The History of Sir Richard Calmady Part 86

Mr. Quayle's expression retained its sweetness, even its effect of amus.e.m.e.nt, though his lips quivered, and his eyelids were a little red.

"I do not come up to the requirements of the grand pa.s.sion?" he said.

"Alas! poor me----"

"No, no, it isn't that," Honoria protested.

"Ah, then,"--he paused, with an air of extraordinary intelligence--"Perhaps some one else does?"

"Yes," she said simply, "I don't like it, but it's there, and so I've got to go through with it--some one else does."

"In that case it is indeed hopeless! I give it up," he cried.

He moved aside and stood gazing at the rising trout in the golden-brown water. Then he raised his head sharply, as in obedience to a thought suddenly occurring to him, and gazed at Brockhurst House. The brightness of the western sky found reflection in its many windows. A n.o.ble cheerfulness seemed to pervade it, as it crowned the hillside, amid its gardens and far-ranging woods.

"By all that's"--Mr. Quayle began. But he repressed the exclamation, and his expression was wholly friendly as he returned to Miss St.

Quentin.

"Good-bye," he said.--"I am glad, honestly glad, you have found the grand pa.s.sion, though the object of it can't, in the first blush of the affair be altogether _persona grata_ to myself. But, to show that really I have a little root of magnanimity in me, I am quite prepared to undertake a winter at Cairo, plus Evelyn Tobemory and minus low dresses, if that will enable you to stay on here--I mean in England,--of course."

He pursed up his beautiful mouth, he carried his head on one side with the liveliest effect of provocation, as he held the young lady's hand while bidding her farewell.

"Out of my heart I hope you will be very happy," he said.

"I shall never be anything but Honoria St. Quentin," she answered rather hastily. Then she softened, forgiving him.--"Oh! why," she said, "why will you make me quarrel with you just now, just at the last?"

"Because--because--" Mr. Quayle's voice broke, though his superior smile remained to him.--"I think I will not prolong the interview," he said. "To be frank with you, dear Miss St. Quentin, I am about as miserable as is consonant with complete sanity and excellent health. I do not propose to blow my brains out, but I think--yes, thanks--you appreciate the desirability of that course of action too?--I think it is about time I went."

CHAPTER X

CONCERNING A DAY OF HONEST WARFARE AND A SUNSET HARBINGER NOT OF THE NIGHT BUT OF THE DAWN

That episode, upon the bridge spanning the Long Water, brought Richard would-be saint, Richard pilgrim along the great white road which leads onward to Perfection, into lively collision with Richard the natural man, not to mention Richard the "wild bull in a net." These opposing forces engaged battle, with the consequence that the carriage horses took the hill at a rather breakneck pace. Not that d.i.c.kie touched them, but that, he being vibrant, they felt his mood down the length of the reins and responded to it.

"Ludovic need hardly have been in such a prodigious hurry," he broke out. "He might have allowed one a few days' grace. It was a defect of taste to come over immediately--but then all that family's taste is liable to lapses."

Promptly he repented, ashamed both of his anger and such self-revealing expression of it.

"I dare say it's all for the best though. Better a thing should be nipped in the bud than in the blossom. And this puts it all on a right footing. One might easily drift into depending too much upon Honoria. I own I was dangerously near doing that this spring. I don't mind telling you so now, mother, because this, you see, disposes finally of the matter."

His voice contended oddly with the noise of the wheels, rattle of the pole-chains, pounding of the hoofs of the pulling horses. The sentences came to Lady Calmady's ears disjointed, difficult to follow and interpret. Therefore she answered slightly at random.

"My dearest, I could have kept her longer in the spring if I had only known," she said, a disquieting suspicion of lost opportunity a.s.sailing her. "But, from certain things which you said, I thought you preferred our being alone."

"So I did. I wanted her to go because I wanted her to stay. Do you see?"

"Ah, yes! I see," Katherine replied. And at that moment, it must be conceded, her sentiments were not conspicuously pacific towards her faithful adherent, Mr. Quayle.

"We've a good many interests in common," d.i.c.kie went on, "and there seemed a chance of one's settling down into a rather charming friendship with her. It was a beguiling prospect. And for that very reason, it was best she should depart. The prospect, in all its beguilingness, renewed itself to-day after luncheon."--He paused, handling the plunging horses.--"And so after all Ludovic shall be reckoned welcome. For, as I say, I might have come to depend on her.

And one's a fool--I ought to have learnt that salutary lesson by this time--a rank fool, to depend on anybody, or anything, save oneself, simply and solely oneself"--his tone softened--"and upon you, most dear and long-suffering mother.--Therefore the dream of friendship goes overboard after all, along with the rest of one's little illusions. And every illusion one rids oneself of is so much to the good. It lightens the ship. It lessens the chances of sinking. Clearly it is so much pure gain."

That evening, pleading--unexampled occurrence in her case--a headache as excuse, Miss St. Quentin did not put in an appearance at dinner. Nor did Richard put in an appearance at breakfast next morning. At an early hour he had received a communication earnestly requesting his presence at the Westchurch Infirmary. His mission promised to be a melancholy one, yet he was not sorry for the demand made by it upon his time and thought. For, notwithstanding the philosophic tone he had adopted with Lady Calmady in speaking of that friendship which, if not nipped in the bud, might have reached perils of too luxuriant blossoming, the would-be saint and the natural man, the pilgrim on the highroad to Perfection and that very inconvenient animal "the wild bull in a net,"

kept up warfare within Richard Calmady. They were hard at it even yet, when, in the fair freshness of the September morning--the gra.s.ses and hedge-fruit, the wild flowers, and the low-growing, tangled coppices by the roadside, still heavy with dew--he drove over to Westchurch. The day was bright, with flying cloud and a westerly breeze. The dust was laid, and the atmosphere, cleared by the storm of the preceding afternoon, had a smack of autumn in it. It was one of those delicious, yet distracting, days when the sea calls, and when whosoever loves seafaring grows restless, must seek movement, seek the open, strain his eyes towards the margin of the land--be the coast-line never so far distant--tormented by desire for sight of the blue water, and the strong and naked joys of the mighty ridge and furrow where go the gallant ships.

With the upspringing of the wind at dawn, that calling of the sea had made itself heard to Richard. At first it suggested only the practical temptation of putting the _Reprieve_ into commission, and engaging Lady Calmady to go forth with him on a three or four months' cruise. But that, as he speedily convinced himself, was but a pitifully cheap expedient, a shirking of voluntarily a.s.sumed responsibility, a childish cheating of discontent, rather than an honestly attempted cure of it.

If cure was to be achieved, the canker must be excised, boldly cut out, not overlaid merely by some trifle of partially concealing plaster. For he knew well enough--as all sea-lovers know--and, as he drove through the dappled sunlight and shadow, frankly admitted--that though the sea itself very actually and really called, yet its calling was the voice and symbol of much over and above itself. For in it speaks the eternal necessity of going forward, that hunger and thirst for the absolute and ultimate which drives every human creature whose heart and soul and intellect are truly animate. And to him, just now, it spoke more particularly of the natural instincts of his manhood--of ambition, of pa.s.sion, of headlong desire of sensation, excitement, adventure, of just all that, in fact, which he had forsworn, had agreed with himself to cast aside and forget. And, thinking of this, suspicion a.s.sailed him that forswearing had been slightly insincere and perfunctory. He accused himself of nourishing the belief that giving, he would also receive,--and that in kind,--while that any sacrifice which he offered would be returned to him doubled in value. Casting his bread upon the waters, he accused himself of having expected to find it, not "after many days," but immediately--a full baker's dozen ready to hand in his pocket. His motives had not been wholly pure. Actually, though not at the time consciously, he had a.s.sayed to strike a bargain with the Almighty.

Just as he reached the top of the long, straight hill leading down into Westchurch, Richard arrived at these unflattering conclusions. On either side the road, upon the yellow surface of which the sunlight played through the tossing leaves of the plane trees, were villas of very varied and hybrid styles of architecture. They were, for the most part, smothered in creepers, and set in gardens gay with blossom. Below lay the sprawling, red-brick town blotted with purple shadow. A black ca.n.a.l meandered through the heart of it, crossed by mean, humpbacked bridges. The huge, amorphous buildings of its railway station--engine sheds, goods warehouses, trailing of swiftly dispersed white smoke--the grime and clamour of all that, its factory buildings and tall chimneys, were very evident, as were the pale towers of its churches. And beyond the ugly, pushing, industrial commonplace of it, striking a very different note, the blue ribbon of the still youthful Thames, backed by high-lying chalk-lands fringed with hanging woods, traversed a stretch of flat, green meadows. Richard's eyes rested upon the scene absently, since thought just now had more empire over him than any outward seeing. For he perceived that he must cleanse himself yet further of self-seeking. Those words, "if thou wilt be perfect sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and follow thou Me," have not a material and objective significance merely. They deal with each personal desire, even the apparently most legitimate--with each indulgence of personal feeling, even the apparently most innocent--with the inward att.i.tude and the atmosphere of the mind even more closely than with outward action and conduct. And so Richard reached the conclusion that he must strip himself yet nearer to the bone. He must digest the harsh truth that virtue is its own reward in the sense that it is its only reward, and must look for nothing beyond that. He had grown slack of late, seduced by visions of pleasant things permitted most men but to him forbidden, and wearied, too, by the length of the way and inevitable monotony of it now first heat of enthusiasm had evaporated. Well--it was all very simple. He must just re-dedicate himself. And in this stern and chastened frame of mind he drove through the bustle of the country town--Sat.u.r.day, market day, its streets unusually alive--nodding to an acquaintance here and there in pa.s.sing, two or three of his tenant farmers, Mr. Cathcart of Newlands in on county business, Goodall the octogenarian miller from Parson's Holt, and Lemuel Image, the brewer, bursting out of an obviously new suit of very showy tweeds. Then, at the main door of the Infirmary, helped by the stalwart, hospital porter, he got down from the dog-cart, and subsequently--raked by curious eyes, saluted by hardly repressed t.i.ttering from the out-patients waiting _en queue_ for admission to the dispensary--he made his slow way along the bare, vault-like, stone pa.s.sage to the accident ward, in the far corner of which a bed was shut off from the rest by an arrangement of screens and of curtains.

And it was in the same chastened frame of mind that, some four or five hours later, d.i.c.kie entered the dining-room at Brockhurst. The two ladies had nearly finished luncheon and were about to rise from the table. Lady Calmady greeted him very gladly, but abstained from inquiry as to his doings or from comment on the lateness of the hour, since experience had long ago taught her that of all known animals man is the one of whom it is least profitable for woman to ask questions. He was here at home, alive, intact, her eyes were rejoiced by the sight of him, that was sufficient. If he had anything to tell her, no doubt he would tell it later. For the rest, she had something to tell him, but that too must wait till time and circ.u.mstance were propitious, since the conveying of it involved delicate diplomacies. It must be handled lightly. For the life of her she must avoid all appearance of eagerness, all appearance of attaching serious importance to the communication. Lady Calmady had learned, this morning, that Honoria St.

Quentin did not propose to marry Ludovic Quayle. The young lady, whose charming nonchalance was curiously in eclipse to-day, had given her to understand so much, but very briefly, the subject evidently being rather painful to her. She was silent and a little distrait; but she was also very gentle, displaying a disposition to follow Katherine about wherever she went and a pretty zeal in doing small, odd jobs for her. Katherine was touched and tenderly amused by her manner, which was as that of a charming child coveting a.s.surance that it need not be ashamed of itself, and that it has not really done anything naughty!

But Katherine sighed too, watching this strong, graceful, capable creature; for, if things had been otherwise with d.i.c.kie, how thankfully she would have given the keeping of his future into this woman's hands!

She had ceased to be jealous even of her son's love. Gladly, gratefully, would she have shared that love, accepting the second place, if only--but all that was beyond possibility of hope. Still the friendship of which he had spoken somewhat bitterly yesterday--poor darling--remained. Ludovic Quayle's pretensions--she felt very pitifully towards that accomplished gentleman, all his good qualities had started into high relief!--but, his pretensions no longer barring the way to that friendship, she pledged herself to work for the promotion of it. d.i.c.kie was too severe in self-repression, was over-strained in stoicism; and, ignoring the fact that in his fixity of purpose, his exaggerations of self-abnegation, he proved himself very much her own son, she determined secretly, cautiously, lovingly, to combat all that.

It was, therefore, with warm satisfaction that, as Honoria was about to rise from the table, she observed Richard emerge, in a degree, from his abstraction, and heard him say:--

"You told me you'd like to ride over to Farley this afternoon and see the home for my crippled people. Are you too tired after your headache, or do you still care to go?"

"Oh! I'm not tired, thanks," Honoria answered. Then she hesitated, and Richard, looking at her, was aware, as on the bridge yesterday, of a sudden and singular thickening of her features, which, while marring her beauty, rendered her aspect strangely pathetic, as of one who sustains some mysterious hurt. And to him it seemed, for the moment, as though both that hurt and the infliction of it bore subtle relation to himself. Common sense discredited the notion as unpermissibly fantastic, still it influenced and softened his manner.

"But you know you are looking frightfully done up yourself, Richard,"

she went on, with a charming air of half-reluctant protest. "Isn't he, Cousin Katherine? Are you sure you want to ride this afternoon? Please don't go out just on my account."

"Oh! I'm right enough," he answered. "I'd infinitely rather go out."

He pushed back his chair and reached down for his crutches. Still the fantastic notion that, all unwittingly, he had been guilty of doing Honoria some strange injury, clung to him. He was sensible of the desire to offer reparation. This made him more communicative than he would otherwise have been.

"I saw a man die this morning--that's all," he said. "I know it's stupid, but one can't help it--it knocks one about a bit. You see he didn't want to die, poor fellow, though, G.o.d knows, he'd little enough to live for--or to live with, for that matter."

"Your factory hand?" Honoria asked.

Richard slipped out of his chair, and stood upright.

"Yes, my factory hand," he answered. "Dear, old Knott was fearfully savage about it. He was so tremendously keen on the case, and made sure of pulling him through. But the poor boy had been sliced up a little too thoroughly."--Richard paused, smiling at Honoria. "So all one could do was to go with him just as far as is permitted out into the great silence, and then--then come home to luncheon. The home at Farley loses its point, rather, now he is dead. Still there are others, plenty of others, enough to satisfy even Knott's greed of riveting broken human crockery.--Oh yes! I shall enjoy riding over, if you are still good to come. Four o'clock--that'll suit you? I'll order the horses."

And so, in due time, the two rode forth together into the brightness of the September afternoon. The sea still called, but d.i.c.kie's ears were deaf to all dangerous allurements and excitations resident in that calling. It had to him, just now, only the pensive charm of a far-away melody, which, though no doubt of great and immediate import to others, had ceased to be any concern of his. Beside the death-bed in the hospital-ward he had renewed his vows, and the efficacy of that renewal was very present with him. It made for repose. It laid the evil spirit of defiance, of self-consciousness, of humiliation, so often obtaining in his intercourse with women--a spirit begotten by the perpetual p.r.i.c.k of his deformity, and in part, too, by his determined adoption of the ascetic att.i.tude in regard to the affections. He was spent by the emotions of the morning, but that also made for repose. For the time being devils were cast out. He was tranquil, yet exalted. His eyes had a smile in them, as though they looked beyond the limit of things transitory and material into the regions of the Pure Idea, where the eternal values are disclosed and Peace has her dwelling. And, precisely because of all this, he could take Honoria's presence lightly, be chivalrously solicitous of her entertainment and well-being, and talk to her with greater freedom than ever heretofore. He ceased to be on his guard with her because, in good truth, it seemed to him there ceased to be anything to guard against. For the time being, at all events, he had got to the other side of all that, and so she and his relation to her, had become part of that charming but faraway melody which was no concern of his--though mighty great and altogether worthy concern of others, of Ludovic Quayle, for example.--And in his present tranquil humour he could listen to the sweetness of that melody ungrudgingly. It was pleasant. He could enjoy it without envy--though it was none of his.

But to Honoria's seeing, it must be owned, matters shaped themselves very differently. For the usually unperturbed, the chaste and gallant soul of her endured violent a.s.saults, violent commotions, the origin of which she but partially understood. And these Richard's frankness, his courteous, in some sort brotherly, good-fellowship, served to intensify rather than allay. The feeling of the n.o.ble horse under her, the cool, westerly wind in her face, went to steady her nerves, and restore the self-possession, courage of judgment, and clearness of thought, which had been lacking to her during the past twenty-four hours. Nevertheless she rode as through a but-newly-discovered country, familiar objects displaying alien aspects, familiar phrases a.s.suming unlooked-for significance, a something challenging and fateful meeting her everywhere. The whole future seemed to hang in the balance, and she waited, dreading yet longing, to see the scale turn.

This afternoon the harvesters were carrying the corn. Red-painted waggons, drawn by sleek, heavy-made cart-horses, crawled slowly across the blond stubble. It was pretty to see the rusty-gold sheaves tossed up from the shining p.r.o.ngs of the pitchforks on to the mountainous load. Honoria and Richard watched this, a little minute, from the gra.s.s-ride bordering the roadway beneath the elms. Next came the high-lying moorland, beyond the lodges. The fine-leaved heath was thick with red-purple blossom. Patches of dusky heather were frosted with dainty pink. Spikes of genista and beds of needle-furze showed sharply yellow, vividly green, and a fringe of blue campanula, with frail, quivering bells, outlined all open s.p.a.ces. The face of the land had been washed by the rain. It shone with an inimitable cleanliness, as though consciously happy in relief from all soil of dust. And it was here, the open country stretching afar on all sides, that d.i.c.kie began talking, not, as at first, in desultory fashion, but of matters nearly pertaining and closely interesting to himself.

"You know," he said, as they walked the horses quietly, neck to neck, along the moorland road, "I don't go in for system-making or for reforms on any big scale. That doesn't come within my province. I must leave that to politicians and to men who are in the push of the world.

I admire it. I rejoice in the hot-headed, narrow-brained, whole-hearted agitator, who believes that his system adopted, his reform carried through, the whole show will instantly be put straight. Such faith is very touching."

"And the reformer has sometimes done some little good after all,"

Honoria commented.