Part 11

Later, Lal went home; and Meryon, after seeing him off by one train, waited on the platform and himself followed by the next. From Monkswell station he walked to Fanes, but Dolly had not yet come in, nor had Bernard. Meryon would not wait; he strolled up the Swanborough road in the hope of meeting her. Nor was he disappointed. A mile up the road he saw a girl leading a horse down the hill, and by her supple, slim young figure and the brightness of her hair he recognised Miss Fane. The steepness of Hungrygut Bottom plus the violent snortings of a steam-roller had again proved too much for the nerves of the chestnut; he bolted down the hill and almost kicked the cart to pieces before Dolly, who had jumped out, could catch and quell him. She left the dog-cart for repair at Dove Green, the next village, and led Vronsky home. Her dark cloth dress had a long skirt, which she held up gracefully, like a French girl, with curved wrist and prettily bent hand. She came on, looking straight before her; her lips were hard and her face was hard; no melting mood was hers. Irony, and a stiff-necked refusal to bend before the blast were Dolly’s armour against trouble; she was bitterly humiliated, and would not cede an inch to humiliation. Certain constricting bands seemed to have closed round her heart; she had not spent so long a day since she was seven and waited outside her mother’s room for the news of her death.

“Let me lead the horse, won’t you?” said Meryon, turning to walk with her. Meryon was polite by instinct, as Dolly was graceful.

“Thanks, no; he bites.”

“I suppose you got smashed up. I hope you weren’t hurt.”

“Not in the least, thank you.”

This was unpromising. Meryon despaired of introducing his subject tactfully; he was not, therefore, discouraged, but plunged straight into it.

“I’ve just been seeing Lal Laurenson,” he said. “I beg your pardon, I hope you won’t think it awful cheek of me to shove my oar in, but I can’t help it. I’ve been friends with Laurenson ever since we were at Eton together. He’s been so awfully good to me, I can’t help speaking now. You cut him in Swanborough this afternoon.”

“I did.”

“What for?”

“I am not going to tell you. I mean,” said Dolly, “I don’t want to be rude, but I can’t explain my reason. I had one.”

“Was it because you saw him in at the Sailors’ Arms?”

Dolly hesitated for a minute; then she answered: “Yes.”

“I’m awfully glad—I thought that was it. I can explain why he was there.”

“Wait,” said Dolly. “Who told you this?”

“I got it out of Laurenson. I met him at the Railway Hotel, where he was asking for you.”

“Does he know you have come to me?”

“Him? Rather not; I came right away without telling; he wouldn’t have let me if he’d known. He said he’d never explain, himself, and he wouldn’t; he can’t bear talking about it.”

“I can believe it.”

“No, really you’re quite wrong, you are indeed, Miss Fane. Laurenson isn’t like that. He went there after a girl. She had run away from her home and he wanted her to go back. He goes in for that kind of thing. He and Miss Laurenson have got a Home in London which they run out of their own money, but it’s Lal that has to do with working it; he’s better than a parson, for he doesn’t ever preach, he just lives. If he’d been anywhere in Europe that time I had to break my promise, I’d never have given way as I did and become the beast I am. He’d have seen me through. He respects you, and you simply can’t help being what he thinks. He never told me about that Home, I just found it out. I’ve been over it with him. I never shall forget it.”

“Do you know the name of the girl he saw at the Sailors’ Arms?”

“Hilda Davis. She comes from here.”

“I see. Thank you,” said Dolly. “Yes; I am glad to know.”

Meryon stopped. “I’m glad you don’t think it was cheek of me. I’d better go back now; I’ll just catch my train.”

“Did you come here simply to tell me this?” said Dolly. “You’re a good friend.”

“There wasn’t anything in it. I didn’t think you’d snub me; and if you had I’d have been bound to tell you just the same. Laurenson’s been no end good, being friends with an outsider like me,” said Meryon, with simplicity.

Poor outsider! From a great way off his tired eyes had seen the bright circle of happiness; he came to the light, passed through it, and so out into the cold and lonely twilight, where his own lot was cast. He was made for the life of a home: sociable, contented, affectionate, fond of quiet pleasures, a lover of little children. But the tyrannous demon who had ruled him would grant no peace; Meryon was driven out into the wilderness, where he lived and where he died.

XVI

A NIGHT-PIECE

It might have been supposed that Dolly would be anxious to make amends for her injustice. When Bernard came in, saying that Mrs. Merton had invited them both to dinner the next day but one, and that he had accepted her kindness, she should have been pleased; in place of which she declared that she could not go. She had no dress, she said. Bernard pointed out that she had dined with the Mertons before. “Oh yes,” said Dolly; “but one can’t wear the same thing twice over,” and she stood upon her argument till Bernard calmly told her that he should go and she could stay. Dolly came near to a quarrel with him; she did actually provoke one with her father; and then she went to bed.

In the morning she awoke reasonable and sweeter-tempered, and begged her father’s pardon in words, and Bernard’s in deeds by making hot cakes for breakfast. Peace reigned over the house of Fanes, except in Dolly’s mind, which was still disturbed. For yesterday, in the flush of her indignation and reasonable anger, she had taken a step that she could not retrace. Waiting under the white sign-post at Dove Green for the smith’s report on her shattered dog-cart, Dolly had made up her mind upon one point, and had clinched the matter at once in the post-office adjoining the smithy; and now the contemplation of the consequences filled her with lively discomfort. She calculated that these consequences could not arrive for two days, or possibly three; she had two days to prepare; but how she was to do so presented a problem of weight. Dolly felt that she had made a fool of herself, a sensation disagreeable to a girl so proud as she; of all troubles she could least stomach humiliation. Then, also, she knew that her blunder would bring distress on Lucian, and was heartily sorry, for she loved him dearly. But there was another, darker thought which would stay in her mind, despite of reason and despite of resolution. Dolly had felt the merciless power of Farquhar’s strength; she feared his jealousy, cruel as the grave. Vainly she told herself that he was Lucian’s friend; he was her lover, but that had not shielded her. Imagination offered lurid pictures of a battle to the death between the rivals. Vague ideas of sending Bernard out to Petit-Fays as peace-maker crossed her mind, but the irrepressible voice of common-sense pointed out that her brother’s attitude towards Noel Farquhar was not usually conciliatory; also that, even if she sent him at once, he could not possibly get there in time to do any good. In view of this last consideration, Dolly let the matter drop; but her mind was ill at ease.

Next evening when Bernard came down into the hall he found her waiting, muffled in a big white shawl. Bernard’s hands and head were too fully occupied with his white kid gloves to allow him to draw deductions, and he discerned nothing until she walked out in front of him; then he said:

“Thought you weren’t coming?”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Z-z-p, a button jumped off. “Oh, dash the thing!” said Bernard, disgusted.

“I’ll do it,” said Dolly, taking his wrist. “What a pity it is your hands are so large. Mine are at least small, though I’ve spoiled the skin with hard work. What did you talk about in the train yesterday?”

“That temperance rot, most of the time.”

“You do waste your chances, Bernard.”

“Well, she seemed to like it.”

“Why didn’t you ask her to marry you? You mean to, don’t you?”

“All in good time; I’m in no such mighty hurry.”

“I know _I_ wouldn’t take you,” said Dolly, viciously linking the final button.

“I guess I shouldn’t be such a fool as to ask you,” responded her brother. “As it happens, I mean to get an answer out of her to-night.”

Dolly was silent. His name was the first word that rose to her lips: his Christian name, the usual preface of an appeal.

“Bernard.”

“Well?”

“Bernard, Angela Laurenson isn’t like me. You ought to be careful; it’s easy to hurt her feelings.”

“I know all about that.”

“_Do_ you?”

“Yes,” said Bernard. “I do. I’m not an idiot.”

Trying to draw sentimental confessions from Bernard was like trying to pull a worm out of its hole by the tail. Dolly felt that he was slipping away, and put one last question.

“You do really care for her, Bernard?”

He deliberated for a minute; a most literal truthfulness informed all Bernard’s assertions.

“Well, I wouldn’t jump down into the lions after her glove, like that chap in what’s-his-name,” he said at last: “because I call that silly. But if it was a question of her or me—I guess I’d give my life for hers. I’m not quite a fool, Dolly; I can manage for myself. I say, do you think I ought to keep on these beastly gloves at dinner? If they have birds or things of that kind, they’ll split down the back.”

Bernard had not been quite open with his sister. At that very moment Miss Laurenson was sitting in her room with her face in her hands and an outspread letter before her. She had received it in the afternoon, and thus it ran:

“DEAR MISS LAURENSON,—You showed yesterday that you did not want me to speak, so I am not going to bother you with a tête-à-tête. I am writing this instead, to tell you that Fanes brings in about three-fifty a year net, and in the past five years I have saved over a thousand out of this, which invested in Guaranteed Egyptians at four per cent. brings it up to four hundred. I also expect the value of the property to go up. My age is twenty-eight, and I am in sound health. I have a fairly good temper. I have not done anything that I should be ashamed of you seeing, barring getting tipsy half a dozen times before I was twenty, and carting manure. I used to poach on Merton’s land one time, but only when I thought he sold the game. I never have thought about any other girl but you. Will you, if you think you can take me, just put some white roses in your dress to-night? If you wear red ones, I shall take it to mean No. I hope very much you won’t wear red ones. I am sorry I can’t send you any flowers, but our roses were all blighted this year, and anyway I know Merton has plenty in his garden.

“Ever yours with devotion,

“BERNARD DE BEAUFORT FANE.”

Having laughed over this letter till she cried, Angela was now almost ready to cry in good earnest. After great searchings of heart she had come to admit that Bernard was all the world to her; but she would much have preferred to renounce the world and remain her maiden self. Angela was a little ascetic. Though she loved him truly, it cost her a bitter struggle to admit a man into her life; especially a man such as Bernard, who would gently brush away all her delicate scruples and cobwebs of privacy, and take possession of her, body and soul. She could trust him to be gentle, but would he understand? To Angela, wifehood seemed a strange and terrible thing. She feared it—she feared its prelude of betrothal: seeing herself more clearly than at other times, she confessed that hers was the nature for obeying, Bernard’s for ruling. And how she should fare if her lover turned tyrant?

“I’ve brought your flowers,” Lal said, coming in with a cluster of white roses and ferns. They were prettily arranged, though a little stiff. But Angela looked doubtful.

“Don’t you care for them? I thought they went well with your dress.”

“I do like them; but—” Angela pushed over Bernard’s letter and looked away. Lal smiled as he read it.

“Well, and aren’t you going to wear them?”

“Shall I?”

“Are you in doubt?”

“Yes, rather.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid, Lal.”

“Is it that you don’t care—?”

Angela shook her head.

“Then you must wear them,” Lal said. He came to her and fastened them. Angela looked down at the roses and up at his face; suddenly she threw her arms round his neck.

“I’m a humbug, Lal,” she said. “You always ruled, not I.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes. And he will. And I’m afraid.”

Lal held her quietly. Presently he said: “I think you’re mistaken, Angel.”

“_Do_ you?” Angela said, looking up with tears on her lashes. “Do you really, Lal?”

“I do. Fane isn’t exactly an ogre, you know.” Lal smiled. “I shall be quite ready to give you away to him.”

“And glad, too, I expect: ungrateful boy that you are!” Angela released herself, and began with unsteady fingers to pull out her crushed curls. “Wait till you’re married yourself, and see how you like it!”

“I see no immediate prospect of that,” said Lal. “And now, does it not occur to you that we might go down to dinner?”

Angela slipped her hand through his arm, and so they descended the stairs. They made a handsome couple, though Lal looked quieter and lazier even than was his wont. On the last step, Angela came to a pause of dismay; she coloured crimson, snatched her hand from Lal’s arm, and fled into the drawing-room. Lal hesitated; he also changed colour; finally, he made a very formal little bow, and followed his sister without speaking. Dolly and Bernard had just been admitted to the hall.

“I guess that chap’s gone cracked!” said Bernard, sotto voce. But Dolly held her peace.

There were present at the dinner only the house party, the Laurensons and Mrs. Prideaux, besides Dr. Maude, whose faint, acidulated cynicism, said Ella Merton, was like a sauce piquante. The voice of justice told Dolly that she must let Lal know he was out of disgrace, but it did not say that she was bound to explain herself; and so, after smiling at him and taking his hand when they met in the drawing-room, she eschewed his society like the very plague. She set herself to behave nicely; she said little, and that little discreetly, and kept under the wing of her hostess. She was amused to see that Angela Laurenson was pursuing the same tactics, except that she had chosen Maud Prideaux for her house of defence.

Dolly went down with Norman Merton, and found herself placed at table between him and Lal. She gave Lal the view of a neck as white as milk, and a rich sweep of chestnut hair glossed with light like the roll of a stream at a weir; and she talked to her host all the evening. Merton was shrewd and pleasant, and had plenty to say. Twice Lal addressed her: to his first speech she gave a brief, cool answer over her shoulder; to the second she gave no answer at all. Lal did not repeat his words, nor did he again try to catch her attention. He turned quietly to his partner; he could afford to be patient because he was resolute.

Bernard also was content to be patient, but within reasonable limits, which he felt that Angela had overpassed; she wore his roses, but she had not given him a word that evening. His partner at dinner was Maud Prideaux; and, following that simple strategy which goes by the name of cheek, he took her into his confidence and besought her help. Maud was already pledged to Angela, but that did not hinder her from deserting to Bernard’s side. She was a born match-maker. As soon as the men came up after dinner she proposed a moonlight excursion to see the lake. Mrs. Merton sighed forth a rapturous assent, sent her husband for cloaks, and apostrophised the stars in an impromptu verse. A French window led out to a balcony, from which steps ran down to the garden. Mrs. Merton went first, to show the way; Angela, whose eyes were quite blind in the dusk, was a few steps behind. Maud Prideaux shot Bernard a mischievous glance of invitation, stooped down, and carefully tied up a bow which had not come undone. In an instant Angela found her chaperon’s place usurped by a tall figure, which bent down and said, in a moving whisper:

“I guess you’d better take my arm or you’ll tumble down the steps.”

This time Angela did not refuse; she laid her fingers on his sleeve with a queer, wild thrill of feeling, half pleasure and half fear. Bernard put his own hand over hers. “I’m no end glad,” he said, quite simply.

Then he led her, trusting to his guidance for every step, down a lonely, mossy path through a copse of trees: to Bernard’s eyes the darkness was clear as daylight. When they were as far from the moonlit lake as the size of the garden would permit, he began to talk.

“I expect you’re pretty shy of taking me, aren’t you?” he said, gently.

“Rather. I—I should be—always—whoever it was.”

“I suppose girls are made like that.” Bernard paused to contemplate the strangeness of feminine nature. “But what I mean is that you feel it’s specially risky taking me, because you and I are so different. Don’t you?”

Angela said nothing.

“Dolly was trying to lecture me about that this evening,” Bernard pursued. “She was saying you aren’t like her. Well, I should think anybody could see that who wasn’t an ass. Dolly could walk twenty miles and come up smiling, and I shouldn’t let you do more than about two. And it’s just the same with your feelings. You want looking after, and taking care of, and that sort of thing.”

“I’m used to taking care of myself, and Lal, too,” Angela pointed out.

“Well, of course, you won’t do that any more,” Bernard assured her, with calm authority. “Laurenson’ll have to shift for himself, he’s old enough; and I shall look after you. When we’re married, you know, I sha’n’t let you do the dairy work or any of the things Dolly does. We shall have to have another servant; but that won’t matter so much, as you’ve got some money of your own.”

“How do you know I have money of my own?”

“Mrs. Merton told Dolly you’d got eight hundred a year. Of course, one can’t put much faith in what she says, but there’s no smoke without a fire; so I guessed you had some. You have, haven’t you?”

“Mrs. Merton never exaggerates. I have what she said I had.”

“Have you really eight hundred a year? It’ll come in handy at Fanes.”

“I hope you didn’t ask me for my money,” Angela said, with a forlorn laugh.

“I shouldn’t be such a fool.”

“Why not?”

“I’d rather be comfortable than rich, any day. I wouldn’t saddle myself with a girl I didn’t like, not if she had ten thousand a year. I can’t stand rows. I suppose if it got too bad you could arrange a separation, but I’d sooner lose the money than have the bother of that. A man should keep his private affairs out of people’s mouths.”

“I’m glad you don’t think I shall make rows,” said Angela. “But why did you want me, then?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Bernard paused and meditated. “It wasn’t because of your money, nor yet because you were pretty; I know that. I only know, when I saw you that night, I felt like the chap in Tennyson. You know; he saw the girl at home in her oldest dress, looking no end shabby, and he just said to himself: _Here, by God’s rood, is the one maid for me._ Well, I said the same; I made up my mind I’d have you, right away.”

“Suppose I’d refused you?”

“I didn’t think you would, in the long-run.”

“Oh!”

“I don’t mean exactly that,” Bernard hastily added, feeling that he had not put the case quite prettily. “I mean that I had a kind of idea all along that you liked me, just as I liked you, directly we met.”

Under the leaves and the soft summer stars they paced the path together. It was so dark that Angela bent her head to avoid an empty shadow, and walked straight into the brush of soft leaves which an elm-tree drooped across the way. She stood still while Bernard freed her hair: expeditiously he did it, with no tender dallyings, and she was truly thankful. Angela was beginning to see what life would be to Bernard Fane’s wife. Stable as the English soil beneath their feet, temperate as this English summer night, with no tropic storms and no yawning earthquakes, so would his love be; the cupboards in his house held no skeletons. All Angela’s adventurous thoughts of freedom were coming home to shelter under a man’s protecting care. It was true that Bernard had developed a talent for saying what should not be said; but that Angela resentfully ascribed to Dolly’s interference. She saw herself darning her stalwart protector’s socks by the fireside. The picture was touching and beautiful. Yet—

“I hope you’ll like Fanes,” Bernard said, tucking her hand comfortably under his arm. “It’s all right now, but it’s a bit lonely in winter.”

“We might spend the winter in London.”

“There’s no one but me to see to things; I couldn’t get away.”

“Couldn’t you have a manager?”

“Managers aren’t to be trusted. If you want a thing well done, I guess you must do it yourself.”

“But do you propose to stay at Fanes all the year round?”

“No. You’ll want some sort of a holiday, of course. I dare say I could get away for a fortnight or so in January; things are pretty slack then.”

Angela was silent for a space; then she said, with some firmness: “I’m afraid I shall have to be a good deal away, then; I must be in London sometimes to attend meetings and look after the different societies in which I am interested. I shall ask Mrs. Prideaux to put me up; that is pleasanter than going to a hotel.”

“Do you mean, you go up without me?”

“As you can’t get away, I suppose I must.”

“I shouldn’t like that at all.”

“Why not?”

“It’s jolly bad for husband and wife not to be together. A woman’s place is with her husband. Besides, people are safe to talk, and that’s a thing I can’t stand. I guess I’ll have to come up with you when you’re obliged to go. I dare say you’ll chuck a good many of the things after we’re married; girls generally do.”

“Can’t you trust me in London alone?” Angela said, in a very quiet voice.

“No, I can’t—” Bernard was beginning, in all innocence, wishing to point out to Angela the perils of the London streets, where she had lived all her life, when she suddenly amazed him by withdrawing her hand very decidedly, and facing him in an unmistakably belligerent attitude.

“In that case, Mr. Fane,” she said, her voice trembling with indignation, “I think we had better part at once.”

“Why, Angela!”

“Don’t call me that, please. There are your flowers.” She cast the roses at his feet with a dramatic gesture. “Your idea of a wife seems to be a—a kind of carpet for you to walk on. You don’t know why you wanted to marry me; I’m sure I don’t know, either, since you say it was not for my money. You evidently don’t think I’m good for anything useful, and you’ve told me that I’m not ornamental. I’m not fit to do any of the things Dolly does; I’m not to walk two miles without your permission; I’m not to be trusted to go about in London at all, and you even expect me to give up the work I’ve been doing for years, and _can_ do! Thank you, Mr. Fane, the prospect is not sufficiently attractive. I must trouble you to look for a wife who is willing to fall in with your peculiar tastes. _I’m_ not!”

She turned her back and swept away, leaving Bernard staring. He ran after her and caught her up.

“Look here, Angela—”

“Let me alone at once!”

“But you don’t understand—”

“I understand quite enough. _You_ don’t understand how to behave.”

“Angela, I do love you.”

“I don’t love you, and I don’t want to!”

She broke away, and he let her go. For five minutes he stood quite still. Bernard had no lack of wits, and he now saw his mistakes quite plainly, the very mistakes against which Dolly had tried to warn him. It was the bitterest blow he had ever had in his life, and the minutes he spent there alone were primed with salutary reflections.

Angela, running out of the wood, came upon Maud Prideaux, who was enjoying a moonlight flirtation with Norman Merton.

“My dear child!”