Chapter XIV

Daphne was happy in her new life of freedom at Old Hall House, though it was less than it had promised to be when seen from a school-room window. Its worst failure was her father's postponement for a whole year of their residence in Paris, and a lingering doubt lest the day of packing and travelling never arrived. Another was her periods of dulness. Nobody ever seemed to come to Old Hall House; her father kept himself shut up in his study; and Owen for nine months of the year was at school. There were mornings and afternoons when she wandered about the passages and looked aimlessly out of windows, or strolled in the garden humming the fragmentary tunes of the lonely.

But she determined to believe in its delights; and indeed much of it was glorious. It was glorious to shut the door of the great playroom and loll in the tattered chair and read just what she wanted to. Her first plan of reading had been much more ambitious: she was going to work through all her father's critical books, and at the end of each volume study every masterpiece he had mentioned within its covers. But she could not do this. Nothing that required effort could she study for more than half an hour. She boggled at these Sir Thomas Brownes and Donnes and Emersons and Carlyles, many of whose sentences had to be enunciated twice or even three times before one glimpsed a meaning. And poetry wearied her as quickly, though every now and then a perfect phrase or a line of tragic emotion gave her a spasm of delight. But her love of these moments was not strong enough to overcome her indolence; and she decided that she would profit most by reading only those things that came easy to her--fiction, and the lighter essayists, such as Lamb and Stevenson, and the jollier parts of Shakespeare. With her reading of these people surged higher and higher the longing to do as they had done, and the confidence that she could do it. Sometimes she put books aside, and got her ink and paper with a view to starting; but nothing at present would come: the swelling _something_ in her stayed in its darkness and refused to filter through a pen. So she resolved--as she preferred to resolve, for the deep chair was cosy, and reading was so much easier than creation--that she must go on stocking her mind.

"Besides, I must have experiences, of which at present I have nil."

And then she would look out of her window over the road that ran southward to the downs and the sea, and northward to the cities, and wonder what her experiences would be and where they lay.

Now she discovered the hollowness of Miss Carrell. Full of the excitement of her reading, she would want to pour it all out to her frequent companion, but quickly found that Miss Carrell was unable to understand, and consequently uninterested. She shammed an interest, certainly, but it was at first patronising, and always astonishingly uninformed. Daphne gradually arrived at the difficult conclusion that she knew more and understood better than her former governess.

Miss Carrell, in fact, was far from contented. Her gradual supplanting by Daphne was painfully proved by the invitations that at last began to arrive from neighbouring society. There had been none of these before Daphne appeared, Mr. Bruno having the reputation of a recluse. But now a few fluttered in like stray birds, and generally they were for "Mr. Tenter Bruno and Miss Bruno." Seldom Miss Carrell. She was not sure that with all her scheming she had not ruined herself. Here was she, thirty, and only a waning manageress in a country house. She had reached her highest point, five years ago, when she had sent Daphne to school, and entered upon her reign. At her age, this had been distinctly good. But now----? There was little chance of marrying, with so few people coming to Old Hall House. And yet nowhere else could she get so well paid a post. She was caught in a prison she had built for herself.

Hazily Daphne saw all of this; but she was too happy to desire the entrance of anything unpleasant, so strove to be affable and even humble with the apprehensive Miss Carrell.

Too good to be yet believed--Daphne had the regular loan of a saddle horse, a tall chestnut of sixteen hands. On frosty afternoons, just before sunset, or summer evenings before the dinner hour, she would ride it on Ditchling Common--_astride_. The whole neighbourhood, she suspected, was impressed, and talked about "new women." She pictured herself as she appeared to them: her hair still down her back and tied by a black bow; her costume consisting of riding breeches, overhung by a divided skirt; her seat good but not yet perfect. She would trot through the "toll-gate" on to Ditchling Common, still with the childish make-believe that she was a highwayman. When off the hard road and on the grass of the common, she would set the horse cantering; and, being a spirited creature, it would soon break into a stretch gallop. As a dance can be the rhythmic medium of urgent emotion, so this straight-flying, body-poising, breath-speeding gallop was the most satisfying art-form for her present feelings; it was the expression of her glorying in freedom and adulthood. The wind rushed through her hair, and the blood tingled in her veins. Her face heated and cooled in the air. She could have shouted. Had she not everything she wished for? Where had Time swept that schoolgirl of a few months back, who was punished in bedrooms? She checked the horse and reined him in, bumping slightly as he slowed down. Now he was walking, and she hollowed her back for relief; and, slackening the bridle, replaced a disordered hair.

Of her few friends Mrs. Montague Jevons, of Wildean Manor, was the best. Mrs. Montague Jevons was a large-boned, vivacious lady, who, as an intelligent admirer of the Tenter Bruno books, had shown a great interest in their author's daughter. A short acquaintance with Daphne had developed this interest into something like a sane favouritism. She called Daphne "her little friend" and treated her mind, not as a child's, but as the equal of her own. She would invite her to tea and a discussion on books, and would declare with sincerity that the daughter would one day be as famous as the father. It was she who daily sent the chestnut horse alongside of a groom.

In January of the second year, when Mr. Bruno really was making a move about the _pied-à-terre_ in Paris, Mrs. Montague Jevons gave a ball at Wildean Manor. It would be the biggest that Daphne had gone to. She was excited. And since Mrs. Montague Jevons had been careful to invite Miss Carrell, she could discuss to her heart's content the ball, her dress and the tiring of her hair. Many experiments she tried with her hair, till she decided to keep it exactly the same as it was every day, only tidier. Any trace of effort was a flaw--as one learnt in literary criticism. It wasn't Greek. And her frock was Greek enough in its simplicity--an unornamented thing in a silk of that shining green that suited so well her brown hair and her colouring. As she turned before her cheval glass, to appraise her completed toilet, something childish and (as it were) breakable in the figure she saw there seemed to make foolish the dream of powerful books and world-wide fame. She provided sentences for the reporters who should one day interview her: "No one who has read the works of Miss Daphne Bruno, so masculine in their character, would conceive of her as a shy, slim, and exceedingly feminine girl. But there it is! Genius alights where it will. Miss Bruno clothes in all the grace and charm of her sex her exceptionally virile intellect."

Soon the carriage was at the door, and apprehensively Miss Carrell and she insinuated themselves under its roof, and were conveyed along the dark, country roads. Wildean Manor was a big, square, stone house to the east of Ditchling, and it was some time before their carriage wheels crunched its half-mile of drive. When the house, brilliantly alight, came into view, both Daphne and Miss Carrell were disturbed by the certainty that they were too early. Miss Carrell, Daphne could see, was pretending to be very much in her element, if only because she was feeling completely out of it; exactly as Daphne herself was trying to appear old and self-possessed, if only because she was feeling very young and ill at ease.

The sight of other guests in the Ladies' Room, and the glimpse as they stood in the big entrance hall of quite a few people in the drawing-room where Mr. and Mrs. Montague Jevons were receiving the guests, reassured them.

Daphne pushed Miss Carrell in front of her towards the loud-voiced gentleman in evening dress who was presenting the guests.

"Miss Carrell and Miss Tenter Bruno."

There was a flattering rustle and a silence as the famous name was bellowed out, and she longed for the day when the name of Miss Daphne Bruno could produce a silence and turn all heads. With her companion, after a few exchanges with the host and hostess, which included a whisper from Mrs. Montague Jevons, "My dear, you're looking beautiful," she walked across the floor to some chairs against the farther wall. Here they sat down, and, since they saw no one whom they knew, passed the time in watching the people as they were announced. The lofty rectangular drawing-room in which they were seated opened into a library of exactly the same dimensions, and as both rooms were to be used for dancing, the band had been placed on a platform in the farthest corner of the library. From Daphne's chair she could see both the band in the library and the people forming in the hall.

Among these a group of three suddenly made her crane her neck. A blush began to warm her cheeks, and it spread over her face as the group came through the doors into the drawing-room. The father was a short, big-hewn man of sixty and more, whose grim mouth was apiece with the thick chest and the heavy, competent hands; the mother was a slim, tired woman whose timidity might have been explained by her husband's mouth; and the third was a tall, dark youth who, if his features were not perfect (though indeed they were quite good), had surely a figure of unsurpassable beauty. It was the very measure of manhood: height, width, symmetry and grace. Daphne looked down, hoping she would not be recognised behind all these people. Fancy! Was that what he had grown into?

"Sir Roger and Lady Muirhead, and Mr. Roger Muirhead."

No resuscitation of an old love troubled Daphne; only rose the eagerness, since a recognition sooner or later was inevitable, to impress him as the possessor of unlimited friends and one of the most sought-after belles of the ball. Her programme must quickly be filled. She stared at the profiles and the occiputs of people she knew to induce them to turn round and perceive her. Gradually they did so, and brought their men up and introduced them. The names dropped into one place after another on her dance card: waltzes, lancers, polkas, barn-dances. It was like a game when one sought to fill vacant places against the clock. She must have a "House Full" before Roger recognised her and begged a place. But there were still some vacant numbers when the band struck up the first waltz. It seemed certain that he must see her as she danced among the other couples. But he did not; as she swung round, talking idly to her partner, she saw him dancing with a feathery girl and conceding to her chatter the familiar twinkle with its incomplete, tolerant smile. It would not have been Roger, nor that youth of the supreme shape, had any one in the room danced more gracefully than he.

After the first waltz, to her delight, more men were brought up and introduced. There was now but one place on her card. That would fill after the next dance--and then her single desire was to be discovered by Roger. But the next dance showed her to him. She had passed quite close and felt his quick, surprised look and thenceforward his ever-returning glances. Not once did she look his way, but talked with vivacity to her partner. Urged on by some of the younger men, the band was prolonging the music, and soon she was aware that Roger and his partner had sat down, Roger pretending to keep up a conversation, but really watching Daphne. Once he seemed to have mentioned her to the feathery girl.

"Would you like to sit down?" asked her partner.

"No, no," she smiled brightly. "Let's last out as long as any one else. I'm loving it."

On they danced among the thinning couples, Daphne hoping that her high colour would be attributed to the lengthened waltz. The few times her eyes were in danger of meeting Roger's he avoided them. He was evidently in doubt what to do. The band finished at last, and Daphne was escorted to a chair by her partner, who was gossiping gaily. She, too, made a pretence of gay talk, but was really keeping a watch on Roger. And in a little while Roger made an excuse to his feathery girl and came across the floor.

"Miss Bruno, isn't it?" he said with a smile.

At once Daphne suspected the course of action on which he had decided: he was going to make no mention of his boyish dropping of her, in the hope that she would have expected nothing else from a little fool. _Her_ course had been planned for years past: a mixture of friendliness and indifference suggesting that his lordly shake-off had been a negligible incident, without power to hurt.

"Yes," said she. "I saw you before, and wondered if you would recognise me. I should hardly have recognised you, only I heard your name called out."

"Well, at any rate," said Roger, "you're going to dance with me."

The genial command was characteristic; Roger was priding himself on his imperiousness.

"I don't think I can. There's only one I've got free...."

"Well, let's see."

He compared his card with hers.

"Yes, I'm dancing with some wretched girl on your only vacant date."

"Oh, what a pity." She took back the card.

"Well, there'll have to be an extra extra, that's all. If there's an extra extra may I have the privilege----" He bowed.

"Oh, but there won't be one. There are three already."

"Oh, but there will be one. I shall see to it."

"All right, then.... Yes, thank you very much."

"Splendid. I'll go and tell the conductor fellow at once that there's got to be one.... I say, wait a minute...."

Rather self-consciously he walked across the floor, and she watched him speaking to the conductor, who smiled. Then he returned.

"That's settled all right.... Do you know what I said to the man?"

"No, how should I?"

"Well, perhaps you'd better not."

"All right."

"Perhaps I'll tell you what I said when we're dancing together."

"I don't particularly want to know."

"I didn't ask that. It may be good for you to know.... It's rather taken my breath away seeing you here. I half fancied I saw you the other day on horseback, riding a strapping chestnut. I only came down here three days ago. But then, I suppose it couldn't be."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I can't picture you quite like that. How's your young brother?"

"He's just gone back to school."

"Oh, yes. I'm afraid I didn't see much of him at Sillborough."

"You've left, I suppose."

It was meant to humiliate and didn't fail of its mark... "Left? Glory, yes. I've been at Oxford a year."

"Of course. _I'd_ forgotten how old you were. Where was it you saw me the other day? I didn't see you."

"Then it _was_ you. It must have been by the--just near the--no, I forget where it was now."

"Probably on Ditchling Common."

"Yes, of course, that's where it was.... Well, I must be getting back now."

The evening was old when he claimed her for his partner. An old evening with a glittering record. It would have been an exaggeration to say that she was the belle of the ball, but none had been more remarked, none more sought after, none more waited on, none more excited and vivacious than she. And all the while she had been conscious of his staring at her--staring in rather a dazed way. That was good. Good if he fell rapturously in love with her again, while she felt no stirring of love for him. When he besought her hand, she would reply: "It's no good, Roger. I can't help it, but I feel no love for you at all." She could wish that she were already engaged to some one that she might mention it carelessly to him.

"Now, Miss Bruno," said he, as he claimed her.

The band had begun. They were playing a little languishing waltz rather slowly. Both felt the wistfulness of the air and for a long time said nothing. Daphne had a sense of having lost several inches of her height and some years of her age now that she was in Roger's arm. He was the first to emerge from the abstraction into which the tune had sunk them.

"Ye gods, what a tune!"

"Yes, isn't it divine? Do you know what it is? I do."

"Why"--he smiled his patronising smile--"are you a great musician these days?"

"No; but I learnt the 'cello at school, and one of the girls used to play this on her violin. But I didn't know then it could be so--so troubling as this."

"Troubling--that's the very word. What is it?"

She told him its name, but he didn't acknowledge the information, and when she looked up at him she saw that his eyes had been waiting to twinkle into hers.

"From henceforth I shall always call it the Daphne Bruno waltz."

"Don't be silly."

"Don't be rude, Miss Bruno."

"Do you know, I've just been thinking I've never been properly introduced to you."

"On the contrary, madam, you introduced yourself to me with something approaching boldness from behind a blackberry bush on the King's highway."

"What silly kids we were!"

"I wasn't so silly as I thought----" The unfortunate sentence broke abruptly.

They danced through the door of the drawing-room into the library, and the sight of the conductor suffering (as Roger said) all the pains of the artistic temperament prompted him to ask:

"Shall I tell you what I said to yon fiddler?"

"If it's interesting."

Excitement and supper had heightened his natural temerity.

"I said, 'Look here, Sousa, unless you put on an extra extra, I shan't be able to dance with the only girl worth calling a girl in the room.' And he said--he seems a humorous fellow--he said, 'Well, sir, in that case there'll have to be an extra extra for an extra extra young lady.' And, of course, he got impertinent and said, 'May I ask which one she is?' I said, 'No, certainly not. Besides, it's perfectly obvious to any one with any eyes.'"

Daphne looked towards the conductor, and saw that over his violin he was watching Roger and her. She could not feel displeased with the man, since he had been told that she was the only girl in the room. But she chose to turn colder with Roger, and did not speak till he asked:

"What sort of life are you living now?"

She gave him an attenuated answer and deliberately refrained from asking him anything about himself. He was obliged to proffer the story unsought. As soon as he had finished with Oxford he was to travel, and then go in for politics. Possibly he would stand for their Cornish constituency.

"Cornish?" queried Daphne.

"Yes. Didn't you know? That holiday we went to Cornwall"--he blushed as he recalled which holiday it was--"father fell in love with a little smuggler's cove, and swore he'd buy it up and build a house there right on the rocks. And on his principle of 'What I've once determined on, that I do,' he went and did it. I wish you could see the place. It's rather exciting. And what are you going to do in the future?"

"Stay with father, I suppose."

The whimsical sparkle had come again into his eyes, she saw, as she looked up for an explanation of his silence; and the trembling, incomplete smile was at his lips.

"Not for long," said he. "You'll marry."

"No, I shan't."

"Of course you'll marry."

"And why 'of course'?"

"Because--because you're the sort."

"I've just told you I'm not."

"You've just told me you don't want to be the sort, but you'd no say in the matter."

"I wish you'd explain."

He hummed the waltz to the accompaniment of the band. Then in a muted way he whistled it.

"I can't very well. But it's a theory of mine that you can always tell the girls who will marry--bar tragedies. I don't know what it is about them. It's not beauty."

"Thank you very much."

"Don't mention it. I'm speaking generally. It's some other quality--a sort of sensuous attraction"--he stuttered, probably not clear as to the meaning of sensuous--"though the quality is rarely absent from beauty."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Well, I suppose you can't understand.... If your looking-glass doesn't tell you, it's quite impossible for a man to."

They danced on, and she noticed that once or twice his lips moved as though he were trying to force words through the inhibitions of pride. And at a moment when the band was likely to dwindle to a finale, he jerked out:

"Miss Bruno, I'd like to see you sometimes. Now that the Downway House is vacant, we're----"

She had been waiting for this advance, and quickly replied:

"It's no good. I'm going abroad, and----"

His look drove the rest from her head. His mouth had set like his father's, and she guessed that he was enjoying the strong man's huff. She decided to hurt him further.

"What a long time the band's playing for."

"Is it?"

"Well, isn't it?"

"Why?" he muttered. "Do you want to stop?"

"Yes, I do. I'm tired. I've been dancing all the evening."

"All right."

He guided her quickly towards the chairs, and released her. It was done with the courtesy that never failed him and yet with suddenness, that she might feel he was not used to being snubbed. His features had tightened--"gone tight"--she invented the phrase that moment to express what Roger looked like when thwarted or misunderstood. Triumph trembled through her. The conductor, seeing that the two for whom he had played the waltz had deserted, brought it to an end.

"Well, good-bye, Miss Bruno. It's been quite nice to see you again and dance once with you."

"Good-bye. There's Miss Carrell, I must run and speak to her."

She ran off, unconsciously humming the waltz; and Roger strode as best he could towards his people.