Chapter 5

They started out. Mary wore her every-day costume--a serge gown, a sailor hat, and solid, square-toed boots. She walked fast, with long steps and firm carriage. James set himself to talk, asking her insignificant questions about the people she visited. Mary answered with feeling and at length, but was interrupted by arriving at a cottage.

"You'd better not come in here," she said, blushing slightly; "although I want to take you in to some of the people. I think it will be a lesson to them."

"A lesson in what?"

"Oh, I can't tell you to your face, I don't want to make you conceited; but you can guess while you're waiting for me."

Mary's patient was about to be confined, and thinking her condition rather indecent, quite rightly, Mary had left James outside. But the good lady, since it was all in the way of nature, was not so ashamed of herself as she should have been, and insisted on coming to the door to show Miss Clibborn out.

"Take care he doesn't see you!" cried Mary in alarm, pushing her back.

"Well, there's no harm in it. I'm a married woman. You'll have to go through it yourself one day, miss."

Mary rejoined her lover, suffused in blushes, hoping he had seen nothing.

"It's very difficult to teach these people propriety. Somehow the lower classes seem to have no sense of decency."

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing I can tell you," replied Mary, modestly. Then, to turn the conversation: "She asked after my young man, and was very anxious to see you."

"Was she? How did she know you had a young man?" asked James, grimly.

"Oh, everyone knows that! You can't keep secrets in Primpton. And besides, I'm not ashamed of it. Are you?"

"I haven't got a young man."

Mary laughed.

They walked on. The morning was crisp and bright, sending a healthy colour through Mary's cheeks. The blue sky and the bracing air made her feel more self-reliant, better assured than ever of her upright purpose and her candid heart. The road, firm underfoot and delightful to walk upon, stretched before them in a sinuous line. A pleasant odour came from the adjoining fields, from the farm-yards, as they passed them; the larks soared singing with happy heart, while the sparrows chirruped in the hedges. The hawthorn was bursting into leaf, all bright and green, and here and there the wild flowers were showing themselves, the buttercup and the speedwell. But while the charm of Nature made James anxious to linger, to lean on a gate and look for a while at the cows lazily grazing, Mary had too sound a constitution to find in it anything but a stimulus to renewed activity.

"We mustn't dawdle, you lazy creature!" she cried merrily. "I shall never get through my round before one o'clock if we don't put our best foot foremost."

"Can't you see them some other time?"

The limpid air softened his heart; he thought for a moment that if he could wander aimlessly with Mary, gossiping without purpose, they might end by understanding one another. The sun, the wild flowers, the inconstant breeze, might help to create a new feeling.

But Mary turned to him with grave tenderness.

"You know I'd do anything to please you, Jamie. But even for you I cannot neglect my duty."

James froze.

"Of course, you're quite right," he said. "It really doesn't matter."

They came to another cottage, and this time Mary took James in.

"It's a poor old man," she said. "I'm so sorry for him; he's always so grateful for what I do."

They found him lying in bed, writhing with pain, his head supported by a pillow.

"Oh, how uncomfortable you look!" cried Mary. "You poor thing! Who on earth arranged your pillows like that?"

"My daughter, miss."

"I must talk to her; she ought to know better."

Miss Clibborn drew away the pillows very gently, smoothed them out, and replaced them.

"I can't bear 'em like that, miss. The other is the only way I'm comfortable."

"Nonsense, John!" cried Mary, brightly. "You couldn't be comfortable with your head all on one side; you're much better as you are."

James saw the look of pain in the man's face, and ventured to expostulate.

"Don't you think you'd better put them back in the old way? He seemed much easier."

"Nonsense, Jamie. You must know that the head ought to be higher than the body."

"Please, miss, I can't bear the pillow like this."

"Oh, yes, you can. You must show more forbearance and fortitude. Remember that God sends you pain in order to try you. Think of Our Lord suffering silently on the Cross."

"You're putting him to quite unnecessary torture, Mary," said James. "He must know best how he's comfortable."

"It's only because he's obstinate. Those people are always complaining. Really, you must permit me to know more about nursing than you do, Jamie."

Jamie's face grew dark and grim, but he made no answer.

"I shall send you some soup, John," said Mary, as they went out, "You know, one can never get these people to do anything in a rational way," she added to James. "It's perfectly heartrending trying to teach them even such a natural thing as making themselves comfortable."

James was silent.

They walked a few yards farther, and passed a man in a dog-cart Mary turned very red, staring in front of her with the fixed awkwardness of one not adept in the useful art of cutting.

"Oh," she said, with vexation, "he's going to John."

"Who is it?"

"It's Dr. Higgins--a horrid, vulgar man. He's been dreadfully rude to me, and I make a point of cutting him."

"Really?"

"Oh, he behaved scandalously. I can't bear doctors, they're so dreadfully interfering. And they seem to think no one can know anything about doctoring but themselves! He was attending one of my patients; it was a woman, and of course I knew what she wanted. She was ill and weak, and needed strengthening; so I sent her down a bottle of port. Well, Dr. Higgins came to the house, and asked to see me. He's not a gentleman, you know, and he was so rude! 'I've come to see you about Mrs. Gandy,' he said. 'I particularly ordered her not to take stimulants, and I find you've sent her down port.' 'I thought she wanted it,' I said. 'She told me that you had said she wasn't to touch anything, but I thought a little port would do her good.' Then he said, 'I wish to goodness you wouldn't interfere with what you know nothing about.' 'I should like you to remember that you're speaking to a gentlewoman,' I said. 'I don't care twopence,' he answered, in the rudest way. 'I'm not going to allow you to interfere with my patients. I took the port away, and I wish you to understand that you're not to send any more.'

"Then I confess I lost my temper. 'I suppose you took it away to drink yourself?' I said. Then what d'you think he did? He burst out laughing, and said: 'A bottle of port that cost two bob at the local grocer's! The saints preserve us!'"

James repressed a smile.

"'You impertinent man!' I said. 'You ought to be ashamed to talk to a woman like that. I shall at once send Mrs. Gandy another bottle of port, and it's no business of yours how much it cost.' 'If you do,' he said, 'and anything happens, by God, I'll have you up for manslaughter.' I rang the bell. 'Leave the house,' I said, 'and never dare come here again!' Now don't you think I was right, Jamie?"

"My dear Mary, you always are!"

James looked back at the doctor entering the cottage. It was some comfort to think that he would put the old man into a comfortable position.

"When I told papa," added Mary, "he got in a most fearful rage. He insisted on going out with a horsewhip, and said he meant to thrash Dr. Higgins. He looked for him all the morning, but couldn't find him; and then your mother and I persuaded him it was better to treat such a vulgar man with silent contempt."

James had noticed that the doctor was a burly, broad-shouldered fellow, and he could not help thinking Colonel Clibborn's resolution distinctly wise. How sad it is that in this world right is so often subordinate to brute force!

"But he's not received anywhere. We all cut him; and I get everyone I can not to employ him."

"Ah!" murmured James.

Mary's next patient was feminine, and James was again left to cool his heels in the road; but not alone, for Mr. Dryland came out of the cottage. The curate was a big, stout man, with reddish hair, and a complexion like squashed strawberries and cream; his large, heavy face, hairless except for scanty red eyebrows, gave a disconcerting impression of nakedness. His eyes were blue and his mouth small, with the expression which young ladies, eighty years back, strove to acquire by repeating the words prune and prism. He had a fat, full voice, with unctuous modulations not entirely under his control, so that sometimes, unintentionally, he would utter the most commonplace remark in a tone fitted for a benediction. Mr. Dryland was possessed by the laudable ambition to be all things to all men; and he tried, without conspicuous success, always to suit his conversation to his hearers. With old ladies he was bland; with sportsmen slangy; with yokels he was broadly humorous; and with young people aggressively juvenile. But above all, he wished to be manly, and cultivated a boisterous laugh and a jovial manner.

"I don't know if you remember me," he cried, with a ripple of fat laughter, going up to James, "I had the pleasure of addressing a few words to you yesterday in my official capacity. Miss Clibborn told me you were waiting, and I thought I would introduce myself. My name is Dryland."

"I remember quite well."

"I'm the Vicar's bottle-washer, you know," added the curate, with a guffaw. "Change for you--going round to the sick and needy of the parish--after fighting the good fight. I hear you were wounded."

"I was, rather badly."

"I wish I could have gone out and had a smack at the Boers. Nothing I should have liked better. But, of course, I'm only a parson, you know. It wouldn't have been thought the correct thing." Mr. Dryland, from his superior height, beamed down on James. "I don't know whether you remember the few words which I was privileged to address to you yesterday--"

"Perfectly," put in James.

"Impromptu, you know; but they expressed my feelings. That is one of the best things the war has done for us. It has permitted us to express our emotions more openly. I thought it a beautiful sight to see the noble tears coursing down your father's furrowed cheeks. Those few words of yours have won all our hearts. I may say that our little endeavours were nothing beside that short, unstudied speech. I hope there will be a full report in the Tunbridge Wells papers."

"I hope not!" cried James.

"You're too modest, Captain Parsons. That is what I said to Miss Clibborn yesterday; true courage is always modest. But it is our duty to see that it does not hide its light under a bushel. I hope you won't think it a liberty, but I myself gave the reporter a few notes."

"Will Miss Clibborn be long?" asked James, looking at the cottage.

"Ah, what a good woman she is, Captain Parsons. My dear sir, I assure you she's an angel of mercy."

"It's very kind of you to say so."

"Not at all! It's a pleasure. The good she does is beyond praise. She's a wonderful help in the parish. She has at heart the spiritual welfare of the people, and I may say that she is a moral force of the first magnitude."

"I'm sure that's a very delightful thing to be."

"You know I can't help thinking," laughed Mr. Dryland fatly, "that she ought to be the wife of a clergyman, rather than of a military man."

Mary came out.

"I've been telling Mrs. Gray that I don't approve of the things her daughter wears in church," she said. "I don't think it's nice for people of that class to wear such bright colours."

"I don't know what we should do in the parish without you," replied the curate, unctuously. "It's so rare to find someone who knows what is right, and isn't afraid of speaking out."

Mary said that she and James were walking home, and asked Mr. Dryland whether he would not accompany them.

"I shall be delighted, if I'm not _de trop_."

He looked with laughing significance from one to the other.

"I wanted to talk to you about my girls," said Mary.

She had a class of village maidens, to whom she taught sewing, respect for their betters, and other useful things.

"I was just telling Captain Parsons that you were an angel of mercy, Miss Clibborn."

"I'm afraid I'm not that," replied Mary, gravely. "But I try to do my duty."

"Ah!" cried Mr. Dryland, raising his eyes so that he looked exactly like a codfish, "how few of us can say that!"

"I'm seriously distressed about my girls. They live in nasty little cottages, and eat filthy things; they pass their whole lives under the most disgusting conditions, and yet they're happy. I can't get them to see that they ought to be utterly miserable."

"Oh, I know," sighed the curate; "it makes me sad to think of it."

"Surely, if they're happy, you can want nothing better," said James, rather impatiently.

"But I do. They have no right to be happy under such circumstances. I want to make them feel their wretchedness."

"What a brutal thing to do!" cried James.

"It's the only way to improve them. I want them to see things as I see them."

"And how d'you know that you see them any more correctly than they do?"

"My dear Jamie!" cried Mary; and then as the humour of such a suggestion dawned upon her, she burst into a little shout of laughter.

"What d'you think is the good of making them dissatisfied?" asked James, grimly.

"I want to make them better, nobler, worthier; I want to make their lives more beautiful and holy."

"If you saw a man happily wearing a tinsel crown, would you go to him and say, 'My good friend, you're making a fool of yourself. Your crown isn't of real gold, and you must throw it away. I haven't a golden crown to give you instead, but you're wicked to take pleasure in that sham thing.' They're just as comfortable, after their fashion, in a hovel as you in your fine house; they enjoy the snack of fat pork they have on Sunday just as much as you enjoy your boiled chickens and blanc-manges. They're happy, and that's the chief thing."

"Happiness is not the chief thing in this world, James," said Mary, gravely.

"Isn't it? I thought it was."

"Captain Parsons is a cynic," said Mr. Dryland, with a slightly supercilious smile.

"Because I say it's idiotic to apply your standards to people who have nothing in common with you? I hate all this interfering. For God's sake let us go our way; and if we can get a little pleasure out of dross and tinsel, let us keep it."

"I want to give the poor high ideals," said Mary.

"I should have thought bread and cheese would be more useful."

"My dear Jamie," said Mary, good-naturedly, "I think you're talking of things you know nothing about."

"You must remember that Miss Clibborn has worked nobly among the poor for many years."

"My own conscience tells me I'm right," pursued Mary, "and you see Mr. Dryland agrees with me. I know you mean well, Jamie; but I don't think you quite understand the matter, and I fancy we had better change the conversation."

VII

Next day Mary went into Primpton House. Colonel Parsons nodded to her as she walked up the drive, and took off his spectacles. The front door was neither locked nor bolted in that confiding neighbourhood, and Mary walked straight in.

"Well, my dear?" said the Colonel, smiling with pleasure, for he was as fond of her as of his own son.

"I thought I'd come and see you alone. Jamie's still out, isn't he? I saw him pass our house. I was standing at the window, but he didn't look up."

"I daresay he was thinking. He's grown very thoughtful now."

Mrs. Parsons came in, and her quiet face lit up, too, as she greeted Mary. She kissed her tenderly.

"Jamie's out, you know."

"Mary has come to see us," said the Colonel. "She doesn't want us to feel neglected now that she has the boy."

"We shall never dream that you can do anything unkind, dear Mary," replied Mrs. Parsons, stroking the girl's hair. "It's natural that you should think more of him than of us."

Mary hesitated a moment.

"Don't you think Jamie has changed?"

Mrs. Parsons looked at her quickly.

"I think he has grown more silent. But he's been through so much. And then he's a man now; he was only a boy when we saw him last."

"D'you think he cares for me any more?" asked Mary, with a rapid tremor in her voice.

"Mary!"

"Of course he does! He talks of you continually," said Colonel Parsons, "and always as if he were devoted. Doesn't he, Frances?"

The old man's deep love for Mary had prevented him from seeing in Jamie's behaviour anything incongruous with that of a true lover.

"What makes you ask that question, Mary?" said Mrs. Parsons.

Her feminine tact had led her to notice a difference in Jamie's feeling towards his betrothed; but she had been unwilling to think that it amounted even to coldness. Such a change could be explained in a hundred natural ways, and might, indeed, exist merely in her own imagination.

"Oh, he's not the same as he was!" cried Mary, "I don't know what it is, but I feel it in his whole manner. Yesterday evening he barely said a word."

James had dined with the Clibborns in solemn state.

"I daresay he's not very well yet. His wound troubles him still."

"I try to put it down to that," said Mary, "but he seems to force himself to speak to me. He's not natural. I've got an awful fear that he has ceased to care for me."

She looked from Colonel Parsons to his wife, who stared at her in dismay.

"Don't be angry with me," she said; "I couldn't talk like this to anyone else, but I know you love me. I look upon you already as my father and mother. I don't want to be unkind to mamma, but I couldn't talk of it to her; she would only sneer at me. And I'm afraid it's making me rather unhappy."

"Of course, we want you to treat us as your real parents, Mary. We both love you as we love Jamie. We have always looked upon you as our daughter."

"You're so good to me!"

"Has your mother said anything to annoy you?"

Mary faltered.

"Last night, when he went away, she said she didn't think he was devoted to me."

"Oh, I knew it was your mother who'd put this in your head! She has always been jealous of you. I suppose she thinks he's in love with her."

"Mrs. Parsons!" cried Mary, in a tone of entreaty.

"I know you can't bear anything said against your mother, and it's wicked of me to vex you; but she has no right to suggest such things."

"It's not only that. It's what I feel."

"I'm sure Jamie is most fond of you," said Colonel Parsons, kindly. "You've not seen one another for five years, and you find yourselves altered. Even we feel a little strange with Jamie sometimes; don't we, Frances? What children they are, Frances!" Colonel Parsons laughed in that irresistibly sweet fashion of his. "Why, it was only the day before yesterday that Jamie came to us with a long face and asked if you cared for _him_."

"Did he?" asked Mary, with pleased surprise, anxious to believe what the Colonel suggested. "Oh, he must see that I love him! Perhaps he finds me unresponsive.... How could I help caring for him? I think if he ceased to love me, I should die."

"My dearest Mary," cried Mrs. Parsons, the tears rising to her eyes, "don't talk like that! I'm sure he can't help loving you, either; you're so good and sweet. You're both of you fanciful, and he's not well. Be patient. Jamie is shy and reserved; he hasn't quite got used to us yet. He doesn't know how to show his feelings. It will all come right soon."

"Of course he loves you!" said Colonel Parsons. "Who could help it? Why, if I were a young fellow I should be mad to marry you."

"And what about me, Richmond?" asked Mrs. Parsons, smiling.

"Well, I think I should have to commit bigamy, and marry you both."

They laughed at the Colonel's mild little joke, happy to break through the cloud of doubt which oppressed them.

"You're a dear thing," said Mary, kissing the old man, "and I'm a very silly girl. It's wrong of me to give way to whims and fancies."

"You must be very brave when you're the wife of a V.C.," said the Colonel, patting her hand.

"Oh, it was a beautiful action!" cried Mary. "And he's as modest about it as though he had done nothing that any man might not do. I think there can be no sight more pleasing to God than that of a brave man risking his life to save a comrade."

"And that ought to be an assurance to you, Mary, that James will never do anything unkind or dishonourable. Trust him, and forgive his little faults of manner. I'm sure he loves you, and soon you'll get married and be completely happy."

Mary's face darkened once more.

"He's been here three days, and he's not said a word about getting married. Oh, I can't help it; I'm so frightened! I wish he'd say something--just one word to show that he really cares for me. He seems to have forgotten that we're even engaged."

Colonel Parsons looked at his wife, begging her by his glance to say something that would comfort Mary. Mrs. Parsons looked down, uncertain, ill at ease.

"You don't despise me for talking like this, Mrs. Parsons?"

"Despise you, my dear! How can I, when I love you so dearly? Shall I speak to Jamie? I'm sure when he understands that he's making you unhappy, he'll be different. He has the kindest heart in the world; I've never known him do an unkind thing in his life."

"No, don't say anything to him," replied Mary. "I daresay it's all nonsense. I don't want him to be driven into making love to me."

* * *

Meanwhile James wandered thoughtfully. The country was undulating, and little hill rose after little hill, affording spacious views of the fat Kentish fields, encircled by oak trees and by chestnuts. Owned by rich landlords, each generation had done its best, and the fruitful land was tended like a garden. But it had no abandonment, no freedom; the hand of man was obvious, perpetually, in the trimness and in the careful arrangement, so that the landscape, in its formality, reminded one of those set pieces chosen by the classic painters. But the fields were fresh with the tall young grass of the new year, the buttercups flaunted themselves gaily, careless of the pitiless night, rejoicing in the sunshine, as before they had rejoiced in the enlivening rain. The pleasant rain-drops still lingered on the daisies. The feathery ball of the dandelion, carried by the breeze, floated past like a symbol of the life of man--a random thing, resistless to the merest breath, with no mission but to spread its seed upon the fertile earth, so that things like unto it should spring up in the succeeding summer, and flower uncared for, and reproduce themselves, and die.

James decided finally that he must break that very evening his engagement with Mary. He could not put it off. Every day made his difficulty greater, and it was impossible any longer to avoid the discussion of their marriage, nor could he continue to treat Mary with nothing better than friendliness. He realised all her good qualities; she was frank, and honest, and simple; anxious to do right; charitable according to her light; kindness itself. James felt sincerely grateful for the affectionate tenderness which Mary showed to his father and mother. He was thankful for that and for much else, and was prepared to look upon her as a very good friend, even as a sister; but he did not love her. He could not look upon the prospect of marriage without repulsion. Nor did Mary, he said, really love him. He knew what love was--something different entirely from that pallid flame of affection and esteem, of which alone she was capable. Mary loved him for certain qualities of mind, because his station in life was decent, his manners passable, his morals beyond reproach.

"She might as well marry the Ten Commandments!" he cried impatiently.