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Title: The Three Furlongers
Author: Sheila Kaye-Smith
Release Date: December 11, 2017 [EBook #56161]
Language: English
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THE THREE FURLONGERS
[Illustration: With outstretched arms she rushed to one of them
--Page 10]
THE THREE FURLONGERS
BY
SHEILA KAYE-SMITH
AUTHOR OF "SPELL LAND," "ISLE OF THORNS," ETC.
There may be hope above,
There may be rest beneath;
We know not--only Death
Is palpable--and love.
--DOLBEN.
[Illustration: Logo]
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1914
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
ISSUED SEPTEMBER, 1914
COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN UNDER THE TITLE "THREE AGAINST THE WORLD"
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
BOOK I
THREE AGAINST THE WORLD
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SPARROW HALL 9
II. SHOVELSTRODE 20
III. IN THE RAIN 31
IV. FATE'S AFTERTHOUGHT 40
V. THE HERO 53
VI. THICK WOODS 63
VII. OVER THE GATES OF PARADISE 75
VIII. BRAMBLETYE 86
IX. SOME PEOPLE ARE HAPPY--IN DIFFERENT WAYS 97
X. TONY BACKS AN OUTSIDER 109
XI. DISILLUSION AT SIXTEEN 122
XII. CHILDREN DANCING IN THE DUSK 135
XIII. KEEPING CHRISTMAS 145
XIV. WOODS AT DAWN 161
XV. THE SERMON ON FORGIVENESS 173
BOOK II
THE WORLD AGAINST THE THREE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. GLIMPSES AND DREAMS 187
II. THE LETTER THAT DID NOT COME 201
III. ONLY A BOY 213
IV. FLAMES 228
V. COWSANISH 237
VI. AND I ALSO DREAMED 252
VII. WOODS AT NIGHT 259
VIII. VIGIL 268
IX. AND YOU ALSO SAID 280
X. A TOAST 300
BOOK I
THREE AGAINST THE WORLD
THE THREE FURLONGERS
CHAPTER I
SPARROW HALL
The twilight was dropping over the fields of three counties--Surrey,
Kent and Sussex--all touching in the woods round Sparrow Hall. In the
sky above and in the fields below lights were creeping out one by one.
The Great Wain lit up over Cansiron, just as the farmer's wife set the
lamp in the window of Anstiel, and the lights of Dorman's Land were like
a reflection of the Pleiades above them.
Janet Furlonger sat waiting in the kitchen of Sparrow Hall--now and then
springing up to lift the lid off the pot and smell the brown soup, or to
put her face to the window-pane and watch the creeping night, seen dimly
through the thick green glass and the mists that steamed up from the
fields of Wilderwick.
Janet was immensely tall, and her movements were grand and free. In rest
she had a kind of statuesque dignity: she did not stoop, as if ashamed
of her height, but held herself proudly, with lifted chin. People used
to say that she walked as if she were showing off beautiful clothes.
This was meant to be a joke, for Janet's clothes were terrible--old,
and badly made. Hats, collars and waist-bands she evidently thought
superfluous; it was also fairly obvious that she dispensed with
stays--which caused scandal, not because her figure was bad, but because
it was too good. Wind, sun and rain had tinted her face to a delicate
wood-nut brown, through which the red glowed timidly, like the flush on
a spring catkin.
Footsteps sounded on the frosty road, drawing steadily nearer. The next
minute the gate clicked. Janet started to her feet, flung open the
kitchen door, and ran out into the garden, between rows of
chrysanthemums still faintly sweet. Two men were coming up the path, and
with outstretched arms she rushed to one of them.
"Nigel!--old man!"
He did not speak, but folded her to him, bending his face to hers. It
was too dark for them to see each other distinctly. All that was clear
was the outline of the roof and chimney against the still tremulous
west.
Janet pulled him softly up the path, into the doorway, where it was
darker still. She put up her hands to his face and gently felt the
outlines of his features. Then she began to laugh.
"What a fool I am! Didn't I say I wasn't going to have any silly
sentimentality?--and here I am, simply wallowing in it. Come into the
kitchen, young men, and see what I've got for the satisfaction of your
gross appetites."
They followed her into the kitchen, and she turned round and looked at
them both. They were very different. The elder brother, Leonard, was
like Janet--dark both of hair and eye, with a healthy red under his
tan. The younger's hair was between brown and auburn, and his eyes were
large and blue and innocent like a child's. His mouth was not like a
child's--indeed, there was a peculiar look of age in its drooping
corners, and his teeth flashed suddenly, almost vindictively, when he
spoke; it was lucky that they were so white and even, for he showed them
with every movement of his lips--two fierce, shining rows.
"You're late," said Janet. "No, don't look at the clock, unless you've
remembered how to do the old sum. It's really something after nine, and
the train is supposed to get in at half-past seven."
"Yes--but I got hung up at Grinstead station, playing guardian angel to
a kid."
"Let's hope the kid didn't ask to see your wings," said Leonard. "Was it
a girl-kid or a boy-kid?"
"A girl-kid. There were five of 'em in my carriage. They'd been sent
home from school for some reason or other, and this one evidently hadn't
let her people know, for when she got out at East Grinstead there was no
one to meet her. All the station cabs had been snapped up, and some
loathly bounder got hold of her--goodness knows what would have happened
if I hadn't turned up and managed to scatter him. I got her a taxi from
the Dorset, and sent her off in it to Shovelstrode."
"Shovelstrode!--then she must be old Strife's daughter. What age was
she?"
"I should put her down at sixteen, but very innocent."
"Pretty?"
"Ye--es."
"Nigel, my boy, you haven't let the grass grow under your feet."
"Idiot!--we never exchanged a word except in the way of business. She
wanted to know my name, but I took care to say Smith. There was nothing
exciting about it at all--only an infernal loss of time."
"Quite so. You didn't find me in a particularly good temper when you
turned up at Hackenden."
"The first words that passed between us were--'Is that you, you ass?'
and 'Yes, you fool.' We haven't done the thing properly at all--we've
forgotten to fall on each other's necks."
"Let's do it now," said Len, and the two boys collapsed into a mock
embrace, in the grips of which they staggered up and down the kitchen,
knocking over several chairs.
"Oh, stop, you duffers!" shouted Janet; but she was laughing. "Nigel
hasn't changed a bit," she said to herself.
"What have they been doing to your clothes?" asked Leonard, as his
brother finally hurled him off. "They stink, lad, they stink."
"They've been fumigated," said Nigel. "I've worn off some of the reek in
the train, but to-morrow Janey shall peg 'em out to air."
"We'll hang 'em across the road from the orchard. Lord! won't the
Wilderwick freaks sit up!"
"It'll take ages to get that smell out," said Janet ruefully, "and your
hair, too, Nigel--when'll that look decent again?"
"I say, stop your personal remarks, you two--and give me something to
eat. I'm all one aching void."
Janet took the soup off the fire, and slopped it into three blue bowls.
Nigel went round the table, setting straight the spoons and forks, which
Janey seemed to have flung on from a distance.
"What's that for?" she asked.
The young man started, then flushed slightly.
"Hullo! I didn't notice what I was doing. I always had to do that in
prison."
"Put things straight?--what a good idea!"
"Yes. Everything had to be straight--in rows. Ugh!"
For the first time he looked self-conscious.
"Well, it's a very good habit to have got into. You may be quite useful
now."
"I'm damned if I'd have done it," said Leonard.
"You had to do it," said Nigel; "if you didn't ..." and a shudder passed
over him.
"What?" asked his brother and sister with interest.
He flushed more deeply, and the muscles of his face quivered.
Then a surprising, terrible thing happened--so surprising and so
terrible that Leonard and Janey could only stand and gape. Nigel hid his
face in his hands, and began to cry.
For some moments they stared at him with blank, horror-stricken eyes.
Scarcely a minute ago he had been uproarious--forgetting pain and shame
in the substantial ecstasies of reunion, smothering--after the Furlonger
habit--all memories of anguish in a joke. Never since his earliest
manhood had they seen him cry, not even on the day they had said
good-bye to him for so long. Now he was crying miserably, weakly,
hopelessly--crying quietly like a child, his hands covering his eyes,
his shoulders shaking a little. Then suddenly he gasped, almost
whimpered--
"Don't ask me those questions. Don't ask me any more questions."
"Nigel," cried Janet, finding her tongue at last, "I'm so sorry. I
didn't know you minded. Please don't cry any more--it hurts us."
"We didn't mean anything, old man," said Leonard huskily. "Do cheer up,
and forget all about it."
Nigel took away his hands from his eyes, and Len and Janey glanced
quickly at each other. They had expected to see his face swollen and
disfigured, but except for a slight redness round the eyes it was quite
unchanged. They both knew that it is only the faces of those who cry
continually which are so little altered by tears.
For a moment they could not speak. A chill seemed to have dropped on
Sparrow Hall, and all three heard the moaning of the wind--as it swept
up to the windows, rattled them, then seemed to hurry away, sighing over
the fields.
"Come, drink your soup, old chap," said Janet, pulling up his chair to
the table. "Write me down an ass, a tactless ass," she growled to
herself; "but how could I know he would take on that way?"
Nigel obediently began to swallow the soup, while Len and Janey talked
across him with laboured airiness about the weather. After the soup came
bacon and eggs, and potatoes cooked in their skins. Nigel's spirits
began to rise--he seemed childishly delighted with the food, though
Janet's cooking was sketchy in the extreme. When the meal was over, he
joined in the washing up, which was done at a sink in the corner of the
kitchen.
"What sort of people are the Lowes?" he asked suddenly, polishing a fork
with a vigour and thoroughness which made Leonard and Janey tremble lest
he should realise what he was doing. "What sort of people are the
Lowes?"
Janet flushed.
"Oh, they're quite ordinary," said Leonard, "quite ordinarily
unpleasant, I mean. The old chap's narrow and pious, like most
devil-dodgers, and the young 'un's like an ape."
"And they've got all the Kent land?"
"Oh, it's nothing to speak of. You know that end was always too low for
wheat"--poor Len was in a panic lest his brother should begin to cry
again.
But, strangely enough, Nigel was able to discuss the fallen fortunes of
Sparrow Hall with even less emotion than Len and Janey. The tides of his
grief seemed to find their way into small streams only. It was about the
side-issues of their tragedy that he asked most questions. Was Leonard
still going to have a man to help him, now his brother had
returned?--Was any profit likely to be made in their reduced
circumstances?--Was there any chance of buying back what they had sold
to Lowe?
"We shall have to go quietly," said Len, "but I don't see why we
shouldn't pull through if we're careful. I've given Boorman a week's
notice. He can bump round here till it's up, and lend you a hand now and
then--I don't suppose you'll tumble into things just at first."
Nigel suddenly turned away.
"I'm going out--to have a look round the place."
"Now!"
"Yes--it's a beautiful clear night."
Janet and Leonard moved towards the door.
"I'm going alone," said Nigel shortly.
Janet and Leonard stood still. They stared at each other, at first with
surprise, then a little forlornly, while their brother pulled on his
overcoat, and went out of the room.
Never, since they could remember, had one of the Furlongers preferred to
be without the others.
It was past midnight, and Janet was not yet asleep. She lay in bed, with
a lighted candle beside her, her hair tumbled over the pillow and over
her body, her neck gleaming through the heavy strands.
Her room was full of warm splashes of colour. The bedspread and carpet,
though faded, glowed with sudden reds and gentle browns--faded red roses
were on the wall. The window was low, so that when she turned on the
pillow she could look straight out of it at a huddled mass of woods. It
was uncurtained, and the stars flashed through the thick panes.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in"--and Nigel came in softly.
"Hullo, old man."
"I want to speak to you, Janey."
"And I want to speak to you. Come and sit on the bed."
"I--I want to say I'm sorry I cried this evening."
"Oh, don't!" gasped Janet.
"It's a habit one gets into in prison--crying about little things.
Prison is made up of little things and crying about 'em--that's why it's
so hellish."
Her hand groped on the coverlet for his.
"I expect I'll get out of it--crying, I mean--now I'm back."
"Don't let it worry you, old boy--we're pals, you and Len and I.
But--but--don't you really like us talking to you about prison?"
He lifted his head quickly.
"It all depends."
"You see, there you were ragging and laughing about your clothes and
your hair and all that. So how was I to know you'd mind----"
"But it's different. Oh, I don't suppose you'll understand--but it's
different. Having one's clothes fumigated and one's hair cut short is a
joke--it's funny, it's a joke, so I laughed. But being obliged to have
everything exactly straight--every damned fork in its damned place----"
he stopped suddenly and ground his teeth. "It's the little things that
are so infernal and degrading; big things one has to make oneself big to
tackle, somehow, and it helps. But the little things ... one just cries.
Listen, Janey. Once a fortnight they used to come and search us in our
cells. We used to stand there just in our vests and drawers, and they'd
pass their hands over us. Well, I could stand that, for it was
horrible--sickening and monstrous and horrible. But when you were
punished just because your tins weren't in the exact mathematical space
allotted to them--it wasn't horrible or monstrous at all, just childish
and silly; and when a dozen childish and silly things crowd into your
day, why, you become childish and silly yourself, that's all. What I
can't forgive prison isn't that it's made me hard or wicked or wretched,
but that it's made me childish and silly--so if I deserved hanging when
I went in, I'm hardly worth spanking now I've come out."
"What I can't forgive prison is the miserable ideas you've picked up in
it."
"There aren't any ideas in prison--only habits."
He hid his face for a minute in the coverlet. Janet's hand crept over
his hair.
"You'll soon be happy again, old boy," she whispered.
"Perhaps I shall."
"I hope to God you will--and now, dear, it's dreadfully late, and you're
tired. Hadn't you better go to bed?"
He turned to her impulsively.
"You'll stick to me, you and Len?--whatever I'm like--even--even if I'm
not quite the same as I used to be."
Strange to say, her impression of him was of an infinite childishness.
She realised with a pang that while for the last three years she and
Leonard had been growing older in their contact with a world of love and
sorrow, this boy, in spite of all he had suffered, had merely been shut
up with a few rules and habits. In many ways he was younger than when he
first went to gaol, more ignorant and more childish--he had lost his
grip of life. In other ways he was terribly, horribly older.
She put her arms around his neck, and kissed this pathetic old child,
this poor childish old man.
CHAPTER II
SHOVELSTRODE
A row of lights gleamed from Shovelstrode Manor, on the north slope of
Ashdown Forest. Shovelstrode was in Sussex, and looked straight over the
woods into Surrey and Kent. Round it the pines heaped up till they gave
a ragged edge to the hill behind it. Into the house they cast many
shadows, and even when at night they were curtained out of the lighted
rooms, one could hear them rustling and thrumming a strange tune.
Tony Strife crept up the back stairs to the schoolroom. She paused for a
moment and listened to a distant buzz of voices. Her mother must be
having visitors, so she would not go near her--she would sit in the
schoolroom till it was time to dress for dinner. Tony was sixteen,
healthy and clean-limbed, with a thick mouse-coloured plait between her
shoulders. She wore a school-girl's blouse and skirt, with a tie of her
school cricket-colours. She had in her manner all the mixture of
confidence and deference which points to one who is paramount in her own
little world, but is for some reason cast adrift in another where she
has never been more than subordinate.
The schoolroom was in darkness. The fire was unlighted and the blinds
were up, so that the shadows of the pines rushed over the square of
moonlight on the floor, waving and gliding and curtseying in the wind.
Tony, who had expected drawn blinds and a cosy fireside, was a little
dismayed at the dreariness of her kingdom. "I wonder if they got my
postcard," she thought forlornly. But the schoolroom was the schoolroom,
with or without a fire, and her own special province now that Awdrey had
grown up, and exchanged its austere boundaries for a world of calls and
dances and chiffons and flirtations. It was a little bit of the glorious
land of school from which she had been so abruptly exiled. For the first
time since her return a certain warmth glowed in her heart--she sat down
on the window-sill and looked out at the pines.
She wondered how soon she would be able to go back to school. Perhaps
there would be no more cases, and the clear, all-sufficient life would
start again at the half-term. Meantime she would write every week to her
three best friends and the mistress she "had a rave on," she would work
up her algebra and perhaps get her remove into the sixth next term; and
she would finish that beastly nightgown she had been struggling with
ever since Easter, and be able to start a frock, like the rest of the
form.
Her calculations were interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the
passage and a rather strident voice calling--
"Tony! Tony!"
The next minute the door flew open, and a girl a few years older than
herself burst in.
"Hullo!--so you _are_ home! I saw your box in the hall, and swore you
must have come back for some reason or other; but of course mother
wouldn't believe me. What on earth have you come for?"
"They've got whooping-cough at school, and Mrs. Arkwright sent us all
home. Didn't mother get my postcard?"
"Postcard! of course not. We'd no idea you were coming, and your room
isn't ready for you, or anything. You ought to have known better than to
send only a card--they get kept back for days sometimes. And when you
arrived, why didn't you come into the drawing-room and see mother,
instead of sneaking up here?"
"I thought you had visitors--I could hear them talking. I meant to come
down after I'd changed."
"I see. Well, you'd better come now and speak to mother. She's quite
worried about your being here, or rather about my saying you're here
when she says you aren't."
"Right-O!" and Tony followed her sister out of the room.
In a way Awdrey was like her, but with a more piquant, impertinent cast
of features. She was dressed in the latest combination of fashion and
sport, with a very short skirt to display her pretty ankles and purple
silk stockings. She was strongly scented with some pleasant, flower-like
scent, which, however, made Tony wrinkle up her nose with disgust.
"You were quite right about there being visitors," said the elder girl
in a more friendly tone. "Captain le Bourbourg was here, and as only
mother and I were in, I went with him to the door--complications, of
course!"
"Ass," said Tony shortly.
Awdrey giggled, apparently without resentment, and the next minute they
were in the drawing-room.
The drawing-room at Shovelstrode was an emasculate room, plunged deep in
yellow and dull green. The furniture had a certain ineffectiveness about
it, in spite of its beauty. The only thing which was neither delicate
nor indefinite was the heavily beamed ceiling, reflecting the firelight.
The girls' mother lay on a sofa between the fire and the half-curtained
window, just where she could see the moon. She wore a yellow silk
wrapper, and on her breast lay dull, strangely set stones. She was
reading a little book of unorthodox mysticism, and others, in floppy
suède bindings, were on the table beside her.
"Why, Antoinette!" she cried. "Whatever are you here for, child?"
"They had whooping-cough at school," said Awdrey glibly, "and sent her
home--and the silly idiot wrote and told us on a postcard, which we'll
probably get some time next week."
Lady Strife sighed.
"It's very disturbing, my dear, very disturbing--for me, that's to say.
And as for your father, I expect he'll be furious. He hates things
happening in a disorderly way and people being in the wrong place."
"I'm sorry," said Tony, "but I'll work all the time I'm here, so I
really shan't lose anything by it."
"Well, it's not your fault, of course," rather doubtfully. "Come and
give me a kiss," she added, realising that the ceremony had been
omitted.
"How are you, mother?"
"Oh, about the same, thank you. Weak of body, but not, I trust, weak of
soul. I am wonderfully comforted by this little book of Sakrata
Balkrishna's. Our soul, he says, Tony, sits within us as a watcher,
holding aloof from the poor, suffering body, and weaving a new mantle of
flesh for its next Manvantara."
"Buddhism?..." asked Tony awkwardly.
"Buddhism! My dear child--as if I would have anything to do with that
modern corruption of pure Brahminical faith! No, Antoinette, this is the
ancient Vedantin philosophy, as old as the world. By the way, has your
box come?"
"Yes. I brought it with me in the taxi."
"The taxi! You were lucky to find one at the station."
"I didn't find it. A man got it for me from the Dorset Arms."
"A man!" cried Awdrey.
"Yes, quite an ordinary sort of man, but rather decent."
"I wonder who he was. How romantic, Tony!"
"Rats! It wasn't in the least romantic. When I got out of the station I
found the car wasn't there to meet me, and all the cabs were gone, and I
didn't know what to do. Then rather a nasty-looking man came along, and
asked me what was the matter, and when I told him, he said I'd better
spend the night in East Grinstead as it was so late, and he knew of a
very nice place I could go to. I didn't like to refuse, as he seemed so
polite and interested, but of course I wanted to come here, and I was
awfully glad when another man came and said he could get me a cab quite
easily. The first man didn't seem to like it, though--perhaps he had
some poor relation who let lodgings."
"Tony!" cried her sister. "You really mustn't go about alone. You're
much too innocent."
"My darling child," wailed her mother, "my dove unsoiled by knowledge!"
Tony looked surprised, but her answer was checked by the sound of
footsteps in the hall.
"Girls, there's your father!" cried Lady Strife. "Now, Tony, you will
have to explain. And remember I hate a scene--it clogs my soul with
matter."
"Right-O, mother!" and Tony hurried out into the passage.
Here she managed to get through the "scene," such as it was. Sir Gambier
Strife was a man to whom time and place were all-important, and as the
time of Term was inevitably linked with the place of School, he felt
justly indignant at the separation of the two. "Whooping-cough! People
were such milksops nowadays. When he was a boy the sooner one got
whooping-cough the more one's relations were pleased. How old was Tony?
Sixteen? Then the sooner she had whooping-cough the better."
This, however, was all said in rather a low voice, Sir Gambier realising
as much as any one the importance of not clogging his wife's soul with
matter.
By the time he entered the drawing-room, he was talking of other things.
"I was down at Wilderwick this evening--you know that place at the
bottom of Wilderwick hill, where the Furlongers live?"
"Yes. Sparrow Hall."
"That's it. Well, this evening there was a flag tied to the chimney. I
asked old Carter what it was all about, and he said they're expecting
the other brother home--the one that's been in gaol for the last three
years."
"It's a long time since I've seen the Furlongers," said Awdrey, "they've
been lying low for the last few months, and I don't think I've ever seen
the one who's been in gaol."
"I saw him three years ago, just after we came here. He was swaggering
about the Kent end of their land with his gun. He won't do much
swaggering there in future. By Jove! it must have hit 'em hard to sell
that property to old Lowe."
"They've only got a poky little farm now. But, father, do tell us what
he's like, that youngest Furlonger--he sounds interesting."
"Oh, he wasn't much to look at--a great strong fellow, for ever showing
his teeth. But I've been told he's got brains, plenty of 'em, wouldn't
have landed himself in prison if he hadn't."
"When is he coming out?"
"They were expecting him this evening, I believe. Hullo! what's the
matter?"
"Oh, it's suddenly struck me," cried Awdrey. "Perhaps he was Tony's
man."
"Tony's man!--what d'you mean?"
Awdrey poured forth the story of her sister's adventure. "She said he
was an awful-looking man, and goodness knows where he'd have landed her
if the other man hadn't turned up and scared him away. I'm sure he must
have been Furlonger, it isn't likely there'd be two scoundrels like that
about."
Sir Gambier turned red.
"I won't have you girls mixed up in such things."
"She didn't want to be mixed up in it," interrupted Awdrey, "it wasn't
her fault. But it's lucky the other man turned up. You don't know who he
was, I suppose, Tony?"
"He said his name was Smith."
"That doesn't help us much. But, by Jove! how Furlonger must hate him!"
"We don't know he was Furlonger."
"He must have been; it's just the thing a ticket-of-leave convict would
do--try to victimise an innocent-looking girl."
"I'm not innocent-looking!" cried Tony indignantly.
"Well, I shan't argue the point with you. You must have looked pretty
green for him to have said what he did. By the way, what was Furlonger
locked up for, father?"
"Something to do with the Wickham Rubber Companies. Farming wasn't good
enough for him, so he took to finance--with the result that the whole
family was ruined; had to sell all their land, except a few inches round
the house--and the young man got three years in gaol into the bargain."
"Wickham got ten--so Furlonger can't be as bad as Wickham."
"He's a rotten scoundrel, I tell you. Diddled thousands of respectable
people out of their money. Then put up the most brazen defence--said
that at the beginning he had no idea of the unsoundness of the scheme;
'at the beginning,' mark you--confesses quite coolly that he knew it was
a fraud before the end."
"Well, I think it rather sporting of him," said Awdrey.
"He may have a beautiful soul," murmured Lady Strife; "why do people
always look at actions rather than motives? Poor young Furlonger may
have sinned more divinely than many pray. It's motive that makes all the
difference. Motive may make the robbing of a till a far finer action
than the endowing of a church."
"Tut, tut, my dear! What a thought to put into the girls' heads.
Besides, it isn't as if the only thing against the Furlongers was that
one of 'em's been in gaol. They're the most disreputable lot I ever met,
don't care twopence for any one's good opinion."
"They're quite well connected really, aren't they?" said Awdrey.
"Yes, that's the worst of it. Their mother was a daughter of Lord
Woodshire's, and I believe their father had rather a fine place near
Chichester. But he went to the bad--ahem! shocking story--died in
Paris--tut, tut!--the children were left to shift for themselves, and
bought Sparrow Hall with their mother's money--all the Chichester estate
was chucked away by old Furlonger."
"I think they sound rather interesting. It's a pity the youngest should
have embarked on the white slave traffic."
"White slave traffic!--hush, my dear. Young girls don't talk about such
things."
"No--they get mixed up in 'em instead. Tony, I hope you'll meet your Mr.
Smith again."
"He's not my Mr. Smith," said Tony hotly.
"Oh, it's impossible to talk to any one rationally to-night! Father's
started on 'young girls,' and Tony's trying to make out she was born
yesterday." She seized her sister by the arm. "Come upstairs and dress
for dinner."
Tony was only too glad to escape, and they went up to widely different
rooms.
Awdrey's was furnished with a telling combination of coquetry and sport.
Silver toilet articles and embroidered cushions contrasted with her
hunting-crop over the mantelpiece, her tennis racket on the wall. What
struck one most, however, was the number of men's photographs which
crowded the place. From frames of every conceivable fabric they stared
with bold, glassy eyes. Awdrey smiled at them lovingly, as they woke
either memory or emotion. She had once said that the male sex was
roughly divisible into two groups--G.P.'s and H.P.'s--Grand Passions and
Hideous Pasts. Tony gave them a scornful glance as she passed the door.
Her own room was austere and white. An indefinable coolness haunted its
empty corners and clear spaces. There were no photographs, as she had
not yet unpacked the photographs of her girl friends which usually
adorned the mantelpiece. There were only three pictures--a Memling
Madonna, Holbein's Portrait of a Young Woman, and Watts' Sir Galahad,
beloved of schoolgirls.
Tony sat down on the bed and began to unplait her hair.
"What a fool Awdrey is," she murmured to herself, "always thinking of
love, and all that rot."
CHAPTER III
IN THE RAIN
From Nigel's bed as well as Janey's one could see woods, and in summer
he had often lain listening to the night-jar in them--that mysterious
whirring, dull and restless, as if ghosts were spinning.
That night all was windless silence, and there was no motion in the dark
patch of window-view, except the flashing of the stars. Towards morning
a delicious sense of cold stole over Nigel's sleep. Soft airs seemed to
be baffing him, rippling round him, and there seemed to be water--water
and wind. Then suddenly a bell rang in his brain. The dream collapsed,
pulverised. He sprang up in bed, then scrambled out--then opened his
eyes, to see himself still surrounded by his dream.
It was five o'clock, and the Parkhurst bell had rung in his head just as
it had rung at that hour for hundreds of mornings. But he was not at
Parkhurst, he was still in his dream--water and wind. Against the
horizon stretched a long dim line of woods, and above them the sky was
lucent with the first hope of dawn. Into the fields splashed a gentle
rain, and in at his window blew the west wind, soft, damp and cold.
For the first time Nigel realised that he was home, and that he was
free.
Yesterday had all been so strange, he had not had time to think of
things. After years of confinement and discipline it had been a
terrifying ordeal to walk through the crowded streets of a town and take
a long train journey, involving several changes. He had wished then that
he had allowed Len to come and meet him at Parkhurst--the dull fears
that had made him insist on his brother coming no nearer than East
Grinstead had seemed nothing to this terror of carts and horses and
motors and trams and trains, these constantly shifting faces and
strident voices, this hurry, this disorder, this horrible respect of
people who called him "Sir," and said "I beg your pardon," if they fell
over his big feet.
When he came to Sparrow Hall, it had been worse still--not at first, but
afterwards, when Janet and Leonard had said all those terrible things to
him, and hurt him so. They had hurt him, and he had frightened them, and
it had all been miserable.
But this morning everything had changed. He no longer felt terrified of
his independence or of what his brother and sister might say. His heart
was warm and happy--his lungs were full of the sweet moist morning air.
He crossed the room. It was ecstasy to feel that no one was watching
him, that there was no ugly observation hole in the door. Why, privacy
was as sweet as independence, and not nearly so startling. He pulled off
his sleeping-suit, and stood naked by the bed. For the first time in
three years he felt the pride of his young manhood, the splendour of his
body. The lust of life frothed up in his heart. The dawn, his strong
bare limbs, the rain, plunged him into a rapture of thanksgiving. He was
home, and he was free.
He knelt down by the window, the rain spattering softly on him, and
stared out at the woods--Ashplats Wood and Hackenden Wood and Summer
Wood, with Swites Wood in the west. The woods, the dear brown
wind-rocked woods!--he would walk in them that morning, there was no one
to hinder him--he was home, and he was free among the woods.
He rose lightly, and began to dress. He put on old rough clothes that he
had worn before he went to prison. They had been old then, and now they
were positively disreputable, for Janet had folded them away carelessly,
so that they had creased and frayed. But he loved them, they seemed even
now to smell of the cows he had milked and the soft loam of the fields.
He ran downstairs whistling--some music-hall song that had been popular
three years ago, but was long forgotten now. To Leonard in the yard and
Janet in the dairy he sounded like a cheerful ghost. They both thought
of going to meet him, but both at last decided to leave him alone.
The house was full of the delicious smell of rain, and the wind crooned
through it tenderly, rattling the doors and windows, and fluttering the
untidy rags of wall-paper that here and there hung loose on the walls.
Nigel went into the kitchen, where the fire was burning. He sat down by
it and warmed his hands, though he was not really cold. He had not seen
a fire for three years.
Then suddenly he noticed something in the corner--it was his
fiddle-case, wrapped in green baize. Nigel had always passed for
something of a musician, and during a few stormy years spent in London
with his father had been fairly well taught. Farming and scheming had
never made him forget his fiddle, though occasionally it had lain for
weeks as it lay now, wrapped up in dusty cloths in the corner.
He stooped down and took it out of its many covers. It was a fairly good
instrument of modern make, best in its low tones. All the strings were
broken except the G, but he found a coil of the D in the case, and
screwed it on. By means of harmonics and the seventh position he could
manage fairly well with two strings.
It seemed a terribly long time since he had felt a fiddle under his
chin, and sniffed its peculiar smell of sweet varnished wood and rosin.
He lifted his arm slowly, and the bow dropped on the strings. It was
scratchy, and he felt horribly stiff, but in course of time matters
improved a little, and Len and Janey, together in the Dutch barn, smiled
at each other as the strains of Handel's "Largo" drifted out to them.
"He'll feel better now," said Leonard.
Nigel forgot the "Largo" in the middle, and started "O Caro Nome," from
Rigoletto. His taste in music had always been the despair of his
teachers. He had never seemed able to appreciate the modern school, or,
indeed, the more advanced of the ancients. He had a desperate fondness
for Balfe and Donizetti, for the most sugary moods of Verdi and Gounod.
He revelled in high notes, trills and tremolo--"O Caro Nome" and "I
dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls" appealed to a side of him which was
definitely sentimental. He stood there by the window, swaying
sentimentally from side to side, shaking shrill colorature from his
violin, regardless of the squeaking of a nearly rosinless bow.
What appealed to Nigel was never the technique of a composition, but its
emotional quality. Music was to him not so much sound as feeling--he did
not value a piece for its own intrinsic beauty, but for the emotions it
was able to call forth. As he played that morning whole cycles of
experience passed before him. All the old dreams that for three years
had lain dead in his violin now revived--but a new quality was added to
them, a soft twang of sorrow. Before his imprisonment his dreams had
been winged and shod with fire, wild things compounded of desire and
endeavour, tender only in their background of the seasons' moods, rain
and sunshine and wind and shadows and stars. But to-day longing took in
them the place of endeavour, and all their desire was for forgetfulness.
Stars and rain were in them still, but the stars and rain of the new
heavens and the new earth which suffering had created--the rain which is
tears, and the stars which spring from the dumb desire of sorrow
brooding over the formless deep of its own immensity--"Let there be
light." And there was light--one or two faint dream-like constellations,
burning over and reflected in the swirling waters of the abyss.... A
great wind passed over the face of the waters, and parted them, and out
of them rose a little island for a man to stand upon--so the dry land
came out of the water. And the suffering man can stand on the island,
where there is just room for his feet, and he can see the stars above
him--and when he is too weary to lift his head he sees them reflected in
the surging waters beneath....
Nigel dropped his violin, and looked out with dream-filled eyes at the
fields, seen dimly through the rain-drops dripping from the eaves. In
the front garden stood a little girl--a little dirty girl with a
milk-can.
"Hullo!" said Nigel.
He felt an unaccountable desire to talk to this child; not because he
liked her particularly--indeed, she was rather an unattractive
object--but because he realised suddenly that he was very fond of
children. He had never known it before, never imagined that he cared
about kids; but, whether it was his long exile in prison he could not
tell, he felt quite overwhelmed this morning by his love for them, and
realised that he absolutely must make friends with the highly
unfavourable specimen before him.
"Hullo!" he repeated.
The maiden vouchsafed no reply.
"Have you come for the milk?" he asked conversationally.
She nodded. Then she pointed to his violin.
"Did the noise come out of that box?"
"Yes--would you like to hear it again?"
"No."
He was not to be daunted.
"Come in, and I'll show you a pussy."
"Is there a pussy in that box?"
"No--but there's a beauty in the chair by the fire."
Nigel dived out of the window, and caught her up bodily. Her clothes
smelt strongly of milk and garden mould, not an altogether pleasing
combination. But for some reason or other he felt delighted, and carried
her in triumph round the kitchen before he introduced her to a large
placid-looking cat.
"Don' like it."
This was humiliating, but Nigel persevered.
"Have some of this--" and he offered her a spoonful of jam out of the
pot on the table.
The little girl sniffed it with the air of a connoisseur.
"Don' like it."
"Well, try this--" plunging the same spoon into the sugar basin.
"Don' like it."
Fortunately at that moment Janey came in.
"Nigel, what on earth are you doing?--Hullo, Ivy!"
She looked surprised at the scowling infant perched on her brother's
shoulder.
"She's come for the milk, and I'm giving her some breakfast."
"Wan'er go 'ome!" shrieked Ivy.
Nigel looked so mortified that Janey could hardly help laughing--till
suddenly she realised that there was something rather pathetic about it
all. Nigel had never used to struggle for the good-will of dirty
children.
"She'd better come with me," she said, "and I'll give her the milk. Her
mother won't like it if she's kept."
Ivy alighted with huge satisfaction on the floor, and left the room with
Janey, after throwing a bit of box-lid at the cat.
Janey came back in a few minutes.
"Like to help me get the breakfast, old man?" she asked cheerily.
Nigel was pacing up and down the kitchen.
"What a dear little thing she is!" he said.
"Who? Ivy? I think she's a regular little toad. How funny you are,
Nigel!"
Half-an-hour later the three Furlongers were at breakfast. Nigel had
always been subject to moods just like a girl, and sometimes his changes
from heights to depths had been irritating. But to-day his brother and
sister saw the advantages of such a nature. The two boys fooled together
all through the meal, and Janet watched them, smiling. Nigel had found
his tongue to some purpose. Strange to say, he was more than ready to
talk of his prison experiences, though, as he had already hinted to
Janey, he had two sets of these. One set, typified by his fumigated
clothes, he seemed positively to revel in; the other set he never
mentioned of his free will, though he obviously used to brood over them.
"Hullo! there's the postman!" cried Janet suddenly.
She rose to go to the door, but Nigel was nearest it, and sprang out
before her.
"Morning, Winkworth!" he shouted hilariously. "I'm back again."
"Glad to see you, Mus' Furlonger," chuckled the postman. "You look in
pretty heart."
"Never was better in my life," and waving a letter in his hand he swung
back into the kitchen.
"A letter for Janey!--Janey's the lucky devil"--as he flung it across
the table.
"I wonder who it's from," said Leonard; "open it, Janey, and see."
Letters were always an excitement in the Furlonger family--they were few
enough to be that.
"Know the writing, Janey?"
Janey turned the letter over. "It's a bill."
The boys' faces fell.
"How dull," said Leonard, "and how immoral, Janet!--another of those
ten-guinea hats, I suppose."
"And you promised us solemnly," said Nigel, "not to buy any more."
"It's dreadful of me," said Janet.
The boys glanced at her in surprise--for she looked as if she meant it.
CHAPTER IV
FATE'S AFTERTHOUGHT
Janet did not open her bill till her brothers had gone out to the farm.
Then she tore the envelope. The bill ran--
"JANEY SWEET,
"Curse it!--I have to go to Brighton on Saturday. It's for my
father, so I daren't object, in case he should ask too many
questions. But I must see you, dear one--it's nearly a month since
we met, and I'm dying for the sight of you and the touch of you.
Can't you come to-day? I'm sure you can get away for an hour or
two--your brothers must not take you from me. I'll be waiting in
Furnace Wood, in the old place down by the hedge, at five. Come to
me, Janey sweet. I dreamed of you last night--dreamed of you with
your hands full of flowers.
"Your lover,
"QUENTIN."
Janey stuffed the letter into her pocket.
"It's dreadful of me," she repeated, in the same tone as she had said it
to the boys. Those poor boys! How innocently and trustfully they had
swallowed her lie--it was like deceiving children.
But she could not tell them--though Nigel's strange new reserve made her
long all the more to be frank and without secret--they would be furious
if they knew her story, now the story of three years. Once she had tried
hinting it to Len, but though he had not half understood her, he had
made his feelings about Quentin Lowe pretty plain, and Janet had been
only too glad to change the subject before the danger line was passed.
Nigel would, of course, side with Leonard. They would look upon her love
as treachery, for though there was no outward breach between the
Furlongers and the Lowes, the former had always suspected the latter of
sharp dealing over the Kent land--old Lowe would never have offered that
absurd price if he had not known that the Furlongers were absolutely
obliged to sell.
Old Lowe was a retired clergyman who had come with his son to Redpale
Farm, just over the Kentish border. From the first he had cast a longing
eye on the Furlonger acres, which touched his on the Surrey side. A row
of cottages in obvious disrepair and insanitation had given his longing
the necessary smack of righteousness. At that time Nigel was in prison
on remand, and the news soon trickled through the neighbourhood that his
brother and sister were in desperate money difficulties, and would have
to sell most of their land. Lowe at once came forward with what he
considered a fair offer, which the Furlongers, as no one else seemed
inclined to bid, were bound to accept. The negotiations had been carried
on chiefly through a solicitor, but young Lowe had paid two or three
visits to Sparrow Hall.
Janet would never forget one of these. Leonard was not in that day, but
though she had told Quentin she could decide nothing without her
brother, he had insisted on sitting with her in the kitchen, arguing
some obscure point. She remembered it all--the table between them, the
firelight on the walls, the square of darkness and stars seen through
the uncurtained window, the pipe and rattle of the wind. He had risen to
go, and suddenly she had seen that he was trembling--and before she had
time to be surprised she saw that she was trembling too. They faced each
other for a minute, shaking from head to foot, and dumb. Then they
stooped together swiftly in a burning kiss, their hearts full of
uncontrollable ecstasy and despair.
It had all been so sudden. She could not remember having felt the
faintest thrill in his presence till that moment. He said the same. When
he had sat down opposite her at the table, she had been merely a woman
with whom he was doing business. It seemed as if fate had brought them
together as an afterthought, and at first Janey believed it could not
last. But it lasted. It had lasted all through those years, in spite of
much wretchedness and a killing need for secrecy on both sides. This
need was more vital for Quentin than for Janey. He was utterly dependent
on his father, who, of course, looked on the Furlongers with righteous
disgust. So for three years meetings had been stolen, letters smuggled,
and happiness snatched out of sudden hours.
To-day Janet was not sure how she could arrange a meeting. Meetings with
Quentin generally needed the most careful planning, and on this
occasion he had not given her much time. However, she thought, the boys
would very probably go shooting in the early evening, and she could then
run over to Furnace Wood.
This was what happened. A little manoeuvring sent Nigel and Leonard out
to pot rabbits, and a minute or so later Janey stole from Sparrow Hall,
climbing the gate opposite into the fields of Wilderwick. She did not
wear a hat--she never did--and over her dress was a disreputable old
jacket. She went gaily and innocently to meet her lover in garments many
women would not have swept the floor in.
It was a long tramp to Furnace Wood. The rain had cleared, but the grass
was wet, and the trees shook down rain-drops and wet leaves. Autumn was
late that year, still in the fiery stage--whole hedges flamed, and
backgrounds were mostly yellow. But everywhere now were the dead leaves,
damp as well as dead. Her feet splashed through them, they caked her
boots, they filled every corner with their smell of sweet rottenness.
Furnace Wood marked the beginning of the chain of hammer ponds below
Holtye Common. For a long time the fields had been sloping eastward,
till at last they dropped into a tangled valley stretching from Old
Surrey Hall to Sweetwoods Farm. Here was a great stillness and a great
solitude--woods, and thick old orchards, with now and then an oast-house
or a chimney struggling up among them. In this valley lay Redpale Farm,
Clay Farm, and Scarlet Farm, all old, alone, forsaken, beside the
gleaming hammer ponds.
The waters of the first pond flashed like a shield through the
half-naked branches of Furnace Wood. Janet's quick eyes saw Quentin
standing by the hedge, and she began to run. She splashed over the
drenched field, climbed the hedge with an agility she owed to a total
disregard for her clothes--and crept warm and panting into his arms, as
he stood there among the drifted leaves.
"Janey," he whispered, kissing her lips and her hair and her wrist wet
with rain, "how I love you ... little Janey sweet."
It pleased Quentin to call her little, though as a matter of fact she
was considerably taller than he. Quentin was a few years younger than
Janey--delicate-looking, and yet thick-set. His face was pale, though
the features were roughly hewn, and his shoulders were so high as to
give him almost the appearance of a hunchback. In spite of this, he
often struck people as handsome in a strange way--which was due,
perhaps, to a certain nobility in the casting of his face, with its
idealistic mouth, strong nose, and great bright eyes, which seemed to be
burning under his heavy brows.
"Janey," he continued, "you're beautiful to-day--you're part of the
evening. There's rain on your hair, and on your cheek, so that when I
kiss it I taste rain--you're brown and red, just like the fields, you're
windswept and rumpled like the woods."
Janey laughed.
"And your teeth gleam like that white pond through the trees."
"You should put that into a poem, Quentin," she said, still laughing,
"it sounds funny in prose."
"Prose! Prose!--as if there could be any prose when you are near!"
A copper gleam of sunlight came suddenly from under the rim of a leaden
cloud. For a moment it flared on the hedge, making the wet leaves shine.
It gave a metallic look to the evening--instead of sweetening the soaked
landscape it seemed only to make it sadder, with a harsh, reckless
sadness it had not worn in the gloom. Quentin put up his hand and picked
one of the shining sprays, to fasten it in Janey's jacket. Whenever he
saw beautiful things in the hedges, he wanted to give them to Janey. He
never wanted to give her the beautiful things he saw in shops; he did
not, like so many men, stare into shop windows, longing to see her in
those clothes, those jewels, and great hats like the moon. But if ever
he found a sudden splash of bryony in the hedge, or a flush of
bloody-twig, or honeysuckle, or nuts, he wanted to pick them for her.
When it was May he had often met her in Furnace Wood with his arms full
of hawthorn, in June he had brought her dog-roses, in August ripe ears
of barley, in September wild-apple boughs; and now in October he picked
her sprays of red, sodden leaves. There was a little nut on this
spray--he picked it off and cracked it with his teeth, and put the
kernel into her mouth. Then suddenly the sunlight faded, and a soft rush
of gloom swept up the valley of the hammer ponds.
"Nigel came home last night," said Janet, breaking the silence that had
lasted with the sun.
"How is he looking?"
"He's changed, Quentin."
"It's aged him, of course."
"That isn't so terrible--we could have endured that, we'd expected it.
The awful thing is that it's made him so childish. Sometimes you'd
really think he was a child, by the way he speaks--and goes on."
"He'll soon be all right--you'll heal him, Janey."
"I don't see how I'm going to. The worst thing is that he's so reserved
with me and Len. It isn't that he doesn't talk and tell us things, but I
know he doesn't tell us the things that really matter. Oh,
Quentin"--turning suddenly to him--"I feel such a wretch, having a
secret from the boys when Nigel's like this."
"You've lost your logic, sweet--or, rather, thank God, you never had
any. Your brother's secrets ought to make you worry less about your
own."
"You don't understand--it's just the other way round."
She sighed deeply, and her pain irritated him.
"You have the power to end it if you like--you're not so badly off as I
am. You can tell your brothers any day you choose--they can't
interfere."
"Of course not--but it would make them miserable. They'd be miserable
enough at the idea of my marrying any one, and leaving them--and as for
marrying you----"
"Oh, I know they hate me," broke in Quentin. "And they despise me
because I haven't got their health and muscle. They hate me for what I
have got--their land; and they despise me for what I haven't got--their
muscle."
Janet's eyes filled. She knew that he was wretchedly jealous of her
brothers, and it hurt her more than anything else. She laid her hand
timidly on his arm.
"Quentin, I wish you wouldn't feel that way towards the boys. I can't
help loving them."
"But you love them more than me."
"I don't, indeed I don't. And you mustn't think they hate you. They've
got their hand against every one, you know, and of course they feel sick
about the Kent lands, there's no denying it. If they knew you loved me,
they might hate you then--they'd be jealous; and if I told them now--oh,
it would be all misery at home!--for them as well as for me. I'd far
rather have my secret--that hurts only me. When we've settled anything
definitely, of course I shall tell them. But we may have to go on like
this for years."
Quentin groaned.
"Yes, Janey, that's true--that's the damned truth. You should never have
loved a helpless fool like me, all tied up in paper and strings. Good
Lord! my father will have something to answer for--if there's any one to
answer to for our muddlings in this muddled hell."
"But you'll win your independence."
"Yes; if two things happen: if my father dies, which he isn't likely to,
and which, hang it all, I don't want him to--or if I can make enough by
my writing to support two people, which is never done by pessimistic
poets in this world of optimistic prose. I ought to hear from Baker
soon--he's had that manuscript over a month--he's the twenty-eighth man
that's had it. Oh, damn it all, Janey!"
They were sitting together on a tree-trunk under the hedge, the darkness
creeping up round them. Quentin drew very close to Janey, and clutched
her hand.
"I'm a beast to go whining to you like this--but it helps me. It's such
a relief to get all my furies off my chest and feel your
sympathy--_feel_ it, Janey, you needn't speak, words seem to nail things
down. Oh, why were you and I born into this muddle and never given a
chance? I've never had a chance--not the shadow of one. All my life I've
suffered that vile plague, dependence, and it's poisoned my blood and
sapped my strength and perverted my reason. My father's to blame for it.
The whole object of his life has been to keep me dependent on him. He's
stinted me of everything--friends, money, education--just to keep me
dependent. He's well off, as you know, but he allows me a miserable
screw many tradesmen would be ashamed to offer their sons. He's made my
bad health an excuse for cutting short my time at college, and for not
bringing me up to any profession. He's in terror lest I should strike
out a line for myself. He wants me to live my whole life on a
negation--'thou shalt not,' he says. He doesn't say it because he's my
father, but because he's a clergyman. It's that which has spoiled him,
because it hasn't let him go to life for his principles. Christianity
never does. I hate Christianity, Janey--Christianity's a piece of
Semitic bargaining--all Semitic religions are commercial, but
Christianity has been so far Europeanised that it offers its rewards not
for what you do but for what you don't do. I once wrote a poem on the
Christian heaven--God and all the angels and curly-locked saints yawning
their heads off because they're all so tired of doing nothing, and at
last all falling asleep together. Ugh! One reason I love you, Janey, is
that you're so beautifully pagan--just like the country here. The
country's all pagan at bottom, and that's why every one loves the
country, even the Christians."
Janey smiled, and pressed his hand. She knew Quentin liked "talking," so
she let him "talk," though she troubled very little about the questions
that were so vital to him. She knew it relieved him to pour into her
ears the torrent of abuse which was always roaring against its sluices,
and had no other outlet--unless it found its way into publishers'
offices and damaged his poor chances there.
"It's Christianity which makes my father so damned clever in keeping me
dependent," continued Lowe. "He's got so used to tying souls up in paper
and string that he can make a neat parcel even of a bulky, bulgy soul
like mine. You know how we admire shop people for the neat way they tie
up parcels--we couldn't do it. Well, my father's a kind of celestial
shop-keeper, and I'm the goods he's sending out--payment on delivery.
Oh, damn!"
Janey's hand went up to his face and stroked it. Quentin's furies always
struck her as infinitely pathetic.
"It'll be all right, dear," she whispered. "I'm sure it will. You're
bound to get free."
He seized her hand and held it fiercely in his while he stared into her
eyes.
"Janey--I sometimes wonder if I'll ever get free--or if I do, whether
I'll find freedom the ecstasy I imagine it. Perhaps freedom, like
everything else, is a mirage, a snare, a disillusion. Yesterday I was
reading the _Epic of Gilgamesh_--
Gilgamesh, why dost thou wander around?
Life which thou seekest thou canst not find.
That's the horrible truth--nothing that we seek shall we ever find,
unless it's been found over and over again already. And then there's
love, Janey, that's one of the things we never find, though we seek it
till our tears are blood. I've written a poem about that, comparing love
to the sea--to salt water, rather, for of course hundreds of poets have
compared love to the sea. Love is like the salt water that splashes
round the poor sailor dying of thirst--he drinks it in his desperation,
and the more he drinks the fiercer becomes his thirst, and still he
drinks on in despair and hope, till at last he ends in madness--that's
love. Janey, that's love."
He stooped suddenly forward, till his head was buried in her knees.
"That's my love, sweet, sweet thing--my love for you. It never sates,
it always burns, it tortures, it maddens. There is no rest, no rest in
my love--it wakes me from my sleep to long for you--it is a hunger that
gnaws through all my meals--it is a darkness that may be felt, a light
too blinding to be borne...."
His shoulders shook, and tears rushed scalding into Janet's eyes. With
one hand she stroked and tangled his coarse hair, the other he had
seized and laid under his cheek--and she felt one burning tear upon it.
Her whole heart seemed to open itself to her lover in tender pity, and
not only to him, but to all men--men, with their fierceness in desire
and gentleness in satiety, with their terrible sudden temptations, their
weakness and nobleness, their beasthood and their godhead. Men struck
her--had always struck her--as intensely pathetic; and now Quentin and
his love wrung her breast with tears. Before that storm of hungry love
she bowed her head in mute homage--she worshipped him as he lay there on
her knees.
He lifted himself suddenly. Darkness was creeping fast into the woods,
with little shivering gasps.
"Janey, before you go, there's something I want particularly to ask you.
Next Tuesday week my father's going to London for the day. He won't be
back till late--I want you to come to Redpale when he's gone."
"Redpale ... but there are the servants, Quentin."
"They're all right. I'll send the girls over to Grinstead in the
afternoon; there'll only be the men about the farm, and they needn't
trouble us."
"But...."
"Oh, there's your brothers, of course," he cried harshly; "can't you get
away from them for one afternoon?"
"Yes, I can.... I don't know why I said 'But.'"
"You mustn't say 'But'--Janey, do you realise that you and I have never
had a meal together?"
"No."
"We must have a meal together--I want to see you eat--I want to drink
with you."
"Very well, I'll come. I'll get over early in the afternoon.... Now I
must say good-bye."
"When I see you next I may have heard from Baker. Then we shall know our
fate."
"Our fate...?"
"Yes, for if Baker can't take my stuff, no one else will, and my last
chance is gone."
"Don't think of such a thing, dear."
"No, I won't. I'll think of you, dream of you--whenever you are so
gracious as to let me sleep."
He stood up, and drew her head down to his shoulder, holding it there
with trembling hands, while his lips sought her face. Her mouth was
against his sleeve, and she kissed it while he kissed her cheek and
neck. For a full minute they stood together thus, and when they drew
apart, the first star hung a timid candle above the burnt-out fires of
the west.
CHAPTER V
THE HERO
October dropped from red to brown in a sudden night of rain, and the
Three Counties began to draw over themselves their fallow cloaks of
sleep. In every view the ploughed fields spread brown and wet and empty,
some with a ruddy touch of Kentish clay, others with a white gleam of
Surrey chalk.
Nigel flung himself into the farmyard toil, and complained because it
was too scanty. Their ten acres of grass and orchard, with three or four
cows and some poultry, did not give nearly enough work, he thought, to
two able-bodied men. He remembered the days when the acres of Sparrow
Hall had rolled through marsh and coppice into Kent--when fifteen
sweet-mouthed cows had gathered at the gates at milking-time, and golden
rye from their high fields had gone in their waggon to Honey Mill. He
was miserably aware that he had no one but himself to blame for this,
though his brother and sister never reproached him. He had been
impatient of the slow bounties of the fields, he had plunged into quick,
adventurous dealings; for a few months he had brought wealth, hurry and
excitement into his life--then had come poverty, and the ageless
monotony of prison.
When he looked round on their reduced estate it was not so much
humiliation that ate into his heart as a sense of treachery. He had
betrayed the country. Impatient of its slow, honest ways, he had sought
others, crooked, swift, defiled. He had turned renegade to the quiet
fields round his home, and entered a rival camp of reckless strivings
and meanness. This had been his sin, and he was being punished for it
still. The punishment of the State for his sin against the State was
over ... but the punishment for his sin against his home, the country,
and himself was still being meted out to him by all three.
The high spirits that had seized him on that first rainy morning of his
freedom often came and snatched him up again, but they always dropped
him back into a depression that was almost horror. He had moments of
crazy gaiety and uproariousness, of sheer animal delight in his bodily
freedom; but behind them all lurked the consciousness that he was still
in prison. He had been sentenced for life. He was shut up in some dreary
place, away from the farm, away from Len and Janey. He might work on the
farm the whole day, and fool with his brother and sister the whole
evening, but he knew none the less that he was shut up away from them
all.
During this time he had peculiar dreams. He often fell asleep full of
fury and despair, but his dreams were always of sunlit spaces, children
and flowers. Again and again in them appeared the little girl Ivy--not
dirty and cross, but lovely and fresh and winsome, smiling and
beckoning. It seemed as if behind all the horrors and fogs of his life
something divine and innocent was calling--at times it was comfort and
peace and healing to him, at others it was the chief of his torments.
The Furlongers had always lived aloofly at Sparrow Hall--scorned, even
before their downfall, by their own class, they had nevertheless not
sought comrades in the classes beneath them. They had always sufficed
one another, and had not cared for the distractions of over-the-fence
gossip or the public-house.
However, since his return from Parkhurst, Nigel had realised a certain
tendency on the part of labourers and small farmers to seek him out and
claim equal terms. This was not merely due to the consciousness of his
degradation, the delight of patronising the proud Furlonger--its chief
motive was a strange sort of deference. Socially, his crime had reduced
him to their level, but morally it had given him an exaltation which had
never been his before. He now belonged to that world of which they
caught rare dazzling glimpses in their Sunday papers. He was only a rank
below Crippen in their hero-worship, and when they met him in the
village they stared at him in much the same way as they stared at the
murderer's photograph in _The People_.
At first Nigel hung back from them, sick and confused with shame, but as
the days went by, the emptiness of his life beat him into conciliation.
Humiliated to the dust, he longed for some sort of regard, however
spurious, just as a starving man will eat dung. His brother and sister
gave him love and kindness in plenty, but they were much too practical
in their emotions any longer to give him deference. Before he went to
prison he had been, though the youngest, the leader of the family--his
stronger brain, his quicker wits had made him the captain of their
exploits. But now his brain and wits were discredited. Len and Janey did
not despise him, they were not ashamed of him before men--but he had
forfeited his position in the household. They no longer looked upon him
as their superior, he was just the younger brother. At first he had
scarcely noticed this--everything had been strange, and he had let slip
former realities. But as the days went by, and Parkhurst became more and
more of a horrible and suggestive parenthesis, he was able to recall the
old ways and see how things had changed. He made no complaint, but his
spirit was chafed, and sought crazily for balms.
"Come, don't be stand-offish, Mus' Furlonger," said the shepherd of
Little Cow Farm, who, meeting him outside the Bells at Lingfield, had
suggested a drink.
"No, you're a better man than me now--aren't you?" said Nigel, showing
his teeth.
"I wurn't hinting such, Mus' Furlonger--only t'other chaps in there do
want to hear about the prison."
"Why?"
"Oh, it's always interesting to hear about prison--specially from chaps
wot has bin there. We git a lot about 'em in _Lloyd's_ and _The People_,
but there's nothing like a fust-hand story--surelye!"
Nigel laughed crudely.
"And it's a treat to meet a real convict--none of your petty larceny and
misdemeanour fellers...."
"Well, here's greatness thrust upon me," said Furlonger, and swaggered
into the bar.
The fuggy atmosphere affected him in much the same way as the smell of
ether and dressings affects a man entering a hospital--the spirit of the
place, assisted by crude outward manifestations, cowed him and made him
its slave.
"Name it," said the shepherd.
"Porter."
It was three years since he had had a really stiff drink. He had never
cared for liquor, indeed he had always been a man of singularly
temperate life, a spare eater, a water drinker. But to-day a sudden
desire consumed him--not only to drink, but to be drunken. He remembered
the one occasion which he had been drunk. It was the day he had known
definitely of the collapse of Wickham's scheme, and his own inevitable
disgrace. He had sat in the kitchen at Sparrow Hall, drinking brandy
till his head had fallen forward on the table and his legs trailed back
behind his chair. Afterwards, there had been a shameful waking, but he
could never forget how peace had crept in some mysterious physical way
up his spine, from the base of his neck to his brain, with a soft
tingling--it had been purely physical at first, then it had passed on to
mental dulling and dimming.
To-day, as the frothy brown porter ran down his throat, he felt that
gracious tingling, that creeping upwards of relief. He looked round the
bar. It was full of labouring men and smallholders, who stared at him
with round eyes that were curious and would be ingratiating--they wanted
to know him, because in their opinion he was better worth knowing than
before he went to gaol.
"This is Mus' Breame of Gulledge," said the Little Cow shepherd. "How
are you, Mus' Breame?--This is Mus' Furlonger of Sparrow Hall."
Mus' Breame held out a dark and hairy hand. Nigel's lips were twitching.
Somehow he felt much more humiliated by the beery approval of these men
than by the cold looks of their betters. However, he gave his short, dry
laugh, and shook hands.
"And here's Mus' Dunk of Golden Compasses, and Mus' Boorer of Kenthouse
Hatch--this here is old Adam Harmer, as has been cowman at Langerish
this sixty year."
Nigel had seen all the men before, and had once sold a calf to Adam
Harmer, but he realised that now he was meeting them on new terms.
"I wur wunst in the lock-up meself for a week," drawled old Harmer.
"'Twas summat to do wud poaching, but so long ago as I forget 'xactly
wot. Surelye!"
"Reckon prisons have changed unaccountable since your day," said Dunk,
throwing a glance at Nigel, as if to show that an opening had been
tactfully made for him. But Harmer clung to speech.
"Reckon they have: surelye. In my days you'd hemmed liddle o' whitewash
and all that--it wur starve and straw and bugs in my day, and two or
three fellers together in a cell, either larkin' or murderin' each
other."
The Little Cow shepherd looked uneasily at Furlonger.
"Yus--and the constables too, so different. Not near so haughty as they
is now, but comfortable chaps, as 'ud let yer see yer gal fur a drink,
and walk out o' the plaace fur half a sovereign."
The conversation was obviously getting into the wrong hands. The only
person who looked interested was Nigel.
"Reckon all that's changed now," hastily put in Dunk--"they say now as
gaol's lik a hotel--but not so free and easy, I take it, not so free and
easy. Name it, Mus' Furlonger--see your glass is empty."
This time Nigel named a brandy.
"Reckon you can't order wot you lik fur dinner--and got to do your
little bit o' work. But the gaol-buildings themselves, they're just lik
hotels, they're palisses--handsomer than a workhouse."
"They're damned stinking hells," said Nigel--the brandy had loosed his
tongue.
A murmur of approval ran through the bar. The great Furlonger had at
last been drawn into the conversation. He sat at a small table, his
fingers round his empty glass--about half a dozen voices begged him to
"name it."
At first he hesitated. He was now a hero--for the first time for
years--and yet it was a hero-worship he could not swallow sober. But he
wanted it. He wanted to be looked up to, for a change--to be deferred
to, and exalted; and if he could not stand it sober, he must get drunk,
that was all. He named another brandy.
The patrons of the bar were drawing round him. The barmaid was patting
and pulling at her hair; even "Charley," the seedy nondescript that
haunts all bars, and, unsalaried and ignored, brings the dirty glasses
to the counter from the outlying tables--even "Charley" came forward
with a deprecating grin and heel-taps of stout.
Nigel had gulped down the brandy, and, without exactly knowing why, had
sprung to his feet.
"Give us a speech, Mus' Furlonger!" cried Boorer of the Kenthouse. "Tell
us about gaol, and why it's damned and stinking."
"Have something to cool you fust," suggested Breame.
Nigel shook his head. He was in that convenient state when a man is
sober enough to know he is drunk.
"Gaol's damned and stinking," he began, glaring sharply round him, "in
the same way that this bar is damned and stinking--because it's full of
men. But in gaol they're divided into two classes, top scoundrels and
bottom scoundrels. The top scoundrels are the warders, with their eye at
your door, and their hand inside your coat--in case you've got baccy."
A murmur of sympathy ran through his listeners, who had been a little
taken aback by his opening phrases.
"Baccy's one of the things you aren't allowed. There's lots of
others--drink, and girls, and your own body and soul--the body your
mother gave you, and the soul God gave you," he finished sententiously
with a hiccup.
Some one thrust another glass into his hand, and he gulped it down. It
burnt his throat.
"I once had a body, and I once had a soul, but they aren't mine any
longer now. They belong to the state--hic--they're number
seventy-six--that's me who's speaking to you--number seventy-six--no
other name for three yearsh ... go and see the p'lice every
month--convict seventy-six ... made me no better'n a child--hic--what'er
you to do with a man when he's got too clever for you?--turn him into a
child--a crying child--a damn crying child--like me----"
And Furlonger burst into tears.
The bar looked disconcerted. Nigel stood leaning up against the table,
sobbing and hiccuping. The barmaid offered him her handkerchief, which
was strongly scented, and edged with lace. Breame muttered--"We're
unaccountable sorry, Mus' Furlonger," and Dunk suggested another brandy.
Suddenly Nigel flung round on them, his lips shrinking from his teeth,
his eyes blazing.
"Damn you!" he cried thickly--"damn you all--you cheap cads--gaping and
cringing and pumping--feeding on my misery and my shame--hic ... look at
you all grinning ... you're pleased because I'm in hell. You'll go home
and gas about me, and say 'poor fellow'--blast you!--I'm better than
anything in _Lloyd's_ or the _News of the World_--hic--let me go--you're
dirt, all of you--let me go----"
He plunged forward, and elbowed his way through them to the door. He was
very unsteady, and crashed into the doorpost, bruising his forehead. But
at last he was out in the sun-spattered afternoon--with a cool breeze
bringing the scent of rain from the forest, and little clouds flying
low.
CHAPTER VI
THICK WOODS
When Len and Janey came in from the yard that evening they found Nigel
in the kitchen, sitting at the table scowling. His hair was damp on the
temples, and his cheeks were flushed.
"Hullo, old man!" cried Janey, "when did you come in?"
He did not answer, but supplemented his scowl by a grin. It was
characteristic of him to scowl and grin at the same time.
Len went up to his brother, and looked at him closely and rather
sternly.
"What have you been up to?"
Still Nigel did not speak. Then suddenly he dropped his head, rolling it
on his arms.
"Is he drunk?" whispered Janey.
"What d'you think?"
Len tried to pull up his brother's head, but Nigel growled and shook him
off.
"Nigel!" cried Janey.
He made no answer.
She tried to slip her hand under his forehead, and lift it.
"Nigel, what have you been doing?"
He snarled something at her, and she remembered the other awful occasion
when she had seen her brother drunk.
"Leave him alone, and he'll come to himself," said Len. "It's natural
for him to get drunk--he's the sort."
"Oh, no, he isn't!--Nigel, come upstairs with me, and let me put
something cool on your head."
"Damn you!" growled the boy, "leave me alone."
"Oh, Nigel, don't hate me--I'm not blaming you--I think I know why you
got drunk, and I----"
Her sentence was never finished. With a yell of fury he sprang to his
feet, knocking over his chair, and seized her in a grip of iron.
"Hold your tongue, you ----!"
"Oh!" cried Janet.
Leonard vaulted across the table, grasped his brother's collar, and
struck him on the side of the head. Nigel loosed his grip of Janet, and
turned to close with Len, who was, however, much the better man of the
two. He forced Nigel down on the table, and proceeded to punish him with
all his might.
"Apologise, you brute ... beg her pardon on your knees," he shouted.
Nigel did not speak--his lips were tight shut, a thin red streak in the
whiteness of his face.
"Len ... stop!--you'll kill him!" cried Janet. She stood petrified,
trembling from head to foot. Never in her whole life had she witnessed
such a scene in the Furlonger family. The boys were fighting. She had
seen them spar before, but never anything like this. And Nigel's
drunkenness ... and his words to her ... a sickly, stifling horror crept
up her throat and nearly choked her.
"Len--stop!--he's had enough."
"Not till he apologises--apologise, you damn brute!"
Nigel's teeth were set. He struggled mechanically, Len had hold of his
right wrist, and his left hand was bent under him. Suddenly, however, he
managed to wrench them both free--the next minute he seized his
brother's throat. For a moment or two they struggled desperately,
Leonard half strangled, and in the end Nigel rolled off the table to the
floor, where both young men lay together.
Leonard was the first to rise.
"Good Lord, Janey," he said weakly.
"Nigel--he's dead."
"Not he!"
They both knelt down, and raised him a little. Blood began to run out of
the corner of his mouth.
"You've killed him!" cried Janey.
"No--he's only bitten his tongue. Look"--lifting the corner of his
brother's lip--"his teeth are locked like a vice."
"Oh, all this has been too horrible!"
"Run and fetch some water--we'll bring him to in a minute."
She filled a jug at the tap, and together they bathed Nigel's forehead
and neck. Len's rage had entirely cooled, and he handled his unconscious
brother almost tenderly.
At last the boy opened his eyes. To the surprise of both Len and Janet
his first glance was quite mild.
"Oh ..." he said weakly.
Then suddenly remembrance seemed to come. He shook off his brother's
hand, scowled at Janey, and struggled to his feet.
"I'm going to bed," he muttered, leaning unsteadily against the table.
"You mustn't stand," said Janet, trying to soothe him, "come and sit
here for a minute, and then Len shall help you up to bed."
"I don't want Len, damn him!"
He staggered towards the door.
"Len--go after him."
"Not if I know it."
"He'll never get upstairs without you."
"He's much better alone."
They heard Nigel slipping and stumbling on the stairs. Once he fell with
a crash, but at last he reached the top. Luckily his door was open, and
he lurched in. The next minute they heard a thud and a creak as he flung
himself on the bed.
He woke at dawn from what seemed an eternity of sleep--not one of those
swift, deep sleeps which we are unconscious of till we find their
healing touch on our lids at waking, but a series of sleeps, heavy, yet
tossed, continually broken by grey glimmers of consciousness, by sudden
heats and pains, quick stabs of memory, blind spaces of
forgetfulness--that feverish, aching forgetfulness, which is memory in
its acutest form.
He sat up in bed, his temples throbbing, his face flushed and damp. He
pushed his hair back from his forehead, and stared out at the morning
with eyes that burned. He fully remembered all that had happened,
without such reminders as his headache, his sickness, and the rumpled
clothes in which he had slept all night. His brain throbbed to the point
of torture. Sharp cuts of pain tore through it, hideous revisualisations
seemed to scorch whole surfaces of it with sudden flames. Facts hammered
at it with monotonous mercilessness.
He fell back on the pillow, and for some minutes lay quite still,
staring out at the woods. There they lay in their straight brown line,
those woods. He could almost hear the rock of the wind in them, creeping
to him over the stillness of the fields. They seemed to whisper
peace--peace to his throbbing pulses and burning skin and aching body
and breaking heart. All his universe was shattered, except those quiet
external things--the woods and fields round his home. They stood
unchanged through all his turmoils, they responded only to their own
remote influences--the warming and cooling of winds, the waxing and
waning of the sun's heat, the frostiness of vapours. He might rage,
despair, scream, and curse in them without changing the colour of one
leaf.
He longed stupidly for tears, but those easy tears of his humiliation
would not come. He felt that if he thought of Len and Janey he might
cry. But he would not think of them, though in his heart was an infinite
tenderness. Len and Janey were like the woods, they did not change--then
suddenly he realised that nothing had changed, it was only he. He had
changed, and could not fit in with his old environment. Curse it! Damn
it! Where could he find peace?
Perhaps he had formally renounced peace on that day he plunged his
hands into the pitchy mess of money-making. He had known peace before
then--soft dreams that flew to him from the lattices of dawn. He
remembered days when he had lain in the corner of some field, among the
rustling hay-grass, his soul lost in the eternities of peace within it.
But now--he had renounced peace. He had turned from pure things to
defiled--and he had sharpened his brain, whetted it on artificialities.
For the man with brains there is seldom peace, but an eternal questing.
The man without brains suffers only the problem of "what?" It is the man
with brains who has to face the seven-times hotter problem of "why?"
Why was a man, alone of all creatures, allowed to be at war with his
environment--a prey to changes that were independent of, and unable to
reproduce themselves in, the world around him? Why was a man the
meeting-place of god and brute, the battle-ground of the two with their
unending wars?--and so made that if one should triumph and drive out the
other, the vanquished, whether god or brute, took away part of his
manhood with him, and peace was won only at the price of
incompleteness?... Why was consummation only a prelude to
destruction?--the lustreless horns of the daylight moon seemed to be
telling him that it waxed full only to wane. Why was a man given desires
that were gratified only at their own expense? Why did his young blood
call--call into the fire and dark--with only the fire and dark to answer
it?
It was in this turmoil of "whys" that Nigel's longing for the woods
became desperate. He raised himself on his elbow, and stared out at
them--Swites Wood, Summer Wood, and the woods of Ashplats and Hackenden.
He found himself dreaming of their narrow, soaking paths, of their brown
undergrowth, and carpet of dead leaves--he seemed to see the long rows
of ash, with here and there a yellow leaf fluttering on a bough. He
would go to the woods, he would find rest in their silent thickness.
He sprang out of bed and across the room, with what seemed one movement
of his big, graceful body. He lifted his water-jug from the floor, and
drank deeply--then he washed himself and put on fresh clothes. He felt
clean and cool, and the mere physical sensation gave him new strength
and dignity. He went quietly downstairs. Len was up and in the yard,
Janet was in the kitchen--but neither saw him as he stole out of the
house and up the lane.
He left it soon after passing Wilderwick, and plunged into a field. The
grass was covered with frost-crystals, beginning to melt in the lemon
glare of the sun. It was a strange, yellow dawn, dream-like, pathetic--a
little wind fluttered with it from the east, and smote the hedges into
ghostly rustlings. Nigel crept through the pasture as if he feared to
wake some one asleep, and entered the first of his woods.
The rim was touched with flame--one or two fiery maples blazed out of
the hedge against a background of yellow. Creeping through those golds
and scarlets into the sober browns was symbolic. He went a few steps,
then flung himself down upon the leaves. On the top they were dry,
underneath he felt and smelt their gracious dampness.
The fires in his heart seemed to die. He felt bruises where Len had
struck him, but they galled him no longer; the half-forgotten peace and
liberty of other days was beginning to drift like a shower into his
breast. Why could he not live always in the woods, instead of among
people whom he hurt and who hurt him, though he loved them and they
loved him? There was no love in the woods--love had passed out of them
in September, leaving them very quiet, very peaceful, in a great brown
hush of sleep. Love was what hurt in life--love and brains; take away
these and you take away suffering. Oh, if love and thought could go
together out of his life as they had gone out of the woods--and leave
him in a great brown hush of sleep.
For nearly an hour he lay in the brake, hidden by golden tangles of
bracken and stiff clumps of tansy. He had begun to drowse, and capture
rags of happiness in dreams, when suddenly he heard a rustling in the
bushes. Hang it all! He could not have peace, even in the woods. The
rustling came nearer, and he heard the panting of a dog--with a mumbled
oath he sat up in the fern.
"Oh!..."
Nigel's head and shoulders were not a reassuring sight to confront one
suddenly on a lonely woodland walk, and though Tony did not scream her
voice was full of alarm. At first Nigel did not recognise her, she
stirred up in him merely impersonal feelings of annoyance, but the next
moment he seemed to see her face in a glow of lamplight on East
Grinstead platform. This was the lone girl-kid he had befriended--and
thought no more of since then.
"I beg your pardon," he said hastily, scrambling to his feet, "I'm
afraid I startled you."
"Oh, no"--she looked awkward and embarrassed. "You're Mr. Smith, aren't
you?"
Nigel stared at her in some bewilderment, then suddenly remembered
another of the half-forgotten incidents of that night.
"Yes--I'm Smith," he said slowly. "I--I hope you got home all right in
the taxi."
"Quite all right, thank you--and mother said I ought to be very grateful
to you for taking such care of me."
There was something about this school-girl, who evidently took him for a
man of her own class and position, which filled him with an infinite
pain--a pain that was half a wistful pleasure. She stood before him in
the path, a slim, unripe promise of womanhood, her long hair plaited
simply on her back, her face glowing with health, her eyes bright and
shy. He felt unfit, uncouth--and yet she did not seem to see anything
strange in his appearance, sudden as it had been. He realised that now
at last he was face to face with a human being between whom and him the
barrier of his disgrace did not stand. This child did not exalt him for
his evil story, neither did she despise him--his crime simply did not
exist. Its hideousness was not tricked out with tinsel and scarlet, as
by the cads in the bar--it was just invisible, put away. Strange words
thrilled faintly into his mind--"the remission of sins."
"I'm glad you came to me at East Grinstead," said Tony, a little
embarrassed by the long pause. "You see, mother never got my postcard,
so no wonder there wasn't any one to meet me."
"I'm glad I was any use." He spoke stiffly, in a mortal fear lest, for
some reason unspecified, her attitude of fragrant ignorance should
collapse.
"Do you live near here?" she asked naïvely.
He hesitated. "Not very."
"I do--quite near. I think I must be going home now."
She held out her hand to say good-bye, when suddenly a shrill wailing
scream rose from the field outside the wood.
"Oh!" cried Tony.
They both turned and listened, their hands still clasped. The next
minute it came again--shrill, frantic.
"What is it?" asked the girl, shuddering, "it sounds just like a baby."
"I think it's a rabbit--perhaps it's caught in a trap."
He left hold of her hand and looked over the hedge. The next minute he
sprang into it, forcing his way through, while she stared after him with
troubled eyes.
"Yes, it's a rabbit," he cried thickly, "caught in one of those spring
traps, poor little devil!"
She scrambled after him into the field.
"Oh, let it out!--poor little thing!--oh, save it!"
But he was already struggling with the trap, and she saw blood on his
hands where the teeth had caught them.
"I'll do it, never fear," he muttered, grinding his teeth. "Can you hold
the poor little chap?--He'll hurt himself worse than ever if he
struggles so."
She grasped the soft mass of fur, damp and draggled with its agony,
while Nigel tried to prise open the steel jaws.
"There!"
The rabbit bounded out of the trap, but the next minute fell down
struggling.
"It's leg's broken," cried Nigel. "Poor little beast!--what a damned
infernal shame!"
He picked it up tenderly.
"Hadn't you better destroy it?" asked Tony, gulping her tears.
"I think perhaps I had--look the other way."
She moved off a few steps, and heard nothing till Nigel said, "Poor
little beggar!"
He came up to her, holding the dead rabbit by its ears.
"That's all you're good for when you've been in a trap--to die. Being in
a trap breaks parts of you that can never be mended. It's always kind to
kill broken things."
He stood hesitating a moment, then suddenly he flushed awkwardly,
pulled off his cap and turned away.
Tony stared after him. She saw him go with bowed head across the field.
Half way he dropped the rabbit, but he did not stop. He walked straight
to the fence, and climbed over it into the lane.
An impulse seized her--she could not account for it, but she suddenly
turned to follow him. She wanted to thank him again, perhaps--to ask him
something, she scarcely knew what. But he was gone. There was only the
dead rabbit, lying still warm in the grass.
CHAPTER VII
OVER THE GATES OF PARADISE
The next day was the day Janet had promised to have tea with Quentin at
Redpale Farm. She had prepared for it carefully, telling her brothers
she was going shopping in East Grinstead, and would not be home till
late.
As soon as dinner was over, she slipped upstairs to dress. She was in a
state of fever, and for the first time thought of her clothes. She had
never troubled about them when she went to meet Quentin in the woods,
but now she was going to his house--a thrill ran through her; she had
never in her life been inside Redpale Farm, but now she would see the
room where Quentin sat and thought of her in the long, dark
evenings--which he had told her of so often--when the stars crawled
through veils of wrack, and the wind piped down the valley of the hammer
ponds.
Memories of his few pronouncements on clothes rose to guide her. He
liked her to come to him as a fragment of the day on which he waited.
To-day was a brown day, hiding under rags of mist from a pale,
sun-washed sky--so she put on a brown dress, of a long-past fashion, and
mended in places, but beautiful in clinging folds about her--and in her
breast she pinned the last yellow rose of the garden.
"Good-bye, Janey," called Len from the orchard.
"Good-bye," sang out Nigel.
She waved her hand to them, not trusting herself to speak.
As soon as she was out of sight, she climbed into the fields, and walked
across them to Old Surrey Hall. Here were the tangled borders of
Kent--she plunged through a hedge of elder and crack-willow, and was in
the next county. Quentin always used to say that there was a difference
between the three counties, even where they touched in this corner.
Surrey was park-like, and more sophisticated than the other two; one had
wide, green spaces and dotted trees. Sussex was moor-like, covered with
wild patches and pines, hilly and bare; Kent was untidy, tangled and
lush, full of small, twisting lanes, weighted orchards and huddled
farms. Janet passed the flat gable-end of Anstiel, buried in the
thickets of its garden, and came out on the Gated Road. This wound down
the valley of the hammer ponds to Redpale, Scarlets and Clay. It was
seldom used, as there were gates every few hundred yards to prevent the
cattle from straying, and in winter the hammer ponds sometimes
overflowed.
Redpale was the first of the valley farms, and stood in a reed-grown
hollow beside a wood. It was an old house, with a carnival of reds in
its huge, sloping roof. Janet stole quickly through the yard and came up
the garden to the door. It was opened before she reached it, and Quentin
seized her hands.
"You've come at last--I've been watching for you."
He dragged her into the passage, banged the door, and kissed her in the
dark.
"Come into the study," he cried eagerly. "Come and hallow me a hundred
lonely evenings in one hour."
He took her into a low, book-lined room, where a fire was burning. A
chair was pulled up to the fire, and over it was spread a gorgeous
Eastern rug.
"You're to sit there, Janey. I prepared that rug for you--it has your
tintings, your browns and whites and reds. Sit down, and I'll sit at
your feet."
She sat down, but before he did so, he fetched a jug of chrysanthemums,
and put them on the table beside her.
"Now you're posed, Janey sweet--posed for me to gaze at and worship. You
don't know how often I've dreamed of you in that chair, with old oak at
your back, flowers at your elbow, and firelight in your eyes. One night
I really thought I saw you there, and I fell at your knees--as I do
now--and took your hand--as I do now. But it was only a dream, and I sat
on in my own chair and watched our two fetches sitting there before me,
you in the chair and I at your feet."
He kissed her hands repeatedly, and his poor, hot kisses seemed to drain
love and pity in a torrent from her heart.
"Quentin, I'm so glad I came. Is this where you sit in the evenings?
Now I shall know how to imagine you when I think of you after supper."
"'When you think of me after supper'--you quaint woman! how funnily you
speak!"
He laughed, and hid his face in her knees. But the next moment his head
shot up tragically.
"I've bad news for you, dear."
"Oh, what is it?..."
"Baker has returned my poems."
"Oh!..."
"Yes--there they are."
He pointed to the grate, where one or two fragments of charred paper
showed among the cinders.
She bowed her face over his.
"I thought you were happy when I came."
"Happy! of course I was happy _when you came_. Janey, if you come to me
on my death-bed, I'll be happy--if you come to me in hell, I'll sing for
joy."
"Did Baker write about the poems?"
"No--only a damned printed slip; he doesn't think 'em worth a letter.
It's all over with me, Janey--with us both. I'll never be good for
anything--I'm a rotter, a waster, a Spring Poet. We're both done
for--our love isn't any more use."
"Can't you hope, dear?"
"Can you?"
She began to cry.
She had always fought hard against tears when she was with Quentin, but
this afternoon her disappointment was too bitter. She realised the sour
facts to which hope and trust had long blinded her--that Quentin would
never win his independence, and therefore that marriage with him was
impossible till his father's death. She saw how much she had
unconsciously relied on Baker's acceptance of the poems, their last
hope. Quentin's words had scattered a crowd of little delicate dreams,
scarcely realised while she entertained them, known only as they fled
like angels from the door. After those three weary years of waiting she
had dreamed of being his at last--his wife, his housemate--no longer
meeting him in the dark corners of woods, but his before the world,
honoured and acknowledged. Now that dream was shattered--the three weary
years would become four weary years, and the four, five--and on and on
to six and seven. The woods would still rustle with their stealthy
footsteps, their tongues still burn with lies ... she covered her face,
and wept bitterly--with all the impassioned weakness of the strong.
"Oh, I'm so ashamed...."
"Why?"
"Because I'm crying. But, Quentin, I feel broken, somehow. Our love's so
great, and we're parted by such little things."
"Janey, Janey...."
She sobbed more dryly now--anguish was stiffening her throat.
"Must we wait all those years?" he whispered.
"What else can we do?"
He whispered again. "Must we wait all those years?"
She lifted her face, understanding him suddenly.
"Quentin, you and I must do nothing to--degrade our love."
"But it's degraded already--it's thwarted, and all thwarted things are
degraded. If we fling aside our fears and triumph over circumstances,
then it will be exalted, not degraded."
She did not speak.
"Janey," he continued, his voice muffled in her hands, which he held
against his mouth. "You and I have been locked out of Paradise--but we
can climb over the gates."
She was still silent. Quentin had never spoken to her so openly
before--after earlier disappointments he had sometimes hinted what he
now expressed; but his love had never made her tremble; violent as it
was, it was reverent.
"Janey ... will you climb over the gates of Paradise with me?"
"No, dear."
"Why?"
"Because our love's not that sort."
"It's the sort that waits and is trampled on."
"It's strong enough to wait."
"How white your face is, Janey!--you speak brave words, but you're
trembling."
"Yes, I'm trembling."
"Because you're not speaking the truth; you're lying--in the face of
Love. You see plainly that if you and I wait till we can marry, we shall
wait for ever. Our only chance is to take matters into our own hands,
and let circumstances and opportunities be damned. You make out that
you're denying Love for its own good--that's another lie. 'Wait,' you
say, because you're afraid. Why, what have we been doing all these years
but 'wait'?--wait, wait; wait till our hearts are sick and our hopes are
dust. If we wait any longer our love will die--and then will you find
much comfort in the thought that we have 'waited'?"
"But there's the boys, Quentin."
An oath burst from young Lowe.
"The boys! the boys!--that's your war-cry, Janey. I'm nearly sick of it
now. And how appropriate!--your brothers are such models of good
behaviour, ain't they?"
"Don't, Quentin--it's for that very reason...."
"Yes," he said bitterly, "I remember how your reasons go--the boys have
their secrets, so you must be without one; the boys have made a pretty
general hash of law and order, so you must be a kind of Sunday-school
ma'am. Really, Janet!"
"You don't understand what it is to live with people who think you ever
so much better than you really are--you have to keep it up somehow."
"But surely you don't think you'll be committing a crime by giving our
love a chance. You can't be such a prude as to stickle for a ceremony--a
few lines scribbled, a few words muttered."
"It wouldn't be so bad if that were all. But it's no good trying to
prove that you're simply offering me marriage with the ceremony left
out. In some cases that might be true, but not in ours. You can't give
the name of marriage to a few hurried meetings, all secrecy and lies.
Things are bad enough as they are, without adding--that mockery."
Quentin sighed.
"You're an extraordinary woman, Janey; you breathe the pure spirit of
recklessness and paganism--and then suddenly you give vent to feelings
that would become Hesba Stretton. You're a moralist at bottom--every
woman is. There's no use looking for the Greek in a woman--they're all
Semitic at heart, every one of 'em. You'll begin to quote the Ten
Commandments in a minute."
Janey said nothing, and for some time they did not move. The wind rushed
up to the farmhouse, blustered round it, and sighed away. The sunshine
began to slant on the woods, tarnishing their western rims.
Then suddenly the kettle began to sing. They both lifted their heads as
they heard it--it reminded them of the meal they were to have together.
"Janey, will you make tea?"
She stood up quickly as his arms fell from her waist. This sudden, most
domestic, diversion was a relief. She began to prepare the meal, and he
crouched by the fire and watched her.
"You shall pour out tea, love--then we'll do things in the grand style,
and smash the tea-pot."
While she waited for the tea to draw she came over to the mirror above
the fireplace and began to arrange her hair. The firelight played on her
as she stood there, her arms lifted, her head thrown back, half her face
in shadow, half flushed in the glow.
"Janey, you are the symbol of Love--all light and darkness and
disarray. It's cruel of you to stand like that--it's profane. For you're
not Love, you're morality."
"It's funny, Quentin, but you never can understand my reasons for what I
do--it's because they're not poetic enough, I suppose."
"You don't seem to have any reasons at all--only a moral sense."
He rose and went to sit at the table, resting his chin on his hands. She
came behind him and bent over him.
"Dear one, I've seen such a lot of unhappy love that I've made up my
mind ours shall be different.... I refuse you because I love you too
much."
Quentin sighed impatiently.
"If I did what you ask," continued Janey tremulously, "our love would
die."
"Nonsense!--how dare you say such things! Why should it die?"
"I--I don't know--but I'm sure it would. Oh, Quentin, I know you don't
understand my reasons, because I really haven't given them to you
properly. They're things I feel more than things I know."
She went and sat down opposite him, and began to pour out tea.
"Let's talk of something that isn't love."
He laughed.
"Let's breathe something that isn't air. Everything's love--if we talked
about flowers, or books, or animals, or stars, we should be talking
about love. Without love even our daily newspapers wouldn't appear."
"Then don't let's talk of anything--let's hold our tongues."
"Very well, Janey."
He smiled at the simplicity of the woman who thought she could silence
love by holding her tongue.
For some minutes they sat opposite each other, swallowing scalding tea,
crumbling cake upon their plates. Their first meal together, on which
they had both set such store, had become an ordeal of mistrust and
silence. The sunset was now ruddy on the woods, and the sky became full
of little burning wisps of cloud, like brands flung out of the west.
They hurried over the sky, and dropped behind a grass-grown hill in the
east, crowding after one another, kindling from flame to scarlet, from
scarlet to crimson. The wind came and fluttered again round the
house--darkness began to drop into the room. Outside, a rainbow of
colours gleamed and flashed in the sunset, as it struck the hammer ponds
and the wet flowers of the garden--but the window looked east, and there
was nothing but the firelight to wrestle with the shadows that crept
from the corners towards the table. Soon the table with the food on it
became mysterious, gloomed with shadows and half-lights--then the
dimness crept up the bodies of Quentin and Janey, leaving only their
white faces staring at each other. They had given up even the pretence
to eat--their eyes were burning, and yet washed in tears.
Suddenly Janey sprang to her feet.
"I must go."
"Go--why, it's barely five."
"But I must."
He rose hurriedly. For a moment they faced each other over the
unfinished meal, then Quentin came towards her.
"You're frightened, Janey?"
"Yes."
"Of me?"
"No."
"But of yourself...."
She began to tremble violently, and suddenly his arms were round her,
her sobs shaking them both.
"My little Janey...."
"Quentin, Quentin ... be merciful ... I'm in your power."
He looked down into her drowning eyes, at the pure outlines of her face,
seen palely through the dusk.
"I'm in your power," she repeated vaguely.
"Janey ... Janey," he whispered, "you're in my power ... but I'm in
Love's. Love is stronger than either of us--and Love says 'Over the
gates!--over the gates!'"
CHAPTER VIII
BRAMBLETYE
The next few days were to Nigel like a piece of steep hill to a
cart-horse. There was only one comfort--he felt no temptation to seek
oblivion again as he had sought it at the Bells. He turned surlily from
the men he had looked to for alleviation--he knew they could not give
it. All they could do was to cover his wounds with septic rags--they had
no oil and wine for him.
So he put down his head, seeing nothing but the little patch of ground
over which he moved, planted his feet firmly, and pulled from the
shoulder. Perhaps it was because he saw such a little of his way that he
did not notice Janey was doing pretty much the same thing--with the
difference that she fretted more, like a horse with a bearing-rein,
which cannot pull from the collar. Side by side they were plunging up
the hill of difficulty--and yet neither saw how the other strained.
Len vaguely realised that something was wrong with Janet, but he put it
down to her anxiety about Nigel. An atmosphere of reticence and
misunderstanding had settled on Sparrow Hall, frankness had gone and
effects were put down to the wrong causes. Len tried to help Janey by
helping Nigel. It struck him that his brother would be happier if he had
less pottering work to do. So he took upon himself all the monotonous
details of the yard, and asked Nigel to see to the larger matters,
which involved much tramping in the country round.
One day towards the end of October, Len asked him to attend an auction
at Forest Row. He went by train, but as the auction ended rather earlier
than he expected, he decided to walk home.
It was a pale afternoon, smelling of rain. The sky was covered with soft
mackerel clouds, dappled with light, and the distances were mysterious
and tender. Nigel had a special love for distances--for three years he
had not been able to look further than a wall some thirty yards off,
except when he lifted his eyes to that one far view prison could not rob
him of, the sky. Now the stretch of distant fields, the blur of distant
woods, the gleam of distant windows in distant farms, even the distant
gape of Oxted chalk-pit among the Surrey hills, filled him with an
ineffable sense of quiet and liberty.
For this reason he walked home along the high road, ignoring the dusty
cars--so that he might look on either side of him into distances, the
shaded sleep of meadows in the east, the pine-bound brows of the Forest
in the west.
He did not feel that resentment at Nature's indifference to human moods,
which is a man's right and a token of his lordship. On the contrary, the
beauty and happiness of the background to his travail gave him a vague
sense of ultimate justice. The peace of the country against the restless
misery of human life reminded him of those early Italian pictures of the
Crucifixion--in which, behind all the hideous mediæval realism of the
subject, lies a tranquil background of vineyard and cypress, lazily
shining waters, dream cities on the hills. That was Life--a crucifixion
against a background of green fields.
He was roused from his meditations by being nearly knocked down by a big
car. He sprang into the hedge, and cursed with his mouth full of dust.
The dust drifted, and he saw some one else crouching in the hedge not a
hundred feet away. It was a girl with her bicycle--somehow he felt no
surprise when he saw that it was Tony Strife, the "girl-kid," again.
She was obviously in difficulties. One of her tyres was off, and her
repairing outfit lay scattered by the roadside. She did not see him, but
stooped over her work with a hot face. Nigel did not think of greeting
her--though their last encounter had impressed him far more than the
first; she had even come once or twice into his dreams, standing with
little Ivy among fields of daisies, in that golden radiance which shines
only in sleep.
He was passing, when suddenly she lifted her head, and recognition at
once filled her eyes--
"Oh, Mr. Smith!..."
Her voice had in it both relief and entreaty. He stopped at once.
"What's happened?"
"I've punctured my tyre--and I can't mend it."
He knelt down beside her, and searched among the litter on the road.
"Why, you haven't got any rubber!"
"That's just it. I haven't used my bicycle for so long that I never
thought of looking to see if everything was there. What shall I do?"
"Let me wheel it for you to a shop."
"There's nowhere nearer than Forest Row, and that's three miles away."
"Are you in a great hurry?"
"Yes--terrible. The others have gone up to Fairwarp in the car for a
picnic. There wasn't enough room for us all, so Awdrey and I were to
bicycle; then she said her skirt was too tight, so they squeezed her in,
and I bicycled alone. It's quite close really, but I had this puncture,
and they all passed me in the car, and never saw me, they were going so
fast. I don't know how I can possibly be at Fairwarp in time."
"No--nor do I. We can't mend your tyre without the stuff, and the
nearest shop is two miles from here."
"I'll have to go home, that's all. They'll be awfully sick about it--for
I've got the nicest cakes on my carrier."
Nigel laughed.
"Then perhaps you have the advantage, after all. Just think--you can eat
them all yourself!"
"They're too many for one person. I say, won't you have some?"
"That would be a shame."
"Oh no--do have some. I hate eating alone--and I'm awfully hungry."
She began to unstrap the parcel from her carrier.
"This is a dusty place for a picnic," said Nigel, "let's go down the
lane to Brambletye, and eat them there."
The idea and the words came almost together. He did not pause to think
how funny it was that he should suddenly want to go for a picnic with a
school-girl of sixteen. It seemed quite natural, somehow. However, he
could not help being a little dismayed at his own boldness. This girl
would freeze up at once if by any chance he betrayed who he really was.
As for her people--but the thought of their scandalised faces was an
incitement rather than otherwise.
"Where's Brambletye?" asked Tony.
"Don't you know it?--it's the ruin at the bottom of that lane. You must
have passed it often."
"I've never been down the lane--only along the road in the car."
"And you live so near! Why, I've often been to Brambletye, and I live
much further away than you."
"Where do you live?"
This was a settler, to which Nigel had laid himself open by his
enthusiasm. He decided to face the situation boldly.
"I live over in Surrey--at a place called Fan's Court."
"Fan's Court," she repeated vaguely. "I don't think I've heard of it."
"Oh, it's a long way from you--beyond Blindly Heath--and only a little
place. I'm not very well off, you know."
She glanced at his shabby clothes, and felt embarrassed, for she saw
that he had noticed the glance.
He picked up the litter from the roadside, and began to wheel her
bicycle down the hill.
"I say," she breathed softly, "this is an adventure."
So it was--for both, in very different ways. For her it was an incursion
into lawlessness. Her father was tremendously particular, even her girl
friends had to pass the censor before intimacy was allowed, and as for
men--why, she had never really known a man in her life, and here she
was, picnicing with one her parents had never seen! Nigel was in exactly
the opposite position--he was adventuring into law and respectability.
He was with a girl, a school-girl, of the upper middle classes, to whom
he was simply a rather poverty-stricken country gentleman--to whom his
disgrace was unknown, who admitted him to her society on equal terms,
ignorant of the barriers that divided them. He looked down at her as she
walked by his side, her soft hair freckled with light, her eyes bright
with her thrills--and a faint glow came into his cheeks, a faint flutter
to his pulses, nothing fierce or mighty, but a great quiet surge that
seemed to pass over him like the sea, and leave him stranded in
simplicity.
They walked down the steep lane which led from the road, and wound for
some yards at the back of Brasses Wood. Here in a hollow stood the shell
of a ruined manor, flanked by a moat. Two ivy-smothered towers rose side
by side, crowned by strange, pointed caps of stone; the walls were
lumped with ivy, grown to an enormous density and stoutness. The place
looked deserted. There was a small water-mill behind it, and a farm, but
no one was about.
Nigel wheeled Tony's bicycle in at the dismantled door. The roof was
gone, and all the upper floors--the sky looked down freely at the grass
hillocks which filled the inside of the ruins. There were one or two
small rooms still partly ceiled, and these were full of farm implements
and mangolds.
A tremulous peace brooded over Brambletye. Birds twittered in the ivy,
the tall, capped turrets were outlined against a sky that flushed
faintly in the heart of its grey, as the sunset crept up it from the
hills. Both Nigel and Tony were silent for a moment, standing there in
the peace.
"Fancy my never having been here before," said the girl at last. "How
ripping it is!"
"I'm glad I brought you."
"It's strange," continued Tony, as she unfastened the cakes from her
bicycle, "that I haven't seen you before--before I met you at East
Grinstead, I mean."
"Oh, I've been away, I've not lived at home for some time. You haven't
been here long, have you?" He was anxious to shift the conversation from
dangerous ground.
"We came to Shovelstrode about three years ago. Before that we lived
near Seaford. I go to school at Seaford, you know."
School seemed a fairly safe topic.
"Tell me about your school," he said, as they began to eat the cakes.
School was Tony's paramount absorption, and no one else ever asked her
to speak of it. Indeed, on the rare occasions when she expanded of her
own accord, her family would silence her with, "Tony, we're sick of that
eternal school of yours--one would think it was the whole world, and
your home just a corner of it." That was in fact the relative positions
of home and school in Tony's mind. School was a world of kindred
spirits, of things that mattered, home was a place of exile, to which
three times a year one was bundled--and ignored. To her delight she
realised that her new friend sympathised with her, and understood her
feelings.
"You know, Mr. Smith, how beastly it is to be in a place where every one
gets hold of the wrong end of what you say--where you don't seem to fit
in, somehow."
"I do know--it's--it's exactly the same with me."
"Don't they like you being at home?"
"Rather!--they like it better than I deserve. But I don't fit in."
"And you've nowhere else to go?"
"I don't want to go anywhere else."
Tony looked mystified.
His eyes were shining straight into hers, and they seemed to be asking
her something, pleading, beseeching. She found a strange feeling
invading her, a feeling that had sometimes surged up in her heart when
she saw a dying animal, or a bird fluttering against cage-bars. But this
time there was a new intensity in it, and a stifling sense of pain. She
suddenly put out her hand and laid it on his--then drew it shyly away.
The sky had flushed to a fiery purple behind the turrets of Brambletye.
A mysterious glow trembled on the ivy. The birds were twittering
restlessly, and every now and then a robin uttered his harsh signal
note. Nigel rose to his feet.
"You mustn't be late home, or your parents will get anxious."
"We've had such a ripping picnic--better than if I'd gone to Fairwarp."
"I've been dull company for you, I'm afraid."
"Oh, no--indeed not! I've so enjoyed talking to you about school."
Nigel smiled at her.
"Perhaps we can meet and talk about school another day."
"Yes--I expect we can. I'm generally alone, you see."
"Haven't you any friends?"
"I've heaps at school--but they all seem so far away."
He was wheeling her bicycle up the lane, and the sun, struggling through
the clouds at last, flung long shadows before them. In summer the lanes
are often ugly, white and bare, but in autumn they share the beauty of
the fields. This lane, delicately slimed with Sussex mud, wound a soft
gleaming brown between the hedges, except where the rain-filled ruts
were crimson with the sky.
"It's only four miles to Shovelstrode," said Nigel. "I'll wheel your
bicycle to Wilderwick corner--you won't mind going the rest of the way
alone, will you?--it's not more than a hundred yards, and I shall have
to go down Wilderwick hill and make a bolt across country if I'm to be
home in time."
"I hope I haven't kept you."
"Oh, no--I've enjoyed every moment of it."
"So have I. That man Furlonger did me a good turn after all."
"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.
"Well, if it hadn't been for him, I'd never have met you."
"Furlonger...."
"Yes--he was the man who was bothering me at East Grinstead Station, at
least my people say it must have been. He came out of prison that day,
you know."
"Oh...."
"Have you heard of him?"
"Yes. I--I know him slightly."
"He's a dreadful man, isn't he?"
Nigel licked his lips.
"Yes--he's a rotter. But he--he has his good points--all men have."
"I don't see how a man like Furlonger can. He seems bad all around. I
wonder you care to know him."
"I don't care--I can't help it."
"I suppose you knew him before he went to gaol."
"Yes--and unluckily I can't drop him now."
"I should."
Nigel stared at her, and suddenly felt angry.
"Why, you hard-hearted little girl?"
"He's bad all through--father says so."
"Your father doesn't know him. I do, and I say he has his good points."
"Are you very fond of him?"
"No--I'm not."
"Then why do you stick up for him so? You're quite angry."
"No--no, I'm not angry. But I hate to hear you speaking so harshly
and--ignorantly."
"I have my ideals," said Tony, with a primitive attempt at loftiness. "A
woman should have clearly defined ideals on morals and things."
Nigel could not suppress a smile.
"Certainly--but it's no good having ideals unless you're able to forgive
the people who don't come up to 'em. Perhaps it isn't their
fault--perhaps it's yours."
"Mine! What are you talking about? Are you trying to make out that I'm
to blame for a man like Furlonger going to gaol?"
"No--of course not. But suppose that man Furlonger stood before you now,
and asked you to help him, and be his friend, and give him a hand out of
the mud--what would you do?"
She was a little taken aback by his eagerness. She hesitated a moment.
"I'd tell him to go to a clergyman----"
"Oh!" said Nigel blankly.
CHAPTER IX
SOME PEOPLE ARE HAPPY--IN DIFFERENT WAYS
Tony Strife reached Shovelstrode in a state of reckless and sublime
uncertainty. She was quite uncertain as to whether she meant to confess
or not. Precedent urged her to do so. Whenever she did something of
which she was not sure her parents would approve, it was part of her
code to confess it. Quite possibly her people would not blame her, they
might even be grateful to Mr. Smith, as they had been on a former
occasion. On the other hand, they might shake their heads at the picnic
part of the business. Who was Mr. Smith, that he should go picnicing
with their daughter?--and she would not be so confident in answering as
she had been before.
During their short interview on East Grinstead platform it had not been
possible to take more than a superficial view of him, either with eyes
or mind; but the close contemplation at Brambletye had impressed her
with the conviction that he was "rather queer." He evidently did not
belong to their set; not because he was poor--they knew several people
who were poor--but because of a certain alien quality she could not
define. It was not, either, because he was not a "gentleman," though she
had her occasional doubts of that, alternating with savage contempt for
them. It was because his manner, his look, his behaviour, had all been
utterly different from what she was used to, or had met at
Shovelstrode. She felt that if her parents were to question her
searchingly, her answers would be unsatisfactory, and she would not be
allowed to meet him again, as he had suggested. And she wanted to meet
him again; he had interested her, he had attracted her by that very
"queerness" with which he had occasionally repelled her. She wanted to
tell him more about her school, to have more of his strange confidences,
hear more from him about Furlonger, see again that hunted look in his
eyes. Only one of her memories of him was tender--that was when his
infinite suffering had called to her out of his eyes, and she had
answered it in a sudden new and divine surge of pain. She caught her
breath sharply as she went into the house.
Yes--she had decided at last--she would keep her secret--her first of
any importance. She would not risk interference with what looked like a
glowing adventure kindled to brighten her exile. Besides, there was
another consideration. If Awdrey were to hear of it, she would at once
begin to weave one of her silly romances--make out Mr. Smith was in
love. Ugh! Tony's shoulders shrugged high in disdain.
It would be quite easy to give an account of her afternoon which did not
include her adventure. She would tell how her tyre had punctured, how
she had tried in vain to mend it, and had at last come home on foot. Her
concealment did not afflict her, as she had at first imagined. On the
contrary, it gave her a strange, new feeling of importance and
independence. For the first time a certain warmth and colour crept into
her thoughts, a certain pride invaded the shy dignity of her step.
That night she dreamed that she had gone to meet Mr. Smith at
Brambletye. She saw the two capped turrets against a background of
shimmering light. Mr. Smith took her hand and looked into her eyes in
that strange, troubled way which called up as before an answering pain.
He said something she could not remember when she woke. Then suddenly a
dark shape seemed to rush between them and whirl them apart. She cried
out, and Mr. Smith seemed to be answering her from a great distance:
"Don't be frightened--it's only Furlonger--it's only Furlonger." But the
fear grew upon her, the darkness wrapt her round, and, struggling in the
darkness, she awoke.
All that day she wondered if she would meet him. She prowled round
Shovelstrode with her dog, ignoring an invitation from Awdrey to "come
for a stroll, and hear the latest about Captain le Bourbourg." She was
used to being alone during her holidays. It was her habit to walk with
Prince in the little twisting lanes round her home. She never went far,
but she used to spend long hours in the fields, gathering wild flowers
and leaves for her collection, or making Prince go racing in the grass.
A rather forlorn little figure, she had gone through the days
unconscious of her forlornness. But to-day she felt it--because she was
expecting some one who did not come. She did not meet him in any of
those thick-rutted lanes, nor in Swites Wood, nor on the borders of
Holtye Common where she went for blackberries.
She began to wonder if he would ever come, or if her glimpse of a world
beyond the strait boundaries of her life had been but a flash--a sudden
haze of gold in the ruins of Brambletye. She felt her loneliness, the
blank of having no one to speak to about school, the strange tickling
interest of confidences outside her experience. That night as she knelt
by the bed and watched the moon behind the pines, she added to her
prayers a stiff petition that she might "meet Mr. Smith again."
Tony's belief in prayer was quite mechanical, and when the next day she
saw her shabby friend on a stile at the top of Wilderwick hill, she in
no wise connected the sight with those few uncomfortable moments on her
knees.
"Good morning," she said simply; "I'm so glad to see you."
Nigel smiled at her. At first she had wondered a little whether she
liked his smile--to-day she definitely decided that she did.
"I hoped we'd meet again," he said.
"So did I," answered the virginal candour of sixteen.
"You don't think me queer, then?"
"Ye-es. But I like it."
"Could we be friends?"
"Yes--rather!"
He held out his hand. He was smiling--but suddenly as her hand took his,
she saw the old wretched look creep into his eyes, together with
something else that puzzled her. Were those tears? Did men ever cry?
She found herself feeling frightened and vexed.
Nigel crimsoned with shame, and the fire of his anger licked up the
tears of his weakness. The next moment he was looking at her with dry
eyes--and, strange to say, from that day his childish fits of weeping
troubled him less.
He and Tony turned almost mechanically down the narrow grass lane
leading past Old Surrey Hall to the woods of Cowsanish. They did not
speak much at first--indeed, a kind of restraint seemed established
between them. Nigel wondered more than ever what had made him seek her
out--this naïve, shy, rather limited little girl. All yesterday he had
been struggling with a desperate need of her. He could not understand
why he wanted her so; she was not nearly as sympathetic as Len and
Janey, she was not so interesting, even, and yet he wanted her.
At first he had thought it was her ignorance of his past life which made
her presence such refreshment--the blessed fact that with her he had a
clean slate to write over. After all, though Len and Janey had forgiven,
they could not forget--for them his muddled sum was only crossed out,
not wiped clean. With Tony he could start afresh from the beginning, not
merely where his miserable blunder ended. And yet this was not all that
drew him to her. He felt deep down in his heart a subtler, more
compelling attraction. What brought him to Tony was a development of the
same feeling that had made him catch up the unlovely Ivy in his arms and
find her sweet. It was a fragment of that strange, new part of him,
which had been born in prison, and frightened Len and Janey--the child.
He could not remember that before his dark years he had felt
particularly young for his age, or cared for young society; but now his
heart seemed full of irrepressible torrents of youth. He wanted to be
with boys and girls, to hear their shouts, to share their laughter, to
join in their games--not as a "grown-up," but as one of themselves. Why
did every one expect him to have grown old in prison? Sorrow does not
always make old, it often makes young. It sends a man back pleading to
the forgotten days of his youth, struggling to recapture them once more,
and bring their carelessness into his awful care.
To-day he lost his troubles in finding grasses and leaves for Tony's
collection. After a time her constraint wore off. She chattered to him
about school friends, lessons and games, daring adventures and desperate
scrapes. That day he found such a mood more sweet to him than any
glimpse of pity or understanding she could have shown. He might want her
compassion--the woman in her--sometimes, but only transiently; what he
wanted most was the child in her, for it answered the sorrow-born child
crying in the darkness of his heart.
They scrambled in the hedges for bloody-twig and bryony, they gathered
the yellowing hazel, and bunches of strange pods. Nigel was able to tell
her the names of many plants and bushes she had not known before--he was
wonderfully enthusiastic, and loved to hear about the botany walks at
school, and the other collections she had made, which had sometimes won
prizes.
It was past noon when they turned home. The distances were dim, hazed
with mist and sunshine. A faint wind was stirring in the trees, and now
and then a shower of golden leaves swept into the lane, whirled round,
then fluttered slowly to the grass. Some rain had fallen early in the
morning, and the hedges were still wet, sending up sweet steams of
perfume to the cloud-latticed sky.
Nigel spoke suddenly.
"Do your parents know about me?"
"They know about East Grinstead, but not about Brambletye."
"Shall you tell them?"
"No--I don't think I shall. I--I'm not at all sure what they'd say if
they knew all the facts."
"Nor am I," said Nigel grimly.
"Besides, I hate telling people about things I really enjoy--it spoils
it all, somehow. You don't think it's wrong, do you?"
"No--why should it be?"
"I don't know--only whenever a thing's absolutely heavenly, one can't
help thinking there's something wrong about it."
"Well, I don't see why there should be anything wrong about this. I'm
lonely, and so are you--why shouldn't we be friends?"
"I've never done anything like it before. It's funny that father and
mother are so awfully particular, for they don't bother about me much
in other ways. I'm nearly always alone when I'm at Shovelstrode.
Father's busy, and mother's not strong, and Awdrey has so many people to
go about with."
"And when you come back from a long walk, no one asks you where you've
been, or whom you've met?"
"I'm not supposed to go for long walks by myself--only to potter round
the estate--and no one ever asks me any questions."
Her voice was rather pathetic--in contrast to her proud assurance when
she talked about school.
"We'll meet again," he said impulsively.
"I hope so--I hope so awfully. To-morrow I've got to go over to
Haxsmiths in the car with Awdrey, but I've nothing else all the rest of
this week. I wanted father to take me to Lingfield races on Saturday,
but he can't."
"Do you like race-meetings?"
"I've never been to one in my life. I wanted so much to go this
time--I'm generally at school, you know, and it seemed such a good
chance; but father has to be in Lewes, and Awdrey's spending the
week-end in Brighton--besides, I couldn't go with her alone, one wants a
man."
"I'll take you if you like."
"You! Oh!"
"Shouldn't you like it?"
"I should love it--but if any one saw us ... father would be furious."
"No one shall see us--we won't go into any of the enclosures and risk
meeting your friends. Do let me take you."
Tony flushed with pleasure and fright. This was adventure indeed.
"I'd love to go. Oh, how ripping!"
When Nigel reached home that morning he went straight to find Janey.
There was something vital between him and his sister--each brought the
other the first-fruits of emotion. Janet might find Leonard a tenderer
comforter, more thoughtful, more demonstrative, but there was not
between them that affinity of sorrow there was between her and Nigel.
Not that she ever told him, even hinted, why she suffered, but the mere
glance of his eyes, so childish yet so troubled, the mere touch of those
hands coarsened and spoiled by the toil of his humiliation, was more
comfort to her than Len's caresses or tender words. Nigel could repeat
the magic formula of sympathy--"I too have known...."
He felt, unconsciously, the same towards her. But it was more happiness
than grief that he brought her. He had acquired the habit of eating his
heart out alone, but happiness was so new and strange that he hardly
knew what to do with it. So he ran with it to Janey, like a child to his
mother with something he does not quite understand.
To-day he found her in the kitchen, sitting by the fire, and watching
some of her doubtful cookery. Her back was bent, and her arms rested
from the elbow on her lap, the long hands dropping over the knees. Her
face, thrust forward from the gloom of her hair, wore a strange white
look of defiance, while her lips quivered with surrender.
He sat down at her feet, and leaned his head against her lap. He vaguely
felt she was unhappy, but he did not try to comfort her, merely took one
of the long, hot hands in his. She did not speak, either--but her heart
kindled at his presence. She knew that he had been happier for the last
two days, though yesterday he had also seemed to have some anxiety,
fretting and questioning. His happiness meant much to her. All her
happiness now was vicarious--Quentin's, Leonard's or Nigel's. In her own
heart were only flashes and sparks of it, that scorched as well as
gladdened.
Life was a perplexity--life was pulling her two ways. She seemed to be
hanging, a tortured, wind-swung thing, between earth and heaven, and she
could hardly tell which hurt her most--her sudden falls down or her
sudden snatchings up. Earth and heaven, brute and god, were always
meeting now, clashing like two ill-tuned cymbals.
Her shame was that her love and Quentin's had not been strong enough to
wait. She had looked upon it as an exalted spiritual passion, and it had
suddenly shown itself impatient and bodily. It had fallen to the level
of a thousand other loves. Sometimes she almost wished that it had been
a more despised lover who had won her surrender--better fall from the
trees than from the stars.
Moreover, her sacrifice had not won her what she was seeking, but
something inferior and makeshift. What she had dreamed of as the crown
of love had been a life of kingly, fearless association, the
sanctification of every day, an undying Together. That was still far
away. Borne on an undercurrent she had till then hardly suspected, she
and Quentin had been washed into the backwaters of their dream. She had
only one comfort, and that was paradoxically at times the chief of her
regrets--Quentin was happy. Unlike her, he seemed to have found all he
had been seeking. She was still unsatisfied, her heart still yearned
after higher, sweeter things, but again and again he told her he had all
his desire.
"I am in Paradise--Janey, my own Janey. We climbed over the gates, and
we are there--together in the garden"--and his lips would burn against
hers, and even the tears brim from his fiery, sunken eyes.
She never let him think she was not happy. She meekly and bravely
accepted the vocation of her womanhood--if he was happy, all her wishes,
except certain secret personal ones, were gratified. For his sake she
put aside her dreams, and fixed her thoughts on what was, forgetting
what might have been. She broke her heart like a box of spikenard, that
she might anoint him king.
A shudder passed through Janey, and Nigel's head stirred on her knee. He
lifted it, and looked into her eyes--then he drew down her face to his
and kissed it.
"You're tired, my Janey."
His voice thrilled with a tenderness that carried her back to the days
before he went to prison.
"No, dear, not tired--but I've a bit of a headache."
"I'm so sorry. Oughtn't you to lie down?"
"No--it will go."
"Poor old sister!"
He put up his hand and laid it gently on her forehead. Then suddenly he
hid his face.
"Oh, Janey, I'm so happy!"
CHAPTER X
TONY BACKS AN OUTSIDER
November came in cloth of gold--a hazy sunshine put yellow everywhere,
into the bleak rain-washed fields, the white, cold mirrors of ponds, the
brown heart of woods. Lingfield races were on the first of the
month--from noon onwards the race-trains clanked down from London, and
disgorged their sordid contents. The public-houses were full, the little
village, generally so pure and drowsy, woke up to its monthly
contamination. It was the last meeting of the flat-racing season, and
most of the "county" was present, crowding the paddock and the more
expensive enclosures, eating its lunch to the accompaniment of a band
too much engrossed in the betting for the interests of good music.
Nigel Furlonger met Tony Strife at the top of Wilderwick hill. He had
dressed himself with more care than usual--in the girl's interest he
must look respectable. Leonard and Janet had been immensely surprised
when he told them he meant to go to the races. The Furlonger
disreputableness owed some of its celebrity to the fact that it ran
along channels of its own, neglecting those approved by wealth and
fashion.
"Feel you've got too much cash?" jeered Leonard.
"I shan't do any betting to speak of."
"Don't you!" said Janey; "we're stony enough as things are."
"But I'm not bound to lose--I may win, and retrieve the family
fortunes."
"Look here, my boy," said Len, "you leave the family fortunes alone.
You've done too much in that line already."
Nigel coloured furiously--but the next moment his anger cooled; he had
been wonderfully gentler during the last few days. He turned, and
emptied his pockets on the table.
"There--take it all--except five bob for luck--and a half-crown for----"
He was going to have said "the little girl's tea," but stopped just in
time.
He occasionally wondered why he did not tell Len and Janet about Tony.
But he felt doubtful as to what they might say. They would never
understand how he could find such a comradeship congenial. Tony was only
sixteen, and lived a very different life from his. They might laugh--no,
they would not do that; more likely they would be anxious and
compassionate, they would think it one of the unhealthy results of
prison, they would be sorry for him, and he could not bear that they
should be sorry for what brought him so much happiness. Besides, he had
a natural habit of reserve--even before he went to prison he had kept
secrets from Len and Janey.
Tony was waiting for him when he reached their meeting-place. She wore a
plain dark coat and skirt, but she had put on a wide hat, with a wreath
of crimson leaves round it, and instead of plaiting her hair, she let it
stream over her shoulders, thick and sleek, without a curl. In her hand
she clutched a little purse.
"I'm going to bet on a horse," she said in an awe-struck voice.
"Which horse?"
"I don't know. I'll see when I get there."
"I'll try and find something pretty safe for you, and I'll have my money
on it too."
"Isn't it exciting!" whispered Tony. "What should I do if I met Mrs.
Arkwright or any of the mistresses!"
Mrs. Arkwright and the mistresses were not the people Furlonger dreaded
to meet.
He and Tony swung gaily along the cinder-track leading to the course. It
was deserted, except for a little knot at the starting gate. The girl
shrank rather close to him as they came into the crowd. The shouting
made her nervous and flustered--that people should make such a noise
over a shady thing like betting seemed to her extraordinary. She touched
Nigel's elbow, and showed him her purse, now open, and containing
half-a-crown.
"Which is the best horse?"
"I wish I knew."
"May I look at the card?"
He gave it to her. She seemed puzzled.
"How can I tell which horse to bet on?"
A man beside them laughed, and Nigel flushed indignantly.
"You can't tell much by the card; I'll go over to the ring in a moment,
and find out what the odds are. But as you don't want to put on more
than half-a-crown, I'd keep it till the big race, if I were you."
"Which is the big race?"
"The Lingfield Cup. It's the last--but we'll enjoy the others, even
though we've got nothing on 'em."
They enjoyed them thoroughly. Hanging over the rail, their shouts were
just as noisy and as desperate as if they had all their possessions at
stake. Tony was thrilled to the depths--the clamour and excitement in
the betting ring, the odd, disreputable people all round her,
surreptitiously exchanging shillings and horses' names--the clanging
bell, the shout of "They're off!" the flash of opera-glasses, the mad
rush by, the cheers for the winner ... all plunged her into an orgy of
excitement. She felt subtly wicked and daring, and also, when Nigel
began to explain the technicalities of racing, infinitely worldly-wise.
What would the girls at school say when they found out she knew the
meaning of "Ten to one, bar one," or "Money on both ways"? She wrote
such phrases down in her "nature note-book," which she carried about
with her to record botanical discoveries, birds seen, sunsets, and
equally blameless doings.
At last the time came for the Lingfield Cup. Tony's hands began to
quiver. Now was the moment when she should actually become a part of
that new world swinging round her. She would have her stake in the
game--and a big stake too, for half-a-crown meant more than a
fortnight's pocket-money. She looked nervously at Mr. Smith.
"We'll see 'em go past before we put our money on," said he, with a
calmness she thought unnatural. "You can tell a lot by the way a horse
canters up."
They leaned over the rail, and Tony gave a little cry at the first sight
of colours coming from the paddock.
"Here they are--oh, what a beautiful horse!"
"A bit short in the leg," said Nigel, "we won't put our money on him."
"What about that bay--the one coming now?"
"He's a good 'un, I should say. That's Milk-O, the favourite."
"Let's back him."
"Wait, here's another. That's Midsummer Moon, the betting's 100 to 1
against him."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that he's a rank outsider."
"Then we mustn't put our money on him."
"I've known outsiders win splendidly, and, of course, if they do, their
backers get thundering odds. If we put our money on Milk-O and he wins
we're only in for five shillings each, but if Midsummer Moon wins for
us, why, we get over twelve pounds."
"Oh!" gasped Tony. Her eyes grew round. "Over twelve pounds"--that would
mean all sorts of splendours--a new hockey-stick, a real spliced beauty
instead of the silly unspliced thing her father thought "good enough for
a girl"; she would be able to get that wonderful illustrated edition of
the _Idylls of the King_, which she had seen in Gladys Gates' home and
admired so much; and directly she went back to school she could give a
gorgeous midnight feast--a feast of the superior order, with lemonade
and veal-and-ham pies, not one of those scratch affairs at which you ate
only buns and halfpenny meringues and drank a concoction of acid-drops
dissolved in the water-jug.
Nigel saw the enthusiasm growing on her face.
"Well, would you like to put your money on Midsummer Moon? Of course
you're more likely to lose, but if you win, you'll make a good thing out
of it."
"Do you think he'll win?"
"I can't say--but it's a sporting chance."
"I think it's worth the risk," said Tony in a low, thrilled voice.
He looked at her intently.
"I always like to see any one ready to back an outsider."
"Don't people generally?"
"No--and nor will you, perhaps, when you're older."
She gave him her half-crown, and he disappeared with it into the crowd,
having first carefully put her next a group of respectable farmers'
wives. In some ways, thought Tony, he was just as particular as father.
She wished he would let her go with him into the ring.
He came back in a few moments. Then suddenly the bell clanged.
"They're off!"
Silence dropped on the babel almost disconcertingly. Opera-glasses
flashed towards the start, rows of heads and bodies hung over the rail,
Tony's breath came in short gasps, so did Nigel's--he was desperately
anxious for that outsider to win. As they had no glasses they could not
see which colours led at the bend, but as the horses swung into the
straight, there were shouts of "Milk-O!--Milk-O!"
"Damn the brute!" said Nigel, which gave Tony another thrill of new
experience. She had actually spent the afternoon with a man who swore!
"Milk-O!--Milk-O!"
"Spreadeagle!" shouted some one. Then there were more shouts of
"Spreadeagle!"
"Milk-O!"--"Spreadeagle!"--the yells were deafening--then suddenly
changed into a mixture of cheers and groans, as the favourite dashed by
the post.
"And--where's Midsummer Moon?" gasped poor Tony, as the field clattered
in.
"Never started, lady," said a stout policeman, who, being drafted in
from elsewhere, did not recognise Nigel as the young fellow on
ticket-of-leave who came to report himself every month at East
Grinstead.
"Oh, dear!" cried Tony, "we've lost our money."
"Never put your money on an outsider, lady," said the stout constable.
Nigel turned to her with an odd, beseeching look in his eyes.
"I'm sorry ... I'm dreadfully sorry. It's my fault--if it hadn't been
for me you'd have backed the favourite."
"Oh, it doesn't matter the very tiniest bit."
"But I'm so sorry--I feel a beast."
"Please don't. I've enjoyed myself awfully, and it's made the race ever
so much more exciting, having some money on it."
"All right!" had been sung out from the weighing-ground, and the crowd
was either pressing round the bookies, or dispersing along the course.
"We'd better go, I think," said Nigel, "you mustn't be late home."
"It's been perfectly ripping," and Tony suddenly slipped her warm gloved
hand into his. "It was so kind of you to take me."
"But I made you back an outsider."
"Oh, never mind about it--please don't."
She gave his hand a little squeeze as she spoke, and suddenly, over him
once again passed that thrill of great simplicity which he had
experienced first at Brambletye. He became dumb--quite dumb and simple,
with infinite rest in his heart.
They turned to leave, jostling their way through the crowd towards the
cinder-track. Soon the clamour and scramble were far behind, and they
found the little footpath that ran through the fields near Goatsluck
Farm.
"Which way are we going home?" asked Tony.
"We'll have tea before we go home. Will you come with me and have tea in
a cottage?"
"Oh, how ripping!..."
Nigel looked round him. A cottage belonging to Goatsluck Farm was close
at hand--one of those dwarfed, red cottages, where the windows gleam
like eyes under the steep roof.
"Let's ask there," he said, "perhaps we can have it in the garden."
The labourer's wife was only too glad of a little incident and
pence-earning. She laid a table for them by a clump of lilac bushes, now
bare. One or two chrysanthemums were still in bloom, and sent their damp
sweetness to the meal that Nigel and Tony had together. It was a very
plain meal--only bread and butter and tea, but simplicity and bread and
butter had now become vital things to Furlonger. Neither he nor Tony
spoke much, but their silences were no less happy than the words that
broke them.
The sun had set, a hazy crimson smeared the west, and above it hung one
or two dim stars. A little cold wind rustled suddenly in the bushes, and
fluttered the table-cloth. Tony's face was pale in the twilight, and her
eyes looked unnaturally large and dark. Then she and Nigel realised that
they were both leaning forward over the table, as if they had something
especially important to say to each other....
The wind dropped suddenly, and the fogs swept up and veiled the stars.
The crimson deepened to purple in the west.
"Are you cold?" asked Furlonger awkwardly, and drew back.
"No, thank you," said Tony, and leaned back too.
A few minutes later they rose to go. It was half-past five, and strange
shadows were in the lanes, where the ruts and puddles gleamed. An owl
called from Ashplats Wood. The November dusk had suddenly become chill.
Nigel slipped off his overcoat and wrapped it round Tony.
"I don't want it," he insisted. "Oh, what a funny little thing you
look!"
"It comes down right over my heels--it's ripping and warm."
They walked on in silence for about a quarter of a mile. Then the
distant throbbing of a car troubled the evening. It drew nearer, and
they stood aside to let it pass them in the narrow lane.
But instead of passing, it pulled up suddenly, and out jumped Sir
Gambier Strife.
Their surprise and dismay were so great that for a time they could not
use their tongues. Sir Gambier stood before them, his face flushed, his
mouth a little open, while the dusk and the arc-lights of the huge motor
had games with his figure, making it seem monstrous and misshapen.
"Father----" began Tony, and then stopped. She was really the least
disconcerted of the three, for she had only Mr. Smith to deal
with--surely the presence of such a knight could easily be explained and
forgiven. But the other two had to face the complication of Furlonger.
"What the----" broke from Strife, after the time-honoured formula of the
man who wants to swear, but objects on principle to swearing before
women.
The colour mounted on Nigel's face, from his neck to his cheeks, from
his cheeks to his forehead--and gradually his head drooped.
Tony turned to him with sublime assurance.
"Father, let me introduce Mr. Smith."
"Smith!"
Nigel opened his mouth to speak, but the words stuck to his tongue.
"You know about Mr. Smith," continued Tony, "how helpful he was at East
Grinstead----"
"He told you his name was Smith, did he?"
"Of course. I know him quite well now--he lives at Fan's Court, near
Blindley Heath, and...." Tony's voice trailed off. She wondered why Mr.
Smith did not speak for himself.
"You damn liar!" roared Strife, swinging round on Nigel.
"Father!"
"Sir Gambier, let me explain...."
"I won't hear a word. Explanation, indeed! What explanation can there
be?--you victimiser of innocent little girls!--Antoinette, get into the
car at once, and come home. Then we'll hear all the lies this
Furlonger's been cramming you with."
"Furlonger...."
The word came in a long gasp.
"Yes--Furlonger. That's his name. 'Smith,' indeed!"
"Father, he isn't Furlonger. Furlonger was quite different, short and
dark and dirty-looking."
"I tell you this is Furlonger--and he's quite dirty-looking enough for
me. Come along, Antoinette, I won't have you standing here."
"But you aren't Furlonger--are you, Mr. Smith?"
Her voice rang with entreaty and the first horror of doubt. Nigel
turned his eyes to hers and tried to plead with them; but they were not
understanding--he saw he had only the clumsy weapon of his tongue to
fight with.
"I am Furlonger," he said in a low voice.
There was a brief, electric pause. Tony had grown very white.
"Then who was that other man?--Why did you tell me your name was Smith?"
"I've no idea who the other fellow was, and I gave my name as Smith
because I felt sure you'd have heard of Furlonger."
"But why--why----"
"Come along, miss," interrupted Sir Gambier. "I won't have you talking
to this scoundrel."
"But I want to know why he told me all those lies."
Her face had grown hard as well as white.
"He had very good reasons, I'm sure," sneered Strife.
Nigel suddenly found his tongue.
"Tony!" he cried, "Tony!"
"What damned impudence is this?--'Tony' indeed! You'll not dare address
my daughter by that name, sir."
"Tony," repeated Nigel, too desperate to realise what he was calling
her. "I swear I never meant you any harm. I know it looks like it--but
you mustn't think so. I wanted to be your friend because--because you
didn't know of my disgrace, you treated me like a human being. You
talked to me about simple things--you made me feel good and clean when
I was with you. That's why I 'told you all these lies.'"
The girl began to tremble. Sir Gambier laughed.
"Tony--don't forsake me."
"Hold your tongue, sir," thundered Strife. "I won't have any more of
this. Get into the car, Antoinette."
He touched her arm, and for the first time she responded. She turned and
climbed into the car, still trembling, her head bowed, tears on her
cheek.
Nigel sprang on to the step.
"Tony--can't you forgive me? I didn't deceive you from any wrong motive.
Why do you look like that? Is it because I've been in prison?--I--I
suffered there...."
"Oh don't!" gasped the girl, "don't speak to me--I can't bear it. I--I'm
so dreadfully--disappointed."
His eyes searched her face for some pity or understanding. Instead he
saw only horror, pain, and something akin to fright.
"Don't!" she repeated.
Then he suddenly realised that she was too young to understand.
He fell back from the step, and covered his eyes.
Sir Gambier sprang into the driver's seat. Tony did not speak again. Her
father took the steering-wheel, and the car throbbed away into the dusk.
She made no protest, and only once looked back--at the man who still
stood in the middle of the lane, with his hands over his eyes.
CHAPTER XI
DISILLUSION AT SIXTEEN
Rather to Tony's surprise, she and her father drove in silence. As a
matter of fact, Sir Gambier was baffled by his younger daughter. Awdrey
he could have dealt with easily enough--he was used to Awdrey's scrapes.
But Tony had always been more or less impersonal--a vague some one for
whom one paid school-bills, who came home for the holidays, made herself
pretty scarce, and then went back to school again, to write prim letters
home every Sunday. It was a new idea that this half-realised being
should suddenly show herself possessed of a personality in the form of a
scrape--and such a scrape too! Furlonger! He grunted with fury, but--as
would never have been the case if he had had Awdrey to deal with--he
said nothing.
Once, however, he looked sideways, and noticed how Tony was sitting. Her
back was bent, and her arms rested on her knees, the hands clenched
between them; her chin was a little thrust forward into the darkness
through which they rushed.
At last they reached Shovelstrode. The moon was high above the pines,
and they seemed to be waving in waters of silver. The house-front
shimmered in the white light, as the motor pulsed up to it. Tony climbed
down, and stood stiffly on the step.
"You'd better go to your room," said Sir Gambier in muddled rage. "I--I
expect your mother will want to speak to you."
"Very well," said Tony.
She walked quickly upstairs, went into her room, and sat down on the
bed. A square of moonlight lay on the floor, and the moving shadows
curtsied across it. They and the pines outside seemed to be nodding to
her grotesquely under the moon--they seemed to be mocking her for her
great illusion lost.
"Furlonger...." she repeated to herself. "Furlonger...."
A sick quake of rage was in her heart. Her feelings were still confused,
but definite grievances stood out of the jumble. This man whom she had
thought so much of--in school-girl language "had a rave on"--had
deceived her, told her lies, acted them, and won by them ... well, the
horrible thing was that she did not really know how much or how little
he had won.
But worse still was the realisation that he had made her do
unconsciously something she thought wrong. Like most girls of her age
she had a cast-iron code of morals. When a school-girl sets out to be
moral, there is no professor of ethics or minister of religion that can
touch her--her morality has behind it all the enormous force of
inexperience, it can neither stretch nor bend, and it breaks only at the
risk of her whole spiritual life.
She was horrified to think she had given her friendship to a scoundrel,
even though she had done it ignorantly. It was like befriending a girl
who cheated or told tales. For her his crime had no attraction or
interest--it was just a hideous blot and defilement. She had often heard
the Wickham Rubber scandal discussed, and now store-housed memories came
to appal her. Hundreds of people, most of them already poor, had been
ruined and plunged into misery--widows with growing families, elderly
spinsters with hard-gathered savings, poor old men with the terror of
the workhouse closing on them with age, had trusted this Furlonger once
and execrated him now. He was like that dreadful man in the Psalms, who
laid wait to murder the innocent--"he doth ravish the poor when he
getteth him into his den." And she had allowed this man to be her
friend, she had confided her secrets to him, she had dreamed of him and
prayed to meet him.... Tony's teeth and hands clenched, and her eyes
grew miserable and hard.
Then she began to wonder what had made Furlonger want her friendship.
What had he and she in common? Somehow she could not for a moment
believe that he had sought her out from unworthy motives. The fact would
always remain that he had wanted her friendship, that he had not given
her a word which was not kind or courteous, that he had come to her
rescue in her hour of need ... the tears rushed to her eyes; that was
the bitterest part of all--her memories of his kindliness and
knight-errantry--pictures of East Grinstead, Swites Wood, Brambletye,
Lingfield Park, and that little old cottage by Goatsluck Farm. Suddenly
she found herself making up her mind not to join her father and mother
in condemning him. She would take his part in the scene which she knew
was at hand.
She soon heard her father calling her, and went down. He pointed into
her mother's boudoir, a small room with French windows opening on the
lawn. It was full of vague furniture and vague mixed colours, and it
seemed to Tony as if she were swimming through it up to the couch where
her mother lay. It never struck her as strange that her father should
seem unable to deal with her himself, but should hand her over to this
weak invalid, who lay with closed eyes in the lamplight.
"Now, I don't want a scene," she said, without opening them.
"Tony won't make a scene," said Sir Gambier; "she's a deep one."
"Oh, Antoinette," sighed Lady Strife--"I never was so surprised in my
life as when I heard of your deceit."
"My deceit!" said Tony quickly.
"Yes--going about with a man like Furlonger, and hiding it from your
father and mother--don't you call that deceit?"
"I didn't know he was Furlonger."
"But you knew it was wrong to have a secret friendship with any man
whatsoever. I never heard of such a thing in a young girl of your age
and position--it's what housemaids do, and not nice housemaids at that."
"Mother," cried Tony, her voice shaking unexpectedly, "it was an
adventure."
"A what!" shouted Sir Gambier.
His wife winced.
"Don't startle me, dear. And let the child say what she likes--I'm glad
she has a theory to explain her actions."
Strife muttered something unintelligible, but made no more
interruptions.
"Now tell me, Antoinette," said her mother, "exactly how long you have
known this man--and what have you and he been doing together?"
"Mother, I can't explain. I know it sounds deceitful and caddish and all
that, but it--it wasn't. It was an adventure, just as I've said. I've
_done_ something."
The invalid smiled distantly.
"When you are older you will realise the superiority of thought to
action. The soul is built of thoughts--actions harden and coarsen it.
But we won't discuss that now. Tell me how you and he got to know each
other."
"He was the man who was so splendid at East Grinstead station. He told
me his name was Smith, because, of course, he didn't want me to know who
he really was. Then I met him one morning when I was giving Prince a run
in Swites Wood, and then another time when I'd punctured my bicycle,
and...."
"Go on, Antoinette."
"Oh, you'll never understand. But he was so different from any one else
I'd met. He spoke so differently--about such different things----"
"I can imagine that."
"But he wasn't horrid, mother--I swear he wasn't. He was very quiet,
and interesting, and rather unhappy--and I liked him--I liked him
awfully."
Lady Strife did not speak, but her eyes were wide open. As for Sir
Gambier, an unheard-of thing happened--he became sarcastic.
"Oh, you liked him, did you? Found him a nice-mannered young
fellow?--well-informed? I didn't know you were interested in the inner
life of his Majesty's prisons."
"Father!" cried Tony sharply.
"Now, listen to me, dear," said her mother; "you are very young, and
consequently very inexperienced. A grown-up person would at once have
realised that this man's friendship for you could not be disinterested."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that he's not the type of man who would naturally want to be the
friend of a young and innocent girl like you. He must have had some
ulterior motive in seeking your friendship. You have possibly seen no
signs of that so far, but it would have been plain enough later."
"I don't believe it."
"Hush, dear. Your impertinence disconcerts me. I am trying to view the
matter from the standpoint of pure thought, and how am I to do that if
you keep on rudely interrupting me and dragging me down into the surge
of human annoyance? You must take it from those older and more
experienced than yourself that this man's motives in seeking your
friendship could not have been disinterested. Besides, even suppose for
the sake of argument that they were, don't you think you've been acting
most disloyally to your father and me in associating with a man you know
we disapprove of?"
"Mother, I've told you I'd no idea who he really was. Why, I thought the
other man was Furlonger. Besides, I didn't know you disapproved of him.
When all the others were letting fly at him, you said something about
his having a beautiful soul and sinning more divinely than many people
pray."
There is nothing more irritating to the Magus than to have his early
philosophies cast in his teeth by some one with a better memory than his
own. Lady Strife descended deep into the surge of human annoyance.
"Really, Antoinette, you are a perfectly exasperating child. All this
comes from trying to treat you like a reasonable being. Your father said
that what you really need is a good thrashing, and I'm inclined to agree
with him now, though I insisted on having you in, and discussing things
with you from the standpoint of pure thought. I shan't waste any more
time on you--you can go back to your room, and stay there till your
father gets an answer to his telegram to your Aunt Margaret."
"Aunt Maggie!"
"Yes," cried Sir Gambier, "you're going to Southsea, to stay with your
Aunt Maggie till your confounded school re-opens or the crack of doom
falls--whichever happens first. You're too much trouble at home--going
about with a face like a plaster saint, while in reality you're
traipsing over the country with men."
"Father, I wasn't traipsing. Oh, please don't send me to Aunt
Maggie's--I shall die." This was that terrible coercion from outside
which so effectually routs the forces of sixteen.
"My dear little girl," said her mother, who had climbed back to her
standpoint of pure thought, "I know you will be reasonable now, and--I
think I may be quite sure of that too--grateful afterwards. Your father
and I are really doing you a great kindness in sending you to your
aunt's--here you would never be free from the persecutions of that
Furlonger."
"Mother, it wasn't persecutions. I liked it."
"Antoinette, I shall really begin to think you are utterly silly. To put
the matter on its lowest, most materialistic footing, don't you realise
that in associating with a man like that you are seriously damaging your
prospects?"
"My prospects?"
"Yes--your prospects of making a good marriage and doing credit to your
family. Come, don't stare at me so blankly. You must realise that you
are now approaching--if not actually arrived at--a marriageable age, and
that you must do nothing to damage----"
"But, mother, I don't want ever to marry. Really, I don't want to talk
about such things. It makes me feel--oh, mother, don't you see it's bad
form?"
"What!" shrieked her mother, with extraordinary lung-power for an
invalid.
"We think it bad form at school to talk about marriage."
Her parents both stared at her blankly.
"Well, you can just think it good form to talk about it now," said Sir
Gambier, feeling for some vague reason that he had said something rather
witty.
"Your school must be an extraordinary place," said Lady Strife. "I shall
have to write to the principal--now, don't interrupt--I shall certainly
write; I won't have such ideas put into your head. You're quite old
enough to think seriously of marriage. Why, I'd already had two offers
at your age."
Tony looked surprised. She was very fond of her mother, but always
wondered how she had ever managed to get married at all, and that she
should have had more than one chance seemed positively miraculous.
Lady Strife saw the surprised look, and spoke more sharply.
"Really, Antoinette, you're no more than a great baby. You need
education in the most ordinary matters. I'll write to your Aunt
Margaret, and ask her to get some eligible men to meet you. Now don't
_cry_."
Tony was actually crying. She was generally as chary and ashamed of
tears as a boy.
"I--I can't help it. Oh, mother, don't send me to Aunt Maggie's. Oh,
don't make her ask el-el-eligible m-men."
"Don't be a blithering idiot!" shouted Sir Gambier. "If you can't
control yourself, go upstairs and begin packing at once."
Tony went out, crying into a handkerchief stained with blackberry juice.
Her demoralisation was complete.
Awdrey, who had been lurking uneasily in the dining-room, came out as
the boudoir door opened and slammed, and for a moment stood horrified at
the sight of her sister.
"Hullo, Tony! Whenever did I last see you cry? What's the matter, old
girl?"
"M-Mother thinks I'm old enough to-to b-be married."
"To whom?" shrieked Awdrey, all agog at once.
"Nobody--only some el-eligible men at--at Aunt Maggie's."
"What rot you're talking. Hasn't any one asked you?"
"Of course not."
"Then what on earth's all the row about? It's only natural mother should
want you to be married some day."
"But--but I've sworn never to marry."
"Ah," said Awdrey knowingly, as she tramped upstairs beside her sister;
then in a gentler voice, "Why can't you marry _him_?"
"Who's 'him'?"
"Why, the man who made you swear not to marry."
"It wasn't a man--it was a g-girl," and Tony's tears burst out afresh,
as she remembered how she and Gladys Gates had sworn to each other never
to marry, but always to live together, and had solemnly divided and
eaten a lump of sugar in ratification of the covenant.
Awdrey was speechless with disgust, but she went with Tony into her
room, because she had not yet found out what she primarily wanted to
know.
"You're an extraordinary kid, Tony--I really should call you only half
there. You kick up all this ridiculous fuss at the mere mention of
marriage, and yet you go about with a man like Furlonger. Oh yes, I know
all about it. Father was bawling loud enough for every one this side of
the Channel to hear."
"But I tell you I didn't know he was Furlonger. Besides, he didn't want
me to marry him. He wouldn't dream of suggesting such a thing."
"Oh, no, I'm quite sure of that. But you don't tell me your relations
with him were entirely platonic."
"Yes, I do."
"You mean to say he never even kissed you?"
"Kissed me!--of course not!--how dare you, Awdrey!"
"My dear child, you play the injured innocence game very well, but when
you make out you don't know what sort of man Furlonger is, you're
carrying it a bit too far."
"Of course, I know he's been in prison," and Tony sobbed drily, "but as
for kissing me, I'm sure he's not as bad as that."
"Are you trying to be funny?" asked Awdrey sharply.
Tony only sniffed in reply, and her sister's gaze wandered round the
windy, austere room, resting on the few photographs of school-girl
friends on the mantelpiece.
"I suppose you're in earnest," she said, after a pause, "but really,
you're the weirdest thing, even in flappers, I've ever met. Perhaps in
time you'll realise that even such a heinous crime as a kiss is a degree
better than robbing a few score poor widows of their savings."
Tony stopped crying suddenly, and a quiver passed through her. The
expression of her eyes changed.
"Awdrey--I--I think I'd like to be--alone--to do my packing."
Half-an-hour later Tony's boxes were still empty, except for a
foundation layer of the school-girl photographs. The bed and chairs were
littered with underclothing, shoes, hats, books and frocks. Tony sat on
the floor, staring miserably in front of her with tear-blind eyes that
did not notice the surrounding confusion, so intent were they on the
litter of a broken dream. Her dream, once so joyful, fresh and
iridescent, was now a mere jumble of shards. She had defended Furlonger
against her parents and her sister, but it had been the last effort of
which her bleeding heart was capable. Her hero and his epic had now
broken up into a terrible shatter of disillusion, to which her mother
and Awdrey had added the most humiliating dust. She could not think
which was worse--the motives of self-interest attributed by the one, or
the love-motives attributed by the other. And though she denied both,
at the bottom of her heart was a far worse accusation. Her stainless
champion was a criminal, a false swearer, a defrauder of the helpless, a
devourer of widows' houses. He had not sinned against her in the way her
family imagined, but in a far more horrible, subtle way ... she
shuddered, sickened and shrank.
All the same she was glad that when others accused him she had taken his
part.
CHAPTER XII
CHILDREN DANCING IN THE DUSK
Nigel was late for supper that evening. He came in very quietly, and
slipped into his place without a word. He had very little to say about
the races.
"Lost your money on Midsummer Moon?" said Leonard. "Well, you needn't
look so glum--it was only five bob."
But Janey knew that was not the matter, though she knew nothing more.
After supper she put her arm through his, and drew him out into the
garden. They walked up and down in front of Sparrow Hall. At first she
had meant to ask him questions, but soon she realised that the questions
would not come--only a great stillness between her and Nigel, and a
fierce clutch of their hands. They walked up and down, up and down,
breathing the thick scents of the garden--touched with autumn
rottenness, sodden with rain and night. Gradually they pulled each other
closer, till she felt the throb of his heart under her hand....
The next day Nigel worked hard with Len at weed-burning. It was strange
what a lot of weed-burning there was to do, thought he--not only at
Sparrow Hall, but at Wilderwick, and Swites Farm, and Golden Compasses,
and the Two-Mile Cottages, and all those places from which little curls
of blue, dream-scented smoke were drifting up against the sky. Men were
burning the tangles of their summer gardens, they were piling into the
flame those trailing sweets, now dead. For autumn was here, and winter
was at hand, and a few dead things that must be burnt were all that
remained of June.
Nigel wondered if his June had not gone too, and if he had not better
burn at once those few sweet, dead, tangled thoughts it had left him. He
thought of the dim lane by Goatsluck Farm, with the glare of two motor
lights on the hedges. He saw the puddles gleam, and Tony erect in the
trickery of light and darkness, shapeless in his coat. Then across the
aching silence of his heart came her words--"I can't bear it!--I--I'm
so--disappointed."
That was the end of June--and he ought to have expected it. His
friendship with Tony Strife could never have lasted in a neighbourhood
where both were known and talked about. It had ended a little suddenly,
that was all. He did not reproach himself for deceiving her; he did not
even regret it, though he guessed what she must think. The doorway of
the house of light had stood open, and he had crept in like a beggar,
knowing that he must soon be turned out, but resolute meanwhile to bask
and be glad.
But he wished she had not been "disappointed," that was so pathetic.
Poor little girl! the memory of him would eat into her heart for a
while. Girls of her age were righteous, and he had cheated her into
friendship with unrighteousness. She would hate him for a bit. "I am so
disappointed"--it seemed as if all his seething desires for goodness
and peace had died into that little wail of outraged girlhood, and come
back to haunt the empty house of his heart.
During the first few days of separation he childishly hoped that he
might hear from her--surely she would write if only to upbraid. But no
letter came. His coat was returned the next morning, but he searched the
parcel in vain for a message. How cruel of Tony!--and yet all children,
even girl-children, are cruel. Their experience of sorrow is limited to
its tempestuous side--they do not know its aching calms; they quench
their thirst with great gulps, and do not know the relief of small drops
of water. This was the price he had to pay for seeking his comfort in
the gaiety of boys and girls instead of in the more stable sympathy of
his contemporaries.
The next two weeks were heartsick and lonely. All day long a piteous
consciousness of Tony was present in the background of his thoughts,
waiting till night to creep into the foreground of his dreams, and
torment him with hungry wakings. Everything that reminded him even of
her type was painful. Little ridiculous things twanged chords of
plaintive memory--a picture of the Roedean hockey-team, with their short
skirts and pig-tails, the demure flappers he sometimes met in his walks,
a correspondence on "moral training in girls' schools" which was being
waged in a daily paper--everything that reminded him of healthy,
growing, undeveloped girlhood, reminded him of Tony, and made his heart
ache and yearn and grieve after her.
He wandered about by himself a good deal in the lanes, snatching his few
free moments after dusk. He no longer tramped furiously--he roamed, with
slow steps and dreaming eyes, drinking a faint peace from the darkness
of the fields. He found comfort, too, in his fiddle, and every evening
he would play through his banal repertory, "O Caro Nome," from
_Rigoletto_, "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls," the overtures to
_Zampa_ and _La Gazza Ladra_, the Finale from _Lucia di Lammermoor_. He
became wonderfully absorbed in his fiddling, and had recovered a certain
amount of his old skill and flexibility.
One day he took his violin to East Grinstead, as the sounding post had
fallen down. He came back by a long road--through Hophurst and New
Chapel and Blindley Heath. He stopped at the last to have a drink--it
was a dreary collection of cottages, scattered round a flat, windswept
heath. There were ponds in the corners of the heath, and their waters
were always ruffled by a strange wind. Right in the middle of the waste
was a little house squatting in its own patch of tillage, an island, a
tumble-down oasis, in the great dreariness.
The scene, with the grey, scudding sky behind it, became stamped on
Nigel's brain, as he stood with his beer in the pothouse door. It was
one of those days when it seems as if our own hopelessness has at last
impressed the unfeeling mask of Nature, and caused it to put on the
grimace of our despair.
One or two children were playing in the road in front of the tavern, the
wind fluttering their pinafores, and blowing their clothes against their
limbs. A little boy with a mouth-organ was playing a vague and plaintive
tune, to which two little girls were dancing. Nigel stood listening for
some minutes, till both the moaning wind and the creaking tune had woven
themselves together into a symphony of wretchedness.
Then he put down his beer, and took up his violin. He unfastened the
case, unrolled the chrysalis of wrappings, and laid the instrument
against his shoulder. The next minute a shrill wail rose up and
challenged the wind.
The bar was nearly empty, but Nigel would not have cared had it been
full. He stood in the doorway, his hair blowing and ruffling madly, his
body swaying, as he forced his fiddle into a duet with the wind. He had
never before tried to extemporise, his violin had been for him a memory
of sugary tunes, each wrapped up in the tinsel of a little past--he had
never tried to wring the present out of it in a sudden, fierce
expression of the emotions that tortured him as he played. This evening
he wanted to join the wind in its wailing race, to rush with it over the
common, to tear with it through the hedges, and sweep with it over the
water. He forced out of his fiddle the cries of his own heart--they rose
up and challenged the wind. The wind hushed a little--fluttered,
throbbed--was still ... the fiddle tore through the silence and
shattered it ... then the wind rose, and drummed savagely. Nigel dashed
his bow down on the deep strings, and forced deep sounds out of them.
The wind galloped up to a shriek--and Nigel's hand tore into harmonics,
and wailed there till the wind was only puffing and sobbing. Then the
fiddle sobbed. The fiddle and the wind sobbed together ... till the wind
swung up a scale--up came the fiddle after it ... the wind rushed higher
and higher, it whistled in the dark eaves of the inn, and the fiddle
squeaked higher and higher, and Nigel's fingers strained on the
fingerboard--he would not be beaten, blind Nature should not defeat him,
two should play her game. The wind was like a maniac as it whistled its
arpeggios--the casements of the house were rattling like tin, the trees
were swishing and bending, the water in the ruts of the lane was
rippling, doors were creaking and banging, the fiddle was straining and
shrieking ... then suddenly the string broke. Nigel dropped his bow,
angry and defeated. The duet with the wind was over.
Then he noticed a strange thing. He had been staring blindly and
stupidly ahead of him, all his senses merged into sound, but now he saw
that the road was crowded with children, and they were all
dancing--little girls with their petticoats held high, little boys
jumping aimlessly in their clumsy boots. They stopped as his hand fell,
and stared at him in surprise, as if they had expected the music to go
on for ever.
"Hullo!" said Nigel--then suddenly he laughed; they all looked so
forlorn, holding out their pinafores and pointing their feet.
"Wait a bit," he said, "my string's broken, but I'll have another on in
no time."
So he did--but not to play a duet with the wind. He played the
Intermezzo from _Cavalleria_, and the dance went on as raggedly as
before. After the Intermezzo he played the Overture to _Zampa_, which
was immensely popular, then threaded a patchwork of _La Somnambula_, the
_Bohemian Girl_, _La Tosca_, and _Aida_, till mothers began to appear on
the doorsteps with cries of "Supper's waiting."
Supper was waiting for Nigel when he appeared at Sparrow Hall. Len and
Janey asked no questions--it was pathetic how few questions they asked
him nowadays--but they both noticed he was happier. He did not speak
much--he sat in a kind of dream, with a wistful tremulousness in the
corners of his mouth. His mouth had always been the oldest part of
him--hard in repose and fierce in movement--but to-night it had taken
some of the extreme childishness of his eyes. Nigel felt very much the
same as a child that cries for the moon and is given a ball to play
with--the ball almost makes him forget that he wants the moon so badly.
Those dancing children had, for some strange reason, partly filled the
place of stalwart Tony in his heart. That night they came and danced in
his dreams--in a pale light, to a tinkling tune. He found himself
forming plans for making them dance again. He would never be on the old
footing with Tony, but those children should dance for him and help him
to forget.
So the next evening he went out again with his fiddle, and played at
Blindley Heath. Again the children danced--with clumping boots and high
petticoats they danced outside the Sweepers Inn. But this time he did
not stay long--he went on to Dormans Land, to see if they would dance
there. It was nearly dark now, and one or two misty stars shone above
the village roofs--the wind was heavy with approaching rain as it
soughed up the street towards him. He did not stand at the inn, but
where the road to Lingfield joins the road to Cowden, close to the
schools. One or two children came and looked at him curiously.
"He wants a halfpenny," said one, "I'll ask my mumma for it."
"No," said Nigel, "I want you to dance."
The children giggled, but at last the little girl who had suggested the
halfpenny picked up her skirts, and then it was not long before they
were all dancing to the waltz from _Traviata_.
Every day afterwards, when evening fell, Nigel took his violin, and went
out into the lanes and the dark-swept villages, and played for the
children to dance. They grew to expect him, and to clamour for old
tunes. "Give us the jiggy one," they would cry, and he would play "O
Caro Nome." "Give us the twirly one," and he would play "I Dreamt I
Dwelt in Marble Halls." But sometimes he would not give them what they
wanted--he would play what he chose, strange things that came into his
head and would not leave it till he had sent them wailing into the dusk.
One day he played a duet with some long grass that rustled and sighed
behind him; another day it was with a wood, brown and naked, but full of
palpitating mysteries; another time he played an accompaniment to the
stars as they crept timidly one by one into the deserts of the sky. He
knew the constellations, and gave gentle, bird-like notes to the dim
Pleiades, and low, sonorous tones to Orion, and heavy quavers to the
Wain; there was a sudden scale for Casseopeia, and harmonics for the
Ram. By the time he had finished all the children had gone, and he was
alone in the breeze and darkness, in a great, grief-stricken silence,
which, he realised painfully, greeted the stars far more fitly than any
strivings of his.
It was impossible for this new life to be hidden from the brother and
sister at Sparrow Hall. One evening Leonard burst into the kitchen where
Janey was sitting.
"What do you think Nigel's up to now?"
"What?"
"Playing the fiddle outside pubs for kids to dance to."
Janey gasped.
"Are you sure, Len?"
"Absolutely pos. Old Pilcher was telling me--the lad was fiddling away
for an hour outside the Sweepers at Blindley Heath, and all the brats
were on their hind legs, kicking up no end. Janet, do you think he's all
there?"
"I--I don't know--I've been wondering."
"There's no doubt that he's been strange ever since he came out of quod.
Poor old Nigel--life's hit him hard, and bruised him a lot."
"He was funny about kids from the first. He took a tremendous fancy to
that odious little Ivy Batt who comes for the milk."
"I expect this is part of the same game."
"I expect it is--but it hurts me to think of it."
She turned to the fire, and a sigh shook her breast--life had a habit of
hitting hard all round.
A few minutes later Nigel came in. He set down his violin, and went over
to the hearth, kneeling beside Janey. She put her arms round him, and
drew his head to her shoulder.
"Old man ... is it really true that you go about the villages fiddling
to kids?"
"Yes--I like to see 'em dance."
"Are you fond of them?"
"Only when they dance."
"What a funny old man you are."
"Ain't I, Janey!"
CHAPTER XIII
KEEPING CHRISTMAS
Every evening the three Furlongers used to sit by the fire and stare
into it. Len would sprawl back in his chair with his pipe, and the other
two lean forward with needlework and newspapers and cigarettes. They
seldom spoke--the wind would howl, and the shadows would creep, and the
night drift on through star-strewn silences. At last some one would yawn
loudly, and the others laugh--and all go to bed.
Len was worried about Nigel and Janey, and usually devoted these
evenings and their pipely inspiration to thinking them out in a
blundering way. He was not a man given to problems, and hitherto life
had held but few. It was an added bitterness that now his problem should
be that brother and sister who had always stood to him for all that was
simple and beloved.
Nigel, in his strange fears, his subcurrents of emotion, and quickly
changing moods, reminded Len of a horse; he did not object to drawing
upon his knowledge of horses and their ways for the management of his
brother. He humoured him, bore with him, but kept at the same time a
tight hand--especially when the boy's seething restiveness and pain
found vent in harsh words to Janey. Janey could not bear harsh words
now--she had used to be able to pick them off and throw them back in the
true sisterly style, but now she winced and let them stick. Janey
perplexed Len as much as Nigel, and worried him far more. Her eyes
seemed to be growing very large, and her cheeks very hollow. When she
smiled her lips twitched in a funny way, and when she laughed it grated.
Janey cost Len many pipes.
The explanation of Janey was, of course, at Redpale Farm, sitting glumly
by his winter fireside, just as she sat by hers. The love of Janet
Furlonger and Quentin Lowe had entered on a new phase. Quentin was
beginning to be dissatisfied. At first Janey had imagined that she would
welcome this, but it did not come as she had expected. It brought their
love into spasmodic silences. Up till then Quentin and she had always
been writing and meeting, but now he wrote to her and met her in
strange, sudden jerks of feeling. Sometimes he left her for days without
even a line, but she could never doubt him, because when at last they
met, his love seemed to burn with even greater torment and fierceness
than in the months of its more regular expression. He began to give her
presents, too--a locket, a ring, a book, which she shrank from, but
forced herself to accept because of the evident delight he found in
giving.
Once more he was rambling restlessly and ineffectively on a quest for
independence. His efforts always came to nothing, partly through his own
incapacity, but always, too, through a sheer perverseness of fate,
thwarting developments, wrecking coincidences--so there really seemed
truth in his cry that the stars fought against him.
She began to realise that, much as she had deplored what looked like
his permanent satisfaction with a makeshift, she had found in it a kind
of vicarious rest. When anxiety and disillusion lay like stones at the
bottom of her heart, she had comforted herself with the thought of the
lightness of his. Now she could do so no longer--she had the burden of
his sorrow as well as her own to bear, and for a woman like Janey, this
was bound much more than to double her load.
Her anxiety about Nigel was also a pain that bruised through the weeks.
He was decidedly "queer," and she could not understand his new craze for
fiddling to children. Sometimes, too, he would be terribly sentimental,
and have fits of more or less maudlin affection for her and Leonard. At
other times he would be surly, and during his attacks of surliness he
would work with desperation, almost with greed, as if he longed to wear
himself out. Then he would come in, and throw himself down in a chair,
and sleep the sleep of utter exhaustion with wide-flung limbs--or he
would have a bath by the fire, regardless of any cooking operations she
might have on hand, or the difficulty of heating gallons of ice-cold
water in a not over-large kettle. Len would be furious with him on these
occasions, and tell him that if he wanted a Turkish bath built on to
Sparrow Hall he had better say so at once.
"I hope we'll have a happy Christmas," remarked Janey rather plaintively
to Len one evening late in December.
"Why shouldn't we?" he asked; he was kneeling on the hearthstone,
cleaning her boots.
"Well, we've been counting on it so. You remember last Christmas, when
I said that next time we'd have Nigel with us...."
"And we've got him, haven't we?"
"Yes."
She was silent then, and the next minute he lifted his eyes from the
blacking and laughed up at her.
"There's the rub, Janey. We don't know how Nigel will take Christmas."
"No--he'll probably be frightfully sentimental at breakfast, and kiss us
both--and then he'll have a boiling bath--and then he'll take his fiddle
and go out for hours to play to those wretched kids."
"A pretty fair prophecy, I should think."
"He's just like a kid himself," sighed Janey.
"Yes--I think he's getting soft in that way. At any rate, he's taken an
uncommon fancy to kids. By the bye, that girl he rescued at Grinstead
station, Strife's girl, has come home for Christmas. I saw her out with
her father this morning, and she'd got her hair up, and looked years
older. I expect she'll be getting married soon. Her people will see that
she settles down early--they don't want two like her sister."
"What was that?" cried Janey.
"What?"
"I thought I heard some one in the room."
"There's nobody--look, quite empty, except for you and me. You're
getting nervy, old girl."
"Perhaps I am."
He stood up, and looked at her closely and rather anxiously. Then he
put his arms round her.
"You're not well, sis--I've noticed it for a long time. I say--there's
nothing the matter, is there? You'd tell us if there was, wouldn't you?"
"Of course ... there's nothing," she whispered, as his rough hand
stroked her hair. He held her to him very tenderly, he was always
gentler and less exacting with her than Nigel. Yet, somehow, when she
was unhappy it was Nigel she wanted to cling to, whose strong arms she
liked to feel round her, whose suffering face she wanted close to hers.
She wanted Nigel now.
But Nigel had gone out.
He walked heavily, his arms folded over his chest, his head hanging.
So she was back--and she was grown up--and she would soon be married.
These three contingencies had never struck him before. She had gone so
inevitably out of his life, that he had never troubled to consider her
return to Shovelstrode. She had stood so inevitably for adolescence,
unformed and free, that he had never thought of her growing up. And as
for marriage, it had seemed a thing alien and incongruous, her girlhood
had been virgin to his timidest desire.
But she was grown up. She was ready for marriage, and most likely would
soon be married. He realised that to some other man would be given,
probably readily enough, what he had not dared even think about. A
shudder passed through him, but the next minute he flung up his head
almost triumphantly. He had had from Tony what she would never give to
another--he had had her free thoughtless comradeship, and she would
never give it again. She was grown up now, and unconsciously she would
realise her womanhood, put up little barriers, put on little airs.
He--he alone--would have the memory of her heedless girlhood innocently
displayed--he had what no other man had had, or could have ever.
Christmas came, a moist day, warm and rather hazy. Janey had decorated
Sparrow Hall with holly and evergreens, and had even compounded an
ominous-looking plum-pudding. She was desperately anxious that their
first Christmas together for four years should be a success--she even
ventured to hint the same to Nigel.
"Why," he drawled, "do we keep Christmas? Is it because Christ was born
in a manger?"
"Of course not--how queerly you talk!"
"Because that was why we kept it in prison."
"But we aren't in prison here."
"Aren't we?--aren't we, Janey?--would there be any good keeping
Christmas if we weren't?"
She laughed uneasily.
"Nigel, you're balmy. Come along and help me make mince-pies. It's all
you're good for."
In spite of her fears, Christmas morning passed happily enough, and
though the dinner was culinarily a failure, socially it was a huge
success. The pudding, having triumphantly defeated the onslaughts of
knives, forks and teeth, was accorded a hero's death in the kitchen
fire, to the accompaniment of the Dead March on Nigel's fiddle, and
various ritual acts extemporised by Len from memories both military and
ecclesiastical. He was preparing a ceremonial funeral for the
mince-pies, when he and Janey suddenly realised that Nigel had left the
room.
"Now where the devil has he gone?"
Janey sighed.
"Some silly game of his. I hope he'll be back soon."
"Not he!--he's probably off for the day, to fiddle to those blasted
kids, if they're not too full of plum-pudding to dance. By Christopher,
Janey--he's mad."
The dark was gathering stealthily--crawling up from the Kent country in
the east, burying the wet winter meadows of Surrey and Sussex in damp
and dusk and fogs. In the west a crimson furnace smouldered, showing up
a black outline of hills. Moisture was everywhere--the roads gleamed
with mud, the banks were sticky with damp tangled grass, and drops
quivered and glistened on the bare twigs of the hedges.
A great sense of disheartenment was everywhere. It was Christmas day,
and hundreds of hearths were bright--but outside, away from humanity and
its cheerful dreams, all Nature mourned, in the curse of the winter
solstice, drowned in the water-flood. Furlonger had left his hearth with
its cheery flames and loved faces and warm, sweet dreams of goodwill,
and was out alone with Nature, who had no warmth nor love nor
make-believe, only wet winds and winter desolation.
He came to Dormans Land. The blinds were down, and through the chinks he
saw the leap and spurt of firelight. He stood where three roads met, and
the wind swept up from Lingfield, where the first stars had hung their
lanterns. He began to play--a dreary, springless tune, that struck cold
into the hearts of the few it reached through their closed windows. He
played the song of Christmas as Nature keeps it--the festival of life's
drowning and despair.
No children came to dance. They were happy beside their parents, with
sweets and crackers and fun. They were keeping Christmas as man keeps
it, and drew down the blinds on Nature keeping it outside, and the lone
fiddler who felt it more congenial to keep it with Nature than to keep
it with men.
Nigel stopped playing and looked around him into the gloom. He felt
disappointed because the children had not come to dance. He had broken
away from his brother and sister because he wanted those dancing
children so badly--and they had not come. Perhaps he had better go
further up into the village, since the children were not playing in the
street as usual, but in their homes.
So he went up, and stood between the church and the Royal Oak. The place
seemed deserted--only a great, empty car stood outside the inn. Nigel
began to play, but again there was no response. The darkness came
fluttering towards him from the back streets of the village, and seemed
to creep right into his heart.
Then suddenly it struck him that he played too doleful a tune for the
children. They liked lively airs--they found it hard to dance to those
bizarre mournful extempores of his. So he started "O Caro Nome," and
when that had jigged and rippled to an end, he played airs from Flotow's
_Martha_, and then his old favourite, "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble
Halls."
The street was still empty. From a cottage close by came the wheeze of a
harmonium. He stood drearily snapping the strings with his fingers. Then
suddenly he realised how ridiculous he was--playing in the village
street, in the damp and the cold and the dark, when he ought to be at
home, eating and drinking and singing and joking because Christ was born
in a manger.
He turned away--he was a fool. Why did he like seeing children
dance?--why did it hurt him so that they were better employed to-day? He
did not know. His life, his emotions, his heart, were like the twilight,
a dark and cheerless mystery. He could not understand half what he felt
in his own breast. He was himself only a child dancing in the dusk, to
an unknown fiddler playing a half-comprehended tune.
The next moment he heard the inn door open behind him, and turning round
saw a short, broad figure on the doorstep, wrapped in an enormous
motor-coat.
"Will you not play something else?"
The words came heavily, with a teutonic lumber. Nigel saw a round,
florid face, and dark, very close-cropped hair.
He hesitated--perhaps the stranger was making game of him.
"I have been listening to you for some time, and now I have come to see
you. I am surprised. I do not think you are a beggar."
"Not quite," said Nigel.
"Well, play some more."
Again Furlonger hesitated. Then he hoisted his fiddle to his shoulder
with a short, rather grating, laugh.
He played the Requiem from _Il Trovatore_.
There was silence. The darkness seemed to pass in waves over the sky,
each wave engulfing it deeper. The wind sobbed a strange little tune in
the eaves of the inn.
"You have tortured my ears," said the stranger. Nigel flushed
angrily--so after all the idea had been to make game of him--"with your
damned Verdi."
"How do you mean?"
"You are too good to play Verdi."
"Oh!"
"What are your favourite composers?"
"Gounod--Verdi--Balfe----"
"Ai! Ai! Ach!" and the stranger put his hands over his ears.
Nigel was beginning to be faintly amused.
"Well, what's the matter with 'em?"
"The matter?--they are dead."
"That'll be the matter with us all, sooner or later."
"Let us hope it will be sooner for some of us."
Nigel looked into the stranger's face, and again experienced a slight
shock of surprise. The eyes in the midst of its florid circumference
were haunted with despair, grief-stricken and appealing. He suddenly
realised that it was not normal for a man to spend Christmas day in
lonely petrol prowlings.
"Play some more."
"I can only play Verdi and Balfe and those others."
"Well, I'll try to endure it."
"Look here," said Furlonger, "what's your game? Why should you want me
to play when you hate my music?"
"I hate your music, but I like your playing. You are a wonderful
player."
"Oh, rats!" and Nigel felt angry, he did not know why.
"I repeat--you are a wonderful player. Who taught you?"
"Carl Hauptmann."
"Hauptmann!--he was a pupil of mine."
"Then you're Eitel von Gleichroeder!"
"I am."
Nigel looked interested. Memories of his life in London revived--music
lessons, concerts, musical jargon, a lost world in which he had once
lived, but had now almost forgotten. He seemed to hear Hauptmann's
strange, coughing laugh as he chid his pupil for what von Gleichroeder
had just chidden him now--his abominable taste. "You are hobeless,
hobeless--you and your Balfe and your Bellini and your odder vons." Von
Gleichroeder he knew would take an even more serious view of the case,
as he had a reputation for ultra-modernism in music. Hauptmann's
contempt for Balfe and Bellini he carried on to Verdi and Gounod, even
Tschaikowsky, while though he was obliged to grant Beethoven supremacy
with a grudge, he passed over his works in favour of those of Scriabin,
d'Indy, Debussy and Strauss.
"Well, well," said the musician, "play _Zampa_, play _Lucia di
Lammermoor_, play _La Somnambula_--any abomination you please--but
play."
Nigel, with rather an evil grin, played _Zampa_.
"Why do you like those things?"
"Because they are pretty tunes."
"Ach!--and why do you like pretty tunes?"
Nigel stared at him full of hostility, then his manner changed.
"Because they remind me of--of things I used to feel."
He realised dimly that there was a subtle free-masonry between him and
this man. In a way it drew them together, in a way it held them apart.
"What you used to feel. So! that is better. It's your heart they tickle,
not your ears."
Furlonger nodded.
"Do you play for your living?"
"No--I am a farmer."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"I play for children to dance."
Von Gleichroeder looked round, and shrugged his shoulders. He did not
seem particularly surprised.
"Would you not like to play for grown-up children to dance? For
fashionable society to crowd to hear you, and gather round you like
children round a barrel-organ?"
"Fashionable society won't waste much of its time on me. I've been in
prison three years for bogus company promoting."
"So! But that is good. Without that attraction you could fill the
Bechstein, but with it you can fill the Albert Hall."
"Gammon."
"Not at all. My dear young man, I see a glorious future ahead of you, if
you will only trouble to secure it. Come to London and study music----"
"Please don't talk nonsense."
"It is not nonsense. You are wonderfully gifted. I don't say you are a
genius, for you are not--but you are wonderfully gifted, and your
history will make you interesting to the ladies. With your talent and
your history and--and your face, you ought to do really well, if only
some enterprising person would take you in hand."
"Which isn't likely."
"I beg your pardon--it is most likely. I will do it."
Nigel was more surprised than grateful.
"No, thank you."
"Do not be proud. It is purely a business offer. I expect to make money
out of you, and--what do you call it?--credit. Listen here--if you
cannot pay my fees, I will give you a year's tuition free of charge, on
condition that I have a percentage on your salaries during the next
five years. That is a generous offer--many a young man would give much
to have me for professor."
Nigel shook his head.
"Thanks awfully--but I'm not keen on it."
"And why?"
"Well, for one thing, I don't want to make my stinking past into an
advertisement, and for another I don't want to go back to prison."
"Prison!--that is a strange name for fame and big salaries."
"I'm not thinking of those so much as of what must come before them--all
the grind and slavery. My music's the only part of me that has never
been in prison, and if I make a trade and treadmill out of it, I shall
be degrading it just as I have degraded everything else about me."
"It will not be degradation--on the contrary."
"And I don't believe I shall ever make myself a name."
"That remains to be seen. I don't expect you to become world-famous, but
there is no reason why you should not be exceedingly successful in
England, where no one bothers very much about taste or technique. Taste
you have none, technique---- Lord help us!--but temperament--ach,
temperament! You have suffered--hein?"
Nigel coloured. He could not answer--because he felt this man had
suffered too.
"Of course, you have suffered--you could not play like that if you had
not. Without your suffering you would be a clever amateur--just that.
But now, because you have suffered, you are something more. 'Wer nie
sein Brod mit Thränen ass'--you doubtless know our Goethe's wonderful
lines. So"--and his dark, restless eyes looked up almost imploringly to
the sky--"sorrow has one use in this world."
There was another pause. The village was quite dark now--lights
twinkled. High above the frosty exhalations of the dusk, piling walls of
smoke-scented mist round the cottages, the stars shone like the lights
of celestial villages, dotting the dark country of the sky. The Wain
hung tilted in the north, lonely and ominous, Betelgeuse was bright
above Sussex, Aldebaran burned luminous and lonely in his quarter. Nigel
watched the Sign of Virgo, which had just risen, and glowed over the
woods of Langerish. It flickered like candles in the wind. Then he
dropped his eyes to the darkness round him, and through it came the
creak of a harmonium.
"Well?" said von Gleichroeder.
"Well?"
"Will you accept my offer?"
"No, thank you."
"Why?"
"I've given you my reasons." The subtle sense of hostility put insolence
into his voice.
"They are no reasons."
"They are mine."
The foreigner shrugged his shoulders.
"So be it. I have made my offer--you have refused it. It is your own
concern."
He took out his card-case, and presented his card to Furlonger.
"In case you change your mind."
This was anti-climax, and Nigel felt irritated.
"I'm not in the habit of changing my mind."
"Just as you please," and von Gleichroeder put back the card-case in his
pocket.
"Good evening," he added politely.
"Good evening," mumbled Furlonger.
He turned away, and walked down the village to where the foot-path to
Wilderwick striped the fields. At the stile he paused, and realised that
he had been exceptionally insolent.
CHAPTER XIV
WOODS AT DAWN
Nigel reached home only half-an-hour before supper-time. Len and Janey
did not receive him cordially, but he was too much preoccupied with his
adventure to notice their coldness or take their hints. He poured it all
out at the evening meal--the subtle sense of outrage which for some
unknown reason von Gleichroeder's offer had stirred up, contending in
his voice with a ridiculous, childish pride.
Len and Janey were unfeignedly surprised. It had never occurred to them
that Nigel's playing was even tolerable--they had sometimes liked it in
the distance, that was all.
"Fancy his wanting you to go and study in London," said Janey. "I'm glad
you refused."
"So'm I"!
"It would have been beastly losing you again, old man--we haven't had
you back three months."
"Wouldn't you like to see me fill the Albert Hall?"
"Well--er--if you could really do it, it might be interesting to
watch--just for once in a way. But I don't see that it would be worth
breaking up the 'appy 'ome, only for that."
Nigel would have liked them to be more impressed, but they voiced his
own feelings exactly.
"No--nor do I. Well, I've settled the old geyser, anyway--and now let's
forget all about him."
Which they did at once.
That night Nigel had restless dreams. He dreamed he was playing to
crowded audiences in great nightmare-like halls that stretched away to
infinity. The circumstances were always unfavourable--sometimes he would
have only one string on his violin, and sometimes he would find himself
struggling with some horrible dream-begotten instrument with as many
strings as a harp. Once he dreamed that all the audience got up and
danced a hideous rigadoon, another time they all had the same face--a
dark, florid face that leered.
Towards morning he dreamed a quieter dream. He was playing in a very
large place, but he had a rational instrument, and he was playing "I
Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls." The melody floated all through his
dreams--the same as in waking hours, and yet not quite the
same--celestial, rarefied, wistful in heart and ears. He was also
conscious of a presence--he knew he was near Tony Strife; he felt her
close to him, and it was magic in his blood. The melody drifted
on--sometimes pouring out of his violin, sometimes seeming to come from
very far away.
"And I also dreamed, which pleased me most,
That you loved me still the same ..."
The music ceased abruptly, and he dropped his bow, looking round to see
Tony. She was not there; the great hall was empty--nothing but empty
seats stretching away into dimness--except that in the front row of all
sat two figures huddled together. He looked down at them, and at first
he did not know them, then he saw that they were Len and Janey, staring
up at him with hungry, loving eyes....
He woke and sat up, shivering a little. It must be late, for the winter
sky was white beyond the woods. Yet he did not feel inclined to rise. He
lay back, and folded his hands behind his head, staring out at the dull
line of brown that lay against the quivering, dawn-filled clouds.
Those woods always put strange thoughts into his head. They made him
think of his own life, lonely, windy and sere. But some day the spring
would throb in them, their branches would shine with green, their
thickets would thrill with song; in their waste, desolate places
primroses would push through the dead leaves of last year.... He sat up
again with a jerk--for the first time he realised that the woods would
not be always brown.
The thought gave him a faint shock of surprise. Ever since the day he
left prison he had looked out on brown woods, rocked by autumn and
winter winds, so that he had almost forgotten that autumn and winter
would not last for ever. He had never thought of spring, of March and
tender green, of April and first flowers, of sweet, quickening rains,
and winds full of warmth and the scent of young leaves. It was strange
that he should have forgotten spring.
Now in the darkest day of the year, spring held out its promise to the
woods--and to him. The yellow of a hidden sunrise was filling the
clouds like hope unbounded--and Nigel's dream came back to him, his
dream of marble halls and of love that was "still the same." He saw
himself playing to thronged audiences, with Tony close to him, unseen,
intangible, but there--with all the sweet memories of Lingfield and
Brambletye revived and re-established, her friendship, candour, and
tenderness "still the same."
Then he understood. Gulfs unbridgeable might lie between the convict
with his stained and broken life and the simple little schoolgirl of
Shovelstrode. But the well-known violinist who played for "big
salaries," who "filled the Albert Hall."... A terrible thing had
happened to Nigel--he had begun to hope. When hope has been a long time
away, the return of it is like the return of sensation to a frost-bitten
limb. It pricks, it burns, it tortures. It tortured Nigel till a cry of
anguish burst from him, bitterer than in any of his fits of despair. He
bent forward, clapping his hand to his side.
Hope showed him the doors of his prison flung wide at last. For long
years he had never dreamed of escape, he was a captive, so fast in
prison that he could not get forth--free only among the dead. But now
the doors were open and he could go out. His music would raise him up
out of the pit, bring him back to an earth washed in rain and spring, to
touch the trembling innocence of the lilies, and drink the sweetness of
the eternal May.
"Oh, God! Oh, God!--I want to be free! I want to be free!"
The cry was not a prayer so much as the cry of his great hunger,
finding voice at last--"I want to be free! I want to be free!"
His mind dropped hastily to practical details. He had seen von
Gleichroeder's address on his card, and that tough memory of his, which
was sometimes a curse to him, held it fast. He would write and tell him
he had changed his mind. It would be humiliating, but it must be done.
Then he would go to London, and work--and work. It was not only the
topmost pinnacle that could lift him out of his old life, the name he
would make for himself need not be a great name--as long as it was a
fair name. That was what he wanted, and would struggle for--a fair name.
Hard work, an honest livelihood, self-denial, constant communion with
the beautiful and inspired, would purge his soul of its defilement. The
hideous stain of his crime would be wiped off. When he had lived for
years in poverty and honesty, when he had brought by his music a little
sunshine into poor lives like those he had smitten, when the fields of
three counties had ceased to reproach him for his treachery, and the
name of Furlonger had some faint lustre from his bearing it--then he
would be free. And when he was free he would allow himself--not to claim
Tony's friendship or anything else beyond him, but just to think of
her--think of her with hope.
Oh, Tony, little Tony! his little love!
For weeks now he had known that he loved her. Though he had never dared
think of her as a woman, he wanted her. He had wanted women before, he
had had his adventures with them--though not perhaps as many as the
average man--but they had all been stale and ordinary, the stock line,
the job lot, which eager, extravagant youth pays high for as a novelty.
Now he had something new. He loved a little girl, scarcely more than a
child, parted from him by a dozen barriers of his own erecting. He loved
her because she was good and innocent, and had given him perfect
comradeship; most of all he loved her because of the barriers between
them, because she lived utterly apart from him, in a foreign land of
liberty and hope and uprightness, towards which he must strive hourly if
he were to gain even the frontiers.
He scowled a little. He was not blind, and he knew that he would have to
go into slavery, perhaps for a long time, before this new freedom was
won. Even in an hour he had been able to see that von Gleichroeder was a
technique-fiend, and would make matters hot for his clumsy pupil. He
also realized that though the German had borne good humouredly with his
insolence, he would not be so patient when he became his master. Yes--he
would have a master--he would have to practise scales and exercises--he
would be reprimanded, lectured, ordered about. Herr von Gleichroeder
would be his master, and the tacit sympathy between them would but make
their relations more galling.
There would be other sacrifices too. He would have to say good-bye to
Sparrow Hall, and to Len and Janey. He caught his breath--God! how he
loved Len and Janey! He had been brutal and heartless to them again and
again, but he loved them with a love that was half pain in its
intensity. He would have to be away from them perhaps for years. Yet
when he came back he would bring them a gift--the same gift that he
would bring Tony--a fair name. That was what he owed every one--the
world, his brother and sister, his little love.
The very fact that he was taking his "stinking past" with him into the
future would to some extent remove its offensiveness. It was all very
well to talk of "starting afresh under another name." What he wanted was
to raise his old name--the name of Furlonger--out of the dust. The
convict should not just quietly disappear, he should be transfigured
into the artist, publicly, before the whole world. As his degradation
had been public, the comment of cheap newspapers, so should his
exaltation.
A thundering knock at the door broke into his dreams.
"Nigel, in the devil's name, get up!--breakfast's waiting."
The next moment Len was in the room, tearing the bed-clothes off him.
"You _are_ a fat lot of use on the farm!--I've got through half the
morning's work without you."
"Then you won't miss me so much when I'm gone."
"Gone where?"
"To London."
Nigel began to dress himself--Len stared at him gaping.
"To London! why, you aren't going there, are you?"
"I am."
"To that man von what's-his-name?"
"Of course."
Len stared harder than ever. Then he suddenly lost his temper.
"'Of course'!--there's no 'of course' about it--except 'of course not.'
Why, you told him you wouldn't hear of such a thing."
"But I may change my mind, mayn't I?"
"No--you mayn't. Look here, Nigel, you've led sister and self an
infernal dance for the last three months. Can't you chuck it?"
"I'm going to chuck it--by leaving this place."
Leonard saw his brother was in earnest. He came quickly towards him, and
laid his hand on his shoulder.
"What have we done to upset you, old man?"
"Nothing--you've always been sports."
"Then why are you going?"
Nigel hesitated. He could not bring himself to tell even this brother of
his sacred, half-formed plans.
"You won't miss me," he faltered.
"Won't miss you! Won't miss you!--what the devil d'you mean?"
"I'm no use on the farm--I laze and I slack. You'll get on much better
without me."
"Gammon! You're tumbling into it nicely, and if you go, I'll have to
hire a man--and there'll be the expense of your keep in London. No, no,
old chap--that won't wash."
"Wait till you've tried it."
"Haven't I been trying it for three years? Besides, my boy, this is only
beating round the bush. The main fact is that Janey and I would miss you
simply damnably."
"Not really," said Nigel, his mouth drooping with a great tenderness,
"you'd soon feel the relief of being rid of me and my tantrums."
There was a knock at the door.
"That's Janey," cried Len. "Come in, old girl--I want you."
Janey came in. Nigel was nearly dressed, and had begun to shave.
"Breakfast's----" began Janey.
"Yes--I know all about breakfast. That isn't what's the matter. Len
wants you to join him in trying to persuade me not to go to London."
"But you're not going to London!..."
"I'm writing this morning to von Gleichroeder to say I've changed my
mind."
"No!... Nigel!" cried Janey.
For a moment she stood as if paralyzed, then suddenly she darted towards
him, and flung her arms round him, looking up beseechingly into his
face.
"Nigel! no!--you mustn't leave us--I can't bear it. Oh, say you won't!"
"Damn you, Janey!--can't you see I've got a razor in my hand?"
She was taking it even worse than he had expected. She seemed actually
terrified.
"I can't live here without you," she cried brokenly, "indeed I can't."
He gently disengaged himself.
"Most people's difficulty," he said, deliberately lathering his chin,
"has not been how to live without me, but how to live with me."
"But I can't live without you."
"You've got Len."
"But he's only--only half."
"The better half. I'm a rotten lot, Janey. You'll be far happier when
I'm gone. I'm a sulky brute--don't contradict me; I know it. I'm a
sulky, bad-tempered brute. Again and again I've spoiled your happiness
and the lad's--I've done nothing but snap and snarl at you, and I've
gone whining about the place when you wanted to be cheerful. You've both
been utter sports to put up with me so long--you'll notice the
difference when I'm away, if you can't realise it now."
Janey was sitting on the bed, drowned in tears.
"Aren't you happy with us?" asked Leonard.
"Hardly--or I shouldn't be going."
He spoke with all the exaggerated brutality of the man who sees himself
obliged to hurt those he loves.
"It's not your fault," he continued in a gentler voice, "it's mine. I'm
such a waster. I'm a miserable, restless rotter, bound to make myself
and every one else unhappy. Now if I go to London, I shall work--I shall
have something to live for."
"Fame, you mean," sobbed Janey.
"Well, something of that kind."
He had finished shaving, and came and sat down by her on the bed,
forcing her drowned eyes to look into his.
"Janey, don't you want me to be famous? Wouldn't you like to be the
sister of a well-known violinist instead of Convict Seventy-six?
Wouldn't you like to see me fill the Albert Hall?"
"Fill hell!" shouted Leonard. "D'you really believe all the rot that old
bounder spoke?"
"Well, it isn't likely he'd teach me for nothing if he didn't expect to
make something out of me."
"Yes--that'll be just what he'll do--and he'll make a fat lot more than
you will."
"Oh, don't go!" sobbed Janey.
Nigel looked wretchedly from one to the other.
"Janey," he cried, drawing her close to him, and quivering in the agony
of his appeal, "Janey, can't you understand?--I want to start a new
life, I want to throw off all my beastly past. I want to make my
name--your name--clean and honourable. I dragged it into the mud, and I
must pull it out again. Oh, I've suffered so, Janey. I can't get out of
prison, I feel more helplessly shut up than ever I did at Parkhurst. But
now I--can be--free."
The last words burst from him in a choking cry. He flung himself back
from her, and looked into her eyes. Then he was surprised, for he saw in
them, swimming in tears, a glimmer of understanding.
"Janey," he continued, putting his lips close to her face, and mumbling
his appeal almost incoherently, "I can't expect you to grasp all that
this means to me. You're good, you're pure--you don't know what it is
to have a horrible stain on your heart, which all your tears don't seem
able to wash away. But can't you put yourself for a moment in my place
and realise what it is to hunger for a decent life, to dream of
whiteness and purity and innocence, and burn to make them yours?--to be
willing to give the whole world--just to be--clean?"
"I think I can," said Janey.
CHAPTER XV
THE SERMON ON FORGIVENESS
Half-an-hour later the three Furlongers sat down to a cold breakfast.
They were almost silent, for there was nothing more to be said. The
matter was settled. Nigel had found an unexpected ally in Janet, and had
carried his point. Directly after breakfast he wrote to von
Gleichroeder. It was a difficult letter, for it meant nothing less than
eating humble pie, but for that very reason he did not take long over
it. An envelope addressed in his large, scrawling hand was soon ready to
be posted.
It was a clear, cold day, this feast of Stephen. A frosty sunshine
crisped the grass, scattering the damps of yesterday's fog. The lane
smelled of frost as Nigel walked up it to the post-office. But he did
not see it as it was--in the duress and beggarliness of winter; he saw
it as it would be, bursting with spring, full of scent and softness and
song. He pictured those naked bushes when spring had clothed them, those
grey banks when spring had fired them--the hedges were full of future
song, the hollows of primroses to be.
He posted his letter, then stood for a moment, looking southward. The
sunshine was so clear that the rims of distant windows gleamed with
white across the fields. He could see the windows of Shovelstrode....
Dared he?
After all, he would have to. He could not leave Sparrow Hall without
seeing Tony. He would not tell her of her place in his plans, but he
owed it to her and to himself that she should think of him as a man
living uprightly, striving after honour. Now she was thinking of him as
a scoundrel and an outcast--he came into her thoughts with a shudder. It
must not be.
At the same time he was afraid. It gave him a strange, cold qualm to
think he was afraid of Tony, once his comrade, now his love--but he was.
If he meant to see her, he must go at once, before his resolve lost
strength with spontaneity. He turned towards the south, where the
sunshine lay.
As he came near Shovelstrode his quakings grew. After all, by the time
he had made himself worthy to think of her, she would have given herself
to another. He could not even hint that he wanted her to wait. He must
trust to her aloofness to keep her free, and the memory of their
friendship to keep alive in her heart a little spark that he could some
day fan into flame. But it was all rather hopeless, a leap in the dark.
Perhaps, even, she would refuse to see him. He remembered the look in
her eyes when she had turned from him by Goatsluck Farm. All the
steel-cold virtue, all the ignorant horror, all the cruelty of youth had
been in that look. Perhaps she had turned from him for ever. Perhaps
nothing that he could ever achieve or be would wipe out from her memory
his foul betrayal of others and herself.
But he went too far in his fears for utter despair. Reaction set
in--hope began once more to lacerate him, and whipped him forward to
make his last desperate appeal to the fates that had always hitherto
been deaf and blind.
He hesitated a moment when he came to the house. The servants might know
who he was and not allow him in, or he might be seen by some of the
family. It struck him that he had better go and look for her in the park
before risking himself on the doorstep. She had once told him that she
often wandered among the pines.
He slipped round behind the lodge, and was skirting the lawn at the back
of the house, when he saw one of the French windows open and a girl come
out with her dog. His heart gave a suffocating leap, and something
seemed to rise in his throat and stay there, making him gulp
idiotically. He had never before felt any emotion at the sight of
her--just pleasure, a calm, slow-moving comfort. But to-day his head
swam, and he could hardly see her as she came running and skipping
across the lawn in a manner wholly at variance with her long skirts and
coiled-up hair.
She turned aside before she reached the bushes that hid him, and he just
managed to call after her--
"Tony!--Tony!"
The dog barked, and the next minute had scented him, and came cantering
over the grass. Tony stood still and listened. She looked uncertain, and
he called again--
"Tony!"
She turned quickly, and slipped behind the bushes, running to him along
the path. When she was a few yards off she stopped dead.
"Mr. Furlonger...."
She stood outlined against a patch of wintry sky. It was the first time
that he had seen her since her return. He thought that she was paler
than in the valiant days of their friendship, and certainly the way she
did her hair gave her a grown-up look. The stifling sensation in his
throat became worse, and he could not speak.
"What is it ... Mr. Furlonger?"
"I--I want to speak to you."
"Oh, no! I can't!" Her voice was quite childish.
"I must--please do."
She hesitated a moment.
"Then come into the shrubbery. We can be seen here from the house."
"I know. I'm not here to get you into trouble. I--I only came to say
good-bye."
"Good-bye," she repeated vaguely, not quite understanding him, for her
heart had said good-bye to him long ago.
"Yes--I'm going to London."
They were walking away from the house to where the pine-needles were
thick under their feet--on a little, moist path smelling of winter. The
sunshine came slanting down on Tony as she stopped, showing up her slim,
strong figure in a cold purity of light. It rested on her hair, and he
saw golden threads in it--in her eyes, and he saw golden sparks in them.
For the first time he realised how beautiful she was in all the
assurance and unconsciousness of her youth. He longed to tell her so.
Instead he muttered--
"How grown-up you look."
"Do I?--it's my hair, I suppose."
"Did they make you put it up?"
"Aunt Maggie said I was old enough--and I think so too."
"I hope you don't mind my coming here to see you." He was desperately
embarrassed, and her manner did not reassure him. "I'm going away, you
see, to study music, and I--I thought I should like to say good-bye."
"Oh, no," she said rather awkwardly, her excessive youth showing nowhere
more clearly than in her inability to put him at his ease. "Oh, no, I'm
glad you came--to say good-bye."
"I'm going to work very hard. There's a fellow--Eitel von Gleichroeder,
I don't know if you've heard of him--who's taken a fancy to me, and says
he'll coach me if I'll take up the violin professionally."
"I didn't know you played."
"Yes--but I'd no idea I was any good till I met this chap. He says I
ought to make quite a decent thing out of it. I--I think it's worth
trying."
"Oh, yes."
"You see," he continued, his voice shaking with emotion, "I want to
start a new life--to be respectable, I suppose you'd call it. If I win
fame as a violinist--and von Gleichroeder thinks I may--I--I shall have
lived down everything."
"Yes ... of course."
It was embarrassment, not lack of interest, that made her replies so
trite. Memories of their friendship--now dim and far-off, separated from
her by many wonderful happenings--were creeping up to her and filling
her with a vague uneasiness.
As for Nigel, he realised now what had taken place. He understood why
his tongue had suddenly become tied in her presence, and his eagerness
collapsed into shuffling uncouthness. He had come to Shovelstrode to
speak to a little girl--and he had found a woman. Tony the schoolgirl,
the hoyden, the gay comrade, was now nothing but a little ghost haunting
the slopes of Ashdown and the secret lanes of Kent. In her place stood a
woman--come suddenly, as the woman always comes--and the woman, he knew,
was trying to call back the girl, and see things from her eyes once
more--and could not.
"Tony--Miss Strife--I wanted to tell you this, just to show you I'm not
always going to be a convict on ticket-of-leave."
"I'm sure you won't. I hope you'll become very famous."
The words passed her lips in jerks. Her memories of him carried
something very like repulsion. The more she struggled to revisualise the
comradeship of two months ago, the greater was her distaste and
humiliation. The kindest attitude possible for her now was one of
embarrassed shyness. At first she had tried to heal herself with her
memories, but as soon as she had worked back to them she found their
sweet secrets all sicklied with bitterness and shame.
He looked steadfastly at her, and he saw what had happened.
"Tony--you don't want to know me any longer--you want to forget we ever
were friends. There's no good denying it, for I can see it."
She stood motionless, her lips white, her hands clenched in front of
her.
"It's true--I can see it," he repeated.
She did not speak. Her memories were calling very loud, and there were
tears in the voices, softening the shame.
"You can't bear the thought of having once been my friend."
Tears were rising in her throat, and with her tears the little
school-girl who had run away came back, and showed her face again before
she went for ever.
"Oh, it's hurt me!" she cried. "You don't know how it's hurt me!"
"To know I was a bad 'un?" He grasped the shaking hand she thrust out
before her.
"Yes--I can't bear to think...."
"But I've changed--I swear I have. I'm going to live a decent life; and
you're going to help me--by just saying you believe I can."
She shuddered, and pulled her hand away.
"I tell you I've changed," he exclaimed bitterly; "won't you believe
me?"
She was crying now.
"You don't understand ... you don't understand ... what one feels about
men like you."
He winced.
"You don't know what I felt ... when I heard...."
"Tony!" he cried, "you _must_ forgive me."
"I do forgive you--it's not me you've hurt--but----"
"'But' you don't forgive me, and it is you I've hurt--that's what your
'but' means."
There was another silence, broken only by her muffled crying and the
throbbing of the wind in the pine-tops. Nigel felt that his old life was
struggling in its cerements to spring up and strangle the new life at
its birth.
"I can't understand," sobbed the girl, "how you or any man could have
done such a horrible thing. You've been merciless and cruel and grasping
and unworthy--and you won my friendship by false pretences, by lies and
shams--when all the time you knew that if I'd had any idea who you
really were I wouldn't have let you come near me. Oh, it probably seems
only a little thing to you, but it's dreadful for me to think I've given
my friendship to a man who's been a--a cad."
His anger kindled, for her inexperience and ignorance no longer
attracted him--they were now only fragments that remained of something
he had worshipped.
"Then are you going to inquire into the history of every man you meet,
in case any one else should 'win your friendship under false
pretences'? Most men have had a little shake up in their pasts."
"You don't call yours a little shake up, do you?"
The retort was obvious, and he flushed--but at the same time it gave him
an unwonted courage.
"No, of course not. But you mustn't think it's been just as easy for me
to keep straight as for you. Do you realise what being a man means?--it
means to be tempted."
"Women are tempted."
He laughed.
"But not like men."
He saw the incredulousness of her eyes, and once more his rage flared
up.
"You don't understand!" he cried, "you don't understand!"
Then it struck him that she would never understand, that she would go
through life with her narrow ideas, acquired in a girls' school and
nurtured in her home. All her divine womanly powers of sympathy and
forgiveness would be strangled by her ignorance and her hard-and-fast
rules based on inexperience. She was the only woman he knew of her
class, but he knew the limitations of that class, and Tony would soon be
bound by them like the others. Janey was so different--Janey realised
what one felt like when one simply had to go on the bust, when one came
beastly muckers. She scolded, but she understood. Tony did not scold,
and she did not understand.
"I want you to understand," he said painfully.
"What?"
"About me--about other men."
"Why do you think I don't understand?"
"You don't!--you don't! You simply can't--and if you go on as you are,
you never will. Oh, I wish you could! You're too good to be like--other
women."
Something in his nervous, excited manner frightened her, and strange to
say that faint thrill of fear removed the shame which had tarnished her
attitude towards him that day. Once more she felt the subtle magic of
his unusualness--the attraction of Mr. Smith.
"Tell me," she said in a low voice, "tell me about yourself."
He laughed a little.
"Oh, my story is just every man's. I've mucked it a bit worse, that's
all. But the fight's pretty well as hard with all of us. Directly we're
grown up, almost before, there are people going about whose paid
business it is to tempt us. Tempting us, just when Nature has made it
most difficult for us to resist, is the profession of thousands of human
beings. We fall--we often fall--for if we didn't a powerful set would
have empty pockets--so they see that we fall. And then we can't pick
ourselves up, we sink deeper and deeper into the mud ... and some of us
touch bottom."
He paused, but she did not speak. Her face was turned away.
"The horrible thing I did," he continued almost roughly, "which, if
you'd only believe me, I loathe as much as you do--I did only as the
consequence of other things, not quite so bad, before it. If a woman
like you had come along when I first fell--I was only nineteen--she
might have pulled me up again. But she didn't come. Other women came,
and they knocked me flatter. They couldn't forgive. Poor devils! I don't
blame them--they'd a great deal to forgive. I went down--and down--till
it became a sort of habit to lie there in the ditch. Then you came, and
I--I wanted to get up."
She still looked away from him, but her head was bowed.
"Oh, Tony--won't you give me a hand?"
"How can I?"
"By just believing I can and will do better, and by saying that if I
live a decent life, and pull my name out of the dirt, and make myself
fit to know you, I may be your--friend. You've a right to punish me, but
I ask you to put aside that right for--for pity's sake."
"I don't see why you want my forgiveness so much--why it means such a
lot to you."
"It means the world to me. Oh, Tony--little pal that was--forgive me!
Life's a hard, rotten, wretched thing, and if there was no one to
forgive...."
"I'll try."
"Oh, please try! If you think, you'll come to understand things
presently, even if you can't now. It's for your own sake as well as mine
I ask it. Think how many a man who lies in the mud wouldn't be there if
only he had some woman to forgive him."
"I'll try----" she repeated falteringly.
"Then I've got what'll keep me going for the present. And, Tony, you'll
believe that I can and will behave decently, and make myself worthy to
be your--your friend?"
"Yes, I'll believe it."
"Thank you."
She was trembling from head to foot.
"Good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye."
He took her hand, and longed to kiss it. But he was still humble and
afraid, and let it fall.
"Tony--Tony--you will have to forgive me a great many things ... because
I am so very hungry."
BOOK II
THE WORLD AGAINST THE THREE
CHAPTER I
GLIMPSES AND DREAMS
I
There was a foam of anemones in the hollows of Furnace Wood. The wind
crept over the heads of the hazel bushes, bowing them gently, and
shaking out of them the scent of their budding. From the young grass and
tender, vivid mosses crept up more scents, faint, moist and earthy. The
sky was grey behind the stooping hazels, but glimmered with the yellow
promise of noon.
Janet Furlonger and Quentin Lowe had met to say good-bye in Furnace
Wood. The scent of spring was in Janey's clothes, and when her lover
drew her head down to his shoulder he tasted spring in her hair. But
there was not spring on her lips when he sought them--only the salt wash
of sorrow.
"Why do you cry, little Janey? This is the beginning of hope."
Another tear slid down towards her mouth, but she wiped it away--he must
not drink her tears.
"Quentin ... I hope it won't be for long."
"No, no--not long, little Janey, sweet, not long. It can't be. In six
months, perhaps in less, you'll have a letter asking you to come up to
town and marry a poor but independent journalist."
"You really think that this time you're going to succeed?"
"Of course. Do you imagine I'd touch Rider's idiotic rag with the tongs
if I didn't look on it as a stepping-stone to better things. There's a
mixed metaphor, Janey. Didn't you notice it?"
"No, dear."
"You're not critical enough, little one. You're worthy of good
prose--when I'm too weak and heavy-hearted for poetry."
The wind sighed towards them, bringing the scent of hidden water.
"I must leave you, my own--or I shall be late. Now for months of hard
work and hungry dreams of Janey, who will be given at last to my great
hunger. Little heart, do you know what it is to hunger?"
She trembled. "Yes."
"Then pity me. Pity me from the fields when you walk in them, as you and
I have so often walked, over fallen leaves--pity me from your fire when
you sit by it and see in the embers things too beautiful to be--from
your meals when you eat them--you and I have had only one meal together,
Janey--and from your bed when you lie waking in it. Janey, Janey--pity
me."
"Pity ... yes...."
He was holding her in his arms, looking into her beautiful, haggard
face. A sudden pang contracted her limbs, then released them into an
abandonment of weakness.
"Quentin ... promise me that you will never forget how much you loved
me."
"Janey!"
"Promise me."
"Janey, how dare you!--'loved you'! What do you mean?"
"Oh, please promise!"
She was crying. He had never seen her like this. Hitherto at their
meetings she had left the stress and earthquake of love to him, fronting
it with a sweet, half-timid calm. Now she clung to him, twisted and
trembled.
"Promise, Quentin."
"Well, since you're such a silly little thing, I will. Listen. 'I
promise never to forget how much I loved you.' There, you darling fool."
"Thank you ..." she said weakly.
He drew her close, kissed her, and laughed at her.
"Janey--you're the spring, with its doubts and distresses. You were the
autumn when autumn was here, all tanned and flushed and rumpled, with
September in your eyes. Now you're the spring, thin, soft, aloof and
wondering--you're sunshine behind a cloud--you're the promise of August
and heavy apple-boughs."
"And you'll never forget how much you loved me...."
II
The golden lights of late afternoon were kindled in London, warring with
the smoky remnants of an April day. They shone on the wet pavements and
mud-slopped streets--down Oxford Street poured the full blaze of the
sunset, flamy, fogged, mysterious, crinkling into dull purples behind
the Circus and the spire in Langham Place.
The Queen's Hall was emptying--crowds poured out, taxi-horns answered
taxi-whistles, and the surge of the streets swept by, gathering up the
units, and whirling them into the nothingness of many people. It
gathered up Nigel Furlonger, and rushed him, like a bubble on a torrent,
down Regent Street, with his face to the darkness of the south--lit from
below by the first flash of the electric advertisements in Piccadilly
Circus, from above by the first pale, useless glimmer of a star.
He walked quickly, his chin lifted, but mechanically taking his part in
the general hustle, not too much in dreamland to make way, shift, pause,
or plunge, as the ballet of the pavements might require. His hands were
clenched in his pockets. He, perhaps alone among those hundreds, saw the
timid star.
A dream was threading through his heart, knitting up the tags of
longing, regret and hope that fluttered there. A definite scheme seemed
now to explain the sorrow of the world. The armies of the sorrowful had
received marching orders, had marched to music, had been given a nation,
and a song. Nigel had heard the Eroica Symphony.
In his ears was still the bourdon of drums, the sigh of strings, the
lilt of wood-wind, the restless drone of brasses. He had heard sorrow
claim its charter of rights, vindicate its pleadings, fight, triumph and
crown itself. He had seen the life-story of the sorrowful man, presented
not as a tragedy or a humiliation, a shame to be veiled, but as a
pageant, a tremendous spectacle, set to music, lighted, staged,
applauded.
At first the sorrowful man was half afraid, he sought refuge and
disguise in laughter, he pined for distraction and a long sleep. But
each time he touched his desire, the wailings of heavenly wood-wind
called him onward to holier, darker things. He had dropped the dear,
dustless prize, and gone boldly on into the fire and blackness.... A
thick, dark cloud swagged on the precipices of frozen mountains, frowned
over deserts of snow. The sorrowful man stumbled in the dark, and his
loud crying and the flurry of his seeking rose in a wail against the
thudding drums of fate. Gold crept into the cloud, curling out from
under it like a flame, and the sorrowful man seemed to see a human face
looking down on him, and a hand that held seven stars.... "Who made the
Seven Stars and Orion...." It was by the light of those stars in the
Hero's hand that the sorrowful man saw, in a sudden awful wonder, that
he was not alone--he marched in the ranks of a huge army. All round him,
over the frozen plain, under the cloud with its lightnings, towards the
blackness of the boundless void, marched the army of the sorrowful,
unafraid. They marched in mail, helmeted, plated, with drawn swords. The
ground shook with the thunder of their tread, the mountains quaked, the
darkness smoked, the heavens heeled over, toppled and scattered before
the conquering host whom the Lord had stricken--triumphant, fearless,
proud, crowned and pierced....
Footsteps overtook Nigel, and he heard the greeting of a fellow
student.
"You're in the clouds, old man. Who sent you there? Beethoven?"
Nigel stared.
"But the only cosmic genius is Offenbach."
"You mean the 'Orphée'?"
"Yes--and 'Hoffmann.' Life isn't a triumphal march, for all Beethoven
would make it--it's comic opera, with just a pinch of the bizarre and a
spice of the macabre. That's Offenbach."
Furlonger was still marching with the stricken army.
"When a man suffers," continued the student, "the gods laugh, the world
laughs, and last of all--if he's a sport--the man laughs too."
"Sorrow is a triumph," said Nigel, dreamily.
"Not at all, old man--sorrow is a commonplace. The question is, what are
we to make of the commonplace--a pageant or a joke? I'm not sure that
Offenbach hasn't given a better answer than Beethoven."
III
In a small room in Gower Street a man lay on his bed, his face crammed
into the pillow, his shoulders high against his ears, his legs twisted
in a rigid lock of endurance. Now and then a shudder went through him,
but it was the shudder of something taut and stiff, over which the
merest surface tremble can pass.
In his hand he crushed a letter. Behind his teeth words were forming,
and fighting through to his colourless lips. "Janey!--my Janey! Oh, my
God! I can't bear this."
He suddenly twisted himself round on to his back, and faced the aching,
yellow square of the window, where a May day was mocked by rain. There
was a pipe close to the window, and the water poured from it in a quick
tinkling trickle, cheering in rhythm, tragic in tone. Quentin unfolded
Janey's letter.
He read it--but that word is inadequate, for he read it in the same
spirit as an Egyptian priest might read the glyphs of his divinity,
seeing in each sign a volume of esoteric meaning, so that every jot and
tittle was worthy of long minutes' contemplation.
It was some time since Janey's letters had ceased to be for Quentin what
she hoped. Literally they were rather bald and laboured, for Janey was
no penwoman, but she put a wealth of thought and passion into the
straggling lines, and for a long while he had seen this. But now he saw
much more, she would have trembled to think of the meaning he read into
her words--he tested each phrase for the insincerity he felt sure it
must conceal, he hunted up and down the pages for that monster unknown
to Janet, the _arrière pensée_. Her letters were a torture to him--they
tortured his brain with shadows and seekings, they tortured his heart
with blue fires of misgiving and scorchings of jealousy. She did not
write oftener than once a week, but the torment of a single letter
lasted till its successor at once varied and renewed it.
Lying there in the hideous dusk of what should have been a summer
afternoon, Quentin wondered if the doom of love and lovers had not been
spoken him--"thou canst not see My Face and live."
It was a vital fear. Before he had brought his love to its consummation,
snatched the veil from its mysteries, and looked it in the face, it had,
in spite of hours of anguish, been his comfort, the strongest,
tenderest, purest thing in his life. But now he saw, without much
searching, that this love, though deeper and fiercer than ever, belonged
somehow to his lower self. To realise it brought despair instead of
comfort, wreckage instead of calm. He dared not, as in former days,
plunge his sick heart into it as into a spring of healing waters--rather
it was a scalding fountain, bubbling and seething out of death.
He had hoped that perhaps separation would make him calmer. Of late he
had often denied himself the sight of Janey in that same vain hope. But
now, as then, he found her letters almost as disintegrating as her
presence--indeed more so, since they gave wider scope to his familiar
demon of doubt. He wondered if he would ever find rest. Would marriage
give it to him? He started up suddenly on the bed. An awful thought was
thrust like a sword against his heart--the thought that even in marriage
he would not find peace.
He had fallen into the habit of looking on marriage as the end of
sorrows--and now, when fate and hard work seemed to have brought it
within gazing-distance of hope, he suddenly saw that it would be as full
of torment as his present state; or rather, more so--just as his present
state was an intensification of the pain of earlier days. He
realised--hardly definitely, but with horrible acuteness--that he had
allowed love to frustrate love, and that by his demand to look into that
great dread Face, he had brought on himself scorching and blindness and
doom.
"Thou canst not see my Face and live."
He sprang off the bed. His pulses were hammering, his blood was thick, a
kind of film obscured his eyes, so that he groped his way to the
dressing-table. A clock struck four, and he suddenly remembered an
engagement he had that afternoon. He would go--it would distract him. He
might forget Janey--if only for an hour, he would be free of the torment
that each thought of her carried like poison in a golden bowl. It was
strange, it was terrible, that he should ever have come to want to
forget Janey--and it was not because he did not love her; he loved her a
hundred times more passionately than ever. But the love which had once
been his strength and salve had now become a rotten sickness of the
soul.
He dressed himself, removed as far as possible the stains of sorrow and
exhaustion from his face, and plunged out to take his place in the
restless, ill-managed pageant of the pavements, where threads are
tangled, characters lost, and cues unheard. He was going to a
semi-literary gathering at a friend's flat in Coleherne Gardens. He did
not look forward to it particularly, but it might help him in his
twofold struggle--to win Janey in the future and forget her for the
present.
The room was crowded. Hallidie was presiding over a mixed assembly of
more-or-less celebrities with that debonair self-confidence which had
helped make him a famous novelist in spite of his novels. There were one
or two great ones present, just to raise the level--he did not introduce
them to Lowe. He knew exactly whom they would like to meet, and Lowe, he
felt, would let the conversation down, just when it was becoming yeasty
with literary wit. There were other people in the room who showed a
tendency to do this, and Hallidie had carefully introduced them to one
another, so that they could all fail mutually in a well-upholstered
corner.
"Ah--Lowe. Glad to see you. Come, let me introduce you to Miss
Strife"--and sweeping Quentin past the renowned author of _Life and How
to Bear It_, and Dompter, the little, insignificant, world-famous
sea-poet, he presented him to a very young girl, sitting alone on a
divan.
Quentin's first feeling was one of outrage. What right had Hallidie to
drag him away from the pulse of things, so vital to his struggling
ambition, and condemn him to atrophy with a flapper. He stared down at
her disapprovingly--then something in her wistful look disarmed him.
"I believe our fathers are neighbours in the country," he said stiffly.
He did not notice her reply. It was not that which made him stop his
furious glances at Hallidie and sit down beside her. She was evidently
very young. There was a lack of sophistication about her hair-dressing
which proclaimed an early attempt, her frock was simple and girlish, her
face alert and innocent.
Quentin found himself gulping in his throat, almost as if tears had
found their way there at last; for he suddenly realised how new and
beautiful it was to sit beside a woman and not be tormented. As he
looked at her delicate profile, the pure curves of her chin and
collarless neck, his heart became suddenly still. There was a great
calm. Peace had come down on him like water. Simplicity rested on his
parched thoughts like rain-clouds on a desert. He seemed suddenly to
come back to life, to the world, and to see them in the calm, usual
light of every day. The racket, the glare, the sense of being in an
abnormal relation to his surroundings--all were gone. For the first time
in his complicated, sophisticated, catastrophic life, Quentin Lowe was
at peace.
IV
It was late in June. A haze wimpled the pine-trees of Shovelstrode, and
the heather between their trunks was in full flower. The old house
shimmered in the haze and sunshine, and stared away to yellow fields of
buttercups and distances of brown and blue.
Tony and Awdrey Strife were lying in the shadow of a chestnut on the
lawn. Two young gracious figures in muslins, they lay with their chins
on their hands, and looked away towards the golden weald. They did not
speak much, for the post had just come, and they were reading their
letters. Awdrey giggled to herself a good deal over hers, but Tony was
serious--the corners of her mouth even drooped a little, but whether
from sorrow or tenderness or both it would be hard to say. Suddenly she
made an exclamation.
"What's the matter?" asked Awdrey.
"It's a letter from Furlonger."
"_The_ Furlonger!"
"Yes--he's written me quite a long letter."
"What cheek. I thought you'd seen the last of him."
"He came to say good-bye before he went to London."
"Oh----"
Awdrey rolled over on her side, and stared hard at her sister.
"Did he know you were in town last month?"
"No--I've never written to him, and this is the first time he's written
to me."
"Then he hasn't shown unseemly eagerness--it's nearly six months since
he left. What does he say?--anything exciting?"
"Exciting for him. Von Gleichroeder is giving a pupils' concert at the
Bechstein, and Mr. Furlonger is going to play."
"A solo?"
"Yes--something by Scriabin. He's only had six months' teaching, but von
Gleichroeder's so pleased with him that he's going to let him play at
this concert of his. Then he'll finish his course, and then he'll start
professionally."
"Good Lord!--it sounds thrilling for an ex-convict. Let's see his
letter."
"Here it is. No," changing suddenly, "I think I'd rather read it to
you."
"Right-O! Excuse a smile."
"Don't be an idiot, Awdrey. Now listen; he says: 'Von Gleichroeder's
concert is fixed for the twenty-seventh'--why, that's next Friday--'and
it's been settled that I'm to play Scriabin's second Prelude. It sounds
like cats fighting, but it's exciting stuff. Von Gleichroeder is
tremendously keen on the ultra-moderns--nothing makes him madder than to
hear Verdi or Gounod or Rossini. So I play d'Indy and Stravinsky and
Strauss and Sibelius; except when I'm alone in my digs--and then I have
the old tunes out, for I like them best.'"
She did not read the next paragraph aloud.
"I've been having a hard fight for it, Tony--but I'm pulling through.
Music has helped me, and the memory of our friendship, and the thought
that you're trying to understand me and forgive me."
"Well, I wish him luck," said Awdrey; "what a good thing von
Gleichroeder found him out!"
"Yes, he'll have his chance now--his chance of a decent life."
"Nonsense, Tony! That's not what he's after--fame and dibs, my dear
girl, fame and dibs."
"He told me he was accepting von Gleichroeder's offer because he wanted
to be--good."
"Well, London's a queer place to go for that."
"He's gone there to work. He had no chance here."
"More chance than he'll have there--you bet he's painted the place
pretty red by this time."
Her sister was about to retort sharply, when a man suddenly came round
the corner of the house towards them.
"Awdrey!" cried Tony, springing up. "Here's Quentin!"
CHAPTER II
THE LETTER THAT DID NOT COME
The door was wide open at Sparrow Hall, and a square of sunshine lay on
the kitchen floor. In the little flower-stuffed garden bees were humming
lazily, and a thrush was singing in the last of the laburnum. Tangles of
roses trailed over the farm-house walls, they hung round the
window-frames, darkening the rooms, and over the door, sending faint
perfumes to Janey as she sat in the kitchen.
She looked pale and washed-out with the heat. The outlines of her
splendid figure were drooping, and there was an ominous hollowing of the
curves of her face and arms. She sat at the table, her cheek resting on
her palm, reading from a pile of letters. They were long letters,
closely written in a sharp, scrawling hand, on thin paper that crackled
gently as she fingered it. Every now and then she looked up anxiously,
and seemed to listen. Then her head would bow again, and the paper would
crackle softly as before.
At last the garden gate clicked, and she saw the postman's cap coming up
the path between the rows of sweet peas. She sprang to her feet,
trembling and fighting for her self-command. She reached the door just
as he lifted his hand to knock.
"A letter for you, miss," and old Winkworth smiled genially.
The colour rushed over Janey's cheeks like a wave, then as a wave ebbed
out again. She took the letter with a hand that shook piteously, her
lips parted and a low laugh broke from them. Then suddenly her
expression changed--in such a manner that Winkworth muttered anxiously--
"Fine afternoon, ain't it, miss?"
"Yes--a glorious afternoon. Good-day, Winkworth."
"Good-day, miss," and he shambled off.
Janey turned into the house, and dropping into her chair by the table,
began to sob childishly. It was more from exhaustion than grief--the
exhaustion of hopes strained to breaking-point, and then allowed to
relax again into disappointment and frustration. She was so dreadfully
tired--she so longed to sleep, quietly, deeply, at once. She laid her
head on the table, and her shoulders heaved, straining and struggling as
if the burden of her sorrow were physical.
Then suddenly she noticed the unopened letter, and her sobs broke out
with even greater vehemence. Nigel! poor Nigel! She had not opened his
letter--she had flung it aside and forgotten it, because it was not
Quentin's. It was the day of his concert, too--what a beast she felt!
She tore open the envelope, and wiped away the tears that blinded her.
"MY OWN DEAR JANEY,
"This is just to keep myself from thinking of that damned concert.
It's scaring me a bit--more than a bit, in fact. Who would have
thought that any one with my past could suffer from stage
fright?--but that little thing of Scriabin's is the very devil. Old
von G. has been ragging me no end over it--we nearly came to blows
last practice. I hope you and the lad don't mind my not wanting you
to come up for the show; I feel it would be the last straw for you
two to see me make a fool of myself--not that I mean to, but you
never know what may happen. Cheer up--you shall come and help me
when I fill the Albert Hall.
"By the way, I saw that little bounder Quentin Lowe at a concert at
the Queen's last Sunday.
"Now, good-bye; I'm turning into bed. This time to-morrow it'll all
be over, and I'll send you a telegram. Greetings to the lad.
"Ever yours, dear,
"NIGEL."
Janey folded the letter with trembling hands. It filled her with a kind
of pitiful anguish, for she knew that the only thing in it that
interested her was the reference to Quentin. Nigel's wonderful concert,
about which she and Len had dreamed so many dreams, had faded into the
background of her thoughts, driven out by her sleepless, bruising
anxiety for her lover.
It was over a fortnight since he had written. She had before her his
last letter, in which he said: "I will write again in a day or two, and
tell you the exact date of my return." She had waited, but the letter
had not come. She had written, but had had no answer. What could have
happened?
There had been nothing in the past few weeks to make her expect this
silence. His last bid for independence had met with more success than
the others. He had fought hard against failure and discouragement, and
had now found work on one or two good dailies. Their marriage was at
last in sight. He was expected home for a couple of weeks' holiday, then
he would work on through the autumn, and there was no reason why, if
things prospered, they should not be married soon after Christmas.
Yes--at last their marriage was a thing to be reckoned with, talked
about, and planned for. For the first time Janey could consider such
things as home and outfit, breaking the news to her brothers, and
leaving Sparrow Hall--all were now within the range of probability and
expectation. But a terrible gloom had settled on these last days. It was
not merely her sorrow at leaving the farm and the boys--it was something
less accountable and more tempestuous than that. It had its source in
Quentin's letters. She could see that he was not happy--their marriage,
their longed-for, prayed-for, wept-for, worked-for marriage, was not
bringing him happiness. On the contrary, his suffering seemed to have
increased. His doubts and forebodings had been transferred from material
circumstances to more subtle terrors of soul--he doubted the future more
passionately, because more spiritually, than ever.
Janey had not been able to understand this at first, but in time his
attitude had communicated itself to her, though whether her distrust was
independent or merely a reflection of his, it would be hard to say.
Anyhow, she doubted--fiercely, miserably, despondingly. She had started,
on his recommendation, to make herself some clothes, but the work lagged
and depressed her. She found herself hungering for the early times of
their courtship, when their marriage was a dream made golden by
distance. She thought of the days when his name had rung like bells in
her heart, without a horrid dissonance of fear, when his letters were
pure joy, and the thought of meeting him pure anticipation. Would those
days return?--And now, here was his silence, consuming her. Why didn't
he write? He had been so eager in his last letter, though, as usual,
eagerness had soon been throttled by despair.
"I shall have you--I shall have you at last, my beautiful, tall
Janey, for whom I hunger. But I am filled with doubts. There are
some men in whose mouths manna turns to dust and the water of life
to gall. Everything I touch is doomed. Either my soul or my body
betrays me--my soul is so hot and my body so weak--so damnably
weak. If only my hot soul had been given a stout body, or my weak
body a weak soul ... then I should have been happy. But now it is
the eternal fight between fire and water."
Janey pushed the letter aside, and picked up another. She had been
trying to comfort herself with Quentin's letters, but they were not on
the whole of a comforting nature. His restless misery was in them all.
If his last letter had been happy, she would not have worried nearly so
much. She would have put down his silence to some trite external
cause--pressure of work or indefiniteness of plans--he had always been
an erratic correspondent. But his unhappiness opened a dozen roads to
her morbid imaginings. It was dreadful to think that all she had given
to Quentin had only made him more unhappy.
Perhaps he was too miserable to write--not likely, since he was one of
those men whom despair makes voluble, but nevertheless a real terror to
her unreason. Perhaps he had not received her last letter, and thought
that she had played him false--he had always been jealous and inclined
to suspicion. This last idea obtained a hold on her that would have been
impossible had not her mind been weakened by anxiety. She had heard of
letters going astray in the post, and probably Quentin had been
expecting one from her, and not receiving it had been too proud to write
himself. Or perhaps he had received it, but had thought it cold. He had
often taken her to task for some fancied coldness which she had never
meant.
In her desperation she resolved to write again. Hastily cramming his
letters into the boot-box where she unromantically kept them, she seized
paper and ink, and began to scrawl despairingly--
"MY DARLING, DARLING BOY,
"Why don't you write? Didn't you get my last letter? I posted it on
the 16th. Quentin, I can't stand this suspense. Are you unhappy?
Oh, my boy, my boy, my heart aches for you. I know you suffer--and
I can't bear it----"
The pen fell from her shaking hand as footsteps sounded in the garden.
The next minute Leonard came in--luckily for Janet he was not very
observant.
"Well, Janey--I've sent off the wire."
"What wire?" she asked dully.
"To the old bounder, of course--to buck him up for to-night. I said
'Cheer up. You'll soon be dead.' That ought to encourage him."
Janey smiled wanly.
"Meantime I've got a piece of news for you. It'll make you laugh. But
let's have a drink first--I'm dreadfully thirsty. This weather dries one
up like blazes."
"There's beer in the cupboard."
"Right-O! Now we'll drink to Nigel's very good health. Have some, old
girl. No? But I say, you look as if you needed it. You're as white as
chalk."
"It's only the heat. What's your news, Len?"
"Nothing much, really--only that little misshapen monkey Quentin Lowe's
engaged to be married."
"Quentin Lowe...."
Janey's voice seemed to her to come from very far away, as if some one
in another part of the room were speaking. She grew sick and faint, but
at the same time knew it was all ridiculous.
"Yes--I don't wonder you're surprised. Guess whom to."
"Are you sure--quite sure?"
"Yes, of course. I had it from his father. Guess whom to."
"I can't ... I--I can't believe it."
"Yes, it's no end of a joke, isn't it? You'd never think a woman would
be fool enough to have him, when you can get the genuine article from
any organ-grinder. But stop laughing, Janey, and guess who it is."
"I--I can't.... Did you really hear it from his father?... It can't be
true. Quentin's in London."
"He's been there for the last three months, but he came home on
Wednesday."
"Wednesday----"
"Yes--why not? But you haven't guessed who the girl is yet."
"I can't guess ... tell me, Len."
"Well, it's Strife's youngest daughter, the one that's just come out."
Janet made a grab at Leonard's half-emptied glass and drained it.
"That's it--drink her health. She'll need it."
"Len--did--did you really hear it from old Lowe?"
"Well, I heard it first of all in the Wheatsheaf. I've been as thirsty
as hell all the afternoon, so on my way back from the post-office I
turned in at the old pub for a pint. Dunk told me, Dunk of Golden
Compasses. Then no sooner had I got outside than I saw the old
devil-dodger prancing along, and I couldn't resist howling to
him--'Hear your son's engaged--wish him victory in the strife.' He
looked poisonous, so I just said, 'You'll be letting strife into your
household.' To which he deigned reply, 'I
am--ah--um--completely--ah--satisfied with
my--ah--son's--um--matrimonial choice."
Janey managed to reach the window.
"He met her a lot in town, I believe. Of course, he'd known her father
down here, but had never met the girl herself. I believe it all happened
pretty quick. Dunk says so. I don't see how he knows, but every one
always seems to know everything about engaged couples."
"Is that all?"
"What more do you want?--I'm off now to Cherrygarden Farm--I promised
Wilsher I'd be round to look at those chicks of his."
"Don't be long...."
"What time's supper?"
"Any time you like."
"Well, make it half-past eight. It's a good peg over to Cherrygarden,
and if I come back by Dormans I can send another wire to Nigel."
"Oh, don't, Len!"
"Why ever not?"
"I don't see that it's so ... so very important that he should know."
"About what?"
"The--the engagement."
"You silly old girl! I wasn't going to wire him about that--waste of a
good sixpence that would be! But don't you realise that at eight
to-night _the_ concert begins? I telegraphed to him an hour ago, just
to buck him up beforehand--next time I want to catch him in full
squeak."
"Very well--but, Len ... don't be late."
She was still standing by the window, but something in her words made
him go across to her.
"You're feeling seedy, Janey?"
"Just a bit washed-out."
"It's the heat, I expect. It's made me feel a little queer too."
"Then ought you to go to Cherrygarden?"
"I must--and it's getting cooler now. Take care of yourself, old sister,
and don't sit too much in this hot kitchen."
He squeezed her hand, and went out. She watched him go, blessing his
obtuseness, even though it was leaving her to fight through her awful
hour alone. He went down the path, and out at the gate--then she
staggered back into the room, and fell in a heap against the table.
She had not fainted, though she longed to faint--to win the respite of
forgetfulness at whatever cost, if only for a minute. She lay an inert,
huddled mass against the table-leg, motionless except for a long shudder
now and then. All power had left her limbs--they indeed might be in a
swoon--but her brain throbbed with a dazzling consciousness; it seemed
as if it had drawn into itself all the consciousness of her body,
leaving senses dull, nerves dumb, and muscles slack, in order to prime
itself with the whole range of feeling.
Strange to say, pain was not the paramount emotion, and despair was
scarcely present. Rather, she was consumed by a passionate sense of
doubt--of Quentin, of herself, of the whole world. It was like the
sudden removal of a prop which one had thought could not be shaken--it
was like a sudden precipitation into a world where the ordinary cosmic
laws did not hold--she seemed almost to doubt her own identity in that
first gasp of revelation.
It could not be true. Quentin could not have failed her like this.
Leonard must be mistaken. If one were to see the sun setting in the east
or the sea on fire one would doubt one's senses, one would not doubt the
universal laws. Neither would she doubt Quentin--she rather would doubt
Leonard's senses, doubt her own.
She had not in the whole course of her love doubted Quentin. It was he
who had doubted her, who had tormented her with his distrusts and
jealousies. "I'm only a misshapen little bounder, Janey--the first
decent man who comes along will snatch you from me. But he will never
love you as I do--Janey, Janey, little Janey" ... the words seemed to
come from outside her, from the shadowy corners of the room. She sat up
and listened. They came again--"Janey, my own little love, my little
heart--our love wounds, but it is the wound of immortality, the wound
which must always be when the Infinitely Great lifts up and gathers to
itself the infinitely little." ... "Stand by me, stand by me--I have
nothing but my sword. I threw away my shield long ago. If you do not
stand by me I shall fall." ... "Janey, love, dear little love, with eyes
like September."...
She crouched back in terror. Was she going mad? No, these were only
words from Quentin's letters--the letters she had just read--ringing in
her strung and distracted brain.
"Love, my little sweet love, do you think of me sometimes in the long
evenings when I think of you?--sometimes when I am thinking of you, I
tremble lest you should not be thinking of me...." "Do you know how
often I dream of you, Janey? You come to me so often in sleep--once you
stood between me and the window, and I saw the stars through your hair.
Oh, God!--when I dream I hold you in my arms, and wake with them
empty."...
She could stand it no longer. She sprang to her feet--the strength of
desperation had come at last. There was one only who could tell her
which she was to doubt--her own senses or, as it seemed to her, the
cosmic laws of his love.
She would go over to Redpale Farm--she would see Quentin, she would have
an explanation. There would be one--and she would take her stand boldly
beside him, against his father, against the whole world--though she,
like him, had thrown away her shield long ago.
CHAPTER III
ONLY A BOY
It was about four o'clock, and in spite of what Leonard said, not much
cooler than at noon. The sun scorched on the hay-grass, drawing out of
it a drowsy perfume, which a faint, hot breeze scattered into the
hedges. The trees scarcely moved, and their shadows were rusted with the
curling sorrel. Clumps of dog-roses and elder flowers splashed the
bushes with sudden pinks and whites, while vetches trailed their purples
less startlingly in the hedgerows.
Janey walked fast, and every now and then she ran for little sprints.
Her breath sobbed in her throat, her eyes were fixed and her hands
clenched. She climbed recklessly over gates, and plunged through copses;
her hair was soon almost on her shoulders, flying from her face in
wisps, straggling round her ears; her face became flushed and moist with
the heat--she tore her sleeve, and scraps of bramble hung on her skirt.
What woman but Janey would have rushed to confront a faithless lover in
such a state? But even now, when almost any one would have realised how
much depended on her appearance, she was careless and oblivious. She did
not feel in the least dismayed at the start given by the servant who
admitted her, nor, later, by her own reflection in a mirror in the
study.
It was the same little book-lined room in which she had had tea with
Quentin on her first visit to Redpale. There was the glorious Eastern
rug which he had said "had her tintings--her browns and whites and
reds." There was the big pewter jar that had then held chrysanthemums,
but held roses now. They were delicate white roses, faintly, sweetly
scented. Janey went over to them and laid her hot face against them. She
could hardly tell why, but they seemed to bring into the room an alien
atmosphere. Quentin had never given her white roses--as a matter of fact
he had given her scarcely any garden flowers, except chrysanthemums--he
had once said that only wild flowers were for wild things. She thought
of bunches of buttercups, of broom with bursting pods, of hazel sprays
and tawny grasses. Now she suddenly wished that he would give her a
white rose. She took one out of the jar, and was trying to fasten it in
her breast when footsteps sounded outside the room.
She turned deadly pale, and dropped the rose. For the first time she
felt that she had been foolish to come. Quentin might be angry with her,
for her coming would rouse his father's suspicions. Her hurry and
desperation might prejudice him against her. In an unaccustomed qualm
she realised that she was flushed, dishevelled and perspiring. She felt
at a disadvantage, and drew back as the door opened, seeking the shadows
by the hearth.
"Janey!"
He stood in the doorway, his hand on the latch, his chin thrust forward,
his pale face bright in the gleaming afternoon. His youth struck her
with a sudden appeal--his youth and delicacy, both emphasised in the
soft yellow light--and a sob tore up through her breast.
"Oh ..." she said, and moved towards him.
He shut the door.
"Oh, I'm sorry I came!" she cried.
He did not speak, but came forward, stopping abruptly a few feet away.
"Janey--I want to explain...."
"Explain...." She had not thought there would be any explanation
needed--or, if needed, possible.
"Yes--I ought to have written, but I couldn't, somehow--or rather, I
wrote you a dozen letters, and tore them all up."
She wondered why she felt so calm.
"I--I asked my father to call and see you."
"You mean to say--he knows?"
"Yes."
"Oh, my God!"
Her calmness staggered, and all but collapsed. For the first time her
doubts gave way to even bitterer realisation. This confession to
Quentin's father, this betrayal of the secret she had spent her health
and happiness for four years to keep, made her grasp what an hour ago
had seemed beyond the reach even of credulity.
"Quentin--why did you tell him?--how could you!--after all we've
suffered...."
"I--I--I was desperate, Janey, I had to tell some one, and he was so
sympathetic--much more than I'd expected."
"When did you tell him?"
"The night I came back from town."
"After the--the rest was settled?"
He nodded.
"Quentin, have you told _her_?" She was accepting the impossible quite
meekly now.
"No, no!--I can't tell _her_."
She waited a moment for what she thought the inevitable entreaty not to
betray him. Thank God!--it did not come.
"She would never forgive you," she said slowly. "Young girls don't."
"And you, Janey...."
She drew back from him.
"You can't ask me that now."
"Why?"
"Well--well, can't you see I hardly realise things as yet. An hour ago I
preferred to doubt my own senses rather than doubt you. Now----"
"You doubt me."
"No, I don't doubt you. I'm convinced--that you're a cad."
Her voice, clear at the beginning of the sentence, had sunk almost to a
whisper. He shrank back, wincing before her gentleness.
She herself wondered how long it would last, this unnatural calm. It
came to her quite easily, she did not have to fight for it, and yet the
general sensation was of being under an anæsthetic. She only half
realised her surroundings, this horrible new earth on which she was
wandering homeless; her emotions seemed dull and inadequate to the
situation--it would be a relief if she could feel more.
Then suddenly feeling came--it came in a tide, a tempest, a whirlwind.
It shook her like an earthquake and blasted her like a furnace. She
staggered sideways, as a great gloom darkled on her eyes. Then the
shadows parted, and she saw Quentin's face, half turned away--pale,
fragile, sullen, the face of a boy--of a boy in despair.
"Quentin!" she cried. "Oh, my boy--my little boy! You aren't going to
behave like a cad."
"But I am a cad, my dear Janey."
He spoke brutally, in the stress of feeling.
"Oh, Quentin!--Quentin!"
She was losing not only her calm, but her dignity--yet she did not heed
it. She sprang towards him, seized his hands, and gasped her words close
to his ear, as unconsciously he turned his head from her.
"Quentin, you can't forsake me--not now--not after all I've given
you--you can't, you can't! You loved me so much--you love me still. You
can't have stopped loving me all of a sudden like this. And if you love
me, you can't forsake me. Quentin, I shall die if you forsake me."
"Janey--let me explain. I can't explain if you're so frenzied. Oh,
Janey, don't faint."
She fell back from him suddenly, and he caught her in his arms.
The soft weight of her, her warmth, the familiar scent of her hair and
her tumbled gown, snatched him back into departing days. He suddenly
lost his self-command, or rather his sense of the present. He clasped
her to him, and kissed her and kissed her--as eagerly, passionately and
tenderly as ever in Furnace Wood. She did not resist or shrink, her
eyes were closed, and she lay back a dead weight in his arms, drinking
her last despairing draught of happiness.... His clasp grew tighter--oh,
that he would crush the life out of her as she lay there under his
lips!...
Then suddenly he dropped his arms, and they staggered back from each
other, piteously conscious once more of the present and its doom.
"Janey, Janey ... I can't--I mustn't love you."
"But you do love me----"
She sank into a chair, and covered her face.
"Yes--I love you. But it's in byways of love. Can't you understand?"
She shook her head.
"Don't you see that, all through, my love for you has been unworthy--the
worst in me?..."
She tried to speak, but her words were unintelligible.
"You and I have never been happy together----"
"Never?..."
"Yes--at times. But it was a blasting, scorching happiness--there was no
peace in it. We doubted each other."
"I never doubted you."
"Yes, you did. When I said good-bye to you before going to London, you
made me promise never to forget how much I'd loved you."
"But it wasn't you I doubted then. I doubted fate, chance, God, anything
you like--but not you."
She had recovered her self-control, and her voice was hard and even.
"Oh, don't, Janey!"
"Why not?--why should I spare you? You haven't spared me."
"You mustn't think I intended you to--to hear things in this way. I'd
meant to give you an explanation first. But the news leaked out----"
"Well, you can give me an explanation now."
"I'll try--but it will be very difficult," he said falteringly. "You're
like a flood to me--I feel giddy and helpless when I'm with you. I don't
think I'll ever be able to make you understand. I wish you hadn't come
like this--I wish----"
"Please go on, Quentin."
Her manner disconcerted him. He could not understand her alternations
between hysteria and stolid calm.
"You mustn't think I don't realise I've behaved like a skunk. But I
don't want to dwell on it--it would only be putting mud on my face to
make you pity me--but I do ask you to try to understand me.... Janey,
I've done this for your good as well as mine. You shared the misery and
ruin of my love. In saving myself, I've saved you too. Janey,
Janey--don't you see that our love was nothing but a rotten sickness of
the soul?"
He looked at her anxiously, but her face was expressionless as wood.
"You and I have always been more or less wretched together, and though
at first I felt our unhappiness was doing us good--strengthening us and
purifying us--of late I felt it was doing us harm, it was disorganising
and unmanning us...."
He paused--even an outburst of fury or denial would have been welcome.
"To begin with," he continued in an uncertain voice, "I thought it was
the hopelessness of it all that was making it so dreadful, but when our
marriage was actually in sight--of hope, at least--I felt matters were
only getting worse. My thoughts were like sand and fire--my love was
like the salt water I compared it to long ago, with madness in each
draught. I felt our marriage would be a bigger hell than anything that
had gone before it--and yet, I wanted you! Oh, God! I wanted you!"
She bowed forward suddenly, over her clenched hands.
"Janey, Janey--I don't want to hurt you more than I must. It's not your
fault that every thought of you was fire and poison to me. You were just
a weapon in fate's hands to wound me--we were both in fate's hands, to
wound each other."
Paradoxically it was at that moment the old impulse returned. He came
forward, holding out his arms to her. But this time she shrank back,
cowering into the chair. Her movement brought him to his senses.
"You see how I can hardly speak to you. I must get on, and get done. I
want to tell you how I met _her_ ... Tony."
Janey shuddered. She had now come to the most awful pain of all.
"Tony ..." repeated Quentin. She noticed how he dwelt on the word, as if
he were drawing strength from it, and at the same time she saw a slight
change in his manner. He lifted his head and spoke more steadily.
"I met her at a literary function, and I sat beside her all the evening.
I remember every minute--I didn't speak much, nor did she, but a
wonderful simplicity and calm seemed to radiate from her, a beautiful
innocence---- What is it, Janey?"
"Nothing--go on."
"She was so young, scarcely more than a child--young and sweet. When I
got home that night I felt for the first time an infinite peace in my
soul--I felt all quiet and simple. I didn't worry or brood any more. I
wasn't in love with her then--oh, no!--but I wanted to meet her again,
just for the quiet of it. I did meet her shortly afterwards, and it was
as beautiful as before. Then suddenly it all rushed over me--I wanted
her, for my own; because she was pure and childlike and simple and
inexperienced."
The confidence of his voice had grown, and in his eyes was something
Janey had never seen there before. She now realised a little what Tony
meant to him--what she, Janey, had never meant. She knew now that she
could never win him back, and more, that she did not particularly want
to. Tony stood to Quentin for all that was lovely and heroic in
womanhood, whereas she, his Janey, had never been more to him than the
incarnation of his own desperate passions. She stepped back, and the
action was symbolical--she stepped out of his way. Her pleadings would
no longer harass and shake him, she would leave him to his salvation,
since he loved it better than the woman who had meekly renounced hers
for his sake.
"I grew desperate for her," continued Quentin, in the new assured voice.
"Oh, don't think I gave you up without a struggle!--I had a dreadful
time. I suffered horribly. But what will not a man do for his soul? I
felt that my soul was at stake. It's damned rot to talk of men turning
away from salvation--no man can get a real chance of salvation and not
grasp it at once. Oh, don't think it didn't cut me to the heart to treat
you as I did! I felt a swine and a cad, but I saw that I was grasping my
only chance of redemption--and yours too. I couldn't help it, I tell
you--no man can. Oh, don't think that if I could have saved myself with
you, I wouldn't have done it rather than.... Oh, my God!--but I
couldn't."
There are moments in a woman's life when she is simply staggered by the
selfishness of the male, and yet to every woman there is something
inevitable about it, so that it does not stir up her rage and contempt,
as it would if she saw it in her own sex. Janey felt no anger with
Quentin, she only thought how pitifully young he looked.
There was a pause--a long pause, broken by the rustling of the wind in
the garden. Janey's eyes were fixed on Quentin's face, her whole being
seemed concentrated upon it, all her thoughts, all her passion, all her
pity. Poor child! poor, poor boy!
"Tony is very young," she said suddenly.
"Yes, only seventeen."
"And she's very good and gentle and well-bred."
He nodded.
"And she's never done anything really wrong."
"No."
There was another silence. This time it was Quentin who stared at Janey.
He was still strong in the assurance Tony gave him; he was glad that
they had begun to discuss her--he had not that feeling of being left
alone with Janey, which at first had threatened to make the interview so
terrible. At one time it had seemed almost as if the past had risen to
swamp him--but now Tony had come to hold back the floods. The thought of
her changed everything somehow, altered the old values, weakened what
before had been invincible. Janey's face stood out from the shadows,
washed in the indiscreet light of the afternoon, and for the first time
he noticed a certain age and weariness about it. She was twenty-eight,
nearly four years older than he, but he had never thought of her in
relation to years and time. She had been to him an eternity of youth,
her age was as irrelevant as the age of a play of Shakespeare or a
symphony of Beethoven. But now he realised that she was
twenty-eight--and looked it. There were hollows under her cheek-bones,
where full, firm flesh should have been; there were tiny lines branching
from the corners of her eyes, very faint, still undoubtedly there; and
the autumnal colour on her cheeks did not lie as evenly as it might.
These discoveries brought him a strange sense of relief. He had hitherto
looked on her loveliness as unapproachable, and the thought of her
physical perfection had been a mighty factor in the war that had raged
so devastatingly in his heart. But now he saw that it was no longer to
be reckoned with. Tony was, in point of fact, more beautiful than Janey.
His eyes travelled down from her face, and saw her collar all askew, her
blouse hanging sloppily out at the waist, her shoe-string untied. Tony
always wore such dainty muslins, such soft, pretty white things.... Then
he noticed Janey's hair. For the first time he wondered whether she
brushed it often enough.
His spirits revived wonderfully during this contemplation, and with them
a surge of tender pity towards her. He did not want her to feel
humiliated by his unfaithfulness.
"Janey, you mustn't think I don't thank you and honour you for all
you've been to me."
"You don't know what I've been to you."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't realise what I've sacrificed for you. You talk of Tony
Strife's purity and innocence as if it was more to her credit to have
them than for me to have given them up--for your sake."
"Janey----"
"Listen, Quentin. There's one thing this girl will never do for you--I
did it--and I think that now you despise me for it, in spite of your
words. You don't know what it cost me. I did my best to hide my pain
from you, because you were happy; but now I think you ought to know that
this thing for which you despise me was--was the greatest act of
self-sacrifice in my whole life. Oh, Quentin, I always meant to keep
straight, because of my brothers, and because--because I wanted to be
pure and good. Oh, I loved goodness and purity--I love them still, quite
as much as Tony Strife loves them--and there were the poor boys, with
only my example to restrain them. And then I loved you--and you asked me
to climb over the gates of Paradise with you, because they would never
be unlocked. Oh, God! I yielded because I loved you so. I gave up what
was dearer to me than anything else in the world, the one thing I was
struggling to keep unspotted, for my own sake and the boys'. I gave it
up to you--and now ... and now ... you talk about another woman's purity
and innocence."
Her voice died into tearless silence.
"Janey, you mustn't feel like that--you mustn't think that I reproach
you. It's myself I blame--not you."
"But you do--you do--and I ought to have known it from the first."
He could not speak, the words stuck to his tongue--he wanted to fall at
her feet, but could not, for he knew it would be mockery.
"I can't say anything," he stammered huskily; "we're just the victims of
a damnable mistake, and the less we say about it the better. Each word
one of us speaks is a wound for the other. There's only this left--
'And throughout all eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me--
As our dear Redeemer said:
This the wine and this the bread.'"
"You don't believe in the dear Redeemer, do you?"
"Of course not--but it's poetry."
They had neither of them realised that the interview was near an end,
but these last words seemed to have finished it somehow. They were both
standing, and the silence remained unbroken.
Then suddenly Janey moved. An absolutely new impulse had seized her. She
went over to the glass, and looked at herself in it. Then she smoothed
her hair, arranged her gown, made it tidy at the waist, and buttoned it
at the wrists. Quentin watched her in blank wonder--he had never before
seen her pay the slightest heed to her appearance. But to-day she stood
a full five minutes before the glass, patting, smoothing,
arranging--settling every fold of her careless garments with minutest
care. Then she turned to him.
"Good-bye, Quentin."
Her head was held high--one would scarcely know her in her sleekness and
order.
"Janey--you forgive me."
She did not speak.
"Janey--for God's sake!--oh, please forgive me!--because I've suffered
so much, because I've wanted you so, because I've struggled to find
redemption...."
His eyes burned, full of entreaty. But at first she could not answer
him. She moved slowly towards the door, but stopped on the threshold,
and looked back at him, her heart hot and sick in her breast with pity.
She had never realised Quentin's youth so absolutely and heartrendingly
as to-day.
"I forgive you," she said, "but not for any of those reasons. I forgive
you because you are--oh, God!--only a boy."
CHAPTER IV
FLAMES
Janet walked quickly through the darkening country. A power from behind
seemed to be driving her on--a hot, smoky power of uttermost shame. It
was symbolised by the thunder-vapour that curled in the east, a black,
swagging cloud that lumbered towards the sunset over reaches of
heat-washed sky.
She hardly realised how she had won through that interview at Redpale
Farm. The details were dim and jumbled in her memory, like the details
of what has taken place just before an accident or during an illness.
She hoped she had not been undignified, but really did not care very
much about it. The tension which had characterised both her calmness and
her hysteria was gone--her emotions seemed to flop. Unlike so many
women, pride gave her no support in her dreadful hour.
But her feelings were merely relaxed, not subdued, and her loose,
run-down nerves quivered as agonisedly as during their stretch and
strain. The realisation of all she had lost swept over her heart,
engulfing it. The very fields through which she walked were part of this
realisation--it was here, or it was there, that she had stood with
Quentin on such and such a day, or had watched him coming towards her
out of the mist-blurred distance, or seen him go from her, stopping to
raise his arm in farewell, just there, where the foxgloves lifted purple
poles in the ditches of Starswhorne. She could see the thickets of
Furnace Wood, hazed over with heat--they were haunted now, she would
never go near Furnace Wood again. Two ghosts wandered up and down its
heat-baked paths, rustled in the hazels, and stood where the tufted
hedge shut off Furnace Field--loving and dumb. They were not the ghosts
of dead bodies, but of dead selves--of two who walked apart in distant
ways, who would never again meet each other save in memory and in sleep.
A metallic hardness had dropped upon the day. The arch of the sky was
steel, sunless, yet bright with a cold sheen; at the rim it dipped to
copper, hot and sullen, save where in the west two brazen bars sent out
harsh lights to rest on the fields and make them too like brass.
Janet at last reached Sparrow Hall, and as she did so, for the first
time felt physical fatigue. It came upon her in a spasm--she was just
able to stagger into the kitchen, and sink down in her accustomed chair,
every muscle aching and exhausted, her head splitting with pain, and her
body shuddering with a sudden and unaccountable sickness.
For some time she did not move, she just fought with the sheer physical
discomfort of it all. Her head lay on the table, her arms were spread
over the wood, and the collapsed line of her shoulders was of utter
powerlessness and pain. Then two tears rolled slowly from her eyes--they
were part of her physical plight, and for it alone she wept. For the
sorrow of her soul it seemed as if she could only weep dry salt.
Oh, merciful God!--Quentin looked upon her love as his ruin, and turned
from her in panic to another woman. In this other love he would find the
peace and happiness and goodness that Janey had ached and striven for
years to give him; he would learn to forget the wicked Janey Furlonger,
whose love had all but been his perdition, who had brought him to sin
and torture and despair--and now would lie in the background of his
heart, as an evil thing we cover up and pray to forget. This young,
innocent girl would save him from his memories of the woman who had
given more for his sake than Tony Strife would ever dream of giving. He
did not realise her sacrifice--she had given up for his sake the
innocence and purity that were more to her simple soul than life, and
now he turned from her because she had them not.
Then for the first time a convulsion of wrath seized Janey. For the
first time she saw the cruelty and outrage of it all. Her anger blazed
up--against Quentin, against the world, against herself. His last letter
lay on the table. She seized it, and thrust it into the fire. Then she
noticed the box that held his other letters. She seized that too, and
crammed it into the grate. Long tongues of flame shot out, and suddenly
one of them caught her dress--she screamed, flames and smoke seemed to
wrap her round, and in madness she rushed to the door. A man was in the
passage. He grasped her, and held her to him, beating out the flames.
"Quentin!" she shrieked, "Quentin! Quentin!"
"Janey--darling sister! There! it's all over now. The fire's out. Are
you much hurt?"
"Quentin! Quentin!"
Leonard picked her up bodily, and carried her into the kitchen, sitting
down by the fire with her on his knee. He began to examine her. Her
skirt was nothing but charred rags, her face and hands were black with
grime, and there was a horrible smell of singed hair, but she did not
seem to be actually burnt. She was trembling from head to feet, her face
hidden against his breast.
"I don't think you're really hurt, dear. What a lucky chance I happened
to be there! If I'd done as I said and gone to Cherrygarden, you might
have been burnt to death. How did you do it, Janey?"
"I was burning Quentin's letters.... Oh, Quentin! Quentin!"
The last dregs of Janey's self-control were gone. Anxiety, shock, grief,
humiliation, love, despair and sickening, physical fright, all crowded
into a few short hours, had almost deprived her of her reason.
"Quentin! Quentin!" she cried, clinging to Leonard.
She was so tall that he had difficulty in holding her on his knee while
she struggled.
"Janey, I can't understand, dearest. Who's Quentin?--not Quentin Lowe?"
"Yes--Quentin Lowe. Lenny, Lenny--he doesn't love me any more."
Leonard kissed her smoke-grimed face repeatedly. He was utterly
bewildered.
"He doesn't love me any more," she continued, gasping. "He loves Tony
Strife--he's going to marry her. Lenny, he's a devil."
"My darling, can't you tell me what it is? Did you ever love him?"
"Oh, I loved him! I loved him! I gave up all I had to him. Lenny, he
thinks my love was his ruin ... he wants to be happy and good, and he
thinks he can't be either if he loves me ... he says--
'And throughout all eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.'"
"My poor old Janey, I'm going to carry you upstairs."
"I can walk," and she tried to stand, but he had only just time to catch
her.
"I'm going to carry you. Poor, poor Janey--see what a big baby you are."
He carried her up the rickety stairs, into her room, laying her on the
bed.
"Would you like to undress?"
"No--no--Lenny, don't leave me."
He was in despair.
"Janey, dearest, I wish you'd tell me what's happened. I can't comfort
you properly when I don't know. Do you really mean to say that you love
Quentin Lowe?"
"I love him ... oh, I love him ... but he's a devil."
"Did he know?--did he love you?"
"Yes, he loved me ... and he made me give up everything for his sake ...
and now he's going to marry another woman ... Oh, Lenny, Lenny, I want
Nigel!"
"Janey--don't--I simply can't bear this. Don't give way so--he isn't
worth it."
"Oh, I knew you'd say that."
"I won't say it if you don't like it. But don't be in despair--you'll
soon feel better--you'll get over it. And meantime there's Nigel and
me...."
"Oh, I want Nigel!"
"I'll wire to him to come down for the week-end, after his concert."
"Lenny ... you'll never forsake me?"
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"I don't expect--I daren't----"
"What do you mean?"
"The disgrace ..."
He stared at her in bewilderment.
"Oh, Lenny ... I don't think you understand."
She had made him understand at last--and in the process had strangely
enough recovered something of her self-control. At first she had thought
his brain could never receive this ghastly new impression; but gradually
she had seen the colour fade from his lips, while a terrible sternness
crept into his eyes; she had seen his hand go up to his forehead with
the swift yet uncertain movement of one who has been smitten.
"My God!"
Leonard stepped back from the bed.
She lay gazing at him like a drowning woman. She saw the stern lines of
his mouth--had girls any right to expect their brothers to forgive them
such things? Yet if Lenny turned from her ... if she lost not only
Quentin but the boys....
For a moment there was silence in the little room, with its faded reds
and casement open to the fields.
Then suddenly Leonard sprang forward, stooped, and caught Janey in his
arms, turning her face to his breast.
They clung together in silence, both trembling. The first faint wind of
the evening crept in and ruffled their hair.
"You won't love me so much now."
"I will love you more--but, by God! I'll kill that man!"
"No--no!--Len, no!"
"Hush, dear, don't get excited again."
"But you must promise ... he--he's only a boy."
"Boy be damned! He's a skunk--he's a loathly little reptile, that's all.
He isn't worthy to sweep out your cinders, and he--oh, God, Janey! I'd
give my life to-morrow for the privilege of wringing his neck to-night."
"Len, promise me you won't hurt him--I--I shall die if you do."
"Well, I'll promise to leave him alone for the present, because I've
got you to look after. I want you to go to sleep, dear. Do you think you
could sleep?"
"I'm sure I couldn't."
"You could if I mixed you some nice hot brandy and water. Let me go
downstairs and get some."
"Oh, Lenny--I'm frightened of being alone."
"But it won't take me a minute--the kettle's on the fire."
The combined longing for a stimulant and for oblivion was too intense
for Janey to resist.
"You're sure you won't be long?"
"Yes--I promise--just down and up again."
"Then thank you, Len."
He went down to the kitchen, and mixed a pretty stiff grog--for himself.
Janey had been too over-wrought to notice that her brother was trembling
and flushed, and that there was a strange, drawn look about his face. He
had turned back half-way to Cherrygarden because he felt "queer," and to
this no doubt she owed her life. In the horror and confusion of the last
half-hour he had forgotten his own illness, but now it was growing upon
him, and he must fight it for her sake. He drank a tumblerful of brandy
and water, then mixed some for Janey, and went upstairs.
He helped her take off her charred skirt and bodice, and wrapped her in
a dressing-gown. He bathed her smoky face and hands, then he pulled a
rug over her, and gave her the brandy. It was a strong dose for a woman,
and in spite of all she had said she was soon asleep.
He sat down beside her and closed his eyes. The soft air fanned him,
and the scents of the little garden steamed up and scattered themselves
in the room.
Janey lay with her head sunk deep in the pillow, her face half-buried in
it, and her breathing came heavily, almost in sobs. Her knees were drawn
up, and her arms crossed on her breast, the hands twisted
together--there was something pathetic and childish in the huddled
attitude.
Leonard thought to himself--
"It's nearly time for Nigel's concert--I wonder if he's thinking of
Janey and me."
CHAPTER V
COWSANISH
Leonard dozed a little, but he did not sleep. A leaden weariness was in
his limbs, but his heart and brain were horribly active, forbidding
rest. His heart was full of rage, and his brain was full of images--he
could doze only till these last crystallised in dreams, when their
vividness woke him up at once. He woke each time with a start and a
vague feeling of uneasiness and alarm. He feared he was going to be
ill--just when Janey needed him so badly. He must bear up till
to-morrow; by then she would be better, to-night she was helpless
without him. He looked at the cramped figure on the bed, and his throat
tightened with sorrow, shame and rage.
She should be avenged--he swore it. Lowe should be made to realise that
it was not with impunity that one dragged women like Janey into the mud
and then climbed out over their shoulders. He should be made to grovel
to her and implore her forgiveness. Len had not quite settled his course
of action, but he had fixed the results. Lowe was a worm, a miserable,
loathly, little, wriggling worm, and he had slimed a lily--he should
squirm under a decent man's boot....
The room darkened. The curtains, fluttering in the dusk-wind, were like
ghosts. The line of woods on the horizon became dim, and an owl called
from them suddenly. Then a procession of clouds began to flit solemnly
across the window--driven from the south-west. They were brown against
the bottomless grey, and there was a kind of majestic rhythm in their
march before the wind.
Len rose with a shudder--somehow he could not sit still. He went to the
window and looked out. Then he remembered that he had not shut in the
fowls for the night or stalled the cows. He would have to leave Janey
for a little and attend to the farm. He stepped back and looked at her.
Her bed was in darkness, and all he could see was a long, black mass on
the paleness of the bed-clothes. She was sleeping heavily, with quick,
stertorous breathing, and it was not likely that she would wake for some
time--he had certainly better go now, while she slept so well.
He crept quietly from the room and down the dark stairs. Outside the
breeze puffed healingly upon him, cooling him with a sweet dampness as
he climbed into the stream-field where the cows were pastured. The mists
were too high and clammy for them to be left out at night, and the man
had gone home after milking them. He called to them softly, and great
shadows began to move out of the fogs towards him. The peace of the
twilight and of his work with the calm, milk-smelling beasts, was so
great that, in spite of rage and suffering, a kind of dreamy comfort
came to Len--a quiet he felt only in the fields. He began to whistle as
he drove the cows home before him. Then suddenly the whistling made him
remember Nigel's concert.
He had meant to send off a second telegram, which Nigel would receive
just before he went on the platform at the Bechstein. The last
shattering hour had made him forget his plan, and he realised that if
his brother was to have his message of good-cheer it must be sent at
once. But how? There was still time, but he could not leave the house,
even on such an errand--and yet his brother must be "bucked up" at all
costs. To-morrow he would send another wire, asking him to come down for
the week-end, but he thought it as well not to risk alarming him
to-night. Len pondered a minute, then suddenly it occurred to him that
he could give his telegram to the postman, who was due to pass Sparrow
Hall on his way back from his round. By a lucky chance there was a
telegraph-form in the house; Len filled it in, and then ran out with it
to the lane.
He looked up at Janey's window--all was quiet, only the white curtains
fluttered out on the wind; anyhow he would hear if she woke and called
him. The lane was very dark--the sky was still faintly light above it,
but night had fallen between the hedges. He heard footsteps, and saw a
figure coming down Wilderwick hill.
"Hullo, Winkworth!" he cried, "I want you to do something for me."
He stepped out into the middle of the lane, and at the same time the
figure began to climb the stile into Wilderwick meadows.
"Hi!" shouted Len--he suddenly realised that on fine dry nights the
postman would take the field-path to Dormans.
"Hi!" he shouted, running after him. "Winkworth!--I've a----".
The words died on his tongue. He had reached the stile, and saw standing
on the further side of it, on the high ground which the darkness had not
reached--with the last of the western light upon his face--Quentin Lowe.
For a moment both men stared at each other, then Lowe moved away. Len
stood stock still, a queer grimace on his features.
"Were you calling me, sir?"
A voice behind him made him start. The postman had come out of the
darkness and stood at his elbow.
"I thought I heard you shout 'Winkworth' when I was far up the hill.
Anything you want, Mus' Furlonger?"
"Yes--yes--would you take this telegram to Dormans, and see it sent off?
Here's a bob...."
His voice sounded vague, somehow, as if it were a mechanical process
unconnected with his real self. He stood watching the old postman as he
climbed the stile and took the turning for Dormans, where the track
divided. A minute later a figure became silhouetted against the sky on
his right; the path to Cowden and the valley farms dipped abruptly a few
yards beyond the stile, then climbed to the high grounds near Goatsluck
Wood. Quentin Lowe was clearly visible as he hurried away towards
Kent--almost as if he feared pursuit.
Leonard stared after him, his eyes bright with hate and fever. A kind of
delirium was in his brain as he watched that thick-set, slouching
figure, caricatured into a dwarf by his fury and the cheverel light.
Then suddenly he bounded forward.
He forgot all about the illness that was creeping over him, and Janey
alone in the dark house. Or rather, he told himself that he would be up
with Quentin in a minute, and would have settled him in a couple more.
He would drag him back to Sparrow Hall by the scruff of the neck, and
Janey, poor, outraged Janey, should be his judge, and taste triumph even
in her despair.
He climbed the stile and ran up the path, plunging recklessly through
the tall, ghostly buttercups, glowing faintly in the twilight. He had
soon lost the path, a mere borstall, and was trampling the hay-grass,
but he did not slack.
Quentin had for the moment disappeared. The trees of Goatsluck Wood
waved against the sky: Len was conscious of a kind of illusion as he
approached them--it seemed as if they were very far away, then suddenly
he found himself on the tangled rim of the wood, the boughs shuddering
and rustling over him, as he groped his way into the darkness.
He had to run along the hedge till he found the stile, and he realised
that Lowe now had a good start. But he would not stop, nor defer his
vengeance to another, more auspicious, day. Janey would probably not
wake till the next morning--and meantime his blood was up. He was not
quite sure what he should do to Quentin when he overtook him--he was not
worth killing, that would only mean more sorrow for Janey, but he had
ideas of pounding him more or less to a jelly and then dragging him back
to Sparrow Hall and making him kiss the ground at Janey's feet, and
grovel and slobber for her forgiveness, with other humiliations which he
did not think for a minute his sister would not enjoy.
Meantime he floundered stupidly among the trees. The path was not often
used, and the undergrowth had become tangled across it--branches of ash
and hazel whipped his cheeks, and brambles caught his feet and sent him
stumbling. Once he fell full length, with the soft suck of mud under his
body, and once he had to stop and fight for his breath which had been
knocked out of him by the low bough of an oak. It was very dark in
Goatsluck Wood--like a dark dream. He looked up and saw shuddering
patches of sky, and they intensified the strange dream spell, for he
seemed to be moving through them, tossed by the wind and scorched by
whirling stars.
Then suddenly a meadow swam towards him--another meadow full of
buttercups, all gleaming faintly in the marriage of twilight and
moonlight that revelled over the fields. A soft wind baffed him, and
cooled his lips with little drops of rain. He pounded on through the
buttercups, thought and self-consciousness both almost swallowed up in
the abnormal consciousness of environment that accompanies certain
states of fever. He saw the moon hanging low and yellow in the east, he
saw long, tangled hedges, and tufts of wood--and all round him, in
meadow after meadow, that ceaseless shimmer of buttercups, as the wind
puffed through them and bowed them to the moon.
Then suddenly he saw Quentin Lowe. His pace had slackened, for he had
not seen Furlonger for some minutes, but the next moment he looked over
his shoulder and hurried on again.
"Stop!" cried Leonard.
The figure hunched itself against the wind and plunged on.
"Stop!" gasped Len, and calling up all his strength broke into a run.
Quentin looked back, and saw that he was running. He himself was too
proud to run, but he doubled against the hedge, and changing his
direction, walked towards Langerish, so that Len nearly overran him.
But just in time he saw the short, heavy figure groping along the rim of
the buttercups, and the chase took a southward direction.
Len had not the breath to run far--he wondered vaguely what had winded
him. He came panting after Quentin, always the same distance behind; he
no longer cried "Stop!"--just padded gasping after him.
They skirted the meadow known as Watch Oak, then followed the grass lane
to Golden Pot and the outhouses of Anstiel. Quentin was trying to work
his way back towards Kent and the valley of the hammer ponds, but
Leonard drove him obstinately southwards. He was beginning to gain on
him a little. Quentin could hear his footsteps, and he knew why he was
following him.
A sick dread was creeping up Lowe's back--he looked round at the
shuddering woods and that strange sky of storm and stars, and he
trembled with the presentiment that he saw them all for the last time.
Furlonger was a great, big, burly brute--and Furlonger would kill him.
Perhaps, after all, he deserved to die--the country through which he
plunged in this horrible death-chase had a reproach in each spinney, a
regret in each field. And yet his heart was stiff with defiance--what
right had the gods to dangle salvation before a man's eyes, and then
slay him when he grasped it? A sob rose in his throat. The gates of
Paradise had rolled back for him at last--and must he die just inside
them?
His defiance grew. He would not be robbed of his salvation. To grasp it
he had let go more than he dared think. The gods should not mock him
with their gifts--or rather, merchandise. They should not take his awful
price, and then deny the goods. Life should not suddenly turn and smile
on him, and then hurry away. He called after departing Life--"I will not
let thee go except thou bless me...."
He bent his head and began to run.
Then suddenly his mood changed. The power that had steadied his voice
and straightened his back during his terrible interview with Janey, had
not forsaken him now. He loved Tony Strife, and he was too proud in her
love to play the coward. He would not run away from fate. It should not
be said of Tony's lover that he had died running away. He stopped
abruptly, swung round and faced Furlonger.
Leonard was so surprised at this change of tactics that for a moment he
did not speak. He stood staring at Lowe, his hands clenched, his muscles
taut, his veins boiling and throbbing. The two men faced each other in
the corner of a high field known as Cowsanish. On one side a hedgerow
was whispering with winds, on the other the ground sloped downwards to a
ruined outhouse--then it dipped suddenly, and the distance was full of
mists, through which could be seen blotches of woods and farmhouse
lights. The sky was still wind-swept and scattered with stars.
"What do you want?" asked Lowe at last.
Leonard mumbled a little before he spoke. "To wring your neck."
"Why?"
"You know why."
Furlonger's mouth was working with passion, and his eyes were
deliriously bright. He really meant to wring Lowe's neck. He had
forgotten his earlier schemes of vengeance--nothing would suffice him
now but the extreme, the uttermost.
Lowe folded his arms across his chest, and called up all his memories of
Tony.
"You want to kill me," he said in a struggling voice, "because of what
I've done to Janey--but I tell you it's been a blessing to her as well
as to me. We were both in the mud together, and now I've got out it'll
be easier for her to do so."
"You've blighted her with your damned love!" cried Leonard incoherently,
"she's half dead, she's in the mud, she's in hell. When you got out, as
you call it, you kicked her deeper in."
"But there's no good killing me for it."
"Why?"
Len asked the question almost lamely. He felt giddy and inert, and
Quentin's words seemed to be trickling past him somehow--it was a
strange feeling he could not quite realise.
"Why?--because you'll probably be hanged for it, and that won't do your
sister any good. Besides"--and here his voice quickened suddenly into
passion--"you've no right to kill me for grasping my only chance of
salvation."
"Damn your salvation!--I'm not going to kill you for getting out of the
ditch, but for dragging her into it--Janey, my sister, whose shoes you
aren't worthy to clean."
Lowe quailed for a moment. Furlonger's eyes were blazing, and he
crouched back as if for a spring.
"There's no good gassing about it," he said thickly, "if I let you talk,
you'll talk me stupid. I'm going to wring your neck because you dragged
my Janey into your own beastly hell, and then when you saw the chance,
climbed out over her shoulders, and left her to rot there. She's ill, I
tell you--she's half dead--and I'm going to kill you for it."
Quentin flung a last imploring look at the silent fields with their
waving, whispering grass. The clouds were scattering now, and the sky
blazed with stars. The night was full of the scent of hay.... In a
moment they would be lost in a black, choking whirl, that sky, those
stars--that sweet smell of hay. He sniffed at it. He thought of the huge
mown meadow by Shovelstrode, where only yesterday he and Tony had
lounged and played. He heard the voices of the workers, as they turned
the great swathes, and shook them on their forks, filling the air with
fragrance; he saw Tony in a muslin frock, with the white rose he had
given her in her breast. He saw the sun on the coils of her
mouse-coloured hair--heard her say some little, trivial, slangy thing
that had somehow made him kiss her. He remembered that kiss, so sweet,
so cool, so calm--and, as he drew back his head, the look of her
innocent eyes....
But once more the thought of Tony put courage into him. If he must die
inside the gates of Paradise, he would die worthily of the woman who had
opened them to him. For her sake he would die game--it was the only
thing he had left to do for her now. He would die with a proud face and
a high courage--and his last conscious thought should be of Tony, who,
if only for a few short days, had allowed him to see what love can be
when it comes in white.
He braced himself up, flung back his shoulders, and waited for the
attack.
It came.
Furlonger sprang forward and seized Quentin by the throat. For a moment
they swayed together, Lowe snatching at the other's hands and struggling
with the frenzy of despair. His eyes bulged, his lips blackened, and
still he fought. Then the darkness began to rush over him--first in
little clouds, then in long, black sweeps.
"Janey!... Janey!" he cried.
He opened his eyes at last. He was lying under the hedge, his cheek
scratched, his hands twisted in the grass. He stirred feebly, then sat
up, still crouching back against the hazel. Furlonger lay prone among
the buttercups, his chin turned up sharply, the moonlight blazing on his
face. Then Lowe remembered how things had happened--how the sickening
grip on his throat had suddenly relaxed, and he had gone crashing
backwards into the brambles, while something fell with a heavy thud at
his feet.
He wondered if Furlonger was dead. He went and looked into his face. The
features were strangely drawn, and there was a look of desperate anxiety
in their contraction. Then suddenly the eyes opened and looked up into
Lowe's, full of terror and fever.
"What's happened? Who's there? Oh, my God!"
Remembrance had come with a spasm of that ghastly face. Leonard sat up
in the grass, and held his hands to his head.
"I'm ill, I think," he muttered.
He must have fainted--fainted through the stress and horror of it all,
just when his enemy's breath had nearly sobbed away under his hands.
"You'd better go home," said Quentin.
Leonard did not speak. He still sat there in a piteous huddle--and then
suddenly tremor after tremor began to go through him. He shuddered from
head to foot, his teeth chattered, and his limbs shook so that he could
not rise.
"I want some water--I want something to drink," he panted.
Quentin put his hands under his shoulders to help him get up. He felt
quite generously towards him now. He had been snatched by a timely
accident from death, and could afford to pity this poor fellow who had
tried to kill him, but failed.
"Let me help you home."
"No--by God!"
"Let me--you're ill."
"Yes, I was ill when I started after you--or you wouldn't be alive and
grinning at me now. I was a fool--I should have waited. But look out for
me another day, you skunk!"
The ghastly rigor choked his last words. The look of terror and anxiety
deepened on his face. Then at last he managed to stumble up.
"I--I'm going home," he stuttered, and felt sick as he realised he would
have to pass again through Goatsluck Wood.
"And you won't let me go with you?"
"No--I shan't let myself owe you anything, for I mean to kill you some
day."
"I advise you not to threaten me--I might be obliged to take proceedings
against you."
"A pretty mess you'd be in if you did. I suppose you don't want your new
girl to hear about Janey?"
Quentin flushed.
"If I wasn't obliged to shield my sister," continued Len, "I'd tell that
girl myself. But you know my tongue's tied--besides, I'd rather kill
you."
"The secret might come out that way too. No, Furlonger, if you are wise
you'll let me alone."
He drew back a little as he spoke--the friendly reaction was passing. He
had always hated Janey's brothers, because he was jealous of her love
for them; and now, though the original reason was gone, he still hated
them for the cause of that reason--for what he believed was the
foundation of Janey's love, their physical strength and fitness.
However, there was not much of either to be seen in Leonard now. He
swayed pitifully as he stood there facing Quentin, and though his lips
moved, no sounds came past them. Then he turned away. Lowe watched him
stagger across the field. He expected him to fall every minute, except
once, when for some strange reason he expected him to turn back and
confront him again. But he neither fell nor turned. He stumbled blindly
on, then disappeared into the next field.
For a moment or two Quentin stood alone in the great meadow, under the
hurrying sky. The scent of hay no longer blew to him wistfully, but
triumphantly, like the fragrance of festal wine. He spread out his arms,
and stood there in the quivering, scented hush, while the wind cooled
his damp forehead, and ruffled the hair back from it tenderly.
Then he turned homewards from Cowsanish.
But he had not gone far before he altered his direction. He struck again
southwards, through the grass lanes that wind past Old Surrey Hall,
towards Shovelstrode. He would lay his thankfulness, his deliverance,
his redemption, at Tony's feet--at the feet of the woman who symbolised
them all.
CHAPTER VI
AND I ALSO DREAMED
Behind the stage at the Bechstein Hall one could hear the applause that
burst from the auditorium. Nigel listened hungrily. He wondered whether
those hands would clap and those feet stamp when it was his turn to
leave the platform, his violin under his arm. He stood leaning against
the wall, his fiddle already out of its case, but still wrapped tenderly
in silks. The little group of girls and men who were whispering together
not far off sent him from time to time glances of mingled curiosity and
admiration.
There was a big difference between the convict with his close-cropped
hair and disreputable clothes, and this young man in orthodox evening
dress, whose hair was brushed in a heavy, shining mass from his
forehead, to hang over his ears and neck in the approved musician's
style. Nigel had been unable to resist this rather primitive piece of
swank--besides, it was symbolical, it marked the contrast between what
he had been in the days of his shame, and what he was now in the days of
regeneration. The girl who had just come off the stage stared at him
half amused, half envying.
"Do you come on soon?"
"Yes--after this next thing."
"Just a little bit nervous?"
He nodded.
As a matter of fact, he was in a mortal funk. He would not have
believed it possible that he could be afraid of a crowd of strangers,
who were nothing to him and to whom he was nothing. But infinite things
were at stake. If he failed, if he made an ass of himself, he pushed
further away, if not altogether out of sight, the dream in which for the
last six months he had worked and lived. On the other hand, if he
succeeded, if to-morrow's papers took his name out of the gutter, just
as four years ago they had helped to kick it in, his dream would be
transmuted into hope. The violin he clutched so desperately was no mere
instrument of music, but an instrument of redemption, the token of that
dear salvation which if a man but see truly he must grasp.
Six months had gone by since he left Sparrow Hall, and during them he
had worked desperately with scanty rest. He had flung his proud
self-will and undisciplined love of prettiness into mechanical exercises
for fingers and bow, he had subjected his taste for the tuneful and
sentimental to Herr von Gleichroeder's dissonantal preferences. But he
had been happy--his dream had always been with him, and had breathed all
the sentimentality of hope into the dry bones of Chabrier, Chausson and
Strauss. He had found it everywhere--even in his bow exercises.
He was happy, too, in his environment--the companionship of his
fellow-students with their young, clear spirits and enthusiasm. Most of
them knew his story, but in their careless code it did not tell much
against him, for every one admired him for his originality and liked
him for his desperate pluck. So Nigel found a new form of gratification
for that strange part of him born in prison. The companionship of an
unripe little school-girl with her slang, the sight of children dancing
in the dusk, had been succeeded by many a racket with young men and
women of his own age--Bohemian supper-parties, followed by impromptu
concerts or startling variety turns; expeditions in rowdy throngs to a
theatre or music-hall; small, friendly meals with some
fellow-enthusiast, who confessed in private an admiration for Gounod....
It was a draught of new life to him; he loved it all--down to the
constant musical jargon, the endless "shop." Much of his bitterness was
leaving him, his sullen bouts were rarer, even the lines of his face
were growing rounded and more boyish.
Chausson's "Chanson Perpetuelle" drawled and wailed its way towards a
close. Nigel's muscles tightened to prevent a shudder. To-night the hall
would be full of the friends and relations of the students; they had
come out to encourage their respective prodigies, and his item on the
programme would belong, so to speak, to no one. He almost wished he had
not forbidden Len and Janey to come--at least they would have made a
noise.
The thought of Len and Janey brought an additional stake into the game.
He must succeed for their sakes too. He must justify to them his
departure from Sparrow Hall. If he failed, they would look upon it as a
mere piece of obstinate cruelty, they would plague him to return, and
he, in all the sickness of failure, would find it hard to resist them.
Another round of applause ... the "Chanson Perpetuelle" had ended, and
the singer, a self-confident little contralto, came off, with the string
quartet which had accompanied her. Herr von Gleichroeder bustled up, and
there was some talk of an encore, which was in the end refused. Then he
turned to Nigel.
"You'd better go on at once. Here are two telegrams for you--but you
mustn't wait."
Nigel stuffed the two yellow envelopes into his pocket, and moved
mechanically towards the stage. Two telegrams--a sick hope was in his
heart--one was from Len, he knew; but the other ... Tony knew the date
of his concert; perhaps.... He dared not think it, yet that "perhaps"
made him hold his head high as he walked on the stage.
He bowed stiffly. Von Gleichroeder had spent a long time trying to teach
him a graceful bow. He remembered his last public appearance, and it
made him not only stiff but a trifle hard. There was no applause at
first--no one in the hall knew him; then a kind-hearted old lady felt
sorry for the poor young man who had no one to encourage him, and gave a
feeble clap, which was more disconcerting than silence.
The accompanist struck the chord--his fiddle was soon in tune and he
lifted it to his shoulder. A cold chill ran down his back--he had
entirely forgotten the first bars of the Prelude.
The accompanist had some preliminary business. Nigel listened to him in
detached horror, as if he were the spectator of some dreadful scene with
which he had absolutely no connection. He heard the music crashing
through familiar phrases--only five bars more--only three--only one--
Then there was a pause-bar--a very long pause.
Then suddenly he realised that he had been playing for some time. The
violin was warm under his chin, the bow warm between his fingers. He
knew that if he stopped to think about it all, he was lost. It was
always fatal for him to think of his music as so many little black signs
on paper, and it was nearly as fatal for him to think of it as so many
movements of his bow or positions of his fingers. Von Gleichroeder had
always had to combat his pupil's tendency to play almost entirely by
ear, lost meanwhile in a kind of sentimental dream--in the transports of
which he swayed violently from side to side and generally looked
ridiculous.
To-night he slapped into the Scriabin with tremendous vigour--the
infinite pains he had spent during the last six months showing clearly
in the ease with which he surmounted its technical difficulties. But the
watchful ear of von Gleichroeder told him that his pupil was playing
subconsciously, so to speak--from his heart, rather than his head. If
anything--the slipping of a peg or a sudden noise in the hall--were to
interrupt him, to wake him up, all would be lost.
But luckily nothing happened. Nigel was roused only by the last crash
of his bow on the strings. The Prelude was finished, and at the same
time a desperate panic seized him. He forgot to bow, and bolted headlong
from the stage.
The audience applauded heartily, and his fellow-students crowded round
him with congratulations.
"Well done, old man!--pulled it off splendidly," and his back was
vigorously thumped.
"Worked up beautifully over the climax."
"But played G instead of B in the last bar but one," added a precise
youth.
"Muddled your runs in that chromatic bit," put in some one else,
encouraged.
"Go on and bow--go on and bow," blustered von Gleichroeder, hurrying up.
Nigel bowed perfunctorily and came back. The clapping did not subside.
"I don't allow encores," said the German, "but you're in luck, my
friend, in luck."
The colour was darkening on Nigel's face. It was his hour of triumph. He
wished Tony was there, and Janey and Leonard--he would let them come to
his next concert.
He went on and bowed again--he had to appear several times before the
demand for an encore was given up as hopeless, and the applause
gradually died away.
He went to the back of the stage and sat down, holding his head in his
hands. He wanted to be alone, and to read his telegrams. The future was
now a flaming promise--his feet at last were set on the honourable way.
He let his mind lose itself in its dream, and for a moment he was
conscious of nothing but infinite hope. From the stage a plaintive,
bizarre air of Moussorgski's came to him. To be Russian was to von
Gleichroeder synonymous with to be modern, and Moussorgski and Rimsky
Korsakov were encouraged where their French or Italian contemporaries
were banned. Every now and then a little slow ripple brought an end to
strange wailing dissonances; it was played without much fire--without
much feeling--but it haunted.
Nigel opened his first telegram. It read--
"Go it, old chap--laurels is cheap."
That was from Leonard, and a half tender, half humorous smile crept over
Furlonger's grim mouth. Dear old Len!--dear old Janey! How he wished
they were there! He would wire to them the first thing to-morrow and
tell them of his success.
Then suddenly the smile passed away, and his hands shook a little. Who
had sent the second telegram?
He tore nervously at the envelope. Had Tony remembered him? one word of
encouragement from her was worth all the clappings and stampings of the
audience, all the eulogies of the press....
"And I also dreamed, which pleased me most,
That you loved me still the same...."
He took out the telegram and unfolded it. It ran--
"Come at once. Leonard is ill. Janey."
CHAPTER VII
WOODS AT NIGHT
The little star melody wailed on, rippled characteristically and died.
Even then Nigel did not move, he sat with his hands dropped between his
knees, still holding Janey's telegram. He seemed to be sitting alone, in
a black corner of space, stricken, blank, forsaken.
Then suddenly he recovered himself. "Come at once." He must go at once.
He sprang to his feet, pushed his way past one or two meaningless
shadows who called after him meaningless words, and the next minute
found himself in the passage behind the stage. Seizing his hat and
overcoat from the wall, he hurried to the stage-door. The street outside
was quiet, at either end were lights and commotion, but the street
itself was plunged in echoing peace. A strange fear assaulted Nigel--he
hurried into Oxford Street and hailed a taxi. Then he knew what he was
afraid of--the opportunity to sit and think.
He tried not to think--he tried to find refuge from thought even in the
words that had smitten him. "Come at once. Leonard is ill."--he repeated
them over and over, striving for mere mechanical processes. The taxi
threaded swiftly through the traffic, the lights swung past with the
roar and the whistles. Luckily the streets were not much crowded at
that hour--it was just before the closing of the theatres and the
consequent rush....
He was at Victoria, and a porter had told him that the next train for
East Grinstead did not start for half-an-hour. He paced miserably up and
down, cursing the blank time, gnawed by conjectures. "Leonard is ill."
Len was hardly ever ill, and it must be something serious, or Janey
would not have said "Come at once." It must have been sudden too, for
the two telegrams had been handed to him together. Perhaps there had
been an accident. Perhaps Len was dead. Ice seemed to form suddenly on
Nigel's heart--Janey might be trying to break the news gently by saying
his brother was ill. No doubt Len was dead---- Oh, Lenny, Lenny!
A strange thing had happened. The dream in which he had lived and worked
and slept and eaten for the last six months had suddenly fallen back
from him, leaving him utterly alone with his brother and sister. His
life in London, with all its struggle and ambition, was as something far
off, unreal; no part of his life seemed real, except what he had spent
with Len and Janey. After all did anything really matter as much as
they? They had been with him always, and his dream had sustained him
only a few months. He thought of their childhood together in the old
Sussex house, of their adventures and scrapes and hide-and-seeks; he
thought of their growing-up, of the wonderful discoveries they had made
about themselves, and shared; he thought of their arrival at Sparrow
Hall, full of pluck and plans, of the difficulties that had damped the
one and dashed the other--of the awful disgrace that had separated the
three Furlongers for damnable years. Len and Janey had been his pals,
his comrades, his comforters before he had so much as heard of Tony. She
was not dethroned, his dream was not dead, but the past which he had
half impatiently thrust behind him was coming back to show that it, as
well as the future, held treasures and the immortality of love.
The half-hour was nearly over, and the platform was dotted with men and
women in evening dress, who had come up from the country to the
theatres, and now were going home by the last train. Nigel shut himself
into a third-class carriage. The train was not very crowded, and no one
disturbed him. Almost mechanically he lighted a cigarette, then leaned
back, closing his eyes.
The train began to move--it pulled itself together with a shudder, then
slid slowly out of the station. Signal lights swept past, whistles
wailed up out of the darkness and died away--suburban stations
gleamed--then the train swung out into the night.
Both the windows were wide open, and the wind blew in on Nigel, but he
did not notice it. His cigarette had gone out, but he still sucked and
bit the end, filling his mouth with strings of tobacco, which he did not
notice either, though every now and then he mechanically spat them out.
All he was conscious of was the pungent smell of night, which invaded
even the rushing train. He knew that the trees were heavy and the hedges
tangled with their green--he tried to fling his imagination into some
sheltered hollow by a wood, and find rest there. He tried to think of
sheep and grass and flowers and watching stars. But it was no use--the
night was full of the restlessness of the pulsing train, he could not
escape from the train, which throbbed like his heart, and by its
throbbing seemed to hold his heart a prisoner in it, as if some
mysterious astral link connected the two pulses. The train was the heart
of the night and darkness, pulsing in ceaseless despair, and he was the
heart of the train, pulsing despairingly too, the very centre of sorrow.
It was a definite strain for him to realise this, and yet somehow the
sensation would not relax--it was infinite relief when at last the
great, noisy heart, the heart of the train, stopped beating, though its
silence brought with it a sudden wrench and shock, like death.
Nigel stumbled out on the East Grinstead platform, his limbs cramped,
his head swimming. He thought of taking a cab, but by the time he had
roused up the local livery stables and set off in one of their concerns
he could almost have reached Sparrow Hall by the fields. A walk would do
him good. The night was fine, though it smelled of rain.
He had soon left the town behind him, and struck across the fields by
St. Margaret's convent. There was no moon, but the stars were unusually
lustrous, and the distance was clear, Oxted chalk quarry showing a pale
scar on the northern hills. Now and then dark sweeps of cloud passed
swiftly overhead, and the wind came in sudden gusts, whistling over the
fields, and throbbing through the woods with a great swish of leaves.
Nigel had not seen the Three Counties since Easter, which had been early
and bleak. The London months since then had to a certain extent
denaturalised him, and he was conscious of a vague strangeness in the
fields. It was, moreover, four years since he had seen them in their
June lushness--the scent of grass was brought him pungently now and
then, the scent of leaves, the scent of water.
He crossed from Sussex into Surrey at Hackenden, then plunged through
Ashplats Wood into the Wilderwick road. His footsteps were like shadows
on the awful silence that filled the night. The stars were flashing from
a coal-black sky--between the high hedges only a wisp of the great waste
was visible with its dazzle of constellations. Nigel saw Cancer burning
his lamps in the west, while straight above him hung the sign of Libra,
brilliant, cold, unearthly. Surely the stars were larger and brighter
to-night than was normal, than was good. He wished he was at Sparrow
Hall. It could not be that he was frightened of the stars, and yet
somehow they seemed part of an evil dream. Perhaps he would wake to find
himself in his Notting Hill lodgings--perhaps his dream would go on for
ever, eternal, malevolent, but still a dream--he would lie on in his bed
at Notting Hill, and people would shake him and try to wake him, and,
when they could not wake him, take him and bury him--and he would lie in
the earth, deep, with a stone over him--but still with his awful dream
of night and high hedges, terror and stars....
He had come to Sparrow Hall. He saw the tall, black chimney against a
mass of stars--it seemed to be canting a little, perhaps that was part
of the dream. There was a light in Len's room, and the next moment some
one moved between it and the window.
"Janey ..." called Nigel softly.
His voice rose with the scents of the garden, in the hush of the night.
The next minute there were footsteps on the stairs, then the door flew
open, and Janey was in Nigel's arms.
They clung together for several moments. The door had slammed in the
draught, and the darkness crept softly round them like an embrace. The
dream slipped from Nigel--his silly and hideous nightmare of stars. This
quivering, tear-stained woman in his arms had brought him into the
reality of sorrow.
"Where is he?--what's happened?" he asked, still holding Janey.
"He's upstairs in bed--he's very ill, Nigel."
"But he's not dead?"
"Not yet."
"Is there any hope?"
"Not much--he's got pneumonia. It's dreadful."
"Has the doctor seen him?"
"Yes--he's been gone only an hour. He said you were to be sent for at
once. Oh, Nigel, Nigel, it's my fault!"
"What d'you mean?"
"I was wretched and selfish--he'd been queer all the afternoon, and I
didn't notice it. I thought only of myself. Then he went out while I was
asleep, and when he came back.... Oh, Nigel!... the doctor says he
practically did for himself by going out then."
Nigel did not understand, but his mind made no effort to grasp at
details.
"I'd better go at once," he said; "is he conscious?"
"Yes--but he says funny things sometimes."
She led the way upstairs, and the next minute they were in Leonard's
room. It was a queer little room, extremely low, with bulging walls,
sagging beams and an uneven floor. Len lay propped very high with
pillows. His face was drawn and feverish--he was literally fighting for
his breath, and his lips were blue.
He smiled when he saw Nigel.
"Hullo, old man!... good of you to come.... Lord!"--as he saw his
clothes--"put me among the nuts."
"Don't talk," said his brother sharply.
"Your hair ..." panted Len.
"Shut up!"
Len pointed to a glass of water by the bed. Janey gave him a drink. He
began to cough violently, and his face became purple. Nigel felt sick.
"I--I'm better," gasped Leonard. "I--I had ... a beastly stitch ... but
it's gone."
"When's the doctor coming again?" Nigel asked Janet.
"The first thing to-morrow."
"He ought to have a nurse."
"Oh, no!" cried Len; "you and Janey can manage me ... between you ...
I'll soon be all right ... I don't want any little Tottie Coughdrop
fussing round."
"He's dreadful," said Janey, "he will talk."
"How long has he been like this?"
"As I tell you, he'd been feeling queer all the afternoon. Then I
crocked up for some silly reason, and instead of being properly attended
to, he had to look after me"--a sob broke into her voice, and she pulled
Nigel aside. "The doctor says it's a frightfully acute case," she
whispered.
"But ... but" interrupted Len, "Nigel hasn't told us ... about the
concert ... where's the laurel crown?... left it in the train?"
"Oh, do shut up! I'll tell you anything you like if you'll hold your
tongue."
"Tell him while I'm giving him his milk," said Janey; "the doctor
ordered him milk every two hours, but he simply won't take it."
"I'll make him," said his brother grimly.
"I'll go and fetch it--you stay with him, Nigel."
She left the room, and Len lay silent a moment, looking out at the
stars.
"Old man," he whispered suddenly, "while Janey's away ... I want to
tell you something."
"What is it?--can't it wait till you're better?"
"No.... It's this.... She ... she's in ... infernal trouble."
Nigel quailed.
"What is it, Len?"
"She'd rather tell you herself ... she's going to ... all I want to say
is ... when you hear, just remember that ... she's our Janey."
CHAPTER VIII
VIGIL
The doctor called early the next morning, and looked serious. Leonard
had had a restless night, and his symptoms were becoming very grave. He
still kept up his efforts at conversation, though they were more painful
than ever.
"I--I'm not going to die, Doc," he panted.
"Well, keep quiet, and we'll see about it," said the doctor.
"But have you heard about my brother?... the one who fills the Albert
Hall?... Oh, 'ninety-nine,' since you insist."
Nigel had been sent over to Dormans the first thing in the morning, to
buy up all the papers he could. Several of them had a report of von
Gleichroeder's concert, and most of these mentioned Nigel's performance
favourably.
"Mr. Furlonger has undoubtedly a great deal to learn on the mechanical
side of his art, but he has a wonderful force of temperament, which last
night compensated in many ways for faulty technique. He even managed to
work some emotional beauty into Scriabin's bundle of tricks, and one can
imagine that in music which depended on the beautiful instead of on the
bizarre for its appeal, he would have the chance, which was denied him
last night, of a really fine performance. We do not say that Mr.
Furlonger will ever be a master, but if he will avoid fashionable
gymnastics and not despise such out-of-date considerations as beauty and
harmony, he may become a temperamental violinist of the first order."
All the critics, more or less, had a hit at the "advanced" type of
music, and Nigel imagined von Gleichroeder's wrath.
Len insisted on having all the criticisms read to him, and a thrill of
pride went through even Janey's numb breast. She had never tried to
speak to Nigel alone, and he gave her no hint that he knew she was in
trouble. But when his heart was not bursting with anxiety for Len, it
brimmed with compassion for Janey. She might have been nursing her
brother for weeks instead of hours to judge by her haggard face, white
lips, and faded eyes. Her movements were listless, and her figure in
rest had the droop of utter exhaustion.
She and Nigel divided the nursing between them. Len was never left
alone. He had to be fed every two hours, and it generally took both of
them to do it, as he was very perverse in the matter of meals, saying
that the food choked him. In the afternoon he became a little delirious.
He seemed to be trying to ask for things, and yet to be unable to say
what he really meant, often saying something quite different. He was
intensely pathetic in his weakness. This dulling, or rather disturbance,
of his faculties seemed to distress him far more than his difficult
breathing or the pain in his side. Now and then he would hold out his
hands piteously to Nigel and Janey, and would lie for some time holding
the hand of each, his brown eyes staring at them imploringly, as if they
were fighting for the powers of speech which the tongue had lost--in
the way that the eyes of animals often fight.
They tried to make him go to sleep, but he was always restless and
awake. They read to him, talked to him and to each other, with no
success. Outside, the day was dull, yet warm and steamy. Every now and
then a shower would rustle noisily on the leaves, and after it passed
there would be many drippings.
Nigel went out for an hour or two's work on the farm when evening fell.
It seemed extraordinary that only some eighteen hours lay between him
and the concert at the Bechstein Hall. That part of his life had been
put aside--not for ever, perhaps, but none the less temporarily banished
by a usurping present. Some day, no doubt, he would put on the last six
months again, just as he would put on the dress clothes he had folded
away, but now he wore corduroys and the last eighteen hours.
At six the doctor called again. He shook his head at the sight of
Leonard.
"He must have a nurse," he said.
"Oh, no ... for heaven's sake!" groaned Len.
"Nigel and I can nurse him," said Janey.
"My dear young lady, have you seen your own face in the glass?"
Len raised himself with difficulty on his pillows.
"Lord, Janey!--you look quite cooked up.... I say, old girl, I won't
have it.... Doctor, I surrender."
"I don't know whether I can send any one in to-night--but I'll try.
Anyhow, to-morrow morning--now 'ninety-nine,' please."
Nigel went over to East Grinstead for ice and fruit. Len was dreadfully
thirsty all the evening. They put bags of ice on his forehead and sides,
but it did not seem to cool him much. The doctor had left a
sleeping-draught, to be administered the last thing at night.
"If I take it," said Len, "will you two go to bed?"
"Janey will," said Nigel. "I'll have a shake-down in here."
"Well, it'll keep me quiet, I suppose ... so I'll take the beastly
thing.... I want to sleep ... but I don't want to die.... I won't die,
in fact."
"Don't talk of it, old man."
He lifted Len in his strong arms, and settled him more comfortably in
the bedclothes. Then he gave him the sleeping-draught.
The window was wide open, and one could hear the rain pattering on the
lilac bushes. The wind, sweet-smelling with damp and hay, puffed the
curtains into the room, then sucked them back. A fire was burning low on
the hearth. Janey went and sat beside it. Nigel sat by the bed, for
between sleeping and waking his brother suffered from strange fears.
At last, after a few sighs and struggles, Len fell asleep, still high on
his pillows, the lines of his face very tired and grim. There was a
little light in the room, or rather the mingled lights of a dying fire
and a fighting moon. Nigel rose softly, and went over to Janet.
"You must go to bed."
"No--I'd rather stay here."
"You must have some sleep, or you'll be worn out."
"I couldn't sleep."
The words broke from her in a strangling sigh, and the next minute his
arm crept round her, for he remembered Leonard's words.
"Dear Janey ..." he whispered.
She began to cry.
For a moment or two he held her to him, helping her to choke her sobs
against his breast.
"Won't you tell me what it is?"
"How do you know there's anything more than that?" and she pointed
towards the bed.
"Len told me."
"About Quentin?..."
"Quentin!"
"Yes--I thought you said he'd told you."
"He told me you were wretched about something. But who's Quentin?--not
Quentin Lowe?"
They were the very words Len had used, and Janey shuddered.
"Yes ..." she said faintly, "Quentin Lowe."
"But----"
"You'll never understand.... I hid it from you for three years."
"Hid what, Janey?"
"My--my love."
Nigel's arm dropped from her waist, but hers was round his neck, and
she clung to him feverishly.
"Yes, I loved him. I loved him and I pitied him ... and I wanted, I
tried, to help him--and--and I've been his ruin--and another woman has
saved him."
Nigel was speechless. What astonished him, the man of secrets, most, was
that Janey should have had a secret from him for three years.
"Don't tremble so, darling--but tell me about it. I won't be hard on
you."
"You will--when you know all."
"Does Len know all?"
"Yes."
He glanced over to the sleeping man, then put back his arm round Janey's
waist.
"Now tell me--all."
Janey told him--all.
For some moments there was silence. The rain was still beating on the
leaves, but the moon had torn through the clouds, and flung a white
patch over Leonard's feet. The fire was just a red lump, and Janey and
Nigel, sitting outside the moonrays, were lost in darkness.
Janey wondered when her brother would speak. She could see the outline
of his face, blurred in the shadows. He held his head high, and he had
not dropped his arm from her waist, but his free hand was clenched--then
she felt the other clench against her side. Sickening fears assailed
her. Why did he not speak? Only that arm round her gave her hope....
Then suddenly he took it away, and put both his hands over his face.
She saw his shoulders quiver, just for a moment, then for what seemed
long moments he did not move.
A paralysis of horror was creeping towards her heart. He was taking
things even worse than she had expected, but they did not seem to fill
him with anger so much as with grief. His body was crumpled as if under
a load, and when he suddenly dropped his hands and looked up at her, she
drew back shuddering from what she saw in his eyes.
"My poor boy!--I wish I hadn't told you."
"Oh, God!--oh, God!"
Something in his cowering, hopeless attitude woke all the divine
motherhood in Janey. She forgot her fear of unforgiveness, her danger of
a rebuff, and put her arms round him, drawing his head to her breast.
"My poor Nigel ... my poor, poor lad!"--so she comforted him for the
shame he felt for her.
After a time, when thought was not quite swallowed up in tenderness, she
began to wonder why he let her hold him so.
Then suddenly he rose, and began to pace up and down the room--up and
down, up and down, swinging round sharply at the corners, but always,
she noticed with a gulp, treading softly for fear of waking Len. She
watched him in numb despair. The minutes dragged on. Now and then he put
his hand over his brow, as if he fought either for or against some
memory, now and then he bent his head so low that she could not see his
face. She wondered how much longer she would be able to endure it.
"Nigel----" she whispered at last.
He stopped and turned towards her.
"Nigel ..."
"What is it?"
"For heaven's sake ... don't keep me in suspense."
"Suspense about what?"
"Your forgiveness."
In a moment he was at her side.
"Janey--if I thought you could be doubting that----"
He put his arms round her, and the relief was so sudden that she burst
into tears.
"What a selfish hound I am!--wrapped up in my own beastly feelings, and
forgetting yours. But I never imagined you could think----"
"I thought ... perhaps you couldn't."
"Janey, how dare you!"
"When you got up and walked about ..."
"I know--I know. But that wasn't anger against you--my poor, outraged,
suffering darling," and he covered her face with kisses.
She clung to him in a passion of love and relief.
"Oh, you're good--you and Len!"
"Nonsense, Janey. You mustn't talk like that. We're not worthy to tie
your shoes--we never shall be. How could you think we'd turn against
you? It's him, that little, loathly cad, that----"
"Oh, hush, dear--I can't bear it."
His rage was stronger and fiercer than Len's, his whole body quivered in
the passion of it. Then suddenly it changed unaccountably to grief, and
his head fell back against her shoulder, the eyes dull, the mouth old
and drawn. She thought it was for her, and he hugged his poor, dead
secret too tight to grant her the mercy of disillusion.
The night wore on, and they clung together on the hearthstone, where
cinders fell and glowed, making the only sound, the only light, in the
room. Two lost children, they huddled together in the only warm place
they had left--each other's arms.
There was a feeble sigh, a feeble stirring in the bed--just as the first
of the morning came between the curtains, and pointed like a finger into
the gloom.
"Lenny...."
Janet and Nigel rose, wearily dropping their stiff arms from each other,
and went over to the bed.
"How long have you been awake?"
"Only just woke up ... would you draw back the curtains?"
Nigel pulled them back, and a white dawn shuddered into the room.
"What time is it?"
"About three--can't you go to sleep again?"
"No--I've wakened for good ... I mean ... I mean ..."
"What, old man?"
"I think I am going to die after all."
"No, Lenny, no...."
"It's rather a come down ... after saying I wouldn't ... but I feel so
tired."
His face was spread over with a ghastly pallor, and something which
Nigel and Janey could not exactly define, which indeed they hardly saw
with their bodily sight, but which impressed them vaguely as a kind of
film.
"I'm going to die," he repeated, plucking with cold fingers at the
sheet.
"I'll go and fetch the doctor," cried Nigel.
"No ... I don't want you to leave me."
"But we must do something."
"There's nothing to do ... only talk to me ... and don't let me get
funky."
"You might look out of the window, Nigel, and see if any one's passing,"
said Janey.
There was not likely to be any one at that hour, but he thrust his head
out and eagerly scanned the lane. The rain had stopped, though the sky
was shagged over with masses of cloud. One or two stars glimmered wanly
above the woods. It was the constellation of Orion, setting.
"There's no one," said Nigel, "nor likely to be--I must go, Len."
"Oh, no ... don't ... don't leave me ... the doctor couldn't do
anything.... Perhaps I won't die ... only I hate the dark."
A strangling pity seized Nigel. He went over to his brother, and sat
down beside the bed, taking his hand.
"There, there, old boy, don't worry. We'll both stay with you. I'll hold
this hand, and Janey 'ull hold the other, and you'll soon get over it."
Len lay shivering and gasping. Nigel and Janey looked into each other's
eyes across him, and swallowed their grief.
"I--I expect it's nothing," panted Leonard. "One often feels low at this
time of night."
They leaned upon the bed each side of him, and suddenly Janey thrust out
her hand and grasped Nigel's across him.
"Now we're all three holding hands," she said.
The minutes flew by. A clock was ticking--measuring them out.
"Kiss me ..." moaned Leonard suddenly.
They both stooped and kissed him.
He shut his eyes, then opened them, and a strange, piteous resignation
was in their glazing depths.
"I'm sorry ... I must die.... I'm so tired."
"You will go to sleep, Len."
"No ... I'm too tired ... it wouldn't be enough."
Janey's tears fell on his face.
"Don't cry, Janey ... it's--it's all right.... Remember me to the doctor
... and say my last words were 'ninety-nine' ... laugh, Janey ... it's a
joke."
"Lenny, Lenny...."
There was another silence, and a faint flush tinted the watery sky. A
bird chirrupped in the eaves of Sparrow Hall.
"Hold my hands tighter," gasped Len.
They both gripped tighter.
"And give my love to Tottie Coughdrop ... and say I'm sorry to have
missed her.... Tighter ... oh!... tighter."
His breath came in a fierce, whistling rush, and he sat bolt upright,
gripping their hands and struggling.
"Nigel, fetch the doctor!" shrieked Janey.
But Len had his brother's hand in the agonised grip of dying.
"Tighter ... oh, tighter...."
There was another whistling rush of breath, but this time no
struggle--only a sigh.
Len fell back on the pillow, and the terror passed suddenly from his
face.
CHAPTER IX
AND YOU ALSO SAID ...
During the week that followed Leonard's death, there was a succession of
heavy storms. Chill sodden winds drove June from the fields, and
substituted a bleak mock-autumn. Sparrow Hall was full of the moaning
winds--they sped down the passages, and throbbed against the doors, they
whistled through cracks and chinks, and rumbled in the chimneys.
Janey was in bed for the first few days; she had collapsed utterly. The
two blows which had fallen on her almost together had smitten her into a
kind of numbness, in which she lay, white and stiff and tearless,
through the windy hours. Nigel scarcely ever left her, and he scarcely
ever spoke to her--they just crouched together, she on the bed, he on a
chair beside it, their fingers twined, both dumbly busy with the
problems of death and anguish that had assaulted their lives.
Meantime the routine of the house and farm remained unbroken. The "man"
looked after the latter, and through the former moved a figure that
seemed strangely out of place. When "Tottie Coughdrop" arrived the
morning after Len's death, she proved to be no more or less than a
novice from St. Margaret's Convent, and finding her ministrations as
truly needed as if her patient had been alive, she did not leave on
finding him dead.
She nursed Janey--at least she did for her the little that Nigel could
not do; she dusted and cooked; she made Furlonger eat, the stiffest duty
of all. It used to hurt Nigel when he thought how Len would have enjoyed
seeing him sit down to supper every night with a nun.
Novice Unity Agnes also undertook all the arrangements for the
funeral--which had always been a nightmare to Nigel and Janey. Moreover,
the day before, she went to East Grinstead and bought a black skirt and
blouse and hat for Janey, who but for her would never have thought of
going into mourning at all; and though her charity was not able to
overcome her diffidence and buy a mourning suit for Nigel, she sewed
black bands on all his coats.
That was how it happened that the funeral of Leonard Furlonger was such
a surprise to the inhabitants of the Three Counties. The coffin was met
at the church door by the choir headed by a crucifix, and the service
was read by a priest in a black cope. There were hymns too--Novice Unity
Agnes's favourites, all about as appropriate as "How doth the little
busy bee"--and incense, and a little collection of nuns, persuaded by
the kind-hearted novice to swell the scanty number of mourners. In fact,
as Nigel remarked bitterly, the whole thing was a joke, and it was a
shame Len had missed it.
He and Janey walked home alone, arm in arm, through the wet lanes. As
usual, they did not speak, but they strained close together as the
solitude of the fields crept round them. The rain had cleared, but the
wind was still romping in the hedges--little tearful spreads of sky
showed among the clouds, very pale and rain-washed, soon swallowed up by
moving shapes of storm.
Janet went to bed early. She had suddenly found that she could sleep,
and her appetite for sleep became abnormal. She woke each morning
greedily counting the hours till night. In the old careless days she had
never set such store on sleep, because it had meant merely strengthening
and resting and refreshing; now it meant what was more to her than
anything else in life--forgetting.
Nigel could not sleep. In his heart the lights were not yet all put out.
There were flashes of terror and sparks of desire, and dull flares of
conjecture. He had sometimes hesitated whether he should tell Janey his
secret, but had drawn back on each occasion, urged partly by the thought
of adding to her burden, but principally by a feeling of shame. His
wonderful dream, which had sustained him so triumphantly during six
months of work and sacrifice, had now shrivelled into a poor little
secret, such as school-girls nurture--a love which must always be hidden
and silent and unconsummated.
His brain ached with regrets and revisualisations, quaked with
apprehension and the knowledge of his own utter helplessness in the face
of circumstances. The thought of Lowe's perfidy to Janet would rouse in
him a sweat of rage from his poor attempts at sleep. Janey stood to
Nigel for all that was noble, meek and understanding, and that she
should be treated heartlessly and lightly by a scoundrel not worthy to
black her boots, was a thought that drove him nearly rabid with hate.
What was he to do to save Tony from this swine? He knew perfectly well
how she would look upon him if she heard his story. He remembered the
hard, stiff little figure in the garden of Shovelstrode--"You won my
friendship under false pretences." What would she say to the cad who had
won by false pretences not only her friendship but her body, her heart
and her soul? Yet he could never tell her the truth. He would not betray
Janet even to this girl he loved, and a vague accusation could easily be
denied by Lowe, and was not likely to be believed by Tony.
Often he envied Len--lost in cool sleep, free from responsibilities and
problems, eased for ever from the soul-chafing burdens of hate and love.
It was the beginning of July. Sunshine baked on the fields, and drank
the green out of the grass, so that the fields were brown, with splashes
of yellow where the buttercups still grew. In the hedges the wild
elder-rose sent out its sickening sweetness, while from the ditches came
the even more cloying fragrance of the meadowsweet. The haze of a great
heat veiled the distance from Nigel, as he tramped over the parched
grass into Kent. He saw the roofs of Scarlets and Redpale shimmering in
the valley of the hammer ponds, but beyond them was a fiery, thundering
dusk, which swallowed up the hills of Cowden in the east.
He walked with bent head and arms slack. He often took these lonely
walks, undaunted by either storm or swelter. He knew that Janey missed
him, but he could not keep his body still while his mind ran to and fro
so desperately.
His walks were full of dark and furious planning of schemes that came to
nothing. He roamed aimlessly through the country, without noticing where
he went--except that he half unconsciously avoided the roads and wider
lanes. He was desperate because his brain worked so slowly, a cloud
seemed to lie on it, and he had a tendency to lose the thread of his
ideas after he had followed them a little way.
This afternoon he was wandering towards the valley of the hammer ponds.
It was nearly seven when he came to Furnace Wood. The sun was swimming
to the west through whorls of heat. A sullen glow crawled over the sky,
nearly brown in the west. The air hung heavy in the wood, laden with the
pungency of midsummer flowers and grasses--scarcely a leaf stirred,
though now and then an unaccountable rustling shudder passed through the
thickets.
Weariness dropped on Nigel like a cloak--he was used to it. It was not
really physical, only the deadly striving of his soul reaching out to
his body and exhausting it. He flung himself down in a clump of bracken
and tansy, sinking down in it, till everything was shut out by the tall,
earth-smelling stalks. This was what he often found himself longing for
with a desperate physical desire--a little corner, cool and quiet and
green, shut off from life, where he could drowse--and forget.
This evening only the first part of his desire was satisfied. He had his
corner, but he could not drowse in it. His limbs lay inert, but his
thoughts kicked painfully. His brain hammered with old impressions,
which, instead of wearing away with time, each day bored and jarred with
renewed power. He was the victim of an abnormally acute mentality--just
as to a swollen limb the lightest touch is painful, so to Nigel's brain
inflamed with grief and struggle, every impression was like a blow, an
enduring source of agony.
He heard footsteps on the path. No one could see him--it was still quite
light in the fields, but in the wood was dusk and a blurring of
outlines; besides, he was deeply buried in the tall stalks. However,
though he could not be seen, he could see, for on the path stood a
golden pillar of sunshine into which the footsteps must pass. Nigel
wondered if it could be Lowe, returning early for some reason from
Shovelstrode. But the steps did not sound heavy enough, and the next
minute he saw the white of a woman's dress through the trees. In an
instant his limbs had shrunk together, for another of those sickening
blows had smitten his brain. The figure had passed out of the pillar of
sunset, but he had seen Tony Strife as she went by.
She was dressed in white, and wore no hat, only a muslin scarf over her
hair. She carried a cloak on her arm, and Furlonger realised that she
must be going to dine at Redpale. The sight of Tony--he had not seen
her since he lost her, or rather his dream of her--threw him into a fit
of torment. He flung himself back among the stalks, and rolled there,
biting them, suddenly mad with pain.
The next moment he started up. A thud and a low cry came from a few
yards further on.
Nigel sprang to his feet. He remembered that not far off the path ran by
the mouth of a disused chalk quarry, from which it was divided only by a
very rickety fence. Suppose.... He crashed through the bushes to the
path, and dashed along it to the chalk-pit. Something white lay only a
few feet from the dreadful brink.
Just here the path was in darkness--hazel bushes and a dense thicket of
alder shut out the sun. For a moment he could not make out clearly what
had happened, but was immediately reassured by seeing Tony sit up, and
try to struggle to her feet.
"What is it?" she cried, hearing his steps behind her. "Who's there?"
"Are you hurt?"
"Oh, Mr. Furlonger...."
She made another struggle to rise, but could not without his hand.
"Are you hurt?" he repeated.
"No-o-o."
"I think you are a little."
He was trembling all over, and hoped she did not notice it.
"I fell over some wire, just here, where the path is so dark. I might
have gone over the edge," she added with a shudder.
"You had a lucky escape--but I'm afraid you're hurt."
"It isn't much. I may have twisted my ankle a bit, that's all."
She stood there in the shadows, her white dress gleaming like a moth,
her face mysterious in the disarray of her wrap. Nigel's eyes devoured
her, while his heart filled itself with inexpressible pain.
"Take my arm," he said huskily, "and I'll help you back to
Shovelstrode."
"Oh, no!--I'll go on to Redpale. It's much nearer--if you'll be so kind
as to help me."
"But how about getting home?"
"My fiancé, Mr. Lowe, will drive me home. He was to have fetched me too,
but at the last moment he had to go up to town, and couldn't be back in
time."
"Are you sure you're well enough to go out to dinner?" He hated the idea
of taking her to Redpale.
"Oh, quite--this is nothing. Besides, dining at Redpale is just like
dining at home--I don't call it going 'out' to dinner."
Furlonger winced, and gave her his arm, hoping she would not notice how
it shook.
They walked slowly out of Furnace Wood, towards the leaden east. Tony
limped slightly, and Nigel wanted to carry her, but he dared not risk
his patched self-control too far.
"You should never have come all this way alone," he said gruffly,
"these woods by the quarries are dangerous."
"I expect my father will be furious when he finds out what I've done.
But I hoped that if I walked across the fields, instead of driving round
by the road, I--I might meet my fiancé on his way home from the
station."
A tremulous archness crept into her voice. Nigel shuddered.
"I'm pleased I met you," she said gently, after a pause, "because I
wanted to tell you how dreadfully sorry I am about your brother."
"Thank you."
"And I want to tell you that I'm so glad about your success in London. I
saw in the papers how you distinguished yourself at Herr von
Gleichroeder's concert."
Nigel did not speak.
"I suppose you'll soon be going back to town?" she went on timidly.
"I don't know. I can't leave my sister."
"But you can take her with you. It would be a pity to throw up your
career just when everything looks so promising."
They were not far from Redpale now. The sunset was creeping over the
sky--only the east before them was dark, banked high with thundery
vapour. Nigel could still hear Tony speaking, as if in a kind of dream.
His thoughts were busy elsewhere.
"Won't you?" repeated Tony for the second time.
"Won't I what?"
"Go back to London, and make yourself famous."
"I don't see much chance of that."
"But I do--and so will you when you're not so unhappy. Now, to please
me, won't you promise to go back to London and make yourself a great
career? You and I used to be friends once--I hope we're friends
still--and I shall always be interested in everything you do. I expect
to see your name in a very high place some day. Now, for my sake,
promise to go back."
"For your sake...."
"Yes--since you won't go for your own."
They had stopped a moment to rest her foot. Nigel lifted his eyes from
the grass and looked into hers--wondering. Was it true, was it even
possible, that she had never seen his love? She could not, or she would
not speak like this--"For my sake." After all, she would never expect
him to dare ... that would blind her to much that might have betrayed
him had he been worthier. No, she had not seen his love, and she had
never loved him. She had never loved any man but Quentin Lowe--he was
her first love, he had lit the first flame in her heart, and that heart
was his, in all its purity and burning.
Standing there beside her in the sunset, her weight resting deliciously
on him as she raised her injured foot from the ground, he realised the
change that had come to Tony. Her manner was as entirely different from
her manner of six months ago at Shovelstrode as that had been different
from the manner of those still earlier days at Lingfield or Brambletye.
In those days, during their playtime, Tony had been a school-girl, a
delightful hoyden, the best pal and fellow-adventurer a man could have.
In December, in the garden at Shovelstrode, she had lost that valiant
girlhood, and at the same time her womanhood was unripe--she had been a
crude mixture of girl and woman, sometimes provokingly both, sometimes
repellingly neither. But to-day she was woman complete. Both her mind
and her body seemed to have stepped out of their green adolescence.
There was a certain dignity of curve about the tall figure resting
against him, which Nigel had not seen in the forest or in the garden;
there was a clear and confident look in the eyes which in earlier days
had been either wistful or timid; there was a heightened colour on the
cheeks. Her manner was full of gentle assurance, her speech easy and
sympathetic--as utterly different from the crude tactlessness of
Christmastide as from the school-girl rattle of November.
Yes, Tony was a woman come into her kingdom, proud, sweet, compassionate
and strong. Quentin Lowe had made her this in the short weeks of his
love. Unworthy little cad as he was, he had yet been able to raise her
from girlhood to womanhood, to crown her with the diadem of her
heritage....
"Tony," cried Nigel, caught in a sudden storm of impulse, "do you love
Quentin Lowe?"
"Love him!--why, of course.... Let's move on."
"You're not angry with me?--I have my reason for asking."
"No, I'm not angry. But what reason can you have?"
"I remember," said Nigel desperately, "what you told me six months ago.
You said you couldn't forgive...."
The colour rushed to his face, but he fought on.
"There is something which I think you ought to know about him."
"What do you mean?"
She spoke sharply, but not quite so sharply as he had expected.
"Miss Strife--it's very difficult for me ... but I think I ought----"
"I suppose," she said, her voice faltering a little, "you're trying to
tell me--you think you ought to tell me--that Quentin hasn't always been
quite--quite worthy of himself. I know."
"You know!"
"Yes."
There was silence, broken only by the swish of their footsteps through
the grass.
"How did you know?--Who told you?" cried Furlonger suddenly.
"I might ask--how do _you_ know?"
"The girl--was a friend of mine...."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Don't mistake me. I--I didn't love her--not in that way, I mean. But,
Tony--who told you?"
"Quentin."
"My God!"
"Why are you so surprised? It was right that he should tell me."
"Of course. But I--I didn't think he would."
Tony hesitated a moment--it struck Nigel that she was considering how
far she ought to take him into her confidence. The thought humiliated
him.
"He did tell me," she said after a pause, "he told me everything, one
night, nearly three weeks ago, just before your brother died. He
suddenly came to Shovelstrode--very late, after we had all gone
upstairs. He wanted to see me--and I came down ... oh, I shall never
forget it! He was standing there, all white and tired--and very wet, as
if he'd been lying in the grass. He tried to speak, but he couldn't--and
I was frightened, like a silly ass, and I cried ... and then he told me
all about himself--and this girl."
"And you?..."
She shuddered.
"I--I told him he must go."
"You told him to go!"--his voice had a hungry catch in it.
"Yes--I was a beast."
Anxiety and scorn strove together in him.
"But you changed your mind."
She nodded.
"Tony!"
"Well, why not?"
"Because it's paltry and weak of you--he doesn't deserve your
forgiveness--and you've no right to forgive him for what he did to
another woman."
"Do you think I haven't considered that other woman?"
"You must have. But--egad!--you're so calm about it. Don't you realise
what all this means--to her?"
"You think I ought to make him marry her?"
"Of course not--she wouldn't have him if she was paid. But--but how can
_you_ marry him, Tony?"
She bit her lip.
"I'm sorry I put things so bluntly, but I'm always a blundering ass when
I'm excited. Tony, you're not to marry this man."
By her mounting colour he saw that he had said too much.
"I beg your pardon--I know all this sounds like impertinent
interference. But it isn't. I've been worrying about it a lot--about
your marrying him. I felt you ought to know...."
"Well, I do know--and I've forgiven him."
"I'm not sure that isn't even worse than your not knowing."
She stared at him in anger and surprise.
"You say that!--you!--the man but for whom perhaps I never should have
forgiven him."
Nigel gasped. "What do you mean?"
"Well, at first, as I told you, I felt I couldn't forgive him. But
afterwards I remembered all you said."
"_I_ said!"
"Yes."
"What?--When?"
"Don't you remember that day you came over to Shovelstrode and said,
'You will have to forgive me a great many things because I am so very
hungry'?"
They had stopped again; the fields swelled round them, ghostly in the
lemon twilight, and a wistful radiance glowed on Tony's face. He
searched her eyes despairingly--he scarcely knew what for. The anger in
them had died, and in its place was a beautiful serenity and kindliness.
But that was not what he was looking for. His heart was full of hunger
and tears, yet he did not hunger or cry for the woman who stood before
him, but for the little girl he had known long months ago.
"Quentin used almost the same words as you did," she said, breaking the
silence, "he told me how all his life he had been hungry, always craving
for something good and pure and satisfying, never able to reach it. Then
he met this girl, and he thought that he'd find in her all he was
seeking. But he found only sorrow--sorrow for them both. He was in
despair, in hell--and he believed I could help him out and make him a
good man again. Don't you remember how you said that a man's only chance
of rising out of the mud was for some woman to give him a hand and help
him up?"
Nigel could not find words. A thick, misty horror was settling on him.
Had those poor pleadings of his dying self then turned against him in
his hour of need?
"There was Quentin asking for my help," continued Tony. "Oh, I know I'm
no better than other girls, than the girl he used to love, but somehow
I can't help feeling I'm the girl sent to help Quentin. When I told him
he must go, he nearly went crazy ... his father said he was afraid he
would kill himself ... and I--I was nearly mad too, for I--oh, God! I
loved him."
A sounding contralto note swept into her voice; it seemed to swell up
from her heart, from her heaving woman's breast on which her hands were
folded.
"So I forgave him."
"Tony!..." cried Nigel faintly.
"Yes--I'm grateful to you. I'm afraid that when I saw you at
Shovelstrode I was very stupid and stiff--I was a horrid little beast,
and I couldn't forgive you for what was after all an honour you had done
me. Now I see how much your friendship meant to me. But for you, Quentin
and I might have been parted for ever."
A stupid rage was tearing Furlonger, and there was a mockery of laughter
in it. He saw that his tragedy was after all only a farce--he was the
time-honoured lover of farce, who with infinite pains makes a ladder to
his lady's chamber, and then sees his rival swarm up it. There he stood,
forlorn, discomfited, frustrated--but also intensely comic. Perhaps the
student was right about Offenbach....
"I'm surprised that you should be so disgusted with me," said Tony.
The ghostly laughter pealed again, and at the same time he remembered
that "if the man's a sport, he laughs too." He threw back his head, and
startled her with a hearty laugh.
"Mr. Furlonger!"
"I'm sorry--but things struck me suddenly as rather funny."
"How?"
"Oh, I don't suppose they'd strike you the same way. But it seems funny
you should care whether I'm disgusted or not."
"I do--of course I do; and I can't see why you are disgusted. After all
you said...."
"Damn all I said!--I'm sorry, but I never thought of a case like this."
He blushed, remembering the case he had thought of.
They walked down the hill--they could see Redpale now, huddling beneath
them in its orchards. The colours of the sunset had grown fainter, and
pale, trembling lights burned on the barn-roofs and the pond.
Their feet beat swiftly on the rustling grass. Furlonger's time was
short.
"I'm going to try to be a big woman," said Tony softly, "a strong, brave
woman; and I don't want to think sentimental rot about a perfect knight
and a spotless hero and all that. I want to be a man's fighting
comrade--I want to feel he can't do without me. It was you who first
told me that I must take men as I find them--but not leave them so."
"Tony, if only I thought there was any good in him----"
"I tell you there's a mine of good in him. But he's never had a chance
till now. Our engagement is to be a very long one, and already I can see
a difference in him. It's not I that have done it--it's his love for
me. And all the sorrow he went through, when he thought he'd lost me,
seems to have made him gentler and humbler somehow. Quentin has suffered
dreadfully"--there was a little click in her throat--"and he wants so
much to be good and pure and true. And I've promised to help him, by
believing that he can and will do better."
His own words were being mercilessly fired back at him. He remembered
how he had first breathed them to her, full of hope and entreaty. In the
face of such artillery his rout was complete.
"Forgive him, Tony!" he cried. "Forgive him! But oh, forgive me, too!"
They had reached the gate of Redpale Farm. He stopped--he would go no
further.
"Tony--forgive me too."
The words broke from his lips in an exceeding bitter cry.
"Forgive you!--what for?"
"For a great deal--for all you know of, and for the more you don't
know."
"Of course I forgive you--but I thank you most."
"No, you must forgive me most--are you sure that you forgive me for what
you don't know as well as for what you know?"
"Quite sure"--her voice trembled a little, for he was beginning to
frighten her.
"Then good-bye."
"Good-bye. I--I hope I haven't brought you very far out of your way."
He muttered something unintelligible, pulled off his cap, and left her.
He walked quickly, pricked on by a discovery which was also a triumph.
Quentin Lowe had not taken Tony from him after all. The Tony he loved
had never known Quentin Lowe, she had been no man's friend but Nigel
Furlonger's--and so much his friend that when he had been taken from her
she would not stay without him, but herself had gone away. Quentin Lowe
loved a beautiful woman--proud and sweet and assured, with just a dash
of the prig about her. Nigel had never loved this woman, he had loved a
little girl--and the little girl who had been his comrade in the Kentish
lanes and the ruins of Brambletye, would never be any man's but his.
He plunged recklessly through the fields, and recklessly into Furnace
Wood. Lowe could not be far off. He must have missed the fast train from
Victoria, but the next one arrived only an hour or so later. Nigel
hurried through the wood, now coal dark, and full of a strange dread for
him--though he did not know of the ghosts which haunted it. As he caught
his first glimpse of the faintly crimsoned west, he saw a figure
outlined against it. Some one was coming down the slope of Furnace
Field. It must be Lowe.
The two men met on the rim of the wood. It was a moment of blackness for
Quentin when he saw the blazing eyes and bitten lips of Furlonger.
Strange words broke from his tongue--
"Hast thou found me, O mine enemy!"
Nigel's great body towered over him. His lips had shrunk back from his
teeth, which gleamed in the dying ugly light. Lowe remembered the other
Furlonger who was dead. In Furnace Wood fate would not tamper with
vengeance as at Cowsanish.
Suddenly Nigel spoke.
"Two good women have forgiven you--so I've nothing to say--or do.
Pass----"
He moved out of the path, and waved his hand towards the wood.
"Pass----" he said.
Quentin hesitated a moment.
"Won't--won't you shake hands?"
"No. Pass--and for God's sake, pass quickly."
CHAPTER X
A TOAST
A few faint stars were in the west as Nigel tramped towards it. They
seemed to swim up out of the eddies of crimson fog that floated
there--they seemed to be showing little candles of hope to the man who
turned his back on the east. The castle of the dayspring lay behind him,
swallowed in thundery murk, but before him were the lights of a broader
palace where dead hopes and dead hatreds keep state together.
The west glowed and trembled and purpled--fiery rays rested on the
woods, and reached over the sky to the moon. Then against the purple
showed a tall chimney, rising from a high-roofed cottage that squatted
in the fields of Wilderwick.
As Nigel walked down the hill towards Sparrow Hall, a great quickening
realisation struck his exhausted heart. He knew that his dream was not
dead. Tony, the light in which he had seen it, was gone for ever, but
the dream itself was still there in the dark. For six months he had
tried to lead a good and honourable life, and now, though the motive was
gone, the old desire remained as strong and white as ever. He could
never be as he had been before he met Tony. He knew now that it was not
she that had called him--she had merely opened his ears to a voice that
had been calling him all through his life, through struggle, lust and
pain, failure and hate--and was calling him still, through the utter
darkness. The child in him, which had desperately sought congenial
comradeship in a little girl, rose out of the wreck, and heard as in a
dream the voices of boys and girls in London, laughing, fooling and
ragging together, calling to all in him that was gay and young and
outrageous. He wanted to go back to London, he wanted to play and to
work, and to win for himself what he had once yearned to win for Tony.
His music, that one touch of the poetic and supernatural in his sordid,
materialistic life, would raise him up in this his Last Day, and give
him his heart's desire--his desire for a clean life and an honourable
name.
He stood for a moment in the great lonely field--the last of the sun and
the first of the moon upon him, around him the dawning eternity of the
stars. Two hours ago he had been festering, sick, with his schemes, the
comrade of a hundred repulsive ideas. Now he was alone--utterly alone
with his one great ambition, stripped of the last rag of personal motive
that had clung to it--his ambition to be honest and pure and true.
Tony had pointed him out the way, and directly he had taken it, she had
gone--to show it to another man, and walk in it with him. Nigel suddenly
pictured that man. He was at Redpale Farm ... he kneeled in the dust at
Tony's feet ... her hands were upon his head. In her he found
redemption, love and blessing--and dared he, Furlonger, grudge
redemption, love and blessing to any man? He did not grudge them--let
Quentin Lowe take them, walk in white with Tony, and be worthy of her.
Furlonger, too, would walk in white and be worthy--but he would walk
alone.
No, not quite alone. He trod softly up the path to Sparrow Hall, between
the ranks of the folded flowers. The evening primroses and night-scented
stock sent their fragrance in with him at the door. The house was in
darkness, and he groped his way to the kitchen, where he found Janey.
She was half asleep in the armchair by the fire--she had laid the
supper, that dreary little supper for two, and now lay huddled by the
dying embers, cold, in spite of the thick heat of the night.
"Janey," whispered Nigel, as he kissed her.
She started.
"Oh, you're back at last!--what a time you've been!"
"I'm sorry, dear. Come now, I'll light the lamp, and we'll have supper."
She rose listlessly, and sat down opposite him.
"It's a rotten supper--I don't cook so well as Novice Unity Agnes."
"Nonsense! you cook quite well enough for me. Janey--will you come and
cook for me in London?"
"In London?"--she stared at him blankly.
"Yes, I must go back to my work--and I can't leave you here."
"But--but--I don't understand--and what shall we do about the farm?"
"We can sell it, and the money will keep us--just the two of us in a
workman's flat--till my training is over, and I'm earning money on my
own. Oh, Janey, I don't suppose I'll ever be rich or famous or that I'll
fill the Albert Hall--but I--I shall be more worthy of you, dear."
"Of me!"--she laughed.
"Yes. Don't you understand? I've got my dream back again--but there's an
empty place in it.... Will you fill it, Janey?"
She looked questioningly at him with her great haggard eyes.
"Who left it empty?"
"Tony Strife," he said in a low voice.
"Nigel!..."
She rose to her feet and came to him.
"My poor, poor boy."
Her pity, the first he had received, had an unexpected effect on him. It
nearly unmanned him--he put up his hands to her neck, and drew down her
face to him, while his body shuddered.
"Nigel ... did she know?"
"No, never--thank God!"
She stroked his hair, and held his head against her breast.
"It was a hopeless dream, Janey."
She could not contradict him.
"But it helped me."
"Then it was a good dream."
He gently slipped himself free.
"And now we'll say no more about it."
After supper Janey asked Nigel to play to her. He often used to play to
her in the evenings, to relieve the aching weight of agony that gathered
on her with the dusk. She lay back in the armchair, her eyes closed,
wondering why Nigel's music, which she had used sometimes to hate,
soothed her so inexpressibly now. She always asked him to play when she
felt her heart was becoming hard--music seemed to melt down that stony
sense of outrage which sometimes grew like a cancer into her thoughts.
She would not, dared not, have a hard heart, and music was the only
thing at present that could keep it soft.
She thought with gathering tears of the confession her brother had just
made her, but she would not let her mind dwell on it--somehow she felt
he would not like it. The episode did not belong to the surface of
things, it belonged to the hidden life of a secret man, a holy, hopeless
thing, to be guarded from the prying even of reverent thoughts. She knew
that though she and Nigel might often talk together of her sorrow, they
would never talk of his.
He was playing a strange tune that pattered on the silence like rain. It
was the song of the man who has dreamed of love, who has wakened at last
to find it only a dream, and that he lies with empty arms on a hard
bed--and then suddenly realises that he has before him that which is
sweeter than sleep and dreams--the joy of the day's work. He played the
Prelude of the Day's Work, through which would trill the magic memory of
love--love, which is so much sweeter in memory and in dream than in
realisation.
At last he put aside his violin, and going over to Janey, he knelt down
by her and kissed her tired face.
"Oh, Nigel ... Nigel!"
"You'll come with me to London, and help me in my new life?"
"I want a new life too."
"We'll start one together."
"And--and you'll play the devil out of me when he comes?"
"Always--and we won't have any secrets from each other, Janey."
She smiled faintly. Her brother always amused her when he spoke of
secrets.
There was silence for some minutes. The moon was leaving the window,
climbing high among the stars. A little wind began to flutter round
Sparrow Hall, whispering and throbbing.
"I'm tired," said Janey.
"You must go to bed."
"Yes."
"And you'll dream of the life you and I are going to live together--of
success for me, and happiness for you."
She rose and put her hands on his shoulders.
"Good-night, lad."
"Good-night. I think I'm going to bed too. I think I can sleep to-night.
But before we go we must drink a toast, Janey."
"A toast!--to whom?"
"To--to two people who we thought were going to make you and me
happy--but are going to make each other happy instead."
She did not answer for a moment. She and her brother stood facing each
other in the strange freak of lamplight and moonlight. Then she said--
"Yes. We must _want_ them to be happy, Nigel."
He turned to the uncleared supper-table and poured out some of the red
wine that Janey drank in these days of her weakness.
"We'll drink to their happiness, old sister. We won't go whining and
grudging because it isn't ours. Besides, we're going to have it some
day--we'll make a new lot of our own."
"Yes, Nigel"--Janey's eyes had kindled--"we're not going to grudge them
what they've got, or be envious and mean."
They faced each other across the table. The wind gave a sudden little
sigh round Sparrow Hall--blustered--and was still.
"A toast!" cried Nigel, lifting his glass, "a toast!--To those who've
got what we have lost."
THE END
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