Chapter XI

Something drummed and drummed; and, in obedience to that sound, it appeared to Laurence that he returned--whence he knew not--across the most prodigious spaces ever traversed by the spirit of man. Then the matter explained itself. He was on board ship once again, awakened to the familiar pounding of the engines and drum of the screw. Opening his eyes, they would rest on the white iron and wooden walls of his state-room, and the alert figure of his bedroom steward, announcing--"Fair morning, sir; bath ready, sir." And this impression was so distinct that it took him some seconds to focus his actual whereabouts--the stately and serious bed-chamber at Stoke Rivers, and the portly person of Watkins, the under-butler, standing at the bedside, a silver tea-tray in his large, soft hands.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I have been up twice already and received no answer," he said, his manner correct and respectful as ever, but his face wearing, for once, an expression of quite human solicitude--or was it curiosity? "I spoke to Mr. Renshaw and Mr. Lowndes, and they considered it advisable that I should enter, sir. Mr. Renshaw and Mr. Lowndes felt, with me, not quite comfortable, sir, knowing your habit of early rising."

Watkins set down the tray carefully, turning out the corners of the fine napkin which covered it.

"Your tea, your letters, sir," he added, and then paused.

Laurence tried to rouse himself. Shipboard and the pounding engines were a delusion clearly. But was the night of sweet converse, and the flitting away of a rose-clad, slender figure at the first flush of dawn, a delusion likewise?

"Oh yes, thanks, Watkins, I am all right," he said absently. "I've slept late, have I? What time is it?"

"Between ten minutes and a quarter past eleven when I passed through the hall," the man answered. "Any orders for the stables, sir?"

Laurence was tearing open his letters. One was addressed in his wife's large and elaborate hand. Laughing at her, one day before their marriage, he had declared that did she possess half the amount of character suggested by these opulent hieroglyphics, there would positively be no getting to the end of it, so that his work clearly was cut out for him for the rest of his natural life. Now the sight of that handwriting--though he had possibly ceased to regard it as a perfectly trustworthy index to its writer's personality--affected him with a movement of vague self-reproach. For, as sleep left him, Laurence entertained less and less doubt of the actuality of the existence of his rose-clad fairy-lady; or of the fact that he had spent hours with her--hours, blameless it is true, yet beautiful beyond all remembered hours of his experience. And though he had done no wrong, yet the very beauty of those hours--since she had not shared it--constituted a certain subtle, subjective infidelity towards his wife. This pricked his conscience the more, that he perceived Virginia must have written to him by the very next mail, but three days after he had sailed. And that was rather charming and thoughtful of her, for she had innumerable engagements claiming her time and attention, and was by no means addicted to anxiety regarding the absent. "Why should she worry," as she remarked at parting, "everybody was always crossing now, and you hardly ever heard of any one not getting to the other side safely enough." Therefore it seemed to Laurence it would be a duty, perhaps also a little salve to his conscience, to do something pleasing--however remotely--to Virginia. He had an order for the stables. He would ride over to luncheon with her friend and admirer, Mrs. Bellingham, at Bishop's Pudbury.

Once on his feet, Laurence was somewhat surprised at his own sensations. He found himself singularly tired, as a man may be by some prolonged concentration of brain or of will. He felt as though he had made some tremendous mental effort; and, now that it was over, depression held both his mind and body. His spirits were not as buoyant as usual, nor was his thought clear. He felt dazed, and incapable of grappling with the strange problems raised by the events of the last twenty-four hours. The swing of possibility they suggested was too great. The average, the _banal_ attracted him, as a narcotic attracts one in pain. For the moment he suffered something approaching repulsion towards his recent exaltation and amazing, half-realised discoveries. He wanted to get back on to the ordinary lines of things--be amused, be a trifle stupid, laugh, gossip, forget.

The sun had long since burnt up that sprinkling of frost upon the grass. The air was fragrant and mild. Catkins fringed the hazel twigs, while in the shelter of the deep lanes leaves showed tenderly green. The sap had risen in the trees, so that a broken branch bled. Indications of fertility and growth were everywhere, Nature sensibly putting forth her strength after the sleep of winter. The road which Laurence followed, after crossing the park, turned upward under overhanging trees, and skirted the low, stone wall of the churchyard. And the contrast between this last resting-place of human corpses and the perpetual and so evident fecundity of Nature struck home to him, yet not distressfully. He was not wholly unwilling, in his present mood, to welcome the thought of eventual rest.

He checked his horse, and waited, looking at the place again,--at its dark, feathery yew-trees, its narrow mounds, ranged decently in line--on the surface of which the spring grass raised innumerable blades of vivid green--at its simple monuments, that showed not merely a name and date of departure, but time-honoured words of faith in the justice and mercy of Almighty God. There was an unoccupied space on the hither side of the enclosure, lying pleasantly open to the sun. The grey wall of the chancel, pierced by low, round-headed windows, backed it. A bush of _Pyrus Japonica_ was trained around and between these windows; and the flowers, showing up against their black stems, spread garlands of pure, hot colour over the face of the rough stone. Laurence, to whom the disposal of his body after death had, heretofore, appeared a matter of extreme unimportance, was overtaken by a sudden eagerness to secure for himself rights of burial in this serene and sun-visited spot.

"After all, it must come to me, sooner or later, as to all the rest," he thought; "and why shouldn't I provide for the event according to my fancy? I'll talk to the poor little parson about it. Perhaps he'll be easier regarding the state of my soul and my prospects of salvation if I make provision for my latter end by staking out a burial-plot. I wonder what Virginia would say to that? Probably she's a little transatlantic weakness for embalmers and mausoleums. Mother Earth's lap is best, though, I think!"

And then riding onward, all in the fair spring weather, though he tried to put the thought from him, his heart was somewhat troubled by that flitting, rose-clad figure once again--by the lovely, speechless lips, to which he had brought gentle gaiety, and the profound and serious eyes, to which he had brought human sympathy and trust. Silent or not, woman or disembodied spirit, she was a little too captivating for safety. Should he inquire no further? But, in renouncing all further intercourse with her, would he perpetrate an act of high moral courage, or merely commit one of intellectual cowardice, such as that already committed by his uncle? Here was a problem not easy of solution. Laurence straightened himself in the saddle, and pressed his horse a little. Bishop's Pudbury would be a relief, and should be reached with as small delay as possible. He would try to be amused, a little stupid, to laugh, gossip, and forget--for a time at all events.

Mrs. Bellingham, certainly, offered an excellent contrast to the spirit of his present perturbations. She was a notable example of modern civilisation, guiltless of all mysterious or primitive suggestion. Her prettiness was considerable, according to a neat and unaccentuated type. Her manner was vivacious, her attitudes many but sincere. She wore these--so to speak--to bring out the value of her conversation, as she wore her irreproachably constructed clothes to bring out those of her plump and carefully preserved figure. Her light-brown hair was parted in the middle, waved, and puffed out over the ears--this in imitation of the fashion lately patronised by Virginia Rivers. The set of her purple, boxcloth coat and skirt pleased Laurence's eye, as did that of her white satin and lace blouse. She was really admirably turned out--according to current standards of fashion. She greeted her guest, moreover, with that happy combination of self-consciousness and self-assurance, which has in it at once a flavour of compliment and promise of worthy entertainment. Mrs. Jack Bellingham would never do anything very great; but she aspired and succeeded in doing the small things of life remarkably well.

"Why, Mr. Rivers, this is quite too charming for anything," she said. "But, unfortunately, I am alone here with my children. I devote a great deal of time now to my children. My husband has gone up to town for the day."

"So much the better," Laurence answered cheerfully. "I didn't come to see Jack, dear Mrs. Bellingham, but wholly and solely to see you. Virginia charged me with innumerable messages. And then there are a whole lot of people we both know I want to talk to you about--a few multiplications, subtractions, and divisions, you know, not without a humorous side to them here and there. Will you keep me to luncheon? Oh! that's awfully good of you."

The Pudbury manor-house had lately undergone reconstruction, thereby gaining in convenience what it lost in distinction. It was now as well designed to meet modern requirements, as finished, as generally presentable and as little of an enigma, as its present hostess. Laurence contemplated the elegant, if slightly unhomelike, room with a movement of ironical satisfaction. Its contents were as agreeably obvious and unrecondite as the style and plot of a current magazine story. It made no demand upon the intelligence or the emotions. And Laurence had been in contact with quite other literary subject-matter lately--problems of love, morals, metaphysics, not unworthy to inspire the magnificent obscurities of Browning, or the fine frenzies of Shelley's lyrics. Therefore he hailed the emotional limitations of his existing environment. The indolent side of his nature was paramount. He settled down to chatter genially about Tom, Dick, and Harry, and the fair ladies interested in those worthies, or in whom those worthies were interested. He was amused and amusing, relished his luncheon, his hostess's smart talk, and enjoyed countless reminiscences of Newport and New York. And, as the ease of this attitude of mind began to grow on him, the question very forcibly presented itself:--why strain? Why not always drift thus pleasantly and comfortably down the smooth stream of worldly prosperity? Why try to plumb the depths lying below that smiling surface? For does not this, in the majority of cases, involve an expenditure of energy out of all proportion to the worth of the result? To be light-in-hand and light-of-heart--was not that after all the truest philosophy? To what a hopelessly dreary pass had not the elder Mr. Rivers brought himself by thinking otherwise; and taking his studies, his opinions, himself, in short, so seriously!

So, sipping his coffee in the drawing-room after luncheon, while Mrs. Bellingham maintained the flow of conversation in penetrating and emphatic tones, Laurence thought--yes, on the whole, he did think--it would be wiser and better, to retire upon the former lines of his life,--to eschew high ambitions of sorts, and fall back upon the works and ways of _l'homme moyen sensuel_, upon the great, good-natured, uninspired Commonplace, of which his uncle had accredited him with being so oblivious and complete an exponent. He thought--notwithstanding the tightening of some cord at his heart, perhaps moral, perhaps merely physical--yes, honestly he did think he had better do that, and make his decision here and now. Judging by past experience, he was doomed in all departments to be second, not to say third-rate. Well, then, best accept that doom smiling. To do so might hurt vanity a bit, yet undoubtedly there would be consolations. Laurence set down his coffee-cup with a little lift of the eyebrows and shoulders, and an expression of countenance somewhat cynical. He would coquet no longer with fairy, rose-clad ladies--he would decline the so strangely offered adventure.

"The truth is, I'm not big enough for it," he thought to himself ruefully.

"You know just how I feel about Virginia," his hostess was saying. "She is a perfectly lovely woman in every way, and her social sense amounts to genius. The thought of her being over makes it possible for me to contemplate spending another winter here in the country. I look forward to seeing Virginia lay hold of this neighbourhood and just put it through. Her brightness, and _verve_, and _savoir faire_ will be a perfect revelation. She will positively electrify every person within a fifteen mile radius. But--"

And there the speaker paused. For along the carriage-drive, all in the pleasant sunshine, the children of the house, a trifle inebriated by recent dinner of chicken and rice pudding, by freedom, and the open air, went forth with shoutings and laughter for their afternoon walk. First Sybil and her younger sister, arrayed in straight, scarlet jackets, beneath which showed a long length of tan boot and tan stocking, encasing very active legs. Then the portly coachman, leading a donkey, upon which the three-year-old son and heir of the Bellingham family, also scarlet-coated, made a first essay in horsemanship. Finally, two nurses clothed in white. The little girls ran wildly, their gay figures backed by a bank of shrubbery--rusty red of berberis and glinting green of laurels--while the pink and azure balloon-balls they carried were whisked heavenward by the wind to the uttermost length of each tethering string. Around the procession, barking, circling, jumping high in air after the floating balls, and even threatening assault of the donkey's nose, skirmished a couple of rough Irish terriers. The donkey shied, the coachman admonished, a laughing nurse ran forward and clutched the small cavalier by the outstanding skirt of his coat and by the seat of his nether garments. The little girls shrieked and capered, and in such hilarious fashion the company passed out of sight.

Laurence Rivers's eyes rested rather wistfully upon the scene. It belonged to the great, good-natured, uninspired Commonplace upon which he was just agreeing with himself to retire; and it offered a comely and wholesome enough example of the same. Mrs. Bellingham also had turned towards the window, and the expression of her neat face had softened. The self-consciousness, the worldliness therein usually displayed, were in abeyance, while the beautiful content of motherhood was regnant, visibly enthroned. Laurence had never supposed she could look so charming, and he could have found it in his heart to envy his friend Jack Bellingham. Very early in their connection Virginia had pointed out to him, with consummate tact but entire lucidity, that the modern husband, who marries a fascinating woman of society and really appreciates her, will give proof of such appreciation by relegating the matter of child-bearing to a dim and distant future. It will come all in good time no doubt, but it can wait. For is not it really a little too much, in these days of enlightened equality between man and woman, to require the latter to forego amusement, to endure serious discomfort, risk her freshness and her figure, even come within measurable distance--in not infrequent cases--of the supremely foolish calamity of death?--Political economy and the health of the race notwithstanding, let the poor breed; let the obscure breed; let that innumerable company of women, to whom life offers so much of a trial and so little of a pastime, that in the sum-total of their infelicity one pain or peril the more cannot make any appreciable difference--let these breed. But spare the fair Virginias, those fine flowers of wealth and worldly circumstance, to whom Fortune shows so radiant a face! It is simple justice and reason so to do--at least such had been Virginia's argument.

But as Laurence now reflected--wiser by some year and a half's experience of woman and matrimony--if life on the lines of the Commonplace is to afford its legitimate compensations, it must not be trained too fine, or jockeyed too carefully. The man's ear must not be too ready to hear specious arguments, nor his imagination to entertain too elaborate sympathies. He must compel those said fine flowers to bow their heads to the common yoke. All his life he--Laurence--had been liable to stultify himself by permitting his imagination to turn up in the wrong place. What good luck to have been born, like his friend cheery Jack Bellingham, devoid of that embarrassing faculty! Good luck for Jack himself, and for his wife--who just looked so delightfully pretty--and for those three nice, shouting, scarlet-coated, small Bellinghams, otherwise only too probably non-existent.

Laurence had ceased suddenly to be much amused; had ceased to relish discussion of mutual friends, reminiscence or anecdote. He rose with the intention of bidding his hostess farewell; but her self-consciousness, her manner and manners, came back with a snap.

"Why, Mr. Rivers, you do not propose to leave yet," she protested. "I am not half through with our conversation, I assure you. We have not yet approached the subject upon which I am most keen for first-hand information. I am perfectly wild to hear on what terms you believe Virginia, with her bright, fearless, highly-developed, modern temperament, will be with your family spectre."