The Tragic Bride Part 6

The amazing part of the whole business was that Arthur didn't realise it. He looked upon the anxiety which Mrs. Payne found it so difficult to conceal as feminine weakness. He wished to goodness that she wouldn't fuss over him, being convinced that he himself was an ordinary, plain-sailing person who had submitted for long enough to an unreasonable degree of pampering. He didn't see any reason why he shouldn't be treated like any other boy of his age, and felt that he had already been cheated of many of the rights of youth. One of the princ.i.p.al reasons why he welcomed the Lapton plan was that it would free him from the constant tug of ap.r.o.n-strings, and allow him to mix freely with creatures of his own age and s.e.x.

He went off to Lapton in the highest spirits, determined to have a good time, rejoicing in the prospect of freedom in a way that made his mother feel that she had been something of an oppressor. She could not resist the temptation of seeing the last of him, and so they travelled down together. This time she stayed a couple of days at Lapton. It was part of Considine's plan to let parents see as much of the place as they wanted, if only to convince them that they were getting their money's worth.

Everything that Mrs. Payne saw rea.s.sured her. The routine of the house seemed to be reasonable and healthy. The mornings were devoted to lessons in the library. After lunch the pupils went out over the fields or into the woods where Considine instructed them in details of farming and forestry. Their work was not merely theoretical. They had to learn to use their hands as well as their brains, to plough a furrow, or bank a hedge, or dig a pit for mangolds. Considine kept them busy, and at the same time made them useful to himself. They used to come in at tea-time flushed with exercise and pleasantly fatigued.

The late afternoon and evening were their own. They played tennis or racquets, or read books in the library, a long room with many tall windows that had been set aside for their instruction and leisure.

Mrs. Payne rejoiced to find that their life at Lapton was so full. In the absence of any idleness that was not well-earned she saw the highest wisdom of Considine's system; for it seemed to her that her anxiety for Arthur had probably done him an injustice in depriving him of a natural outlet for his energies. At Lapton he could scarcely find time for wickedness.

In this way her admiration for Considine increased. She only regretted that she had not been able in the past to secure a tutor of his capable and energetic type. Reviewing the series of languid and futile young men whom the very best agencies had sent her, she came to the conclusion that no man of Considine's type could ever have been forced to accept a tutor's employment. Even in the choice of his pupils she saw signs of his discrimination. In addition to the two Traceys, whose delightful manners were undeniable, he had secured two other boys: one the younger son of an East Anglian peer, and the other a boy whose father was a colonel in the Indian army. The paragraph in Considine's advertis.e.m.e.nt that had first attracted her had made her wonder if his school might not develop into a collection of oddities, but all the pupils that she saw were not only the sons of gentlemen but obviously normal. She felt that their influence, seconding the control of Considine, must surely have a stabilising effect upon Arthur, and was content.

During the two days of her visit she still found Gabrielle a little puzzling. She couldn't quite believe that her extreme quietness and reserve were nothing more than simplicity. Knowing nothing of her origins she did not realise that Gabrielle was actually shy of her, and that this, and nothing else, explained her air of mystery. On the last night, however, feeling that after all Gabrielle was the only woman in the house in whom she could confide, she overcame her own diffidence, and told her the whole story over again from a personal and feminine point of view. Gabrielle listened very quietly.

"I'm so anxious that I felt bound to tell you, just in the hope that you'd be interested," said Mrs. Payne. "One woman feels that it takes another woman to understand her. If you had children of your own, you'd understand quite easily what I mean."

"I think I do understand," said Gabrielle.

"There are little things about which I should be ashamed to worry your husband. I wonder if it would be asking too much of you to hope that you would sometimes write to me, and tell me how he is? Naturally I can't expect you to take a special interest in Arthur, more than in others----" She found it difficult to say more.

"Of course I will write to you if you want me to," said Gabrielle.

Mrs. Payne, impulsively, kissed her.

XIII

Gabrielle fulfilled her promise. All through the first term, while autumn hardened into winter, at Lapton a season of sad sunlight, she kept Mrs. Payne posted in the chronicle of Arthur's progress, and these dutiful letters comforted his mother in her unusual loneliness at Overton. They were not particularly interesting letters, and they never brought to her any announcement of the long-awaited miracle, but they gave her the a.s.surance that some other woman had her eye on him, and this, for some strange reason that may have been explained by Arthur's dependence on her through her long widowhood, comforted her.

In the beginning Gabrielle interested herself in Arthur simply for the sake of Mrs. Payne; she had been touched by the mother's anxiety and found her, perhaps, a little pathetic; but in a little time she began to be interested in Arthur for himself.

In the ordinary way she did not see a great deal of her husband's pupils. Nominally, of course, she was the female head of the household, but Considine, aware of her limited domestic experience, and her ignorance of English customs, had secured a housekeeper from his own home in Wiltshire, a Mrs. Bemerton, who also filled the office of matron. As might be expected in a woman of Considine's choice, Mrs.

Bemerton was capable and, as luck would have it, she was also kindly.

All the domestic arrangements at Lapton ran smoothly under her direction. She was reasonably popular with the boys and mothered them.

She even found time to mother Gabrielle--respectfully, for she had come from a county that is staunchly feudal, and was aware of her mistress's august connections.

It was fortunate for Gabrielle in her relations with the boys that she had so little to do with their domestic management. The fact that she only saw them in their moments of recreation saved her from being regarded as an ogress, her only suspicious circ.u.mstance being the fact that she was married to Considine. Before the winter came she had played games with them, and since she had so much of the tomboy in her, had made herself acceptable as a sportswoman and a good sort. By the time that Arthur Payne arrived the days were drawing in, and she saw very little of them, except in the evenings, after dinner, when she and Considine would join them in a game of snooker in the billiard-room, or take a hand of whist, old-fashioned whist, in the library.

It was here that she first became personally aware of Arthur's disability. For several weeks she had been getting used to him as a normal being, attractive because he was so undeniably handsome and well-developed, more than usually attractive to her, perhaps, because she was dark and he was fair. She had noticed his eyes, so like the beautiful eyes of Mrs. Payne, his splendid teeth, and the charming ingenuousness of his manner. Subtly influenced by these physical features, and taking him for granted, she had almost forgotten the curious history that Mrs. Payne had confided to her, and it came as a shock to her playing cards against him one evening, to realise suddenly that he was cheating.

Her first impulse was one of indignation; but as she was not quite sure of herself she said nothing, waiting to see if she could possibly have been mistaken. In a few moments he cheated again, this time beyond any possible doubt. She flushed with vexation. It seemed to her an enormous thing. She was just on the point of throwing down her cards when Mrs. Payne's story came back to her. Instead of dislike she felt a sudden wave of pity and wonder. She had wanted, on the spur of the moment, to give him away; but she realised that this would only discredit him with the other boys and probably lay him open to a sort of persecution. If he wasn't really responsible, that would be a pity; and so she held her tongue.

All the same she couldn't go on playing cards with him. She knew that if she did she would be bound to continue on the look-out, and be shocked by a series of these ugly incidents. She asked Considine if he would read to them, and he consented readily. He liked reading aloud, partly because he was, not unreasonably, vain of his speaking voice and partly because the practice was part of his theory of education. At that time he was reading Stevenson, an author who was supposed to combine a flawless literary style with the soundest moral precepts and an att.i.tude towards life that encouraged the manly virtues peculiar to Englishmen. Gabrielle enjoyed his reading thoroughly, for she had so much of the boy in herself, and was quite unacquainted with any Victorian literature. He read _Catriona_ slowly, and with gusto.

Gabrielle from her corner watched Arthur Payne, sprawling on a sofa at the edge of the lamp-light. He was really a remarkably handsome young animal with his fair hair tangled and his hands clasped on his knees.

She could see his eyes in the gloom. They seemed to burn with eagerness while he listened, as though his imagination were on fire within. She forgot that Considine was reading and went on watching the boy. It seemed to her incredible that it was he whom she had detected in such a deliberate dishonour half an hour before. It was melancholy.

She felt most awfully sorry for him. She wished, above all things, that she could help him. People said that he was beyond help. In the end he became conscious of her scrutiny and smiled across at her. And this broke the spell of reflection. She heard Considine's voice:

_'I will take up the defence of your reputation,' she said. 'You may leave it in my hands.' And with that she withdrew out of the library._ "That's the end of chapter nineteen."

He closed the book, putting a marker in it methodically, as was his wont. Gabrielle thanked him. She smiled to herself, for it seemed to her that the words of Miss Grant with which he had recalled her from her abstraction had a curious and prophetic meaning for herself. She was thankful, for a moment, that she hadn't thoughtlessly given Arthur's reputation away to his comrades. She felt herself thrilled by a new and curious interest. She determined, as a part of her duty to his mother, to speak to Arthur himself about what she had observed.

She caught him in the pa.s.sage just as the boys were going to bed, and drew him aside into the drawing-room. The room was quite dark.

"Arthur, I want to speak to you," she said.

He laughed. "What's the matter?"

"When we were playing cards to-night you cheated."

For a moment there was silence. Then he laughed again--not an uneasy, shameful laugh, but one of sheer amus.e.m.e.nt. It shocked her. At last he said:

"Did you see it? Then why didn't you make a fuss about it?"

She was thankful, at any rate, that he had not lied to her. That was what she had fearfully expected.

"I didn't want to give you away to the others."

"Why not? It wouldn't have been any news to them. They know that I cheat already. That's why they're up against me. But that doesn't worry me."

"I don't understand you. It seemed to me a horrible thing to do.

Can't you see that?"

"No, I can't. Perhaps I'm different. When I play I play to win."

"But that's the whole point. If you don't stick to the rules of the game there's no credit in winning, is there?"

He was silent for a moment. Then, with an effort of the most courageous honesty, he said: "Well, it feels the same to me. I like winning--anyhow."

She hesitated for a moment.

"It makes it so that--so that we can't respect you," she said.

"Now I suppose you'll go and tell Dr. Considine. Just my luck."

"Indeed, and I shan't do anything of the sort. It's between us two,"

she replied.

He was silent.

"Well, it does no good talking about it," he said mournfully. "I'm made differently, that's all. Do you want anything else?"

She didn't, and he left her in the dark.

This small incident and the conversation that followed opened her eyes to the reality of the problem. She didn't indeed tell Considine what had happened, but she did talk to him once or twice about the history of Arthur Payne. He did not tell her much, for it was part of his plan that his wife should not be mixed up in the business of the school.

These things, in his opinion, lay entirely outside a woman's province.

Her place was in the drawing-room and her position that of a hostess or, providentially, that of a mother. For the present there were no signs of her fulfilling the latter.

In spite of Considine's discouragement her interest in Arthur was now fully aroused, and more eagerly for the very reason of the limits which her husband had set to her activities. Life at Lapton Manor to a person of Gabrielle's essential vitality was dull. The nature of the surrounding country with its near horizons and lack of physical breadth or freedom imprisoned her spirit. Even Roscarna in its decay had been more vital than this sad, smug Georgian manor-house set in its circle of low hills. Over there, in winter, there had been rough Atlantic weather, and a breath of ice from the snowy summits of Slieveannilaun or the mountains of Maamturk. Here, even in their more frequent sunshine, the air lay dead, ebbing like a sluggish river, from Dartmoor to the sea. In winter the county families went to sleep like dormice, so that no strange-calling conveyances pa.s.sed the lodge-gates at Lapton, and the life of Gabrielle was like that of those sad roses that lingered on the south wall beneath her bedroom window in a state that was neither life nor death. If she had shared Considine's interest in his profession things might have been different. No doubt she would have thrown herself into it with enthusiasm; but her enthusiasm was of a very different nature from the steady flame that burned in Considine.