Chapter XXIV

Quite a number of people had come to luncheon. Quite a number still remained, though it was past four o'clock, upon the great, deep-eaved verandah, in attendance on Virginia. There was a babel of clear, penetrating voices, occasionally an outbreak of laughter, though, in point of fact, notwithstanding its ready verbal wit, the New World is less addicted to laughter than the Old. Laurence had listened, had put in a lazy sentence here and there; but now the entertainment began to pall on him slightly. It was too continuous. They were all so young, so emphatic, so tireless in the business of pleasure, these bright, clear-cut, young people. He remembered it was mail day. The English letters and newspapers should have arrived by now. He got up and sauntered, cigarette in mouth, into the great, pale living-room. The Venetian shutters were closed, and the room, with its spare though elegant furniture, and butter-coloured, parquet floor, was full of a clear, green light, quiet, and excellently cool. Sure enough, on one of the tables lay, in goodly array, lately arrived letters and papers. Laurence began opening these in desultory fashion. The glass doors, standing wide on to the verandah, framed Virginia's perfectly finished person lying back in a rocking-chair. Her profile was outlined against a soft, sea-green cushion. She was talking, others were listening, as was usually the case in respect of Virginia. Beyond the hand-rail and uprights of the verandah, could be seen a long sweep of rather coarse grass, and the waters of the river, white in the brilliant, afternoon light, whereon lay some trim rowing-boats and smart pleasure-yachts at anchor. The water was absolutely still, even and gleaming as the surface of a silver mirror; yet it lapped with a just audible gurgle and suck against the indentations of the low, green banks. And this cool, liquid sound formed an agreeable undertone to those clear, penetrating voices, the ceaseless chirrup of crickets and strident fiddlings of countless grasshoppers.

Behind the ample, wide-ranging, wooden house--spotless in its purity of white paint, dignified by its ranges of dark-green, slatted shutters, its grey-brown, shingled roofs, and many gables--a certain puritan simplicity pervading it, somewhat quaintly at variance with its highly-developed appliances of modern comfort, and the almost surprisingly civilised examples of modern humanity now domiciled within it--behind it the ground trended upward, through pleasant orchards of apple, pear, and peach trees, past commodious wooden barns and stables, long, grey snake-fences, and corn patches, where the pumpkins began to grow golden beneath the wide, glistening leaves, the giant cobs and silken tassels of the maize. Down to meet this spacious foreground unencumbered by superfluous detail, wandered the sparse, untamed, ubiquitous woodland of the New England States. Everywhere slender, long-limbed trees, endless scrub, festooning vines, heavy with bunches of little fox-grapes, and below outcroppings of grey rock. Some two months hence, the edge of the woodland would be fringed by spires of golden-rod and processions of purple asters, while the maples set forth an amazement of verdigris green, lemon-colour, and all manner of radiant pinks and scarlets, and sumach dyed the hollows blood-red; but as yet the woods retained their summer tints. There was a slight want of atmosphere no doubt. The landscape was oddly lacking in values of distance; while the sky was blue to the point of crudity, and the sun blazed, had blazed, would blaze, with a youthful and tireless energy--not unsuggestive of the conversation of Virginia and all those friends of hers--throughout the unshadowed and unmitigated day.

To right and left were other hospitable mansions, the limits of their private grounds unmarked by jealous wall or paling. A wide-ranging spirit of good-nature and confidence appeared to reign; yet, in point of fact, the inhabitants of these agreeable country houses formed a distinctly close corporation. The Van Reenan property had been broken up into building lots on the death of its first owner, old Erasmus Van Reenan, merchant and financier of New York, nearly seventy years ago. But the said lots had been acquired by members of his numerous family; and still Van Reenans, direct and collateral, their children and their children's children, found relaxation at times in this amiable, American Capua. But woe to any intruder from the outer world, unless furnished with irreproachable passport and the very highest of high-class references, who should venture to set sacrilegious foot on this thrice sacred ground! For, as Laurence had frequently reflected--not without a measure of amusement--nothing is so essentially aristocratic as a democratic country, nothing so socially exclusive as an immature civilisation.

It was the first time since her marriage that Virginia had honoured the Van Reenan property with her presence; but being debarred, by the fact of her mourning for her husband's uncle, from participation in the gay life of those summer resorts where the _elite_ of the smart world do mostly congregate, she had elected to retire upon one of these many-gabled, ancestral mansions. She was explaining all this--and really it appeared to require a surprising amount of explanation--to Mr. Horace Greener, a young man of distinguished, social pretensions, the constant frequenter of her entertainments both in Newport and New York, who, finding himself obliged to visit the city on business, had sought at once physical refreshment and satisfaction of the emotion of friendship by running out by train, to-day, to visit her.

Virginia's clear intonations rose superior to the chorus of feminine voices around her, their singular vivacity and singular composure alike offering an unconscious challenge to Laurence's mental attitude as he lazily tore open his English letters and newspapers. He had left Stoke Rivers just three weeks, and all that time he had been a prey to vacuity, to a sort of gnawing emptiness. At moments a blind rage took him, but only at moments. In the main his attitude was cynical. Disappointment had embittered him. Nothing mattered much, nothing ever would matter much again. He had had his great chance and lost it, muddled it somehow. A bigger man would have over-ridden the difficulties of the affair. But he was a bungler, a poor creature. He was profoundly contemptuous of himself, and not a little contemptuous also of men and things.

But here was a thick packet from Armstrong, and that awoke an unexpected interest in him. It would be quite pleasant to have news of the light railway, and the gypsum quarries.--Nice fellow, that young engineer, and not at all conceited. Most experts have such a confoundedly good opinion of themselves!--Laurence fell to whistling softly, and involuntarily he recalled the slender, courtly music of a certain eighteenth century minuet. Then he stopped suddenly, an immense nostalgia taking him for a very different scene and place, and--well, a general outlook less secure and circumscribed, and, he had almost said, trivial. He didn't want to be censorious--who was he, after all, in good truth, to be that?--but Horace Greener's trim, light-clad person, leaning against a pillar of the verandah close to Virginia's rocking-chair, caught his eye. The young man was excellently got up, he was well-bred, agreeable, would pass muster in any society; yet Laurence wearied mightily of him just then--of his neatly handsome features, which would photograph so well and paint so poorly, and of his alert and civil manner.

"No, I imagined you would be surprised to find me so at home in this idyllic and patriarchal _milieu_, Mr. Greener," Virginia was saying. "I rather counted upon that. You did not accredit me with so much adaptability. Some other of my friends have observed upon that also. And I assure you I am rewarded; for I find it the most recuperative process a woman can go through to retire upon herself and upon nature in this way. My parents had been anxious to come out here all summer this year, and when I concluded to join them we worked out a regular scheme. I assure you it has called forth a quite affecting display of family affection. There are nine houses on the place. They are all full. We all meet daily. Even my cousin, Mrs. Bellingham, has come over with her children from Europe.--Yes, I am very glad you should have met Louise again, Mr. Greener. The English life does not altogether suit her. I observed she was wanting at first in animation. It does her good to see old friends. I apprehend she feels rather exiled. I wonder if I shall feel rather exiled? But I don't propose to take it that way. I propose every one there shall feel exiled because they have not had the inestimable advantage of being born on this side. Do you not think that is the true patriotic platform, now, Mr. Greener?"--

There was another letter. Laurence knew the handwriting, but he could couple no name with it. Yet certainly he knew it, and the sight of it conveyed to him an impression vaguely amusing. He laid aside the agent's voluminous packet and opened the envelope.

"Why, the poor little Padre Sahib, to be sure," he exclaimed, half aloud. "Have they been tripping him up with strings again across the school door?"

But as he read, amusement gave place to quite other sentiments. His eyebrows drew together, and his face, for all its healthy sunburn, blanched to the indistinct, dusty grey of his well-cut flannels.

"This very shocking discovery has, as you will, I feel sure, readily conceive, quite unnerved me," wrote Walter Samuel Beal. "But for the support and invaluable advice of the Archdeacon I should have sunk under the burden of responsibility thrown upon me. A case so extraordinary has rarely, if ever, arisen, I should suppose, during the whole history of the Christian ministry. I should add that the oak coffin was so charred at one corner as to reveal a second coffin, composed of lead, within. As the inscription upon the coffin plate was quite legible, and as Mr. Armstrong was in possession of information bearing upon this very painful matter, I abstained from further investigation myself and entreated others also to do so."

"Thank God for that," Laurence muttered.

There was a drawing back of chairs upon the verandah, an outbreak of rapid question and answer, of laughter, reiterated and extensive farewells. Virginia's clear voice still rose dominant. She was marshalling her forces, arranging future meetings, making appointments, ordering her plan of campaign--and outside, all the while, the sun blazed on the surface of the white waters of the river, the ripple lapped against the green, indented banks, the crickets and grasshoppers kept up their strident serenade.

"I felt that neither my courage nor my judgment was equal to the ordeal," wrote the worthy young clergyman. "I dreaded to entangle myself in legal questions of which I virtually know nothing. I can never express the gratitude I owe to the Archdeacon. He advised that the coffin should be placed provisionally in the plot of ground reserved by you in our parish churchyard. He even came over the considerable distance from Bishop's Pudbury, and himself read the shortened form which he had selected from the burial service. For this I was deeply thankful, as agitation might, I fear, have prevented my performing the last solemn rites in a suitably impressive manner--"

"Why, certainly, Mr. Greener, I will go and put on my golfing suit," this vivaciously from Virginia. "It will be cooler in an hour. We shall have the wind off the river.--Willie Van Reenan's theatricals? Yes, I know it, Louise; I am coming to that directly. Now, Mr. Greener, if you will walk over to her house with Mrs. Bellingham, I will drive around and take you on to the links. I will arrange to have Laurence meet us at the club pavilion. And, Louise, when you see Willie tell him he can come right on here after dinner, and I will cast the play with him. We can count on you for Lord Follington, Mr. Greener? Yes--you really are very kind."

Laurence still stood by the table littered with envelopes and papers. He was reading the agent's missive, or rather trying to do so, for the words were not wholly easy to focus. His eyes had a mist before them, and a singular sensation gained upon him--that of the inherent duality of his being. For some time now he had only been conscious of the existence of the modern Laurence Rivers, wholly and solely the modern Laurence Rivers, and he, baffled and discomfited, by no means at his best. Now that earlier life, the strong emotions and steady purposes of it, crowded in on him calling to and claiming him, until his actual circumstances and surroundings became singularly incredible. The heels of Virginia's very pretty shoes tapped lightly upon the butter-coloured boards of the verandah. She straightened a chair or two, replaced some magazines which slipped from a basket-work lounge on to the floor. Her movements were direct and deliberate; and all the while her trailing skirts made a dragging sound like the wheels of a little cart. In a moment more she would come into the house. The young man tried to pull himself together; but it was so unbelievable to him, just now, this whole matter of Virginia.

He looked across at her, as he might have looked at the merest acquaintance, and found her extremely effective as she came through the cool, green light of the great living-room, her tall, slight, yet rounded figure backed by the untempered brightness of sky and water. Her transparent, black muslin dress was thick with beautiful hand-embroidery upon the tight-fitting sleeves and the shoulders of the bodice. It was girt with a soft, black, chiffon girdle, knotted low down, emphasising the length of the waist, and the spring of the hips--around which her dress fitted very closely. Below the knees her skirts stood away fanwise, over a bewildering arrangement of white, silk kiltings and flounces, which hid her feet and gave a slightly Japanese effect to her costume. Her fair, brown hair was loosely waved and puffed out over the ears. Her eyes, a light hazel, harmonized charmingly with the even tint of her rather sallow skin. Her neck was noticeably long, and her face in shape, colouring, and feature bore an arresting resemblance to that of certain of Botticelli's Madonnas. This, taken in connection with her extremely fashionable attire and her otherwise declared and complete modernity, had in it great piquancy, an element trenching on actual, though unconscious profanity.

To Laurence, looking at her through the eyes of that elder personality of his, these details and these suggestions were conspicuous. She presented a perfect example of an immensely effective type. He recognised that; yet he stared at it in almost desperate wonder, and something approaching hopelessness.

"Why, you are there!" she exclaimed. "I am glad. I wanted you."

"Your people have all cleared out, haven't they?"

"Yes, they have gone. They had a grand time, I believe. I really think it was very well your uncle's death put me into mourning. It has afforded me the opportunity of giving my family a lovely summer. It might have been a catastrophe; I have made it into an occasion. They appreciate that."

Virginia made these statements with evident self-complacency.

"Of course," Laurence said. He still stared at her. She placed her hands on her hips, smoothing down her close-fitting skirt. Her hands were very small. Much art had been expended upon the finger nails.

"I think it was perfectly sweet of Horace Greener to come right on and see me," she continued. "It was like a breath of air from the outside. And I was glad he should know how finely everything was going. I think they all thought I might feel a little left over. He knows now it is they who are left over.--Laurence, you must hurry. I arranged you should be at the club pavilion in an hour. I have to change my dress; but if it should still be very hot I will not play. I will have you take my place."

"Horace Greener is a charming fellow," he answered, "all the same I'm afraid I can't play golf with him this afternoon."

"But I told him you would do so," Virginia rejoined, with absolute assurance. "It is settled. I never go back on an engagement."

"Ah! but I'm afraid I do," Laurence said. "Specially in the case of engagements about the making of which I have not been consulted."

So far the young lady had been occupied with her own conversation and her own person to the exclusion of any particular observation of her companion. Now she deigned to regard him more closely.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, "you appear to me to be looking pretty wretched."

"Upon my word I believe I am pretty wretched," Laurence answered, smiling. "My home letters have brought me some news I don't in the very least like. It entails a journey to England. And instead of playing golf with Horace Greener, I must take the seven o'clock train to New York, and see if there is a decent state-room vacant on any of the outward-bound liners."

It was, in a way, characteristic of Virginia that her face, notwithstanding her natural vivacity, possessed no great mobility or range of expression. There were such a number of emotions she had never been called upon to entertain. And now no movement of appeal or regret crossed it. It merely hardened a little, becoming as serenely obstinate as heretofore it had been serenely complacent. She spoke with exactly the same conviction and assurance.

"But you cannot do that," she said.

"Oh, yes, but indeed I can," Laurence replied quite good-temperedly. He felt so singularly unrelated to her, that assertion was sufficient. It did not enter his head to protest or argue.

"You misunderstand," she said; "it is that I do not intend to have you do it."

He paused a moment, making an honest effort to range himself in line with her thought.

"Oh, come along," he began. But the young lady interrupted him with the same unwavering composure--

"You place me in an objectionable position," she declared, "by forcing me to explain. That is not considerate. You should meet me half-way; you should be beforehand so as to secure me against the annoyance of referring to all that. I had determined to sink it. But you make that impossible. It is derogatory to me to explain."

Laurence sat down on the arm of the nearest chair. He felt curiously helpless, and yet all the while he was getting the bit between his teeth. If obstinacy was about, well, he had his share of it. Across the Atlantic matters of such profound moment were awaiting him. It was difficult to reckon seriously and courteously with this unlooked-for opposition, and not to brush it impatiently aside. It seemed little short of ridiculous.

"I give you my word, Virginia, I don't know what you are talking about," he said. "I have the most cogent reasons for going over--you haven't given me an opportunity of stating them yet, but that doesn't alter the fact. It is necessary I should go; and after all, you know, I am not such a conceited ass as to imagine you can't do without me for three weeks or so."

"I am not thinking of myself, I am thinking of others," she remarked, with a certain _naivete_.

Laurence smiled.

"Oh, in that case I can book my passage with a clear conscience," he said.

But the young lady continued:--

"It is extraordinary to me how little regard you have for appearances. Comments were made upon the length of your former absence. They came round to me. That was not to be endured in the case of my husband. I put a stop to all that by cabling for you."

"Ah! yes, I see," Laurence said slowly. "When I arrived there certainly seemed no very obvious reason for the sending of that cable. That was unlike you. When I thought of it I confess I was puzzled."

"If you leave again after so short a stay, it will give colour to those comments." Virginia spoke with emphasis, almost with solemnity. "I do not propose to submit to that. So you must choose, Laurence. Either you must give up going, or you must wait till it is convenient to me to go with you. I do not care for a summer voyage; it is dull. Between the seasons nobody one ever heard of is crossing. One may meet the wrong people. My leaving would cause great disappointment here. It would break up their summer. Still I would risk that to avoid the other. It would be a scramble too, and nothing is more annoying than a scramble, but I dare say I could arrange to be ready in two weeks from now."

"That's very good of you," Laurence replied. "But unfortunately I must go at once, and, pardon my saying so, it will be better for me to go alone. Everything is at sixes and sevens. Confusion reigns at Stoke Rivers. I would not take you there under existing circumstances. You'd receive a quite wrong impression. Oh, it would be utterly disastrous!" he exclaimed.

For the first time he beheld Virginia depart from her faultless self-complacency, lose herself a little and display signs of anger. Her chin went up with a quick jerk, her eyes flashed, her features seemed for the moment swollen. This shocked him, it was so wholly unprecedented. He felt very sorry, as though he had been careless and clumsy, as though he had broken something hitherto flawless, and therefore charming, if not of supreme intrinsic value.

"I begin to believe," she cried, "you have an intention I shall never see Stoke Rivers at all."

"No, no, my dear," he answered rapidly, rising as he spoke. "Nothing of the kind. You are very distinctly mistaken. I have never been more ready that you should see Stoke Rivers than within the last hour--that is, when Stoke Rivers is fit to be seen. The poor, old house seems to have been in jeopardy of final disappearance about a week ago. There's where my bad news comes in. They write me word of a nasty fire there. Nobody's fault--an electric light wire heated, and not being properly cased charred some of the panelling which finally caught alight. The house has been kept at such a high temperature for years, that the woodwork is like so much tinder."

Virginia's chin was still in the air, but she had in great measure recovered her self-control. Her manner was rather elaborately cold.

"That is a pity," she said calmly. "But, of course, the house and its contents are insured."

"Oh, yes, the loss is more a matter of sentiment than of money. Only one room is burnt out, as far as I can gather; and it didn't contain any very valuable pictures, or any part of my uncle's collection."

"Probably it is as well this fire occurred, then," Virginia observed. "I have always supposed Stoke Rivers would need some reconstruction before it came up to the level of modern requirements."

"Possibly--" he spoke rather drily. "Only, you see, I happened to entertain a peculiar fondness for this particular room, and I am sorry to part with the outward and visible signs of certain memories."

The young lady did not answer immediately, but examined the dial-plate of the little watch, set in diamonds, upon her wrist.

"The carriage will be here," she said. "I have not time to change my dress. I cannot play golf with Horace Greener. It is very embarrassing. I have no valid excuse to offer him."

"Oh, the heat, my dear, the heat," Laurence said, smiling. "Any excuse is valid if you make it with sufficient conviction."

Virginia looked hard at him.--"I wonder just what you mean by that," she retorted. She put up her hand, puffing her hair out a little more over her ears. "That fire was not very serious on your own admission," she continued, "I cannot see that it necessitates your hurrying over with this frantic haste. And if I am to live in it it would be desirable I should overlook the reconstruction of the house myself."

Her tone was meditative. Her statements were concise. Laurence felt his back against the wall. He must take the consequences of his own action however distasteful and disagreeable. His course would have been very obvious had his record been quite clean in regard to Virginia; but, he was an honest man. Something of exquisite, of incalculable value had tempted him; and the peculiarities of his temperament had heightened that temptation. He had been saved from falling, not by his own virtue, but by the virtue and self-sacrifice of one adorably his superior. He could not plume himself upon the achievement. He acknowledged that his conscience was not clear in respect of Virginia; and this necessitated the payment of a heavy penalty in connection with his own self-esteem. His pride rebelled against "giving himself away," against further self-revelation; only, the logic of the situation prevailed. It cut him to the quick, yet it had to be done.

"You're quite right," he said. "The matter of the fire could have waited a little, I dare say, though it isn't exactly satisfactory to know part of one's house is roofless under a wet, English, July sky; but I had other bad news to-day." He paused a moment. "I heard of the funeral of a very dear connection of mine."

Virginia moved slightly, sweeping those fanwise-cut flounces to one side.

"Funeral?" she said quickly. "Really you have the very oddest manner of statement. Had you not already heard of his death, then?"

The young man moved too. He turned away, and a poignant sensation tore and hacked at him, so to speak. It hurt him physically. He gazed out over the dazzling whiteness of the smooth river seeing nothing, his whole being tense with the effort to resist the showing of that pain.

"Yes, yes, I have heard of her death, but I refused to believe it," he answered.

There was a moment of ominous silence, save for the shrilling of the insects, and lapping of the stream.

"Oh, a woman!" she said, with an almost alarming calm. "Have I ever heard of her?"

"I think not," Laurence answered.

"Then Louise had grounds for her assertions," she said, still with that deadly calm. "I thought it unworthy to listen. I forbade her to write or speak to me upon the subject. I--"

Laurence wheeled round. His eyes were dangerous. All the fanaticism of his race, and something finer than that, looked out of them.

"Think what you please of me," he cried; "but of her, think no evil. Never dare to think any evil. She was one of the saints of God; and you, of all women, have no cause to misjudge her. She saved me from committing a great sin."

A singular expression crossed the young lady's face, an imperious desire to ask, to search out the ultimate of the matter. But it was momentary. Spoilt child of fortune, she was too unaccustomed to vital drama to know how to deal with it. It staggered, it also slightly disgusted her. She could not rise to it. So conventionality proved stronger than even this very legitimate curiosity. Virginia remained true to her somewhat artificial traditions, to her own canons of good taste and self-respect, to that singular clause of the social creed which declares the thing unsaid also non-existent. Virginia appeared, in a way, admirable just then, yet she gave the measure of her nature. It was not great. She turned aside, with a movement of well-defined and lofty superiority.

"Are you aware that you become very indelicate?" she asked.

"Most men are indelicate at times, unfortunately."

"But not over here," she said. "American women do not permit that. You must remember whom you have married."--She waited a little. "The English standards are different, I presume," she added, not without a touch of sarcasm.

"I begin to think they are," Laurence answered.--He was paying, paying abominably; yet there was a sensible relief in so doing.--"They are based on the logic of fact," he continued. "And fact is more often indelicate than not. It has never yet, you see, learned to be a respecter of persons."

There was a pause, in which once again the fiddlings of the grasshoppers and soothing lap of the water became audible.

"Do you still propose to go to England?"

Laurence nodded. "Yes," he said.

"Then"--began Virginia; but the young man held up his hand, partly in warning, partly demanding a cessation of hostilities. His thought had taken a new departure in regard to his wife. Somehow she had destroyed her own legend. She was more slight and shallow a creature than he had supposed, and he would never really stand in awe of her again. His smile was sad yet wholly friendly.

"Then--in a couple of weeks or so--I shall come back and fetch you," he declared. "And then, like wise and politic human beings, we will eschew controversy, each giving the other as much room as possible. I fancy you'll find we shall shake down pretty easily, and rub along like most other married people.--Meanwhile what's becoming of poor, neglected Horace Greener? Go and amuse both yourself and him, my dear. If you're not in before I start--well--for the moment, _addio_."