Part 23

This sudden apprehension of a tremendous historical fact was rather disconcerting in the way it brought home to him the uselessness of all the information that he had for years absorbed without any real response of recognition. It brought home to him how much he would have to discover for himself and appalled him with the mockery it made of his confidence hitherto. How if all those poems he had written were merely external emotion like his conception of religion until this moment? He really hoped the manuscript would come back this evening from whatever publisher had last eyed it disdainfully, so that in the light of this revelation of his youthfulness he could judge his life's achievement afresh. It was indeed frightening that in one moment all his comfortable standards could be struck away from beneath his feet, for if an outburst of jealousy on account of a priest's interference could suddenly reshape his conception of history, what fundamental changes in his conception of art might not be waiting for him a little way ahead?

The spectacle of Pauline's simple creed had hitherto pleasantly affected his senses; and she had taken her place with the heroines of romantic poets and painters. It had been pleasant to murmur:

Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars:

and to compare himself with the lover of The Blessed Damozel had been a luxurious melancholy. Pauline and he had worshiped together in chapels of Lyonesse, where, if he had knelt beside her with a rather tender condescension towards her prayers, he had always been moved sincerely by the decorative appeal they made to him. He had felt a sentimental awe of her hushed approach to the altar, and he had derived a kind of sentimental satisfaction from the perfection of her attitude, perhaps, even more, he had placed upon it a sentimental reliance. Her faith had been the decorative adjunct of a great deal of his verse, and he flushed hotly to remember lines that now appeared as damnable insincerities with which he had allowed his pen to play. All that piety of hers he had sung so prettily was real and possessed an intrinsic power to injure him, so that what he had patronized and encouraged could rise up and pit itself deliberately against him. Pauline actually believed in her religion, believed in it to the extent of dishonoring their love to appease the mumbo-jumbo. That something so monstrously inexistent could have any such power was barely comprehensible, and yet here he was faced with what easily might prove to be a force powerful enough to annihilate their love. He remembered how in reading of Christina Rossetti's renunciation of a lover who did not believe as she believed, he had thought of the incident as a poet's exaggeration. And it might well have happened. Now, indeed, he could see why she was so much the greatest poetess of them all; her faith had been real. Lines from that Sonnet of sonnets came back to him, broken lines but full of dread:

I love ... God the most; Would lose not Him but you, must one be lost:

And if Pauline should speak so to him, if Pauline should disown him at the bidding of her phantom gods? How the thought swept into oblivion all his pitiful achievement, all his fretful emotions set down in rhyme. Either he must convince her that she was affrighted by vain fancies or he must bow before this reality of belief and seek humbly the truth where she discovered it. Yet if he took that course it held no pledge of faith for him. Shamefacedly and scarcely able to bear even the thorn-tree's presence, Guy knelt down and prayed that he might be given Pauline's single heart. The song of the innumerable larks rose into the crystalline, but all the prayers tumbled down from that stuffy pavilion of sky. The moment that the first emotional aspiration was thus defeated Guy was only conscious of his lapse into superstition, and, furious with the surrender, he went walking over the downs in a determination to shake Pauline's faith at whatever the cost temporarily to the beautiful appearance of their love.

He wrote that evening in a fine frenzy of declamation against God, affirming in his verse the rights of man; but on reading the lines through next morning they seemed like the first vapors of adolescence; and when he turned for consolation to Shelley he found that even a great poet's rage on behalf of man against God was often turgid enough. It was, however, a hopeful sign that he could still perceive what puddles these aerial fountains of song often left behind them, and he was glad to find that not all the value of critical experience had been destroyed by the imperative need to readjust his values of reality.

Birdwood brought a note from Pauline just when Guy had burned his effusion of the night before and come to the conclusion that as a polemical and atheistic rhymester he was of the very poorest quality.

The gardener was inclined to be chatty, and when the weather and the dowers in season had been discussed at length, he observed that Miss Pauline was not looking so well as she ought to look.

"You'll have to speak to her about it, Mr. Hazlenut."

Birdwood had never learned to give Guy his proper name, and there had been many jokes between him and Pauline about this, and many vows by Guy that one day he would address the gardener as Birdseed. How far away such foolish little jokes were seeming now.

"It's been a tiring Spring," said Guy. "The east wind...."

"Her cheeks isn't nothing like so rosy as they was," said the gardener. "You'll excuse the liberty I'm taking in mentioning them, but having known Miss Pauline since she couldn't walk.... Why I happen to mention it is that there was a certain somebody up in the town who passed the remark to me and, I having to give him a piece of my mind pretty sharp on account of him talking so free, it sort of stuck in my memory and.... You don't think she's middling?"

"Oh no, I think she's quite well," said Guy.

"Well, as long as you aren't worrited, I don't suppose I've got any call to be worrited; only any one can't help it a bit when they see witches' cheeks on a young lady. She certainly does look middling, but maybe, as you say, it is this unnatural east wind."

Birdwood touched his cap and retired, but his words had struck at Guy remorsefully while he walked away to a corner of the orchard reading Pauline's letter. The starlings were piping a sweet monotony of Spring, and daffodils, that he and she had planted last Summer when they came back from Ladingford, haunted his path.

MY DARLING,--Why haven't you been to see me this morning? Why weren't you in the orchard? I stayed such a long while in the churchyard, but you never came. If I said anything yesterday that hurt your feelings, forgive me. You mustn't think that I was angry with you because perhaps I spoke angrily. Darling, darling Guy, I adore you so, and nothing else but you matters to my happiness. I should not have spoken about religion-- I don't know how we came to argue about it. It was unkind of me to be depressed and sad when my dearest was sad. Truly, truly I am so anxious about your poems only because I want you to be happy. Sometimes I must seem selfish, but you know that before anything it is your work I think of. I'm not really a bit worried about our being married. I have these fits of depression which are really very wrong. I'm not worried about anything really, only I had a dream about you last month which frightened me. Oh, Guy, come this afternoon and tell me you're not angry. I promise you that I won't make you miserable with my stupid depression. Guy, if I could only tell you how I love you. If you only knew how never, never for an instant do I care for anything but your happiness. You don't really want me to give up believing in anything, do you? It doesn't really make you angry, does it? Come and tell me this afternoon that you've forgiven

Your PAULINE.

I love you. I love you.

Gently the daffodils swayed in this light breeze of dying March, and the grass was already tall enough to sigh forth its transitory Summer tune. Guy, in a flood of penitence, hastened at once to the Rectory to accuse himself to Pauline, and when he saw her watching for him at the nursery window he had no regrets that could stab to wound him as deeply as he deserved to be wounded. She was very tender and still that afternoon, and as he held her in his arms there seemed to him nothing more worth while in life than her cherishing. For them sitting in that nursery the hours swung lazily to and fro in felicity, and all the time there was nobody to disturb the reconciliation. They talked only of the future and allowed recent despairs and foreboding agitations to slink away disgraced. Janet, coming to take away the tea-things, beamed at their happiness and through a filigree of bare jasmine twigs the slanting sun touched with new life the faded wall-paper, opening wider, it seemed, the daisies' eyes, mellowing the berries, and tinting the birds with brighter plumes for their immutable and immemorial courtship.

Plunged deep in such a peace, Guy, prompted by damnable discord, asked idly what had been that dream of which Pauline had spoken in her letter. She was unwilling for a long while to tell him, but he, spurred on by mischief itself, persuaded her in the end, and she recounted that experience of waking to find herself prone upon the floor of her room.

"No wonder you're looking pale," he exclaimed. "Now you see the result of exciting yourself unnecessarily."

"But it was so vivid," she protested, "and really the light was blinding, and it thought so terribly all the time."

"I shall think very terribly that you've been reading some spiritualistic rot in a novel," said Guy, "if you talk like that. Your religion may be true, but I'm quite sure these conjuring tricks of your fancy are a sign of hysteria. And this poor speck that was me? How did you know it was me if it was a speck? Did that think, too? My foolish Pauline, you encouraged your morbid ideas when you were awake, and when you were asleep you paid the penalty."

She had gone away from him and was standing by the window.

"Guy, if you talk like that, it means you don't really love me. It means you have no sympathy, that you're cold and cruel and cynical."

He sighed with elaborate compassion for her state of mind.

"And what else? I wonder how you ever managed to fall in love with me."

"Sometimes I wonder, too," she said, slowly.

He turned quickly and went out of the room.

Guy regretted before he was half-way down the passage what he had done, but he steeled himself against going back by persuading himself that Pauline's hysteria must be remorselessly checked. All the way back to Plashers Mead he had excuses for his behavior, and all the way he was wondering if he had done right. Supposing that she were to persist in this exaggeration of everything, who could say into what extravagance of attitude she might not find herself driven? Rage seized him against this malady that was sapping the foundations of their love, and all his affection for her was obscured in the contemplation of that overwrought Pauline who sacrificed herself to baseless doubts and alarms. If he once admitted her right to dream ridiculously about him, he would be encouraging her upon the road to madness. Had she not already fondled the notion of going mad, just as she would often fondle the picture of himself as the heroine of an unhappy love-affair? If he were severe now, she would surely come to see the absurdity of these religious fears, this heart-searching and morbid sensitiveness. It was curious that he was able to keep his idea of Pauline herself quite apart from Pauline as the subject of nervous depression. He was practically ascribing to her a double personality, so distinct were this two views of her in his mind. When he got home he found the manuscript had been sent back by a seventh publisher, and on top of the packet lay a letter from his friend Comeragh.

420 BROOK STREET, W.

DEAR GUY,--Sir George Gascony asked me to-day if I knew of some one who would suit him as private secretary. He's going out to Persia next month. I told him about you. Come up to town and meet him. He's dining here on Thursday. I'm certain you can have the job.

Yours ever, COMERAGH.

At first the letter only presented itself to his imagination as an easy way of punishing Pauline's hysteria. It seemed to him the very weapon that was wanted to "give her a lesson," and after dinner he went across to the Rectory and announced his news in front of everybody, asking everybody if they did not think he ought to go, and talking enthusiastically of Oriental adventure until quite late. He sternly refused to allow himself a moment alone with Pauline in which to talk over the plan; and, even when they were left alone together in the hall, he kissed her good night hurriedly and silently and rather guiltily.

When Guy was back at home and thought about his behavior, he began to wonder if he had committed himself to Persia too finally. The prospect, except so far as it would affect Pauline, had not really sunk into his mind yet, but now as he read the letter over he began to think that he really would like to go. It might mean a separation of two years, but it would reconcile him to his father, and it would assure his marriage at the end of the time. Persia might easily be almost as interesting as it sounded, and how remote from debts looked Bagdad. If last year he had been able practically to settle to be a schoolmaster, how much more easily could this resolution be taken. Dreamily he let his imagination play round the notion of Persia, dreamily and rather pleasantly it would solve so many difficulties, and it held the promise of so much active romance.

Next morning Mrs. Grey sent round to ask if Guy would come to lunch early enough to have a talk with her first.

"Yes ... charming.... I really wanted us to have a little talk together," she said in nervous welcome as she led the way to her own sitting-room, that with its red lacquer and its screen painted with birds-of-paradise hid itself away in a corner of the house. Ordinarily Guy would have accepted it as a sign of the highest favor to be brought to her small room, but this morning it seemed to imprison him.

"Yes ... charming ... a little talk," said Mrs. Grey; and Guy, while he waited for her to begin, watched the mandarins that moved in absurd reduplications all about her arm-chair's faded green pattern.

"Of course it was rather a surprise to us all last night ... yes.... I expect it was a surprise to you. And you really think you ought to go?"

"I'm getting rather discouraged about poetry," Guy confessed. "I'm beginning to think that what I've written isn't much good, and that if I am ever going to write anything worth while it will be because I've learned to be less self-conscious about it. If I went to Persia with Sir George Gascony I should probably be kept fairly busy, and if there was any poetry left in me after that, well, it might be good stuff."

"But you've not seen yet what people think of what you have written ... no ... you see, the poems haven't been published yet, which is very vexing ... and so I thought.... I mean the Rector thought that if there was any difficulty he would like to help you to publish them ... yes ... rather than go away to Persia ... you know ... yes ... poor little Pauline was crying nearly all night, and I don't think you ought to go away suddenly like this ... no ... and we couldn't find an atlas anywhere!"

"You think I ought not to go?" said Guy, and he realized as he spoke that he was disappointed.

"I do think that after all these months of hoping for your poems to be a success you ought at least to try them first, and then afterwards we can talk about Persia. I'm afraid you think I've been too strict about Pauline ... perhaps I have ... yes ... and so I think that now Spring is here you can go out every day ... yes ... charming ... now that the weather is getting better...."

But now every day, thought Guy, bitterly, there would be recriminations between them.

"Of course if you think I ought not to go, I won't," he said. "I'll write to Comeragh and refuse."

"I'm sure you're glad, aren't you?"

"Oh, rather."

"We all understood why you thought you ought to go, and now I've another plan ... yes ... charming.... I'm going to send Pauline away for a month ... with Miss Verney ... yes ... charming, charming plan ... and you must make arrangements at once about your poems ... and then perhaps you could give them to Pauline for her birthday...."

"But I don't think the Rector ought to pay for them," Guy objected.

"The Rector wants to pay for them. But, of course, he won't say anything about it, and you will have to make the arrangements yourself."

"You're all so good to me, and I feel such a fraud," said Guy.

"You'd better make arrangements with the man you sent them to first ... and Pauline needn't know anything about it ... and I sha'n't say I've persuaded you not to go to China ... or else she will be worried ... she's looking rather pale.... I think two or three weeks by the seaside ... Lyme Regis perhaps or Cromer ... Lyme Regis, I think, because the trains to Folkstone have been torn out ... yes ... charming, charming."

After lunch Guy told Pauline in the garden that he had decided not to accept the post he had been offered, and she was so obviously overjoyed at his decision that he no longer had the heart to feel the slightest disappointment.

"Guy, I've been so stupid," she told him. "I've depressed you without any reason, but I will come back from Scarborough quite well."

Guy began to laugh.

"Oh, why are you laughing?"

"Dearest, because I cannot make out where you really are going."

"Scarborough, because Miss Verney has chosen Scarborough."

They talked for a while of the letters that each would write to the other, and of what a Summer should follow that short parting, when every day they would be together and when perhaps even such days as those at Ladingford might come again.

"And you won't worry about anything all this time you're away?" Guy asked.

"I won't, indeed I won't."

Guy went home to find a telegram from Comeragh saying that Sir George Gascony had got appendicitis and would not be going to Persia for a month or two at least. Yet he did not mention this telegram at the Rectory when next day he came to say good-by to Pauline, because he was anxious to preserve the idea of his having vainly attempted to do something, and when he sat alone in his orchard the same afternoon, he had an emotion of something very near to relief that for a while there would be no more heart-searchings and stress, no more misgivings and reproaches and despairs. He was perfectly happy, sitting by himself in the orchard and staring at the blackthorn by the margin of the stream.

APRIL

Miss Verney was so droll at Scarborough and enjoyed herself so much, that Pauline in her pleasure at the success of what the old maid called their "jaunt" really was able to put aside for the present her own perplexities. The sands were empty at this season, and the Spa unpopulous except for a few residents. The wind blew inland from a sparkling sea, while Miss Verney, with bonnet all awry, sitting in a draughty shelter, declared that somehow like this she pictured the Riviera; and when the weather was too bad even for Miss Verney's azure dreams, Pauline and she sat cozily among the tropic shells and Berlin wool of their lodgings. Long letters used to come every day from Guy, and long letters had to be written by Pauline to him; while perpetually Miss Verney tinkled on with marine tales that, if no doubt nautically inaccurate, had nevertheless a fine flavor of salt water.

"I remember I was sitting in the parlor window at Southsea when a regiment.... I remember a captain in the Royal Marines.... I remember how anxious my father was that I should have been a boy."

"Oh, dear Miss Verney, you can't remember that."

"Oh yes, he invariably spoke of me as the Midshipman, I remember. I would then have been about eight years of age.... Pray give my very kind regards to Mr. Guy and say how well we are both looking, and what a benefit this fine air is, to be sure, and don't forget our little expedition to the theater. You must tell Mr. Guy the story of the piece. He will certainly enjoy hearing about that very nice-mannered convict who.... Ah dear! how my poor father used to revel in the play."

Miss Verney's conversation scarcely ever stopped, and while Pauline was writing letters it was always particularly brisk, but she used to enjoy the accompaniment as she would have enjoyed the twittering of a bird. It seemed to inspire her letters with the equable gaiety that Guy was so glad to think was coming back to her. His own letters were invariably cheerful, and Pauline began to count the days to the time when she would see him again. Easter had gone by, and the weather was so steadily fine that it was a pity not to be together. He wrote of primroses awaiting her footsteps in the forest, of blue dog-violets and cowslips in the hollows of Wychford down, of all the birds that were now arrived in England, of the cuckoo's first call, and of the first swallow seen.

Come back soon, my own, my sweet [he wrote]. Come back and let this Winter be all forgotten. I climbed up to the top of the church tower to-day, and oh, the tulips in your garden, and oh, the emptiness of that garden notwithstanding! Come back, my Pauline, for you'll see the iris buds in the paddock and you've no idea of the way in which that river of ours sparkles on these April mornings. I wish I could tell you how remote this Winter already has grown. It has crept out of memory like a dejected nightmare at breakfast. You are never to think again about the stupid things I've said about religion: think only, my dearest, that I hope always for your faith. It would be dishonest of me to say that I believe now exactly as you believe, but I want to believe like that. Perhaps I'm illogical in writing this: perhaps all the time I do believe. Forget too what I said about Confession. I would almost go myself to prove my penitence (to you!), but I just can't bring myself to do that, because for me it really would be useless and would turn me against everything you count as holy. Forget all that has cast a shadow on our love. Count it all as my heedlessness and be confident that I alone was to blame. I would write more, but letters are such impossible things for intimacy. Some people can pour out their souls on paper: I can't. That's really what my poems suffer from. I have been working at them again since you were away, and they have a kind of coldness, a sort of awkward youthful reserve. Perhaps that's better than youthful exuberance, and yet I don't know. One can prune the too prodigal growth, but one can't always be sure of having the prodigality when one has the maturity. The metaphors seem to be getting rather tied up, and you must be bored by now with my chattering criticism.