CHAPTER X

CONCERNING A DAY OF HONEST WARFARE AND A SUNSET HARBINGER NOT OF THE

NIGHT BUT OF THE DAWN

That episode, upon the bridge spanning the Long Water, brought Richard

would-be saint, Richard pilgrim along the great white road which leads

onward to Perfection, into lively collision with Richard the natural

man, not to mention Richard the "wild bull in a net." These opposing

forces engaged battle, with the consequence that the carriage horses

took the hill at a rather breakneck pace. Not that Dickie touched them,

but that, he being vibrant, they felt his mood down the length of the

reins and responded to it.

"Ludovic need hardly have been in such a prodigious hurry," he broke

out. "He might have allowed one a few days' grace. It was a defect of

taste to come over immediately--but then all that family's taste is

liable to lapses."

Promptly he repented, ashamed both of his anger and such self-revealing

expression of it.

"I dare say it's all for the best though. Better a thing should be

nipped in the bud than in the blossom. And this puts it all on a right

footing. One might easily drift into depending too much upon Honoria. I

own I was dangerously near doing that this spring. I don't mind telling

you so now, mother, because this, you see, disposes finally of the

matter."

His voice contended oddly with the noise of the wheels, rattle of the

pole-chains, pounding of the hoofs of the pulling horses. The sentences

came to Lady Calmady's ears disjointed, difficult to follow and

interpret. Therefore she answered slightly at random.

"My dearest, I could have kept her longer in the spring if I had only

known," she said, a disquieting suspicion of lost opportunity assailing

her. "But, from certain things which you said, I thought you preferred

our being alone."

"So I did. I wanted her to go because I wanted her to stay. Do you

see?"

"Ah, yes! I see," Katherine replied. And at that moment, it must be

conceded, her sentiments were not conspicuously pacific towards her

faithful adherent, Mr. Quayle.

"We've a good many interests in common," Dickie went on, "and there

seemed a chance of one's settling down into a rather charming

friendship with her. It was a beguiling prospect. And for that very

reason, it was best she should depart. The prospect, in all its

beguilingness, renewed itself to-day after luncheon."--He paused,

handling the plunging horses.--"And so after all Ludovic shall be

reckoned welcome. For, as I say, I might have come to depend on her.

And one's a fool--I ought to have learnt that salutary lesson by this

time--a rank fool, to depend on anybody, or anything, save oneself,

simply and solely oneself"--his tone softened--"and upon you, most dear

and long-suffering mother.--Therefore the dream of friendship goes

overboard after all, along with the rest of one's little illusions. And

every illusion one rids oneself of is so much to the good. It lightens

the ship. It lessens the chances of sinking. Clearly it is so much pure

gain."

That evening, pleading--unexampled occurrence in her case--a headache

as excuse, Miss St. Quentin did not put in an appearance at dinner. Nor

did Richard put in an appearance at breakfast next morning. At an early

hour he had received a communication earnestly requesting his presence

at the Westchurch Infirmary. His mission promised to be a melancholy

one, yet he was not sorry for the demand made by it upon his time and

thought. For, notwithstanding the philosophic tone he had adopted with

Lady Calmady in speaking of that friendship which, if not nipped in the

bud, might have reached perils of too luxuriant blossoming, the

would-be saint and the natural man, the pilgrim on the highroad to

Perfection and that very inconvenient animal "the wild bull in a net,"

kept up warfare within Richard Calmady. They were hard at it even yet,

when, in the fair freshness of the September morning--the grasses and

hedge-fruit, the wild flowers, and the low-growing, tangled coppices by

the roadside, still heavy with dew--he drove over to Westchurch. The

day was bright, with flying cloud and a westerly breeze. The dust was

laid, and the atmosphere, cleared by the storm of the preceding

afternoon, had a smack of autumn in it. It was one of those delicious,

yet distracting, days when the sea calls, and when whosoever loves

seafaring grows restless, must seek movement, seek the open, strain his

eyes towards the margin of the land--be the coast-line never so far

distant--tormented by desire for sight of the blue water, and the

strong and naked joys of the mighty ridge and furrow where go the

gallant ships.

With the upspringing of the wind at dawn, that calling of the sea had

made itself heard to Richard. At first it suggested only the practical

temptation of putting the _Reprieve_ into commission, and engaging Lady

Calmady to go forth with him on a three or four months' cruise. But

that, as he speedily convinced himself, was but a pitifully cheap

expedient, a shirking of voluntarily assumed responsibility, a childish

cheating of discontent, rather than an honestly attempted cure of it.

If cure was to be achieved, the canker must be excised, boldly cut out,

not overlaid merely by some trifle of partially concealing plaster. For

he knew well enough--as all sea-lovers know--and, as he drove through

the dappled sunlight and shadow, frankly admitted--that though the sea

itself very actually and really called, yet its calling was the voice

and symbol of much over and above itself. For in it speaks the eternal

necessity of going forward, that hunger and thirst for the absolute and

ultimate which drives every human creature whose heart and soul and

intellect are truly animate. And to him, just now, it spoke more

particularly of the natural instincts of his manhood--of ambition, of

passion, of headlong desire of sensation, excitement, adventure, of

just all that, in fact, which he had forsworn, had agreed with himself

to cast aside and forget. And, thinking of this, suspicion assailed him

that forswearing had been slightly insincere and perfunctory. He

accused himself of nourishing the belief that giving, he would also

receive,--and that in kind,--while that any sacrifice which he offered

would be returned to him doubled in value. Casting his bread upon the

waters, he accused himself of having expected to find it, not "after

many days," but immediately--a full baker's dozen ready to hand in his

pocket. His motives had not been wholly pure. Actually, though not at

the time consciously, he had assayed to strike a bargain with the

Almighty.

Just as he reached the top of the long, straight hill leading down into

Westchurch, Richard arrived at these unflattering conclusions. On

either side the road, upon the yellow surface of which the sunlight

played through the tossing leaves of the plane trees, were villas of

very varied and hybrid styles of architecture. They were, for the most

part, smothered in creepers, and set in gardens gay with blossom. Below

lay the sprawling, red-brick town blotted with purple shadow. A black

canal meandered through the heart of it, crossed by mean, humpbacked

bridges. The huge, amorphous buildings of its railway station--engine

sheds, goods warehouses, trailing of swiftly dispersed white smoke--the

grime and clamour of all that, its factory buildings and tall chimneys,

were very evident, as were the pale towers of its churches. And beyond

the ugly, pushing, industrial commonplace of it, striking a very

different note, the blue ribbon of the still youthful Thames, backed by

high-lying chalk-lands fringed with hanging woods, traversed a stretch

of flat, green meadows. Richard's eyes rested upon the scene absently,

since thought just now had more empire over him than any outward

seeing. For he perceived that he must cleanse himself yet further of

self-seeking. Those words, "if thou wilt be perfect sell that thou hast

and give to the poor, and follow thou Me," have not a material and

objective significance merely. They deal with each personal desire,

even the apparently most legitimate--with each indulgence of personal

feeling, even the apparently most innocent--with the inward attitude

and the atmosphere of the mind even more closely than with outward

action and conduct. And so Richard reached the conclusion that he must

strip himself yet nearer to the bone. He must digest the harsh truth

that virtue is its own reward in the sense that it is its only reward,

and must look for nothing beyond that. He had grown slack of late,

seduced by visions of pleasant things permitted most men but to him

forbidden, and wearied, too, by the length of the way and inevitable

monotony of it now first heat of enthusiasm had evaporated. Well--it

was all very simple. He must just re-dedicate himself. And in this

stern and chastened frame of mind he drove through the bustle of the

country town--Saturday, market day, its streets unusually

alive--nodding to an acquaintance here and there in passing, two or

three of his tenant farmers, Mr. Cathcart of Newlands in on county

business, Goodall the octogenarian miller from Parson's Holt, and

Lemuel Image, the brewer, bursting out of an obviously new suit of very

showy tweeds. Then, at the main door of the Infirmary, helped by the

stalwart, hospital porter, he got down from the dog-cart, and

subsequently--raked by curious eyes, saluted by hardly repressed

tittering from the out-patients waiting _en queue_ for admission to the

dispensary--he made his slow way along the bare, vault-like, stone

passage to the accident ward, in the far corner of which a bed was shut

off from the rest by an arrangement of screens and of curtains.

And it was in the same chastened frame of mind that, some four or five

hours later, Dickie entered the dining-room at Brockhurst. The two

ladies had nearly finished luncheon and were about to rise from the

table. Lady Calmady greeted him very gladly, but abstained from inquiry

as to his doings or from comment on the lateness of the hour, since

experience had long ago taught her that of all known animals man is the

one of whom it is least profitable for woman to ask questions. He was

here at home, alive, intact, her eyes were rejoiced by the sight of

him, that was sufficient. If he had anything to tell her, no doubt he

would tell it later. For the rest, she had something to tell him, but

that too must wait till time and circumstance were propitious, since

the conveying of it involved delicate diplomacies. It must be handled

lightly. For the life of her she must avoid all appearance of

eagerness, all appearance of attaching serious importance to the

communication. Lady Calmady had learned, this morning, that Honoria St.

Quentin did not propose to marry Ludovic Quayle. The young lady, whose

charming nonchalance was curiously in eclipse to-day, had given her to

understand so much, but very briefly, the subject evidently being

rather painful to her. She was silent and a little distrait; but she

was also very gentle, displaying a disposition to follow Katherine

about wherever she went and a pretty zeal in doing small, odd jobs for

her. Katherine was touched and tenderly amused by her manner, which was

as that of a charming child coveting assurance that it need not be

ashamed of itself, and that it has not really done anything naughty!

But Katherine sighed too, watching this strong, graceful, capable

creature; for, if things had been otherwise with Dickie, how thankfully

she would have given the keeping of his future into this woman's hands!

She had ceased to be jealous even of her son's love. Gladly,

gratefully, would she have shared that love, accepting the second

place, if only--but all that was beyond possibility of hope. Still the

friendship of which he had spoken somewhat bitterly yesterday--poor

darling--remained. Ludovic Quayle's pretensions--she felt very

pitifully towards that accomplished gentleman, all his good qualities

had started into high relief!--but, his pretensions no longer barring

the way to that friendship, she pledged herself to work for the

promotion of it. Dickie was too severe in self-repression, was

over-strained in stoicism; and, ignoring the fact that in his fixity of

purpose, his exaggerations of self-abnegation, he proved himself very

much her own son, she determined secretly, cautiously, lovingly, to

combat all that.

It was, therefore, with warm satisfaction that, as Honoria was about to

rise from the table, she observed Richard emerge, in a degree, from his

abstraction, and heard him say:--

"You told me you'd like to ride over to Farley this afternoon and see

the home for my crippled people. Are you too tired after your headache,

or do you still care to go?"

"Oh! I'm not tired, thanks," Honoria answered. Then she hesitated, and

Richard, looking at her, was aware, as on the bridge yesterday, of a

sudden and singular thickening of her features, which, while marring

her beauty, rendered her aspect strangely pathetic, as of one who

sustains some mysterious hurt. And to him it seemed, for the moment, as

though both that hurt and the infliction of it bore subtle relation to

himself. Common sense discredited the notion as unpermissibly

fantastic, still it influenced and softened his manner.

"But you know you are looking frightfully done up yourself, Richard,"

she went on, with a charming air of half-reluctant protest. "Isn't he,

Cousin Katherine? Are you sure you want to ride this afternoon? Please

don't go out just on my account."

"Oh! I'm right enough," he answered. "I'd infinitely rather go out."

He pushed back his chair and reached down for his crutches. Still the

fantastic notion that, all unwittingly, he had been guilty of doing

Honoria some strange injury, clung to him. He was sensible of the

desire to offer reparation. This made him more communicative than he

would otherwise have been.

"I saw a man die this morning--that's all," he said. "I know it's

stupid, but one can't help it--it knocks one about a bit. You see he

didn't want to die, poor fellow, though, God knows, he'd little enough

to live for--or to live with, for that matter."

"Your factory hand?" Honoria asked.

Richard slipped out of his chair, and stood upright.

"Yes, my factory hand," he answered. "Dear, old Knott was fearfully

savage about it. He was so tremendously keen on the case, and made sure

of pulling him through. But the poor boy had been sliced up a little

too thoroughly."--Richard paused, smiling at Honoria. "So all one could

do was to go with him just as far as is permitted out into the great

silence, and then--then come home to luncheon. The home at Farley loses

its point, rather, now he is dead. Still there are others, plenty of

others, enough to satisfy even Knott's greed of riveting broken human

crockery.--Oh yes! I shall enjoy riding over, if you are still good to

come. Four o'clock--that'll suit you? I'll order the horses."

And so, in due time, the two rode forth together into the brightness of

the September afternoon. The sea still called, but Dickie's ears were

deaf to all dangerous allurements and excitations resident in that

calling. It had to him, just now, only the pensive charm of a far-away

melody, which, though no doubt of great and immediate import to others,

had ceased to be any concern of his. Beside the death-bed in the

hospital-ward he had renewed his vows, and the efficacy of that renewal

was very present with him. It made for repose. It laid the evil spirit

of defiance, of self-consciousness, of humiliation, so often obtaining

in his intercourse with women--a spirit begotten by the perpetual prick

of his deformity, and in part, too, by his determined adoption of the

ascetic attitude in regard to the affections. He was spent by the

emotions of the morning, but that also made for repose. For the time

being devils were cast out. He was tranquil, yet exalted. His eyes had

a smile in them, as though they looked beyond the limit of things

transitory and material into the regions of the Pure Idea, where the

eternal values are disclosed and Peace has her dwelling. And, precisely

because of all this, he could take Honoria's presence lightly, be

chivalrously solicitous of her entertainment and well-being, and talk

to her with greater freedom than ever heretofore. He ceased to be on

his guard with her because, in good truth, it seemed to him there

ceased to be anything to guard against. For the time being, at all

events, he had got to the other side of all that, and so she and his

relation to her, had become part of that charming but faraway melody

which was no concern of his--though mighty great and altogether worthy

concern of others, of Ludovic Quayle, for example.--And in his present

tranquil humour he could listen to the sweetness of that melody

ungrudgingly. It was pleasant. He could enjoy it without envy--though

it was none of his.

But to Honoria's seeing, it must be owned, matters shaped themselves

very differently. For the usually unperturbed, the chaste and gallant

soul of her endured violent assaults, violent commotions, the origin of

which she but partially understood. And these Richard's frankness, his

courteous, in some sort brotherly, good-fellowship, served to intensify

rather than allay. The feeling of the noble horse under her, the cool,

westerly wind in her face, went to steady her nerves, and restore the

self-possession, courage of judgment, and clearness of thought, which

had been lacking to her during the past twenty-four hours. Nevertheless

she rode as through a but-newly-discovered country, familiar objects

displaying alien aspects, familiar phrases assuming unlooked-for

significance, a something challenging and fateful meeting her

everywhere. The whole future seemed to hang in the balance, and she

waited, dreading yet longing, to see the scale turn.

This afternoon the harvesters were carrying the corn. Red-painted

waggons, drawn by sleek, heavy-made cart-horses, crawled slowly across

the blond stubble. It was pretty to see the rusty-gold sheaves tossed

up from the shining prongs of the pitchforks on to the mountainous

load. Honoria and Richard watched this, a little minute, from the

grass-ride bordering the roadway beneath the elms. Next came the

high-lying moorland, beyond the lodges. The fine-leaved heath was thick

with red-purple blossom. Patches of dusky heather were frosted with

dainty pink. Spikes of genista and beds of needle-furze showed sharply

yellow, vividly green, and a fringe of blue campanula, with frail,

quivering bells, outlined all open spaces. The face of the land had

been washed by the rain. It shone with an inimitable cleanliness, as

though consciously happy in relief from all soil of dust. And it was

here, the open country stretching afar on all sides, that Dickie began

talking, not, as at first, in desultory fashion, but of matters nearly

pertaining and closely interesting to himself.

"You know," he said, as they walked the horses quietly, neck to neck,

along the moorland road, "I don't go in for system-making or for

reforms on any big scale. That doesn't come within my province. I must

leave that to politicians and to men who are in the push of the world.

I admire it. I rejoice in the hot-headed, narrow-brained, whole-hearted

agitator, who believes that his system adopted, his reform carried

through, the whole show will instantly be put straight. Such faith is

very touching."

"And the reformer has sometimes done some little good after all,"

Honoria commented.

"Of course he has!" Dickie agreed. "Only, as a rule, poor dear, he

can't be contented but that his special reform should be the final one,

that his system should be the universal panacea. And in point of fact

no reform is final this side of death, and no panacea is universal,

save that which the Maker of the Universe chooses to work out--is

working out now, if we could any way grasp it--through the slow course

of unnumbered ages. Let the reformer do all he can, but don't let him

turn sour because his pet reform, his pet system, sinks away and is

swallowed up in the great sea of things--sea of human progress, if you

like. Every system is bound to prove too small, every reform

ludicrously inadequate--be it never so radical--because material

conditions are perpetually changing, while man in his mental, emotional

and physical aspects remains always precisely the same."

They passed from the breezy upland into the high-banked lane which,

leading downwards, joins the great London and Portsmouth Road just

beyond Farley Row.

"And--and that is where I come in!" Richard said, turning a little

in the saddle and smiling sweet-temperedly, yet with a suggestion

of self-mockery, upon his companion. "Just because, in essential

respects, mankind remains--notwithstanding modifications of his

environment--substantially the same, from the era of the Pentateuch

to the era of the Rougon-Macquarts, there must always be a lot of

wreckage, of waste, and refuse humanity. The inauguration of each

new system, each new reform--religious, political, educational,

economic--practically they're all in the same boat--let alone the

inevitable breakdown or petering out of each, necessarily produces a

fresh crop of such waste and refuse material. And in that a man like

myself, who does not aspire to cure or to construct, but merely to

alleviate and to pick up the pieces, finds his chance."

And Honoria listened musing--approved, enthusiasm gaining her; yet

protested--since, even while she admired, she rebelled a little on his

account, and for his sake.

"But it is rather a hard life, surely Richard," she said, "which you

propose to yourself? Always the pieces, the thing broken and spoiled,

never the thing in its beauty, full of promise, and whole!"

"It is less hard for me than for most," he answered, "or should be so.

After all, I am to the manner born--a bit of human wreckage myself,

with which, but for the accident of wealth, things would have gone

pretty badly. I used to be horribly scared sometimes, as a small boy,

thinking to what uses I might be put if the kindly, golden rampart ever

gave."

He became silent. As for Honoria, she had neither courage to look at,

nor answer, him just then.

"And you see, I'm absolutely free," he added presently.--"I am alone,

always shall be so. If the life is hard, I ask no one to share it, so I

may make it what I like."

"Oh! no, no--you misunderstand, Richard! I didn't mean that," Honoria

cried quickly, half under her breath.

Again he looked at her, smiling.

"Didn't you? All the kinder of you," he said.

Thereupon regret, almost intolerable in its poignancy, invaded Miss St.

Quentin that she would have to go away, to go back to the world and all

the foolish obtaining fashions of it; that she would have to take that

preeminently well-cushioned and luxurious winter's journey to Cairo.

She longed inexpressibly to remain here, to assist in these experiments

made in the name of Holy Charity. She longed inexpressibly to---- And

there Honoria paused, even in thought. Yet she glanced at the young man

riding beside her--at the handsome profile, still and set in outline,

the suggestion--it was no more--of a scar running downward across the

left cheek, at the well-made, upright, broad-shouldered figure, and

then at the saddle, peaked, back and front, with oddly-shaped

appendages to it resembling old-fashioned holsters.--And, as yesterday

upon the bridge, the ache of a pain at once sweet and terrible laid

hold of her, making her queerly faint. The single street, sun-covered,

sleepy, empty save for a brewer's dray and tax-cart or two standing

before the solid Georgian portals of the White Lion Inn, for a

straggling tail of children bearing home small shoppings and jugs of

supper beer, for a flock of gray geese proceeding with suggestively

self-righteous demeanour along the very middle of the roadway and

lowering long necks to hiss defiance at the passer-by, and for an old

black retriever dozing peacefully beneath one of the rustling sycamores

in front of Josiah Appleyard, the saddler's shop--all these, as she

looked at them, became uncertain in outline, reeled before Honoria's

eyes. For the moment she experienced a difficulty in keeping steady in

the saddle. But the horses still walked quietly, neck to neck, their

shadows, and those of their riders growing longer, narrower,

outstretched before them as the sun declined in the west. All the

future hung in the balance, but the scale had not turned as yet.

Then Richard's voice took up its parable again.

"Perhaps it's a rather fraudulently comfortable doctrine, yet it does

strike one that the justification of disaster, in all its many forms,

is the opportunity it affords the individualist. He may use it for

self-aggrandisement, or for self-devotion--though I rather shy at so

showy a word as that last. However, the use he makes of it isn't the

point. What is the point, to my mind at least, is this--though it

doesn't sound magnificent, it hardly indeed sounds cleanly--that

whatever trade fails, whatever profession, thanks to the advance of

civilisation, becomes obsolete, that of the man with the dust-cart, of

the scavenger, of the sweeper, won't."

Once more Richard smiled upon his companion charmingly, yet with

something of self-mockery.

"And so, you see, having knocked about enough to grow careless of

niceties of prejudice, and to acquire immense admiration for any

vocation which promises permanence, I join hands with the dustman. In

the light of science, and in that of religion alike, nothing really is

common or unclean. And then--then, if you are outcasted in any case as

some of us are, it's a little too transparently cheap to be afraid of

soiling----" He broke off.--"Away there to the left, Honoria," he said.

"You see the house? The yellow-washed one, with the gables and tiled

roofs--there, back on the slope.--Bagshaw, the Bond Street poulterer,

had it for years. His lease ran out in the spring, and happily he

didn't care to renew. Had bought himself an up-to-date, villa residence

somewhere in the suburbs--Chistlehurst, I believe. So I took the place

over. It will do for a beginning--the small end of the wedge of my

scavenger's business. There are over five acres of garden and orchard,

and plenty of rooms on each floor, which gives good range for the

disabled to move about in--and the stairs, only one flight, are easy.

One has to think of these details. And--well, the house commands a

magnificent view of Clerke's Green, and the geese on it, than which

nothing clearly can be more exciting!"

The groom rode forward and opened the gate. Before the square,

outstanding porch Richard drew up.

"I should like to come in with you," he said. "But you see it's rather

a business getting off one's horse, and I can't very well manage the

stairs. So I'll wait about till you are ready. Don't hurry. I want you

to see all the arrangements, if it doesn't bore you, and make

suggestions. The carpenters are there, doing overtime. They'll let you

through if the caretaker's out."

Thus admonished, Miss St. Quentin dismounted and made her way into the

house. A broad passage led straight through it. The open door at the

farther end disclosed a vista of box-edged paths and flower-borders

where, in gay ranks, stood tall sunflowers, hollyhocks,

Michaelmas-daisies, and such like. Beyond was orchard, the round-headed

apple-trees, bright with polished fruit, rising from a carpet of grass.

The rooms, to left and right of the passage, were pleasantly sun-warmed

and mellow of aspect, the ceilings of them crossed by massive beams.

Honoria visited them, dutifully observant. She encountered the head

carpenter, an acquaintance and ally during those four years so great

part of which she had spent at Brockhurst. She talked with him, making

inquiries concerning wife, children and trade, incident to such a

meeting, her face very serious all the while, the skirt of her habit

gathered up in one hand, her gait a trifle stiff and measured owing to

her high riding-boots. But, though she acquitted herself in all

kindliness of conversation, though she conscientiously inspected each

separate apartment, and noted the cheerful comeliness of orchard and

garden, it must be owned all these remained singularly distant from her

actual emotion and thought. She was glad to be alone. She was glad to

be away from Richard Calmady, though zealously obedient to his wishes

in respect of this inspection. For his presence became increasingly

oppressive from the intensity of feeling it produced in her, and which

she was, at present, powerless to direct towards any reasonable and

definite end. This rendered her tongue-tied, and, as she fancied,

stupid. Her unreadiness mortified her. She, usually indifferent enough

to the impression she produced on others, was sensible of a keen desire

to appear at her best. She did in fact, so she believed, appear at her

worst, slow of understanding and of sympathy.--But then all the future

hung in the balance. The scale delayed to turn. And the strain of

waiting became agitating to the point of distress.

At last the course of her so-dutiful survey brought her to a quaint,

little chamber, situated immediately over the square, outstanding

porch. It was lighted by a single, hooded window placed in the centre

of the front wall. It was evidently designed for a linen room, and was

in process of being fitted with shelves and cupboards of white pine.

The floor was deep in shavings, long, curly, wafer-coloured,

semi-transparent. They rustled like fallen leaves when Honoria stepped

among them. The air was filled with the odour of them, dry and resinous

as that of the fir forest. Ever after that odour affected Honoria with

a sense of half-fearful joy and of impending fate. She stood in the

middle of the quaint, little chamber. The ceiling was low. She had to

bend her head to avoid violent contact between the central beam of it

and the crown of her felt hat. But circumscribed though the space, and

uncomfortable though her posture, she had an absurd longing to lock the

door of the little room, never to come out, to stay here forever! Here

she was safe. But outside, on the threshold, stood something she dared

not name. It drew her with a pain at once terrible and lovely. She

dreaded it. Yet once close to it, once face to face with it, she knew

it would have her--that it would not take no for an answer. Her pride,

her chastity, were in arms. Was this, she wondered, what men and women

speak of so lightly, laugh and joke about? Was this love?--To her it

seemed wholly awe-inspiring. And so she clung strangely to the shelter

of the quaint, little room with its sea of rustling, resinous shavings.

On the other side the door of it waited that momentous decision which

would cause the scale to turn. Yet the minutes passed. To prolong her

absence became impossible.

Just then there was a movement below, a crunching of the gravel, as

though of a horse growing restless, impatient of standing. Honoria

moved forward, opened the window, pushing back the casement against a

cluster of late-blossoming, red roses, the petals of which floated

slowly downward describing fluttering circles. Richard Calmady was just

below. Honoria called to him.

"I am coming, Richard, I am coming!" she said.

He turned in the saddle and looked up at her smiling--a smile at once

courageous and resigned. Yet, notwithstanding that smile, Honoria once

again discovered in his eyes the chill desolation and homelessness of

the sky of the winter night. Then the scale turned, turned at last--for

that same lovely pain grew lovelier, more desirable than any

possibility of ease, until such time as that desolation should pass,

that homelessness be cradled to content in some sure harbourage.--Here

was the thing given her to do, and she must do it! She would risk all

to win all. And, with that decision, all her serenity and freedom of

soul returned. The white light of a noble self-devotion, reckless of

self-spending, reckless of consequence, the joy of a great giving,

illuminated her face.

As to Richard, he, looking up at her, though ignorant of her purpose,

misreading the cause of that inspired aspect, still thought he had

never witnessed so graciously gallant a sight. The nymph whom he had

first known, who had baffled and crossed him, was here still, strong,

untamed, elusive, remote. But a woman was here too, of finest fibre,

faithful and loyal, capable of undying tenderness, of an all-encircling

and heroic love. Then the desires of the natural man stirred somewhat

in Richard, just because--paradox though it undoubtedly was--she

provoked less the carnal, perishing passion of the flesh, than the pure

and imperishable passion of the spirit. Irrepressible envy of Ludovic

Quayle, her lover, seized him, irrepressible demand for just all those

things which that other Richard, the would-be saint, had so sternly

condemned himself to repudiate, to cast aside and forget. And the

would-be saint triumphed--beating down thought of all that, trampling

it under foot--so that after briefest interval he called up to her

cheerily enough.

"Well, what do you make of the dust-cart? Rather fascinating, isn't it?

Notwithstanding its uncleanly name, it's really rather sweet."

To which she answered, speaking from out the wide background of her own

emotion and purpose:--

"Yes, yes--it's sad in a way, Richard, penetratingly, splendidly sad.

But one wouldn't have it otherwise; for it is splendid, and it is

sweet, abundantly sweet."--Then her tone changed.--"I won't keep you

waiting any longer, I'm coming," she said.

Honoria looked round the quaint, little room, with its half-adjusted

shelves and cupboards, the floor of it deep in resinous,

semi-transparent, wafer-coloured shavings, bidding it adieu. For good

or evil, happiness or sorrow, she was sensible it told for much in her

life's history. Then, something delicately militant in her carriage,

she swung away down-stairs and out of the house. She was going forth to

war indeed, to a war which in no shape or form had she ever waged as

yet. Many men had wooed her, and their wooing had left her cold. She

had never wooed any man. Why should she? To her no man had ever

mattered one little bit.

So she mounted, and they rode away.--A spin across the level turf to

hearten her up, satisfy the fulness of sensation which held her, and

shake her nerves into place. It was exhilarating. She grew keen and

tense, her whole economy becoming reliable and well-knit by the strong

exercise and sense of the superbly healthy and unperplexed vitality of

the horse under her. Honoria could have fought with dragons just then,

had such been there to fight with! But, in point of fact, nothing more

agressively dangerous presented itself for encounter than the shallow

ford which divides the parish of Farley from that of Sandyfield and the

tithing of Brockhurst. Snorting a little, the horses splashed through

the clear, brown water and entered upon the rough, rutted road, grass

grown in places, which, ending beneath a broken avenue of ancient,

stag-headed oaks, leads to the entrance of the Brockhurst woods. These,

crowned by the dark, ragged line of the fir forest, rose in a soft,

dense mass against the western sky, in which showed promise of a fair

pageant of sunset. A covey of partridges ran up the sandy ruts before

the horses, and, rising at last with a long-drawn whir of wings,

skimmed the top of the crumbling bank and dropped in the stubble-field

on the right. A pause, while the keeper's wife ran out to open the

white gate,--the dogs meanwhile, from their wooden kennels under the

Spanish chestnuts upon the hillock behind the lodge, pulling at their

chains and keeping up a vociferous chorus. Thus heralded, the riders

passed into the mysteriously whispering quiet of the great woods.

The heavy, summer foliage remained as yet untouched by the hectic of

autumn. Diversity was observable in form rather than in tint, and from

this resulted a remarkable effect of unity, a singleness of intention,

and of far-reaching secrecy. The multitudinous leaves and the

all-pervading green gloom of them around, above, seemed to engulf

horses and riders. It was as though they rode across the floor of

ocean, the green tides sweeping overhead. Yet the trees of the wood

asserted their intelligent presence now and again. Audibly they talked

together, bent themselves a little to listen and to look, as though

curious of the aspect and purposes of these wandering mortals. And all

this, the unity and secrecy of the place, affected both Richard and

Honoria strangely, circling them about with something of earth-magic,

removing them far from ordinary conditions of social intercourse, and

thus rendering it possible, inevitable even, that they should think

such thoughts and say such words as part company with subterfuge and

concealment, go naked, and speak uttermost truth. For, with only the

trees of the wood to listen, with that sibilant whisper of the green

tide overhead, with strong emotion compelling them--in the one case

towards death of self, in the other towards giving of self--in the one

towards austere passivity, in the other towards activity taxing all

capital of pride, of delicacy, and of tact--developments became

imminent, and those of the most vital sort.

The conversation had been broken, desultory; but now, by tacit consent,

the pace became quiet again, the horses were permitted to walk. To have

gone other than softly through the living heart of the greenwood must

have savoured of desecration. Yet Richard was not insensible to a

certain danger. He tried, rousing himself to conversation, to rouse

himself also to the practical and commonplace.

"I am glad you liked my house," he said. "But I hear the aristocracy of

the Row laments. It shies at the idea of being invaded by more or less

frightful creatures. But I remain deaf. I really can't bother about

that. It is so immeasurably more unpleasant to be frightful than to see

that which is so, that I'm afraid my sympathies remain rather

pig-headedly one-sided. I propose to educate the Row in the grace of

pity. It may lay up merit by due exercise of that."

Richard took off his hat and rode bareheaded, looking away into the

delicious, green gloom. Here, where the wood was thickest, oak and

beech shutting out the sky, clasping hands overhead, the ground beneath

them deep in moss and fern, that gloom was precisely like the colour of

Honoria's eyes. He wished it wasn't so. He tried to forget it. But the

resemblance haunted him. Look where he might, still he seemed to look

into those singular and charming eyes. He talked on determinedly,

putting a force upon himself--too often saying that which, no sooner

was it out of his mouth, than, he wished unsaid.

"I don't want to be too hard on the Row, though. It has a right, after

all, to its little prejudices. Only you see for those who, poor souls,

are different to other people it becomes of such supreme importance to

keep in touch with the average. I have found that out in practice. And

so I refuse to shut my waste humanity away. They must neither hide

themselves nor be hidden, be spared seeing how much other people enjoy

from which they are debarred, or grow over-conscious of their own

ungainliness. That is why I've planted them and their gardens, and

their pigs and their poultry--we'll have a lot of live stock, a second

generation, even of chickens, offers remarkable consolations!--on the

highroad, at the entrance of the little town, where, on a small scale

at all events, they'll see the world that's straight-backed and has its

proper complement of limbs and senses, go by. Envy, hatred, and malice,

and the seven devils of morbidity are forever lying in wait for

them--well--for us--for me and those like me, I mean. In proportion as

one's brought up tenderly--as I was--one doesn't realise the

deprivation and disgust of one's condition at the start. But once

realised, one's inclination is to kill. At least a man's is. A woman

may accept it more quietly, I suppose."

"Richard," Honoria said slowly, "are you sure you don't greatly

exaggerate all--all that?"

He shook his head.

"Thirty years' experience--no, I don't exaggerate! Each time one makes

a fresh acquaintance, each time a pretty woman is just that bit kinder

to one than she would dare be to any man who was not out of it, each

time people are manifestly interested--politely, of course--and form a

circle, make room for one as they did at that particularly disagreeable

Grimshott garden party yesterday, each time--I don't want to drivel,

but so it is--one sees a pair of lovers--oh! well, it's not easy to

retain one's philosophy, not to obey the primitive instincts of any

animal when it's ill-used and hurt, and to revenge oneself--to want to

kill, in short."

"You--you don't hate women, then?" Honoria said, still slowly.

Richard stared at her for a moment.

"Hate them?" he said. "I only wish to goodness I did."

"But in that case," she began bravely, "why----"

"This is why," he broke in.--"You may remember my engagement to Lady

Constance Quayle, and the part you, very properly, took in the

canceling of it? You know better than I do--though my imagination is

pretty fertile in dealing with the situation--what instincts and

feelings prompted you to take that part."

The young lady turned to him, her arms outstretched, notwithstanding

bridle-reins and whip, her face, and those strange eyes which seemed so

integral a part of the fair green-wood, full of sorrowful entreaty and

distress.

"Richard, Richard," she cried, "will you never forgive me that? She

didn't love you. It was horrible, yet in doing that which I did, I

believed--I believe so still--I did what was right by you both."

"Undoubtedly you did right--and that justifies my contention. In doing

that which you did you gave voice to the opinion of all

wholesome-minded people. That's exactly where it is. You felt the whole

business to be outrageous. So it was. I heartily agree."--He paused,

and the trees talked softly together, bending down a little to listen

and to look.--"As you say, she wasn't in love. Poor child, how could

she be? No woman ever will be--at least not in love of the nobler

sort--of the sort which, if one cannot have it, one had a vast deal

better have no love at all."

"But I am not so sure of that," Honoria said stoutly. "You rush to

conclusions. Isn't it rather a reflection on all the rest of us to take

little Lady Constance as the measure of the insight and sensibility of

the whole sex? And then she had already lost all her innocent, little

heart to Captain Decies. Indeed you're not fair to us.--Wait----"

"Like Ludovic Quayle?"

Miss St. Quentin straightened herself in the saddle.

"Oh! dear no, not the least like Ludovic Quayle!" she said.

Which enigmatic reply produced silence for a while on Dickie's part.

For there were various ways in which it might be interpreted, some

flattering, some eminently unflattering, to himself. And from every

point of view it was wisest to accept that last form of interpretation.

The whole conversation had been perilous in character. It had been too

intimate, had touched him too nearly, taking place here in the clear

glooms of the green-wood moreover which bore such haunting kinship to

those singularly sincere, and yet mysterious, eyes. It is dangerous to

ride across the floor of ocean with the whispering tide sweeping

overhead, and in such gallant company, besides, that to ride thus

forever could hardly come amiss!--Richard, in his turn, straightened

himself up in the saddle, opened his chest, taking a long breath,

carried his head high, said a stern "get thee behind me, Satan," to

encroaching sentiment and emotion, and to those fair visions which his

companion's presence and her somewhat daring talk had conjured up. He

defied the earth-magic, defied those sylvan deities who as he divined,

sought to enthral him. For the moment he confounded Honoria's influence

with theirs. It was something of a battle, and not the first one he had

fought to-day. For the great, white road which leads onward to

Perfection looked dusty and arid enough--no reposeful shadow, no

mystery, no beguiling green glooms over it! Stark, straight, hard, it

stretched on endlessly, as it seemed, ahead. To travel it was slow and

tedious work, in any case; and to travel it on crutches!--But it was

worse than useless to play with such thoughts as these. He would put a

stop to this disintegrating talk. He turned to Honoria and spoke

lightly, with a return of self-mockery.

"Oh! your first instinct was the true one, depend upon it," he said.

"Though I don't deny it contributed, indirectly, to giving me a pretty

rough time."

"Oh! dear me!" Honoria cried, almost piteously. Then she added:--"But I

don't see, why was that?"

"Because, I suppose, I had a sort of unwilling belief in you," he said,

smiling.--Oh! this accursed conversation, why would it insistently

drift back into intimacy thus!

"Have I justified that belief?" she asked, with a certain pride yet a

certain eagerness.

"More than justified it," Dickie answered. "My mother, who has a

touchstone for all that is of high worth, knew you from the first. Like

the devils, I--I believed and trembled--at least that is how I see it

all now. So your action came as a rather searching revelation and

condemnation. When I perceived all that it involved--oh, well! first I

went to the dogs, and then----"

The horses walked side by side. Honoria stretched out her hand

impulsively, laid it on his arm.

"Richard, Richard, for pity's sake don't! You hurt me too much. It's

terrible to have been the cause of such suffering."

"You weren't the cause," he said. "Lies were the cause, behind which,

like a fool, I'd tried to shelter myself. You've been right, Honoria,

from first to last. What does it matter after all?--Don't take it to

heart. For it's over now--all over, thank God, and I have got back into

normal relations with things and with people."--He looked at her very

charmingly, and spoke with a fine courtesy of tone.--"One way and

another you have taught me a lot, and I am grateful. And, in the

future, though the conditions will be altered, I hope you'll come back

here often, Honoria, and just see for yourself that my mother is

content; and give my schemes and fads a kindly look in at the same

time. And perhaps give me a trifle of sound advice. I shall need it

safe enough. You see what I want to get at is temperance--temperance

all round, towards everything and everybody--not fanaticism, which, in

some respects, is a much easier attitute of mind."

Richard looked up into the whispering, green tide overhead.

"Yes, one must deny oneself the luxury of fanaticism, if possible," he

said, "deny oneself the vanity of eccentricity. One must take

everything simply, just in the day's work. One must keep in touch. Keep

in touch with your world, the great world, the world which cultivates

pleasure and incidentally makes history, as well as with the world of

the dust-cart--I know that well enough--if one's to be quite sane. You

see loneliness, a loneliness of which I am thankful to think you can

form no conception, is the curse of persons like myself. It inclines

one to hide, to sulk, to shut oneself away and become misanthropic. To

hug one's misery becomes one's chiefest pleasure--to nurse one's grief,

one's sense of injury. Oh! I'm wary, very wary now, I tell you," he

added, half laughing. "I know all the insidious temptations, the tricks

and frauds, and pitfalls of this affair. And so I'll continue to go to

Grimshott garden parties as discipline now and then, while I gather my

disabled and decrepit family very closely about me and say words of

wisdom to it--wisdom derived from a mature and extensive personal

experience."

There was a pause before Miss St. Quentin spoke. Then she said slowly.

"And you refuse to let any one help? You, you refuse to let any one

share the cares of that disabled family?"

Again Dickie stared at her, arrested by her speech and doubtful of the

intention of it. He could have sworn there were tears in her voice,

that it trembled. But her face was averted, and he could see no more

than the slightly angular outline of her cheek and chin.

"Isn't that a rather superfluous question?" he remarked. "As you

pointed out a little while ago, mine is not a super-abundantly cheerful

programme. No one would volunteer for such service--at least no one

likely to be acceptable to my mother, or indeed likely to satisfy my

own requirements. I admit, I'm a little fastidious, a little critical

and exacting, when it comes to close quarters and--well--permanent

association, even yet."

"I am very glad to hear that," Honoria said. Her face remained averted,

but there was a change in her attitude, a decision in the pose of her

figure, suggestive both of challenge and of triumph.

Richard was nonplussed, but his blood was up. This conversation had

gone far enough--indeed too far. Very certainly he would make an end of

it.

"But God forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should ever fall to such a

depth of selfishness as to invite any person who would satisfy my

taste, my demands, to share my life! I mayn't amount to very much, but

at least I have never used my personal ill luck to trade on a woman's

generosity and pity. What I have had from women, I've paid for, in hard

cash. In that respect my conscience is clear. It has been a bargain,

fair and square and above board, and all my debts are settled in full.

You hardly think at this time of day I should use my proposed schemes

of philanthropy as a bait?"

Richard sent his horse forward at a sharp trot.

"No, no, Honoria," he said, "let it be understood that side of things

is over forever."

But here came relief from the green glooms of the green-wood and the

dangerous magic of them. For the riders had reached the summit of the

hill, and entered upon the levels of the great table-land at the head

of which Brockhurst House stands. Here was the open, the fresh breeze,

the long-drawn, sighing song of the fir forest--a song more austere,

more courageous, more virile, than ever sung by the trees of the wood

which drop their leaves for fear of the sharp-toothed winter, and only

put them forth again beneath the kisses of soft-lipped spring. Covering

all the western sky were lines of softly-rounded, broken cloud, rank

behind rank, in endless perspective, the whole shaped like a mighty

fan. The under side of them was flushed with living rose. The clear

spaces behind them paved with sapphire at the zenith, and palest topaz

where they skirted the far horizon.

"How very beautiful it is!" Honoria cried, joyously. "Richard let us

see this."

She turned her horse at the green ride which leads to the white Temple

situate on that outstanding spur of hill. She rode on quickly till she

reached the platform of turf before the Temple. Richard followed her

with deliberation. He was shaken. His calm was broken up, his whole

being in tumult. Why had she pressed just all those matters home on him

which he had agreed with himself to cast aside and forget? It was a

little cruel, surely, that temptation should assail him thus, and the

white road towards Perfection be made so difficult to tread, just when

he had re-dedicated himself and renewed his vows? He looked after her.

It was here he had met her first, after the time when, as a little

maid, she had proved too swift of foot, leaving him so far behind that

it sorely hurt his baby dignity and caused him to see her depart

without regret. She was still swift of foot. She left him behind now.

For the moment he was ready to swear that, not only without regret, but

with actual thankfulness he could again witness her departure.--Yes, he

wanted her to go, because he so desperately wanted her to stay--that

was the truth. For not only Dickie the natural man, but Dickie "the

wild bull in a net," had a word to say just then.--God in heaven, what

hard work it is to be good!

Miss St. Quentin kicked her left foot out of the stirrup, threw her

right leg over the pommel, turned, and slipped straight out of the

saddle. She stood there a somewhat severely tall, dark figure, strong

and positive in effect, against the immense and reposeful

landscape--far-ranging, purple distance, golden harvest-fields, silver

glint of water in the hollows, all the massive grandeur of the woods,

and that superb pageant of sunset sky.

The groom rode forward, took her horse, led it away to the far side of

the grass platform behind the Temple. Those ranks of rosy cloud in

infinite perspective, with spaces of clearest topaz and sapphire light

between, converged to the glowing glory of the sun, the rim of which

now touched the margin of the world. They were as ranks of worshippers,

of blessed souls redeemed and sainted, united by a common act of

adoration, every form clothed by reflection of His glory, every heart,

every thought centred upon God.--Richard looked at all that, but it

failed to speak to him. Then he saw Honoria resolutely turn her back

upon the glory. She came directly towards him. Her face was very thin,

her manner very calm. She laid her left hand on the peak of his saddle.

She looked him full in the eyes.

"Richard," she said, "be patient a minute and listen.--It comes to

this, that a woman--your equal in position, of your own age, and not

without money--does volunteer to share your work. It's no forlorn hope.

She is not disappointed. On the contrary she has, and can have, pretty

well all the world's got to give. Only--perhaps very foolishly, for she

doesn't know much about the matter, having been rather coldblooded as

yet--she has fallen in love."

There was a silence, save that the wind came out of the west, out of

the majesty of the sunset, and with it came the calling of the sea--not

only of the blue water, or of those green tides that sweep above

wandering mortals in the magic green-wood; but of the sea of faith, of

the sea of love--love human, love divine, love universal--which circles

not only this, but all possible states of being, all possible worlds.

Presently Richard spoke hoarsely, under his breath.

"With whom?" he said.

"With you----"

Dickie went white to the lips. He sat absolutely still for a little

space, his hands resting on his thighs.

"Tell her to think," he said, at last.--"She proposes to do that which

the world will condemn, and rightly, from its point of view. It will

misread her motives. It won't spare disagreeable comment. Tell her to

think.--Tell--tell her to look.--Cripple, dwarf, the last, as he ought

to be, of an unlucky race--a man who's carried up and down-stairs like

an infant, who's strapped to the saddle, strapped to the driving

seat--who is cut off from most forms of activity and of sport.--A man

who will never have any sort of career--who has given himself, in

expiation of past sins, to the service of human beings a degree more

unfortunate than himself.--No, no, stop--hear me out.--She must know it

all!--A man who has lived far from cleanly, who has evil memories and

evil knowledge of life--no--listen!--A man whom you,--yes, you

yourself, Honoria,--have condemned bitterly, from whom, notwithstanding

your splendid nerve and pluck, so repulsive is his deformity, you have

shrunk a hundred times."

"She has thought of all that," Honoria answered calmly. "But she has

thought of this too,--that, going up and down the world to find the

most excellent thing in it, she has found this thing, love. And so to

her, Richard, your crippling has come to be dearer than any other man's

wholeness. Your wrong-doings--may God forgive her--dearer than any

other man's virtue. Your virtues so wholly beautiful that--that----"

The tears came into her eyes, her lips quivered, she backed away a

little from rider and horse.

"Richard," she cried fiercely, "if you don't care for me, if you don't

want me, be honourable, tell me so straight out and let us have done

with it! I am strong enough, I am man enough, for that. For heaven's

sake don't take me out of pity. I would never forgive you. There's a

good deal of us both, one way and another, and we should give each

other a hell of a time if I was in love and you were not. But"--she put

her hand on the peak of that very ugly saddle again--"but, if you do

care, here I am. I have never failed any one yet. I will never fail

you. I am yours body and soul. Marry me," she said.