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THE LADY FROM BEYOND

The morning was sultry, brooding, steamy. Antonia was at her music, and from the room where Shelton tried to fix attention on a book he could hear her practising her scales with a cold fury that cast an added gloom upon his spirit. He did not see her until lunch, and then she again sat next the Connoisseur. Her cheeks were pale, but there was something feverish in her chatter to her neighbour; she still refused to look at Shelton. He felt very miserable. After lunch, when most of them had left the table, the rest fell to discussing country neighbours.

"Of course," said Mrs. Dennant, "there are the Foliots; but nobody calls on them."

"Ah!" said the Connoisseur, "the Foliots—the Foliots—the people—er—who—quite so!"

"It's really distressin'; she looks so sweet ridin' about. Many people with worse stories get called on," continued Mrs. Dennant, with that large frankness of intrusion upon doubtful subjects which may be made by certain people in a certain way, "but, after all, one couldn't ask them to meet anybody."

"No," the Connoisseur assented. "I used to know Foliot. Thousand pities. They say she was a very pretty woman."

"Oh, not pretty!" said Mrs. Dennant! "more interestin than pretty, I should say."

Shelton, who knew the lady slightly, noticed that they spoke of her as in the past. He did not look towards Antonia; for, though a little troubled at her presence while such a subject was discussed, he hated his conviction that her face, was as unruffled as though the Foliots had been a separate species. There was, in fact, a curiosity about her eyes, a faint impatience on her lips; she was rolling little crumbs of bread. Suddenly yawning, she muttered some remark, and rose. Shelton stopped her at the door.

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk."

"May n't I come?".

She shook her head.

"I 'm going to take Toddles."

Shelton held the door open, and went back to the table.

"Yes," the Connoisseur said, sipping at his sherry, "I 'm afraid it's all over with young Foliot."

"Such a pity!" murmured Mrs. Dennant, and her kindly face looked quite disturbed. "I've known him ever since he was a boy. Of course, I think he made a great mistake to bring her down here. Not even bein' able to get married makes it doubly awkward. Oh, I think he made a great mistake!"

"Ah!" said the Connoisseur, "but d' you suppose that makes much difference? Even if What 's—his-name gave her a divorce, I don't think, don't you know, that—"

"Oh, it does! So many people would be inclined to look over it in time. But as it is it's hopeless, quite. So very awkward for people, too, meetin' them about. The Telfords and the Butterwicks—by the way, they're comin' here to dine to-night—live near them, don't you know."

"Did you ever meet her before-er-before the flood?" the Connoisseur inquired; and his lips parting and unexpectedly revealing teeth gave him a shadowy resemblance to a goat.



"Yes; I did meet her once at the Branksomes'. I thought her quite a charmin' person."

"Poor fellow!" said the Connoisseur; "they tell me he was going to take the hounds."

"And there are his delightful coverts, too. Algie often used to shoot there, and now they say he just has his brother down to shoot with him. It's really quite too melancholy! Did you know him, Dick?"

"Foliot?" replied Shelton absently. "No; I never met him: I've seen her once or twice at Ascot."

Through the window he could see Antonia in her scarlet Tam-o'-shanter, swinging her stick, and he got up feigning unconcern. Just then Toddles came bounding up against his sister. They went off arm in arm. She had seen him at the window, yet she gave no friendly glance; Shelton felt more miserable than ever. He stepped out upon the drive. There was a lurid, gloomy canopy above; the elm-trees drooped their heavy blackish green, the wonted rustle of the aspen-tree was gone, even the rooks were silent. A store of force lay heavy on the heart of nature. He started pacing slowly up and down, his pride forbidding him to follow her, and presently sat down on an old stone seat that faced the road. He stayed a long time staring at the elms, asking himself what he had done and what he ought to do. And somehow he was frightened. A sense of loneliness was on him, so real, so painful, that he shivered in the sweltering heat. He was there, perhaps, an hour, alone, and saw nobody pass along the road. Then came the sound of horse's hoofs, and at the same time he heard a motor-car approaching from the opposite direction. The rider made appearance first, riding a grey horse with an Arab's high set head and tail. She was holding him with difficulty, for the whirr of the approaching car grew every moment louder. Shelton rose; the car flashed by. He saw the horse stagger in the gate-way, crushing its rider up against the gatepost.

He ran, but before he reached the gate the lady was on foot, holding the plunging horse's bridle.

"Are you hurt?" cried Shelton breathlessly, and he, too, grabbed the bridle. "Those beastly cars!"

"I don't know," she said. "Please don't; he won't let strangers touch him."

Shelton let go, and watched her coax the horse. She was rather tall, dressed in a grey habit, with a grey Russian cap upon her head, and he suddenly recognised the Mrs. Foliot whom they had been talking of at lunch.

"He 'll be quiet now," she said, "if you would n't mind holding him a minute."

She gave the reins to him, and leaned against the gate. She was very pale.

"I do hope he has n't hurt you," Shelton said. He was quite close to her, well able to see her face—a curious face with high cheek-bones and a flatfish moulding, enigmatic, yet strangely passionate for all its listless pallor. Her smiling, tightened lips were pallid; pallid, too, her grey and deep-set eyes with greenish tints; above all, pale the ashy mass of hair coiled under her grey cap.

"Th-thanks!" she said; "I shall be all right directly. I'm sorry to have made a fuss."

She bit her lips and smiled.

"I 'm sure you're hurt; do let me go for—" stammered Shelton. "I can easily get help."

"Help!" she said, with a stony little laugh; "oh, no, thanks!"

She left the gate, and crossed the road to where he held the horse. Shelton, to conceal embarrassment, looked at the horse's legs, and noticed that the grey was resting one of them. He ran his hand down.

"I 'm afraid," he said, "your horse has knocked his off knee; it's swelling."

She smiled again.

"Then we're both cripples."

"He'll be lame when he gets cold. Would n't you like to put him in the stable here? I 'm sure you ought to drive home."

"No, thanks; if I 'm able to ride him he can carry me. Give me a hand up."

Her voice sounded as though something had offended her. Rising from inspection of the horse's leg, Shelton saw Antonia and Toddles standing by. They had come through a wicketgate leading from the fields.

The latter ran up to him at once.

"We saw it," he whispered—"jolly smash-up. Can't I help?"

"Hold his bridle," answered Shelton, and he looked from one lady to the other.

There are moments when the expression of a face fixes itself with painful clearness; to Shelton this was such a moment. Those two faces close together, under their coverings of scarlet and of grey, showed a contrast almost cruelly vivid. Antonia was flushed, her eyes had grown deep blue; her look of startled doubt had passed and left a question in her face.

"Would you like to come in and wait? We could send you home, in the brougham," she said.

The lady called Mrs. Foliot stood, one arm across the crupper of her saddle, biting her lips and smiling still her enigmatic smile, and it was her face that stayed most vividly on Shelton's mind, its ashy hail, its pallor, and fixed, scornful eyes.

"Oh, no, thanks! You're very kind."

Out of Antonia's face the timid, doubting friendliness had fled, and was replaced by enmity. With a long, cold look at both of them she turned away. Mrs. Foliot gave a little laugh, and raised her foot for Shelton's help. He heard a hiss of pain as he swung her up, but when he looked at her she smiled.

"Anyway," he said impatiently, "let me come and see you don't break down."

She shook her head. "It 's only two miles. I'm not made of sugar."

"Then I shall simply have to follow."

She shrugged her shoulders, fixing her resolute eyes on him.

"Would that boy like to come?" she asked.

Toddles left the horse's head.

"By Jove!" he cried. "Would n't I just!"

"Then," she said, "I think that will be best. You 've been so kind."

She bowed, smiled inscrutably once more, touched the Arab with her whip, and started, Toddles trotting at her side.

Shelton was left with Antonia underneath the elms. A sudden puff of tepid air blew in their faces, like a warning message from the heavy, purple heat clouds; low rumbling thunder travelled slowly from afar.

"We're going to have a storm," he said.

Antonia nodded. She was pale now, and her face still wore its cold look of offence.

"I 've got a headache," she said, "I shall go in and lie down."

Shelton tried to speak, but something kept him silent—submission to what was coming, like the mute submission of the fields and birds to the menace of the storm.

He watched her go, and went back to his seat. And the silence seemed to grow; the flowers ceased to exude their fragrance, numbed by the weighty air. All the long house behind him seemed asleep, deserted. No noise came forth, no laughter, the echo of no music, the ringing of no bell; the heat had wrapped it round with drowsiness. And the silence added to the solitude within him. What an unlucky chance, that woman's accident! Designed by Providence to put Antonia further from him than before! Why was not the world composed of the immaculate alone? He started pacing up and down, tortured by a dreadful heartache.

"I must get rid of this," he thought. "I 'll go for a good tramp, and chance the storm."

Leaving the drive he ran on Toddles, returning in the highest spirits.

"I saw her home," he crowed. "I say, what a ripper, isn't she? She 'll be as lame as a tree to-morrow; so will the gee. Jolly hot!"

This meeting showed Shelton that he had been an hour on the stone seat; he had thought it some ten minutes, and the discovery alarmed him. It seemed to bring the import of his miserable fear right home to him. He started with a swinging stride, keeping his eyes fixed on the road, the perspiration streaming down his face.

 


CHAPTER XXXI

THE STORM

It was seven and more when Shelton returned, from his walk; a few heat drops had splashed the leaves, but the storm had not yet broken. In brooding silence the world seemed pent beneath the purple firmament.

By rapid walking in the heat Shelton had got rid of his despondency. He felt like one who is to see his mistress after long estrangement. He, bathed, and, straightening his tie-ends, stood smiling at the glass. His fear, unhappiness, and doubts seemed like an evil dream; how much worse off would he not have been, had it all been true?

It was dinner-party night, and when he reached the drawing-room the guests were there already, chattering of the coming storm. Antonia was not yet down, and Shelton stood by the piano waiting for her entry. Red faces, spotless shirt-fronts, white arms; and freshly-twisted hair were all around him. Some one handed him a clove carnation, and, as he held it to his nose, Antonia came in, breathless, as though she had rushed down-stairs, Her cheeks were pale no longer; her hand kept stealing to her throat. The flames of the coming storm seemed to have caught fire within her, to be scorching her in her white frock; she passed him close, and her fragrance whipped his senses.

She had never seemed to him so lovely.

Never again will Shelton breathe the perfume of melons and pineapples without a strange emotion. From where he sat at dinner he could not see Antonia, but amidst the chattering of voices, the clink of glass and silver, the sights and sounds and scents of feasting, he thought how he would go to her and say that nothing mattered but her love. He drank the frosted, pale-gold liquid of champagne as if it had been water.

The windows stood wide open in the heat; the garden lay in thick, soft shadow, where the pitchy shapes of trees could be discerned. There was not a breath of air to fan the candle-flames above the flowers; but two large moths, fearful of the heavy dark, flew in and wheeled between the lights over the diners' heads. One fell scorched into a dish of fruit, and was removed; the other, eluding all the swish of napkins and the efforts of the footmen, continued to make soft, fluttering rushes till Shelton rose and caught it in his hand. He took it to the window and threw it out into the darkness, and he noticed that the air was thick and tepid to his face. At a sign from Mr. Dennant the muslin curtains were then drawn across the windows, and in gratitude, perhaps, for this protection, this filmy barrier between them and the muffled threats of Nature, everyone broke out in talk. It was such a night as comes in summer after perfect weather, frightening in its heat, and silence, which was broken by the distant thunder travelling low along the ground like the muttering of all dark places on the earth—such a night as seems, by very breathlessness, to smother life, and with its fateful threats to justify man's cowardice.

The ladies rose at last. The circle of the rosewood dining-table, which had no cloth, strewn with flowers and silver gilt, had a likeness to some autumn pool whose brown depths of oily water gleam under the sunset with red and yellow leaves; above it the smoke of cigarettes was clinging, like a mist to water when the sun goes down. Shelton became involved in argument with his neighbour on the English character.

"In England we've mislaid the recipe of life," he said. "Pleasure's a lost art. We don't get drunk, we're ashamed of love, and as to beauty, we've lost the eye for' it. In exchange we have got money, but what 's the good of money when we don't know how to spend it?" Excited by his neighbour's smile, he added: "As to thought, we think so much of what our neighbours think that we never think at all.... Have you ever watched a foreigner when he's listening to an Englishman? We 're in the habit of despising foreigners; the scorn we have for them is nothing to the scorn they have for us. And they are right! Look at our taste! What is the good of owning riches if we don't know how to use them?"

"That's rather new to me," his neighbour said. "There may be something in it.... Did you see that case in the papers the other day of old Hornblower, who left the 1820 port that fetched a guinea a bottle? When the purchaser—poor feller!—came to drink it he found eleven bottles out of twelve completely ullaged—ha! ha! Well, there's nothing wrong with this"; and he drained his glass.

"No," answered Shelton.

When they rose to join the ladies, he slipped out on the lawn.

At once he was enveloped in a bath of heat. A heavy odour, sensual, sinister, was in the air, as from a sudden flowering of amorous shrubs. He stood and drank it in with greedy nostrils. Putting his hand down, he felt the grass; it was dry, and charged with electricity. Then he saw, pale and candescent in the blackness, three or four great lilies, the authors of that perfume. The blossoms seemed to be rising at him through the darkness; as though putting up their faces to be kissed. He straightened himself abruptly and went in.

The guests were leaving when Shelton, who was watching; saw Antonia slip through the drawing-room window. He could follow the white glimmer of her frock across the lawn, but lost it in the shadow of the trees; casting a hasty look to see that he was not observed, he too slipped out. The blackness and the heat were stifling he took great breaths of it as if it were the purest mountain air, and, treading softly on the grass, stole on towards the holm oak. His lips were dry, his heart beat painfully. The mutter of the distant thunder had quite ceased; waves of hot air came wheeling in his face, and in their midst a sudden rush of cold. He thought, "The storm is coming now!" and stole on towards the tree. She was lying in the hammock, her figure a white blur in, the heart of the tree's shadow, rocking gently to a little creaking of the branch. Shelton held his breath; she had not heard him. He crept up close behind the trunk till he stood in touch of her. "I mustn't startle her," he thought. "Antonia!"

There was a faint stir in the hammock, but no answer. He stood over her, but even then he could not see her face; he only, had a sense of something breathing and alive within a yard of him—of something warm and soft. He whispered again, "Antonia!" but again there came no answer, and a sort of fear and frenzy seized on him. He could no longer hear her breathe; the creaking of the branch had ceased. What was passing in that silent, living creature there so close? And then he heard again the sound of breathing, quick and scared, like the fluttering of a bird; in a moment he was staring in the dark at an empty hammock.

He stayed beside the empty hammock till he could bear uncertainty no longer. But as he crossed the lawn the sky was rent from end to end by jagged lightning, rain spattered him from head to foot, and with a deafening crack the thunder broke.

He sought the smoking-room, but, recoiling at the door, went to his own room, and threw himself down on the bed. The thunder groaned and sputtered in long volleys; the lightning showed him the shapes of things within the room, with a weird distinctness that rent from them all likeness to the purpose they were made for, bereaved them of utility, of their matter-of-factness, presented them as skeletons, abstractions, with indecency in their appearance, like the naked nerves and sinews of a leg preserved in, spirit. The sound of the rain against the house stunned his power of thinking, he rose to shut his windows; then, returning to his bed, threw himself down again. He stayed there till the storm was over, in a kind of stupor; but when the boom of the retreating thunder grew every minute less distinct, he rose. Then for the first time he saw something white close by the door.

It was a note:

I have made a mistake. Please forgive me, and go away.—ANTONIA.

 


CHAPTER XXXII

WILDERNESS

When he had read this note, Shelton put it down beside his sleeve-links on his dressing table, stared in the mirror at himself, and laughed. But his lips soon stopped him laughing; he threw himself upon his bed and pressed his face into the pillows. He lay there half-dressed throughout the night, and when he rose, soon after dawn, he had not made his mind up what to do. The only thing he knew for certain was that he must not meet Antonia.

At last he penned the following:

I have had a sleepless night with toothache, and think it best to run up to the dentist at once. If a tooth must come out, the sooner the better.

He addressed it to Mrs. Dennant, and left it on his table. After doing this he threw himself once more upon his bed, and this time fell into a doze.

He woke with a start, dressed, and let himself quietly out. The likeness of his going to that of Ferrand struck him. "Both outcasts now," he thought.

He tramped on till noon without knowing or caring where he went; then, entering a field, threw himself down under the hedge, and fell asleep.

He was awakened by a whirr. A covey of partridges, with wings glistening in the sun, were straggling out across the adjoining field of mustard. They soon settled in the old-maidish way of partridges, and began to call upon each other.

Some cattle had approached him in his sleep, and a beautiful bay cow, with her head turned sideways, was snuffing at him gently, exhaling her peculiar sweetness. She was as fine in legs and coat as any race-horse. She dribbled at the corners of her black, moist lips; her eye was soft and cynical. Breathing the vague sweetness of the mustard-field, rubbing dry grasp-stalks in his fingers, Shelton had a moment's happiness—the happiness of sun and sky, of the eternal quiet, and untold movements of the fields. Why could not human beings let their troubles be as this cow left the flies that clung about her eyes? He dozed again, and woke up with a laugh, for this was what he dreamed:

He fancied he was in a room, at once the hall and drawing-room of some country house. In the centre of this room a lady stood, who was looking in a hand-glass at her face. Beyond a door or window could be seen a garden with a row of statues, and through this door people passed without apparent object.

Suddenly Shelton saw his mother advancing to the lady with the hand-glass, whom now he recognised as Mrs. Foliot. But, as he looked, his mother changed to Mrs. Dennant, and began speaking in a voice that was a sort of abstract of refinement. "Je fais de la philosophic," it said; "I take the individual for what she's worth. I do not condemn; above all, one must have spirit!" The lady with the mirror continued looking in the glass; and, though he could not see her face, he could see its image-pale, with greenish eyes, and a smile like scorn itself. Then, by a swift transition, he was walking in the garden talking to Mrs. Dennant.

It was from this talk that he awoke with laughter. "But," she had been saying, "Dick, I've always been accustomed to believe what I was told. It was so unkind of her to scorn me just because I happen to be second-hand." And her voice awakened Shelton's pity; it was like a frightened child's. "I don't know what I shall do if I have to form opinions for myself. I was n't brought up to it. I 've always had them nice and secondhand. How am I to go to work? One must believe what other people do; not that I think much of other people, but, you do know what it is—one feels so much more comfortable," and her skirts rustled. "But, Dick, whatever happens"—her voice entreated—"do let Antonia get her judgments secondhand. Never mind for me—if I must form opinions for myself, I must—but don't let her; any old opinions so long as they are old. It 's dreadful to have to think out new ones for oneself." And he awoke. His dream had had in it the element called Art, for, in its gross absurdity, Mrs. Dennant had said things that showed her soul more fully than anything she would have said in life.

"No," said a voice quite close, behind the hedge, "not many Frenchmen, thank the Lord! A few coveys of Hungarians over from the Duke's. Sir James, some pie?"

Shelton raised himself with drowsy curiosity—still half asleep—and applied his face to a gap in the high, thick osiers of the hedge. Four men were seated on camp-stools round a folding-table, on which was a pie and other things to eat. A game-cart, well-adorned with birds and hares, stood at a short distance; the tails of some dogs were seen moving humbly, and a valet opening bottles. Shelton had forgotten that it was "the first." The host was a soldierly and freckled man; an older man sat next him, square-jawed, with an absent-looking eye and sharpened nose; next him, again, there was a bearded person whom they seemed to call the Commodore; in the fourth, to his alarm, Shelton recognised the gentleman called Mabbey. It was really no matter for surprise to meet him miles from his own place, for he was one of those who wander with a valet and two guns from the twelfth of August to the end of January, and are then supposed to go to Monte Carlo or to sleep until the twelfth of August comes again.

He was speaking.

"Did you hear what a bag we made on the twelfth, Sir James?"

"Ah! yes; what was that? Have you sold your bay horse, Glennie?"

Shelton had not decided whether or no to sneak away, when the Commodore's thick voice began:

"My man tellsh me that Mrs. Foliot—haw—has lamed her Arab. Does she mean to come out cubbing?"

Shelton observed the smile that came on all their faces. "Foliot 's paying for his good time now; what a donkey to get caught!" it seemed to say. He turned his back and shut his eyes.

"Cubbing?" replied Glennie; "hardly."

"Never could shee anything wonderful in her looks," went on the Commodore; "so quiet, you never knew that she was in the room. I remember sayin' to her once, 'Mrs. Lutheran, now what do you like besht in all the world?' and what do you think she answered? 'Music!' Haw!"

The voice of Mabbey said:

"He was always a dark horse, Foliot: It 's always the dark horses that get let in for this kind of thing"; and there was a sound as though he licked his lips.

"They say," said the voice of the host, "he never gives you back a greeting now. Queer fish; they say that she's devoted to him."

Coming so closely on his meeting with this lady, and on the dream from which he had awakened, this conversation mesmerised the listener behind the hedge.

"If he gives up his huntin' and his shootin', I don't see what the deuce he 'll do; he's resigned his clubs; as to his chance of Parliament—" said the voice of Mabbey.

"Thousand pities," said Sir James; "still, he knew what to expect."

"Very queer fellows, those Foliots," said the Commodore. "There was his father: he 'd always rather talk to any scarecrow he came across than to you or me. Wonder what he'll do with all his horses; I should like that chestnut of his."

"You can't tell what a fellow 'll do," said the voice of Mabbey—"take to drink or writin' books. Old Charlie Wayne came to gazin' at stars, and twice a week he used to go and paddle round in Whitechapel, teachin' pothooks—"

"Glennie," said Sir James, "what 's become of Smollett, your old keeper?"

"Obliged to get rid of him." Shelton tried again to close his ears, but again he listened. "Getting a bit too old; lost me a lot of eggs last season."

"Ah!" said the Commodore, "when they oncesh begin to lose eggsh—"

"As a matter of fact, his son—you remember him, Sir James, he used to load for you?—got a girl into trouble; when her people gave her the chuck old Smollet took her in; beastly scandal it made, too. The girl refused to marry Smollett, and old Smollett backed her up. Naturally, the parson and the village cut up rough; my wife offered to get her into one of those reformatory what-d' you-call-'ems, but the old fellow said she should n't go if she did n't want to. Bad business altogether; put him quite off his stroke. I only got five hundred pheasants last year instead of eight."

There was a silence. Shelton again peeped through the hedge. All were eating pie.

"In Warwickshire," said the Commodore, "they always marry—haw—and live reshpectable ever after."

"Quite so," remarked the host; "it was a bit too thick, her refusing to marry him. She said he took advantage of her."

"She's sorry by this time," said Sir James; "lucky escape for young Smollett. Queer, the obstinacy of some of these old fellows!"

"What are we doing after lunch?" asked the Commodore.

"The next field," said the host, "is pasture. We line up along the hedge, and drive that mustard towards the roots; there ought to be a good few birds."

"Shelton rose, and, crouching, stole softly to the gate:

"On the twelfth, shootin' in two parties," followed the voice of Mabbey from the distance.

Whether from his walk or from his sleepless night, Shelton seemed to ache in every limb; but he continued his tramp along the road. He was no nearer to deciding what to do. It was late in the afternoon when he reached Maidenhead, and, after breaking fast, got into a London train and went to sleep. At ten o'clock that evening he walked into St. James's Park and there sat down.

The lamplight dappled through the tired foliage on to these benches which have rested many vagrants. Darkness has ceased to be the lawful cloak of the unhappy; but Mother Night was soft and moonless, and man had not despoiled her of her comfort, quite.

Shelton was not alone upon the seat, for at the far end was sitting a young girl with a red, round, sullen face; and beyond, and further still, were dim benches and dim figures sitting on them, as though life's institutions had shot them out in an endless line of rubbish.

"Ah!" thought Shelton, in the dreamy way of tired people; "the institutions are all right; it's the spirit that's all—"

"Wrong?" said a voice behind him; "why, of course! You've taken the wrong turn, old man."

He saw a policeman, with a red face shining through the darkness, talking to a strange old figure like some aged and dishevelled bird.

"Thank you, constable," the old man said, "as I've come wrong I'll take a rest." Chewing his gums, he seemed to fear to take the liberty of sitting down.

Shelton made room, and the old fellow took the vacant place.

"You'll excuse me, sir, I'm sure," he said in shaky tones, and snatching at his battered hat; "I see you was a gentleman"—and lovingly he dwelt upon the word—"would n't disturb you for the world. I'm not used to being out at night, and the seats do get so full. Old age must lean on something; you'll excuse me, sir, I 'm sure."

"Of course," said Shelton gently.

"I'm a respectable old man, really," said his neighbour; "I never took a liberty in my life. But at my age, sir, you get nervous; standin' about the streets as I been this last week, an' sleepin' in them doss-houses—Oh, they're dreadful rough places—a dreadful rough lot there! Yes," the old man said again, as Shelton turned to look at him, struck by the real self-pity in his voice, "dreadful rough places!"

A movement of his head, which grew on a lean, plucked neck like that of an old fowl, had brought his face into the light. It was long, and run to seed, and had a large, red nose; its thin, colourless lips were twisted sideways and apart, showing his semi-toothless mouth; and his eyes had that aged look of eyes in which all colour runs into a thin rim round the iris; and over them kept coming films like the films over parrots' eyes. He was, or should have been, clean-shaven. His hair—for he had taken off his hat was thick and lank, of dusty colour, as far as could be seen, without a speck of grey, and parted very beautifully just about the middle.

"I can put up with that," he said again. "I never interferes with nobody, and nobody don't interfere with me; but what frightens me"—his voice grew steady, as if too terrified to shake, "is never knowin' day to day what 's to become of yer. Oh, that 'a dreadful, that is!"

"It must be," answered Shelton.

"Ah! it is," the old man said; "and the winter cumin' on. I never was much used to open air, bein' in domestic service all my life; but I don't mind that so long as I can see my way to earn a livin'. Well, thank God! I've got a job at last"; and his voice grew cheerful suddenly. "Sellin' papers is not what I been accustomed to; but the Westminister, they tell me that's one of the most respectable of the evenin' papers—in fact, I know it is. So now I'm sure to get on; I try hard."

"How did you get the job?" asked Shelton.

"I 've got my character," the old fellow said, making a gesture with a skinny hand towards his chest, as if it were there he kept his character.

"Thank God, nobody can't take that away! I never parts from that"; and fumbling, he produced a packet, holding first one paper to the light, and then another, and he looked anxiously at Shelton. "In that house where I been sleepin' they're not honest; they 've stolen a parcel of my things—a lovely shirt an' a pair of beautiful gloves a gentleman gave me for holdin' of his horse. Now, would n't you prosecute 'em, sir?"

"It depends on what you can prove."

"I know they had 'em. A man must stand up for his rights; that's only proper. I can't afford to lose beautiful things like them. I think I ought to prosecute, now, don't you, sir?"

Shelton restrained a smile.

"There!" said the old man, smoothing out a piece of paper shakily, "that's Sir George!" and his withered finger-tips trembled on the middle of the page: 'Joshua Creed, in my service five years as butler, during which time I have found him all that a servant should be.' And this 'ere'—he fumbled with another—"this 'ere 's Lady Glengow: 'Joshua Creed—' I thought I'd like you to read 'em since you've been so kind."

"Will you have a pipe?"

"Thank ye, sir," replied the aged butler, filling his clay from Shelton's pouch; then, taking a front tooth between his finger and his thumb, he began to feel it tenderly, working it to and fro with a sort of melancholy pride.

"My teeth's a-comin' out," he said; "but I enjoys pretty good health for a man of my age."

"How old is that?"

"Seventy-two! Barrin' my cough, and my rupture, and this 'ere affliction"—he passed his hand over his face—"I 've nothing to complain of; everybody has somethink, it seems. I'm a wonder for my age, I think."

Shelton, for all his pity, would have given much to laugh.

"Seventy-two!" he said; "yes, a great age. You remember the country when it was very different to what it is now?"

"Ah!" said the old butler, "there was gentry then; I remember them drivin' down to Newmarket (my native place, sir) with their own horses. There was n't so much o' these here middle classes then. There was more, too, what you might call the milk o' human kindness in people then—none o' them amalgamated stores, every man keepin' his own little shop; not so eager to cut his neighbour's throat, as you might say. And then look at the price of bread! O dear! why, it is n't a quarter what it was!"

"And are people happier now than they were then?" asked Shelton.

The old butler sucked his pipe.

"No," he answered, shaking his old head; "they've lost the contented spirit. I see people runnin' here and runnin' there, readin' books, findin' things out; they ain't not so self-contented as they were."

"Is that possible?" thought Shelton.

"No," repeated the old man, again sucking at his pipe, and this time blowing out a lot of smoke; "I don't see as much happiness about, not the same look on the faces. 'T isn't likely. See these 'ere motorcars, too; they say 'orses is goin' out"; and, as if dumbfounded at his own conclusion, he sat silent for some time, engaged in the lighting and relighting of his pipe.

The girl at the far end stirred, cleared her throat, and settled down again; her movement disengaged a scent of frowsy clothes. The policeman had approached and scrutinised these ill-assorted faces; his glance was jovially contemptuous till he noticed Shelton, and then was modified by curiosity.

"There's good men in the police," the aged butler said, when the policeman had passed on—"there's good men in the police, as good men as you can see, and there 's them that treats you like the dirt—a dreadful low class of man. Oh dear, yes! when they see you down in the world, they think they can speak to you as they like; I don't give them no chance to worry me; I keeps myself to myself, and speak civil to all the world. You have to hold the candle to them; for, oh dear! if they 're crossed—some of them—they 're a dreadful unscrup'lous lot of men!"

"Are you going to spend the night here?"

"It's nice and warm to-night," replied the aged butler. "I said to the man at that low place I said: 'Don't you ever speak to me again,' I said, 'don't you come near me!' Straightforward and honest 's been my motto all my life; I don't want to have nothing to say to them low fellows"—he made an annihilating gesture—"after the way they treated me, takin' my things like that. Tomorrow I shall get a room for three shillin's a week, don't you think so, sir? Well, then I shall be all right. I 'm not afraid now; the mind at rest. So long as I ran keep myself, that's all I want. I shall do first-rate, I think"; and he stared at Shelton, but the look in his eyes and the half-scared optimism of his voice convinced the latter that he lived in dread. "So long as I can keep myself," he said again, "I sha'n't need no workhouse nor lose respectability."

"No," thought Shelton; and for some time sat without a word. "When you can;" he said at last, "come and see me; here's my card."

The aged butler became conscious with a jerk, for he was nodding.

"Thank ye, sir; I will," he said, with pitiful alacrity. "Down by Belgravia? Oh, I know it well; I lived down in them parts with a gentleman of the name of Bateson—perhaps you knew him; he 's dead now—the Honourable Bateson. Thank ye, sir; I'll be sure to come"; and, snatching at his battered hat, he toilsomely secreted Shelton's card amongst his character. A minute later he began again to nod.

The policeman passed a second time; his gaze seemed to say, "Now, what's a toff doing on that seat with those two rotters?" And Shelton caught his eye.

"Ah!" he thought; "exactly! You don't know what to make of me—a man of my position sitting here! Poor devil! to spend your days in spying on your fellow-creatures! Poor devil! But you don't know that you 're a poor devil, and so you 're not one."

The man on the next bench sneezed—a shrill and disapproving sneeze.

The policeman passed again, and, seeing that the lower creatures were both dozing, he spoke to Shelton:

"Not very safe on these 'ere benches, sir," he said; "you never know who you may be sittin' next to. If I were you, sir, I should be gettin' on—if you 're not goin' to spend the night here, that is"; and he laughed, as at an admirable joke.

Shelton looked at him, and itched to say, "Why shouldn't I?" but it struck him that it would sound very odd. "Besides," he thought, "I shall only catch a cold"; and, without speaking, he left the seat, and went along towards his rooms.

 


CHAPTER XXXIII

THE END

He reached his rooms at midnight so exhausted that, without waiting to light up, he dropped into a chair. The curtains and blinds had been removed for cleaning, and the tall windows admitted the night's staring gaze. Shelton fixed his eyes on that outside darkness, as one lost man might fix his eyes upon another.

An unaired, dusty odour clung about the room, but, like some God-sent whiff of grass or flowers wafted to one sometimes in the streets, a perfume came to him, the spice from the withered clove carnation still clinging, to his button-hole; and he suddenly awoke from his queer trance. There was a decision to be made. He rose to light a candle; the dust was thick on everything he touched. "Ugh!" he thought, "how wretched!" and the loneliness that had seized him on the stone seat at Holm Oaks the day before returned with fearful force.

On his table, heaped without order, were a pile of bills and circulars. He opened them, tearing at their covers with the random haste of men back from their holidays. A single long envelope was placed apart.

MY DEAR DICK [he read],

I enclose you herewith the revised draft of your marriage settlement. It is now shipshape. Return it before the end of the week, and I will have it engrossed for signature. I go to Scotland next Wednesday for a month; shall be back in good time for your wedding. My love to your mother when you see her.

Your-affectionate uncle,

EDMUND PARAMOR.

Shelton smiled and took out the draft.

"This Indenture made the — day of 190-, between Richard Paramor Shelton—"

He put it down and sank back in his chair, the chair in which the foreign vagrant had been wont to sit on mornings when he came to preach philosophy.

He did not stay there long, but in sheer unhappiness got up, and, taking his candle, roamed about the room, fingering things, and gazing in the mirror at his face, which seemed to him repulsive in its wretchedness. He went at last into the hall and opened the door, to go downstairs again into the street; but the sudden certainty that, in street or house, in town or country, he would have to take his trouble with him, made him shut it to. He felt in the letterbox, drew forth a letter, and with this he went back to the sitting-room.

It was from Antonia. And such was his excitement that he was forced to take three turns between the window and the wall before he could read; then, with a heart beating so that he could hardly hold the paper, he began:

I was wrong to ask you to go away. I see now that it was breaking my promise, and I did n't mean to do that. I don't know why things have come to be so different. You never think as I do about anything.

I had better tell you that that letter of Monsieur Ferrand's to mother was impudent. Of course you did n't know what was in it; but when Professor Brayne was asking you about him at breakfast, I felt that you believed that he was right and we were wrong, and I can't understand it. And then in the afternoon, when that woman hurt her horse, it was all as if you were on her side. How can you feel like that?

I must say this, because I don't think I ought to have asked you to go away, and I want you to believe that I will keep my promise, or I should feel that you and everybody else had a right to condemn me. I was awake all last night, and have a bad headache this morning. I can't write any more. ANTONIA.

His first sensation was a sort of stupefaction of relief that had in it an element of anger. He was reprieved! She would not break her promise; she considered herself bound! In the midst of the exaltation of this thought he smiled, and that smile was strange.

He read it through again, and, like a judge, began to weigh what she had written, her thoughts when she was writing, the facts which had led up to this.

The vagrant's farewell document had done the business. True to his fatal gift of divesting things of clothing, Ferrand had not vanished without showing up his patron in his proper colours; even to Shelton those colours were made plain. Antonia had felt her lover was a traitor. Sounding his heart even in his stress of indecision, Shelton knew that this was true.

"Then in the afternoon, when that woman hurt her horse-" That woman! "It was as if you were on her side!"

He saw too well her mind, its clear rigidity, its intuitive perception of that with which it was not safe to sympathise, its instinct for self-preservation, its spontaneous contempt for those without that instinct. And she had written these words considering herself bound to him—a man of sentiment, of rebellious sympathies, of untidiness of principle! Here was the answer to the question he had asked all day: "How have things come to such a pass?" and he began to feel compassion for her.

Poor child! She could not jilt him; there was something vulgar in the word! Never should it be said that Antonia Dennant had accented him and thrown him over. No lady did these things! They were impossible! At the bottom of his heart he had a queer, unconscious sympathy with, this impossibility.

Once again he read the letter, which seemed now impregnated with fresh meaning, and the anger which had mingled with his first sensation of relief detached itself and grew in force. In that letter there was something tyrannous, a denial of his right to have a separate point of view. It was like a finger pointed at him as an unsound person. In marrying her he would be marrying not only her, but her class—his class. She would be there always to make him look on her and on himself, and all the people that they knew and all the things they did, complacently; she would be there to make him feel himself superior to everyone whose life was cast in other moral moulds. To feel himself superior, not blatantly, not consciously, but with subconscious righteousness.

But his anger, which was like the paroxysm that two days before had made him mutter at the Connoisseur, "I hate your d—-d superiority," struck him all at once as impotent and ludicrous. What was the good of being angry? He was on the point of losing her! And the anguish of that thought, reacting on his anger, intensified it threefold. She was so certain of herself, so superior to her emotions, to her natural impulses—superior to her very longing to be free from him. Of that fact, at all events, Shelton had no longer any doubt. It was beyond argument. She did not really love him; she wanted to be free of him!

A photograph hung in his bedroom at Holm Oaks of a group round the hall door; the Honourable Charlotte Penguin, Mrs. Dennant, Lady Bonington, Halidome, Mr. Dennant, and the stained-glass man—all were there; and on the left-hand side, looking straight in front of her, Antonia. Her face in its youthfulness, more than all those others, expressed their point of view: Behind those calm young eyes lay a world of safety and tradition. "I am not as others are," they seemed to say.

And from that photograph Mr. and Mrs. Dennant singled themselves out; he could see their faces as they talked—their faces with a peculiar and uneasy look on them; and he could hear their voices, still decisive, but a little acid, as if they had been quarrelling:

"He 's made a donkey of himself!"

"Ah! it's too distressin'!"

They, too, thought him unsound, and did n't want him; but to save the situation they would be glad to keep him. She did n't want him, but she refused to lose her right to say, "Commoner girls may break their promises; I will not!" He sat down at the table between the candles, covering his face. His grief and anger grew and grew within him. If she would not free herself, the duty was on him! She was ready without love to marry him, as a sacrifice to her ideal of what she ought to be!

But she had n't, after all, the monopoly of pride!

As if she stood before him, he could see the shadows underneath her eyes that he had dreamed of kissing, the eager movements of her lips. For several minutes he remained, not moving hand or limb. Then once more his anger blazed. She was going to sacrifice herself and—him! All his manhood scoffed at such a senseless sacrifice. That was not exactly what he wanted!

He went to the bureau, took a piece of paper and an envelope, and wrote as follows:

There never was, is not, and never would have been any question of being bound between us. I refuse to trade on any such thing. You are absolutely free. Our engagement is at an end by mutual consent.

RICHARD SHELTON.

He sealed it, and, sitting with his hands between his knees, he let his forehead droop lower and lower to the table, till it rested on his marriage settlement. And he had a feeling of relief, like one who drops exhausted at his journey's end.

 


Date: 2015-12-11; view: 718


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