CHAPTER XXXII

ON THE HILL

That afternoon Ernie and his father sauntered up to the chalk-pit, and lay on the green hill-side above it in the sun.

Ernie plucked the bents and chewed them.

"Dad," he began at last.

"Yes."

"What is love?"

Once years ago at a dance in Grosvenor Square, Edward Caspar had himself for a moment floated out on to the ocean of an immense and wonderful new life. Thereafter he had been captured, as such easy-going dreamy creatures are, by one of the fiercer sex. He respected his wife, admired her beauty, owed her much, and was aware of it; but for all her strength of character Anne had found herself from the start of her married relations with her husband in that position of secret moral inferiority which is even to-day, perhaps as the result of an age-long inheritance of tradition, the accustomed doom of the woman who has taken the initiative in matters of sex. Moreover as the years went by the doom grew always more oppressive, and her husband more remote....

Edward answered his son,

"A door opens," he said slowly. "And you see."

"What d'you see?" persisted the young man.

His father made a curious undulating motion with his hand.

"_The Infinite that lends A Yonder to all ends,_"

he said after a pause, and gestured across the Weald stretched beneath them.

"I can see it," he mused, "and hear it. So can you. It's a Tide--like the wind in willow leaves. It's silvery and it rustles. It's there--and here--and everywhere. The scientists call it ether. So it is--from their point of view. If you approach it from the other side--our side--it's what you said. It goes like so--like a billow." With fine long-fingered hand he resumed that curious rhythmic motion of his. "I once heard somebody compare Humanity to an Undulating Wave. So it is, because it's the highest expression of _That_. It made us, and is us. All that about the Everlasting Arms which Mr. Pigott, and the Archdeacon, and your Salvation Joe talk about, it's all true--literally true. Only they put it crudely; and for most of them it's an opinion and not a fact of experience--that a man can prove for himself at any moment." He paused. "Love is Recognition--often instantaneous. It is the I-within recognizes the Me-without."

He was sitting up now, bare-headed. A lovely colour flushed his frail complexion. To Ernie, watching his scant hair, he seemed wonderfully innocent and pure: a child talking with the wisdom of an old man.

Then his father spoke again with an emphasis that was almost startling.

"It's the profound simplicity of life that baffles us," he said. "It's too simple for us to understand. Our brains aren't big enough--as yet." He was becoming strangely excited. Ernie thought he understood now the source of that exalted look of his father's. "But we shall some day. Already there has been One Man who did. Think of it! We crucified Him for it of course. We had to. He was climbing too far a-head: so we plucked him back to earth. You mustn't go too far ahead of the Herd. They won't stand it. But He knew: He trusted It: He could float in It--like that kittiwake, ascending into heaven, descending into hell, at will."

He lay back on the turf, exhausted, his hat over his eyes, his hands on the turf beside him.

"Ernie."

"Yes, dad."

"Have you felt the Tide?"

"I think so."

The old man put his hand upon his son's.

"Let it come, Boy-lad," he said. "Trust it to do the work. All our mistakes are due to the same thing."

"What's that?" asked Ernie.

"Trying to interfere," answered the other. "Follow!--that's our human part."

That evening, after supper, before he left, Ernie asked his mother shyly for some roses. She took him out into the front-garden, tiny as it was trim, and gave him of her best.

Afterwards, as he walked away, she stood at the little gate and watched him, a beautiful look in her eyes. Then she wiped her shoes very carefully, and turned into the house.

The study-door was open, and she peeped in.

Her husband was sitting as always in the bow, looking out towards the trees stirring in the Rectory garden.

Anne stared at him.

"Has he said anything to you?" she asked at last in the voice that grew always more grumbling and ungracious with the years.

"Not yet," her husband answered.

"Well, it's about time," Anne grumbled. "Only I wish I'd had the choosing of her."

"Ernie'll choose all right," Edward answered in the peculiar crisp way he sometimes now adopted. "You needn't worry about him."

Whether there was a faint emphasis on the pronoun or not, Anne answered with asperity,

"And you needn't worry about Alf for that matter. He's far too set on himself to find room for a wife."

Ernie was at Billing's Corner half an hour before the Lewes char-a-banc was due, hanging about at the top of the rise, looking along the white road that runs past Moot Farm under the long swell of the escorting hills.

It was a perfect evening of late May. The sun had already sunk in darkened majesty against the West when the familiar cloud of dust betokened the approach of the four-horse team.

Ruth was sitting on the box beside the driver. Ernie recognized her from afar by the splotch of colour made by her hat, and was filled with an almost overpowering content.

The horses sprang the rise at a canter, the conductor blowing a flourish on his horn. The girl's hand was to her hat, and her head bowed to the wind. The char-a-banc drew up with a swagger in the open space before the _Billing Arms_.

She was smiling down at him.

Ernie lifted his cap: it was a trick he had from his father. No one had ever paid the girl that common courtesy before, and she beamed upon him.

The other passengers were descending by the steps.

Ernie advanced lordly.

"This way!" he ordered, and laid his roses on the driver's foot-board. "Don't wait for them! Put your foot on the wheel! Give over your hand! Now your left foot here!"

For the first time in his life he felt masterful. Powers in him, of which he had possessed no previous knowledge, were thrusting through the ice of the customary.

Ruth obeyed.

She slipped her foot into his hand. It was slight, not small, yet beautifully compact.

"It's dusty," she warned him.

"No, it ain't," he answered, still in his high mood.

He gripped it firmly. Her cool hand was in his.

Then she trusted her whole weight to him.

He felt his strength tried and answering to the test; and rejoiced in it. So did she.

For a moment he balanced her, lifted her even, let her feel the power of his manhood. Then he lowered her swiftly.

It was well, even gracefully done.

Neither spoke; Ernie took his roses from the feet of the driver, who looked down with approval.

"Go on!" he said sturdily. "That's the way!"

The motor-bus that was to take them back to the hotel was turning in the open space before the public-house.

Without a word they climbed on to the top.

The bus dropped down Church Street, past the long-backed church with its square tower standing on the grave-strewn mound solemn in the growing dusk.

Ernie placed his roses in Ruth's lap.

Her eyes were shining, her voice soft.

"For me?" she asked in her deep thrilling voice.

For a second he laid his hand on hers.

"Oh, they are beauties!" She buried her face in them. "My Miss Caryll learned me the names of a tidy few o them when we was in the Dower-house afoor she come to Beachbourne," she said.

A motor-car stood at Mr. Trupp's door as the bus reached the _Star_.

The two talked quietly of the famous surgeon, their heads together.

The chauffeur got down from the Doctor's car and crossed slowly towards the bus.

He was small and wore black gaiters that glittered in the lamp-light like a wet slug.

He stood beneath them in the road, and then gave a low whistle.

Ernie looked down.

Alf was leering up at him.