CHAPTER VII

PATIENCE AND PSYCHE

There are two ways of encountering an anti-climax, an heroic, an

unheroic. Lucy did her best to be a heroine, but her temperament was

against her. Her imagination was very easily kindled, and her reasons

much at the mercy of the flames. By how much she was exalted, by so

much was she dashed. But she had a conscience too, a lively one with a

forefinger mainly in evidence. It would be tedious to recount how

often that wagged her into acquiescence with a James suddenly revealed

freakish, and how often she relapsed into the despair of one sharply

rebuffed when she found him sedately himself. However, or by means of

her qualities, the time-cure worked its way; her inflammation wore

itself out, and her life resumed its routine of dinner-parties, calls

and callers, Francis Lingen's purring, and letters to or from

Lancelot--with this difference, mind you, that far recessed in her

mind there lay a grain, a grain of promise: that and a glamorous

memory.

She was able to write her first letter to Lancelot in high spirits,

then, to tell him her little bits of news and to remind him (really to

remind herself) of good days in the past holiday-time. Something she

may have said, or left unsaid, as the chance may be, drew the

following reply. She always wrote to him on Friday, so that he might

answer her on Sunday.

"Dear Mama," he wrote, "I was third in weakly order which was rather

good (I.d.t.)*. Mr. Tonks said if I go up so fast I shall brake the

ceialing. Bad spelling I know but still. Last Wendesday a boy named

Jenkinson swalowed a button-hook but recovered it practically as good

as when bought (or perhaps a Xmas present). He was always called

Bolter for a nickname, so it was jolly convene. For once he did the

right thing. Mostly he is an utter ass. How is the polligamous pirate

getting on with wives &c.? That comes from a Greek word polis,

a city, so I suppose in the country they are too conventual. I like

him awfully. He's my sort (not Father's though). Well, the term is

waring away. Five days crost off on new diery. Where shall we go this

time three months? Easter I mean. Wycross I hope, but suppose dreery

Brighton, hope not. I must swot now Kings of Isereel and such-like so

goodby now or so long as we say here--LANCELOT."

She thought that she must show the letter to Urquhart when next she

saw him, and meantime, of course, showed it to James. The eyeglass

grew abhorrent over the spelling. "This boy passes belief. Look at

this, Lucy. C-e-i-a-ling!" "Oh, don't you see?" she cried. "He had it

perfectly: c-e-i. Well, and then a devil of doubt came in, and he

tried an _a_. Oh, I can see it now, on his blotting-pad! Whichever he

decided on, he must have forgotten to cross out the other. You

shouldn't be so hard on your own son. His first letter too."

James felt compunction. "No, no, I won't be hard. It's all right, of

course." He read on. The polligamous pirate with wives &c. had to be

explained. She told him the story. The eyeglass became a searchlight

exploring her.

"Did Urquhart tell that tale? Upon my soul--!"

"It was sheer nonsense, of course, but--"

"Oh, I don't know," said James. "You can't tell with a man of that

sort. He can be a March hare if he's in the mood. He'd as soon shoot a

Turk as a monkey, or keep two women as half a dozen. By the by, Lucy,"

and the eyeglass went out like a falling star, "don't let that

sentimental idiot make too much of an ass of himself."

Lucy's eyes concentrated; they shone. "Who is your sentimental idiot?

I haven't the least notion what you mean."

"I mean Francis Lingen, of course. You must admit-- Oh," and he nipped

her indignation in the bud, "I know you won't misunderstand me. I am

not at all a fool. You are kindness itself, generosity itself. But

there it is. He's an ass, and there's really nothing more to say."

Lucy was mollified. She was, indeed, amused after the first flash.

Remembering the James of a week ago, the eager wooer of the dark, she

was able to be playful with a little jealousy. But if he could have

known--or if she had cared to tell him--what she had been thinking of

on Sunday afternoon when Francis purred to her about himself and

sought her advice how best to use his ten thousand of Urquhart's

pounds--well, James would have understood, that's all!

So she laughed. "Poor Francis Lingen! He is not very wise. But I must

say that your honour is perfectly safe with me."

"My dear child--" said James, frowning.

"No, no, I shall go on. It will do you good. There is one thing you

may always be quite sure of, dear, and that is that the more Francis

Lingen is a goose, the less likely I am to encourage him in goosery,

if there is such a word."

James pished, but she pursued him. Mabel was announced, up from the

country to dine and sleep. The Parthian shot was delivered actually on

the way to Mabel's embrace. "But I'm flattered to see you

jealous--please understand that. I should like you to be jealous of

the chair I sit on."

James was hurt and uncomfortable. He thought all this rank form. And

Mabel--the bright and incisive Mabel with her high hunting

colour--made it much worse. "What! Is James jealous? Oh, how perfectly

splendid! Is he going to give secret orders to Crewdson not to admit

Mr.--? As they do in plays at the St. James's? Oh, James, do tell me

whom you darkly suspect? Caesar's wife! My dear and injured man--"

James writhed, but he was in the trap. You may be too trenchant, it

would seem, and your cleaver stick fast in the block.

It behooved him to take a strong line. This kind of raillery must be

stopped. He must steer between the serious and the flippant. He hated

to be pert; on the other hand, to be solemn would be offensive to

Lucy--which he would not be. For James was a gentleman. "Mabel, my

dear, you stretch the privileges of a guest--" a promising beginning,

he thought; but Lucy pitied him plunging there, and cut all short by a

way of her own. "Oh, Mabel, you are a goose. Come and take your things

off, and tell me all about Peltry, and the hunting, and the new horse.

Mr. Urquhart told me he was going to stay with you. Is he? I'm so glad

you like him. Lancelot and I highly approve. I must show you

Lancelot's letter about him. He calls him the polligamous pirate--with

two _l_'s of course."

"Yes," said James, who had recovered his composure, "yes, my dear; but

he gives you the accent in polis."

"Does he though? I'm afraid that was beyond me." She paused to beam

at James. "That pleases you?"

"It's a sign of grace, certainly." So the squall blew over.

James was dining out somewhere, so the sisters had a short dinner and

a very long evening by the fire. Lucy dallied with her great news

until Crewdson had served the coffee--then out it came, with

inordinate and delightful delicacy of approach. Mabel's eyes

throughout were fixed upon her face.... "And of course, naturally--"

Here Lucy turned away her own. "But nothing--not a sign. Neither then

nor since. I--"; she stopped, bit her lip, then broke forth. "I shall

never understand it. Oh, I do think it extraordinary!"

Mabel said at once, "It's not at all extraordinary. It would be with

any one else; but not with James."

Lucy lifted her head. "What do you mean, Mabel?"

"Well, it's difficult to explain. You are so odd about James. He is

either the sort of being you name in a whisper--or makes you edgy all

over--like a slate-pencil. But James--I dare say you haven't noticed

it: you think he's a clever man, and so he may be; but really he has

never grown up."

Lucy's foot began to rock. "My dear girl, really--"

"Oh, I know. I know. Of course you're annoyed, especially after such a

queer experience. We won't discuss it--it will be useless. But that's

my opinion, you know. I think that he was completely successful,

according to his own ideas." The battle raged; I need not add that the

mystery, far from being undiscussed, was driven up and down the field

of possibility till a late hour; nor that Mabel held to her position,

in high disparagement, as Lucy felt, of Lancelot, deeply involved.

An upshot, and a shrewd one, was Mabel's abrupt, "Well, what are you

going to do now? I mean, supposing he does it again?"

Lucy mused. "I don't somehow think he will, for a long time." She

added naively, "I wish he would. I like it."

Mabel understood her. "You mean that you like him for doing it." And

dreamy Lucy nodded. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I do, awfully."

Mabel here kissed Lucy. "Dearest, you're wonderfully sweet. You would

love anybody who loved you."

"I don't think I would," Lucy said, "but I should certainly have loved

James more if he had ever seemed to love me. And I can't possibly

doubt that he did that day that Lancelot went back. What bothers me is

that he stopped there." And so, to it again, in the manner of women,

tireless in speculation about what is not to be understood.

James, restored in tone, was affable, and even considerate, in the

morning. Mabel, studying him with new eyes, had to admire his flawless

surface, though her conviction of the shallow depth of him was

firmlier rooted than before. "He is--he really is--a tremendous

donkey, poor James," she thought to herself as he gave out playful

sarcasms at her expense, and was incisive without loss of urbanity.

Mabel was urgent with her sister to join the party at Peltry when

Urquhart was there. "I do wish you would. He's rather afraid of you, I

think, and that will throw him upon me--which is what is wanted." That

was how she put it.

James, quite the secure, backed her up. "I should go if I were you,"

he said to Lucy from behind the _Morning Post_. "It will do you a

great deal of good. You always choose February to moult in, and you

will have to be feathered down there. Besides, it's evident you can be

useful to Mabel." Lucy went so far as to get out her engagement book,

and to turn up the date, not very seriously. What she found confirmed

her. "I can't," she said; "it's out of the question."

"Why, what is happening?" Mabel must know.

"It's an Opera night," said Lucy. "The _Walkuere_ is happening."

"Oh, are they? H'm. Yes, I suppose I can't expect you."

Lucy was scornfully clear. "I should think not indeed. Not for a

wilderness of Urquharts!"

"Not all the peltry of Siberia--" said James, rather sharply, as he

thought; and dismissed the subject in favour of his own neatly-spatted

foot. "Wagner!" he said. "I am free to confess that, apart from the

glory of the thing, I had rather--"

"Marry one of Mr. Urquhart's wives," said the hardy Mabel.

"Two," said James, quite ready for her.

Mabel rattled away to her Essex and left her sister all the better for

the astringent she had imparted. Lucy did not agree with her by any

means; it made her hot with annoyance to realise that anybody could so

think of James. At the same time she felt that she must steady

herself. After all, a man might kiss his wife if he pleased, and he

might do it how he pleased. It was undignified to speculate about it.

She tried very hard to drive that home to herself, and she did succeed

in imposing it upon her conduct. But she was not convinced. She was

too deeply romantic for conviction by any such specious reasoning.

That affair in the dark had been the real thing; it implied--oh,

everything. Let come what might, let be what was, that was the true

truth of the mystery. And to be loved like that was--oh, everything!

But she dismissed it from her thoughts with an effort of will, and

relations with James resumed their old position. They became formal,

they were tinged now and again with the old asperity; they were rather

dreary. Lancelot's star rose as James's sank in the heavens. His

letters became her chief preoccupation. But James's star, fallen low

though it were, still showed a faint hue of rose-colour.

Some little time after this--somewhere in early February, she met

Urquhart at a luncheon party, and was glad to see him. He shook hands

in his usual detached way, as if her gladness and their acquaintance

were matters of course. He sat next to her without ceremony, removing

another man's name-card for the purpose, and after a few short,

snapped phrases about anything or nothing, they drifted into easy

talk. Lucy's simplicity made her a delightful companion, when she was

sure of her footing. She told him that she had been saving up

Lancelot's letter to show him. "Good," he said. "I want it."

But it was not here, as it happened. So she wrote out from memory the

sentence about Urquhart: the polligamous pirate, with wives &c.

"Aren't you flattered?" she asked him, radiant with mirthful malice.

He frowned approval. He was pleased, but, like all those who make

laughter, he had none of his own. "That shot told. I got him with the

first barrel. Trust a boy to love a law-breaker. He'll never forget me

that. He's my friend for life." He added, as if to himself, "Hope so,

anyhow."

Lucy at this, had she been a cat, would have purred and kneaded the

carpet. As it was, her contentment emboldened her to flights. She was

much more bird than cat. "I wonder if you are really a law-breaker,"

she said. "I don't think I should be surprised to know it of you."

He frowned again. "No, I should say that the ground had been prepared

for that. You wouldn't be surprised--but would you be disturbed?

That's what I want to know before I tell you."

This had to be considered. What did she in her private mind think of

law-breakers? One thing was quite clear to her. Whatever she might

think of them, she was not prepared to tell him.

"I'm a lawyer's wife, you know."

"That tells me nothing," he said. "That would only give you the

position of an expert. It doesn't commit you to a line. I'll tell you

this--it may encourage you to a similar confidence. If I wanted to

break a law very badly, I shouldn't do it on reflection perhaps; but I

could never resist a sudden impulse. If somebody told me that it would

be desirable in all sorts of ways to break a man's head I shouldn't do

it, because I should be bothering myself with all the possibilities of

the thing--how desirable it might be, or how undesirable. But if,

happening to be in his company, I saw his head in a breakable

aspect--splosh! I should land him a nasty one. That's a certainty.

Now, what should you say to that? It happens that I want to know." It

was evident to her that he really did.

Lucy gave him one of her kind, compassionate looks, which always made

her seem beautiful, and said, "I should forgive you. I should tell you

that you were too young for your years; but I should forgive you, I'm

sure."

"That's what I wanted to know," said Urquhart, and remained silent for

a while. When he resumed it was abruptly, on a totally new matter. "I

shall bring my sister over to you after this. She's here. I don't know

whether you'll like her. She'll like you."

"Where is she?" Lucy asked, rather curious.

"She's over there, by our hostess. That big black hat is hers. She's

underneath it." Lucy saw a spry, black-haired youngish woman, very

vivacious but what she herself called "good." James would have said,

"Smart." Not at all like her brother, she thought, and said so. "She's

not such a scoundrel," Urquhart admitted, "but she takes a line of

her own. Her husband's name is Nugent. He is South Irish, where we are

North. That boy who went with us to the play is her son. He is a

lively breed--so it hasn't turned out amiss. She's not at all your

sort, but as you know the worst of us you may as well know what we can

do when we exert ourselves." He added, "My old father, now with

Beelzebub, was a terror."

"Do tell me about him."

"It would take too long. He was very old-fashioned in most ways. They

used to call him King Urquhart in Donegal. The worst of it was that he

knew good claret and could shoot. That makes a bad combination. He

used to sit on a hogshead of it in his front yard and challenge all

and sundry to mortal combat. He really did. Duels he used to call

them. He said, 'Me honour's involved, d'ye see?' and believed it. But

they were really murders, because he was infallible with a revolver.

He adored my mother, but she couldn't do anything with him. 'Tush, me

dear,' he used to say, 'I wouldn't hurt a hair of his bald head.' And

then he'd have to bolt over to France for a bit and keep quiet. But

everybody liked him, I'm sorry to say. They gave him a public funeral

when he died. They took him out of the hearse--imagine the great sooty

plumes of it--and carried him to the chapel--half a mile away." Lucy

didn't know how much of this to believe, which made it none the worse.

"He was a Catholic?"

"He was."

"And so are you?"

He looked up. "Eh? I suppose I am--if any."

"What _do_ you mean?" she insisted.

"Well," he said. "It's there, I expect. You don't get rid of it." She

considered this to herself.

Mrs. Nugent--the Honourable Mrs. Nugent, as it afterwards

appeared--made herself very amiable. "We both like boys," she said,

"which makes everything easy. I hope you liked my Pat--you met him, I

know. Yours seems to be an unconscious humourist. Jimmy is always

chuckling over him. Mine takes after the Urquharts; rather grim, but

quite sound when you know them. My husband is really Irish. He might

say 'Begorra' at any minute. The Urquharts are a mixed lot. Jimmy

says we're Eurasians when he's cross with us--which means with

himself. I suppose we were border thieves once, like the Turnbulls and

Pringles. But James I planted us in Ireland, and there have been James

Urquharts ever since. I don't know why that seems satisfactory, but it

does."

"I saw what Jimmy was saying, you know," she said presently. "He began

upon me, and then slid off to our deplorable father. An inexhaustible

subject to Jimmy, who really admires that kind of thing."

Lucy smilingly deprecated the criticism.

"Oh, but he does. If he could be like that, he would be. But he wants

two qualities--he can't laugh, and he can't cry. Father could only

laugh internally. He used to get crimson, and swallow hard. That was

his way. Jimmy can't laugh at all, that's the mischief of it. And

crying too. Father could cry rivers. One of the best things I remember

of him was his crying before Mother. 'Damn it all, Meg, I missed him!'

he said, choking with grief. Mother knew exactly what to say. 'You'll

get him next time, Jimmy. Come and change your stockings now.' Well,

_our_ Jimmy couldn't do that. To begin with, of course, he wouldn't

have 'missed him.'"

"No," said Lucy, reflecting, "I don't think he would miss--unless he

was in too much of a hurry to hit."

Mrs. Nugent looked quickly at her. "That is very clever of you. You

have touched on his great difference from Father. He is awfully

impatient."

All this did Lucy a great deal of good. James thought that she had

better call on Mrs. Nugent. He knew all about her.