Chapter IV

"I am of an age with each; what
Matter if my hair turns grey?"
--SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE.

That radiant day of summer, all too short for Mark, taxed to the utmost his mother's impatient spirit that could bear any ill better than the ache of suspense, sharpened by premonition of the worst. Mark's offhand manner of announcing the day's programme to the breakfast-table in general confirmed her own secret fear. And if he were really crazy enough to speak, the result was a foregone conclusion. She would be asked to love, as a daughter, this alien girl, of whom she knew nothing except that she was not the real mate of the real Mark.

At the thought, a horrid sense of helplessness overwhelmed her. Open opposition would be worse than futile: yet smiling acquiescence was beyond her. Truth of intercourse--finest of all fine arts--was, for both mother and son, a necessity of their natures. To it they owed that deeper intimacy not often attained between one generation and another; but, in the present dilemma, it would make things so much harder for them both that dread almost outweighed her longing for his return.

Breakfast ended, Ralph announced his intention of carrying both girls off for a long walk. Keith retired to the study with the _Scotsman_ and a formidable pile of correspondence, leaving Helen to her own devices. Nothing she liked better, in normal circumstances; for her devices were many and absorbing. But to-day the silence and emptiness seemed to affect her like a ghostly presence, impalpable, yet vaguely threatening. A chill sense of impending disaster swept through her. She felt suddenly tired; oppressed by the dead weight of the years that she carried with such valiant elasticity of body and spirit and heart.

Half a century of life had dulled but scarcely silvered her red-brown hair; had pencilled fine lines between her brows and at the corners of her too sensitive mouth. But youth still triumphed in the eyes, in the slender alertness of her figure, in the swift impulsion of thought and speech. Yet she lived and felt life--the whole world's life--too intensely not to suffer moments of sharp reaction; and this was one. Hitherto, she had seen Mark's marriage as the chance of regaining a daughter. Now she saw it, rather, as a risk of losing her son, and her heart cried out that this was more than she could bear. In the past twelve years, she had suffered loss on loss, with a sort of fierce stoicism, the nearest approach to resignation that one of her nature could achieve. Now, being a mere mother, she must stand aside and watch him drifting on to the rocks----

It simply did not bear thinking of; and, gathering up her letters, she went in search of work, the unfailing anodyne for every ill.

At that time, under Keith's critical supervision, she was translating Emile Faguet. She was also studying Russian, with other translations in view; and she had correspondents in all parts of Europe, many of whom she had never seen. But these activities were fringes merely on the main work of her life--the revival of arts and crafts and home industries among Mark's people and the linking up of all similar efforts throughout the United Kingdom.

Yet, for all her activities and far-reaching aims, her true life had always been centred in her home. And she was content that it should be so; content to let outsiders dub her "Victorian," for refusing to be swept into the maelstrom of modern restlessness; to let the "progressives" swirl past her--social reformers, seekers after new religions, new panaceas for every ill; content to find time for cultivating the art of friendship, not merely in her own class, but among Mark's tenants on both estates.

Leisure to possess her own soul and the hearts of others was, for her, a simple necessity of life; and that very necessity, by limiting her sphere of action, was half the secret of her influence and charm. Ideals are uncomfortable things socially, but they have the merit of keeping their owners fresh; and the world's more strenuous workers found in her home atmosphere, a refreshment and inspiration worth some sacrifice of activity to preserve in an age of wholesale experiment in life and art and religion. They might rate her for living in a backwater; but, as intimacy grew, they realised that she was more vitally in touch than themselves with the world's greater issues; that her uneventful days were rich in experience, informed by a central purpose and an unshaken faith in certain abiding truths--periodically obscured and neglected, yet as certain to return with power as sunshine after rain.

"When religion decays and irreligion prevails, then I manifest Myself. For the protection of good, for the destruction of evil, and for the firm establishment of national righteousness, I am born again and again."

Krishna's ancient prophecy, printed in gold on an illuminated scroll, confronted her as she entered her sanctuary. The scroll had been a birthday "surprise" from Mark; an achievement of schoolboy days when he was altogether her own; and the thought upset her equanimity afresh.

Look where she would, the room was full of him: a friendly, intimate room, set in the bastioned tower that dated from feudal times. But arrow-slits had long given place to unlimited light and air; and, like all rooms that are loved and genuinely lived in, it was quick with the personality of one who imparted something of herself to the very chair she used and the books and pictures on her walls. These last were few and individual; but of the books there was no end. A catholic assembly, they climbed the only bit of wall-space not occupied by the grate. They stood about invitingly in revolving cases; and a privileged company was piled upon the floor near her chair. Keith often accused her of having an untidy mind: and the state of her room betrayed her. The one tidy spot was the writing-table, which she never used.

Over the mantelpiece hung an early portrait of her husband, that might almost have been a portrait of Mark. But Sir Richard's face was heavier than his son's; the brow more massive, the lower lip more prominent. It was a shrewd, virile Anglo-Saxon face, unillumined by the Gaelic strain that Mark had from his mother.

Yet, throughout, Sir Richard had respected his wife's ideals and enthusiasms, had smiled indulgently over her panacea for the democratic peril, and had allowed her a fairly free hand in the education of his sons. So long as the heir of Wynchcombe Friars remained a staunch Imperialist, he might be as constructive as he pleased: and if there was the remotest truth in Helen's convictions, let Mark stand for Winchester and air his views in Parliament. That had been Sir Richard's practical contribution to the subject.

But the Baronet had now been dead ten years; and, so far, Mark had made no bid for Parliamentary fame. Helen Forsyth had spent the first years of her widowhood travelling in Europe with Keith and Mark, who gave promise of developing into a sculptor of originality and power. For his benefit as an artist they had lived mainly in Florence, Rome, and Greece, with a bias in favour of the first. For in the great Florentine, young Mark had found his acknowledged master of his own thoughtful yet fiery spirit. But, for his education as a man, Lady Forsyth had insisted on more than a nodding acquaintance with the rest of Europe; and finally Mark had spent two years leading voraciously at Oxford, largely with the art and labour problem in view.

Since his coming of age, he had devoted himself heart and soul to sculpture and the management of his estates. But the notion of Parliament still remained in abeyance. The rise of the lawyer-politician and the commercial magnate had intensified his native distrust of democracy, while the increasing narrowness and bitterness of party spirit had effectually quenched his natural ambition to stand for the county of his birth. One Forsyth uncle already represented the family. In Mark's opinion that sufficed; and neither Keith nor his mother had quarrelled with his decision.

It was as artist and responsible landowner that she longed to see him pre-eminent; and every year he had given clearer promise of fulfilling her hope. At seven-and-twenty there remained only the last and most critical achievement--his marriage. On this score alone he had caused her more than one flutter of anxiety; and now----!

She clenched her teeth to keep back the futile curse; and, for the next hour or so, kept her attention chained to the intricate task of transposing idiomatic phrases and fine shades of meaning from one language into another.

It was nearly twelve when the door opened and Sheila appeared, bringing the _Times_ and the midday post: Sheila, with a bright spot of colour in each cheek and a smile that radiated sweetness and light. How on earth could Mark----? But that bitter, useless question was taboo.

Her own smile was more natural than it had been at breakfast; but Sheila did not fail to detect the lurking shadow in her eyes, or the significant fact that she did not eagerly tear open the paper and plunge into the latest letter from Belfast.

"Mums, haven't you spent enough of this glorious morning grinding at Emile Faguet?" she said, kneeling down and laying a hand over the open page. "You look tired--worried."

"I _am_ worried," Lady Forsyth admitted with a direct look, and Sheila's colour ebbed a little.

"Unhappy, are you--about Mark?" she asked very low.

"Yes. Haven't I reason to be?"

"But, Mums--she seems a very sweet person. And if he cares----"

"My dear, you're as bad as the rest of them about that girl."

Lady Forsyth was so rarely impatient with her that Sheila set her lips a moment before venturing further. "Well, you know, she _is_ extraordinarily attractive."

"Is she? I don't see it."

"Isn't that, perhaps, because--you won't see it?"

"Sheila!"

"Dearest--I'm sorry. But surely he must know her better than we do, because--he cares. And you don't give her a chance if you shut your heart against her. It's so unlike you. And it will be very hard on Mark ... if she----"

"Oh, child, be quiet!" Championship from this quarter was intolerable; and setting her hands on the girl's shoulders she gave them a gentle shake. "There's no call to waste any of your sweet pity on Mark. If he speaks to-day--and I have a horrid feeling he will--_she's_ not likely to refuse him. And that's all he cares about at the moment. I'm not being unjust to him, dear. I'm facing the truth; which is sometimes quite as difficult as facing cannon. But--well, I can't talk about it. You talk, instead. You haven't told me half enough about India. I've an idea--something happened out there. Am I right?"

The girl nodded, looking out seaward. "I've been wanting to tell you and yet rather shirking it. This one--hurt me a good deal."

"_Another_ 'poor thing'?"

"Yes; badly poor. What Mark would call a worm. The third in two and a half years! I begin to be ashamed of myself! And--a little afraid too." She paused. "Mums, because I'm not a wobbler myself, will it always be the wobbling men who insist on clinging to me? Shall I perhaps be driven by this troublesome law of opposites to choose between marrying some pitifully lovable 'poor thing' or--never marrying at all? Not lively alternatives--are they?"

Lady Forsyth's hand slipped from the girl's shoulder to her waist. "Darling, I hope it won't come to that."

"So do I. Naturally I'd ... prefer to marry. I--" she hesitated and coloured a little--"I would feel desolate ... without children. Am I very ... premature?"

Lady Forsyth drew her close and kissed her warm cheek.

"You're very woman," she said. "And Fate may have better things in store for you than the most importunate wobbler of them all. I hope you discouraged this last one more decisively than his predecessor."

Sheila shook her head. "I simply couldn't. They do tug badly at my heart-strings. No denying it."

"I suppose that means he's still hanging on? And hurting you every time he gives a fresh tug? A fine exhibition of masculine selfishness!"

"Mums, he doesn't realise it hurts. And--he has so much against him: if you only knew----"

"Well, I _want_ to know." Pushing aside her manuscript she drew a low stool close to her chair, and Sheila settled down on it, with a small sigh of content. "Now tell me. What has he against him?"

"Loneliness and poor health; and an ugly little desert station at the end of nowhere; and hating the country--and--and drink!"

"Darling! You've outdone yourself this time!"

Sheila turned quickly. "_Please_ stop bothering about me, and be sorry for him. You would be, if you'd seen him. So worn and sallow; though he's barely thirty. Clever--very. Too many brains and too few convictions I used to tell him. And then, there had been a girl--when he was home on his first leave. She made violent friends with him: she drew him on till he lost his heart to her; only to find that she had deliberately used him as a stalking-horse for another man, who afterwards turned out to be married already. He heard that she went off with him in spite of it, but _that_ he can't believe. A dismal tale, isn't it? The trouble was he couldn't stop loving her, even though he knew she was worthless----"

"Until he found in my beautiful Sheila the privileged bit of sticking-plaster to mend his heart!" Lady Forsyth interrupted her with a touch of heat. "I wonder he had the face to tell you----"

"He didn't tell me till I'd refused him--twice. Then we had a long talk and he poured out all his bottled-up miseries. And I wasn't _only_ a bit of sticking-plaster. He'd stopped loving her long ago. Do be fair to him, dearest. You're in a wicked mood to-day!"

"I've never been in a worse. And the tale of your latest 'poor thing' isn't exactly a specific for the blues! How about the drinking? And what was the final understanding, after refusals followed by confidences?"

The hand that rested on her knee moved in a slow, soothing caress. "I'm afraid you won't approve. Ralph didn't. But I overruled him. He--Mr. Seldon--begged me so hard not to throw him over altogether that I said he might write once a month. And the thing that arrives is more like an intimate diary than a letter. He can write, Mums. And he isn't drinking--like he was. That was part of the compact. It began in a bad cholera season: no one to notice; no one to care. He says the average man never realises, till he has to spend months alone, that what he calls the voice of his conscience is much more often the voice of other people's! So now--I'm his 'other people'! He gave me his word and he writes quite honestly about it. If ever he really slips back again he says he'll stop writing and chuck everything.--There! That's my poor little tale; I'm happier now it's out. You may scold me; but you'd have done just the same yourself!"

For answer, Lady Forsyth put both arms round her and kissed her fervently. "Be as angelic as you please to your poor things, darling," she said. "But for heaven's sake don't marry them."

"I couldn't," Sheila answered softly. "I'd sooner--go without."

In the silence that followed Lady Forsyth felt as if the girl must hear her vehement thoughts. But very soon Sheila spoke again.

"I told Mr. Seldon about our little colony of arts and crafts, and he is ever so interested. He says machinery's gaining ground fearfully fast in India; cheapening and speeding up everything and killing the craftsman's joy in his work, just as it's done over here. I had a letter yesterday. He enclosed some Indian designs for carving. I _must_ show you."

She ran off to fetch them; and thenceforward "shop" banished every subject from the field. They were still at it when the gong sounded for lunch, and half the interminable day was gone.

Lunch would be rather an effort. Helen's eager interest in the panorama of life made it a matter of course that she should lead the talk at table, and she was in no mood for it to-day.

To her relief, she found herself spared the trouble. Keith, who had an uncanny knack of divining her needs, came in armed with a book that had arrived by the second post and made havoc of his morning's work. His feigned inability to part with it was obviously an excuse to make it the main topic of the meal.

"Calls itself an Essay on the _Confusion of the Arts_," he said, placing a spare knife between the leaves. "I ordered it for Mark on Stoddard's recommendation. But I'm inclined to think it really belongs to you. The writer upholds so many of your pet convictions.--Listen here." The knife was removed. "'Of course the present movement may continue indefinitely; we may have ideas of education still more undisciplinary; a still more pathological outpouring of fiction;... In short, the dehumanizing of life and literature may go on for ever. But we should not count upon it. Reactions have been known to occur, and they have occasionally been sudden. The world may even now be threatened with a subliminal uprush of common sense, however disconcerting the prospect may be to Mr. Bernard Shaw and his followers. But prophecy is vain. Everything depends on leadership; and one can never tell whether the right persons will take the trouble to be born!'"

"One only knows they are notoriously lazy in that respect!" Lady Forsyth struck in with a chuckle of appreciation. "I like your new friend. Any more gems of that quality?"

"Several. Ah--here we are. Don't you seem to recognise your own voice? 'Any one who makes a stand for vital and humane concentration is set down as a mere laggard or reactionary, whereas he may find himself, rather, a pioneer and leader of a forlorn hope--not all forlorn.... The revival of broad, vigorous, masculine distinctions between art and art alone can save us from the confusions that have crept into modern life and literature, and which I trace to two main sources--emotional unrestraint and pseudo-science.... To set colour above design, illusion above informing purpose, suggestion above symmetry, is to set the feminine virtues above the masculine--and that has been the chief cause of the corruption of art and literature in the past century.'"

An indictment so sweeping roused Mona, fresh from her Oxford triumphs. "But, Mr. Macnair, I call that heresy!" she protested; and Keith smiled indulgently at her unusual warmth.

"Heresy, my dear young lady, is, after all, only the truth as seen by the fellow in the opposite camp. And there still remain certain unregenerates in the other camp who are praying for the rediscovery of Man."

"Or a German invasion!" murmured Lady Forsyth. "With apologies to Mona, I'm afraid nothing milder will save us from the petticoat peril!"

At that Ralph looked up from his mayonnaise. In a wilderness of abstractions, here was something he could understand.

"I say, Lady Forsyth! Rather a costly form of salvation, don't you think?"

"Salvation is always costly, Ralph," she answered him gravely. "And it is always worth the price paid."

Here Mona struck in again; and the argument, as Keith had intended, carried them well through lunch.

The meal over they adjourned to the shade of three ancient pines on the terrace; but very soon Ralph, who was frankly bored, persuaded Mona to come out on the loch, and Keith's contentment was complete.

The new book lasted them till tea-time. Then as none of the wanderers reappeared, he was persuaded to fetch his translations and read them to the audience of two for whom they had probably been written, if the truth were known. It was sometimes said of Macnair that men delighted in his lectures almost as much for the quality of his voice as for the lucidity of his thought: and to-day, when instrument and music were in perfect accord, the effect on Helen's troubled, sensitive spirit was all that he could have desired. She possessed in full measure the artist's gift of surrender to a mood. Sheer beauty of thought and language, serene and splendid harmonies, drawn from the discords of life, stirred her like organ music; and for Keith her abstracted silence was the quintessence of praise.

Suddenly, round a bend of the loch, a white sail dipped into view:--and the spell was broken. Keith who had seen it also, still read on; but he no longer had the ear of her spirit. She was simply listening for the sound of Mark's footstep--and another.

To her relief, the scrunch of gravel, when it came, plainly bespoke masculine boots. Then the two men appeared round the corner of the house, and Mark waved his stick. Bobs, who had been left at home, flung himself headlong on his recovered master with little sobbing squeals of joy, and, for one wild moment, hope revived in Helen's heart.

"Well, you three look jolly comfortable there," Mark greeted them, as he came up; and it was Keith who answered him. His mother seemed to be looking for her scissors. One glance at his face had sufficed.