Chapter IX: Book II (1)

I
IN WHICH WE PAY A FIRST VISIT TO SOUTHOVER

The house—Southover House, Farlingbridge, Berks—stands terraced above formal gardens in the Italian taste; ribbony borders, edged with white stone, form a maze of pattern. Urns on pedestals, statues of nymphs and fauns, stone seats, stone cisterns, gleam among the carpeted flowers. Beyond these is the great park, with a wall (they tell me) six miles round. The herd of fallow deer is praised by Cotton in his famous book. Mr. Germain used to show you the passage.

The mansion, built by Wyatt, is classical; an exact rectangle of pink brick faced with Bath stone. It has a pediment and a balustrade, with white statues at intervals along the garden front. Within, it is extremely proper, having narthex and atrium, or, if you please, vestibule and hall. The reception rooms open out of this last, and above it a gallery gives on to the chambers, about whose doors the valets are to be seen collected at seven-thirty or so of an evening. They wait for their masters, while they observe and comment in monosyllabic undertones upon the doings of their betters below. Surprising how much a man-servant can get into how little. From April to June, from September to November, the hall is used for tea and after-dinner lounging. It is the core and heart of the house. During the summer months tea should be on the terrace unless Nature is willing to see Mr. Germain vexed; in wintertime it is always in the little library where the Murillo hangs.

I choose the time of tulips for our visit, when Southover has had a new mistress for two years come the fall of the leaf. The family, as they say down here, has been abroad this year; has not long returned. It went to the Riviera directly after Christmas, to Mentone; was in Rome in February, and studying churches in the Rhone valley in March. It Eastered in Seville, going thither by Barcelona and Granada, and came home by Madrid and Paris. Now it is mid-May, and the Italian gardens glitter with tulips. Tea is served, according to custom, in the hall at a quarter before five. The footman on duty—his service passed by the butler—has retired, but the statelier functionary stands at his post, tapping his teeth with a corkscrew. The hour is now five—gone five. Silver chimes have proclaimed it to an empty hall. There he stands, a solemn, florid personage, full of cares, regarding in an abstracted manner the glittering array of covered dishes, cups, and covered jugs. Now and again he adjusts a teaspoon, now and again humours a spirit-flame. At a quarter past five Mr. Germain enters the hall from the library, his secretary, young Mr. Wilbraham, at his heels.

The butler, with a careful hand, placed a rack containing three triangles of toast upon a little table. He poured a cup of chocolate from a porcelain jug, and added that to the feast. The afternoon’s post, upon a salver, was held for Mr. Wilbraham. These things done, he waited until Mr. Germain was in his deep-seated chair. “The ladies are not returned, Sir,” he said, and went his noiseless way.

Mr. Germain, who looked white and had faded eyes, munched his toast in silence. Young Mr. Wilbraham, quick, gentlemanly, pleasantly alert, demolished envelopes and their contents while he ate muffin. Three or four letters he handed to his patron.

“Those look to me personal,” he said. Mr. Germain, having adjusted his _pince-nez_, inspected the envelopes and put them unopened into his pocket. Toast-munching was resumed, and silence. Once or twice Mr. Germain looked at his watch, once compared it with the hall-clock, but made no other sign.

Wilbraham poured more tea, spread himself honeycomb on bread and butter, and went on with his letters. He broke the silence. “The Association has written again to know whether you have decided. They hope you will come forward. Sir Gregory has gone to Madeira. They say, he’s quite made up his mind.”

Mr. Germain blinked solemnly at space, without reply.

“And I’ve a note here from Mr. Jess—rather, from his secretary. There was a meeting at the Reform on Monday. Your name was mentioned. Mr. Jess hopes that he hasn’t been indiscreet. He referred to the possibility.”

Mr. Germain, without turning his head or ceasing to munch, asked here, Who was Mr. Jess’s private secretary.

“Duplessis,” said brisk Mr. Wilbraham, adding, as if to himself,

“Clever beggar.” After a pause Mr. Germain got up.

“I shall rest for a little, Wilbraham. We will consider these things before dinner. Meantime I will ask you to remember that they are between you and me. Strictly so.”

“Oh, of course! Quite understood,” the friendly young man nodded.

The master of the house had his hand on the library door when a step on the flags of the vestibule caused him to look quickly round. There was a moment during which he could have been observed to hold his breath in suspense. A tall and sumptuously fair lady, free-moving, deep-bosomed, robed in white—all her dresses robed her—came into the hall. She wore a broad-brimmed Tuscan hat, which set about her like a halo, and carried flowers. This was the Honourable Hertha de Speyne, the last of the Cantacutes.

Mr. Germain turned away from his refuge and stood attentive; Wilbraham jumped to the upright.

“Shall I have in some more tea?” he asked at large. “This has been here since five.”

“Not for me,” said Miss de Speyne. “I hate it. But the others are coming. I saw them in the bottom. They’ve been on the lake, I think.”

“And you?” This was from Mr. Germain, with a courtly inclination.

“Oh, I’ve been painting, of course.”

“Happily, I hope.”

“Miserably. Deplorably. I’ve scraped out everything, and come away at least with a clean canvas. Few painters can say as much of a day’s work.”

“Few would confess it.”

“Ah, I’ve been taught the blessing of an uncharged heart. Mr. Senhouse taught me that last year. What I was trying to do was perfectly impossible. One knows too much; one has botany, flower-shows, catalogues behind one. Fields of asphodel! But suppose you had been shown how asphodel grows?”

“Have I fields of asphodel here?” Mr. Germain looked his polite misgivings.

“You have a glade of Poets’ narcissus—like a Swiss valley. Mr. Senhouse could have done it—an Impressionist. It’s not for me. I see them stiff in vases; I know that they have stalks.”

“So, surely, does Mr. Senhouse.”

“Indeed he does. He knows that they have souls. But he’s ruthless with his brushes; he forgets their souls, and his own science.”

“And you——?”

“I’m so proud of mine that I could never forget it.” She looked out into the vestibule, to the sunlight beyond. “Here comes Mary. Do get some tea for them,” she urged Wilbraham—who flew to the bell.

Mr. Germain remained where he was—long enough to see his wife’s eyes dilate at the sight of him there, long enough to hear the laugh falter upon her lips; and then he turned and slowly gained the library. He shut the door behind him. Mrs. Germain, with a high colour and gleam of light in her fine eyes, came quickly to the tea-table. She was followed by two young men in flannels—self-possessed, assured, curt-spoken young men with very smooth heads.

“Oh, we’re dreadfully late!” she cried. “Hertha, have you been in long? Have you had everything?” In a much lower key she asked, “Has—was—he here when you——?”

Miss de Speyne looked kindly at her friend. “He was just going when I came in; but he stayed and entertained me. It was awfully kind of him. I know he’s very tired.”

Mary stood by the tea-table, fidgeting a cup by the handle. She looked uncomfortable. “I’m frightfully sorry. Hertha, I meant to be in by a quarter to five.”

“It’s all right, you know,” said one of the young men—the youngest of them—lengthily at ease in a chair. “You’re only an hour slow. I call that good.”

She made no answer, but went on fidgeting the teacup. The entry of butler and footman with supplies did not move her.

Young Lord Gunner stood to his muffin, and confidently explained:

“It’s my fault, you must know. I was diving after half-crowns—and getting ’em, too.”

“He was though,” said Mr. Chaveney from his chair. “I ought to know. They were my half-crowns.”

“Well then, of course, I had to change. I’m not a mermaid, as it happens.”

“Not yet, my boy,” said the loser of half-crowns.

“So I sent a chap up for my chap with some things, and changed in the châlet. That’s why we’re late, if you must know.”

Miss de Speyne was pouring out tea. “I see. And the others reckoned up their losses——”

“Words to that effect,” said Mr. Chaveney.

Lord Gunner put down his cup. “Don’t know what they did. But I’ve brought them safe to port. Wilbraham, I’ll play you squash rackets before dinner. It’ll do you good. You’re overdoing it, you know, and you’re not used to it. You’ll get a hemorrhage or a nervous breakdown, and we shall have to give you a rest-cure. Chaveney shall score.”

“Can’t,” said Mr. Chaveney. “Ordered my trap. My people are going to take me out to dinner. They won’t be denied.”

“England hath need of him,” said Wilbraham. “Come along, Gunner. My things are in the court. I’m due at the desk at seven.”

Mr. Chaveney—very young, very fair, and very flushed, with long and light eyelashes—was now at the piano. He swayed as he played.

“Do you like that?” he said, looking at Mrs. Germain, who was still pensive. “It’s ‘Carmen.’”

“Beg pardon,” said Lord Gunner. “It sounded like Chaveney.” The youth ran up a scale.

“Go and play rackets, Gunner, and leave me to my art. I’m going.”

“He’ll stay to dine—you see if he don’t,” was Lord Gunner’s passing shot. He was answered by a crashing chord.

Miss de Speyne, regarding the pianist’s back, said in a gentle voice, “He’s in the library. You’d better go to him for a minute.”

Mrs. Germain had the knack of making her eyes wide and round so that you got the full-orbed splendour of their brown light. “I expect he’s asleep. I’ll see him before dinner.” Her friend shook her head.

“He’s walking up and down. He’ll rest after you have been.”

“Do you think so—really?”

“I’m sure. You had better go.” Mrs. Germain stayed no longer, but went quickly, holding her head stiff.

She stood in the doorway of the library, inside the closed door, a charming figure for all her anxious eyes. She was in blue linen, with a wide straw hat; was sunburnt and fresh, looked ridiculously young. Mr. Germain paused in his pacing of the long carpet and waited for her to speak—which presently she did, rather breathlessly.

“Oh,” she said, “I was afraid you might be resting, or I should have come——”

He shut his eyes for a moment. “No. It is not possible just now,—nor desirable. I have much to think of.”

She went quickly to him and held out her hand a little way. “Aren’t you well? May I stay with you? I meant to have been in early, but——”

“But it was not convenient, you would say?”

“No, not that. I couldn’t get them to leave the water. They were absurd—like children. One was throwing money in for the other to dive after. I did try—but they went on just the same. Did you expect—did you want me? I promise you that I tried to come. I tried hard.”

Something of the sort had been what his self-esteem exacted of her; something of the sort must have been tendered him or he had been really ill. He was now softened, he smiled, took up her offered hand. “My little love,” he said, drew her near and kissed her forehead. For a moment she urged towards him, but then, having glanced timidly up and seen his averted eyes, she sighed and looked to the floor, her hand still held.

He led her to his escritoire, put a chair for her beside it, and sat in his own. “Constantia writes to me, Mary, that she and James would like us to pay them a visit—in July, as usual. What do you say?”

She considered this for some moments. Her head was bent towards her hands in her lap; she looked at her weaving fingers—a habit of hers. “That would be to the Rectory, I suppose?”

“Obviously,” said Mr. Germain. “You will remember that it was a yearly custom of mine.” She had every reason to remember it; but he must hear her say so. “You will not have forgotten that, Mary?”

“No! Oh, no! Of course I haven’t.” She looked at him for a moment—trouble in her eyes and flame in her cheeks.

“Last year,” he resumed, “I had Southover to show you—and there were reasons why I should not take you back so soon. This year there could be no such reason. I think that you might be pleased to see Misperton again; more particularly since you and Hertha de Speyne have struck up such a happy friendship. She is a noble young creature in every way; nothing could have pleased me more. Constantia will, of course, write to you; but, being my sister-in-law and happening to have other matters of which to speak, she mentioned it to me in the first event. I can assure you that there has been no want of respect——”

She flashed him another reproachful look—reproachful, not that he should think her offended, but that he should pretend to think her so. “Oh, of course not! How could you imagine such a thing? It is absurd—really absurd.”

He made no reply, was evidently waiting for her decision. She gave it reluctantly. “We will go, if you wish it,” she said.

He was immediately piqued. “That is hardly cordial, is it? I am not sure that I should, or could, wish it, on those terms.”

She had reasons of her own for disliking it extremely; but she kept her counsels in these days. “I will tell you exactly how I feel, if you will be patient with me,” she said. “I am sure that the Rector would be glad to have me there with you; and of course Hertha would like it. If there was nobody else I should love to go. I shall remember Misperton as long as I live. Wonderful things happened to me there; don’t think that I can forget them for an hour. But Mrs. James—Constantia, I mean—doesn’t like me at all. Why should we disguise it? She disapproves of me, doesn’t trust me, thinks me a nobody—which I am, of course——”

“I beg your pardon, my love—” he would have stopped her; but she saw what in particular had offended him, and ran on.

“I am your wife, I know. But I am a person, too; and I own that I would rather be with people who—who respect me for what I am in myself, as well as for what you have made me. Forgive me for saying so; it is rather natural, I think. And it happens that I should like to see my parents again, and my sisters. It is six months since I was at Blackheath. So that would be an opportunity, and a reason—while you were at the Rectory.”

“You wish me to go there alone?” She could guess at the scalding spot beneath his armour-plate.

“I should love to go with you,” she said, “if—if it could be managed.”

“I may mention to you,” he said coldly, “that you will not find an old acquaintance there. Since his mother’s death my young relative, Tristram Duplessis, has bestirred himself. He has sold the cottage.”

She had not been prepared for an attack in flank, and blenched before it. Then she told her fib. “My reason against going with you had nothing to do with Mr. Duplessis,” she said; and, watching her, he did not believe her.

He turned to his papers. “It shall be as you wish, my love,” he said. “I will write to Constantia. It may well be that I shall not care to resume a broken habit. Are you going up to dress? If so, and if you should happen to see Wilbraham, would you tell him that I am ready?”

She hovered about his studious back, as if on the brink of speech; but thought better of it and went slowly out of the room. Intensely conscious of her going, he cowered at his desk, looking sideways—until he heard the door close. Then he began to read, with lips pressed close together.

In the hall Mrs. Germain almost ran into the arms of Wilbraham, who, scarlet in the face and wet as with rain, was racing to his room.

“By jove, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Germain!”

“You only made me jump,” she laughed. “Have you been playing all this time?”

“I know, I know! It was Gunner’s fault, upon my honour.”

“It always is Lord Gunner’s fault. Mr. Germain asked me to tell you that he was ready.”

“Good Lord!” cried the unhappy youth. “And I’m sw—as hot as anything.”

“Go and change,” she said kindly. “I’ll go back to him.”

He was fervent. “You are an angel! But I’ve told you that before.” Their eyes met; they laughed together. He pelted upstairs.

“Mr. Wilbraham will be with you in a second,” she said, entering the library again. Had she seen him spring round as she came in? No doubt of it. “I left my book down by the lake—and I know you don’t like that. Do you?”

“No, dearest, no. I confess the foible.” His eyes invited her nearer. She advanced to his table and stood by him, her hand touched his shoulder. He was inordinately happy, though he made no immediate sign. But presently his arm went about her waist, and then she bent down and leaned her cheek for his kiss. They remained together, saying nothing, until she heard Wilbraham coming down, three stairs at a time. Then she slipped away and just caught him outside the door.

“I had to tell a fib,” she told him. “I said that I had left my book by the lake.”

“Well!” He looked at her. “I’ll bet that’s not a fib.”

“No,” she laughed. “But it was meant to be. Now I’m going to get it myself.”

“You are an angel!” he said. “Don’t. I’ll go presently. I should love to.”

“No. I shall go myself. I deserve it.”

“You deserve—!” He stopped himself. “Look here,” he said, “send Gunner. No, he’s changing. Send young Chaveney.”

She opened her eyes—fatal use! “Is Mr. Chaveney here? I thought he said——”

Wilbraham chuckled. “Did you suppose he’d go when it came to the point? Not he! Why, before we’d played half a set he came to borrow some clothes off me.”

He glided smoothly into the library. Mrs. Germain fetched her book.

II
REFLECTIONS ON HONEYMOONS AND SUCHLIKE

The years fly, we know, and come not again, and there’s balm in that for the wounds they leave. For we forget a good deal, and Hope is a faithful lover, and never quits us for long together; and then there’s honest Use-and-Wont, surely our friend. Because you were a fool yesterday, you’re wise to-day; and if you’re a fool to-morrow—why, the alternation is established. There’s a progression; it is like the rotation of crops.

There’s a mort of healing in a brace of longish years. The county, which had found little Mrs. Germain stiff when she came home from her honeymoon, now looked to her for stiffness when it felt relaxed. Her idiosyncrasy was accepted, you see; once admitted to be a person, she became a personage. And, discovered by the county, she discovered herself. She found out that she had a character; she had never known that before, nor had any others who had had to do with her: Mrs. James, to wit, Miss de Speyne, her husband. The process of these discoveries ought to entertain us for a chapter, and its resolution shall be attempted. But the county learned it first, when it came to rely upon her stiffness. The Chaveneys, the Gerald Swetebredes, the Trevor-Waynes, the Perceforest people, before the two years were over, forgot that they had ever eyed each other, with brows inquiring “Colonial?” or spelling “Hopeless, my dear!” Such looks had passed, but now, on the contrary, they leaned—some heavily. Lady Chaveney was one. “She is charming with Guy,” she said more than once, “quite charming. An influence—in the nicest way.” She added, once, as if the news was sacred, “I believe he’s told her everything.” Guy was the Chaveney heir, the florid, assured youth whom we met just now on our visit; he had been pronounced “wild” by Mr. Germain; and he _had_ told her everything. She took herself quite seriously with Guy, in the elder-sister fashion, Mr. Germain, at first approving, as, at first, he had approved every sign of her making way. He came, before the end of two years, to feel differently, lost touch with the sense of his benevolence, felt to be losing grip of many things. But in the early days he had approved, there’s no doubt—in those days of stress and taut nerves when, returning from a honeymoon by much too long, she had found Mrs. James pervading the great, orderly house, and had, without knowing it, braced herself for a tussle, and unawares found herself in it, and amazingly the winner. Her husband had backed her up there, in his quiet way. Short, quick, breathless work it had been—a fight in spasms. She had been crossing the hall when the great lady came out of the Little Library.

“Ah, Mary—A Mrs. Burgess has called, I see—wife of some one in Farlingbridge. She called while you were out. A politeness very natural under the circumstances—but not the custom here, I think. Lady Diana, I happen to know, never—I suppose you will send cards by the carriage. That would answer the purpose very well. We have never known the townspeople, you know—in that sort of way. There is a tenants’ party in the summer. They come to that.”

Mary had listened. She was pale, but her eyes smouldered.

“I can’t do that, Mrs. Germain. I mean, I must return the call.”

“Ah? It will be against my recommendation.”

“I am very sorry. I asked Mrs. Burgess to call when I met her the other day at Waysford.”

“Really? Waysford? One would meet her there, I suppose. A Sale of Work?”

“Yes. But I asked her to call upon me. It was kind of her to come so soon.”

Mrs. James pressed her lips together. So soon! Why, the woman would fly! “Does my brother know of this, may I ask?”

“I don’t know,” said Mary, out of breath. She was scared, but meant to go on.

“It will be better that he should be told.”

“If you think it will interest him—yes,” Mary said, and went upstairs—to stare out of window, clench and unclench her hands. Mrs. James reported the case to her brother-in-law, and Mary drove, the next day, to Farlingbridge—her husband with her—and returned the call. Nothing more was said; nor, when the visit of a Colonel Dermott, V.C., and his lady, townspeople, too, had to be witnessed, was a word of warning uttered. But Mrs. James left within a fortnight of her rout, staying only for the first dinner-party at Southover. That was how she learned that Mary Middleham had character. It shocked her; and it was annoying, too, that she could expect no sympathy from James.

The house-parties for the winter shooting, and those dinner-parties for the county had to be gone through with somehow. She set herself squarely to the task, and was glad enough to believe towards the end of her two years that she was learning the business. There was little to do, indeed, but be agreeable, but she found that more than enough. Agreeable she could be when she felt happy; her nature was as sweet as an apple. But if she felt hurt she must show it, and she discovered that that was a cardinal sin. Then there was the language to master, the queer, impertinent, leisurely laconics of these people—expensive, perfectly complacent, incredibly idle young men, old men without reticence, airy, free-spoken women, and girls who unaffectedly ignored her. To cope with such as these she must be even as they were, or seem so. The quickness of their give-and-take in conversation, the ripple and flow, the ease of the thing, asked an alertness of her which excited while it tried her to death. Perpetually flagging at the game, she spurred herself perpetually; for she discovered that there is no more deadly sin in the code than an awkward pause, that being all of a piece with the end and aim of living—which is smooth running. A woman should die sooner than drop a conversation, or murder it.

She was at her best with the men, as perhaps she might expect. She could run, she could walk all day, chatter, laugh outright, seem to be herself; they paid her the compliment of approving looks. But among the women she knew that she _must_ be herself, a very different thing. She felt infinitely small, ill-dressed, ill-mannered, clumsy, and a dunce. It was from them, however, that she gained her reputation of being stiff; she had them to thank for that. It had come to her in a flash of spirit one day in the summer of her first year, that if ignoring was in the wind, she could ignore with the best. She chose to ignore Mrs. Chilmarke, Mrs. Ralph Chilmarke, a beauty, a dainty _blonde_ and a wit. She did it steadily for three days, at what a cost she could never have guessed when she began it, and her reward was great. Mrs. Chilmarke respected her for it, and the Duchess—a duchess was in the house—was frankly delighted, and said so. She had watched out the match, and had backed the _brune_.

Under such exertions as these character will out, while it may slumber through years of pedagogy. But she worked hard at her lessons directly she had found out what she wanted, and was tolerably equipped for her tour in France and Italy when the time came. She made no way with Latin—Mr. Germain had to give that up; and English literature made her yawn. She insisted on botany, for reasons unknown to the good gentleman, and became great friends with the head gardener, a Scotchman, who made the initial mistake of supposing her a little fool, and was ever afterwards her obedient servant. Shall we do wrong in putting this study down to Senhouse’s credit? I think not. Quietly and methodically, after a method all her own, Mary Germain began to find herself, as they say. But before she did that her husband had to find her; and _he_, poor gentleman, who had had to begin upon their wedding day, was at the end of his discoveries before he was at the end of his honeymoon. So far he struggled, but after that he suffered—dumbly and in secret, within his plate armour. The fact is, there had been too much honeymoon. His evident discomfort had made her self-conscious, killed her ease, threatened her gratitude—upon which he had proposed to subsist—and turned him from an improbable mate into a rather unsuccessful father of his wife.

October is a bad time for honeymoons; the evenings are so long. Nevertheless, at Torquay, her mind had been fairly easy about him. He had liked the hotel. At Saltcombe he had been pretty miserable, much on her conscience. He had taught her chess, it seems, and if she had known what she was about, chess might have done pretty well. But unfortunately she took to chess, and began to beat him at it by audacious combinations and desperate sallies quite unwarranted by science. That vexed him sadly. He abandoned the game, telling her frankly that he could not help being irritated to see skill out-vailed by temerity. “One plays, you see, my love, for the pleasure of playing, not to win. That is the first condition of a pastime.” She told him she was very sorry, and he kissed her. But after that Villiers used to lay newspapers and reviews on the sitting-room table while they were dining. She consoled herself with the remembrance of that kiss on the lips; it was nearly the last of them. He selected her forehead, from Saltcombe onwards, or her cheek. From Saltcombe they went down into Cornwall—Truro, Penzance, Sennen, St. Ives. There it was that she learned to be happy in her own company. She spent hours alone, scrambling among the rocks, watching the sea.

Her life was filling, her vistas opening. This was great gain, to feel the triumph of discovery. She had never been so far afield before, and the wild splendours of rocks and seas made her at times like a thing inspired. She was amazed at herself—at the stinging blood in her which made her heart beat. She used to get up early at Sennen, steal, hatless, out of the sleeping inn, and fleet over turf to the edge of the cliffs. There she stood motionless, with unwinking eyes and parted lips, while the wind enfolded her. All was pure ecstasy; she was like a nymph—bare-bosomed, ungirdled, unfilletted, in the close arms of the Country God. From such hasty blisses she returned drowsy-eyed, glossed with rose-colour, with a sleek bloom upon her, and ministered to her husband’s needs, dressed with care, with the neatness which he loved. She sat quietly by him, hearing but not heeding his measured tones, dreaming of she knew not what, save that the dreams were lyric, and sang of freedom in her ears.

They took more tangible shape as they waxed bolder in outline and scope. There was a tumble-down white cottage on the cliff beyond the coastguard station; two rooms and a wash-house below green eaves. It faced the open sea, but lay otherwise snugly below a jutting boulder, and was so much of a piece with rock and turf that the sea-pinks had seeded in the roof and encrusted it with emerald tufts. Her fancy adorned this tenement; she saw herself there in a cotton gown, alone with wind and sea. What a life! The freedom of it, the space, the promise! Not a speck could she descry upon the fair blue field of such a life. Childlike she built upon the airy fabric, added to it, assured herself of it. Some day, some day she would be there—free! The thought made her perfectly happy; she felt her blood glow.

Mr. Germain complained of the damp Cornish air and took her to St. Ives and Newquay on the way to Southover. Once on the homeward path, he had no eyes for her in Cornwall; all his hopes were now set upon the feast he should have of her, queening it there in his hall—queen by his coronation. She, for her part, was all for lingering good-byes to her glimpses of the wild. She went obediently, but carried with her the assurance that she should see her cottage again; and by some juggling of the mind, in the picture of it which floated up before her at call, she came to see always near it the tilt-cart and its occupant, her friend of the open Common. A community down there! The tilt-cart stood in a hollow of the rocks within sound and sight of the sea; the Ghost cropped the thyme above it; Bingo ran barking out of the tent, and, seeing her, lowered his head and came wriggling for a caress. Above them all, dominant, stood her friend, bareheaded to the buffeting gale, so clearly at times that she could see the wind bellying his white trousers or flacking the points of his rolling collar. His face unfortunately was not always to be seen; a mist over it baffled her, but egged her on. For a flash, for a passing second, his bright, quizzing eyes might be upon her; she could hear the greeting of the dawn laugh from them, and feel her bosom swell as she answered it, and knew the long day before them—and every long day to come. What a comradeship that might be—what a comradeship! She came to thank God daily that she had such a friend, and to declare stoutly to herself that she had no need to see him. Friendship was independent of such needs; the necessities of touching, eyeing, speaking—what were these but fetters? Lovers might hug such chains and call them leading-strings. Poor lovers could not walk without them. But friends had their pride in each other and themselves. Each stood foursquare in the faith of his friend; the independence of each was the pride of the other. So far was she from loving Mr. Senhouse that she learned without a pang of his visit to the Cantacutes in the following summer, of his painting days with Hertha de Speyne, and was surprised at herself. It drew the two girls closer together; it gave zest to letter-writing, and brought Miss Hertha more than once to Southover. Senhouse was the presiding genius of their fireside talks; between Hertha and Senhouse Mary began to find herself—a person, with a reasonable soul in human flesh.

Her wedding-day, and the days that followed it, had dismayed the flesh; she could not be one to whom marriage was a sacred mystery, to be unveiled to piercing music. She had cried herself to sleep—once; but she cried no more. If she had been in love with her husband, even if she had ever been in love with anybody, she might have been won over by pity or by passion; but poor Mr. Germain was incapable of the second, and somewhat to her surprise she found herself unpersuaded, though she was touched, by the first. She did pity him, she pitied him deeply, but she could not help him. Esteem she gave him, gratitude, obedience, meekness, respect. But herself—after that once—never, never! For that discharging of her conscience of its poor little trivial, human load had been forced upon her by pure generosity on her part (she knew it), and had cost her an agony of shame. And it had chilled him to the bone—she had seen his passion fade before her eyes, such passion as he had. Her generosity had stultified her, played the traitor. She never taxed him with want of magnanimity, didn’t know the word—but she found herself resolute, and was as much surprised as he was. What dismay she had, as the honeymoon wore on, was brought her by her own position, not by her husband’s; that a girl such as she, with undeniable proofs to hand of her attractiveness of face and person, with experience of men and their ways, should find herself daughter to her husband! An indulged, courted, only daughter, if you please—but certainly a daughter. Here was an anti-climax, to say the least of it; and her dismay endured through the honeymoon—until Cornish cliffs gave her happier things to dream of. It disappeared as the great red flank of Southover House filled up the scene. Tussles with Mrs. James, the sweets and perils of victory, ordeals of shooting-parties, dinner-parties, household cares, and, above all, routine—such drugs as these sent her heart to sleep. By the time she had been eighteen months a wife she had forgotten that she had never been other than a maiden.

Now, what of Cratylus, poor Cratylus the mature, who, clasping his simple Mero (or Marina) to his heart, found that he had to reckon with her character first? Good, honest man, he had never supposed her to have one; and the bitter thing was that the finding of her character woke up his own. He saw himself again in full plate-armour, cowering behind it, hiding from himself as well as from the world a terrible deformity—an open sore in his self-esteem which could never be healed again, which, at every chance of her daily life, must bleed and ache. Oh, the pity of it, on how light a spring all this had depended—a hair, a gossamer! Exeter—fatal day of Exeter! He had believed himself young again. As she clung to him, half-sobbing, after dinner, he had pressed her to his bosom, called her his bride, his wife. She had not dared to look at him, had bowed her head, hidden her face in his shoulder, let him feel the trembling, the wild beating of her heart. Then her broken confessions; pitiful, pitiful! What did they amount to, when all was told? But they, and what followed upon them—his own conduct, his own curse; and her conduct, and her curse—were his nightmare. He had found out that he could not live if he must remember them. He fought, literally, for life; and after a six months’ toil had succeeded in living. He spent himself in benevolence and care, gave her everything she could want, before she asked, taught her, prayed for her, watched over her. She was never out of his thoughts—and, poor girl, without knowing it, she stabbed him deeply every day.

He had his benevolence to fall back upon. He could be King of Southover, of the Cophetua dynasty; he could dazzle her, take her breath away, and have the delight, which he had promised himself, of seeing her misty eyes and cheeks flushed with wonder. Yes, yes; but the æsthetic nerve, you see, dulls with use, and the worst of a king’s homage to a beggar maid is that the more obsequious the homage the less beggar is the maid. If you set a coronet in her hair she will blush deliciously for a week; but in two years’ time it will be there as a matter of course, put there nightly by her woman—and bang goes your joy of that. So with all the other enrichments of society, travel, book-learning. The more she had of them, the more she was able to take for herself. He who put her in the way of knowledge could not grumble if she acted upon what he had taught her. Such gifts as his destroy themselves. It had filled his eyes with tears to see his wilding in the great terraced house, to watch the little airs of dignity of matronhood, wifehood (alas, poor gentleman!) flutter about her, and, like birds, take assurance, and alight. Her cares were charming, too. It was pretty to see her knit her brows over some tough nugget of Dante’s, exquisite when she came faltering to him, coaxing for help. But then, naturally, the more help she had the less she came. It grew to be her pride to get through alone—her pride and his disaster. No. Tristram Duplessis had been wiser in his generation than he. If you love to fill a thing you must take care to keep it pretty empty. Thus it was that King Cophetua kneeled in vain. He had kneeled too low.

But there’s a balm in the passing years for Cratylus as well as for Marina. The musical clockwork of Southover, which he had promised himself, became his. He went about his duties as landlord, county magnate, patron of reasonable things, tolerably sure of a welcome home from a pair of kind brown eyes. Kisses might be his if he chose to call for them, clinging arms, a warm and grateful heart. Such things had to be his solace; and sometimes they were. And he still fought for his treasure, against all the odds, with his teeth set hard. If he had lost grip it was because her muscles were more practised. He must try another, and another, if he would whirl her in the air. He must impress her anew, prove to her that he was a man, honour-worthy and loveworthy. His ambitions were rekindled: that was the result of his musings. In the spring of the year, when the tulips blazed in the Italian gardens, and Mary Middleham had been Mary Germain for a good eighteen months, we heard him speak with young Mr. Wilbraham of Sir Gregory and the Farlingbridge division of the county. There was a chance of lighting up the wonder again in a pair of brown eyes. He hoarded the thought for the month, and by June had made up his mind. Then he broke it to his Mary. “I will gladly put my experience at the service of the country,” he told her, “and convince you, if I can, that I am not too old for a public career.” She had told him that he wasn’t old at all, and had kissed his forehead. They happened to be alone for a few days just then; so that he could draw her down to his knee and talk to her about himself, and the part she would have to play for him in London. The house in Hill-street must be reopened.

III
MATTERS OF ELECTION

The country showed the periodic symptoms the moment Parliament was dissolved; the market-place of Farlingbridge hummed with rumour. Farmers in gigs pulled up to discuss the affairs of the nation with farmers on horseback, with hedgers, ditchers, tinkers, anybody. Class flowed over class, and The Reverend Stephen Burgess, Vicar of the town, exchanged evening papers with Reverend Samuel Rock, Congregational minister. Blue and red were in the air; Mr. Germain had long sittings with young Mr. Wilbraham. Presently a deputation attended, by leave, at Southover and was received in the library. The seat was to be contested, it seemed; the Honourable Leopold Levitt intended to fight. Now would Mr. Germain fight him? In a weighed speech of twenty minutes Mr. Germain declared his loins to be girded. “Pompous old boy,” said Mr. Tom Blyth, the Liberal harness-maker, to Mr. Peake, the Liberal agent; “but he’s good enough for the Honourable Levitt.” Mr. Peake thought he was just good enough. It was to be a narrow thing, a close-run thing. The addresses of the candidates showed as much. “Those great institutions to which this country of ours—” cried the Honourable Mr. Levitt in ink. “Those institutions to which this great country of ours—” was the peroration of Mr. Germain. There was to be very little in it. Mr. Peake, the agent, said that the ladies would do the trick. The Honourable Mrs. Levitt was stout, and twenty years older than her Leopold.

The writs were out in August, the election was to be in October. Mary, who had begun to lose colour during the summer heats, grew animated again at the prospect of the bustle. She had been getting introspective, too, had been sometimes fretful, sometimes glum. She thought more than was good for her about things which could not be helped. But for a flying Sunday visit, she had not seen her own people since her wedding day; for Mr. Germain had given up Misperton once more, and seemed to dislike the notion of her leaving him at such a time as this. Here, then, was a chance for her to be useful. She told her husband that she felt sure of Farlingbridge, and when he shook his head despondent she told him why. “They like me there, you know,” she said, blushing and laughing. “I know they do; besides Mrs. Blyth told me so. Oh, and Colonel Dermott stopped me yesterday and said that you might be easy. He’ll speak for you wherever you want him.” Colonel Dermott was an introduction of hers to the penetralia of Southover; a fiery Irishman with a turn for sarcasm. What he had really said to her was that he’d go to the stake for her, but that it wouldn’t be necessary. He admired her unaffectedly.

As the campaign progressed on its roaring way Mr. Germain became conscious that greater efforts than his own were necessary. The Honourable Mr. Levitt was untiring. He drove his own drag, and seemed to have a speech on the tip of his tongue for every village green. To Mr. Germain speeches were matters of enormous preparation, literary and economic. He balanced his periods as carefully as his convictions; he polished them, gave them form; but he could not fire them, because he had no fire. “We must give it ’em hot, Mr. Germain, we must indeed,” said Peake, the agent. Mr. Germain knew very well that he gave it them cold. The charming spectacle of his young wife, in red cloth, driving her ponies in red harness, a red bow on her whip and red roses in her bosom, far from kindling him, whitened the ashes of his hearth. She was pretty, she was gay, she went again and again to the attack, and coaxed for votes as a child for sweets. One great sensation was when Guy Chaveney ratted, and wore red; another when Levitt publicly alluded to her as his “fair enemy,” and was drowned in the cheers of his own party. Colonel Dermott swept her into debate with his hand. “Here’s the lady we follow and serve, gentlemen,” and he turned to her where she sat glowing on the platform. “By the powers, gentlemen, I’d run her up to Westminster by myself,” he went on; “but we’ll share in the enterprise, if you please.” A little more of that and we were in, said Mr. Peake.

Help from on high was promised, of an exciting kind. The Right Honourable Constantine Jess, President once of the Board of Trade, now Secretary of State apparent, offered to come down and help his old friend. He offered, I assume, in such a way that he could not be refused; for his approach was announced to Mary one morning over the breakfast table, and received by her with the calmness proper to county ladies. But there had been more. “He brings Tristram, his private secretary. You remember Tristram Duplessis, Mary?”

She managed it. “Yes,” she said. “I remember him very well.”

Mrs. Hartley—Mrs. Leonard Hartley, I mean—said that she had heard him speak. He reminded her of Mirabeau. Sir James Plash had asked, “Which Mirabeau?” and driven Mrs. Leonard into a corner.

“Oh, Carlyle’s, of course!” she answered—and the talk flowed over Tristram Duplessis.

But behind her fortification of silver urns and coffee-cups, she did remember him. Her eyes wide, sombre, and brooding, made no sign. It is the prerogative of county eyes to be still, and of married eyes to be indifferent. She did not smile at her thoughts, nor betray that they were not of a smiling kind. But she felt her heart quicken its beat, knew that she was to be put to the proof, and that her husband had chosen it to be so. To the racing rhythm in her head ran the refrain, “I knew he must come. He never forgets.”

Notes must be written and answers received. His was very short:—

“Dear Mrs. Germain,—I am very glad to come and help you. Certainly, we must bring him in. Yrs. sincerely, Tr. Duplessis.” It required sharp scrutiny to read between the lines of such a letter, and sharp scrutiny was applied—more than once. She pinched her lip over it as she sat alone, and carried it with her as she walked the park—but when she found herself doing that she tore it up. “I am very glad to come and help you”; that “you” was an after-thought. “Certainly, we must bring him in”; that “we” proved it. She knew, better than most, how Tristram could imply himself in a note. He had forgotten nothing, never would forget anything. No! No more had she forgotten.

Of all her former lovers this was the one man who could cause her any disquiet, or have evoked any sensation. She could never have recalled herself as she had been, two years ago, by any other aid than his. John Rudd? Ambrose Perivale? It is doubtful if she would have known them again. Sharper memories, a sharper fragrance clung about Tristram. Of all of them, it was with him that her relations had been the least explicit; but it had been he, also, who had thereby implied the most. He was master of implication—that delicate art which leaves it to the imagination of the object to read what precisely is implied. Had Tristram implied love? She never knew: that made Tristram’s dealing so exciting. Of course he had admired her; his savage looks, as if she stung and vexed him, had assured her of that. Her presence—her near presence—seemed always to make him angry; her absence angrier still, since he always came after her, and never forgot to let her see how angry he had been. Yes, he admired her; but admired other things more, much more: his books, his scholarship, the power he had, and, vastly more, himself. He was endlessly interested in himself, only “liked” her as showing him himself in new aspects; but she accepted that as a part of him, like the cut of his clothes; and there was no doubt as to her own feeling; she had admired Tristram on this side adultary, just on this side. Tristram intended to be Somebody: he used to tell her so, in a way which made her understand that he knew her to be a little Nobody. All the same, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, or his steps from turning to where she was, or was like to be. In a sense, then, she had drawn Tristram Duplessis; and that’s an exciting thing for a little nobody to do.

If he had been her lover as well, it had been in a way of his own. He had told her often and often that he disapproved of her—of her too speaking eyes, for instance (which could and did speak in those days), of her little affairs with Dick or Tom, as to which he had given himself the trouble to be exactly informed; of her lack of ambition; and because she was a dunce. And she had laughed or blushed, or been offended—she had never been hurt; and had allowed herself to be put under the rod of his tongue, or the gibe of his eyes again and again. She thought now—with hot cheeks—that she ought to have felt herself insulted, and, with hotter cheeks, that it was doubtful even now whether she would feel herself so. To have a book thrown into her lap, with the inference that she couldn’t read it; to be kissed without leave asked, or to kiss again without notice taken—these should have insulted Mary Middleham: but would they insult Mary Germain? Tingling cheeks were no answer.

Tristram had indeed been very exciting; he had been unaccountable, arbitrary, splendid; to have attracted his scowling looks had been one of her triumphs. It had been a triumph, even, that Misperton Brand knew all about it, and that part of it had been scandalized. Yet—and for all that—thinking over it now, with his coming again so close at hand, she knew perfectly well that she had not been in love with him, and was not in love with him now. He had treated her in too lordly a fashion altogether. Dimly she could guess that love was another affair. It might be possible for a girl to worship a man as a god—but that was never love. She knew better than that now. But certainly she must confess, even now, to a tenderness for her reminiscences of Tristram, who had singled her out of a herd, watched, followed, engrossed her, and in his own morose and grudging way had seemed to be in love with her. He had known how to kiss, anyhow. As she inhaled the sharp fragrance of those days she was again excited. There had been glamour. She recalled, with a thrill, the Sunday afternoon when Mrs. James had caught him reading Shelley to her under the apple tree, and blushed anew as she had blushed then. And the continuous alarm of the affair! The moments snatched in pauses of the chase! Yes, there had been glamour, and it had been sweet—perilous and sweet. It was a thing to remember, but not to fear. She didn’t think she need fear anything, especially as she had told Mr. Germain all about it—or as good as told him.

But it’s always ticklish work, meeting an old heart’s acquaintance on new terms. Neither party to the business can face it quite unmoved. For him, there’s the painful, curious inquiry:—“This, this is she with whom I had fondly hoped—! Now, look, there is knowledge stored within those limpid eyes—and I might have put it there! She and I share experiences, which He—that interloper—can never share. With this I must dress my wounded side.” All that his handshake, or his bow, may convey to her. Upon her side—the sedately conscious of two men’s regard—veiled within her eyes there’s this for the ousted lover: “You may spare me the rod. I am another’s, who might have been yours. You loved me once, you told me; be charitable now!” And all that she will express in the flutter of her greeting.