The Daughters of Danaus Part 47

They were strolling down the path, and Professor Theobald was holding open the gate for his companions to pa.s.s through. His hand seemed to shake slightly.

"I don't enjoy probing my motives on that subject," said Hadria.

"Why? I am sure they were good."

"I can't help hoping that that child may live to avenge her mother; to make some man know what it is to be horribly miserable--but, oh, I suppose it's like trying to reach the feelings of a rhinoceros!"

"There you are much mistaken, Mrs. Temperley," said the Professor. "Men are as sensitive, in some respects, as women."

"So much the better."

"Then do you think it quite just to punish one man for the sin of another?"

"No; but there is a deadly feud between the s.e.xes: it is a hereditary vendetta: the duty of vengeance is pa.s.sed on from generation to generation."

"Oh, Mrs. Temperley!" Lady Engleton's tone was one of reproach.

"Yes, it is vindictive, I know; one does not grow tender towards the enemy at the grave of Ellen Jervis."

"At least, there were _two_ sinners, not only one."

"Only one dies of a broken heart."

"But why attempt revenge?"

"Oh, a primitive instinct. And anything is better than this meek endurance, this persistent heaping of penalties on the scapegoat."

"No good ever came of mere revenge, however," said Professor Theobald.

"Sometimes that is the only form of remonstrance that is listened to,"

said Hadria. "When people have the law in their own hands and Society at their back, they can afford to be deaf to mere verbal protest."

"As for the child," said Lady Engleton, "she will be in no little danger of a fate like her mother's."

Hadria's face darkened.

"At least then, she shall have some free and happy hours first; at least she shall not be driven to it by the misery of moral starvation, starvation of the affections. She shall be protected from the solemn fools--with sawdust for brains and a mechanical squeaker for heart--who, on principle, cut off from her mother all joy and all savour in life, and then punished her for falling a victim to the starved emotional condition to which they had reduced her."

"The matter seems complex," said Lady Engleton, "and I don't see how revenge comes in."

"It is a pa.s.sion that has never been eradicated. Oh, if I could but find that man!"

"A man is a hard thing to punish,--unless he is in love with one."

"Well, let him be in love!" cried Hadria fiercely.

CHAPTER XXIX.

The sound of music stole over the gardens of the Priory, at sunset. It was the close of one of the most exquisite days of Spring. A calm had settled over the country with the pa.s.sing away of the sun-G.o.d. His attendant winds and voices had been sacrificed on his funeral pyre.

Two figures sat on the terrace by the open window of the drawing-room, listening to the utterance, in music, of a tumultuous, insurgent spirit.

In Professor Fortescue, the musical pa.s.sion was deeply rooted, as it is in most profoundly sympathetic and tender natures. Algitha anxiously watched the effect of her sister's playing on her companion.

The wild power of the composer was not merely obvious, it was overwhelming. It was like "a sudden storm among mountains," "the wind-swept heavens at midnight," "the lonely sea": he struggled for the exactly-fitting simile. There was none, because of its many-sidedness.

Loneliness remained as an ever-abiding quality. There were moon-glimpses and sun-bursts over the scenery of the music; there was sweetness, and a vernal touch that thrilled the listeners as with the breath of flowers and the fragrance of earth after rain, but always, behind all fancy and grace and tenderness, and even pa.s.sion, lurked that spectral loneliness.

The performer would cease for some minutes, and presently begin again in a new mood. The music was always characteristic, often wild and strange, yet essentially sane.

"There is a strong Celtic element in it," said the Professor. "This is a very wonderful gift. I suppose one never does really know one's fellows: her music to-night reveals to me new sides of Hadria's character."

"I confess they alarm me," said Algitha.

"Truly, this is not the sort of power that can be safely shut up and stifled. It is the sort of power for which everything ought to be set aside. That is my impression of it."

"I am worried about Hadria," Algitha said. "I know her better than most people, and I know how hard she takes things and what explosive force that musical instinct of hers has. Yet, it is impossible, as things are, for her to give it real utterance. She can only open the furnace door now and then."

The Professor shook his head gravely. "It won't do: it isn't safe. And why should such a gift be lost?"

"That's what I say! Yet what is to be done? There is no one really to blame. As for Hubert, I am sorry for him. He had not the faintest idea of Hadria's character, though she did her best to enlighten him. It is hard for him (since he feels it so) and it is desperate for her. You are such an old friend, that I feel I may speak to you about it. You see what is going on, and I know it is troubling you as it does me."

"It is indeed. If I am not very greatly mistaken, here is real musical genius of the first order, going to waste: strong forces being turned in upon the nature, to its own destruction; and, as you say, it seems as if nothing could be done. It is the more ironically cruel, since Hubert is himself musical."

"Oh, yes, but in quite a different way. His fetish is good taste, or what he thinks such. Hadria's compositions set his teeth on edge. His nature is conventional through and through. He fears adverse comment more than any earthly thing. And yet the individual opinions that compose the general 'talk' that he so dreads, are nothing to him. He despises them heartily. But he would give his soul (and particularly Hadria's) rather than incur a whisper from people collectively."

"That is a very common trait. If we feared only the opinions that we respect, our fear would cover but a small area."

The music stole out again through the window. The thoughts of the listeners were busy. It was not until quite lately that Professor Fortescue had fully realised the nature of Hadria's present surroundings. It had taken all his acuteness and his sympathy to enable him to perceive the number and strength of the little threads that hampered her spontaneity. As she said, they were made of heart-strings.

A vast spider's web seemed to spread its tender cordage round each household, for the crippling of every winged creature within its radius.

Fragments of torn wings attested the struggles that had taken place among the treacherous gossamer.

"And the maddening thing is," cried Algitha, "that there is n.o.body to swear at. Swearing at systems and ideas, as Hadria says, is a Barmecide feast to one's vindictiveness."

"It is the tyranny of affection that has done so much to ruin the lives of women," the Professor observed, in a musing tone.

Then after a pause: "I fear your poor mother has never got over _your_ little revolt, Algitha."

"Never, I am sorry to say. If I had married and settled in Hongkong, she would scarcely have minded, but as it is, she feels deserted. Of course the boys are away from home more than I am, yet she is not grieved at that. You see how vast these claims are. Nothing less than one's entire life and personality will suffice."

"Your mother feels that you are throwing your life away, remember. But truly it seems, sometimes, as if people were determined to turn affection into a curse instead of a blessing!"

"I never think of it in any other light," Algitha announced serenely.

The Professor laughed. "Oh, there are exceptions, I hope," he said.

"Love, like everything else that is great, is very, very rare. We call the disposition to usurp and absorb another person by that name, but woe betide him or her who is the object of such a sentiment. Yet happily, the real thing _is_ to be found now and again. And from that arises freedom."