this when they -beheld death? But even as she was congratulating herself she was seized -with a panic and ran madly from the room out on the landing, the rosy -gaslight of which in response to her cries was soon populated by maids -in their black dresses and white caps.</p> - -<p>Mary supposed that the correct thing would be to send a message for -her husband to come immediately to King's Gate and take charge of the -house, the servants, and herself. In fact, when Adèle with tear-swollen -eyes came to tell her that the carriage was at the door, she asked if -Madame would not like the coachman to drive back to Madame's house -and fetch Monsieur. By Adèle's manner Mary realized that since her -grandmother's death she was being accorded a respect almost as great as -that which had formerly been accorded to the dead woman.</p> - -<p>But what could Jemmie do? He would be extremely bored by being -dragged out before dinner. He would not know what he ought to do, -and irri<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>tated by not knowing he would certainly do the wrong thing. -Moreover, she did not feel that she wanted Jemmie. She was anxious to -be quiet and avoid any discussion of her inheritance, any speculation -upon its exact amount, any plans of Jemmie to build this house or buy -that property. In fact, she should like to stay at King's Gate to-night -by herself and sleep in her old room upstairs. She desired to make -amends to her grandmother's memory for that unwonted display of terror -in which she had indulged herself. She sent a note by Burton to say -that she should not be back at Woodworth Lodge until the next morning.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mr. Alison was displeased by his wife's message. If it would not have -involved him in what might have been the unpleasantness of a houseful -of hysterical servants, he would have driven back to King's Gate to -protest against her action. It would have been sufficiently annoying -to receive word that she might be late for dinner, or even that she -might not be back at all for dinner; but to stay the night for no -purpose except to gratify a whim of piety, that did strike Mr. Alison -as unreasonable. He hoped that Mary was not going to turn religious, to -start getting up early in the morning for Communion and all that kind -of thing. One never knew what a woman might do after thirty. Or take -up with spiritualism. He would soon put a stop to that. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>Table-turning -and tambourine playing ... long-haired mediums and goggle-eyed women -with skinny necks and Oriental beads ... she had the children, and they -ought to be enough.</p> - -<p>"Did Burton say why your mistress had to stay?" he asked the parlormaid.</p> - -<p>"No, sir; he said no more than give me Meddem's note."</p> - -<p>Mr. Alison strode across the room in irritation, and nearly tripped -over Mac, who squealed in alarm.</p> - -<p>"Confound the dog! Take him downstairs, Pinkney," he called to the -retreating maid. "He's getting much too old to be allowed all over the -house. And what is the matter with the gas to-night?"</p> - -<p>"It do seem to burn a bit dim, sir. I think Mac has gone and hid under -your chair, sir."</p> - -<p>"Come out of that, you brute," Mr. Alison shouted angrily.</p> - -<p>There was a low growl in response.</p> - -<p>"Did you hear him, Pinkney?"</p> - -<p>The maid was stricken by awe.</p> - -<p>"He deliberately growled at me."</p> - -<p>Mr. Alison rocked the chair violently in order to frighten Mac into the -open; when at last he had succeeded in driving him out of the room and -was alone, he made up his mind to tell Mary on her return that her dog -must be put away. It was not safe to have a dog like that about with -children in the house. In any case it was too old. It was over a year -old when he gave it to Mary nearly eleven years ago. Dogs ought not -to be allowed to grow old. Mr. Alison<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> smoothed his ruffled brow and -patted his bald head.</p> - -<p>"That new hair-restorer is as much of a fraud as the rest of them," he -thought. "One of these days somebody will prosecute a hair-restorer -for obtaining money under false pretences. Personally I don't believe -that, when a man has lost his hair so completely as I have, anything in -the world will bring it back. That's where I take exception to their -advertisements. They're dishonest."</p> - -<p>Pondering the inclination of humanity to grow more dishonest daily, Mr. -Alison looked at his watch and saw that there was still half an hour to -dinner-time.</p> - -<p>"She might easily have come back," he complained to himself.</p> - -<p>He had looked forward to telling her about that extremely satisfactory -bit of business with Moss, Doddington & Co. What was the use of slaving -all day in the City to keep a wife and family and carriage and a large -house? Women were apparently incapable of grasping what a serious -strain it put on a man to work for hours under a load of domestic -responsibility. If Mary really appreciated what he was doing for her, -she would have let nothing interfere with her being at home to-night. -He was very sorry of course about her grandmother's death. But after -all the old lady was getting on for eighty-one. At such an age her -death was to be expected at any moment. By the way, he must go to his -tailor to-morrow on the way down to Throg<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>morton Street. Nothing looked -worse than resuscitated mourning.</p> - -<p>"I wonder how much money the old lady will leave after all. A decent -amount, I fancy. Odd that she never asked me to look after her affairs. -She knew I was a good man of business. Business! It was a pity that -Mary did not have to go to the City and work for a while. She would -know herself then how dreary it was to come home and find the house -deserted.</p> - -<p>"Ah, nurse, are the children ready for their romp?" he asked as the -door opened.</p> - -<p>"Miss Muriel and Master Geoffrey said you promised to play tigers with -them to-night, sir. I'm sure I don't know where they get hold of their -wild ideas. And Master Richard went on at me till I said I would ask -you if he might come down to dessert and have an extra quarter of an -hour when he's done his homework."</p> - -<p>"Not to-night, nurse. Not to-night. I'm dining out. In fact, I must go -and dress at once. Tell the children I'll play with them to-morrow, and -tell cook, will you, please, that there will be no dinner to-night. -Mrs. Alison is staying at King's Gate. Her ladyship is dead."</p> - -<p>"Oh dear, sir, I am sorry to hear that. My mistress will be very upset. -Though I suppose with such an old lady and all it was to be expected."</p> - -<p>"Yes, yes, quite so," said Mr. Alison. "By the way, I shouldn't tell -the children to-night."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> - -<p>"No, sir, it might make them a bit creepy as they say."</p> - -<p>"But I don't think I ought to play with them. I'm sure Mrs. Alison -would rather they went to bed very quietly to-night. You'd better say -that we've both had to go out to dinner. Oh, and, nurse, it would be as -well not to let Mac go into the nursery or schoolroom. He seems to be -turning savage. Poor old dog, he was my first present to your mistress -before we were married."</p> - -<p>"So I've heard my mistress say, sir. Poor old dog! Dear me, it's always -one thing on top of another, as they say. And I'm sure I've passed the -remark a score of times that it never rains but what it pours."</p> - -<p>"Good night, nurse."</p> - -<p>"Good night, sir. I'll see that the children keep very quiet. I was -going to give Miss Muriel and Master Geoffrey both a dose of medicine -to-morrow night, and they may jee-ust as well have it to-night."</p> - -<p>Mr. Alison dressed in a state of astonishment at himself. "I can't -think what made me so suddenly decide to dine out," he exclaimed aloud. -"Talking to myself now," he continued. "I'm thoroughly upset. That's -what I am. It's a good thing I <i>am</i> going out."</p> - -<p>A few minutes later he was walking briskly down Campden Hill, conscious -of the perfume of autumnal trees, vaguely excited by the sound of the -distant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> traffic in Kensington High Street that with every step became -more distinct. It was a mistake to coop oneself up too much. He was -falling into the habit of thinking that the day was over when he sat -back in the railway carriage and opened the <i>St. James's Gazette</i>. He -ought to be careful. What was that he was reading the other day about -keeping young by refusing to be old? How true! It was the fault of -marriage. Yes, marriage was responsible. Bachelors did not grow old. -Responsibility, that was what did it. How free, for instance, he felt -to-night just because Mary had sent word that she was not coming home. -The message had annoyed him just at first; but now he was on the whole -rather glad. The street lamps were twinkling; there must be a touch of -frost in the air. So much the better. Far more healthy than the muggy -weather they had been having. By Jove, the crispness made one feel -ten years younger. Where should he go to-night? Dinner at the Savoy? -Rather late perhaps for that. Why not a few oysters with half a pint of -champagne, and then a theater followed by supper? A theater? Perhaps it -was hardly the thing to go to a theater to-night. No, he would dine at -the Savoy.</p> - -<p>"Hansom! Savoy!"</p> - -<p>"Right you are, sir."</p> - -<p>"And you can drive fairly fast. I'm in a hurry."</p> - -<p>It was a comfortable hansom behind a good horse; and Jemmie Alison, -once again the authentic Jemmie, leaning forward over the apron gazed -out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> at the glittering life he had too long forsaken.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mary lay awake most of the night in the strangeness of her old room. -She tried to concentrate her mind piously upon her dead grandmother, -but all her thoughts came back to herself. She now asked herself the -question to which, when her grandmother asked it, she had returned -so confident an affirmative. Would she not, if she were really happy -with Jemmie, resent being away from him even for a single night? And -was she not actually taking pleasure in being away from him? There -was about the air of this old room of hers something delightfully -fresh and invigorating. She felt much more herself. All these years -of marriage she had been letting her personality be slowly submerged -in her husband, in the cares of a household, and in her children. -She must not forget <i>them</i>, the darlings! Should she have loved them -more if their father had been somebody else? If Pierre had been their -father, for instance? But then they would not be Richard, Geoffrey, and -Muriel. And how could she love any other children better than those -three tousle-heads? Besides, what nonsense it was to be speculating -like this. She had not thought of Pierre for years, except casually -to wonder sometimes where he was and if he ever thought of her. She -could not deceive herself into imagining that she was still in love -with Pierre, still less that she was pining for him. All the same, she -wished that she had understood a little more about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> life before she -married Jemmie. Daisy Harland, who had been so full of good worldly -advice, had not made much of a success with her own marriage. Daisy, -who had been so confident that love was a passing malady, had thrown -over everything for love, had let herself be dragged through the -divorce court for a man who when it was all over had married another -woman. Poor Daisy, was she happier now, somewhere on the Continent, -always wondering if her friends would put up their parasols when they -passed her on some sunny promenade?</p> - -<p>And if she had not married Jemmie, she would never have had her beloved -Richard. She thought of his coming back from one of his first days at -school and of his news of being placed in an unusually high class for -French and of his having to write out the verb <i>porter</i>.</p> - -<p>"All the verb, darling?" she had asked.</p> - -<p>"Well, that's what I couldn't ergzactly make out, Mum. Mr. Osbourne -just said write out <i>porter</i>: <i>to carry</i>, and I think he only meant one -of those lines of verbs like you see in the grammar book."</p> - -<p>"It wouldn't do to make a mistake, dearest," she had said anxiously.</p> - -<p>"No, it wouldn't, would it, Mummie? Perhaps I'd better write out -everything, though it's pages and pages!"</p> - -<p>And she had sat with him while he laboriously wrote the French and -English of every tense and of every person in that tense. <i>That I -might have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> carrying. That thou mightest have been carrying</i>.... -What a sleepy little boy she had tucked up that night! And next day he -had come back to lunch with a woeful face to say that it was only the -single line of principal tenses which had been set and that he had not -liked to expose himself to the ridicule of his classmates by showing up -his toilsome pages.</p> - -<p>"But how did you explain you had nothing to show your master?"</p> - -<p>"I said I'd left it at home, Mum, and he told me to bring it this -afternoon. It won't take me hardly a minute to do."</p> - -<p>No, no, it was unimaginable that she should not be the mother of -Richard: and, pleasant though it was to be sleeping alone in her old -room, Richard belonged to Jemmie as much as to herself.</p> - -<p>Should she when at last she lay dying, for though the attempt to -realize the inevitableness of death caught the breath and eluded the -mind's grasp, the ultimate death of herself was a fact that must be -believed, should she in that solemn hour ask a granddaughter—Richard's -or dear fat Geoffrey's child—such questions as her own grandmother -had asked her? Should she when an old woman look back at her life with -doubt and forward to the grave with apprehension? And where now was the -spirit of that cold body downstairs?</p> - -<p>Pleasant to be lying like this by oneself. Pleasant ... very pleasant -... the sheets cool and pleasant <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>... a delicious privacy. Yes, it was -wrong not to tell girls more about the actualities of existence. Would -she tell Muriel one day? That dear dumpling! But, almost before she -knew it, Muriel would be thinking about marriage. In another ten years, -only as long as she had been married, Muriel would be fifteen. Ten -years went by quickly enough, especially when three of them were spent -in having babies. And she might have another baby. Jemmie did not seem -to mind. "The more the merrier," he would say, as he had so often said -before. How insensitive men were. And gross. Men? What did she know -about men? Jemmie looked so much like other men that he was probably -representative of the sex. Pierre had been different. But would he -have been different if she had married him? When she kissed him that -afternoon, when she gave him that one swift kiss, she had not known to -what such a kiss might not be the prelude. Would not the knowledge have -destroyed all its fairy quality? Was it possible to experience romance -unless one was innocent? Oh, that sweet illusion of first love! Even -Grandmamma once upon a time must have known that. While she was lying -there in that dusky room, did she feel faintly upon her withered lips -some blushful kiss of sixty years ago? Did she, ah, did she, and was -it for that she doubted her wisdom in persuading her granddaughter to -marry Jemmie Alison? Anyway, the marriage was accomplished. There was -no use now to repent. Yet people who had enjoyed grand passions did -exist.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Love, my dear, was invented by the poets to excuse their own -weaknesses."</p> - -<p>Something like that Grandmamma had once observed. Were she alive now -and should she make the same remark now, Mary would reply that marriage -without love was invented by ... but she was unable to think of a -suitable mordant retort before she fell asleep in her own room.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It seemed as if the death of Lady Flower had acted upon husband and -wife like an Horatian maxim that would remind humanity of time's -swift flight. In the case of Alison the money they inherited made him -feel more keenly how much of his life was being wasted in the pursuit -of wealth. There was now no need for him to devote so much of his -attention to business, and by taking a partner younger than himself -he was able to spend less time in the office. Having once dined out -away from home, he began to make a habit of dining out; and Mary in -her turn began to wonder what she should do with her life. Occasional -dinner-parties and occasional visits to the opera or the theater did -not seem enough to fill existence at thirty. There were the children -of course, as Jemmie was always reminding her when she seemed inclined -to ask unanswerable questions about the end and meaning of human -existence. But children, when there were nurses and nurse-maids and -governesses and schoolmasters all easily obtainable, did not occupy -a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> woman's life fully. Besides, well-brought-up children went to bed -early, and was there nothing better to do with life than sit at home -reading novels that were only the least bit less dull than life itself? -Jemmie often looked at his reflection in the glass and exclaimed upon -the approach of age. But Jemmie was forty-five with a man's life behind -him, even if he had been cooped up, as sometimes now in moments of -irritation he implied that he had been cooped up by marriage. If Jemmie -was concerned about the vanishing years, it was because he looked back -with regret to the joys and freedom of his youth. But she, on what -could she look back? One kiss briefer than a shooting-star, swifter -than a swallow's flight, yet in remembrance, ah, how sweet!</p> - -<p>So passed the winter of that year; and, when in February the white and -purple crocuses pied the lawns of Woodworth Lodge, husband and wife -both resolved that the year should pay them with what it brought forth.</p> - -<p>"One must do something," Mary agreed with Mrs. Wryford, who considered -herself Mary's most intimate friend, because she always stayed longer -than any of the other visitors that haunted Mary's Friday afternoons.</p> - -<p>"Of course! It's our duty. Now why don't you have a club like me? My -dear, until I started my club for waitresses I was at a loose end. -And it's so interesting. Why, I've been brought into close contact -with people I should never have seen other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>wise except across a crumby -table. I assure you, it's been quite a revelation to me. You'd be -surprised to find how different my girls are, one from another. Oh yes, -indeed, quite distinguishable, I assure you; and I think I can really -claim to know each one individually. And many of them have learned to -confide in me quite a lot."</p> - -<p>"Now that must be fascinating," said Mary.</p> - -<p>"Yet it's hardly surprising when you think of their homes. Of course -I never go to their homes. Oh no, I make a point of never doing that. -I say to myself, 'Two nights a week, Ella, you are pledged to your -girls.' And I can assure you, Mary, that I never fail to be with them -unless I have a dinner-party or some social engagement. Do, my dear, -take my advice and start a club. You speak French well, don't you? Why -not found a club for French seamstresses in Soho? And now I simply must -run. Good-by, you dear attractive creature," Mrs. Wryford exclaimed, -kissing Mary warmly on each cheek. In the door she stopped a moment. "I -always say and I always shall say that I enjoy the few minutes we have -together every Friday more than anything in the week. Good-by, you dear -thing. It's still quite light. I always think it's a sign of spring -when the days really begin to draw out. Good-by! Good-by!"</p> - -<p>How Grandmamma used to dislike women of the type of Mrs. Wryford, Mary -thought.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> - -<p>"And I expect in another thirty years I shall dislike them just as much -as she did."</p> - -<p>At dinner that night Mary broached the subject of a club for girls to -her husband.</p> - -<p>"French seamstresses!" he exclaimed. "What on earth next will you be -wanting to do? Aren't the children enough of a responsibility?"</p> - -<p>"They're no responsibility at all," Mary argued. "You won't allow them -to be. Don't you remember what a fuss you made when you discovered I -was taking out Geoffrey and Muriel every afternoon?"</p> - -<p>"I didn't make a fuss. I never do make a fuss. I don't suppose that -a less fussy man than myself exists. I merely observed that for you -to wear yourself out looking after children while a mob of nurses -and nurse-maids were eating off their heads doing nothing at home -was ridiculous. Surely there's a happy medium between dragging a -perambulator round Kensington Gardens and founding clubs for French -seamstresses?"</p> - -<p>Mary sat silent for a while pondering her tactics, while Jemmie, with -what she felt was unnecessary gusto, ate a large slice of turbot.</p> - -<p>"I don't think there's any need to sulk ..." he began: but at the -moment one of the parlormaids came within range of the conversation, -and, as Mary thought cynically, her husband had not yet reached such a -pitch of married boredom as would let him be rude to her in front of -the servants.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> - -<p>When they were left alone with the dessert, Mary returned to the attack.</p> - -<p>"You see, lately, Jemmie, you've left me so much alone in the evening -that I suppose it's natural for me to sit here and make plans for -myself."</p> - -<p>The husband glanced up sharply: never until now had his wife thrown -out a hint that she had noticed his increasingly frequent withdrawals -from the fire-side. Could she be jealous? Had any rumor of that phaeton -he bought last week reached Mary? Gossip sprung up no one knew how. -It might be that one of her friends, one of those confounded women -that seemed to spend their lives visiting other women, had warned her -to keep an eye on her husband. It would be awkward if Mary seriously -intended to press him on the subject of dining out, and, more than -dining out, of staying away from home for a couple of nights often -enough. Mary herself would never suspect him of infidelity. Infidelity? -Bosh! There was nothing serious to it. Maudie did not expect him -to face a scandal on her account. He should be middle-aged almost -immediately. This was his last love-affair; and dash it, the little -girl was fond of him. Who could say why? Women were strange creatures. -But it certainly was not for his money. Poor little Maudie! The walnut -he was cracking suddenly burst in fragments upon his plate. He looked -up guiltily.</p> - -<p>"What were you saying, dear? I beg your pardon for not answering. I -couldn't crack this nut."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I said that it was natural for me to make plans for myself," Mary -answered. She perceived that Jemmie was embarrassed and went on more -boldly. "I don't in the least expect you to stay at home because I am -in the house. But surely you can have no objection to my occupying -myself somehow, and this club would be the very thing."</p> - -<p>"I daresay you're right," said the husband. After all, it was politic -to give his wife some latitude. "Yes, I daresay you're right. I was a -little taken aback for the moment, and I didn't want you to overtire -yourself slaving for people who have no gratitude. You know, the more -you do for people, the less they give you in return. Did I tell you -about Jackson, our head clerk? We raised his salary last month, and -yesterday he calmly tells me that he has accepted another place at -a larger salary. What do you think of that? That's gratitude! In my -opinion the world's going downhill. Now my father's head clerk stayed -with him till he died and never had a rise of salary all the time. -Didn't want it. Content. But you don't get that type of man nowadays."</p> - -<p>Husband and wife rose from their dessert. Husband and wife sat down -in the drawing-room. Wife sang "Three Roses" with an obligato of -kettle-drums from husband's manipulation of <i>The Times</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Just when the red June Roses blow</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>She gave me one,—a year ago,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>A Rose whose crimson breath revealed</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>The secret that its heart concealed,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i> And whose half-shy, half-tender grace</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i> Blushed back upon the giver's face.</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"> <i>To hope was not to know.</i></span><br /></p> - -<p><i>Tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle!</i></p> - -<p>"Poor little Maudie," thought an infatuated man of forty-five. "Poor -little girl, she'll miss me to-night."</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Just when the Red June Roses blow</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>I plucked her one a month ago.</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Its half-blown crimson to eclipse,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>I laid it on her smiling lips:</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>The balmy fragrance of the south</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Drew sweetness from her sweeter mouth,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Swiftly do golden hours creep,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>To hold is not to keep.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle!</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>"I mustn't neglect Maudie," thought a sentimental man of forty-five. -"Poor little lonely Maudie! It's a wonderful thing for a man to be -loved as she loves me."</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle!</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>The red June Roses now are past,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>This very day I broke the last—</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>And now its perfumed breath is hid,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>With her, with her, beneath a coffin lid:</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Ah—h—h—h—h—h,</i></span><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>There will its petals fall apart,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>And wither on her icy heart:—</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>At three red Roses' Roses' cost</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>My world was gained, my world was gained</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;"><i>And lost!</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—tinkle—-tinkle-tink!</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p>"That's a very pretty song, you know," said Jemmie. "I enjoyed that. I -wish you'd sing oftener of an evening."</p> - -<p>Mary looked round in perplexity.</p> - -<p>"I haven't sung after dinner for five years," she reminded him coldly.</p> - -<p>"As long as that? Surely not as long ago as that?"</p> - -<p>"Five years ago, Jemmie, you asked me if it was necessary every evening -to sit down immediately after dinner at the piano."</p> - -<p>"I must have had a headache or something," he protested.</p> - -<p>"Yet you never noticed that I no longer sang."</p> - -<p>"I suppose I took it for granted that you didn't want to sing. But I -thoroughly enjoyed it this evening. I don't know, I suppose I was in -the mood for singing. Why don't you sing another?"</p> - -<p>She lifted the seat of the music-stool, and after rummaging among a -pile of tattered songs she found the one she wanted:</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>I had a message to send her,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>To her whom my heart loved best.</i></span><br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> - -<p>When the last tinkle had died away, Jemmie, who had stopped crackling -<i>The Times</i> because there was nothing more to read that interested -him, asked his wife if he had not heard the song before somewhere. She -smiled ironically.</p> - -<p>"I expect I've heard you sing it," he hastened to add apologetically.</p> - -<p>"No. Not me."</p> - -<p>Good heavens, could it be that he had heard Maudie sing that song? -Maudie did sometimes sing sentimental songs on wet afternoons. -Nonsense! If Maudie had sung it, Mary could not know that. Gossip could -effect a good deal, but gossip could not discuss Maudie's choice of -music.</p> - -<p>"Well, I don't know where I heard it," he declared.</p> - -<p>"And I certainly shall never reveal where or when it was," she murmured.</p> - -<p>While that night Mary was brushing her chestnut hair before the big -oval mirror of her dressing-table her husband came and, bending over, -kissed the tip of her ear.</p> - -<p>"Please! please!" she exclaimed, drawing away. "I did not sing to -attract you, but to amuse myself."</p> - -<p>"Well, really you know, dash it, Mary, you do say the most cutting -things sometimes. What have I done to deserve that?"</p> - -<p>"Now, Jemmie, don't pretend you mind whether I say cutting things or -not. What do you care nowadays?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> - -<p>Jemmie sighed to himself and, deliberately omitting his good night -kiss, turned over and buried his head ostentatiously in the pillow.</p> - -<p>"I'm not at all sure that she isn't jealous," he confided to himself, -as he set out to keep an appointment with Maudie in dreamland.</p> - -<p>Mary lay for some time watching with a weary regard that amorphous -back, like a wayfarer who sees another hill before him and the end of -the journey not yet in sight.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Wryford's prophecy that Mary would derive much pleasure from -getting to know individually the various girls in whom she avowed a -general interest by the act of founding for them a club was fulfilled. -Indeed it was more than fulfilled, for Mrs. Wryford certainly never -expected that her friend would find romance for herself in the lives of -French seamstresses, a vicarious romance it might be, but its effect -was to mitigate for Mary much of the dreariness that she was beginning -to think life ended in after one was thirty. Thirty! At this period the -woman of thirty was not considered a romantic subject; indeed, if any -woman of thirty had pretended to romance she would have been considered -a reader of French novels, and as such faintly tinged with impropriety.</p> - -<p>However, it was not enough for Mary's philanthropic zeal to sit -listening to the tale of Henri and Jeanne, or of Armand and Virginie. -She must educate her girls. She must provide them with an out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>look. -She must widen their horizon. She must teach them that the world was -not bounded by Oxford Street on the north and Shaftesbury Avenue on -the south. With this purpose in view she took them on one Saturday -afternoon to the Zoological Gardens, on another to the Egyptian Hall, -and once again to hear Moore and Burgess Minstrels. Then Mrs. Wryford -brought news of a series of lectures at which various distinguished -travelers with the aid of a magic-lantern would personally conduct -whosoever would fare with them to the uttermost parts of the earth.</p> - -<p>"Last week we went to Greenland, Labrador, and Alaska. I can assure -you, my dear Mary, the tints upon the ice were exquisite. I rarely -enjoyed an evening more. Why don't you take your girls next week? -Madagascar is the subject. I hear that the lecturer, who is a -Frenchman, speaks English with quite remarkable fluency."</p> - -<p>"What's his name?"</p> - -<p>"Now, my dear Mary, do you expect me to remember the name of a -Frenchman?"</p> - -<p>Thus it was that Pierre Menard, lean, tropically brown, his hair about -the temples white and everywhere streaked with gray, his mustache and -imperial still black, entered Mary's life again. Mary was glad that the -auditorium was darkened when she saw him first, not so much because she -feared that anybody would notice her agitation, but because she wanted -to stare hard at Pierre without being op<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>pressed by the consciousness -of her surroundings. It seemed to her that he must be aware of her -regard and that presently over a hundred heads he would glance back his -recognition.</p> - -<p>"<i>Dis, Madeleine, n'est-ce pas qu'il est beau?</i>" one of the girls -whispered to her neighbor.</p> - -<p>It was that nice and pretty creature Yvonne who had spoken. She had -always been one of Mary's favorites.</p> - -<p>Driving back to Campden Hill, while street-lamp after street-lamp -tossed its bouquet of golden light into the brougham, Mary pondered -the course of her behavior in the near future. It might be that Pierre -would scornfully reject the proffer of renewed friendship. If he had -remembered her at all, she might be now a bitter memory; if he had -forgotten her so completely that a letter from her would bring a -puzzled frown to his brow.... Oh, it was difficult to decide what she -ought to do. Mary did not consider the effect upon herself of bringing -Pierre back into her life. It was of nothing except her effect upon him -that she thought during that black and golden drive to Campden Hill.</p> - -<p>At home she found Adèle, who was her maid these days, waiting up. -Madame must prepare herself for a shock; Madame must have courage; -Madame must not give way to grief at the news she must break to Madame.</p> - -<p>"Nothing has happened to the children?" Mary exclaimed in terror.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> - -<p>"<i>Ah, mais non, grâce à Dieu.</i> Nothing to them. It is the poor little -Mac who is dead. He was run over, Madame, and must be shot, Monsieur -said."</p> - -<p>"Where is Monsieur?"</p> - -<p>"Monsieur has been called away on business and will not be here until -Monday evening. Monsieur told me to tell Madame."</p> - -<p>"And where is Mac?"</p> - -<p>"He is buried in the garden. I will show Madame where is his grave in -the morning."</p> - -<p>"No, no, show me now."</p> - -<p>Adèle looked for a moment as often in Mary's childhood she had been -wont to look when her charge had expressed a desire to do something -that Adèle considered unreasonable. However, nowadays it was she who -must obey, and by the light of a foggy London moon she led the way -across the lawn to where in the shadow of a grimy aucuba the mound was -heaped above Mac's grave.</p> - -<p>Mary gazed at it for a minute or two in silence, and without a word -turned and walked back to the house.</p> - -<p>"You can go to bed, Adèle. I shall not want you any more to-night."</p> - -<p>While Mary brushed her hair before the oval mirror, the scenes of the -life she had spent with Mac moved across her brain like the slides of a -magic-lantern. She saw Jemmie arrive with him in a hansom-cab, saw him -trying to coax him upstairs to the drawing-room at King's Gate.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I've bought you a little dawg, Mary."</p> - -<p>How hard she had tried to express her thanks by addressing him as -Jemmie without letting him see what an effort it was, for she had -known that nothing could please him more. Somehow she gulped out the -Christian name. How happy he had been. And with what grateful affection -he had patted Mac good-by.</p> - -<p>The picture faded, and now there behind her stood Daisy Harland -examining Mac critically in the manner of one who knew all that there -was to be known about dogs.</p> - -<p>"Not a bad little pup. Come here, boy, and say how-do to your Aunt -Daisy."</p> - -<p>But Mac simply would not go and say "how-do" to his Aunt Daisy, and -from the first had attached himself exclusively to his mistress.</p> - -<p>There he was now growling in Pierre's arms on the day of the dog-fight -in Kensington Gardens.</p> - -<p>Pierre?</p> - -<p>Strange that to-night Mac should die, to-night when he who had entered -her life with Mac's help should now stand once more upon its threshold. -Pierre? Why should she not write to Pierre? No harm would come from -that. If he refused to answer her letter, nobody would be any the wiser.</p> - -<p>"Mac! Mac! Mac!"</p> - -<p>Silence. No pitter-pat of dear bandy legs. He was lying out there in -the cold garden.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Mac, you clumsy old darling, you must not keep lying on my train."</p> - -<p>How restless and unhappy he had been on that wedding morning! How he -had hated it! And when he was left behind to stay at home in charge of -Adèle during the honeymoon, what a howling he had set up! She had heard -him above the noisy guests bidding her good-by on the steps of the -house in King's Gate.</p> - -<p>"Poor little dawg," Jemmie had exclaimed. "We really ought to have -taken him with us. I owe a lot to that little dawg. I owe you to him," -he had murmured with a sound in his voice that had frightened her -rather. But she must let him kiss her now. She had no right to refuse. -She was married. How glad Mac was to see her when she came back, and -how he had enjoyed his first scamper in the garden of Woodworth Lodge. -For him the lawn here must have seemed as large as the Park. Dear old -dog, with what zest he used to chase the sparrows and how good he was -with cats! He hated cats really; but he knew that his mistress loved -them, and he would deny himself the most tempting pursuits to oblige -her.</p> - -<p>Jemmie had always liked the old dog until the night Richard was born, -when Mac lying outside her bedroom door had growled at Jemmie, who -had come up to see how she was. No, after that Jemmie had never liked -him, had always talked about its being a mistake to have a dog in a -house where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> there were children. As if he would ever have hurt the -children! It was only Jemmie he disliked. Yes, it was strange how much -he disliked Jemmie. And now Jemmie had had him shot. Had it really -been necessary ... no, that was unfair. She ought not even in thought -to accuse Jemmie of anything like that. How sad the children would be -to-morrow! Their beloved Mac. That was the kind of irritating thing -Jemmie did. Fancy his telling nurse that the dear little dog was not -to be allowed in the nursery! And nurse had given herself airs of such -importance, because Jemmie had told her this himself. Ridiculous woman!</p> - -<p>"Mac! Mac!"</p> - -<p>Could it really be true that she should never again see that grizzled -head and those faithful eyes?</p> - -<p>If Pierre did come to see her, would he ask after Mac, would he -remember him?</p> - -<p>Pierre?</p> - -<p>Eleven years. Not quite eleven years since she saw him last. It was not -a very long time really. So distinguished as he had looked! How had he -come to find himself in Madagascar? He must have gone there after she -had told him that everything was over.</p> - -<p>Pierre?</p> - -<p>It might seem less than eleven years to him. She tossed her hair back -over her shoulders and rose from the dressing-table.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> - -<p>In the benign gaslight her bureau stood invitingly open.</p> - -<p>"Yes, I will," she declared, and sitting down she wrote this note:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -Woodworth Lodge,<br /> -Campden Hill, W.<br /> -<i>May 3rd, 1891.</i><br /> -<br /> -<i>Dear Pierre</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I was at your lecture to-night. If you remember who I am after -eleven years and feel inclined to renew an old acquaintance, won't -you come and have tea with us on Wednesday next any time after four? -I should so much enjoy to hear more about your adventure.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Yours sincerely,<br /> -Mary Alison.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>There was no answer by post, but on Wednesday afternoon when she was -sitting in the drawing-room, counting over to herself the woolen -spiders and butterflies crawling up and down her curtains, he came.</p> - -<p>Once in the early days of marriage Mary had taken part with her -husband in some amateur theatricals, in the course of which she had -been attacked by stage fright and stood speechless on the stage for -what seemed an age of agony before she regained her voice. It was the -first time Jemmie was angry with her, and she had resolved never to act -again. Now when Pierre was shown into the room she felt just as she -felt then. Fortunately he was more at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> ease than she was, and under his -guidance of the conversation Mary slowly recovered her self-possession.</p> - -<p>All the time that Pierre was talking Mary became more and more -conscious of him as a man. She had never regarded Jemmie except as an -institution. These eyes that looked so eagerly into hers and at the -same time beyond hers to remote shores and distant mountain-peaks made -her heart beat faster, her breath come and go. Yet, he was only talking -to her as he had talked to an audience the other night. There was -nothing personal, still less intimate, in his words.</p> - -<p>"I was very lucky to arrive in Madagascar just before we went to war -with Queen Ranavalona—a very remarkable woman. So was her niece who -succeeded her. I was also lucky to know English so well, because you -English were always there behind the scenes with your officers in -the Malagasy army; besides, there were always negotiations with your -consular officials. We shall have war again in Madagascar soon."</p> - -<p>"Again?" Mary echoed in alarm.</p> - -<p>Pierre made a gesture of contempt.</p> - -<p>"It will not be a very dangerous war for us," he laughed.</p> - -<p>At this moment Jemmie, to his wife's regret, came in unexpectedly early.</p> - -<p>"This is Monsieur Menard," she said, introducing the stranger with an -air of faint embarrassment as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> if she were explaining the presence -of some odd new decorative addition to the drawing-room of Woodworth -Lodge. "Monsieur Menard visited us in King's Gate before we were -married. He has been abroad for ten years."</p> - -<p>"Charmed to make your acquaintance," said Pierre, bowing.</p> - -<p>Jemmie shook hands with English awkwardness, evidently wondering how -on earth he was expected to reply to the exaggerated courtesy of the -stranger.</p> - -<p>"I was wondering what night would suit Monsieur Menard to come and dine -with us."</p> - -<p>Jemmie glared at his wife in amazement; but without being openly rude -he did not know how to dispose of the unwelcome invitation.</p> - -<p>"What in creation put it in your head to ask that fellow to dinner?" he -demanded when Pierre was gone. "You might have guessed that he would -accept. He was probably afraid to refuse for fear of being rude."</p> - -<p>"On the contrary, I think he was agreeably surprised to find that -somebody in this house was polite enough to invite him," said Mary.</p> - -<p>"That's meant for me, I suppose? If I were you, Mary, I should keep -a check on my tongue. A sharp tongue doesn't add to a woman's charm. -Where did you pick this fellow up?"</p> - -<p>"I told you. He used to visit us at King's Gate before we were married."</p> - -<p>"I don't see why we should have all your grand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>mother's foreign friends -and acquaintances foisted on us for the rest of our lives," Jemmie -grumbled. "And I wish you'd answer my question. Where did you meet him -again?"</p> - -<p>"At a lecture on Madagascar to which I took my girls."</p> - -<p>Jemmie threw up his eyebrows to express compassion for human folly.</p> - -<p>"You'll be bringing Barnum and Bailey back to dinner next," he -prophesied. "Or one of the keepers at the Zoo. I don't want this house -filled with showmen and cranks. I knew what it would be when you -started that club of yours. I should have thought three children was -enough for any woman. But go your own way. Don't let anything I say -interfere with your pleasures. From what I can see of it the women will -be ruling the men before long."</p> - -<p>Mary let her husband grumble on for a while. Then she suggested a few -names for a dinner-party.</p> - -<p>"I don't want a dinner-party," he declared angrily. "I'm terribly -overworked just now, and I like to rest whenever I can. You know how -late I've been kept every day this week at the office. We get quite -enough dinner-parties that we have to give and go to without letting -ourselves in for any more than are necessary."</p> - -<p>"Very well then," said Mary, "I'll ask nobody else."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> - -<p>"A jolly evening for me to look forward to," grumbled her husband. -"Very jolly."</p> - -<p>"You'll find Monsieur Menard most interesting, I assure you. His -adventures in Madagascar...."</p> - -<p>"Madagascar!" Jemmie interrupted angrily. "What do I care about -Madagascar! I'm not a girl's club. You'll be suggesting in a minute -that I should read <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> on my way to the office."</p> - -<p>Mary began to laugh, upon which her husband retired in dudgeon to the -billiard-room, where he succeeded in making a break of thirty-one -by the indiscriminate use of both white balls and was comparatively -pleasant when he emerged again.</p> - -<p>On the evening that Pierre was invited to dinner at eight, Mary -began to dress at half-past six; by a quarter-past seven Adèle was -in despair, and the room was littered with discarded frocks. While -the discussion was proceeding, with Adèle becoming more voluble every -moment, a note arrived by messenger boy from Jemmie to say he was -afraid that he should not be able to get home to-night, as he had to go -down into the country upon very important business. He asked Mary to -make his apologies to Mr. Menard.</p> - -<p>"Unusually polite," she thought, and went back to a consideration of -her dress for to-night. Since her husband's note that problem assumed -an even greater importance. In the end she chose light blue as the -color, and the sash of a darker shade tied in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> large bow over her -left hip made her seem much younger. Adèle declared that she had not -changed in ten years, and Mary blushed with pleasure at the obvious -compliment.</p> - -<p>"And I really do feel quite young to-night," she assured her maid.</p> - -<p>During dinner Pierre talked away about Madagascar as if there were -no other topic in the world. Mary, watching him in the rubied shadow -above the candles, did not really pay much attention to what he was -saying, but thought all the time how distinguished he looked and how -like an Englishman in evening dress, notwithstanding the imperial. -And Grandmamma had laid stress on his inferiority to herself. What a -fool she had been to listen to her! In any gathering who would have -stood out more clearly, Jemmie or Pierre? Why, Jemmie looked like a -poulterer beside him. If only she had known enough about the world to -argue with her grandmother then! How Pierre must have despised her! Did -he despise her now, or was he simply not interested in her? Perhaps he -was interested in nothing except Madagascar. He never seemed to look -at her while he was talking, but always at an audience; he must have -fallen into that habit from lecturing. Or perhaps he did not wish to -embarrass her. Yes, probably that was the reason why he continued to -talk about Madagascar without looking at her. She must remember that -eleven years had gone by. Eleven years, during which he had had all -these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> adventures of which he was talking. Eleven years, during which -she had married and had had three children. It was only the suddenness -of meeting again after so long which made her forget the sundering -years ... the years ... the irrevocable years.... Odd that Jemmie -should have decided not to come back to-night. Would he have come back -if he had known that once, eleven years ago, this despised Frenchman -had possessed her heart and that no one else had ever touched it since? -Would he be jealous? Pierre was pledging her in a glass of port wine. -She never drank red wine, but to-night she must take a sip in response. -Would the maids think it odd if she drank Pierre's health? No, no, they -would attribute it to foreign ways.</p> - -<p>"<i>Salut</i>," she murmured.</p> - -<p>"<i>Trinquez</i>," he laughed, raising his glass to meet hers. There was a -faint tinkle, and for a brief moment their fingers touched.</p> - -<p>"Let us go into the drawing-room for coffee," she said, "unless you -would rather sit here and finish your wine."</p> - -<p>He shook his head and followed her from the table.</p> - -<p>"<i>Enfin</i>," he said when the coffee had been brought in and they were -sitting alone together in the drawing-room. "<i>Enfin</i>, here we are!"</p> - -<p>"After eleven years, Pierre."</p> - -<p>"After eleven years, Mary. Yet you have scarcely changed."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Oh yes, I have changed a great deal, Pierre."</p> - -<p>"Is the old lady still alive, Mary?"</p> - -<p>"She died last autumn, Pierre."</p> - -<p>"She was no friend to me, Mary."</p> - -<p>Each of them used the other's Christian name in every sentence as if -the uttermost advantage must be taken of an opportunity that neither -of them had hoped to enjoy over again. Each of them seemed to feel the -propriety, the necessity indeed, of giving way to sentiment on such an -occasion.</p> - -<p>"She believed that she was acting for the best."</p> - -<p>"And was she?" he asked, looking at the woman of whom, once the -illusion of her love was shattered and the first chagrin was allayed, -he had scarcely thought in all those years.</p> - -<p>"It's hardly fair to ask me that now, Pierre. You forget that I am -married and the mother of three children."</p> - -<p>"I am not married," he murmured, drawing his chair a little closer.</p> - -<p>"You have been otherwise occupied."</p> - -<p>"I had to occupy myself."</p> - -<p>By now Pierre's chair had made a ruck in the carpet, at which he would -have to put it like a horse at a fence if he wished to draw still -closer to Mary; but rising boldly he seated himself in another chair at -least three feet nearer.</p> - -<p>"I had to occupy myself," he repeated. "When you wrote me that letter -I was ... but what right have I to speak of my feelings now? I must -con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>sider myself lucky that I was able to forget them in my new career."</p> - -<p>"Time works miracles," Mary sighed. "I've often wondered where you were -and what you were doing."</p> - -<p>"I have wondered about you. <i>Mon Dieu</i>, how I have wondered! And I used -to think about Mac."</p> - -<p>Mary's eyes filled with tears.</p> - -<p>"Pierre! You remembered my little dog! He only died last week. He was -run over, and my husband had to shoot him."</p> - -<p>"Your husband," he repeated in gloomy tones. "I do not have to refer to -my wife. I have never married."</p> - -<p>"You did not remain single on my account," she said.</p> - -<p>Pierre paused for a moment as if he were trying to resist the -temptation to tell her that it was on her account. But the forms of -Malagasy maidens floated within the smoke of his cigarette, and forbade -him to claim too straight a fidelity.</p> - -<p>"If I had ever found the right woman, I suppose I should have married. -But the kind of life I was leading demanded the right kind of woman to -share it. Ah, Mary, if only you could have shared it! If only...."</p> - -<p>He leaned over, and taking her hand from the arm of her chair upon -which it was resting he raised it slowly to his lips.</p> - -<p>Mary was not so much astonished at herself as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> she felt she ought to -be, as perhaps she would have been if Jemmie had not shown so clearly -his indifference to her during these last few months. Pierre could not -have been holding her hand like this if Jemmie had come back to dinner.</p> - -<p>"Ought you to be taking my hand like this?" she asked.</p> - -<p>He paid no attention to the question, but went on talking.</p> - -<p>"With the right kind of woman at one's side what might not a man -achieve?" he demanded. "Here are you in London leading the life of -thousands of other women, when with me you might have become as famous -as the wife of Garibaldi."</p> - -<p>"I don't think I should care to be famous, Pierre," she murmured with a -shake of the head. "I'd like you to be famous. But I don't want fame."</p> - -<p>"No, no, you want love," he cried. "And it is not too late even now."</p> - -<p>"Oh yes, it is," she whispered with a sad smile. "Years too late, -Pierre. Besides, I'm not the sort of woman who could bear the burden -of an illicit love-affair. I should be afraid of it. I did wrong in -thrusting myself into your life again. I had no courage then. I have no -courage now."</p> - -<p>When she spoke thus, he rose from his chair and kneeling beside her -drew her lips down to meet his own.</p> - -<p>"Are you sure you have no courage?" he asked breathlessly. "Mary, we -are still young. We could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> still be happy together. In my life there -has been no other woman but you. Have you loved any one as you loved -me, as you still love me at this moment while I hold you closer to my -heart than I have ever held you? Come away with me, Mary. Come away -with me to-night, now. Leave behind you all this."</p> - -<p>While Pierre was talking, Mary felt that she was nothing more than a -doll that a child was vainly trying to wake to life.</p> - -<p>A child?</p> - -<p>"Hush! Did you hear somebody calling?" she asked in sudden apprehension.</p> - -<p>"Come to the open window. The air in this room is hot. Come and look at -the May moon, <i>ma bien aimée</i>".</p> - -<p>She let him draw her arm through his and lead her to the window, where -they stood a while in the lilac-scented hush of what could scarcely be -imagined a London night.</p> - -<p>"The world is so much bigger than this room," he proclaimed.</p> - -<p>"I need no lover to tell me that," she whispered.</p> - -<p>How wonderful it would be to go right away ... right away....</p> - -<p>She allowed herself to be enfolded in his arms. Moonlight and the -perfume of lilac and a tale of green islands murmured in her ear held -her entranced. Bewitched by the imagination of love enduring forever, -she looked up at him. Her hands were upon his shoulders in appeal, and -then there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> was a tap on the door. Mary sprang away from Pierre and -stood quivering like a sapling released from the woodcutter's grasp.</p> - -<p>"What is it, nurse?"</p> - -<p>"If you please, ma'am, I shan't rest till you've had a look at Master -Richard. After he came back from school he said he had a headache, but -I didn't like to worry you without cause. Only now he says his throat -is so bad, and really I don't like the looks of him at all."</p> - -<p>Mary did not wait to make any apologies to Pierre, but hurried upstairs -to where in his little room, of which he was so proud, her eldest son -was tossing upon his bed and muttering rapid nonsense with fever's -thick and troubled accents.</p> - -<p>"Dearest boy, is your throat very bad? Let me look at your chest. Turn -the gas higher, nurse. I want to see if there's any rash. Give me your -hand, Richard. Lie still, my darling, a minute. Mother wants to feel -your pulse. Nurse, ring for Pinkney and tell her to go at once for Dr. -Marlow."</p> - -<p>Nurse hurried away.</p> - -<p>"Is your throat very bad, Richard darling?"</p> - -<p>"Worse and worse," the little boy whispered.</p> - -<p>"My loved one, mother's so dreadfully sorry. Never mind. The doctor -will soon be here. Could you open your mouth and let mother look at it? -All right, my sweetheart, don't agitate yourself. I won't fuss you, but -when the doctor comes you must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> try to let him see what's the matter. -Darling boy, mother's so dreadfully sorry it hurts."</p> - -<p>She sat by the bed keeping the yellow curls from his eyes and soothing -him with her voice.</p> - -<p>Presently nurse came back.</p> - -<p>"Pinkney's gone just as she is, ma'am, without waiting to pop on -anything. Let's hope Dr. Marlow is at home. And what about the -gentleman in the drawing-room, do you wish for him to do anything?"</p> - -<p>"Apologize to him, please, nurse, from me for leaving him so abruptly -and explain about Master Richard. Say how sorry I am not to be able to -say good night myself. How very sorry.... What is it, Richard darling? -It's mother beside you. Try to lie still, dearest. I know it hurts -horribly. But try to lie still."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="Chapter_Five" id="Chapter_Five"></a><i>Chapter Five</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE MOTHER</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><i>Chapter Five: The Mother</i></p> - - -<p>In the rich light of a September afternoon of the year 1900 Mary Alison -slowly paced the grass walk along the phlox border at High Corner, -wondering why everybody was so late for tea, even Jemmie, who nowadays -was not often late for a meal. At that moment her husband appeared, -looking as hot and red as the reddest phlox in the border.</p> - -<p>"Tea ready?" he gasped. "By George, I'm baked!"</p> - -<p>He slipped his overheated tweed-covered arm into hers so cool in -its muslin; thus, affectionately, they strolled together in the -direction of the big mulberry tree on the lawn, beneath whose shade, -notwithstanding the way the ripe fruit at this season sometimes tumbled -into the cups, they always sat for tea.</p> - -<p>"You know, I'll tell you what it is," said Jemmie, cramming his mouth -with bread and butter. "I'll tell you what it is, Mary. I took up golf -too late. That's what I did. Too old. I shall never be any good at it. -I'd give it up, if I didn't think it kept my weight down."</p> - -<p>"But I think it's so clever of you to play at all," said his wife -consolingly. "I was thinking I should have to take it up myself. Women -are beginning to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> play quite a lot everywhere. I'm sure I should never -get on half so well as you did when you began."</p> - -<p>"Ah, you're too sympathetic, my dear. Yes, that's what you are. You -should hear Muriel sneering at her poor old father's efforts. As for -Geoffrey, he declines to play with me. 'Pon my word, he does. Yes, he -told me last week that people on the links stared so. I said, 'They -stare at your ties, my boy.' Ha-ha! I rather had him there, I flatter -myself. Ha-ha-ha! Yes, I said, 'It's your ties and stockings that make -'em stare, my boy, not your father's driving.' By the way, where are -the two of them?"</p> - -<p>"I was wondering," Mary said. "It's odd, isn't it, dear, that neither -of them ever seems to bother at all about us? You'd think when Muriel -was going back to school next week that she'd want to spend some of her -time with her father and mother. She does give <i>you</i> a little of it; -but I hardly see her between breakfast and dinner."</p> - -<p>"Young, you know. She's young," the father apologized. "We must try to -remember that. You'd think that Geoffrey would be glad to play a round -with me; but if he can dodge it, he will. I saw a bit of him last week, -because there was a fellow staying at the hotel who offered to give me -some advice about the proper allowance to make him at Oxford when he -goes up in October. I can't help feeling that two hundred and fifty -pounds a year is enough. But this fellow says, 'No, you can't do on -less than three hundred pounds at a college like St. Mary's.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> Well, I -suppose I shall have to give it to him."</p> - -<p>"Yes," Mary sighed, "children are strange. They seem quite suddenly not -to belong to one, and to be almost complete strangers. Thank heaven, -Richard at any rate has never learnt to do without me entirely."</p> - -<p>"Ah, Richard!" her husband laughed. "But we were discussing ordinary -boys and girls, common or garden boys and girls, not paragons. Though, -by George, I've no right to tease you about him, for he is a fine lad. -There's no doubt about that. Well, he'll be here to-morrow. Yet not for -long, I'm afraid. You mark my words, he'll be gazetted almost at once. -They've a good many losses to make up in South Africa."</p> - -<p>"Jemmie, don't! It's too horrible to think of."</p> - -<p>"Duty, my dear," said the father sternly. "You must be glad in your -heart that Richard is going to do his duty. We shall be proud of him if -he gets out there."</p> - -<p>"I should be just as proud of him at home," said the mother.</p> - -<p>Further discussion of Richard was interrupted by the arrival of -Geoffrey and Muriel, who immediately sat down to tea and exclaimed at -the coldness of the scones.</p> - -<p>"Did you expect us to wait any longer?" their mother asked. "It's -half-past five, dear children."</p> - -<p>"Sorry," muttered Geoffrey, who was a plump youth, but good-looking in -a fair florid style. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> greatly resembled his father at the same age; -and though to hear Jemmie talk about his youth now was to conjure up -a half-heroic figure of mythical prowess and virtue, it is probable -that the son equally resembled in character his father at the same -age. Muriel, who was fifteen, did not resemble either of her parents -much, although in figure, if the figure of a girl of fifteen may be -granted the name, she seemed likely to take after her father. She was -very fair, round-faced and blue-eyed, reputed clever, an admirable -athlete, and immensely popular at school. Her mother never felt really -at ease with Muriel, though she never could satisfactorily explain to -herself why this should be so; it seemed absurd to allow herself to bow -embarrassed before that pitiless judgment of youth; but bow she did, -and the consciousness of her position often made her irritable. Not -that any display of irritation affected Muriel, who would merely stare -at her mother, slightly knitting the fair brows above those eyes of -porcelain blue.</p> - -<p>"I'm beginning to be afraid that Muriel may be difficult," Mary -confided in her husband that evening, when she came to bid him good -night.</p> - -<p>"Oh no, I don't think so. Several of my family have been very clever, -but it never led to anything unpleasant. They were clever, but always -very womanly women. I think she's a nice straightforward, clean-minded -English girl. Oh no, I don't believe she'll be difficult."</p> - -<p>"I find her very hard to understand," Mary com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>plained. "All the time I -have a feeling that she is building up a wall between herself and me."</p> - -<p>"Know what it is?" Jemmie asked. "Know what's the matter with you? -You're growing old."</p> - -<p>"Jemmie, what a horrible thing to tell me."</p> - -<p>"Never mind, old lady. It's got to be. We're both growing old. I tell -you I realize it more and more when I'm playing golf. Good night, my -dear."</p> - -<p>He offered himself to her salute without rising from the chair in -which he was smoking his final cigar before a light autumnal fire in -the library—the Badminton Library, as Muriel called it, for that -collection of authoritative treatises on sport, together with some -bound volumes of <i>Punch</i> and the <i>Illustrated London News</i>, <i>Handley -Cross</i>, and a few novels by writers like Frank Smedley, constituted her -father's literary environment.</p> - -<p>"Growing old?" Mary repeated to herself on the way upstairs to her -room. "Growing old?" she echoed once more when she stood in front of -her mirror. The candlelight, apricot-shaded, flattered her reflection. -Growing old at forty? What nonsense Jemmie talked! He forgot that he -was fifteen years older than she. Now he certainly <i>was</i> growing old. -How much he had aged just lately and how much he had improved with age! -Dear old Jemmie, he really needed her far more than Geoffrey or Muriel -needed her. He was much more a child to her than either of them. If it -were not for Richard, she might begin to wonder if children were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> much -of a consolation for growing old. And Richard would be here to-morrow. -But for how long? Mary felt sick and dizzy in a sudden thought of how -brief his stay might be. If he really were ordered to the front? Was -it credible that he should be? Richard in danger, and Richard how many -thousand miles away! She had been proud and glad when he chose to be -a soldier; but war had been so remote then. It seemed only yesterday -that Jemmie bought High Corner, so that the children might always spend -their holidays out of London. And now the eldest of those children was -liable to be sent abroad to fight for his country. High Corner without -children would not be High Corner any longer. But perhaps the war -would soon be over. She must read the papers more carefully. She must -not skip them as she did now. She must not rely on gossip about the -duration of the war. She must learn to judge for herself. And Richard -would be here to-morrow.</p> - -<p>"I must not lie awake fretting," she decided. "I must get to sleep -quickly. It will be time to fret when Richard is ordered abroad."</p> - -<p>He arrived when the sun was driving away the wraiths of morning mist -and when the others were all at golf. For her, when she saw him, so -tall and straight and slim and fair, coming toward her along that green -walk by the phloxes, he was more radiant than the sun.</p> - -<p>"Hark, mother, do you hear that robin? That's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> the first I've heard -this autumn," he exclaimed as he bent to kiss her.</p> - -<p>In the silence of their first embrace the birdsong passed into the -dim green recesses of the day, vanishing like the voice of her son's -vanishing childhood.</p> - -<p>"Do you remember that fatal day when I killed a robin?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"No, dearest, I'd forgotten that you'd ever killed anything."</p> - -<p>"Why, mother, when I had that air-gun I killed everything I saw until -that day."</p> - -<p>"How you exaggerate, my Richard."</p> - -<p>"Yes, I did indeed. But that day I'd missed everything, and then -sitting on a branch of that oak, the one Geoff and I planted to shade -us in our old age, I saw a robin. I fired and killed him, and I was so -shocked at what I'd done that I've never really been able to kill even -a partridge since with any pleasure."</p> - -<p>"Always such a dear little boy," she exclaimed, holding tight to her -son's arm.</p> - -<p>"Was I?" Richard laughed. "I'm afraid I must always have kept my good -behavior for you. Aren't your phloxes splendid this year? Best I've -ever seen."</p> - -<p>They paced the walk arm-in-arm, admiring the glow of color. At last -Richard said:</p> - -<p>"Mother, I've got something to tell you."</p> - -<p>She knew immediately what it was.</p> - -<p>"You're going to South Africa."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Yes. I'm in the <i>Gazette</i> this morning. I thought you'd all have seen -it."</p> - -<p>"They went out to golf without reading the papers," she said, trying to -keep her voice from trembling. "What regiment, darling?"</p> - -<p>"Rifle brigade."</p> - -<p>"Are you pleased?"</p> - -<p>"Pleased to be a rifleman? Mother, of course I am!"</p> - -<p>"I'm glad you're pleased about it, darling. I'm glad you've got what -you wanted."</p> - -<p>"My battalion is at the front."</p> - -<p>She braced herself for the next question.</p> - -<p>"And when do you think you'll have to go, darling?"</p> - -<p>"Rather soon," he told her in his gentlest voice.</p> - -<p>"Rather soon," she echoed in a whisper. "Shall we go and sit somewhere -in the shade? The sun is so hot along this wall. I wonder the phloxes -can stand it without wilting."</p> - -<p>"There was a heavy dew this morning," he reminded her.</p> - -<p>A heavy dew this morning? It was a day then, a real day in time. The -date was in the almanac. It was not a dream. There was a heavy dew this -morning, and Richard would be on his way to South Africa rather soon.</p> - -<p>"And I suppose you'll have to go up to town about your uniform?" she -asked.</p> - -<p>"Yes, I shall have to see about my kit."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> - -<p>"And that will mean some of the little time we have left will be taken -away from us."</p> - -<p>"You could come up to town with me and we could have lunch somewhere," -he suggested.</p> - -<p>Yes, they could have lunch together, and then a week or two later he -would be gone.</p> - -<p>"Richard!"</p> - -<p>He looked round in astonishment at the poignant exclamation of his name.</p> - -<p>"No, I did not want to say anything," she told him with a sad smile. -"Nothing more than 'Richard,' while you can still look round at me like -that, while you are still here to look round at me."</p> - -<p>The fine autumn weather lasted until Richard left for South Africa. -His mother at his earnestly expressed desire did not go to Southampton -to wave the last farewell. When he was trying to dissuade her from -the journey, she felt as she used to feel when as a boy he had always -tried to dissuade her from coming to Paddington to bid him good-by on -the platform before he went back to Eton. They parted on the steps of -Woodworth Lodge, and the carriage drove off with ghostly quietude along -the road that was littered with dead leaves, drove off with her Richard -in the yellow light of an October morning.</p> - -<p>"Seems strange without him," said Jemmie, taking his wife's arm -affectionately and guiding her when she stumbled on the stairs because -the tears in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> eyes obscured all objects familiar and unfamiliar, -all life indeed for the moment.</p> - -<p>"Geoffrey's off to Oxford to-morrow, and then you and I shall be all -alone, old lady, just as we used to be when we were first married -twenty years ago."</p> - -<p>Jemmie was evidently anxious to free his mind of the emotional -discomfort that Richard's departure provoked by directing his emotion -into the channels of a sentimentalized past; but Mary refused to follow -his lead. She had only one idea, which was to be alone with her grief. -She had no superfluity of idle regret, no lachrymatories of stale tears -to be unsealed for Jemmie's gratification. She was inconsolable.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -<i>My darling Mother</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I hope you got my post-card from Capetown. Here I am at last with my -regiment in the field. It was awfully nervous work finding out where -they were, and I felt an awful fool when I had to walk into the mess -after riding about ten miles and explain who I was. They were awfully -decent to me, however, and luckily there was quite a decent dust-up -with the Boers soon after I arrived. I was glad to get it all over at -once. I mean both my joining up and going into action for the first -time. Love to everybody and lots to yourself. I'll write a better -letter when I'm more settled. I hear that we are going off chasing -De Wet presently. They say we've really got him in a corner this -time. It doesn't look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> as if the war would go on for much longer. I'm -really a year too late. That's the bad luck of it. Of course, there's -still plenty to do, but it's nothing to what it was, they tell me. -The regiment fought splendidly at Spion Kop. I wish I'd been there!</i></p> - -<p><i>Don't read this letter to anybody except Father, and don't let him -have it to take with him when he goes to golf. Just read it to him at -home. Once more with lots of love,</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Your loving son,<br /> -Richard.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -<i>My dearest Mother</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I've quite settled down at St. Mary's. I'm sorry I've not written -more often this term. I shall be going down next week and I've been -asked to spend the week before Christmas with a man in my year called -Whittington-Jones, an old Carthusian. His people have a rather decent -shoot in Norfolk. I wonder if you could get Father to lend me his -guns. He practically never shoots now. I suppose you wouldn't mind -if I asked Whittington-Jones to come to Woodworth Lodge soon after -Christmas? He is rather keen to trot around the theaters, and so am -I, I'm bound to admit.</i></p> - -<p><i>I wonder if you could manage to lend me £100? I know this sounds -rather a large sum to want in my first term, but the fact is I seem -to have spent rather more than I meant, and I had to borrow £75 from -a man in my year. I bought one or two pictures for my rooms, and I -also lost a bit at roulette one night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> at the House. I didn't really -mean to play, but I couldn't very well sit looking on without seeming -rude, because I had been dining with a House man. I lost more than I -meant. I don't like to ask Father for the money because he'll jump -to the conclusion that I'm gambling, which of course I need hardly -say is not the case. If you could manage to get me out of rather an -awkward hole just this once I promise not to run any risks again. -Will you let me know as soon as you can about Whittington-Jones -coming to us after Christmas and also about the £100? The extra £25 -is for expenses during the vac. I shall have some tipping to do in -Norfolk. If Father consults you about a present for me at Christmas, -would you mind suggesting a check? It's awfully hard to choose a -suitable present, though of course there are lots of things I should -like for my rooms. But a check would really be more useful. I don't -think there's much to tell you about Oxford. It's been very foggy -there for the last few days.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Your loving son,<br /> -Geoffrey.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -<i>My dear Mother</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I'm sorry I have waited so long to answer your last letter, but we -have been fearfully busy rehearsing for our Break-up. I am acting -Gratiano in the trial scene from "The Merchant of Venice." Celia -Wentworth, the girl who plays Shylock, is most dreadfully good. Miss -Bewick considers her simply marvelous. She says that ever since she -has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> elocution mistress at the school she never has known such -a good Shylock. I wonder if I could invite Celia to spend a few days -with us during the Christmas holidays. She is fearfully keen to see -some theaters, and we've made out a gorgeous list of things we're -simply dying to see. Celia says that the way I play Gratiano helps -her most frightfully, and Miss Bewick was tremendously complimentary. -The blot on the performance is the Doge played by a girl I hate -called Marjorie Lane. She simply won't learn her words, and at the -first rehearsal without books she cut out all the middle of her long -speech and said "the world thinks and I think so too, we all expect -a gentle answer, Jew." You should have seen Miss Bewick's face. Of -course we all snorted like anything, and Marjorie could only sit -there and giggle in that affected way she does. Celia says she hopes -she won't do that on the afternoon of Break-up, because the audience -is sure to laugh, and Celia thinks it may spoil her performance. I -hope you and Father are going to turn up in force, and when you come -do please invite Celia to stay with us in January.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Your loving daughter,<br /> -Muriel.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>Geoffrey and Muriel had their friends to stay with them as they -wanted; and continuous chatter about the world of Oxford and the world -of school, from both of which worlds their mother perceived herself -infinitely remote, made her feel still more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> hopelessly banished from -the only world where she cared to live, the world of South Africa and -war. Perhaps if her two younger children had been able or anxious to -appreciate what she was suffering from Richard's absence she would not -have grudged them their gayety. It was not that she wanted them to -devote themselves entirely to her. That would be an unworthy maternal -egotism. But such a complete absorption already in other interests was -surely not what most mothers had to endure from their children.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Muriel, haven't you anything to tell me about your life at school?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, mother, I'm always telling you things."</p> - -<p>"But only about the other girls, dear child."</p> - -<p>"Well, what else is there to tell you?" Muriel countered.</p> - -<p>"Don't you ever want to tell me anything about yourself and your -thoughts and what you would like to do when you grow up?" her mother -persisted.</p> - -<p>Muriel frowned.</p> - -<p>"I wish you wouldn't always be imagining that I have any thoughts as -you call them. You always ask such impossible questions, mother."</p> - -<p>Mary turned away with a sigh. It was not thus that she had pictured her -daughter at fifteen when ten years ago she used to enter the nursery on -tiptoe and steal through the dim hush to where in her cot Muriel lay -sleeping as still as a gathered carnation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> It was not for this Muriel -that she had peered into the future, not for this Muriel that she had -stood in the door on her way out and looked back to see that the night -light was burning faithfully in the glimmering saucer.</p> - -<p>"Geoffrey, you and your friend Mr. Whittington-Jones, never seem to -talk about anything except horses and cards."</p> - -<p>Geoffrey, remembering that he owed his mother a hundred pounds and that -a time might come when he should wish to extend this obligation, tried -not to look irritated by the question. The result was an expression of -patient long-suffering, which irritated her.</p> - -<p>"Really, my dear boy," she exclaimed, "there is no occasion for you to -assume that expression of injured innocence. You do talk a great deal -about horses and cards."</p> - -<p>"Well, the men I know best are interested in horses," Geoffrey -muttered. "And surely one can be interested in horses without being -jumped on?"</p> - -<p>"I'm not jumping on you, dear Geoffrey. I don't think I ever jumped on -anybody. Sometimes I think it would be better if I did jump on people. -I do hope that you will try to make the best of your time at Oxford. It -would be such a pity if you wasted these years. You would always regret -them and wish you could have them all over again."</p> - -<p>Geoffrey removed his weight from his right leg and put it upon his -left.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I know it's boring," his mother went on, "very boring to have a mother -who tries to interfere with a young man's natural amusements. I don't a -bit want to be a spoil-sport, but you know how horrified father would -be if he thought you were gambling. Luckily I was able to help you out -with that money. But I shan't always be able to help you, and I do so -want you to help yourself."</p> - -<p>Mary had tried not to bring Richard into the conversation in order to -make a comparison. But before she could stop herself the comparison was -made.</p> - -<p>"Richard!" Geoffrey echoed, flushing. "I've never pretended to compete -with him. And anyway you wouldn't expect a soldier on active service to -have the temptations I have at the 'Varsity."</p> - -<p>"What a mean remark! Unworthy of a brother!"</p> - -<p>Geoffrey shifted back from his left leg to his right.</p> - -<p>"Whatever I do and whatever I say is sure to be wrong," he muttered.</p> - -<p>Mary turned away with a sigh. It was not thus she had pictured her -second son at eighteen when ten years ago she had sat in the shade of -the mulberry tree at High Corner, during that first delicious summer -of their possession, and watched him turning somersaults on the bright -lawn. Then her only fear for Geoffrey was that the blood might rush to -his head from the energy of his exercise. How fool<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>ish an apprehension -that seemed compared with the present dread for Geoffrey's future!</p> - -<p>Later in that month Queen Victoria died, and on the gray February -morning when the funeral procession crossed London Mary found herself -kept by the press of people from reaching Grosvenor Place, where Jemmie -had been lent a window to watch with his family the passing of a great -period, the end of a mighty reign, the obsequies of an august and noble -woman. She turned aside into Hyde Park, vexed with herself for making a -muddle of the occasion; but when she was out of the crowd and walking -in comfort under the bare trees she was glad that she had not succeeded -in reaching Grosvenor Place, for out of the gray air beyond the fume of -gray boughs sounded the lament of Chopin's Funeral March, not as if it -was being played by mortal instruments, but like a coronach wailed by -remote winds, a threnody uttered by unimaginable waves.</p> - -<p>Mary looked round her. There was no longer a human being in sight; -there was only tree after tree in audience of that melodious -lamentation. For a while her fancy was caught by the picture of that -grave pageant moving across London to the music of those poignant -cadences. Her mind went back to a year or two ago when she had seen -the Queen driving along Kensington High Street, a little old woman in -black nodding to right and left in acknowledgment of her subjects' -welcome. Now that little old woman in black was being borne on a -gun-car<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>riage, nothing left of her domination save the orb and scepter -upon the coffin in which she lay dead. The funeral strains of Chopin -died away, and their place was taken by the heavier grief of Handel's -Dead March, so solemn that one seemed to hear above the crash of -cymbals the tread of mourning emperors and kings. Mary felt it was -wrong of her not to have made certain of beholding the procession, -that she had no business to be standing here alone among the trees. -She started to hurry forward in the direction of the music, so that -above the crowd she might catch a glimpse of the plumes and helmets and -perhaps even of the white pall itself. It began to seem of the greatest -importance that she should have this glimpse, for she was thinking -that without it she should miss the most important public event in her -time. To-day would surely be a landmark in time to which everything in -contemporary life would be referred. She must hurry. Already Handel's -solemn beat was becoming muffled and dying into silence beyond the -Marble Arch. This silence was tremendous. She hurried on, panting -for breath. There at last was that endless mourning edge of black -spectators, and there above them the plumes and the helmets of the -cavalry flashing and rippling. Had the coffin passed? Once more the -silence was rent by the plangent strains of Chopin.</p> - -<p>Mary turned away from the people and the procession; with all the air -behind her melodious with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> grief, she sought again the holy quiet of -the bare trees. A little child, too young for the pomps of death, was -running after a gay ball, while a Dandie Dinmont jumped in circles -round her barking. In a moment Mary was walking under these very trees, -herself of twenty years ago! How little they had changed, but herself -how much. The melody in which at first she had found the expression of -a world's sorrow for the death of a Queen, now rose with its yearning -and fell with its despair upon her own life. It was identified with -herself and so much the more poignant in consequence. It no longer -expressed a nation's grief, but voiced instead all the regrets for -what might have befallen herself. She was back again among these -trees twenty-one years ago with Mac. It was a month later than this, -she reminded herself, and although the trees were just as bare, the -crocuses were in full bloom then. Yes, Mac was barking there beside -her, and children were running after brightly painted balls. Still -that wailing of the Funeral March! What did twenty years ago matter -now? What did they count for now? More sharply sad, more passionately -wistful in one supreme melodious sigh the refrain, seeking to express -an incommunicable grief, died away into silence. If only Richard had -not been ordered abroad! He would have been with her to-day. He would -have waited for her this morning. Richard was not like Geoffrey and -Muriel, not so forgetful of his mother as they were. Yet perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> -she was unfair to her younger children. Perhaps, in her devotion to -Richard, she had let them understand too well that she cared more -deeply for him than for them. It might be her own fault if they were -forgetful. And ten years ago she had not been fair to Jemmie. She -had a great deal for which to blame herself. From to-day onward she -would think more about other people and not be so ready to blame them, -when it was she herself who was at fault. This was a solemn day in -the history of England. She would try to make it a solemn day in the -history of herself.</p> - -<p>The mellow form of Kensington Palace came into sight. It looked exactly -the same as it always looked. It was strange to think that more than -sixty years ago the little old woman now being borne to the grave -should have been a young girl in that Palace and there received the -news of her accession. Here was no noise of music for the dead, but -like the sound of running water the ripple of children's laughter. In -the precincts of Kensington Palace the children were playing as usual -with their hoops and their balls. The Queen herself may have played -here as a child long before she was a queen. It was a spot sacred to -children, not to the dead; sacred to the future, not to the past.</p> - -<p>"Let me remember that thought," Mary said to herself. "And when I think -of the day of the Queen's funeral I will always remember that I am not -dead yet and that while I am alive I have a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> future. I must be more -sympathetic with Muriel, more patient with Geoffrey, more solicitous -for Jemmie. And I must not fret for Richard, for my boy."</p> - -<p>It was a pity that Geoffrey went back to Oxford the day after the -funeral and that Muriel went back to school. Mary felt that from the -state of mind she had achieved on that day she might have drawn closer -to her children.</p> - -<p>The first year of the new century came to its Spring, blossomed and -shed its blossom, opened to its Summer and reached its Autumn without -Mary's hopes of a deeper intimacy being realized. She began to wonder -if Richard would return from South Africa as much a stranger as the -other two. His letters betrayed no falling off in affection; but -affectionate letters might be the result of habit and not reflect the -man that was being wrought out of her boy, down there beneath the -unfamiliar Southern stars.</p> - -<p>In her maternal loneliness Mary found herself more than ever inclined -to adopt Jemmie. He would really have been a most satisfactory child if -he would only have abstained from continually reminding her that age -was creeping fast upon both of them. It was difficult to be motherly to -a man who would talk all the time about his stiff joints and hardening -arteries, who would grunt and groan when he rose from an arm-chair, -and who after dinner had scarcely read half a dozen headlines of <i>The -Times</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> before he was fast asleep. Mary did not want to be as old as -all that, and she wished that her husband would remember that there -were fifteen years between them. Fifteen long years. Or was it only -because Richard was away that the years seemed longer nowadays? They -had fled by so swiftly when he was little. She must go in for gardening -more seriously this Autumn. If Richard came back next Spring, he would -appreciate her English flowers after Africa; and if he did not come -back, the flowers would be a small consolation. It was a pity that she -had begun so early to work among girls. That club would have been such -an interesting occupation for the present. But if she began again now, -it would mean arguments with Jemmie, who would never understand why, -when he was always at home, she wanted to wear herself out ministering -to a lot of strange girls. Strangeness was Jemmie's bugbear. Strange -people, strange ideas, strange manners, strange places, strange -clothes, they were all equally abhorrent to Jemmie nowadays.</p> - -<p>"I may not be very distinguished or anything like that," he boasted. -"But at any rate I'm not always running after new-fangled ideas. Some -people would call me old-fashioned and consider me out of date; but -I don't care what they call me or what they think me. When I was at -school we used to kick fellows who tried to be original. We were rough -and ready in those days, my dear, but, by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> George, we were men! Yes, by -George, m-e-n. Men!"</p> - -<p>"I thought you were boys," Mary laughed.</p> - -<p>"Now, my dear, you know perfectly well what I mean."</p> - -<p>"Yes, yes, you foolish old thing, of course I know what you mean. And I -wish you could make Geoffrey a little less original."</p> - -<p>"Ah, Geoffrey! Geoffrey is becoming a problem. I cannot think where he -inherits his low tastes."</p> - -<p>"Haven't we agreed to call him original?" said Mary. "Don't let's -bother about the hereditary side of his misbehavior. You and I -between us must be responsible for him, and we ought to shoulder our -responsibility. I really am worried about his future."</p> - -<p>They were sitting in the garden of High Corner on a fine afternoon at -the end of September, and surely never had the phloxes been finer than -they were this Autumn. If Richard admired them last year, what would he -have said if he could have seen them now?</p> - -<p>Muriel had already gone back to school, so that Geoffrey, as the only -child at home, became for the time the chief object of his parents' -solicitude.</p> - -<p>"You've always taken his part when I've tried to be severe with him," -the father pointed out.</p> - -<p>"Yes, I know I have, and I think rather foolishly. But I suppose it's -natural for a mother. It's what remains of the instinct to defend one's -young. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> wish he were a little boy again. I believe I should bring him -up quite differently, if I had another chance."</p> - -<p>Jemmie shook his head.</p> - -<p>"Ah, if," he murmured sapiently. "If if's were horses, old lady, -beggars might ride."</p> - -<p>"Yes, and I think I've been rather foolish," Mary continued, "in -keeping from you certain things about Geoffrey. You know, three times -already since he went to Oxford I've lent him comparatively large sums -for him to pay his debts. Gambling debts, I'm afraid."</p> - -<p>"Gambling debts?" Jemmie echoed. "You don't mean to tell me that the -young fool has been gambling? Gambling debts at nineteen? Why, the -notion is ridiculous. Think of me. There was I, my own master from the -time I left school. But I never had any gambling debts. I never had any -debts at all. Why, when I was not much older than Geoffrey, my poor old -father died and I was left in sole charge of the business. Suppose I -had had gambling debts? A pretty stockbroker I should have made."</p> - -<p>"There's no need for you to imagine that I'm trying to defend Geoffrey -for running into debt," Mary observed.</p> - -<p>"But why did you keep it from me? Why didn't you tell me before?"</p> - -<p>"I know it was silly of me. I've admitted it was silly. Let that pass."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> - -<p>"How much have you paid for him?"</p> - -<p>"About three hundred pounds."</p> - -<p>"Three hundred what? Did you say three hundred pounds, or am I going -mad and deaf? Three hundred pounds? Why, that's nearly a whole year's -allowance. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you've allowed -Geoffrey to play ducks and drakes with three hundred pounds of your -money?"</p> - -<p>"Frankly, Jemmie, I don't think that the amount matters," she said. -"Three hundred pounds or three hundred pence, if he can't pay, the -large sum is morally no worse than the smaller."</p> - -<p>Jemmie began to splutter.</p> - -<p>"Now that's a woman all over. No idea whatever of the value of money. -It's not a question of morality, my dear. It's a question of finance. -He knows very well, even if you don't, that he has no more business to -risk three hundred pounds than I have to risk three thousand. A fine -father my children would call me if I started gambling and gambled away -all their inheritance."</p> - -<p>"Jemmie dear, there is really no need for you to get angry with me," -she protested. "I am as well aware as you how wrong it is of Geoffrey -to gamble. But I do blame my own indulgence. I ought to have refused -to give him the money and sent him to you. I don't know why I didn't. -I suppose it was an absurd kind of jealousy. I suppose really that I -hoped to make him fonder of me by giving him the money he wanted."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> - -<p>"But why have you told me now?" her husband asked in sudden -bewilderment.</p> - -<p>Mary looked unhappy.</p> - -<p>"Promise me," she began, "that if I tell you something more you won't -fly into a rage with Geoffrey and by losing your temper perhaps do -him more harm than good. Promise me that, Jemmie, before I tell you -anything more."</p> - -<p>"He's not been stealing? He hasn't committed forgery or anything like -that, has he?" stammered an apprehensive father.</p> - -<p>"No, it's not quite so bad as that," she laughed sadly. "But you -haven't promised."</p> - -<p>"As long as it's nothing criminal, I promise to do my utmost to be -patient with the boy."</p> - -<p>Mary hesitated for a few moments, half regretting that she had raised -the subject of Geoffrey's behavior. Then she plunged.</p> - -<p>"It's this girl at the White Hart. Mrs. Woldingham came to see me this -morning...."</p> - -<p>"Girl at the White Hart?" Jemmie interrupted. "What has Mrs. Woldingham -got to do with girls at the White Hart, even if she is the Rector's -wife?"</p> - -<p>"Jemmie, I must beg you not to interrupt me. If you will have the -patience to let me say what I was going to say, you'll hear. Mrs. -Woldingham, who came to see me about the Bazaar which is being got -up for the debt on the new peal of bells, spoke very nicely about -Geoffrey, and I'm sure she had not the least idea of making mischief -or repeating village<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> gossip. But people are beginning to talk about -Geoffrey's being seen so often at the White Hart."</p> - -<p>"Drinking too!" the father apostrophized. "Great Heavens, my second son -appears to have every vice."</p> - -<p>"No, not drinking," Mary contradicted irritably. "At least Mrs. -Woldingham did not suggest that he was drinking. The attraction is this -girl."</p> - -<p>"What girl?"</p> - -<p>"The girl at the White Hart."</p> - -<p>"Do you mean the barmaid?"</p> - -<p>"I suppose that's what she is. I really don't know anything more except -that Geoffrey is credited with having a love affair with some girl at -the White Hart."</p> - -<p>Jemmie shook his head to Heaven.</p> - -<p>"I really don't know what's happening to the young men of to-day. They -stop at nothing. Still, I'm relieved to hear it's only that. At least, -I suppose it's only that."</p> - -<p>"Only what?" Mary asked frowning.</p> - -<p>"Only a flirtation with a barmaid. Of course, he ought not to do that -kind of thing in his own village; but I'm relieved to hear it's only -that."</p> - -<p>"That was all Mrs. Woldingham said."</p> - -<p>"She didn't suggest that there was the likelihood of an open scandal?"</p> - -<p>Mary looked puzzled.</p> - -<p>"Come, come," her husband scoffed. "You are not a schoolgirl. I suppose -Mrs. Woldingham didn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> suggest that the young woman was going to have -a child?"</p> - -<p>"Jemmie, sometimes you really are unnecessarily coarse in the way you -blurt things out. No, Mrs. Woldingham didn't say anything about that -or indeed hint anything of the sort. At least, I don't think she did. -But, oh dear, what a horrible notion! Please, I do beg of you, speak -seriously to Geoffrey. If there were anything like that he would have -to admit it to you."</p> - -<p>When Mary was alone, she reproached herself for being so disloyal to -Geoffrey as to tell his father about the money she had given him. -It was no use trying to pretend to herself that her only motive -for telling was a desire for Geoffrey to make a complete avowal of -everything and after he had been forgiven to be able to start fair in -his first encounter with life. She had not had the least temptation to -say a word about his debts until Mrs. Woldingham had thrown out those -hints about his behavior at the White Hart.</p> - -<p>"I really believe I was jealous," she told herself. Jealous? Could she -possibly be jealous of this girl? It sounded too absurd when stated in -words. But there certainly had been an impulse to hurt Geoffrey and -a desire to punish him not for his generally unsatisfactory behavior -so much as for presuming at his age to fancy himself in love. It -was not the knowledge that people were talking which had roused her -indignation, but the suggestion that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> Geoffrey was madly in love with -this girl, this common, crude, flamboyant creature, this barmaid. Even -now her heart was beating fast with rage at the thought of such a -disgraceful entanglement.</p> - -<p>"Of course, my dear Mrs. Alison, it may be nothing but a youthful -infatuation. At the same time I think I ought to warn you that they do -say he has proposed to the girl."</p> - -<p>She had not told Jemmie that. She had unjustly allowed him to suppose -that the only scandal to be feared was Geoffrey's treatment of the -girl. Jemmie had jumped to the commonplace conclusion, and she had -been able to do no more than simulate the shocked feelings of a prude. -She had been annoyed by her husband's clumsy assumption of Geoffrey's -guilt, and she had found no better way to display her annoyance than by -that pretense of delicacy.</p> - -<p>"One always thinks that one is going to find it easier to be better in -a few years' time; but, when the few years roll by, there is always a -new trap for one's self-confidence," Mary reflected.</p> - -<p>She made up her mind to be patient with Geoffrey, and went down to -dinner with the intention of persuading Jemmie to be as patient as -she hoped to be herself. But her good intentions were frustrated by -Geoffrey's failure to appear.</p> - -<p>"Keep nothing hot for Mr. Geoffrey," his father commanded.</p> - -<p>Mary realized the extent of his wrath from this order, for nothing in -life seemed more important<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> to Jemmie than the temperature of food. -Deliberately to let his son's dinner spoil was in his case almost the -equivalent of open excommunication. Another sign of his anger was -manifested after dinner, when, before he fell asleep in his chair, -instead of reading the headlines of <i>The Times</i>, the list of killed and -wounded in South Africa, and the sum of Roberts' points at billiards, -he neither read nor slept; when instead he paced up and down the -drawing-room, always tripping on the same head of a grizzly bear shot -by himself long ago in the Rocky Mountains, always saying "damn," -always begging his wife's pardon for the oath with an implication that -Cæsar as well as Cæsar's wife should be above suspicion in dealing with -Cæsar's son.</p> - -<p>"This is a bit too much of a good thing," he declared when the clock -struck ten without Geoffrey's arrival. "A little bit too much of a -good thing, by George! He's staying down at that confounded inn till -closing-time. That's what he's doing, you mark my words."</p> - -<p>Half-past ten struck; but there was still no sign of Geoffrey.</p> - -<p>"If his highness thinks that he's going to keep the whole household up -while he wanders about with that girl in the moonlight, he's mistaken. -I'll lock him out. By George, I will."</p> - -<p>"But Jemmie, he may have had an accident."</p> - -<p>"Fiddlesticks, my dear. If he'd had an accident, we should have heard -of it by now. I'll give him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> until eleven. If he isn't home by then, -the house shall be locked against him. I'll give him a lesson. I'll -frighten him this time."</p> - -<p>The clock struck eleven; but Geoffrey did not come. His father rang the -bell.</p> - -<p>"Please, Jemmie," his wife expostulated. "I'd rather you didn't say too -much in front of the servants."</p> - -<p>"You're weakening. You're not backing me up. You're perfectly ready to -let him in. I tell you he has got to have a lesson."</p> - -<p>"But the servants...."</p> - -<p>"Bother the servants. I decline to let Geoffrey flout me, because I'm -afraid of the servants."</p> - -<p>However, Jemmie did so far humor his wife as to imply when he was -giving orders to lock up the house, that he and she knew where their -son was.</p> - -<p>"Although I was in half a mind to forbid anybody in the house to go -downstairs and let him in when he does come."</p> - -<p>"I'm glad you didn't," Mary said. "I think that would only have made -ourselves look ridiculous."</p> - -<p>She resolved not to go to sleep, so that when Geoffrey did come back, -she should hear him herself and be able to go downstairs and let him -in. She felt certain that she should be able to do this and that -Jemmie, who had announced his own intention of admitting this errant -son, would be fast asleep by that time. Jemmie must be very sleepy by -now, for he had been awake ever since dinner.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> - -<p>But Geoffrey did not come back at all that night, and in the morning -his mother received a letter.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -Hawkins' Hotel,<br /> -Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C.<br /> -<i>Sept. 27th, 1901.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><i>My dearest Mother</i>,</p> - -<p><i>I find this a very difficult letter to write, but it has got to be -written, and you may as well know at once that by the time you get -this letter I shall be married to Mary Wyatt who was at the White -Hart Inn. I made up my mind to do this a month ago and I would have -told you if I had not been afraid that somehow or other I would have -been prevented. Of course I know that you and Father will be angry, -but it can't be helped. It's done now. At least it will be by the -time you get this. I'm going out to make arrangements now. Of course -I'm rather worried about what you will say, but she is a charming -girl and if you could only get over your prejudice and meet her I -think you would agree with me. She is only three years older than me. -Of course I cannot dictate what you are or are not to do. But unless -you can see your way to being decent to Mary I would rather cut -myself off from the family altogether. It would only make me angry -if I thought she was being snubbed, and she is very sensitive. I am -sorry for the way I am getting married, but please do not think that -I am sorry about getting married, if you can understand what I mean. -If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> I am old enough to know what profession I want to choose, I am -old enough to know what wife I want to choose. I mention this because -Father said to me last week that if I hadn't made up my mind yet -what I wanted to do with my life, I never would make up my mind. I'm -afraid this letter sounds rather defiant, but it's not meant to be -defiant. Only I do want you both to understand that I'm in earnest. I -will spare you the boredom of hearing how fond I am of Mary, partly -because I know it would probably bore you and partly because I could -not possibly express what I would like to say about her in writing. -I know that this will mean giving up Oxford. But I do not mind about -that. I think most people stay there too long. It's no good doing -nothing for three years. We are going to stay for three or four -days in London, and then we are going to spend our honeymoon in the -village where Mary lives in Berkshire. After that I had an idea of -emigrating to Canada.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Your loving son,<br /> -Geoffrey.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>Mary gave this letter to her husband without comment and left him to -read it alone. She did not feel that there was any possible comment -except an outburst of bad language, and she was sure that Jemmie would -manage that better than herself. When she rejoined him, he was still -spluttering with rage, damning and disinheriting his son with equal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> -fervor. For one thing Mary was grateful. He did not say it was all due -to the way she had spoilt him. Indeed, he offered no reproaches. The -blow was as inevitable as an apoplexy. There was no human being to be -blamed apart from the unhappy principal.</p> - -<p>"Married at nineteen to a barmaid! What a future! It isn't as if -I'd set him a bad example. I can't blame myself. It's his natural -wickedness and selfishness. It's the sort of thing young men do -nowadays. No sense of decency. Want of proportion. Form ... no good -form. Fancy comparing the choice of a profession with the choice of -a wife! You can't compare things like that. The boy's mad. He's been -touched by the sun playing golf. He's not normal. I consider we might -get the marriage annulled on the ground that he was <i>non compos</i> when -he committed it. Yes, <i>non compos</i>! We'll shut him up in a nursing-home -for a couple of months. A rest cure. He's mad. The damned lunatic! -Emigrate indeed? Canada! He might as well talk of emigrating to the -moon. In fact, it strikes me that's the place to which his brains have -emigrated...."</p> - -<p>Jemmie went on railing like this until his wife interposed with -a suggestion that she should go up to town this very morning and -interview Geoffrey. There was just a chance he was not married yet. He -probably had not realized how hard it was to get married without some -preparation. Yes, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> was just a chance that he was still free, and -that if he were tactfully handled he might consent to remain free.</p> - -<p>"You see, he's evidently nervous about us," Mary pointed out. "He had -to run away in order to bring himself to do it. I expect the girl is a -hussy. I expect she hooked him. Oh dear, how vulgar it makes oneself, -when one mixes oneself up with vulgarity. Hooked him! And yet there's -no other word for it."</p> - -<p>"He's no longer a son of mine," the father swore. "By George, Mary, -he is no longer my son. A lazy spendthrift who gets married with less -preparation than he would give to ordering himself a lunch. This money -he's been wheedling out of you. Depend upon it, his gambling debts -were nothing but an excuse, a mean subterfuge. If he'd really been -losing money at roulette, he'd have come to me. He'd have known that I -wouldn't be hard on him."</p> - -<p>"I should prefer to think that the money I gave him was spent upon -getting married," said Mary unreasonably. "I loathed the idea of my -son's being a weak gambler."</p> - -<p>"Well, don't let you and me start arguing. Whatever he did with it, -he has had the money. A barmaid! A girl who spends her day listening -to beastly chaff! A crimped, corseted, vulgar barmaid to be my -daughter-in-law! It's incredible."</p> - -<p>"But there is a slight chance that she is not your daughter-in-law -yet. So, if you've no objection,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> dear, I think I'll catch the midday -train and go straight to this hotel in the Strand. I will take my -dressing-case, and if necessary I can stay in town. I might go to -Morley's Hotel. That would be close by."</p> - -<p>Hawkins' Hotel was a tall, narrow, gloomy house with a German porter, -sluttish chambermaids, and a manageress like a large doll with hair -of tow. In the lower half of the house there was a perpetual odor of -vegetables being cooked, and in the upper part there was a smell of -dusty muslin.</p> - -<p>Mary was shown into what was called the writing-room while inquiries -were made for Number Nineteen, which was as far as Geoffrey's -individuality was recognized. In each of the windows of the -writing-room there was a frayed aspidistra growing apparently in a -compost of cigarette-ends, matches, and old plaster. In one corner of -the room a man in a stained check-suit with cuffs that were continually -trying to swallow his hands was seated at a spindle-shanked desk -working out from a Bradshaw fifteen months old a railway journey across -country.</p> - -<p>"Number Nineteen's gone out," announced the waiter, who looked like the -negative of a photograph, so black were his face and shirt-front, so -greasy and begrimed were his clothes.</p> - -<p>Mary told him that she would wait and asked him to bring her a cup -of tea, which he brought half an hour later in a breakfast cup with -blunted lumps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> of dead-looking sugar lying in the saucer beside it, and -a hare-lipped jug of pale blue milk.</p> - -<p>"I'll bring the bread and butter in a minute," he promised, and though -Mary told him that she did not want anything to eat, he brought her -four slices a quarter of an hour later.</p> - -<p>It was growing dusk in the writing-room of Hawkins' Hotel; the man in -the check-suit, unable to read the figures in the railway-guide, was -moping in an arm-chair by the empty grate, before Geoffrey came in -followed by the waiter, who lighted the two burners of the gaselier -which had been fitted with incandescent mantles and pulled down the -blinds.</p> - -<p>"We can't talk here," said Mary, glancing across at the man in the -check-suit, who as soon as the room was lighted up had returned to his -railway-guide. "You'd better walk round with me to Morley's Hotel, -where I'm staying for to-night."</p> - -<p>"I can't leave Mary alone here," Geoffrey replied.</p> - -<p>His mother winced at the name.</p> - -<p>"If you want to talk private," said the man with the railway-guide, -"I'll leave you to yourselves. I've found what I was looking for."</p> - -<p>He pushed his cuffs well up with the aid of the edge of the desk, and, -whistling "The Honeysuckle and the Bee," went out of the room, leaving -mother and son together.</p> - -<p>"Geoffrey, are you married?"</p> - -<p>"Well, as a matter of fact, no, I'm not," he admitted sulkily. -"Apparently you have to live in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> a parish for a certain amount of -time first. One would imagine it was a crime to get married by the -difficulties the parson made."</p> - -<p>"Then you'll think better of it?" his mother pleaded. "You'll change -your mind and come back with me to High Corner? Father will say -nothing. Your mad freak shall be forgiven and forgotten."</p> - -<p>"Steady on, Mother. I can't leave Mary like that. You see, it's a bit -awkward. I thought I should have been married to-day, and so we should -have been if I hadn't made a muddle about the license. I wanted to be -married in a register office, but Mary stuck out for a church. She -can't believe that any other kind of marriage is genuine. Besides, I -don't want to give her up, if that's what you mean by coming back to -High Corner."</p> - -<p>His mother argued with him in vain. He did not attempt to answer her, -but stood sulkily first on his right leg, then on his left leg until -she stopped talking.</p> - -<p>"I don't agree with you that she'll drag me down, as you say. I think -it will buck me up to be married."</p> - -<p>"But, my dear boy, look at your surroundings already. Look at this -horrible hotel. How on earth did you ever come to discover such a -place? It's like some dreadful place in a French novel."</p> - -<p>"The bedrooms are all right," Geoffrey said. "And we've been eating -out. I think if you'd let me bring Mary down to see you, you wouldn't -be so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> much upset by the prospect of my future. Anyway, you needn't -think I'll disgrace the family. I've made up my mind to emigrate. It's -a funny thing, but when a fellow does what he thinks is the right thing -to do, he gets more blamed than if he just plays about with a girl."</p> - -<p>"Geoffrey," said his mother, "I'm grieved that I cannot see things -from your point of view; but you are too young, my dear boy, to hamper -yourself like this so early in your life. I have never told you -before; but I think that it is only fair that I should tell you about -your grandfather. He quarreled with his father because he insisted on -marrying my mother. They emigrated, and both he and my mother were -drowned. I was a baby then, and I was about the only person saved from -the wreck."</p> - -<p>"Well, it's much safer traveling nowadays," argued Geoffrey -obstinately. "And anyway I don't see that it did you much harm."</p> - -<p>"But it caused infinite misery to others. My grandmother never really -got over it. It brought about the extinction of the Flowers."</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry, Mother, but I can't go back on my word. Besides, we've been -living here as man and wife. It wouldn't be right."</p> - -<p>This boy of nineteen to be talking of living here as man and wife!</p> - -<p>Mary was suddenly chilled.</p> - -<p>"Very well, Geoffrey, if you will not listen to me, I must see what -your father can do. You must re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>member that you are not yet of age, and -if your father sees fit to exercise his authority you will <i>have</i> to -obey. I shall telegraph for him at once."</p> - -<p>"Perhaps Father will condescend to see Mary before he does anything," -Geoffrey said. "Perhaps he won't judge her as you have judged her -without seeing her."</p> - -<p>Mary turned away from her son and went quickly from the room. She -felt when she walked up Buckingham Street as if she was struggling up -through some horrible drain to reach the air.</p> - -<p>In the hall of her own hotel the porter told her that Mr. Alison had -arrived and was waiting for Mrs. Alison in Mrs. Alison's room. Mary -went upstairs, glad that he had come, because he might do something -with Geoffrey. He might remonstrate with the girl and persuade her to -give him up. In books it would have been herself who would have done -that; but books seemed to forget that a mother could be as proud as -anybody when her deepest feelings were outraged.</p> - -<p>"Mary, my poor little wife, prepare yourself for a dreadful shock," -Jemmie cried when she entered her room.</p> - -<p>In an instant she guessed that it was bad news about Richard.</p> - -<p>"South Africa," she heard herself murmur with a tongue that was parched -with apprehension and horror.</p> - -<p>"A telegram from the War Office."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Jemmie, he's not dead? He's only wounded?"</p> - -<p>"My poor darling Mary, our boy is dead."</p> - -<p>"Richard! Richard! Richard!" she wailed to the roar of London, the -cruel roar of London which let young men die to keep the city roaring.</p> - -<p>"It wasn't even in battle. He was in charge of a convoy. He was -ambushed. By God, Mary, I'd like to burn the scoundrels in Parliament -who talk about brother Boer. I'd like to throw them down into Trafalgar -Square from the top of Nelson's Column. Lloyd George and the whole -skulking crew. It's they who are encouraging the Boers to go on with -this guerilla warfare. Mary, don't look so white. Shall I ring for some -brandy? Did you do anything about Geoffrey and this marriage?"</p> - -<p>"Geoffrey!" the mother echoed, and her voice was like the tinkling of -broken ice. "Let him do what he likes, and go where he likes, and die -where he likes. I want Richard. Do you hear? I want Richard. I want -him. I want him. He's mine. He can't really be taken away from me like -this. There must be some mistake in the name. Mistakes are made. We -must go to Africa and make sure. <i>We'll</i> emigrate," she laughed, and -then mercifully the tears began to flow.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="Chapter_Six" id="Chapter_Six"></a><i>Chapter Six</i></p> - - -<p class="center">THE WIDOW</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><i>Chapter Six: The Widow</i></p> - - -<p>Jemmie Alison had been buried a fortnight. The rays of the fallow -November sun lighted the table in the window of his old study at which -his widow was seated engaged upon the task of sorting out his papers. -Mary's hands frilled with snowy organdie were now the hands of her -grandmother when <i>she</i> was fifty, fifty years ago. Otherwise she did -not resemble Lady Flower, being of a fairer complexion with roses -still fresh upon her cheeks and rich brown hair on which the gossamer -spun by age was less conspicuous than the first rime upon October -leaves. She had paused for a moment from her task and was staring out -at the drooping chrysanthemums that gave to the garden of Woodworth -Lodge such an aspect of mournfulness and decay. Why did not Markham -take them up? There was nothing so melancholy as flowers which had -outstayed their season. Winter was at hand. Of what use was it to try -to prolong the illusion of summer? Winter was not to be cajoled by such -pretenses. Besides, chrysanthemums were at best funereal blossoms. -How high they had been heaped a fortnight ago, wreath upon wreath, on -Jemmie's coffin.... She turned back to her task of sorting out the -papers; but a minute or two later she stopped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> to reproach herself, as -she had reproached herself many times daily since her husband's death -with having failed to be as deeply moved by it as she ought. No doubt -the protracted illness, when he lingered month by month after the -doctors had declared that he could not survive another week, was partly -responsible for the absence of emotion. She had been preparing so long -for the death that, when at last he did die, she discovered that there -was no emotion which she had not already exhausted. Yes, although while -he lay dying all those weeks she had fought against a monstrous and -wicked hope that the agony would not be too long protracted, at the end -her only definite feeling had been one of relief. Poor old Jemmie, he -had been so good throughout those weary weeks. The nurses had assured -her that they had never known such a patient. It was strange that a man -who throughout his life had allowed himself to be disconcerted by the -smallest interference with his minor comforts should be able to endure -without a murmur months of fierce pain. There must have been something -fundamentally noble about Jemmie, some bedrock of character impervious -alike to violent passions and the fretful whims of ordinary existence. -Impervious at any rate to the latter. It was verging on the ludicrous -to associate violent passions with Jemmie, for surely no man ever lived -less subject to the stress of the unattainable. Not that his exemption -should detract at all from her admiration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> of his suffering. On the -contrary she should yield him a greater respect, because he could never -have been tested in the whole of his life as he was tested every hour -of that last illness. But herself? Had that endlessly drawn out vigil -revealed in herself any fundamental nobility of character? Outwardly -she had been all devotion. She had accepted the flattery of the nurses, -the laudation of her friends, the pathetic gratitude of her husband -for the care she lavished, the zeal with which she waited on him, the -affection never in all their married life so freely given as when he -lay dying. Yet always at the back of her mind had lurked the question -when it would be over, the desire to be quit of her obligation, the -longing to be herself for the remainder of her life. Or was she doing -herself an injustice in thinking that? Was it not really the nervous -strain of expecting the inevitable for so long which made her sigh -for that consummation to achieve itself? It was foolish to exaggerate -one's deficiencies. It savored of a morbid self-interest. These inward -contests in which women permitted themselves to indulge, especially -in books, were nothing more than a subtle form of self-flattery. They -were another aspect of the schoolgirl's habit of talking a situation -to death. The female mind could never resist the remnants of a -conversation a whit more easily than it could resist a July sale.</p> - -<p>Mary compelled herself to concentrate upon the task she had taken in -hand, and for a while she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> able to keep her thoughts fixed upon -her husband's papers. How neatly he had kept his receipted bills until -January of this year. Here was a thin sheaf for 1910, the record of -the last month he spent walking about before he took to his bed. There -had been plenty of bills all through this year for doctors and nurses -and medicine, and at last for the funeral. But it was she who had kept -them, so they were lying about anyhow. How vexed Jemmie would have been -with her if he had known that she had already mislaid the undertaker's -receipt.</p> - -<p>"I wish you would try to be more business-like."</p> - -<p>She could hear his voice so plainly that she looked round the room, -and noted with a pang of regret that this pallid sunshine was not so -weak but that it lighted up the dust upon his empty pipes. Was it -conceivable that Jemmie was regarding her at this moment from another -sphere? Was there really anything in spiritualism? She had wished to -experiment with it after Richard was killed; but Jemmie had been so -contemptuous of the idea and so profoundly convinced of the fraud it -was, that she had lacked the courage for a real investigation. There -was no Jemmie now to deter her. She must have a talk with Mrs. Hippisle -who so firmly believed in the possibility of communicating with the -dead ... yes, it would make such a difference if one could only be sure.</p> - -<p>1909? Nothing but bills in that file. It would be prudent to keep them. -Not that it was likely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> one of Jemmie's tradesmen would be dishonest. -He had always patronized the oldest and most respectable firms in -London. Still, there might be a clerical mistake. Better to keep 1909. -1908? She turned the leaves of that file. To one Angora coat ... to -cuffs for same ... to one large bottle of Crinum ... to one large -bottle of Doctor Gunter's Hair Tonic ... to one large bottle ... Jemmie -had never ceased to abuse hair-restorers, but in his sixty-third year -he was still the victim of their audacious promises.</p> - -<p>If she did decide to take up spiritualism, she should not be so -gullible as that. Why, Jemmie had begun to lose his hair before he was -married! 1907, 1906, 1905, 1904. All receipted bills. 1904? A letter in -Geoffrey's handwriting. That was queer.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -Hopkinsville,<br /> -Ontario,<br /> -<i>April 4th</i>.<br /> -<br /> -<i>My dear Father</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>Thank you very much for the check you sent me. I am hoping very much -that the milk business will turn out as well as I hope. I now owe -you £420. Do you want me to send you a formal I.O.U.? Or will this -acknowledgment by letter be enough?</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Your affectionate son,<br /> -Geoffrey.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> - -<p>It was strange that Jemmie should never have mentioned that he was -giving Geoffrey money. And stranger still that he should keep his son's -letter with the receipted bills of hatters and hosiers. Perhaps there -were other letters. Mary examined again more carefully the recent -files. Yes, here was another that spoke of receiving money two years -later, written from Winnipeg. And here, why here in 1909 was a letter -from London!</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -45 Almond Terrace,<br /> -Wood Green,<br /> -<i>November 15</i>.<br /> -<br /> -<i>My dear Father</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>Thank you very much for the £100 which brings up my debt to £930. I -shouldn't have bothered you again, but the expenses of getting back -from Canada and the birth of our little girl have made things rather -difficult. I am going in for the cinematographic business which from -what I can see looks like being the business of the future. I've got -a job as studio manager with a new firm who I hope will prove to have -some staying power. I don't think any good purpose would be served by -my coming to see you. I've kept out of your way for so long now that -it's better to keep out of the family for good. It would be useless -to pretend that Mary doesn't feel a certain amount of resentment, -and now that we have our little girl we get on very happily. Please -do not misunderstand my motive in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> writing to you like this. If it -was only you I might take a different course. But there is Mother -to be considered. She would feel—quite rightly from her point of -view—that the baby ought to be brought up in different surroundings. -This would only cause bad feeling between her and Mary, which I would -not like. I haven't made such a terrific success of my life, and so -I am perhaps a bit oversensitive. It seems very ungrateful to write -like this after your kindness, but I hope you will understand that -I'm trying to act for the best. I am sorry to hear that you've not -been feeling quite yourself lately. I hope it's nothing more than -the effect of the beastly weather we've been having. I'm glad to be -back in England again. I don't know what made me choose Canada as a -country to settle in.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Your affectionate son,<br /> -Geoffrey.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>Geoffrey had written this only a year ago. Perhaps he was still at the -same address. Mary felt inclined to order the car so that she could -drive immediately to Wood Green, wherever Wood Green was, and find out. -She had risen from the table before she remembered that Muriel had -taken the car for the afternoon. But to-morrow she would go. Nothing -should stop her to-morrow.</p> - -<p>Poor old Jemmie, he must have been pining for his son. He must have had -a vague presentiment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> of his last illness. And how extraordinary that -he should have said nothing about the birth of Geoffrey's little girl. -To have lain there all these months silent about that great event! It -was strange too that he should not have left any money to Geoffrey. -Perhaps he had known when he left in his will everything to her that -she would find out from his papers about Geoffrey and the little girl, -and had trusted to her to make some provision for them. It might be -that all those years he had been anxious for a reconciliation and that -he had waited for a word from herself to give him an excuse to make the -first move. He would have been too proud of his own accord to propose -the reconciliation; but if he could have salved his pride by pretending -that he was receiving Geoffrey back into the family on her account, -there was no doubt that he would have done so. Oh, it was clearly her -duty to go to-morrow and find out if Geoffrey was still in Wood Green. -It was her duty to the dead man and to her own self. Few might be the -gray hairs of her head, but heavy had been the frost upon her heart -all these years of middle-age. The more she thought about it, the more -remarkable appeared Jemmie's secretiveness. What could have been at the -back of his mind? To be sure, when first Geoffrey married, it was she -who had been of all the bitterest against him. But there had been some -justification then. She had not stayed implacable. Yet she had never -suggested a reconciliation, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> it was her place to do. Jemmie might -be pardoned for supposing that she did not want one. But what a pity! -He would have died more happily if he had been friends at the last with -the only son left to him. How much she hoped that he could be looking -down from that mysterious hinterland of death, and that he might behold -her setting out to-morrow on her mission of good-will.</p> - -<p>How far had she got with the papers? Oh yes, 1904. 1903? Nothing from -Geoffrey in 1903. Nothing from him in 1902 either. She wished that -Jemmie had kept his first letters from Canada, for there must have -been earlier letters. Those first hundreds of pounds must have been -begged for with tales of misfortune in Canada. Or had Geoffrey written -casually in the beginning as he used to write to her from Oxford for a -hundred pounds? Perhaps that was the reason why his father had always -spoken bitterly of him in those first years of the marriage. 1901. -Mary turned pale. Here was the bill for Richard's uniform. <i>Received -with compliments and thanks</i> ... the money that equipped her boy to be -killed. The paper with its royal warrants was as fresh as the day on -which it was printed. But Richard! Her Richard! What was Richard now? -And here in the file for 1900 was the bill for Richard's uniform as -a cadet at Sandhurst. All these years going backward from this date -held something of Richard. 1899? White waistcoats for Richard when he -got<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> into Pop at Eton. How delighted he had been! 1898? 1897? 1896? -Tophats for Richard every year. 1895? The right kind of Eton jacket, -"because a chap at my private school told me to be jolly careful about -that, mother." And Jemmie had remembered from his own Eton days how -important it was to be jolly careful about that. 1894? School fees. -1893? Richard's straw hat with the second eleven ribbon of his private -school. That hot summer of 1893 when they had moved in to High Corner -for the holidays. 1892? School fees, and the bill for a bicycle in -which Jemmie had invested to reduce his growing stoutness. That bicycle -with cushion tires of which Jemmie had been so proud, but which almost -immediately became old-fashioned by the invention of pneumatic tires. -How Richard and Geoffrey had scorned his offer of it to them! They -would not be seen dead on such an out-of-date old boneshaker; and -two years later Richard had been given £7 10s. to buy from a friend -at school a second-hand one with huge pneumatic tires. His first big -present. It had made both him and his mother feel so very old.</p> - -<p>1891? The doctor's bill when Richard had diphtheria. That was the year -when she might have changed the whole course of her life. Ought she -to have confessed the impulse of that May evening to Jemmie before he -died? From the file of bills dropped a lilac-hued and even after twenty -years still faintly lilac-scented scrap of notepaper.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -Frivolity Theater,<br /> -<i>May? Wednesday</i>.<br /> -<br /> -<i>Darling old Podge</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I can get away to-night, so you must come. Thanks everso for the -duck of a ring. My eye, won't it dazzle some of the mashers in the -front row when we open next week. Lots of love.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>From<br /> -Maudie.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>1891? May, 1891? It could not be just a coincidence that this old -letter was in the file of 1891. That must have been the year when -Jemmie received it. And the month was May. That was the time when -Jemmie was so frequently having to be away for the night on business. -But why should he have filed only this note? It surely had no more -sentimental value than many others he must have received from this -Maudie. It must have been put away with his papers by accident. Perhaps -this was the very note that kept him from coming home to dinner that -night when Pierre came and when Richard fell ill.</p> - -<p>"If I had known of the existence of this Maudie, would anything have -kept me from going away that night?" Mary asked herself.</p> - -<p>The sere chrysanthemums were lost in the wan radiance of the November -sunlight: the sodden lawn and greasy London trees vanished: the -outlines of other houses no longer affronted the vision.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> Mighty palms -cooled the fervid air with their green and glittering fans: their -trunks were wreathed with odorous trumpet-flowers to steal whose honey -came fluttering a myriad humming-birds with breasts of emerald and -lapis-lazuli, and rubied wings, and tails of fire.</p> - -<p>"My boys have cut a path before us through the forest. Let us ride -through, my love, to the sea."</p> - -<p>Perfume on perfume, color on color, with the forest stretching behind -them and before them.</p> - -<p>"You are tired, my love. Dismount. Here is a filanjàna in which you may -travel through the forest to the sea."</p> - -<p>A filanjàna, a filanjàna. Thus had Pierre named the palanquin in which -he promised that she should travel with him in Madagascar. A filanjàna! -A filanjàna! Swaying lightly in a filanjàna, she traveled on through -the forest to the sea. Sun-birds and parroquets and purple kingfishers -flew down the forest glade on either side of the gently swaying -filanjàna; and so at last they came to the sea ... the sea ... to the -nipped and withered chrysanthemums and the slimy city trees.</p> - -<p>"If I had known that Richard would be killed ten years later, and that -Geoffrey would run off with a barmaid, would I have gone away that -night?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"Why not?"</p> - -<p>"Because I should have known that one day I should be fifty."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Am I really fifty?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. I am fifty, fifty, fifty. How strange that I should have -remembered that word filanjàna. It had been hidden away all these years -in a secret room of memory like a bit of jewelry that one buys on a -voyage."</p> - -<p>"Yes, but if I'm fifty, Maudie can't be much less. What happened then -to her and what happened then to me matters nothing, to either of us."</p> - -<p>"Poor Maudie!"</p> - -<p>She could not have had any illusions about Jemmie, or she would never -have called him Podge. It was not a name that could share a grand -passion. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Still, Podge -and Juliet. No, whatever Juliet might think about roses and Montagues, -she would never have called Romeo Podge.</p> - -<p>"But I need not reproach myself with not having told him about Pierre."</p> - -<p>How long had Maudie lasted? Probably until Jemmie took up golf, and -that was soon after they bought High Corner in 1893. He must have -forgotten all about her, or he surely could not have been so indignant -with Geoffrey when he was first told about the girl at the White Hart. -Yet if Jemmie did involve himself in a romance, it was her own fault. -She had never encouraged him to be romantic with her. When they were -first married she had let him think that any kind of affectionate -demonstrativeness was distasteful to her. It had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> been. She had known -nothing of life. Muriel was different. Somehow girls nowadays seemed -able to find out much more. One could not imagine Muriel's marrying -anybody, because her mother advised it. But it was time for Muriel -to think about marriage. She was twenty-five. The modern girl was -inclined to cherish her independence too long and too dearly. Next -season it would be well to make a point of inviting suitable young men -to the house. Perhaps, with the strain of Jemmie's illness, she had -allowed Muriel's interests to be neglected. And Muriel herself was -discouraging. She had always been remote even at school; but Newnham -had made her more than remote. She was now as unapproachable as the -inhabitant of a star. Jemmie, dead though he was, seemed nearer to -her than Muriel. It was not surprising that she was still unmarried. -Young men must stand in awe of her. Those calm cold eyes lacked any -expression that might lead even the most self-confident young man to -suppose that she could be thought of in connection with marriage. No -doubt, as she grew older, she would acquire the warmth of humanity; but -at present she was a statue. And then there was her Socialism. That was -a very unattractive side of Muriel. That continuous drip of ice-cold -water upon all existing laws and institutions, upon all creeds and -sentiments and political opinions, could not but be alarming to the -average young man. Why should she be so hostile to established beliefs? -It was not as if she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> too much church-going forced upon her when -she was small. She had had to go to church once every Sunday; but -the rest of the day, at any rate when she was at home, had been hers -without Puritanical restrictions to sicken her of religion for the rest -of her life. Yet the contempt with which she spoke of Christians was -quite unpleasant to hear. Moreover, she had a habit of attributing the -worst motives to many dull but essentially worthy people, a trick of -assuming that they did not in their hearts believe what they professed. -According to Muriel the world consisted of idiots and hypocrites, an -opinion which was not calculated to make young men fall in love with -her. Nowadays, girls were really as great a problem as boys. No wonder -people were beginning to have fewer children.</p> - -<p>1890 ... 1889 ... 1888 ... these early bills could all be burnt. Ah, -there was Markham setting to work at last to clear the borders of the -chrysanthemums.</p> - -<p>Mary did not change her mind about her visit to Wood Green; nor did -she allow herself to be deterred by Muriel's indignation at not being -able to have the car in order to drive round the sights of London the -Northern delegates to a conference that was being held in town.</p> - -<p>"It's very inconvenient, Mother," she protested.</p> - -<p>"I daresay it is, dear. But it would be still more inconvenient for me -not to have the car this afternoon."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> - -<p>"You see I'd promised the committee...."</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry, Muriel dear, but I am unable to let you have the car this -afternoon. And your committee cannot complain. They are doing their -best to make it impossible for people to keep cars. So really while -they allow us to keep them, we had better make the most of them. You'll -have to take your party from Sheffield in an omnibus. You can really -see more of London from the top of an omnibus."</p> - -<p>"The point is that it makes me look somewhat ridiculous," said Muriel.</p> - -<p>"No more ridiculous than you would look tearing about London with these -gentlemen in your mother's car."</p> - -<p>Driving along to Wood Green, Mary wondered why they allowed trams on -these crowded roads. They made it most dangerous for a car to drive -fast; now that she was on her way to heal a breach that had endured ten -years, every minute gained seemed of the utmost importance. It would -be terrible to find that Geoffrey had left Almond Terrace a month ago -for some unknown destination. He must have read in the <i>Morning Post</i> -or in <i>The Times</i> the announcement of his father's death, and if he was -still in London it was strange that he had not attended the funeral. A -quarrel should not be allowed to endure after death. Of course, there -was a chance that Geoffrey had missed the announcement and that he -was actually unaware of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> father's death. London was so huge. One -realized how large it was when one drove along roads like this, past -clanging trams full of people, past side-street after side-street, each -of them leading to other side-streets which led to others full of human -beings who all lived in London just as one lived in London oneself. If -Geoffrey had left Almond Terrace, she should never find him; and she -might die without his knowing that she was dead, without his knowing -that she had sought him out for a reconciliation.</p> - -<p>"Does Mr. Geoffrey Alison live here?"</p> - -<p>"Ye-es," grudgingly admitted what was evidently a landlady of the -common vulturine type, beneath whose outspread apron lurked a -fledgling. "Ye-es," she repeated. "Was you wanting to see him about -anything?"</p> - -<p>"Please."</p> - -<p>"Well, he's out," said the landlady with a triumphant sniff. "And not -likely to be back till late, what's more. Yes, he was out soon after -ten this morning. Soon after ten—well, it was about five after as -near as a touch—soon after ten, he was out. I suppose you're from the -Pictures where he works? Any message, of course, as you care to leave -with me I'll see he 'as it, and no one can't do more than that."</p> - -<p>"But I wanted to see him myself," said Mary, pausing undecided upon the -steps of the little two-storied house.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Ah, there you are," the landlady rejoined. "Well, I can't do no more -than what I've said. Leave off, do, Eric," she exclaimed, slapping her -son's hand for some misdeed committed upon the apron that sheltered -him from observation. "One don't know which way to turn with children -sometimes, and that's a fact."</p> - -<p>"Perhaps I could see ... Mrs. Alison?" Mary suggested.</p> - -<p>Little did the landlady know how much it cost her to make that simple -inquiry.</p> - -<p>"Mrs. Alison?" the woman echoed with a return of that first suspicion -in her manner. "Well, I'm sure I don't know what to say. Eric! If you -don't give over picking at my boot-buttons, my lad, I'll give you -something to remember with next time. Stand up, you naughty boy. Who -should I say wants to see Mrs. Alison?"</p> - -<p>"I'm Mr. Alison's mother."</p> - -<p>This announcement was altogether too much for the landlady, who without -another word grabbed Eric by the hand and led the way upstairs to the -lodgers' sitting-room.</p> - -<p>"Here's Mr. Alison's mother to see you, Mrs. Alison," she exclaimed in -the doorway, after which thunderclap she returned to her own intimate -glooms at the back of the house, admonishing Eric to ush if he didn't -want to get such a slapping as would properly ush him for a week.</p> - -<p>As Mary entered, the woman who had ruined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> her son's life rose from an -arm-chair by the fire and putting a finger to her lips pointed to a cot.</p> - -<p>"Molly's asleep," she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>"My granddaughter," said Mary.</p> - -<p>"My little gurl," replied the other with a burr that in these sharp-set -London lodgings sounded strange. There was nothing about her except the -accent to proclaim that she was rural. Mary remembered that Geoffrey -had said she was three years older than himself. That would make -her about thirty-two. She looked nearer forty with her thin-lipped -anxious mouth, her fretful eyes, and needle-like fingers. It was hard -to perceive now what beauty had charmed Geoffrey into marrying her. -However, she did not appear blatant, which was something to be thankful -for.</p> - -<p>The two women had been watching each other in silence, when the -child in the cot gave a low restless cry. At once they both made an -instinctive movement to see what was the matter; but the mother was the -quicker to bend over and murmur a few soothing words.</p> - -<p>"Her teeth are fidgeting her," she explained. "She's been late in -cutting them." In that instant she seemed to think that by saying so -much she was offering her visitor more than she had intended to offer, -and she drew close her eyebrows in a scowl.</p> - -<p>"Not that my little gurl's teeth can interest you," she added -scornfully.</p> - -<p>"On the contrary," said Mary. "They interest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> me enormously. I did not -know until yesterday that I was a grandmother. As soon as I knew, I -came to see my granddaughter."</p> - -<p>"But you knew that you were a mother ten years ago. You weren't in any -hurry to come then except to try and keep Geoff from marrying me. That -was all your worry then."</p> - -<p>"You must think of the situation from our point of view. Geoffrey was -not even of age. It was our duty to protest against his committing -himself to a marriage before he knew his own mind. But isn't it rather -a mistake to argue about the past now? I am anxious to forget the past."</p> - -<p>"Some people can forget very easily," said the younger woman, "others -can't."</p> - -<p>"You may not know that Geoffrey's father is dead."</p> - -<p>"Geoffrey does know, so there. And he wanted to go to the funeral, but -I said, 'No, you don't want them to think that as soon as your father -died you was looking around for what you might pick up. You let well -alone,' I said, and Geoff he took my advice. 'Your father's been dead -to you,' I said, 'this many a year. There's no call for you,' I said, -'to attend his funeral all on your own. I'm not going to wear black for -him,' I said. 'And I'm not going to his funeral, not if you was to ask -me on your bended knees.'"</p> - -<p>"Whatever you think about me," said Mary, "you've no right to speak -like that about my hus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>band. Why, I've just found out that all these -years he has been helping Geoffrey with money whenever he asked for it."</p> - -<p>"He wouldn't ever have been asked for it, if I'd had my way. I'd sooner -have starved in the gutter, <i>I</i> would. But Geoff's got no pride, Geoff -hasn't."</p> - -<p>"You should be the best judge of that," said Mary. She regretted the -sneer as soon as she had uttered it, not because she minded hurting -the feeling of her son's wife, but because it might jeopardize the -object she had in view, which was nothing less than to be awarded -the guardianship of her granddaughter. An immense jealousy had been -roused in her by the sight of the sleeping child, and she was thinking -how well she should know with all her experience the way to bring -her up. It was imprudent to say anything that might increase her -daughter-in-law's hostility. In order to obtain what she desired Mary -compelled herself to think of this woman as her daughter-in-law.</p> - -<p>"It's no use for you to be sarcastic with me," said Geoffrey's wife. -"Geoff's tried being sarcastic once or twice. But he always got the -worst of it. Always."</p> - -<p>Mary had a vision of Geoffrey's existence during these ten years. She -was filled with a profound pity for him, picturing him forever in -rooms like these, the prey of his wife's tongue, the victim of her -determination to drag him down to her level. It never struck her that -the child in the cot whom she was so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> eager to take for herself was -probably the only thing that made his life endurable.</p> - -<p>"I'm sure it's a mistake to be sarcastic," Mary admitted. "I'm sorry, -Mary. You know I find it quite difficult to call you Mary, because -it's my own name. I really came this afternoon to try to effect a -reconciliation. I'm anxious to be friends. It's useless to live in -the past. We should all be miserable if we did that, for we all of us -make mistakes. It struck me that it might be difficult for you and -Geoffrey suddenly to re-enter the family circle—a very small circle -nowadays. Only myself and Muriel. So, I didn't suggest that you and -he should come and live at Woodworth Lodge or anything like that. But -what I thought was that perhaps you might be glad to let me assume the -responsibility for that little girl in the cot. If she was allowed to -live with me, you would of course be coming to see her often, and then -gradually we should get to know one another, and this gulf between us -might be bridged."</p> - -<p>"Never!" cried the mother. "I wouldn't let you have my Molly for -nothing. Not if she was going to die the next minute. I'd sooner for -her to die than have her go to you. I suppose you think I'm not fit -to look after my own little gurl? Well, you've made a mistake, let me -tell you. I'm as fit to look after her as what you are. She's mine. -She's not yours. She never shall be yours, not while I'm alive anyway. -I suppose you think I ought to be so proud because I've married a -gentleman that I ought to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> sit still for the rest of my life with my -hands crossed on my lap and do nothing. Only be proud. But I didn't -marry Geoff because he was a gentleman. I married him because I loved -him. I suppose you think a woman like me can't love? I suppose you -think it's only ladies who can love? But that's just where you're -wrong. I've loved him so much that I've been angry with myself for -being so soft and carried on at him something cruel. You wouldn't have -done that, would you? But I've nagged at him until he's been fit to -jump into the lake, which is near where we were living at Hopkinsville. -Only it isn't like a lake. More like a sea really. I suppose you -think that I wouldn't dare to be jealous, just because I'd married a -gentleman? I suppose you think I ought to have let him do just what he -wanted? Not me. Why, he couldn't be half an hour late without I was -ready to tear his eyes out to know where he'd been and what he'd been -doing. I reckon sometimes he wished he'd never set eyes on me. But I -loved him all the time. You needn't make no mistake about that. I've -wished sometimes he'd beat me, but he never raised his hand to me. Not -once. Though I've nagged him enough to make any man hit me, even though -he might have been a gentleman. And then last year, when I'd given up -all hopes of such things, my little Molly came along, and since she -came I've been better with Geoff. I seemed to feel he belonged to me -at last, because the kid's half him and half me, as I figure it out. -And now you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> come along and want to carry off my Molly. Never. That's -my last word. Never! Perhaps if you'd come along before my little girl -arrived and wanted to carry off Geoff, I might have let him go. I was -fond enough of him to do that, I believe. Once I'd thought it was -really for his good. But now him and me has never been such friends, -just because we've got the baby. Our baby. His and mine. Not yours, and -she never will be."</p> - -<p>The child whose future was at stake was disturbed by the clamor of her -mother's voice and woke up shrieking.</p> - -<p>Mary waited a moment or two in embarrassment, uncertain how to get -herself out of the room. In the end she went away in silence.</p> - -<p>When she reached home, she sat down and wrote to her daughter-in-law:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -Woodworth Lodge,<br /> -Campden Hill, W.,<br /> -<i>November 9, 1910</i>.<br /> -<br /> -<i>Dear Mary</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I am afraid that you misunderstood the spirit in which I paid you -my visit to-day. I feel that you may have imagined that my proposal -for you to let me assume the responsibility for Molly's future meant -that the little girl would be taken away from you. What I intended -was that she should be the means of bringing us all together again. -Perhaps in a little time you will be able to look at the situa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>tion -with less bitterness. I do so hope that you will. Please accept this -check as a belated wedding present and</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Believe me to be,<br /> -Yours affectionately,<br /> -Mary Alison.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>To which she received the following answer from her daughter-in-law:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -<i>Dear Mrs. Alison</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>Thank you for the check which I would rather not accept if you don't -mind. I'm sorry I was rude when you came to see me, but I should only -be rude again, and so it's better for you not to come.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Yours sincerely,<br /> -Mary Alison.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>And from her son:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -<i>My dear Mother</i>,<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>I'm afraid you will think us ungracious in the way we've received -your kindness. I'm afraid that Mary allowed herself to give vent to a -good deal of the resentment she has had ten years to accumulate.</i></p> - -<p><i>I feel I ought to have written to you about poor Father's death, -but for various reasons I was naturally a little shy of intruding -myself at such a moment, which I'm sure you will understand. I expect -you know that from time to time Father very kindly helped me with -loans. I should like to be in a posi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>tion to repay these, but that is -impossible. However, I seem to be fairly well fixed up now in a job, -and I would rather not incur any more obligations. It is better, I -feel, that Mary and I should continue to lead a life apart from the -rest of the family. Please do not think that I am giving way to a -false pride in taking up this attitude. I do feel that I owe a duty -to Mary as the mother of our little girl. I wish I was a better hand -at explaining myself. But she would never fit into the sort of life -she would have to lead if she were to be "adopted" now. You may say -that she never would have fitted in. I do not wish to give the idea -that I am reproaching you for the past, but I do believe that if that -day you came to the hotel where we were staying you had welcomed her -as a daughter you would have found her responsive. She has become -hard during these ten years, because, poor little girl, she felt that -she had spoilt things for me. She was becoming really quite difficult -to manage in her moods until Molly was born. But now, thank God, we -are quite happy together, and so long as I can keep my job I believe -that we shall go on being happy. I very much fear, however, that if -she felt that she was not considered good enough to bring up her baby -she would sink back into her former state of resentment, and the -peace which we now enjoy would be destroyed.</i></p> - -<p><i>So please forgive me, dear Mother, for the way we have received your -kind visit. I do often think about you and wish that things had gone -differently.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> I want you to believe that it is very difficult for me -not to come and see you. But I know that if I did I should be weak -and try to persuade Mary to do what you want. And then there would -be difficulties, and I am so tired of squabbles. I feel wretched at -writing to you like this, but I've braced myself up to do it, and -it's done.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Your loving son,<br /> -Geoffrey.</i><br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p>Geoffrey's letter did not have the effect upon his mother of a rebuff. -At any rate she had no emotion of mortification or wounded self-esteem -when she read it. She felt as if she had tried to bridge the chasm -between the living and the dead and failed. Geoffrey had passed out -of her life as irrevocably as Richard. She shivered for a moment in -the chill of age and wondered how she should occupy herself for the -remainder of her life. So long as Jemmie had been alive she had always -had somebody who wanted her solicitude, but now that Jemmie was dead -nobody seemed to want her. Yes, she ought to have behaved differently -ten years ago. She ought not to have let the loss of Richard embitter -her like that. It was her own fault that Geoffrey and his wife wanted -to live their life apart from her. She could leave money to her -grandchild. That was something. It was thoughtful of Jemmie not to -attempt to say what was to be done with his money. Her own, of which -he had always had complete con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>trol, naturally remained her own. It -was to be hoped that Muriel would soon be cured of this Socialistic -craze. She did not want to have her money spent upon furthering the -schemes of faddists. Jemmie would have hated that. Jemmie was always -so normal and sensible. If he did have that temporary infatuation, it -was her own fault. Twenty years ago she had neglected him, and he had -sought consolation elsewhere. Ten years ago she had neglected Geoffrey, -and he too had found consolation elsewhere. Before it was too late she -must make an effort to understand and sympathize with Muriel. She had -perhaps been too ready to believe that the shyness and awkwardness of -Muriel's youth sprang from a natural lack of affection. Not that Muriel -was so very young nowadays; but the rift had begun when she was still a -schoolgirl, and all rifts tended to widen with time.</p> - -<p>"Dear child, I wish you'd tell me something about the various movements -in which you're interested. I daresay I've been stupidly conservative -in my attitude. You know, everything has changed very much during the -last ten years. You'll have to be patient with people like me who were -brought up to think that Queen Victoria always had been reigning and -always would be reigning."</p> - -<p>Muriel stared at her mother from those candid blue eyes of hers.</p> - -<p>"It's rather difficult to explain suddenly in a few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> words the -culmination of centuries of human thought," she said.</p> - -<p>Mary laughed.</p> - -<p>"You mustn't snub me like that, Muriel, unless you want me to remain -hidebound by my own prejudices and conventions."</p> - -<p>"But, Mother, it isn't really worth while for you to believe in what I -believe. You must be young to believe it. You must believe that before -you die you'll see your dreams brought to pass."</p> - -<p>"Am I so old then?"</p> - -<p>"You haven't forty years of activity before you. I'm not being very -discouraging when I say that."</p> - -<p>"Have you forty years before you, dear child?"</p> - -<p>"I hope so."</p> - -<p>"1950," her mother mused. "So you think that, when you're fifteen -years older than I, you'll see the millennium? It sounds a long way -off—1950. But, Muriel, you've no idea how near it really is and how -little people will have changed."</p> - -<p>"You said just now how much they had changed in the last ten years."</p> - -<p>"I think that in these ten years they have accomplished what ordinarily -would have begun long before and taken longer. You can't expect to have -another reign like Queen Victoria's."</p> - -<p>"No, thank goodness," said Muriel fervidly.</p> - -<p>"England wouldn't be England without that reign."</p> - -<p>"The question is, 'Is England our England?'"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> Muriel countered. "I -should say that England belongs to a few rich people and that the -reason why it does was the worship of money during the Victorian Age."</p> - -<p>"I don't think that people worshiped money then more than they did at -any other period of the world's history. People will always worship -money, because people worship themselves, and they think that money -gives them the opportunity to express that worship."</p> - -<p>"It's disgusting," Muriel ejaculated.</p> - -<p>"Yes, but have you ever thought how easy it is to be disgusted by -anything to do with money when one has plenty oneself? I feel that the -best that can be said for your Socialist state is that if nobody could -have more than a certain amount and everybody had that amount it might -end in people's despising money."</p> - -<p>"Oh, my dear mother," Muriel burst in impatiently, "must you really -trot out the old legend that Socialism means equal money for all? It -doesn't really mean anything of the kind."</p> - -<p>In a moment Muriel was embarked upon a passionate disquisition about -the real aims of Socialism; and Mary felt with a thrill of pleasure -that she had lured her daughter into revealing some of herself without -being aware that she was doing so and in the knowledge becoming -self-conscious and reserved.</p> - -<p>After their talk, in which Muriel admitted that her mother displayed -an unusual ability to understand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> her point of view, there seemed -the likelihood of a friendship springing up between the mother and -daughter. Mary talked to her about Geoffrey, and it was agreed between -them that Muriel should pay a visit to Wood Green.</p> - -<p>"For perhaps with tact Geoffrey's wife may grow less suspicious of my -advances. I was too precipitate when I visited them in November. I was -so much distressed by the rooms and so much upset to think about my -own behavior's being the cause of it all, that I foolishly suggested -bringing the little girl to live with us here. But if you were to go, -dear child, you would manage better than I can to reassure his wife."</p> - -<p>A week or two later Muriel set out to pay her first visit; but when she -reached 45 Almond Terrace the vulturine landlady told her that Mr. and -Mrs. Alison had gone away without an address.</p> - -<p>"There's nothing to be done now," Mary lamented. "I left it until it -was too late."</p> - -<p>"You did all you could, mother."</p> - -<p>"<i>Now</i> when it's too late. By the way, dear, I want to give a few very -quiet dinner-parties during May. You won't find them too much of a -bore?"</p> - -<p>"Not if you want to have dinner-parties, mother."</p> - -<p>"Well, to be frank, I've been telling myself for some time that you -ought to be thinking about getting married. You'll be twenty-six soon, -you know, dear, and I <i>should</i> like to see you happily settled."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> - -<p>Muriel's face hardened to that old expression her mother knew and -dreaded from her schooldays.</p> - -<p>"Mother, I don't intend to get married. The idea is repugnant to me."</p> - -<p>"But, Muriel dear, you'll forgive me for saying that you cannot -possibly know unless you're married if marriage is repugnant. I can -assure you that it's impossible to say anything about it beforehand. -Now I was brought up in complete ignorance of facts that I know you -consider the merest commonplace of knowledge. I did have a few qualms, -I admit; but in my case those qualms were due to ignorance."</p> - -<p>Muriel thereupon sprang her mine.</p> - -<p>"I hadn't intended to say anything about what I'm going to tell -you until next autumn; but it doesn't seem fair to let you give -dinner-parties under the delusion that you're likely to make a good -match for me by doing so. Mother dear, I've decided to become a -sister-of-mercy, and so marriage is utterly remote from my thoughts."</p> - -<p>Mary stared at her daughter in amazement.</p> - -<p>"Muriel! You extraordinary girl! I thought you hated Christianity. -I thought you abominated clergymen. Why, I thought you were only -interested in Socialism. I'd no conception that you were giving your -mind to religion. The two things seem poles asunder."</p> - -<p>"Do they, mother dear?" said Muriel with a smile. "But now I can't -imagine any socialism worth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> having unless it is based upon religion. -Equally I can't imagine any religion that isn't the inspiration of a -true socialism. I've been thinking about this for a long time now—ever -since I went to Midnight Mass last Christmas Eve. It reached me like an -inspiration. The truth of it, I mean. My mind is absolutely made up."</p> - -<p>Mary had never been so completely astonished in her life. She herself -during these last months had wished once or twice that she had thought -more about religion, so that now in her loneliness she might have -possessed what was evidently to many women an absolute consolation for -everything. But it was too late to begin, she had decided. And now here -was Muriel wrapped up in religion apparently and taking it so seriously -that she intended to become a sister-of-mercy.</p> - -<p>"But how could you become religious just by going to a service at an -unusual time?" the mother asked.</p> - -<p>"I haven't become religious now," Muriel pointed out. "I hate religious -people. Though that's a silly thing to say, because I am very -'religious' in a different sense. I tell you, I suddenly believed that -Christianity was true; as soon as I believed that I wanted to devote -myself to the service of Christianity. I thought that the life of a -sister-of-mercy was the life for a Christian woman. I realized that all -my theories about human nature were worth nothing without Divine grace -to achieve them."</p> - -<p>Mary had a flash of illumination.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Then it was from religious motives that you suddenly became so much -quieter and sweeter. I was congratulating myself on effecting that -change. Dear child, I wish that I could be given an assurance like -yours."</p> - -<p>"I always pray that you may receive it."</p> - -<p>"Thank you, dear child. That is very kind and thoughtful of you. Of -course, I can't argue with you about your resolve. I have really no -right to argue on such a subject. I only hope that you will find as -much happiness in the life you have chosen for yourself as you might -have found in marriage. Which I'm sure you would have found," her -mother added.</p> - -<p>In the autumn Muriel entered the Community she had chosen, and the -widow was left alone in the big house on Campden Hill.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="Chapter_Seven" id="Chapter_Seven"></a><i>Chapter Seven</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE GRANDMOTHER</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><i>Chapter Seven: The Grandmother</i></p> - - -<p>Mary's visitors had left early that December afternoon, and when -François came in to turn on the light and draw the curtains, she told -him that she would ring for him presently, because she had a slight -headache and preferred to sit for a while quietly <i>dans la crépuscule</i>. -The butler, who had a grave, ecclesiastical dignity, bowed and left -Madame to her choice. In the door he turned for a moment and in a tone -which deprecated anything that might savor of officiousness in the -suggestion begged leave to ask if Madame would like her maid summoned. -She shook her head, and he withdrew with another bow that sought -to express his perfect comprehension of Madame's desire to be left -entirely alone.</p> - -<p>Paris was unusually still this afternoon, so still that one seemed to -hear the twilight falling upon the world in blue waves of silence. -Usually at this hour the <i>salon</i> was crowded with voluble women -drinking tea or with men sipping port wine and nibbling ratafias. It -was lucky that this afternoon when she had a headache they should all -have gone so early. What was the time? Only a little after four. She -ought to have told François that she would not be at home to anybody -else who called. She made a movement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> to ring the bell; but even -so slight an action was seeming a bore, and she sank back again in -the arm-chair, telling herself that François, most accomplished of -servants, would know instinctively that she desired to receive no more -this afternoon. She hoped that the headache would vanish before dinner, -because it was so difficult to have a satisfactory <i>séance</i> unless one -was feeling in just the right mood to concentrate. Madame de Sarlovèze -had been so emphatic about the abilities of the new crystal-gazer who -with remarkable predictions of her clients' futures and even more -remarkable knowledge of her clients' pasts had deeply impressed all -Paris this autumn. The success of a personality like this Sicilian -fortune-teller helped one to realize that the war was over. Not that -fortune-tellers had not flourished during the war. Indeed, they could -never have been so prosperous; but it was like old times to hear one's -friends talking about the latest crystal-gazer, the latest dancer, the -latest tenor, the latest nerve-doctor as if until one had fallen in -with the fashion and succumbed to their performances one was hopelessly -<i>démodée</i>.</p> - -<p>From some shadowy corner of the inner <i>salon</i> a Siamese cat advanced -with outwardly an air of the most supercilious indifference, which was -contradicted by miaows of greeting that were to the miaows of ordinary -cats as a violoncello to a violin.</p> - -<p>"Pierrette!" Mary exclaimed gladly.</p> - -<p>The small cat flirted her kinked tail in response,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> but lest she might -seem to have displayed too much dependence upon a poor human being at -once sat down and began to clean a slim chocolate paw.</p> - -<p>"Pierrette! Aren't you coming to talk to me?"</p> - -<p>The answering miaow was almost too deep for a violoncello's capacity. -Indeed to call it a miaow was an insult to the jungle noise it was.</p> - -<p>"The people have gone, Pierrette. Do come and talk to me. I'll give you -all my attention."</p> - -<p>Pierrette looked steadily at her friend from large round eyes, the -pupils of which distended by the approach of night glowed in the -firelight. Presently she drew near to Mary's chair, upon the brocade of -which she defiantly sharpened her claws before jumping up with a trill -on the black silk lap to which she had been invited. Here she settled -down couchant to regard the fire.</p> - -<p>"Dear little cat," Mary murmured.</p> - -<p>Pierrette's ears twitched back to take in the endearment; the faintest -quiver of her tail showed that she had heard, understood, and agreed -with the description of herself.</p> - -<p>"I was saying to myself that it was getting quite like old times in -Paris."</p> - -<p>The cat began to purr in approbation of European peace.</p> - -<p>Mary stroked Pierrette's back, which was the color of <i>café-au-lait</i>, -soft and glossy as chiffon velvet. Contact with the small and shapely -creature upon her knee was soothing. The grace and youth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> and vitality -of the cat were so superabundant that the human being whom she had -decided to favor by making use of was refreshed. It was impossible -to feel old with this pulsating life so near to one. Mary patted her -affectionately.</p> - -<p>"Darling little cat!"</p> - -<p>Pierrette's tail really wagged in response to such genuine admiration -and love, and because her tail could not express quite all her -appreciation she dug her claws into Mary's knee and pressed her warm -body closer than before, purring now with a steady monotony of pleasure.</p> - -<p>The dusk had deepened, and Mary's head drooped in meditation upon -those old times. Had the move to Paris been a success? Or was not her -enjoyment of life here an illusion caused by the stimulus of the war? -Had her activity, her ceaseless activity during these last six years, -in which her hair had grown white, been genuine or artificial? She -had seen so many women pretending—not wilfully, but mesmerized into -supposing that they really desired to be useful—yes, so many women -pretending an activity that was only another aspect of a woman's lust -for what was the fashion. Had her Red Cross work been anything more -than that? Yet, after all, did the motive matter if the action was -good and useful? Questions these that were unanswerable, questions -that would never be asked if she were not suffering from the reaction. -Thanks to the war her move to Paris had been a success, a great -success.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> She might have found it hard otherwise to have passed these -last years. When in 1913, bored with the big empty house, she decided -to give up Woodworth Lodge, her imagination had seized upon Paris as -the place to live, because she was already beginning to exist only in -the past. That meant old age. Youth lives in the future; middle-age -stagnates in the present; old age lives again, but alas, in the past, -lives with only the ghost of its former life, always in the past. Her -first year in Paris had been occupied in furnishing the house and -preparing it to be a suitable place in which she might for the rest of -her time here sit by the fire and dream of the past. Then the war had -happened, and for a few years she had felt so much younger, but now, -when it was finished, so much older than the years spent by the war -justified her in feeling. She had made many friends. Indeed, she had -never possessed so many as now. But these friendships formed late in -life had little value. Friendship needed the future. There must exist -in any friendship worth having a kind of physical exultation. She was -fonder of this little cat than of all her Paris friends, much fonder. -Pierrette was young. Youth! Youth! It was not that she longed to be -young again herself. That would be foolish and indeed an undignified -repining; but to be surrounded by youth, that was surely a legitimate -desire.</p> - -<p>"And it's that of which fate has robbed me," she sighed aloud.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> - -<p>Pierrette wagged her tail. The sound of her friend's voice was so -pleasant to hear, and the silken knee was so delicate a resting-place -for a royal cat. This soft-spoken human being deserved a little -attention. Her hands were tactful. Not like Célestine's hands. -Célestine was the maid who had taken the place of Adèle, dead before -her mistress returned to Paris, a move which would have given Adèle so -much pleasure. Pierrette did not care for Célestine, who was always -lifting her off delightful nests of lace and silk. Célestine, in -Pierrette's opinion, had the hands of a butcher rather than of a lady's -maid. The thought of Célestine gave her a <i>fisson</i>, and she yawned in -disgust.</p> - -<p>Mary held Pierrette so that the cat's equilibrium should not be -disturbed while she leaned over to ring the bell. It was morbid to -sit here in the twilight thinking about youth. But when François had -arranged to his satisfaction the folds of the brocaded curtains and -when he had turned on the lights and left the room in a radiancy of -rose, Mary could not think about what she called practical things, -which meant the <i>séance</i> she had arranged for to-night. Her headache -was gone; but the shadows of the past which had crept out of their -lurking-places in the twilight were still in the <i>salon</i>, not visible -indeed, but all the more hauntingly insistent because they were not -visible. The room seemed vaster and lonelier now that every corner of -it was illuminated. Mary felt infinitely small and utterly deserted. -It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> only the company of the small cat which kept her from getting -up and hurrying away in panic. "<i>Le demon du midi</i>," she found herself -repeating. What specter begotten of gloom and shadow could outlive -the horror that existed in a desert of light? Her nerves were upset. -Perhaps she was indulging too frequently in these spiritualistic -experiments. But what else was there to do? If she were to renounce all -activity, she would just sit shriveling slowly before the fire. After -all, sixty was not such a great age. One would have to be at least -seventy before one really considered oneself old. And probably even at -seventy one would find that seventy was by no means the great age it -had formerly seemed. Even eighty? Grandmamma had been eighty when she -died. She had looked very old; but had she really felt old? Did anybody -ever really feel old? What seemed so bad about the arrangement of human -life was the amount of time wasted at the beginning and the end. The -first ten years, for example, what were they worth? Mary was watering -her nasturtiums in that abandoned room of the warehouse in Paternoster -Row. "Old stock!" She could hear the very tones of Mr. Fawcus' voice. -And the sunlight on the golden cross of St. Paul's. It flashed upon her -inner eye more vividly than all the sunlight of the last twenty years -put together. A sudden pity seized her for the two old people who had -fostered her and from whom she had been so abruptly snatched. She saw -Mr. Fawcus with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> big bandana handkerchief wiping away the tears -and waving his farewell from Dover Quay. How little she had understood -what it cost them to lose her! How gayly she had set out for Paris! -She ought when she was older to have visited them. It was wrong of her -grandmother to forbid all intercourse. Suppose she should be given the -guardianship of Geoffrey's little daughter, should she try to keep her -away from her mother? Mary tried to think that she would not, although -it was hard to be charitable about Geoffrey's wife. When he was killed -early in 1915, it surely ought not to have been impossible for his -wife to forgive. She had written to her so anxiously. Perhaps it had -been a mistake to inclose another check. A woman like that might have -supposed that she was trying to buy her. Still, to send back the check -torn in half, that surely was not justifiable after so many years. -She had not suggested that the little girl should be handed over to -herself entirely. She had only asked for a few months every year. Would -Geoffrey really have wished that his mother should be debarred from -helping her granddaughter? Had it really been Geoffrey replying the -other evening through the medium of <i>la planchette</i>? <i>Mary must go to -her grandmother.</i> Nobody except herself knew anything about Geoffrey's -little girl, and she herself had certainly not guided the pencil. -It was all very well for skeptics to say that one guided the pencil -unconsciously. Anything could be explained by auto-sug<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>gestion; but it -was not reasonable to explain the inexplicable by something every bit -as inexplicable. If it was auto-suggestion, why had she never succeeded -in getting a communication from Richard's spirit. If ever anybody -desired with all her heart and soul to speak with one dead, she desired -to speak with Richard. Yet he was silent. With all the will she had to -believe that he would come to her out of that immense world of death, -she had never received any message that could possibly be ascribed to -him. How hard she had often tried to twist those unintelligible scrawls -into words of hope and assurance from Richard! If auto-suggestion could -have done it, surely auto-suggestion would have done it. All theories -about the world of spirits were no doubt inadequate; but it seemed -natural to suppose that year by year the dead moved farther and farther -away from the earth, and therefore that Richard was already beyond her -reach. Geoffrey, on the other hand, died comparatively a short time -ago. Moreover, without being ridiculous one might imagine that the -number of people killed every day during the war would produce—— -Mary paused. She could not help feeling that the picture of a crowded -railway junction which her ideas of the confines of eternity implied -was rather absurd. Perhaps the Sicilian crystal-gazer would throw some -light upon the problem this evening. She would make a great effort -to put out of her mind the notion of being given the guardianship -of Geoffrey's little girl. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> would concentrate upon something -entirely different. Pierre for instance. He too had been killed out -in West Africa early in the war. It was the end he would have chosen -for himself. It was a fine death for a man over sixty to be killed in -action, a fine death for the boy who fifty years ago had followed the -drum-taps along that white road of France. It had given her a thrill of -pride to read of his career since he and she parted forty years ago. He -was one of those who had helped to prepare his country for the effort -she had to make to save herself from the ancient enemy. Thus had they -written of him who had loved herself as well as his country forty years -ago. Such a little time ago really. If she shut her eyes and thought -for a moment, she could reconjure every moment of that last meeting in -the drawing-room of the King's Gate house.</p> - -<p>"I wonder what you would have thought of Mac?" she asked, stroking -Pierrette, who accepted the caress with a purr that showed how far she -was from grasping the insult of such a question.</p> - -<p>"Mac was a dog, you know. And you don't much care for dogs, do you, my -dear?"</p> - -<p>Pierrette continued to purr when Mary patted her, laughing.</p> - -<p>"Conceited little cat!"</p> - -<p>And then once more her consciousness was flooded with the apprehension -of how much Pierrette meant to her. Those fragile paws soft as -flower-buds with thorns for the unwary, that foolish tail not much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> -bigger than a small cigar and of the same color, and most of all those -big blue eyes indifferent as chalcedony, supercilious as a prince of -Siam, and for a ball of wool sent rolling across the floor wild as a -leopard that waits to spring upon a sheep, how much they represented in -her lonely existence.</p> - -<p>"Pierrette, would you like to be married?"</p> - -<p>The little cat put out her claws with the air of an affronted virgin.</p> - -<p>"Wouldn't you like to have a nice husband to play with when I'm too -busy to play with you? Wouldn't you like to have dear little snow-white -kittens? Because your kittens would be snow-white when they were born, -you know. Would you be a good mother?"</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding Pierrette's lack of interest in the suggestion, Mary -was much taken up by the notion of obtaining a mate for her. It came to -seem of the utmost importance that Pierrette should hand on her charm -to kittens like herself. The search for a Siamese male as well-bred, -as beautiful, and as intelligent as herself occupied Mary's time more -successfully than spiritualism. It happened that the crystal-gazer -recommended by Madame de Sarlovèze was, at any rate so far as Mary's -<i>séance</i> was concerned, a complete failure and unable to perceive -anything except various indeterminate shapes which she most dubiously -likened to pigeons. When nobody present could muster up the faintest -interest in pigeons, the charlatan (thus already Mary char<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>acterized -her entertainer) suggested even more dubiously that they might be swans.</p> - -<p>"Or geese," Mary had muttered sharply, whereupon Madame Diana had -turned sulky and complained that she could not hope to have any success -with the crystal when scoffers were present.</p> - -<p>"The woman's an obvious fraud with her pigeons," Mary declared; and -she turned her attention to a husband for Pierrette, a commodity which -was unprocurable in Paris. A friend assured her that the best European -strain of Siamese cats was to be found in Vienna, and in spite of the -difficulties of traveling Mary would have set out for Vienna if another -friend had not suggested that the famous strain would by now probably -have succumbed to the effects of the war. In the end, she went to -England, accompanied by Pierrette, for by now nothing else mattered -except that Pierrette should have kittens.</p> - -<p>Mary took rooms in the Victoria Palace Hotel overlooking Kensington -Gardens, where with Célestine and Pierrette she settled down to spend -Christmas. The gayety of the golden shops in High Street reminded her -too poignantly of Christmastides when the boys came home from school -for the holidays; and when Muriel who had heard of her mother's arrival -in England wrote to suggest that she should spend Christmas as the -guest of the Community, it seemed a wise way of escaping from the -sadness of memory.</p> - -<p>The house of which Muriel was sister-in-charge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> was in a remote -Gloucestershire village and was used as a home for old women whom -the Order befriended. Mary felt rather like one of those old women -herself when she attended vespers in the little chapel on the evening -of her arrival. It did not seem credible that the capable sister of -whom everybody, including herself, stood so much in awe was her own -daughter. Muriel appeared not a day older than when she entered the -Order ten years ago.</p> - -<p>"I was wrong, dear," her mother said, when she was sitting in the -parlor with Muriel during recreation on Christmas Eve. "I was quite -wrong, dear, to oppose your becoming a nun. Your intention took me so -completely by surprise that I never had time to imagine the lines on -which you might develop. It is only now when I see you mistress of your -own house, as it were, that I realize how perfectly the life suits your -temperament."</p> - -<p>And that night when after Mass the old women, flotsam from life's -seat at last forever still, knelt round the crib where lay the image -of the infant Saviour, Mary began to apprehend that there was in -the Christian religion something more satisfying than the ambiguous -promises and performances of crystal-gazers, than the always to be -suspected rappings and tappings of mediums. Her mind went back to hours -spent with Mademoiselle Lucinge in her gray room at Châteaublanc when -the garden was melodious with autumnal birdsong and above the notes of -robin-redbreasts Mademoiselle spoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> to her about God. This summer she -would revisit Châteaublanc, and perhaps in the little church where her -old school-mistress had prayed for the woes of France to be lightened -she should find that perfect assurance of something beyond which had -been denied to her grandmother, but granted to her own daughter. She -looked across to where in the flickering candlelight Muriel knelt -praying, her eyes turned heavenward and full of tears. Tears for what? -For the mere imagination of the reality of that Divine Infant in the -manger of Bethlehem. To Muriel's limpid faith had been granted all that -motherhood could confer on woman. To her kneeling there belonged a baby -that would never grow up to compass her disillusionment, a baby that -promised to all who believed in Him immortal life. Hers, hers by the -gift of faith.</p> - -<p>Yet when Mary tried to give herself what she was able to understand had -been given to Muriel, she could only perceive the image and miss the -reality it tried to express. The faces of the old women kneeling round -the crib appeared as meaningless as a row of pippins on the shelf of a -store-room. For the sake of a comfortable bed and plenty of food they -would have been every bit as willing to kneel round <i>la planchette</i>.</p> - -<p>"Do you believe, dear child, in the possibility of communicating with -the dead?" Mary asked her daughter at the first opportunity she was -given of talking to her in private.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> - -<p>"If you mean, do I believe in spiritualism, I certainly do not," said -Muriel severely. "And if there <i>is</i> anything in it, I should say that -it was controlled by the spirits of evil. I wish you wouldn't practice -such a wretched substitute for worship," she continued. "I cannot -understand why people who profess to believe in such hocus-pocus do -not submit themselves to the demands of a true religion. It is surely -just as easy to accept the doctrines of Christianity as the frauds of -mediums."</p> - -<p>"There are some people, Muriel, who think that real religion has been -ruined by ecclesiastical bigotry. Personally I have never been able to -accept a man-made religion. You see, dear, I have been so much in the -world. I have suffered so many disappointments and disillusionments -that the notion of a man standing between myself and the hereafter is -repugnant."</p> - -<p>"My dear mother, if you will forgive me for saying so, you are really -talking nonsense. All your life you have been accustomed to rely upon -yourself instead of upon God. You cannot expect to receive faith if you -do not ask for it."</p> - -<p>"Auto-suggestion!" Mary exclaimed. "When I receive a direct -communication from the world of spirits, I am told it is -auto-suggestion. But surely to receive a belief that you expect to -receive can only be called auto-suggestion. Mind, I do not say that -what you believe is not true. I am perfectly sure in any case that it -is highly suitable for you to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>lieve it, for I have never seen you -looking better. Nothing could have given me greater delight than to -behold your happiness in the life to which you have dedicated yourself. -I am only trying to suggest that there may be other ways of approaching -the unseen and, however inadequately, of solving the great problem that -lies before us all, a problem which I am likely to solve, I hope, many -years before you. I hold no brief for spiritualism. In fact, the more -I see of its practice the less I am attracted to it. I envy you your -faith, dear child. I envy and respect it. And I've greatly enjoyed my -little visit."</p> - -<p>"It is very peaceful down here," Muriel agreed with a smile.</p> - -<p>"And old age will have no terrors for you," her mother murmured. -"Because I understand so well that for you old age will simply seem a -slow and tranquil drawing nearer to God. Happy little girl of mine!"</p> - -<p>"Yes, I am happy."</p> - -<p>"And that makes me happy, for it helps me to realize that so far as my -children are concerned I have not been a complete failure. I wish I -could stay here longer, but I've left my little cat in London with only -my maid to look after her, and I think I ought to be getting back."</p> - -<p>Mary perceived that an obligation to a cat was something utterly -incomprehensible to her daughter, and when she kissed her good-by, -kissed those cheeks cold and faintly flushed like the petals of a -Christ<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>mas rose, she felt that she was parting from a creature more -remote than either of her dead sons.</p> - -<p>"Flesh of my flesh," Mary thought. "And yet my little cat is nearer -to me. Those are the kind of puzzles that really do make human life a -riddle."</p> - -<p>Mary remembered how sometimes her grandmother had tried to draw near to -herself, because the two of them were all that was left of a family.</p> - -<p>"She must have supposed that my remoteness came from my mother's blood. -But it probably would not have made much difference if I had been her -own daughter. I suppose that we all grow to resent those first years -of dependence upon other people. I suppose we all care only to think -of ourselves as complete personalities. And is there anything more to -come? Is there? Is there? Or do we instinctively know that this life -is the whole of our individual life and for that reason do we cling so -hard to being ourselves while we live it? And when we are growing old, -do we crave for the contact of youth in order to delude ourselves with -the belief that we shall grow young again in death?"</p> - -<p>When Mary reached the hotel, she was met by Célestine with a grave and -frightened countenance.</p> - -<p>In a moment Mary guessed what had happened. "Pierrette is ill."</p> - -<p>The maid burst into tears.</p> - -<p>"Very ill?"</p> - -<p>"<i>Madame, Pierrette est morte. J'ai télégraphié ce matin. Le medicin -était très brave pour elle,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> mais la grippe, Madame, la grippe! Elle a -souffert beaucoup, la pauvre petite!</i>"</p> - -<p>The manager of the hotel drew near to express his condolences and -to explain that he had assisted Mrs. Alison's maid in every way by -telephoning for the best veterinary doctor in Knightsbridge. He had -advised Mrs. Alison's being communicated with by telegram as soon as -the animal's serious condition was obvious. Yesterday it had seemed -unnecessary to summon Mrs. Alison back from the country. Of course, -if he had known then that the illness was likely to terminate fatally -he should have done so. He appreciated what the loss of such a pet -meant. Only this summer his wife had lost a pet cockatoo, and she had -been quite inconsolable for two days. One did not expect a cockatoo -to die suddenly. One always thought of them as living forever. He was -sorry that it had not been possible to keep the dead cat in the hotel, -but Mrs. Alison would understand that it might be liable to create an -unpleasant impression upon the other guests. So many people dreaded -influenza in any shape. It was with the deepest regret that he had -ordered the remains to be taken away; but he was sure that the sight of -the poor little dead animal would have been a grief for Mrs. Alison. -Could he send anything up to her room? It was early for tea; but, after -her journey and the sad news, perhaps Mrs. Alison would like her tea -early.</p> - -<p>"We shall return to Paris to-night," said Mary.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> "Go and pack my -things, Célestine. I do not wish to go upstairs to my room. I shall -take a little walk in the Gardens by myself. By myself."</p> - -<p>It was an afternoon of silver frost and sunshine under a pale blue -December sky. The walks of Kensington Gardens were thronged with -children whose vivid laughter made Mary feel of less account in the -human scene than one of the skeleton leaves lying on a bed of last -year's flowers. She tried to escape from the sounds of youth and -merriment; but wherever she walked the air was full of laughter, the -crystalline air tinkled with laughter.</p> - -<p>Had Pierrette wanted her at the end? Had she failed the one living -creature in the whole world that might have looked to her? Question for -evermore unanswerable, regret for evermore unquenchable, longing for -evermore unappeasable!</p> - -<p>She had not felt able to revisit the room where she had left Pierrette -sitting so cosily by the fire, when she set out to Gloucestershire; and -yet she had been able to decide to go back to the house in Paris which -without Pierrette would seem emptier, vaster, lonelier than ever.</p> - -<p>If now she could pray!</p> - -<p>For what?</p> - -<p>For mercy upon her old age.</p> - -<p>For something to lead her out of the shadows.</p> - -<p>Darling little cat! Not ever again to feel those silken chocolate paws. -Not ever again to hear that deep miaow, nor behold those unyielding -eyes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> blue, nor watch that absurd tail respond to her lightest -murmur on the assumption that any sound uttered in an empty room was -intended for herself.</p> - -<p>An empty room? Empty indeed now, a thousand times emptier now that -Pierrette was dead.</p> - -<p>If she could only pray!</p> - -<p>Would that serene daughter of hers be able to pray if she found herself -alone like this under the trees that looked not a day older than when -forty years ago she had walked beneath their boughs with Mac? Would not -Muriel suffer a dismay? Would not she doubt the value of her prayers?</p> - -<p>There would be no communication with the spirit of Pierrette. There -would be no deep-voiced miaows scrawled by <i>la planchette</i>, not with -the help of all the auto-suggestion in her being. She was irrevocably -vanished, as irrevocably as a flower.</p> - -<p>The little cat was not. Her grace and beauty were lost; her lithe and -shapely form was destroyed. Her memory would endure for a little while -until her friend died; and when she died there would never have been a -cat called Pierrette. She would be less than one of the crushed shells -among these myriads of crushed shells that were strewn upon the walks -of Kensington Gardens. How heedless was the laughter of the children -all around her, and yet there were few of those children who would not -themselves know sorrow before they were old. Would they hear then the -echo of their youth's heedless laughter?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> - -<p>When Mary came back to the house in Paris she found a letter waiting -for her.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -92 Carminia Road,<br /> -Balham, S.W.,<br /> -<i>December 26, 1920</i>.<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>Dear Madam</i>,</p> - -<p><i>This is to inform you that last week Mrs. Alison, your -daughter-in-law, died of the influenza very suddenly the week before -Xmas. As I understood from her who was her sister that you were -anxious to have the care of her little girl, and as me and my husband -cannot undertake the responsibility we are taking the liberty of -asking if you would kindly accept delivery of the little girl as per -this letter. My sister, Mrs. Alison, kept your address in her writing -materials and I have taken the liberty to write to you direct hoping -I may be pardoned for the intrusion. She is a very nice well-behaved -little girl and my husband and me are very sorry to part with her -which we wouldn't want to do if we hadn't six of our own which -makes it a bit difficult in a small house and not being very rich -people. The little girl could be dispatched to Paris to suit your -convenience if you would kindly remit cost of sending her as per your -instructions which we duly await.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>And I am,<br /> -Yours truly,<br /> -Emily Bocock.</i><br /> -(<i>Mrs. Alfred Bocock.</i>)<br /> -</p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Célestine! Célestine!"</p> - -<p>"Madame?" cried Célestine, running to find out what her mistress wanted.</p> - -<p>"Célestine, pack my things, we are going back to London."</p> - -<p>"<i>Tout de suit, Madame?</i>"</p> - -<p>"Don't stop to argue, Célestine. Pack! Pack!"</p> - -<p>The preparations for their return to London were no sooner finished -than Mary was seized with nervousness. Suppose she presented herself at -this house to fetch her granddaughter and the little girl, who by now -was twelve and likely to have a mind of her own, refused to accompany -her? It would be a dreadfully inauspicious beginning to what she hoped -was going to be the happiest time since Richard was alive. It would -be easier to welcome the child here by herself. She should feel less -self-conscious, and the child separated from her companions would be -more ready to accept her grandmother. If she had a house in London it -would be different; but she should be afraid to take her to an hotel. -Yes, it was better to be patient for an extra day and send Célestine to -fetch her. Besides, there was much to prepare here. There was Mary's -bedroom to be got ready. She must choose the furniture herself. She -knew exactly what a child of twelve would like. There were toys to -buy. She would not be too old for dolls and a really good doll's-house -and a variety of games which perhaps she would enjoy playing with her -grandmother. It might be advisable to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>gin looking about for a good -governess. If only she could find somebody like Mademoiselle Lucinge. -Yes, it would be wiser to send Célestine to fetch her. Célestine could -be trusted? Or should she telegraph to Muriel and ask her to arrange -for a trustworthy person to escort the child? No, that might delay -matters. Muriel was so particular, and in Gloucestershire she might not -be able to find the right person at once. No, Célestine must go.</p> - -<p>On New Year's Day Mary was sitting by the fire-side reading a yellow -French novel. The doors of the <i>salon</i> were flung open by François, and -she heard the voice of her maid.</p> - -<p>"<i>Allez-y, mademoiselle. Voilà Madame qui vous attend.</i>"</p> - -<p>Thin black legs moving in gingerly steps over the gleaming parquet. A -shy face hiding itself in the wraps of the long journey.</p> - -<p>"My darling child, here you are at last!"</p> - -<p>"Oh, grandmother, you've thrown your book in the fire. Shall I pick it -out for you?"</p> - -<p>Yes, a slight Cockney accent, but what did that matter when in her arms -she held youth, when to her heart she pressed youth?</p> - -<p>"My little girl, I'm so glad you're come to live with your old -grandmother."</p> - - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN AGES OF WOMAN ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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