Part 10

“I was not proposing to drink all that; I could not do it if I tried. I cannot understand how men can dispose of so much.”

“Girls don’t work like men do.”

“It’s a good thing you are giving it up, then; I’ve noticed that you were beginning to get stout.”

Bernard continued to look stolid. Out of patience, Dolly launched at him a sudden question.

“Are you turning teetotaller to please Miss Laurenson?”

“I’m not turning teetotaller. I’m only trying it for a time.”

“But is it to please Miss Laurenson?”

“Well, yes; I guess it is.”

“Not really, Bernard?” asked Dolly, with a change of tone.

“Why not?”

“She isn’t your sort. And you’ve only known her for six weeks.”

“Come to think of it, I wouldn’t say the dude is your sort; but you seem to like talking to him.”

“Bernard, do you want to marry her?” asked Dolly, after a pregnant pause.

“I’m going to.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that she may have something to say about that?”

“I dare say she’ll refuse me, but if she does I can ask her again.”

“And if she refuses you again?”

“Then I’ll go on asking till she accepts.”

“In fact, if you persevere you think she is bound to give in?”

“Girls generally do.”

“Do they? I shouldn’t.”

“You aren’t like most girls. You’ve been brought up with men.”

“But, Bernard, Miss Laurenson is an heiress; she has eight hundred a year of her own, and more to come. Mrs. Merton told me so.”

“Has she? Well, eight hundred a year’ll come in handy; I’m glad to hear it. If it’s true, that is.”

“And she is very pretty, and she dresses well, and her family is unexceptionable,” pursued Dolly. “I expect she could marry a peer if she liked, or at any rate a courtesy title.”

“Yes, but all those titled chaps are pretty rotten,” said Bernard, cheerfully damning the aristocracy in a lump. “She’d do a sight better to take me. I’m pretty strong and free from vice, and sound in wind and limb; and as for family, I guess ours is good enough for anybody, isn’t it?”

Dolly was reduced to silence, but she was so completely preoccupied that she poured cream and sugar into Bernard’s cup and filled it up with beer, producing a mixture which he denounced in emphatic language and emptied out of the window. Presently she interrupted his talk about the farm by asking:

“Bernard, are you fond of her?”

“She’s getting a bit long in the tooth, it’s true, but she’s a pretty creature still. I guess she suits me as well as any,” was the surprising answer.

“I mean Miss Laurenson.”

“Oh, I thought you were talking about old Empress; I was.”

“Are you fond of her?”

“Yes,” said Bernard, composedly. “I am.”

Dolly shrugged her shoulders. “I hope it will turn out well.”

“Hope so, too,” said Bernard. “She ought to take me simply out of gratitude. Anything more beastly than tea with this cold beef I never did taste!”

* * * * *

On the morrow, while Dolly was sweeping her room out, Maggie came up, gasping, to announce “Miss Lawson”; she had a happy knack of confounding names. It was, in truth, Angela, driven up by the pair of donkeys, as Ella Merton said, though only one was in the shafts. Mrs. Merton herself would not come in, because, she declared, Jehoshaphat would eat the reins if he were left. Jehoshaphat had a satanic temper and was more completely omnivorous than an ostrich; beside devouring reins and boots and tin-tacks, he had a craving for any human flesh except that of his mistress, an exception which Ella triumphantly adduced in support of her self-bestowed name, since, said she, dog doesn’t eat dog.

Therefore Angela was alone in the parlour when Dolly came down; rather hot, in a faded old dress: Angela, very cool and dainty in white muslin, now feeling that the advantage of appearance had fallen to her. Yet, in spite of her dress and her daintiness, she was still like a delicate sketch by the side of a beautiful painting.

“I’m sorry Mr. Fane isn’t in,” she began, rather stiffly. Angela could not approve of Dolly, and would not pretend that she did.

“The regret will be all on his side. Won’t you sit down?” quoth Dolly, very polite.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay, I am keeping Mrs. Merton. May I leave a message for him?”

“I shall be charmed to deliver it,” Dolly assured her; and Angela sought consolation by mentally dubbing her accent provincial. Dolly exasperated her to such an extent that she was ready to imagine a Kentish twang in Miss Fane’s foreign intonation.

“I believe Mr. Fane is interested in temperance reform”—here Dolly smiled—“and I thought under the circumstances he might care to attend the great unsectarian conference which is to be held at Swanborough next week. I dare say you have heard of it.”

“No; we have severed our connection with the chapel.”

“This meeting is undenominational.”

“Essence of chapel, isn’t that? Or so I have always understood.”

“Perhaps you will tell your brother that it begins at three o’clock,” Angela trusted herself to say.

“I am sure Bernard will be delighted to go. Of course, he might speak himself almost as a reformed drunkard.”

“Mr. Fane?”

“You converted him, did you not?”

“I converted him? From what?”

“Oh! from his habit of drinking beer. I am so glad; I have often told him that he took too much.”

“Really, Miss Fane?” said Angela, in accents of serious concern. “I had no idea of it! What a shocking thing! I am indeed thankful that I have been instrumental in helping him to reform.”

Dolly’s lips twitched, but she instantly followed Angela’s lead. “Of course it was not yet very serious, and he did not often—well—exceed. But I assure you I am most grateful for all you have done; you have a wonderful influence over him—truly wonderful!”

“Then I shall hope to see him at Swanborough; and perhaps you will come, too? You need not feel embarrassed; there will be plenty of girls of your own age to keep you in countenance,” said Angela, pleasantly.

“Thank you so much,” said Dolly, as she opened the front door.

She stood on the step to speed the parting guests. When the last flicker of Angela’s white parasol had vanished, she remarked to herself: “Certainly Bernard has a better right to trust his own judgment than any one I know!”

Both she and Bernard went to Swanborough for the meeting. They drove; and, after putting up the horse, had the satisfaction of encountering Miss Laurenson and her brother outside the station. Bernard went straight to Angela’s side, and Dolly found herself walking with Mr. Laurenson. Lal was no talker; and as the uncivilized Dolly had not yet learned to speak when she did not want to, they walked on in silence.

Swanborough was a town of twenty thousand people, mostly wicked. Standing on a tidal river, it harboured the vessels of all nations and the peculiar vices of each; there were, besides, barracks in the town, which brought their special dangers. High wages and a high standard of living prevailed: the head of one family would be calling for green peas in April, while the head of another, discharged from the same position, perhaps for drunkenness, would send his children, filthy, barefoot, and famishing, into the street to beg. That popular vice, drunkenness, flourished like a green bay-tree. A public-house blossomed at every street’s corner, and its devotees lounged in its shade with their hands in their holey pockets. Passing one such palace as a youth pushed open the door, Dolly had a view of the crowded bar, and breathed in a puff of hot vapour wherein the scents of tobacco and gin and old clothes contended for the mastery.

“There are too many of those places!” she exclaimed, averting her offended face.

“There are,” Lal answered her, rather bitterly.

“I cannot see why the licenses are renewed.”

“Can you not? Every English government lives by this traffic; do you expect pious sons to commit parricide?”

“You feel very strongly about it,” said Dolly, wondering.

“I see the results of the present system.”

“Then do you believe in Prohibition or in Local Option?”

“I? I believe in putting the whole trade under public control, in reducing the number of licenses, and in giving the publicans a fixed salary independent of the number of men they turn into drunkards.”

“But those are not Miss Laurenson’s views, surely?” asked Dolly, somewhat taken aback. Lal was already repenting of his candour.

“It’s one of the questions of principle on which we differ,” he said, in his soft, lazy voice. “Don’t betray me, Miss Fane; it will be time for me to reveal my heresies when Prohibition comes down out of the clouds. Angela herself is not where her theories are; she does plenty of practical hard work.”

“Mr. Laurenson, what practical hard work do you do?”

“I?”

“You. I know you do something.”

“Who told you anything about me?”

“No one. I gathered it from the way you speak.”

“Oh, I see.” Lal was unmistakably relieved.

“I wish you would tell me how you set about it.”

“I’d rather not discuss the question.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Dolly. Twice, now, had he shut up like an oyster and pinched her fingers; and she was half angry, until she recognised that he meant no rudeness. To this conclusion was she brought by the study of his face. Lal, when he spoke of himself, had a trick of drooping his eyelids, so that, as the lashes were long, his eyes were hidden completely; he was foolish enough to be modest. The compression of his sensitive lips notified Dolly of another extenuating circumstance: namely, that he was uncomfortable to the point of frenzy. In escaping her inquiries he was ready to leap clear over the bars of politeness; surely, then, since he so valorously defended their privacy, his convictions must be very dear to him. As she was musing thus, the drooped lids were raised with disconcerting abruptness, and Lal’s beautiful dark-grey eyes looked down appealingly.

“I did not mean to be rude. I would rather be rude to any one than you,” he said.

Dolly’s breathing quickened; a warm spring rose in her heart. “I had no business to ask you; but I thought perhaps I might do something myself,” she said.

“It is only that I—” Here Lal stopped. “I don’t think—” he began again; and finally clothed his thought in a general law, altogether eliminating the painful personal pronoun _I_. “An amateur’s private opinion is never very interesting.”

“And you would rather not talk about your private opinions.”

“I’m not very good at it,” Lal admitted. “In fact, I generally make a fool of myself when I try—as on the present occasion.” The victim of aphasia had put off his apology until they were close to the hall, and further conversation was stopped by their arrival at the door.

“You’re coming in?” said Dolly, as he paused.

He shook his head.

“Don’t you approve of _this_?”

“I’m afraid I don’t like religion when it’s vulgar,” said Lal. He raised his hat and walked off down the street, and Dolly and her friends went in.

No cause needs salvation from its friends as does this of temperance. Intolerance, exaggeration, bad logic, bad taste, and bad grammar have all supported and do support it still, estranging men who would be content to work with the reformers if they took their stand on the noble charter given them by St. Paul: “_If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth._” At Swanborough there were two evangelists, whose names appeared on the programme as Rev. Dr. Brown and Rev. S. Jones, for your true temperance evangelist eschews the adjective _the_ as rigidly as temperance in his speeches. The one spoke on “Gospel Dynamics”; the other proved the Bible a total-abstinence book and, incidentally, himself no orator. Angela found it hard to feel pleased; she looked at Bernard, and saw him yawning undisguisedly, and then at Dolly, who sat with hands folded, inattentive but composed.

And Dolly was composed, though she was conscious of a strange exaltation which rosed her cheek and set her heart throbbing and pulses beating in time with it in every finger. A well-spring of soft warmth suffused her frame; she shut her eyes and saw visions, she who was no dreamer—visions in which one figure alone was constant. She owned the truth. “I love him,” she told herself. Shame she did not feel; she believed that Lal loved her back, and even if he did not there was no humiliation, since her gift was voluntary, since she was proud of her love. He won her by being better than herself. Dolly was a little pagan; her love was wild as a bird; but in it ran a puritan strain which claimed an answering purity in the man she loved. Irreproachable though he was, Noel Farquhar could not give her that, nor yet could Lucian, though he was nearer to her ideal. But in Dolly’s room at home she had an engraving of Watts’s fine picture of Sir Galahad; and the artist might have drawn his young knight’s face from Lal as he looked on a Sunday morning in church, when he sat in his corner behind a pillar which hid him from sight, as he thought. Had he known that Dolly had a clear though narrow view of his profile against the black marble of a mural tablet, it would have made him retrospectively very unhappy.

Love left Dolly the same girl as before, save that it illumined a side of her nature which had been hidden, as the sunlight, creeping across from the first faint rim of the crescent, slowly enlightens the disk of the moon. True, she now felt quite charitable towards Angela; but Angela was Lal’s sister. She was also more lenient to the ungrammatical orators on the platform; for the excellent reason that she did not listen to them. These were accidents of circumstance. But when a stout lady in front ecstatically planted the hind-leg of her chair upon Dolly’s instep and sat heavily down, the ennobling power of love did not hold her back from feeling annoyed.

When they came out Dolly listened to a discussion of the meeting, and herself added her word with moderate indifference. They walked together to the station, but Dolly, whose mood was dreamy, soft, and languorous, dissociated herself from the others and walked alone. As she passed the Sailors’ Arms, which seemed a popular hostelry, the door again stood open, and again Dolly glanced in, and again saw the crowded bar; but this time Sir Galahad was leaning across the counter conversing with the bar-maid.

XV

COLLOQUIES WITH AN OUTSIDER

Dolly did her best to get Bernard away from the station before Lal came up; but as she had only that morning been preaching the duties of man to unprotected females, and as Bernard’s desires went wholly along with his duty, she could not detach him from Angela. She went away herself, on the pretext of ordering the dog-cart, met Lal in the station yard, looked full in his face, and refused to know him.

Angela was waiting impatiently; Lal had promised to meet her at six o’clock, their train went at six-fifteen, and it was now five minutes past. Lal was always exact in keeping his engagements. Angela felt uneasy, and was cross. Bernard stayed with her till ten minutes after the hour, and then hurried off to consult his sister. Dolly was quite ready to drive back alone; perhaps because the route through Hungrygut Bottom was in her mind as the best way home, and to it Bernard might have demurred on the horse’s account, for it was steep and stony, the roads having been recently repaired. She had an idea that Lal might be waiting in the high-road to see her pass. Bernard, having her consent, hurried back; he was just in time to install Angela in a first-class carriage, with himself as guardian for their half-hour’s journey. Then Angela, discovering that she was shut up alone with Bernard Fane, began to wish herself idiotic, dead, buried, anywhere out of the world, and plunged into a fresh discussion of temperance.

* * * * *

Lal had stood like a statue till Dolly was out of sight, and then tried to follow her. He had not seen which road she took, and his wanderings led him far from the station. At last he bethought him that the horse must be stabled somewhere, and began to inquire; and half an hour later tracked her down at the Railway Hotel. While he was still questioning the waiter, a man passed through the hall and would have gone out had not Lal interrupted himself and sprang forward, crying out, “Meryon!”

The gambler turned round, colouring with pleasure. “I didn’t know you were home!” he said. “I heard you’d got no end of stars and orders, but I didn’t know you were home! I’m so awfully glad.”

“I’m staying with the Mertons; what are you doing?”

“I’m here for the night. Come to my room, will you? There’s heaps I want to know.”

Lal, who had just heard that Dolly had departed full half an hour ago, abandoned his quest for the nonce, and went. Meryon and he had been friends for years, though the guardian angel knew it not; she would have feared the effect of pitch on Lal’s innocence if she had. They met rarely; in the intervals their friendship hibernated, coming out unspoiled when times of refreshing arrived. Meryon wrote never, Lal rarely, and when he did his stiff little letters were mere catalogues of events. But friendship, like the python, can live for years unfed.

Meryon’s room was full of untidy properties tidily arranged. A discreditable old Collard & Collard was its only luxury. He had been playing patience, and the cards were scattered about the table; Lal sat down on a bedroom chair, leaning his elbow on the wash-stand and his chin on his hand, and watched Meryon gather them up.

“You haven’t given up playing, then?” he said.

“No, I never shall now—the cards have got their grip on me. You’re looking sick, Lal,” said the elder man, earnestly; “what’s the matter?”

“I got hurt, you know.”

“Oh yes, I heard about that in the papers. You came back in a regular blaze of glory; I was awfully proud of knowing you. Is your sister all right?”

“Angela? Perfectly—about to marry, I fancy.”

“Is the man a good sort?”

“Oh, very. I think she will be happy.”

“Been doing any more of your own work?”

“At intervals. When the chance comes.”

Meryon jerked the bottom of the pack down on the table, and pressed and patted it straight between his palms. “Try a game of écarté?” he suggested.

Lal shook his head.

“I’ll play without stakes, for once.”

“No. I never play.”

“I don’t see why not. Even father used to play whist in the evenings, he and mother and two of the canons, awfully decent old chaps; and I used to stand behind mother and give her tips. Father was no end of a good player. I don’t see why you won’t, Lal. It’s wonderful how it takes you out of yourself.”

Lal shook his head again. “I never have played and never shall.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Perhaps.”

Meryon looked at him earnestly. “You’re very queer, Lal,” he said. “I believe you’ve got heaps of things in you that no one ever suspects. I believe you’re a born gambler—I hope you won’t mind my saying so. But there’s no harm; you aren’t like me, you’d never give way to it.”

“If I once began I should never stop,” Lal took him up, swiftly. “You’re right; I’m not like you, Meryon. I haven’t your pluck. I had to give up motoring because I could not keep my head while I was driving. I’m as weak as water.”

“But you never do the things, you only want to and don’t let yourself. I call that being strong, not weak. That’s just what I like. You’re so excitable, you have to keep tight hold of yourself for fear you should go to the bad, and yet you never do anything you shouldn’t.”

Lal only shrugged his shoulders. Meryon, who was still standing, dropped the cards and put his hand on Lal’s arm. “What _is_ the matter?” he said, tenderly. “What’s worrying you, old fellow?”

Lal did not answer, because he was incapable of explaining. It was necessary for his interlocutor to drag the truth out of him by questions. Dolly had found out this; but whereas Lal’s desire had been to escape from her, he was anxious to make confession to Meryon.

“I say, old fellow, is it a girl?” questioned the gambler.

“Yes.”

“Then, of course, it’s serious; it would be with you. Won’t she have you?”

“I haven’t asked her.”

“Have you had a quarrel?”

“I have just met her, and she cut me dead. Heaven knows why; I don’t.”

Meryon, by a string of questions, contrived to elicit the story of Lal’s courtship. The cause of Dolly’s coldness puzzled him, as it had puzzled Lal, but after several abortive inquiries he hit at last on the right track.

“I don’t see what could have happened while the meeting was going on to make her change so. What were you doing all the time?”

“Business.”

“What, your own sort of business?”

Lal nodded.

“Whereabouts?”

“Oh, in the town.”

“Tell me where, old fellow—that is, if you don’t mind me meddling.”

“At the Sailors’ Arms; you know the place.”

“It’s a hell of a hole,” said Meryon, soberly. “Did you go in?”

“For a few minutes.”

“I say, it’s on the way from the Corn Exchange to the station. I say, do you think she could have seen you?”

Lal was silent. Remembering that Dolly had noticed the place before, he thought it possible.

“It’s all very well to say girls don’t mind that sort of thing—like a man to sow his wild oats, and all that; but they do mind, the nicest of them. And she’d think you must be such an awful humbug, too. You know, old fellow, the thing for you to do is to go and ask her, and tell her right away.”

“I could not possibly do it, and I would not for the world if I could,” said Lal, with great decision.

“Why not?”

Lal shrugged his shoulders.

“I expect you mean you’re too shy, and don’t like talking about that sort of thing to a girl. Is that it?”

“I dare say.”

“Old fellow, can’t you get over that?”

“I _cannot_,” said Lal, impatiently. “What, tell Miss Fane that I—that the girl—Besides, she doesn’t care a straw for me. I shall ask her if she’ll have me, and then go. Angela, at least, will be heartily glad.”

“Is her name Fane? Not Dolly Fane, by any chance?”

“Yes, it is. Do you know her?”

“I took her in to dinner once at the Mertons,” said Meryon. After a pause he went on: “Do you know, Lal, there’s two other men after her. De Saumarez, who I’ve told you about, is one, and Farquhar, the M.P.”

“Of course she likes one of them,” said Lal, after another pause. “I hope it isn’t Farquhar. I dislike that fellow.”

“I thought he was all that’s virtuous. You never caught him out in any tricks, did you?”

“Not I! But I’d rather she married a gentleman.”

“I always thought he was an awful swell,” said Meryon, meekly.

Lal coloured and laughed, and glanced up through his eyelashes. “I am a conceited, dogmatic prig; how can you possibly tolerate me, Meryon?” he said. “I’ve talked about myself long enough; now let’s hear what you’ve been doing.”

They talked on for an hour or more, and then Meryon persuaded Lal to play to him, listening the while in quiet, uncritical enjoyment, and caressing the black kitten asleep on his knee. Meryon always stipulated for a piano in his room when his resources could be stretched to cover such a luxury. He was very fond of strumming out airs from the overtures and selections which he heard from bands at casinos; he had an ear for melody, but had never learned music. Lal, on the contrary, was a practised pianist; he played correctly, an achievement rare in these days; his execution was sure and delicate, his touch very clear, bright, and firm. He was very careful to hide this talent of his in a napkin. Meryon had come to hear of it by accident. Lal sat down and very quietly played through first a sonata by Mozart, then a _courante_ of Bach’s. His taste was for the orderly, old-fashioned music; he hated Wagner, and thought even Mendelssohn too fond of innovations. Did not he say of himself that he was dogmatic? But he gave Meryon great pleasure.