Part 15

Francis lay on his back staring into the darkness. His first impulse was to go up to Frederic's room and have it out with him there and then, but he could hardly do that without waking the woman sleeping at his side. Also he had made it a rule never to act in any difficulty without sleeping on it, or, at any rate, if sleep visited him not, without a night's cogitation. The trouble was that this new complication seemed to him so hideous that he hated to think of it. In the cause of morality, also for the sake of Jessie Clibran-Bell, he ought to denounce Frederic and fling him out neck and crop. But common sense bade him pause. What would be the result? A great deal of wretchedness and misery in two houses, and in all probability Frederic's utter ruin.

Already he was an accessory after the fact of Frederic's first dishonour. Could he become an aider and abettor of the second? Or, rather, having swallowed the first could he reasonably strain at the second? . . . He condemned himself for his weakness in palliating such an offence for the sake of peace. Then, rebounding from self-condemnation--(no man can keep it up for very long)--he told himself that it was not for the sake of peace but to save that poor girl from a drudging life with a man out of her own class. Then, in justice, he was forced to admit that the truth lay between the two.

His final conclusion, just as dawn began to outline the window, was that the world must be much less or more simple than he had thought. The effort of deciding which the world was entirely exhausted him, and sleep came at last.

In the morning he had a letter from his brother William, the first for fifteen years, announcing his return from India and settlement at Sydenham, near the Crystal Palace, where he would be glad to see Francis, his wife, or any of his children. How many were there? He, William, had two.

Francis handed it over to his wife just as Frederic came down.

"Aren't you going to congratulate Frederic, my dear?" asked Mrs. Folyat.

Frederic looked across at his father with malicious defiance in his eyes. Francis opened another letter and ignored the question. Mrs. Folyat returned to the charge.

"My dear, Frederic is to be congratulated."

"I am as delighted," replied Francis, "as Frederic is himself."

Frederic viciously sliced off the top of an egg. Mrs. Folyat seemed to be satisfied. She read William's letter.

"That will be very nice," she said. "Gertrude could stay with them on her way back from the Folkestone Folyats."

Frederic went to the door and bawled peevishly to Annette to bring his coffee.

"Annette," observed Francis, "is not a servant."

"I know," returned Frederic, "but I can't be late."

Annette appeared with Frederic's coffee. He gave her no thanks, and she returned to cook breakfast for Serge, Minna, and Gertrude. (Mary was away on a visit.)

"I think," said Francis, "I think Annette might be the first to stay with William."

"Annette!" Mrs. Folyat swept her out of consideration. "Annette! She has no clothes."

Frederic gulped down his coffee and hurried away.

"It will be time," said Mrs. Folyat, "it will be time to think of Annette when Gertrude and Mary and Minna are married."

"And suppose they never marry?"

"Of course they will marry."

Serge came down in Frederic's dressing-gown, and shortly afterwards Minna and Gertrude followed him.

"Any news?" asked Minna.

"My dear . . ."

Mrs. Folyat wriggled with excitement.

"My dear. What do you think? Frederic took me and Jessie to the pantomime last night; I thought it vulgar and most unsuitable for children. And what do you think? Frederic and Jessie are engaged."

"How clever of you, ma," said Minna.

"I! I was entirely taken by surprise."

Minna grinned:

"So was Wellington when he found he had won the battle of Waterloo."

Francis gathered up his letters and the daily paper, a Conservative organ, together with the _Church Times_, and turned to Serge.

"If you can give me a moment or two," he said, "I should like your opinion on a matter of some importance."

"Delighted," answered Serge.

Five minutes later Serge knocked at the study door, went in, and found his father at his desk writing a letter. Francis laid down his pen and turned.

"I want your opinion as a man of the world. I find myself in a situation with which I am not competent to deal, and yet I must deal with it."

"My experience is," said Serge, "that most problems solve themselves."

"This is a moral problem."

"Moral problems crumble away under the pressure of time more easily than any others."

Francis was not encouraged. However, he went on:

"Frederic . . ."

"Ah! I thought it must be about Frederic."

"Frederic has proposed to and been accepted by Jessie Clibran-Bell."

"A very estimable young woman, though she has no sense of humour."

"Frederic is also entangled . . ."

"With the daughter of a lodging-house keeper."

"You knew that?"

"Yes. I knew that."

"You can imagine then what pain and sorrow this must have caused me."

"Yes. It is always distressing to find fiction overturned by facts."

"You do not condemn Frederic?"

"It is surely one of the first principles of religion to condemn nobody."

"True. True. But one must not encourage immorality."

"Nothing encourages immorality so much as condemnation and prohibition."

"Is that how men of the world think of it?"

"I don't know. It is how I think of it."

Francis combed his fingers through his beard.

"Then . . . Then, what am I to do?"

"It seems to me that the difficulty has already solved itself. Miss Clibran-Bell is in love with Frederic. She will probably make him a good wife. Frederic could not possibly marry the other girl. It would destroy all her chances of marrying a man whom she could love, honour and respect . . ."

"But he has destroyed her chances."

"Not at all. She will be a soberer, a better and a more sympathetic woman after this experience, if she is helped through it and treated with decent human feeling . . . Frederic is finished as far as she is concerned."

"I told Frederic he must leave my house. I went back on it."

"That was just as well. It would have made my mother very unhappy and caused a bitter scandal in your parish. These things are nobody's affair until they are everybody's affair. The only sane course to pursue is to see that they do not become everybody's affair!"

"What do you suggest?"

"Do what you can for the girl and leave Frederic alone. No man can trifle with his emotions with impunity. That is natural law, Divine law if you like, infinitely more searching than your law of crime and punishment. The trouble with you people is that you think moral laws are a human invention. They're not. They are an inherent principle of the universe, and we are as subject to them as we are to the weather. This thing is Frederic's affair and his only. You and I know perfectly well that he won't look after the girl if he is left to himself, therefore you and I must interfere, for purely humane reasons, as you do with your parishioners, and as I do with any human trouble that I happen to come across. You can give the girl a few pounds to take her down into the country. She'll be much better there, and you can allow her, say, ten shillings a week until she gets work or marries."

"I was just writing to her," said Francis. "I wasn't sure whether it's right."

"Perhaps it isn't," replied Serge. "But at least it is practical."

"I am glad to have talked it over with you. Should I say anything to Frederic?"

"No. If you want to hurt him--though I don't see why you should--you will do so far more by simply ignoring him and taking the affair out of his hands."

"Thank you. I'll write to the young woman."

"If you like I'll find a place in the country for her."

"That will be good of you. Thank you."

This conversation with Serge relieved Francis enormously. He was like a man who, after long hesitation at a cross-road had followed one way for a mile or two, and then needed reassuring. He had already written half his letter to Annie Lipsett. He thoroughly enjoyed completing it.

Serge left him at it and found his mother waiting for him by the dining-room door. She said she wanted to speak to him, drew him into the room, and began to cross-examine him as to what his business might have been with Francis. He told her it was nothing of any importance, and then with a great deal of hesitation she came to her business.

"Don't you think Jessie is just the very wife for Frederic, Serge?"

"The usual remark that she is far too good for him seems to be peculiarly appropriate."

"Serge, does Frederic ever talk to you about himself?"

"Only in his more light-hearted moments."

There was a moment's hesitation on Mrs. Folyat's part. Then:

"Serge, there is an odious woman pursuing Frederic. She is threatening him. Has he told you?"

"No. But I know."

"Oh! Serge, please, please, can't you save him from her clutches? I have been so wretched about it. Don't let him marry her!"

"That," said Serge with gusto, "that he shall not do if I can help it."

"Oh! Serge, thank you. . . . Don't let Frederic know I told you, and don't say anything to your father. It would upset him so dreadfully."

"No. I won't say anything to either."

"Oh! Serge. I shall be grateful to you as long as I live. Why does Heaven allow such creatures . . . . ?"

"I must get to my work," said Serge. He kissed his mother and patted her shoulder, and stayed with her until she had dried her eyes and looked up at him with a watery smile.

Later in the morning, hearing Annette in the next room, he called to her, and when she came he asked her:

"Does mother read father's letters?"

"She reads any letters she can find. I don't think she can help it," said Annette, blushing for her own lapse.

"Wicked old woman," chuckled Serge. "Would you like a day in the country, one Saturday, Annette?"

"I should love it more than anything."

"You shall have it. You're the only person in this house who deserves well of the world, and to taste the sweetness of things. Possibly you're the only person who can."

"I would like," said Annette, "I would like to go to a river."

"So you shall, the very best river we can find."

"You're very good to me, Serge."

Annette was too busy to stay talking. Serge turned to his work and she strode away.

* * *

As Francis had promised, so it was done. Serge found rooms for Annie Lipsett in a not too dull village. Her mother's lodgers were told that she was run down and going away for a change, and would be away for three months. They received the intelligence with about as much interest as though they had been told that the ceilings needed whitewashing--as they did--and Annie went away. The only condition that had been made was that she should not write to Frederic. Her mother shed a great many tears, but promised to come and see her once a week and to be near her when her time came.

Frederic was received with open arms by his prospective father, mother and sisters-in-law. The Clibran-Bells and the Folyats joined in rejoicing over him, and he found himself doomed to slavery. He affected the attitude of the devoted swain, and every minute of his day, outside his working hours, was given to Jessie, her mother, her sisters, her father, her brother, her cat. He went nowhere alone with her. He went nowhere without her. . . . They were to be married as soon as he was earning three hundred a year. He looked ahead and saw no prospect of it. He became very envious of people who were happy.

XVIII

EXCURSION

_Enter these enchanted woods, You who dare!_ THE WOODS OF WESTERMAIN

MRS. FOLYAT had her way--as when did she not?--and it was Gertrude, equipped cap-à-pie with new clothes, who went to stay with her uncle William at Sydenham, near the Crystal Palace. Therefore she was not of the party which grew out of Serge's promise to take Annette into the country on a Saturday. Annette had been unable to keep this entrancing project to herself. Minna had half suggested, half demanded, that she should be of the party. To square the number Serge had asked Basil Haslam, and Minna out of coquetry had invited Herbert Fry, Frederic's quondam Plymouth comrade, who had turned up on legal business, which, moving slowly, had kept him many weeks, so that, to while away the tedious hours, he had resumed relations with her. He was still "Apollyon," had an air of great prosperity, flattered Mrs. Folyat up to the eyes, so that he was altogether in her good graces, and she entertained hopes of his carrying Minna back with him to London. (He had told Frederic, but not Mrs. Folyat nor Minna that he was married.) To pair with either Haslam or Fry, as the case might be, Mary was included, and, in compassion for his forlornness in the absence of his "old, old love," Bennett Lawrie.

Serge paid. Annette made up a great basket of provisions which Bennett Lawrie and Basil Haslam carried between them.

Less than an hour's journey took them to a great river where they hired two boats--a double-sculler and a dinghy. Basil Haslam tried to manoeuvre Minna into the dinghy, but could not detach her from her "Apollyon," and was forced to relinquish the little boat to Serge and Annette, who jumped into it while the rest were arguing, pushed off, and rowed away up stream, leaving them to follow in the bigger boat.

"Our party," said Serge, as he sent the little boat skimming over the water, while Annette dipped her fingers over the side and let the water gurgle up her arm.

"But I'm glad the others came," answered Annette. "That boy Lawrie looks so pale."

Serge made her take the rudder lines and taught her how to steer.

"How red your hands are getting," he said.

"It's the housework."

"What a shame!"

"Oh! I like it."

"Better than governessing?"

"Oh! much, much better. It's home, you see. And, of course, there's you. I often sit in your room when you're not there, and sometimes I look at the things. It must be wonderful to be able to--to draw."

"Now, why?"

"I don't quite know, only when you come to beautiful places like this it makes you want to--want to . . ."

"Well?"

"I don't quite know. . . . It's like growing . . ."

"That's quite good. I'd like to know what you think of me, Annette?"

"You're very puzzling. Sometimes I think you don't take anything seriously, but then I think it is because you are so different."

"How different?"

"Not like Frederic."

Out of the bank near them scuttled a vole, and along and into a hole under the roots of a willow. Annette watched him eagerly, and then returned to Serge, and said:

"Don't let's talk about Frederic. I am so happy."

Serge began to sing. He had very fine deep notes, but his voice failed him in the upper register, and whenever it cracked he laughed, and when he laughed Annette had to join in. He could never remember any song through to the end, and he invented the most absurd words. Then over a long stretch, as he rowed, he sang a melancholy canoe-song in a minor key that he had heard on the Zambesi. He sang it over and over again.

"I like that," said Annette. "Do you know, often when I'm in the kitchen I think I'm in a boat sailing away and away. It's like dreaming, only it goes on and on . . ."

"That's love."

"Is it? . . . That's nonsense. I'm not in love."

"Not _in_ love, my dear. But it's love all the same! Your little soul growing and expanding, trying to find an outlet, a channel that will lead it to warmth and the sun . . ."

"You make me feel unhappy when you talk like that."

"You're wiser than I am, Annette. You accept things where I think about them."

"We mustn't lose the others."

"We shan't lose them. They'll have to come on until they find us. If I thought that Fry was rowing I'd take him ten miles, but I'm pretty sure he isn't."

"You don't like him."

"No. Do you?"

"No. But he's very pleasant."

"You can admire what you don't like?"

"I like to admire people. When I'm working it's pleasant to remember the things they do and say, and the way they say them."

"So you're a pleased and uncritical audience of the doings in Fern Square?"

Annette dodged the question. She gave a long sigh, and said:

"I am enjoying myself; but I like best being alone with you. It's such a glorious day."

And then she began to tell him some of the stories she composed about him for Deedy Fender's benefit. When she had done she added:

"Of course, I never imagined anything like you."

"Are you disappointed?"

"Oh! no."

They came to a great wood growing down to the water's edge. Serge ran the boat into the bank and moored her. He filled his pipe and began to smoke, then lay back with his head on the little seat in the bows. Annette sat with her hands in her lap, and they basked in the hot sun and felt that it was very good. The birds were very merry in the trees. In the trees the wind whispered songs gathered from the sea only twenty miles away. Over all blazed the sun. Flies danced above the water. All was harmony and peace.

Round the bend of the river came the other boat. Bennett Lawrie and Basil Haslam were rowing. Mary was steering, and on each side of her were Minna and Herbert Fry.

Fry called out:

"You've led us a nice dance. It is an hour past lunch time."

Serge grinned and shouted pleasantly:

"All the better for eating, my dear."

The big boat bumped into the dinghy and moored alongside. The luncheon-basket was hauled out, and on the grass under the trees a cloth was spread. They sat round it, and for some time were silent until their hunger began to be appeased.

"At half-past three," said Serge, "I am going to bathe. Will you join me, Basil?"

Haslam assented.

"What about you, Lawrie?"

"I would like to, only I can't swim."

"You can bob up and down in the shallows."

"I don't think I will," said Bennett miserably.

"Some one," commented Minna, "must stay and look after us. You can't leave three sisters alone."

"Fry will protect you from each other," said Serge.

"Delighted," rejoined Herbert Fry, with a gallant glance at Minna.

Mary said:

"This pie is perfectly delicious, Annette. You certainly make pastry better than any of us."

"Mary's first remark to-day," said Minna, maliciously.

Mary, who had been most amiably disposed, relapsed into silence, then, feeling that she was damping the general cheerfulness, she made another effort and turned to Herbert Fry, and asked him:

"I suppose you find our town very dull after London."

Herbert Fry replied:

"Of course, you know, London is the only place to live in."

"It obviously isn't that," said Serge, "since there are millions of people who don't live in it, don't want to live in it, have never been there, and also many millions who have never heard of it."

Minna was startled.

"Hullo, Serge! You going to defend our horrid, dirty town?"

"It doesn't need me to do that. It is quite satisfied with itself. There is really something admirable about its hard, conceited pride. We don't really belong to it, being parasitic. If we did, we should be like the rest, blinding ourselves with a tragic vanity."

"Whether I'm a parasite or not," rejoined Minna, "I'm going to get out of it as soon as I can."

"So am I," said Haslam. "I'm going to London at the end of the year. I've only been there once, but it is a fine place, and no mistake."

"I've been there twice," said Minna. "Mary's been three times. Annette never. Have you been, Bennett?"

Bennett was rather taken aback at being drawn into the conversation. He was rather shy of Minna.

"No," he said. "I've never been to London. My father has been. I don't suppose I shall ever go. It's such a long way. It must be a wonderful place. I've read a lot about it."

"I don't think they have nearly such good music as we have here . . ." Mary had waited very patiently to produce the remark which had been in her mind when she first spoke. She did so with such a flourish that she brought the conversation to an end. Serge wound it up with:

"We didn't come into the country to talk of towns."

"No," said Minna. "We came to have lunch, and a very good lunch it has been."

She rose to her feet with a whimsical right-and-left glance at Haslam and Fry, as though she were hazarding which to take with her. Both sprang up together as she moved away, but Haslam was the quicker and reached her side first. They disappeared into the woods, and Fry returned sulkily to the rest of the party. Annette began to gather the plates, knives and forks to take them down to the water.

"Shall I help you?" said Serge.

"No, thank you. I think Bennett might, as he's the youngest."

Annette had been feeling very sorry for Bennett. He seemed so solitary, so much out of his element, so unable to cope with grown men like Serge and Basil and the lordly Londoner, Fry. He accepted her invitation with obvious relief, took her burden, and carried it down to the water's edge, under a willow trailing its leaves in the water.

Herbert Fry offered his escort to Mary, and she acquiesced, bridling.

Serge was left alone. He lay on his back and gazed up at the sky--blue, serene, cheering, and comforting. His body relaxed, and he gave himself up to the sweetness of the day's mood, not without a final drowsy reflection:

"If such a moment of contentment as this is the highest good, and, since it can be procured at the cost of a little physical labour rewarded by a solid meal, what's the good of all the rest? The answer to that is that one cannot live alone. What a day for love-making!" He laughed. "Everything leads back to that."

He thought of Herbert Fry fobbed off with Mary, and he chuckled. Then he thought of Bennett Lawrie and Annette together by the water. He raised himself up. He could not see them, but he could hear their voices.

"What a day!" he said again, and added "for love-making."

* * *

Down by the river Annette and Bennett were at first very shy of each other. In silence she handed him the plates, and he dipped them in the water and handed them back to her and she dried them; then the forks, and when they came to the knives, Bennett thought:

"Why can't I say something?"

And Annette thought:

"Why can't I say something?"

She looked out along the shining river, slow-moving under its green banks; never a house, never a boat in sight, and Bennett was bending down entirely engrossed in his occupation. It was his air of complete absorption in everything he did and said (though he never did and never said anything remarkable) that interested her and made her want to know more of him.

At last, when they had finished, very timidly she asked him:

"Are you going to be a clergyman?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Oh! I'm sorry!" She remembered very vividly his earnestness in her father's study.

"It costs too much money, you know. And my mother doesn't believe in me. It wouldn't be any good if she did, because there isn't any money."

Annette could only say again:

"I'm sorry."

Instead of moving away, she sat down on the bank, and Bennett knelt quite near her. Seeking to explain away her desire to stay, she said:

"It's so lovely here."

"It's not so beautiful as Scotland."

"Or Westmoreland."

"Have you been to Scotland?"

"I was at school in Edinburgh."

"My father comes from Scotland."

They exchanged the histories of their respective fathers. His was a mournful tale of a gradual descent into poverty, and he ended:

"I suppose I shall be a clerk all my life, unless I run away and become an actor."

"An actor?"

"Yes. I should go to London. I might starve in the beginning, but I'd be a great man in the end. I'd play Shakespeare. Don't you love Shakespeare?"

"I've never read any of his plays."

"I'd like to read you some. I know some of the speeches by heart."