Part 18

Accordingly one Saturday he resolved to take the ten shillings himself instead of sending them by post. Annie Lipsett was staying in a farm labourer's cottage near a village some fifteen miles away to the south. It was a keen autumn day when Francis walked along the lanes between hedges aflame with hips and haws and red blackberry leaves, and green with holly berries, and he asked himself why he did not devote every Saturday afternoon to a walk in the country. The cold air filled his lungs and the wind blew in his beard and brought the colour to his round cheeks. The trees were burning with colour, the sun shone scarcely warm through the soft mist that lay over the country-side. . . . Decidedly, he must often take such walks and bring Annette. How she would love the orchards, glowing with red apples and plums, and yellow with pears, and the cows and the green fields and the little rivers. Annette would love them all. They would make a habit of it, every Saturday, and they would see all the seasons come and live and pass.

As he approached the cottage where Annie Lipsett was staying he felt less interested in the state of her mind and more concerned to see herself and discover how she was keeping in health. Health, he thought, was most important, perhaps more important than anything else. "Grant us in health and wealth long to live." He recited the words aloud, and his mind commented that wealth meant well-being, not a fine house and raiment and a substantial account at the bankers. That struck him with all the force of an original discovery, and he began to think that his life was not perhaps such a complete failure as he had grown used to thinking it. His arrival at the gate of the cottage cut short his speculations, and he wrenched himself back to the problem immediately before him, the bringing of this sinful soul to repentance. Yes; he must make her see that her sins would only be forgiven her on condition of full repentance. He felt fully convinced of it in that moment, and did his best to make himself feel miserable in spite of the invitation to happiness extended to him by the little grass path leading up to the door of the white cottage, and the Michaelmas daisies and autumn lilies and purple asters growing in the borders and the heavily laden fruit trees in the tiny orchard.

He walked up the grass path and knocked at the low oaken door. In the house he heard a bustling and a rustling, and presently the door was opened to him by the woman of the house. She was enormously fat, red-faced and comely. She said:

"Tha can coom in. Annie be oot in't fields gatherin' noots. Tha'll be Mr. Folyat. Tha's a gradely mon. Coom in."

Francis followed her into the little low oak-beamed room, spick and span and clean as a new pin. There was a picture of Queen Victoria on the walls, five texts, and a grocer's almanac, horribly reproducing in oleographic colour a pre-Raphaelite picture of Christ knocking at a door. The woman, Mrs. Entwistle, brewed a pot of tea and chattered:

"She be that well, tha'd think she were going to make no more fuss than a beast. Eeh! The way t' bloom 'ave coom to her cheeks and 't light to 'er eyes ye'd say a woman was all t' better for carryin'. . . ."

Francis began to take the same delight in the enormous woman that had come to him from the sights of his walk. She was so sane and comfortable.

"Eeh," she said, "It was a good thing to get 'er away from 'er mother. I never could do wi' them stringy little women. A 'ard time? 'Course she's 'ad a 'ard time. So's everybody, but you don't want the world to go grizzlin about it."

Annie came in. She was very pretty, with a new soft pride in her eyes. She was very big. She took Francis's hand and clung to it, and with eyes and voice together she said:

"Thank you."

"Glad to see you, my dear," said he. "Glad to see you looking so well."

She sat down. They had tea, and when they had done Francis intimated that he wished to speak to Annie alone. Mrs. Entwistle took down a yoke from the wall and went off to fetch water from the well. Francis hugged his knee and read several times over a text which ran: "Beloved now are we, the sons of God." It was so illuminated that it was difficult to read: _we_ looked like _me_, and _sons_ like _guns_. Then he asked if he might smoke.

"Surely," said Annie.

Francis lit his pipe and the tobacco tasted very good.

"You have been happy here," he said.

"Oh, yes. Very happy."

"I've brought you your ten shillings."

"Thank you."

He gave her the coin and she put it in a little purse. Francis found himself at a standstill. He forced himself to speak. He was alarmed at the quiescence of his conscience under the influence of Mrs. Entwistle and the garden and the radiant thankfulness in Annie's face. Her gratitude to him made it very difficult for him to perform what he conceived to be his duty. A humorous gleam shot through his brain, and he began to think himself a little absurd; but he pricked his conscience and it stifled the gleam. He looked very serious as he said:

"I suppose--I hope you realise that you have no right to be happy. You are bringing a child into the world in sin . . ."

He could not go on. He saw that he had hurt the girl to the quick.

"I'm sorry," he said hurriedly. "It is very difficult. I only wanted to be sure that you realised, that you knew, that--that . . ."

With bowed head and with her hands in her lap, Annie said in a low voice:

"I do know all that, sir. I thought that myself, sir, when I first come. Every night I cried because I was so wicked, and I thought I should never be forgiven, and mother had said such awful things to me. But Mr. Folyat came . . ."

"Frederic?"

"No, sir, Mr. Serge. He comes every Saturday. He paints all the afternoon and then comes here in the evening. Sometimes he walks a great many miles. He come and said I must never have any thought in my head that wasn't happy, that I must never for a single instant let myself be afraid, for the sake of the child. He said everything that happened to me happened to the child too. And I've tried and I have been happy, so I know it's true. He says: 'What's done is done, and people aren't wicked all the time or good all the time.' I don't understand everything he says, but I always feel better when he comes, and I don't think of anything but it. I want it to love me . . ."

"Of course, of course," said Francis. "It is very important for you to be well, but you must not imagine . . ."

"I couldn't take money from you, sir, if you thought me wicked. I have been wicked, but I'm not wicked any longer. I couldn't do--what I did, ever again. I couldn't be so silly . . ."

Francis thought to himself: "I must make her appreciate the peril through which her soul has passed. . . . She seems to be leaving her soul out of consideration altogether. I must make her see that she has a soul and can only find true happiness in its salvation through . . ." Once more he drew back from the contemplation of difficulties which he felt were too intricate for him. He said:

"My dear, be sure I think no ill of you. I only desired, my only thought was . . . is . . . has been to secure you as far as possible from the temporal consequences of your--er--betrayal." He breathed heavily. Then he fell back on his natural candour and added: "I came meaning to say a great deal, but I find that I have nothing to say. I find it quite impossible to take a professional view of your situation. You must forgive me. I cannot help feeling that I have been guilty of an impertinence."

Annie still hung her head and plucked at her fingers. She looked at the clock and said:

"Mr. Serge ought to be here now, sir. He's generally here before this. There aren't many gentlemen like Mr. Serge, are there, sir?"

"I hardly know," replied Francis. "I hardly know, but my experience of the world has been very limited. . . . Do you tend the garden yourself?"

"Yes, sir. I help Mrs. Entwistle. I've learned such a lot about the garden since I've been here."

"I had a garden, once, in my old living." He described the garden at St. Withans, and the exercise of visualising the lawns and borders and the orchard under the church-tower and waking the faint echo of his old joy in it won him back to greater confidence. He talked of flowers and bees and birds until there came a knock at the door, when, with joyful alacrity, Annie hurried to open it. Serge came in with paint-box and sketch-book strapped together and slung over his shoulder. He nodded to his father and sat down by the table. Annie brewed him fresh tea and he said:

"Jolly place this?"

"Delightful," replied Francis.

"Don't you think she's looking well?"

"Very. I should hardly have known her again."

"She's in good hands. Mrs. Entwistle has taken her to her heart--me too, and if you come often enough she'll find room for you. It's delightfully warm and comfortable and roomy. I never knew such a heart. You meet all sorts of delightful people in it, all the nicest people in the Bible, and hundreds of children, and everybody loves everybody else. Don't they Annie?"

Annie blushed:

"That's only Mr. Serge's nonsense, Mr. Folyat. He goes on talking like that until Mrs. Entwistle shakes with laughter so that the chair you're sitting in creaks. . . . Have you had a good day, Mr. Serge?"

"You shall tell me." Serge produced his sketches and Annie looked at them.

"That's a lovely one," she said.

"May I see it?" asked Francis.

She handed him a sheet of paper on which was a drawing of a baby in an apple-tree with the wind blowing in its hair and bringing new wonder into its starry eyes.

"Mr. Serge does me one every week," said Annie simply. "I keep them all."

Francis held it up close to his face and peered over the top of it at Serge. Very solemnly he returned the drawing to Annie. . . . A moment or two later he leaned forward and said:

"I can remember you when you were like that, Serge. It's a long time ago, and so many things have happened since then. You were very big and strong, and you used to laugh a great deal. . . . I remember your being ill, and then, when you were a little older, I remember your asking me all sorts of questions that I couldn't answer. And then, quite suddenly, you weren't a baby any longer and then you became a boy . . ."

"And then I went away. That is the whole history of any father and any son. Queer, isn't it? . . . And then we never met again until we came across each other in Mrs. Entwistle's heart."

Annie looked puzzled. There were several moments of silence, warm and comforting and, to Francis, very sweet. Serge laughed.

"After this," he said, "we may expect to hear that Mrs. Entwistle has been caught up into Heaven. As a matter of fact she lives there all the time, because, though you wouldn't think it to look at her, she is a sort of a fairy."

"I should like to be back before dark," said Francis.

"Three minutes," answered Serge, "and I'll go with you." He turned to Annie. "I've found work for you as soon as you're ready. A friend of mine has a farm six miles away. He lives with his sister and he wants an assistant housekeeper."

Annie had never taken her eyes from him since he had come into the room. Her eyes now filled with tears, and her hands made a touching little gesture, almost imperceptible, of gratitude towards him. Serge went on:

"He's not a rich man, but he'll pay you enough, so that you can feel independent and always be putting by a little."

Annie found her voice but she remained inarticulate. Francis was curiously relieved when Serge rose to go. He held out his hand to her. She took it in both hers and said:

"I know. I must have made you very unhappy. You have been very good to me."

"Not at all. Not at all," said Francis huskily. She turned to Serge:

"You'll come again? It won't be long now."

"Next Saturday."

"It might be before then."

"I'll come on Monday."

"Thank you."

Francis found his way out into the garden. Through the window he saw Serge take the girl into his arms and kiss her. More than ever he felt that he had been impertinent.

The sun was setting and the mist had almost cleared as Serge joined him. In the west the sky was crimson, straked with indigo clouds. Serge took his father's arm and said:

"We owe a good deal to that young woman, you and I."

"Yes," replied Francis doubtfully. "It seemed to me that she is more than a little in love with you."

"I hope so."

"Isn't that a little dangerous?" Francis felt very bold in making this excursion into psychology, but the pressure of Serge's hand on his arm reassured him.

"My dear father," came the reply, "for thirty years you have been paid for teaching people that the only safety of our little existence here on earth lies in love. I can imagine nothing more awful and disappointing than for a woman to go through the process of childbirth without being in love. It is dreadful enough to live from moment to moment without being in love, but to pass through a great natural crisis without it would be devastating. If she weren't in love with me I couldn't have touched her heart. I could only have appealed to her intelligence, which would have been quite useless. It seemed to me vitally important that she should be made happy, so that through happiness she could understand and feel she was doing no injury to any one, but was performing the ultimate service which a woman is privileged to perform for only a few human beings, namely, the gift of life. She has understood and felt that."

"But she is in love with you!"

"Why this terror of love? Love, like everything else, becomes a bad thing if it is used selfishly. I ask nothing of her. She knows that. She will love her child the more because of her love for me, and by her greater love she will win the love of the child. . . ."

"But . . ." said Francis.

"What now?"

Francis made full and frank confession of how he had come with a desire to make the young woman understand and feel her sinfulness. Serge pressed his arm affectionately.

"My dear father," he said, "a flower may be impregnated by a very disreputable bee, but it remains a beautiful flower for all that."

"A flower," said Francis, "has no soul."

"In the presence of love," replied Serge, "argument is quite futile. The tragedy of the world, it seems to me, is this, that with such a power of love and friendship and affection as is in us, there should be so little of them."

"I at least have won a little of them to-day," said Francis, and timidly with his arm he pressed Serge's hand.

"That's all right," said Serge.

The night came down as they walked and hung out her most brilliant canopy of stars, and, as in a peaceful lake, their light was mirrored in the soul of Francis Folyat.

XXII

LOVE

_Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life._ ANDREW MARVELL

WITH consummate skill Gertrude invented contrivances to conceal the change that had come about in her affairs and feelings, but, as she never deceived herself, she deceived no one else either. However, everybody pretended to be deceived, and painlessly her engagement with Bennett Lawrie was allowed to fade out of existence. He came less and less to the house until the transformation in his status was complete, and then he came more and more.

Gertrude grew restless, her unease infected her mother, who had begun to tire of Fern Square and to think it and its neighbourhood squalid. The Clibran-Bells had left Fern Square and gone to a more expensive and more modern house in the select neighbourhood of Burdley Park. Little hints were thrown out, but nothing definite was said to Francis, until he expressed a desire to enlarge his greenhouse in the back garden and return to his old pastime of gardening. He had tired of reading. He could not bring himself to tackle new books, and the old had lost the potency of their appeal. His parish work was organised into a comfortable routine, so that he had plenty of leisure, and he disliked being left alone with tobacco and his thoughts. Gradually he had fallen into a nearer companionship with his wife, reading and discussing her foolish books with her and every evening playing three games of bezique and allowing her to win. He wanted some new form of activity, and one day, the post bringing a seedsman's catalogue, he found what he wanted. He would grow ferns and bulbs and fuchsias and geraniums and cactuses and have a very pleasant refuge from any malign stroke that fate might be keeping in store for him.

Near the Clibran-Bells Gertrude found a house with a large conservatory, and, all leaping to the prospect of a change, the decision was come to, the remainder of the Fern Square lease disposed of, and the household was moved. The new house was one room smaller than the old. Serge took a studio at the top of a huge caravanserai of offices near the Town Hall Square and arranged to live there. He had painted a portrait of Mrs. Clibran-Bell which had brought him a commission or two, and he regarded himself as sufficiently opulent to pay the not very exorbitant rent.

The removal took place in March, and a very pleasant house-warming was held. Gertrude sent out the invitations and expressly did not invite Bennett Lawrie. He turned up all the same, more silent, melancholy and romantical than ever. He sat in a corner and spoke to nobody, and looked so entirely dejected that at last Minna took pity on him, smiled her sweetest, and said:

"Why do you always play the skeleton at the feast? Are you really thinking of death or only of what there is for supper?"

"I didn't know I looked like that," answered Bennett with an effort. "I was feeling rather happy listening to you all."

"Looking on," said Minna, "is a dreadfully bad habit. Whenever I do it, I always find myself wondering who is going to be married to whom, or, at any rate, who is in love with whom, and how it is all going to turn out. That is too horribly depressing. It is much better to be an airy trifler. Why don't you try a little airy trifling?"

"You can't do it alone."

"That is _quite_ good. . . . Now then--one--two--three--hop."

"I really couldn't trifle with you, Minna."

This was true. The memory of the day by the river was much too vivid. Bennett was nothing if not rigidly monogamous. Minna did not know that. This new game, which had never occurred to her before, amused her. She went on:

"But you're doing it quite nicely."

Bennett dropped back into the darkest gloom. He began to feel angry with her and said savagely:

"Am I?"

"Indeed you are. And as you ain't going to be a little clergyman, it doesn't matter."

"It does. It always matters."

"It only matters if--shall I say it?"

"You generally say what you feel inclined to say."

"It only matters if our little gentleman is in love."

Bennett scowled. Minna went on with her banter until Annette came into the room with a tray bearing lemonade and claret. Bennett sprang up and hurried to meet her. Minna laughed and nodded to Basil Haslam to come and take Bennett's seat. When he had done so, she said:

"Have you ever noticed my little sister, Annette?"

"Not particularly. Why?"

"She is over there, by that young Lawrie."

"Young idiot."

"What do you think of her?"

"She is looking quite pretty. Has she done her hair differently?"

"No, nothing is different."

"Excitement, perhaps."

"Per--haps."

Basil turned to Minna. He was not interested in Annette.

"Minna, you look . . ."

"Ta, ta, ta . . . Are we to have it all over again?"

"Yes. Every time I see you. It's not long before I go away now. Will you come with me? I can do better with you than without."

"You don't know. You have never lived with me. I should hate being really poor in a house of my own."

"I'd make you rich with love."

"And feed me with it and clothe me, and feed and clothe an enormous family?"

"We shouldn't have an enormous family at once. I'll make you rich before there are . . ."

Minna tapped his hand with amused affection, got up and left him. She went and stood near Bennett and Annette and she heard him say:

"Thank you for wearing them."

She saw then that Annette was wearing two little red roses in her bosom.

"It was kind of you to send them," said Annette.

"I hardly dared," said Bennett. "I didn't know if I might. I never see you now."

Annette looked up at him between fear and delight. His mournful eyes met hers, and with a small envy Minna saw that they were entirely oblivious of everybody in the room. Annette's lips pouted. A little sigh escaped her. She turned and hurried away.

Basil Haslam came up, took Minna rather roughly by the arm and dragged her away to sit on the stairs. In her heart she was pleased by his masterfulness, but superficially she was irritated, and they sat quarrelling.

The party engaged two rooms, one for cards and one for music. The room in which Bennett stood began to fill as Mary produced her violin. Annette returned from the kitchen with biscuits, sandwiches, cakes and a trifle, and when she had disposed them on the table she turned to Bennett and said:

"Come."

He followed her.

She led the way into the little back garden, where, in a plot of grimy grass, grew a sycamore-tree. At the end of the garden was a decayed old summer-house of rustic wood. Bennett's heart thumped as they approached it. They entered and stood for a moment in the darkness, glad of it. Tears came to his eyes. He could not see her. His hands groped in the darkness and soon found hers, warm, trembling. Very gently he drew her to him and kissed her forehead and her hair many times. Closer and closer she pressed to him, her hand went up to his shoulder. He felt enormous strength come to him; the faintest little cry came from her and their lips met.

For each it was the first kiss of the beloved, a greater joy than either had dreamed of, and therefore almost more pain than joy. Holding her to him, Bennett murmured:

"Annette, love, I love you."

And she gave little crooning sounds and was the first to kiss again.

Presently they crept back to the house and stole into the rooms again, Bennett looking more miserable and feeling more aloof than ever. Minna saw that Annette's roses were crushed, so that one of them had lost its petals. Annette's lips were red and her eyes shone with a new light. Bennett sought Minna and stood in silence by her side. Minna turned to him and said tartly:

"Annette is looking quite pretty to-night, isn't she?"

"Is she?" Bennett's voice quavered.

"I should advise you, as a friend, to make yourself very amiable to Ma."

"I have always," said Bennett, "had a great respect for Mrs. Folyat."

"Bah!" answered Minna. "You take yourself much too seriously. You'll never learn the wisdom of running away."

"I ran away from you."

"Of course you did; because I never take you seriously."

Bennett said with asperity:

"You never take anything seriously. Some day you'll have to."

"Pooh!" Minna tossed her head and laughed. "I shall always know when to run away."

Feeling that the remark was idiotic and inappropriate Bennett closed with:

"The world is very beautiful."

"Great heavens! We shall have you writing poetry next!"

Bennett went very red. He had already written much poetry, as Minna well knew, for she had purloined and read many of his effusions to Gertrude. She wondered if it would be going too far to quote, decided that it would, and mentally adapted certain verses to meet the new circumstances.

Bennett was called away to take a hand at whist--he was a fair player--and to pass out of the room he had to go by Annette. He avoided looking at her, but she followed him with her eyes, and, turning, met Minna's gaze, curious and mischievous. Minna saw her expression harden into pride and defiance, and it was Minna who looked away.