The Crown of Life Part 57

"What! They lie in ambush here, whilst the men drive the birds towards them, to be shot?"

"It's sport," rejoined the other indifferently.

"I see. And here are the old cartridges." A heap of them lay close by amid the ling. "I don't wonder that Mr. March seemed a little ashamed of himself."

"But surely you knew all about this sort of thing!" said Mrs. Borisoff, with a little laugh of impatience.

"No, I didn't."

She had picked up one of the cartridge-cases, and, after examining it, her eyes wandered about the vast-rolling moor. The wind sang low; the clouds sailed across the mighty dome of heaven; not a human dwelling was visible, and not a sound broke upon nature's infinite calm.

"It amazes me," Irene continued, subduing her voice.

"Incredible that men can come up here just to bang guns and see beautiful birds fall dead! One would think that what they _saw_ here would stop their hands--that this silence would fill their minds and hearts, and make it impossible!"

Her voice had never trembled with such emotion in Helen's hearing. It was not Irene's habit to speak in this way. She had the native reticence of English women, preferring to keep silence when she felt strongly, or to disguise her feeling with irony and jest. But the hour and the place overcame her; a n.o.ble pa.s.sion shone in her clear eyes, and thrilled in her utterance.

"What barbarians!"

"Yet you know they are nothing of the kind," objected Helen. "At least, not all of them."

"Mr. March?--You called him, yourself, a fine barbarian, quoting from Matthew Arnold. I never before understood how true that description was."

"I a.s.sure you, it doesn't apply to him, whatever I may have said in joke. This shooting is the tradition of a certain cla.s.s. It's one of the ways in which great, strong men get their necessary exercise. Some of them feel, at moments, just as you do, I've no doubt; but there they are, a lot of them together, and a man can't make himself ridiculous, you know."

"You're not like yourself in this, Helen," said Irene. "You're not speaking as you think. Another time, you'll confess it's abominable savagery, with not one good word to be said for it. And more contemptible than I ever suspected! I'm so glad I've seen this. It helps to clear my thoughts about--about things in general."

She flung away the little yellow cylinder-flung it far from her with disgust, and, as if to forget it, plucked as she walked on a spray of heath, which glowed with its purple bells among the redder ling.

Helen's countenance was shadowed. She spoke no more for several minutes.

When two days had pa.s.sed, March again came riding up to the Castle, and lunched with the ladies. Irene was secretly vexed. At breakfast she had suggested a whole day's excursion, which her friend persuaded her to postpone; the reason must have been Helen's private knowledge that Mr.

March was coming. In consequence, the lunch fell short of perfect cheerfulness. For reasons of her own, Irene was just a little formal in her behaviour to the guest; she did not talk so well as usual, and bore herself as a girl must who wishes, without unpleasantness, to check a man's significant approaches.

In the hot afternoon, chairs were taken out into the shadow of the Castle walls, and there the three sat conversing. Someone drew near, a man, whom the careless glance of Helen's cousin took for a casual tourist about to view the ruins. Helen herself, and in the same moment, Irene, recognised Piers Otway. It seemed as though Mrs. Borisoff would not rise to welcome him; her smile was dubious, half surprised. She cast a glance at Irene, whose face was set in the austerest self-control, and thereupon not only stood up, but stepped forward with cordial greeting.

"So you have really come! Delighted to see you! Are you walking--as you said?"

"Too hot!" Piers replied, with a laugh. "I spent yesterday at York, and came on in a cowardly way by train."

He was shaking hands with Irene, who dropped a word or two of mere courtesy. In introducing him to March, Mrs. Borisoff said, "An old friend of ours," which caused her stalwart cousin to survey the dark, slimly-built man very attentively.

"We'll get you a chair, Mr. Otway----"

"No, no! Let me sit or lie here on the gra.s.s. It's all I feel fit for after the climb."

He threw himself down, nearer to Helen than to her friend, and the talk became livelier than before his arrival. Irene emerged from the taciturnity into which she had more and more withdrawn, and March, not an un.o.bservant man, evidently noted this, and reflected upon it. He had at first regarded the new-comer with a civil aloofness, as one not of his world; presently, he seemed to ask himself to what world the singular being might belong--a man who knew how to behave himself, and whose talk implied more than common _savoir-vivre_, yet who differed in such noticeable points from an Englishman of the leisured cla.s.s.

Helen was in a mischievous mood. She broached the subject of grouse, addressing to Otway an ambiguous remark which led March to ask, with veiled surprise, whether he was a sportsman.

"Mr. Otway's taste is for bigger game," she exclaimed, before Piers could reply. "He lives in hope of potting Russians on the Indian frontier."

"Well, I can sympathise with him in that," said the large-limbed man, puzzled but smiling. "He'll probably have a chance before very long."

No sooner had he spoken that a scarlet confusion glowed upon his face.

In speculating about Otway, he had for the moment forgotten his cousin's name.

"I _beg_ your pardon, Helen!--What an idiot I am Of course you were joking, and I----"

"Don't, don't, don't apologise, Edward! Tell truth and shame--your Russian relatives! I like you all the better for it."

"Thank you," he answered. "And after all, there's no harm in a little fighting. It's better to fight and have done with it than keeping on plotting between compliments. Nations arc just like schoolboys, you know; there has to be a round now and then; it settles things, and is good for the blood."

Otway was biting a blade of gra.s.s; he smiled and said nothing. Mrs.

Borisoff glanced from him to Irene, who also was smiling, but looked half vexed.

"How can it be good, for health or anything else?" Miss Derwent asked suddenly, turning to the speaker.

"Oh, we couldn't do without fighting. It's in human nature."

"In uncivilised human nature, yes."

"But really, you know," urged March, with good-natured deference, "it wouldn't do to civilise away pluck--courage--heroism--whatever one likes to call it."

"Of course it wouldn't. But what has pluck or heroism to do with bloodshed? How can anyone imagine that courage is only shown in fighting? I don't happen to have been in a battle, but one knows very well how easy it must be for any coward or brute, excited to madness, to become what's called a hero. Heroism is n.o.ble courage in ordinary life. Are you serious in thinking that life offers no opportunities for it?"

"Well--it's not quite the same thing----"

"Happily, not! It's a vastly better thing. Every day some braver deed is done by plain men and women--yes, women, if you please--than was ever known on the battle-field. One only hears of them now and then. On the railway--on the sea--in the hospital--in burning houses--in accidents of road and street--are there no opportunities for courage?

In the commonest everyday home life, doesn't any man or woman have endless chances of being brave or a coward? And this is civilised courage, not the fury of a bull at a red rag."

Piers Otway had ceased to nibble his blade of gra.s.s; his eyes were fixed on Irene. When she had made a sudden end of speaking, when she smiled her apology for the fervour forbidden in polite converse, he still gazed at her, self-oblivious. Helen Borisoff watched him, askance.

"Let us go in and have some tea," she said, rising abruptly.

Soon after, March said good-bye, a definite good-bye; he was going to another part of England. With all the grace of his caste he withdrew from a circle, in which, temptations notwithstanding, he had not felt quite at ease. Riding down the dale through a sunny shower, he was refreshed and himself again.

"Where do you put up to-night?" asked Helen of Otway, turning to him, when the other man had gone, with a brusque familiarity.

"At the inn down in Redmire."

"And what do you do to-morrow?"

"Go to see the falls at Aysgarth, for one thing. There's been rain up on the hills; the river will be grand."

"Perhaps we shall be there."

When Piers had left them, Helen said to her friend

"I wanted to ask him to stay and dine--but I didn't know whether you would like it."