Part 5

The tone was neutral, it was too dark to read faces, and the stranger said no more. In a minute he was calling upon Bernard to help him set the motor on its wheels again, and together they dragged it down into the road, Bernard doing most of the work, for the stranger’s strength was frail, like his physique.

“You’re not fit to go on,” were Bernard’s last words, as the stranger settled uneasily into his seat, with a tender consideration for all his bruises and cuts. But he got no answer save a smile and a wave of the hand. He waited till the car was out of sight, and then fetched Vronsky out of the field and drove home without further incident.

He found Dolly waiting in the warm, dark parlor, reading by firelight, her feet on the marble rim of the hearth, her face close to the flames, which glowed and reddened the ceiling and flickered in gold on her hair. She raised a flushed face from her book: an intent reader was Dolly.

“Where have you been? You’re late.”

Bernard told his story in detail.

“I wonder who he can be?” Dolly said, nursing her chin in her hand.

“He was an awfully plucky chap, whoever he was. I never saw anything neater than the way he turned that machine up the bank; he kept so jolly cool. And he made his head spin, too, I’d bet; he’d got a lump on his forehead the size of a seed-potato, but he never said a word about it. Yes, he was plucky. I like that sort.”

“Was he a gentleman?”

“Rather! A regular dude to look at; all his things were made in town, I guess.”

“And coming to stay with the Mertons. I do wonder who he is?”

“Nobody we shall ever know, anyhow.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” said Dolly, wisely. “I shall ask Mr. de Saumarez.”

Next morning Lucian came tapping at one of the less honourable doors of Fanes, and was bidden enter by a preoccupied voice. He found Dolly hard at work, with sleeves rolled to the shoulders; she was in the second dairy, but her occupation had no fellowship with butter, cream, or cheese. A cool, dark, and lofty chamber it was, the walls midway to the roof being covered with white glazed tiles, the floor with red. Waist-high stood out a broad white shelf, now piled with square frames of unpainted deal confining square panes of glass, upon one of which Dolly was spreading soft white pomade with a palette-knife. A bushel-basket half filled with violets stood beside her; the air reeked with the scent of them. Lucian’s curiosity found vent in the natural inquiry:

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” Dolly glanced round, straightened her shoulders, swept her basket to the floor, and exposed a three-legged milking-stool. “There’s a chair for you; you must not stand. I’m making scent.”

“How enthralling! Mayn’t I help?”

“Wait till you see how I do it,” quoth prudent Dolly.

Lucian unwound a yard and a half of comforter, deposited his mackintosh, umbrella, and goloshes, and sat down to watch, tucking his long legs under the stool, and tossing back his shaggy brown hair. Dolly spread the white paste thickly and evenly over the glass in two of the frames. Next she filled her hands with violets, decapitated the pretty blossoms, and sprinkled them broadcast on the pomade till the frame was full to the brim; she capped that frame with the second and pressed them close, so that they formed a box three inches deep, enclosing the violets between two layers of pomade; they were then ready to be put aside for the time being. She would not trust Lucian to spread the pomade, but she allowed him to behead the violets for her, and was grateful; for the quicker she was the fresher were the violets, and the more valuable the pomade made from them. Thrifty Dolly made a small income by her perfumes.

Her dress, between lavender and blue, just matched the blue chicory which borders August cornfields; and the cluster of violets which she had tucked into her bosom agreed with its color. She was bareheaded, and her hair glistened even in shadow like copper veined with gold. She was not thinking of herself, but of her violets, and Lucian’s eyes were fixed on her to the hindrance of his work.

“You’re leaving stalks on the flowers,” Dolly pointed out.

“I couldn’t help it. My eyes were all for you.”

“Don’t,” said Dolly, brusquely.

“It’s really the correct thing to say; besides, it’s the truth.”

“I don’t like it, from you. How is your cough?”

“Mayn’t I pay you compliments because I have a cough?”

“You may not; they don’t sound appropriate.”

“That’s very cruel of you. I think I shall go home.”

“No; wait till you’re rested. Do you know if the Mertons have a young man coming to stay with them soon?”

“A young man, lydy? What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. He nearly killed Bernard and Vronsky with his motor-car, and Bernard was immensely taken with him. He is young, in the army, stationed at Swanborough, a friend of the Mertons, and Bernard generally calls him the dude.”

Dolly’s curiosity was not to be satisfied yet. Lucian shook his head.

“Couldn’t say, my dear girl. There are any number of young officers at Swanborough, all as like as peas, and you can’t call it a distinction to run down Vronsky. If he _hadn’t_ done it, now—”

“I thought you might have known from the Mertons; you know Mrs. Merton, don’t you?”

“I used to, before she was married; I haven’t kept up with all her distinguished acquaintances since. Ah! There were days when she loved me dearly. Once when I was a sandwich-man she walked up and down Fleet Street with me for an hour. I was carrying the advertisements of ‘Woman—the Charmer,’ and I could hear everybody saying it was an object-lesson.”

Dolly had by this time heard a good many well-found anecdotes from Lucian, and had learned that his personal experiences were sometimes culled from another person’s past. “I don’t believe that,” she said, calmly.

“Well, anyhow, she gave me a penny once when I begged of her—fact!” said Lucian, unabashed.

“Where?”

“At a fancy ball where I went got up as a blind beggar; I was the success of the evening. She’s a right-down good sort, is little Ella Merton. You never told me how you got on when she called, by the way.”

“I think, pretty well,” said Dolly, doubtfully. “Fortunately, I saw the carriage driving down, and I sent Maggie to open the door, instead of going myself.” Maggie was a little black-eyed maiden of fourteen, who helped in the housework. “I had put fresh flowers in the parlour that very morning, and I was wearing this dress—now it is tumbled, but it was fresh then—”

“And you didn’t change it?”

“No, I did not; should I have?”

“No, you did quite right, Sweet Lavender. Well?”

“I went in, and we talked. She stayed for an hour. Part of that time I was out fetching tea; it seemed rude, but I explained to her that Maggie was not strong enough to carry the silver salver. I used the red-and-gold china that you like, and there were scones and flead-cakes, and I put out some apricots in syrup; but very little of each, not as Bernard likes them. I thought that must be right, because she ate less even than you do. Was it?”

Lucian was laughing without disguise as he commended her wisdom. “And what did you talk about?”

“I don’t quite know,” said Dolly, doubtful again. “She really does say such strange things. Bernard will have it that she’s crazy, but I think she’s only clever. I should imagine her conversation was all epigrams and paradoxes.”

“And what do you know about epigrams and paradoxes, pray?”

“Sometimes in reviewing society novels the newspapers give examples of the wit with which they literally coruscate. I can’t always follow them,” said Dolly, who was candour itself, even to her own hindrance, “but I suppose that is because I don’t understand the allusions. Mrs. Merton talks like them. Why do you laugh?”

“Mrs. Merton makes a point of talking sheer nonsense,” said Lucian, as soon as he could speak. “I sha’n’t send my novels to you for criticism. Something lingering, with boiling oil, is your idea of a mild review.”

“If I thought them silly I should say so,” said Dolly, calmly; “that is, if you wanted my opinion. But what ought I to do about Mrs. Merton’s call? I am sure there is something, if I only knew what?”

Lucian promptly furnished her with information concerning the social laws in good society. In all innocence, he gave her counsels likely to raise the hair on Mrs. Merton’s head if Dolly obeyed them. Many things Lucian could teach, but not propriety.

“But what’s the use of this? I thought you were going on the stage,” he said, breaking away. “You haven’t forgotten about it, have you?”

“No, I’ve not forgotten,” Dolly answered; and she put up her hand, which had just met his among the violets, perhaps to brush her hair back, and perhaps to conceal her face. “What do you think of Mr. Farquhar?” she asked.

“Oho!” said Lucian, after one second’s hesitation. “Well, he’s the best hand at a friendship I ever met. But why?”

Dolly vouchsafed no answer to this question. “I am glad you think so; you who know him so well,” she said, scattering her violets so carelessly that some of them fell to the floor. Lucian picked them up and coughed in stooping. “There! I have let you work too long. Sit; you must.”

Lucian found himself maternally condemned to the milking-stool. His face darkened as he sat down; one might have thought him angry, but the shadow passed over his face and was gone. “My dear girl, why do you inquire about Farquhar?” he said, quietly persistent. “And why do you couple his name with your future? Go on; you may as well tell me.”

Dolly hesitated. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said.

“Exactly so,” said Lucian. “Lord! I never thought of that! I am an owl.” And he fell into a brown-study.

Violets were clinging to Dolly’s fingers and her arms; one was even swinging in a tendril of hair above her temple. As she went to put the last frame in its place, she crossed the solitary sun-ray which shot through the deep, narrow window athwart the room, and was transfigured. Her very lashes shone like threads of gold.

“Let me do that,” said Lucian, taking the frame away. Dolly stood watching him, as a woman will do when work is taken out of her hands. The pile of frames was high by now, and Lucian was careless; they tottered, and threatened to fall.

“Take care!” exclaimed Dolly; and her hand shot out beside Lucian’s, to steady them. Round the curve of her bare arm twined a vein as blue as lazuli, winding inwards at the elbow, where a faint rose stained the clear milky alabaster. Lucian took it in the palm of his brown hand. “The loveliest thing I’ve seen in my life, Dolly,” he said, softly.

The frames might fall, now; Dolly bent up her arm so quickly that she almost shut in Lucian’s nose. The frames did not fall, however; for Lucian steadied them before he turned. A rose of indignation burned in Dolly’s cheek; she was drawing down her sleeve to hide the insulted arm from view.

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Lucian.

“I don’t allow liberties of that kind,” Dolly retorted.

“Candidly, it wasn’t a liberty. An indiscretion, if you will, but I meant what I said.”

“I think you had better go home.”

“I will, in a minute. But, look here; if you shouldn’t take Farquhar, would there be any chance for me?”

“You!” cried Dolly, her indignation changed to wide amazement. Lucian smiled.

“Now go and tell me that the words don’t sound appropriate from me,” he said, sweet-temperedly. “I’ll be shot if I don’t agree with you, too. They don’t. A poor, rickety, ill-digested ostrich like me has no business in this galley. All the same, I don’t believe in losing anything for want of asking. So if Farquhar by any chance doesn’t suit, remember you’ve got another beau on your string—will you, dear?”

But Dolly stood silent, fastening the links at her wrist and beating the tiles with her foot. Her virginal dignity had been ruffled, but she did not care for that now.

“I thought we were friends!” she said.

“Aren’t we?”

“Not if you are wanting this. How can we be?”

“All right, then, I _don’t_ want it. I guess I know my answer when I’ve got it.”

Dolly took her eyes off the ground and fixed them on his face, using all her powers of observation and deduction. He stood laughing, whimsical, insouciant, with his hands in his pockets, and defied them. But Dolly remembered that he had quoted her own words about his incapacity. “_Compliments don’t sound appropriate from you._” If they had not stung, they would have been forgotten. Dolly understood.

“I am sorry—I am sorry!” she exclaimed.

“My dear girl, don’t distress yourself. I’ve had at least twenty affairs before, to say nothing of being actually married.”

“Married!”

“All right, all right; I’ve no Italian wives up my sleeve. She’s been dead these nine years past. I merely wish to point out to you that my heartstrings take cement. Look here, I’m going to call you Dolly; do you mind?”

“Is it the proper thing?” began Dolly, her eyes dancing.

“Yes, my dear girl; say we’re cousins—we are, through Adam. Anyway, I’ll do the lying for you; I’m handy at it. Are you going to have old Farquhar?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t care for him?”

Dolly shook her head.

“That’s a pity. But he’s very keen on you?”

“How can I possibly tell? He’s not said so.”

“Don’t be coy; now don’t,” said Lucian. “I’m anxious to further your happiness. Then, I take it, he’s desperately smitten; h’m! he’ll be neither to hold nor to bind, I’m thinking.”

“I am sure this conversation is not at all the proper thing,” said Dolly, demurely.

“It’s not, like the holes in my elbows; you’re right there. But look here; what I want to say is this: There’s a heap of unregenerate wickedness in old Farquhar, as I reckon you’ve found out, but anybody he likes can lead him by the nose. I’ve heard him talk surprising bosh about his career, and the aims of his life, und so wieder; but I tell you he’d throw the whole cargo overboard to the sharks if it got in your way. You know what his arm’s like? Well, he’s got a mind made on the same pattern; and you, my dear, good girl, have got Samson in chains. And mind you don’t play Delilah, or there’ll be the etcetera to pay. That’s the truth for you.”

Dolly listened to this homily and did not commit herself. “I believe you really want me to marry him,” was her comment.

“I’d dance at the wedding with a light heart,” Lucian averred.

“That you should not; nothing could be worse for you.”

“Look here, I’ve had one mother,” said Lucian. “Be a sister for a change, now do.”

“I like looking after you.”

“So does Farquhar. Community of tastes—”

“Please, Mr. de Saumarez, will you go home? I’ve the dinner to lay.”

“Lunch, we call it in society.”

“I shall give you a dose of cod-liver oil if you don’t go.”

The threat was sufficient, and Lucian fled, forgetting his comforter and goloshes. Dolly swept the floor and washed the shelf and put all trim again. “I wish I loved him,” once she said, and offered to her coldness the tribute of a sigh.

* * * * *

The rejected suitor did not at once return to The Lilacs. He made a détour through the church-yard, and sat down to meditate appropriately among the tombs. Lucian could not, like his friend, claim the consolations of religion, for he was an agnostic. That is to say, he acknowledged that he did not know anything; he did not boast that he knew nothing. Like poor James Thomson, he thought, as he saw the spire ascending to the blue and open sky, that it would be sweet to enter in, to kneel and pray; the pride of unbelief was not his sin. It was a pity that he could not do it, because he had a natural gift for religion; and no one pretends that agnosticism, except that militant on a stump in Hyde Park, is a soul-satisfying creed.

VIII

“I HAVE THEE BY THE HANDS AND WILL NOT LET THEE GO”

That afternoon Dolly tied a handkerchief over her head and with Maggie’s help spring-cleaned the parlour, an operation which involved the brushing, clapping, and dusting of every separate volume on the shelves. She moved the furniture out into the hall, swept the floor with tea-leaves mixed with violets, and had everything tidy in time for tea at half-past five. A capable housewife was Dolly Fane. But after tea she left Maggie to wash up, under orders to be careful of the Worcester china which Lucian admired, and herself went out for a walk to rest herself.

Beyond the stream a hill rose steep and grassy, crossed by the hedge-rows and sentinel elms of a Kentish lane, still netted in autumn’s grey clematis, though violets blossomed thick below. Eglantine Lane was its local name; it was a lonely place, neglected by the parish council, and voluminously muddy. A satirical notice-board announced that the authorities would not be responsible for injuries sustained by persons using the unmetalled part of the road, and another sign at the top of the hill described it truthfully as Dangerous to Cyclists. Dolly, nevertheless, scaled it without loss of breath; she had been on her feet since six in the morning, but she knew no better how to feel tired than the unfortunate Hans how to shiver and shake. Near the top was a gate and a stile, and a view of a field which had broken out into a black small-pox of heaps that were presently to be strewn over the soil. Fish-manure: as Dolly had known a month ago at Fanes, any day when the wind was blowing from the east. These are the vernal scents of happy Kent.

Dolly climbed upon the post of the stile to look at the crops and congratulate herself that Bernard was a better farmer than his neighbours. Bernard worked with his men, and was to be seen in due season carting manure with the best of them; though, afterwards, Dolly forbade him the parlour and grudged him the house until he had bathed and changed. Example is better than precept, and Fane’s farm flourished while others declined; and Dolly, to whom Bernard was still the first man in the world, glowed with sympathetic triumph in watching his fruitful acres.

She presently witnessed a touching scene. At a stone’s-throw beyond the next bend stood a solitary cottage, and from the cottage came wandering a stray angel aged three, with blue eyes and golden curls and a brow of smutty pearl. The angel progressed erratically, chanting a ditty, and smiting the ground with a stick as tall as herself. So large a sceptre is awkward for handling, and it soon happened that it got between the angel’s fat legs and upset her in the mire. The ditty became an ululation. Dolly was trying to screw her recalcitrant sympathy up to the point of sympathizing when a fresh actor appeared. Round the corner spun a cyclist at full speed, who came within a hair of involving the angel and himself in one red ruin. A skilful rider, he skirted the edge of tragedy and passed safely by, but immediately jumped off his bicycle and went back to see what was wrong. He heard a perfectly unintelligible tale of woe, ruined his handkerchief by using it as a towel, consoled the angel with a penny, and sent her off with a kiss.

The last was too much for Dolly; she laughed.

“Ah! it’s you,” said Farquhar. He wheeled his bicycle to the bank and came and leaned against the gate. Something in his tone and his words, some threat in his manner (always the truthful index of his mood), prompted Dolly to say, in her chilliest tones:

“Are you going to stay?”

“I am.”

“Then I’ll go.”

She put one hand on the post to vault down. Farquhar took her wrists and forcibly stayed her. “No, you won’t; I want to talk to you.”

“Talk, then; I won’t answer you.”

“Will you answer if I let you go?”

Dolly thought for a minute and slowly answered, “Yes.”

“That’s right,” said Farquhar, releasing her. “I’ve been wanting to speak to you this month past. Why have you kept out of my way?”

“For the same reason that I’m speaking to you now: because I chose to.”

“Because you chose to—Dolly, I swear I never saw a woman to compare with you for beauty! Why don’t you ride? On horseback you’d be a queen.”

“I used to, but my horse got staked and had to be shot.”

“Were you on him?”

“I was; afterwards he was on me.”

“My God! I’m glad I didn’t see it.”

“I was not hurt; and why should it affect you if I had been?”

“Anything affects me that has to do with you. I’m in love with you; you know it.”

“How much?” inquired Dolly. He stood; she still sat on the gate, one foot swinging, and his face, thrown back to look up at her, fronted the sunset. Dolly felt like Fatima turning the little golden key, but she was at present mistress of the situation, and her spirits rose. “How much?” she said again.

“You want the whole fool’s catalogue? Hear, then: you’re heaven and earth and hell, sun and darkness, flower and dove and angel, light of my soul, fire in my veins—no! I’ll be hanged if those trashy similes will serve! I’ll tell you what you’re like: quick-lime in the eyes, vitriol on the naked flesh. See there!”—he pushed his sleeve up (Dolly, though her nerves were tolerably steady, uttered an exclamation)—“see those scars? I’ll tell you what they are—ants. I’ve been tied up to be eaten alive by them. You put it to yourself what that’s like. Well, I’d stand that all over again sooner than have you refuse me.”

That he was sincere and spoke the truth Dolly could not doubt, and he made her sick; she turned away her face. Farquhar dropped from passion to passionate entreaty, his voice sank to a murmur, he captured her hand and pressed it to his cold cheek. “Dolly, Dolly, give yourself to me, and I’ll make you love me; I swear it. You’re my only one, my own; I’d not snap my fingers to win a queen. I’ve never so much as kissed a woman before. You’ll never have a man say that to you again and tell the truth. And I’ll never change; don’t you make any error about that. What I say to-day I’ll say again in fifty years, when you’re old and ugly. Only come to me, Dolly; do come to me. Dolly, Dolly!” He was covering her palm with kisses; his lips were hot, though he was shivering, or rather shuddering. “If you’ll only come, I’ll make you love me,” he said, lifting his face; and the surprising strength of his passion made Dolly own that the boast was likely to prove true. She was moved. Bluebeard’s chamber was worth exploring; but she did not want to stay there.

“Well, I don’t love you, Mr. Farquhar,” she said, calmly. “I hate the way you talk, and I mean to be my own mistress awhile yet.”

“I’ll say no word that could hurt a child.”

“What’s the use of that? Your thoughts are all wrong.”

“I’ll keep my thoughts in as I keep my tongue.”

“No,” said Dolly, with mounting spirit.

Farquhar bent his head against her knee and breathed hard. When he looked up he was haggard. He was suffering there before her eyes, but hardily.

“I’ll not take that answer as final,” said he.

“It’s not meant to be. I want time to think.”

“Do you? I’ll have you yet.”

“Don’t be so sure. I’d far rather marry Mr. de Saumarez.”

“Has that miserable little etiolated pensioner of mine dared to come after you?”

“Don’t speak of my friend so, if you please.”

“Would you like me to go and beg his pardon? I’d do it, if you told me.”

Only the thought of Lucian’s disgust kept Dolly back from taking him at his word. “I like Mr. de Saumarez, and I don’t think I like you at all. But you can give me the position I want, and he can’t. I want time to think it over. Come to me three months hence, and I’ll tell you my decision.”

“Do you like love at second-hand? De Saumarez has carried his sweetheart’s letter against his heart for nine years, and she wasn’t you.”

“I’d like his love at tenth-hand better than yours,” said Dolly, with spirit.

Farquhar laughed grimly. “And there you’re wrong, my dear. I love you pretty decently well, though I’ll admit there’s a bit of the devil in me. You want me to wait three months? All right; only I warn you that my position and, consequently, your ambition’ll suffer.”

“Why?”