The Whirlpool Part 18

Nevertheless, his thoughts were constantly occupied with the girl. Her image haunted him; all his manhood was subdued and mocked by her scornful witchery. From the infinitudes of reverie, her eyes drew near and gazed upon him--eyes gleaming with mischief, keen with curiosity; a look now supercilious, now softly submissive; all the varieties of expression caught in susceptible moments, and stored by a too faithful memory. Her hair, her lips, her neck, grew present to him, and lured his fancy with a wanton seduction. In self-defence--pathetic stratagem of intellectual man at issue with the flesh--he fell back upon the idealism which ever strives to endow a fair woman with a beautiful soul; he endeavoured to forget her body in contemplation of the spiritual excellencies that might lurk behind it. To depreciate her was simpler, and had generally been his wont; but subjugation had reached another stage in him. He summoned all possible pleadings on the girl's behalf: her talents, her youth, her grievous trials. Devotion to cla.s.sical music cannot but argue a certain loftiness of mind; it might, in truth, be somehow akin to 'religion'. Remembering his own follies and vices at the age of four-and-twenty, was it not reason, no less than charity, to see in Alma the hope of future good? Nay, if it came to that, did she not embody infinitely more virtue, in every sense of the word, than he at the same age?

One must be just to women, and, however paltry the causes, do honour to the cleanliness of their life. Nothing had suggested to him that Alma was unworthy of everyday respect. Even when ill-mannered, she did not lose her s.e.xual dignity. And after all she had undergone, there would have been excuse enough for decline of character, to say nothing of a lapse from the articles of good breeding. This letter of hers, what did it signify but the revolt of a spirit of independence, irritated by all manner of sufferings, great and small? Ought he not to have replied in other terms? Was it worthy of him--man of the world, with pa.s.sions, combats, experience multiform, a.s.similated in his long, slow growth--to set his sarcasm against a girl's unhappiness?

He was vexed with himself. He had not behaved as a gentleman. And how many a time, in how many situations, had he incurred this form of self-reproach!

When a week went by without anything more from Alma, Harvey ceased to trouble. As the fates directed, so be it. He began to pack the books which he would take with him into Wales.

One day he found himself at Kensington High Street, waiting for a City train. In idleness, he watched the people who alighted from carriages on the opposite side of the platform, and among them he saw Alma. On her way towards the stairs she was obliged to pa.s.s him; he kept his position, and only looked into her face when she came quite near. She bent her head with a half-smile, stopped, and spoke in a low voice, without sign of embarra.s.sment.

'I was quite wrong. I found it out soon after I had written, and I have wanted to beg your pardon.'

'It is my part to do that,' Harvey replied. 'I ought not to have answered as I did.'

'Perhaps not--all things considered. I'm rather in a hurry.

Good-morning!'

As a second thought, she offered her hand. Harvey watched her trip up the stairs.

Next morning he had a letter from her. 'Dear Mr. Rolfe,' she wrote, 'did you let Mamma know of my hasty and foolish behaviour? If not--and I very much hope you didn't--please not to reply to this, but let us see you on Wednesday afternoon, just in the ordinary way. If Mamma _has_ been told, still don't trouble to write, and in that case I dare say you will not care to come. If you are engaged this Wednesday, perhaps you could come next.' And she signed herself his sincerely.

He did not reply, and Wednesday saw him climbing once more to the little flat; ashamed of being here, yet unable to see how he could have avoided it, except by leaving London. For that escape he had no longer much mind. Quite consciously, and with uneasiness which was now taking a new form, he had yielded to Alma's fascination. However contemptible and unaccountable, this was the state of things with him, and, as he waited for the door to be opened, it made him feel more awkward, more foolish, than for many a long year.

Mrs. Frothingham and her step-daughter were sitting alone, the elder lady occupied with fancy-work, at her feet a basket of many-coloured silks, and the younger holding a book; nothing could have been quieter or more home-like. No sooner had he entered than he overcame all restraint, all misgiving; there was nothing here today but peace and good feeling, gentle voices and quiet amiability. Whatever shadow had arisen between the two ladies must have pa.s.sed utterly away; they spoke to each other with natural kindness, and each had a tranquil countenance.

Alma began at once to talk of their common friends, the Carnabys, asking whether Rolfe knew that they were in Australia.

'I knew they had decided to go,' he answered. 'But I haven't heard for at least two months.'

'Oh, then I can give you all the news; I had a letter yesterday. When Mrs. Carnaby wrote, they had spent a fortnight at Melbourne, and were going on to Brisbane. Mr. Carnaby is going to do something in Queensland--something about mines. I'll read you that part.'

The letter lay in the book she was holding. Sibyl wrote indefinitely, but Harvey was able to gather that the mining engineer, Dando, had persuaded Carnaby to take an active interest in his projects.

Discussion on speculative enterprises did not recommend itself to the present company, and Rolfe could only express a hope that his friend had at last found a pursuit in which he could interest himself.

'But fancy Sibyl at such places!' exclaimed Alma, with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'How curious I shall be to see her when she comes back! Before she left England, I'm sure she hadn't the least idea in what part of Australia Brisbane was, or Melbourne either. I didn't know myself; had to look at a map. You'll think that a shameful confession, Mr. Rolfe.'

'My own ideas of Australian geography are vague enough.'

'Oh, but haven't you been there?'

'Not to any of the new countries; I don't care about them. A defect, I admit. The future of England is beyond seas. I would have children taught all about the Colonies before bothering them with histories of Greece and Rome. I wish I had gone out there myself as a boy, and grown up a sheep-farmer.'

Alma laughed.

'That's one of the things you say just to puzzle people. It contradicts all sorts of things I've heard you say at other times.--Do _you_ think, Mamma, that Mr. Rolfe missed his vocation when he didn't become a sheep-farmer?'

Mrs. Frothingham gently shook her head. No trace of nervousness appeared in her today; manipulating the coloured silks, she only now and then put in a quiet word, but followed the talk with interest.

'But I quite thought you had been to Australia,' Alma resumed. 'You see, it's very theoretical, your admiration of the new countries. And I believe you would rather die at once in England than go to live in any such part of the world.'

'Weakness of mind, that's all.'

'Still, you admit it. That's something gained. You always smile at other people's confessions, and keep your own mind mysterious.'

'Mysterious? I always thought one of my faults was over-frankness.'

'That only shows how little we know ourselves.'

Harvey was reflecting on the incompleteness of his knowledge of Alma.

Intentionally or not, she appeared to him at this moment in a perfectly new light; he could not have pictured her so simple of manner, so direct, so placid. Trouble seemed to have given her a holiday, and at the same time to have released her from self-consciousness.

'But you have never told us,' she went on, 'about your wanderings in France this summer. English people don't go much to that part, do they?'

'No. I happened to read a book about it. It's the old fighting-ground of French and English--interesting to any one pedantic enough to care for such things.'

'But not to people born to be sheep-farmers. And you had a serious illness.--Did Mr. Rolfe tell you, Mamma dear, that he nearly died at some miserable roadside inn?'

Mrs. Frothingham looked startled, and declared she knew nothing of it.

Harvey, obliged to narrate, did so in the fewest possible words, and dismissed the matter.

'I suppose you have had many such experiences,' said Alma. 'And when do you start on your next travels?'

'I have nothing in view. I half thought of going for the winter to a place in North Wales--Carnarvonshire, on the outer sea.'

The ladies begged for more information, and he related how, on a ramble with a friend last spring (it was Basil Morton), he had come upon this still little town between the mountains and the sh.o.r.e, amid a country shining with yellow gorse, hills clothed with larch, heathery moorland, ferny lanes, and wild heights where the wind roars on crag or cairn.

'No railway within seven miles. Just the place for a pedant to escape to, and live there through the winter with his musty books.'

'But it must be equally delightful for people who are not pedants!'

exclaimed Alma.

'In spring or summer, no doubt, though even then the civilised person would probably find it dull.'

'That's your favourite affectation again. I'm sure it's nothing but affectation when you speak scornfully of civilised people.'

'Scornfully I hope I never do.'

'Really, Mamma,' said Alma, with a laugh, 'Mr. Rolfe is in his very mildest humour today. We mustn't expect any reproofs for our good. He will tell us presently that we are patterns of all the virtues.'

Mrs. Frothingham spoke in a graver strain.

'But I'm sure it is possible to be too civilised--to want too many comforts, and become a slave to them. Since I have been living here, Mr Rolfe, you can't think how I have got to enjoy the simplicity of this kind of life. Everything is so easy; things go so smoothly. Just one servant, who can't make mistakes, because there's next to nothing to do. No wonder people are taking to flats.'

'And is that what you mean by over-civilisation?' Alma asked of Rolfe.

'I didn't say anything about it. But I should think many people in large and troublesome houses would agree with Mrs. Frothingham. It's easy to imagine a time when such burdens won't be tolerated. Our misfortune is, of course, that we are not civilised enough.'

'Not enough to give up fashionable nonsense. I agree with that. We're wretched slaves, most of us.'