"What a dear old house you have!" she said, glancing up at the crossed timbers, projecting gables, and quaint dormer windows set like eyes in the roof--"I had no idea that it was so pretty! And the garden is perfectly lovely. It is so very artistic!--it looks like a woman"s dream of a garden rather than a man"s."
John smiled.
"You think women more artistic than men?" he queried.
"In the decorative line--yes," she replied--"Especially where flowers are concerned. If one leaves the planning of a garden entirely to a man, he is sure to make it too stiff and mathematical,--he will not allow Nature to have her own way in the least little bit,--in fact"--and she laughed--"I don"t think men as a rule like to let anything or anybody have their own way except themselves!"
The smile still lingered kindly round the corners of Walden"s mouth.
"Possibly you may be right,"--he said--"I almost believe you are.
Men are selfish,--much more selfish than women. Nature made them so in the first instance,--and our methods of education and training all tend to intensify our natural bent. But"--here he paused and looked at her thoughtfully; "I am not sure that absolute unselfishness would be a wise or strong trait in the character of a man. You see the first thing he has to do in this world is to earn the right to live,--and if he were always backing politely out of everybody else"s way, and allowing himself to be hustled to one side in an unselfish desire to let others get to the front, he would scarcely be able to hold his own in any profession. And all those dependent upon his efforts would also suffer,--so that his "unselfishness" might become the very worst kind of selfishness in the end--don"t you think so?" "Well--yes--perhaps in that way it might!" hesitated Maryllia, with a faint blush--"I ought not to judge anyone I know--but--oh dear!--the men one meets in town--the society men with their insufferable airs of conceit and condescension,--their dullness of intellect,--their preference for cigars, whiskey, and Bridge to anything else under the sun,--their intensely absorbed love of personal ease, and their perfectly absurd confidence in their own supreme wisdom!--these are the hybrid creatures that make one doubt the worth of the rest of their s.e.x altogether."
"But there are hybrid creatures on both sides,"--said Walden quietly--"Just as there are the men you speak of, so there are women of the same useless and insufferable character. Is it not so?"
She looked up at him and laughed.
"Why, yes, of course!" she frankly admitted--"I guess I won"t argue with you on the six of one and half-dozen of the other! But it"s just as natural for women to criticise men as for men to criticise nowadays. Long ago, in the lovely "once upon a time" fairy period, the habit of criticism doesn"t appear to have developed strongly in either s.e.x. The men were chivalrous and tender,--the women adoring and devoted--I think it must have been perfectly charming to have lived then! It is all so different now!"
"Fortunately, it is," said John, with a mirthful sparkle in his eyes--"I am sure you would not have liked that "once upon a time fairy period" as you call it, at all, Miss Vancourt! Poets and romancists may tell us that the men were "chivalrous and tender,"
but plain fact convinces us that they were very rough unwashen tyrants who used to shut up their ladies in gloomy castles where very little light and air could penetrate,--and the adoring and devoted ladies, in their turn, made very short work of the whole business by either dying of their own grief and ill-treatment, or else getting killed in cold blood by order of their lords and masters. Why, one of the finest proofs of an improvement in our civilisation is the freedom of thought and action given to women in the present day. Personally speaking, I admit to a great fondness for old-fashioned ways, and particularly for old-fashioned manners,- -but I cannot shut my mind to the fact that for centuries women have been unfairly hindered by men in every possible way from all chance of developing the great powers of intelligence they possess,--and it is certainly time the opposition to their advancement should cease.
Of course, being a man myself,"--and he smiled--"I daresay that in my heart of hearts I like the type of woman I first learned to know and love best,--my mother. She had the early Victorian, ways,--they were very simple, but also very sweet."
He broke off, and for a moment or two they paced the lawn in silence.
"I suppose you live all alone here?" asked Maryllia, suddenly.
"Yes. Quite alone."
"And are you happy?"
"I am content."
"I understand!" and she looked at him somewhat earnestly:--""Happy"
is a word that should seldom be used I think. It is only at the rarest possible moments that one can feel real true happiness."
"You are too young to say that,"--he rejoined gently--"All your life is before you. The greater part of mine lies behind me." Again she glanced at him somewhat timidly.
"Mr. Walden"--she began--"I"m afraid--I suppose--I daresay you think---"
John caught the appealing flash of the blue eyes, and wondering what she was going to say. She played with the spray of lilac he had given her, and for a moment seemed to have lost her self-possession.
"I am quite sure,"--she went on, hurriedly--"that you--I mean, I"m afraid you haven"t a very good opinion of me because I don"t go to church---"
He looked at her, smiling a little.
"Dor"t you go to church?" he asked--"I didn"t know it!"
Here was a surprise for the lady of the Manor. The clergyman of her own parish,--a man, who by all accepted rule and precedent ought to have been after her at once, asking for subscriptions to this fund and that fund, toadying her for her position, and begging for her name and support, had not even noticed her absence from divine service on Sundays! She did not know whether to be relieved or dissatisfied. Such indifference to her actions piqued her feminine pride, and yet, his tone was very kind and courteous. Noting the colour coming and going on her face, he spoke again---
"I never interfere personally with my parishioners, Miss Vancourt"-- he said--"To attend church or stay away from church is a matter of conscience with each individual, and must be left to individual choice. I should be the last person in the world to entertain a bad opinion of anyone simply because he or she never went to church.
That would be foolish indeed! Some of the n.o.blest and best men in Christendom to-day never go to church,--but they are none the less n.o.ble and good! They have their reasons of conscience for non- committing themselves to accepted forms of faith, and it often turns out that they are more truly Christian and more purely religious than the most constant church-goer that ever lived."
Maryllia gave a little sigh of sudden relief.
"Ah, you are a broad-minded Churchman!" she said. "I am glad! Very glad! Because you have no doubt followed the trend of modern thought,--and you must have read all the discussions in the magazines and in the books that are written on such subjects,--and you can understand how difficult it is to a person like myself to decide what is right when so many of the wisest and most educated men agree to differ."
Walden stopped abruptly in his walk.
"Please do not mistake me, Miss Vancourt," he said gravely, and with emphasis--"I should be sorry if you gathered a wrong opinion of me at the outset of our acquaintance. As your minister I feel that I ought to make my position clear to you. You say that I have probably followed the trend of modern thought--and I presume that you mean the trend of modern thought in religious matters. Now I have not "followed" it, but I have patiently studied it, and find it in all respects deplorable and disastrous. At the same time I would not force the high truths of religion on any person, nor would I step out of my way to ask anyone to attend church if he or she did not feel inclined to do so. And why? Because I fully admit the laxity and coldness of the Church in the present day--and I know that there are many ministers of the Gospel who do not attract so much as they repel. I am not so self-opinionated as to dream that I, a mere country parson, can succeed in drawing souls to Christ when so many men of my order, more gifted than I, have failed, and continue to fail. But I wish you quite frankly to understand that the trend of modern thought does not affect the vows I took at my ordination,-- that I do not preach one thing, and think another,--and that whatever my faults and shortcomings may be, I most earnestly endeavour to impress the minds of all those men and women who are committed to my care with the beauty, truth and saving grace of the Christian Faith."
Maryllia was silent. She appeared to be looking at the daisies in the gra.s.s.
"I hope," he continued quietly, "you will forgive this rather serious talk of mine. But when you spoke of "the trend of modern thought," it seemed necessary to me to let you know at once and straightly that I am not with it,--that I do not belong to the modern school. Professing to be a Christian minister, I try to be one,--very poorly and unsuccessfully I know,--but still, I try!"
Maryllia raised her eyes. There was a glisten on her long lashes as of tears.
"Please forgive ME!" she said simply--"And thank you for speaking as you have done! I shall always remember it, and honour you for it. I hope we shall be friends?"
She put the words as a query, and half timidly held out her little ungloved hand. He took it at once and pressed it cordially.
"Indeed, I am sure we shall!" he said heartily, and the smile that made his face more than ordinarily handsome lit up his eyes and showed a depth of sincerity and kindly feeling reflected straight from his honest soul. A sudden blush swept over Maryllia"s cheeks, and she gently withdrew her hand from his clasp. A silence fell between them, and when they broke the spell it was by a casual comment respecting the wealth of apple-blossoms that were making the trees around them white with their floral snow.
"St. Rest is a veritable orchard, when the season favours it," said Walden--"It is one of the best fruit-growing corners in England. At Abbot"s Manor, for instance, the cherry crop is finer than can be gathered on the same acreage of ground in Kent. Did you know that?"
Maryllia laughed.
"No! I know absolutely nothing about my own home, Mr. Walden,--and I am perfectly aware that I ought to be ashamed of my ignorance. I AM ashamed of it! I"m going to try and amend the error of my ways as fast as I can. When Cicely Bourne comes to stay with me, she will help me. She"s ever so much more sensible than I am. She"s a genius."
"Geniuses do not always get the credit of being sensible, do they?"
queried John, smiling--"Are they not supposed to be creatures of impulse, dwellers in the air, and wholly irresponsible?"
"Exactly so,"--she replied--"That is the commonplace opinion commonplace people entertain of them. Yet the commonplace people owe everything they enjoy in art, literature and science to the conceptions of genius, and of genius alone. As for Cicely, she is the most practical little person possible. She began to earn her living at the age of eleven, and has "roughed" it in the world more severely than many a man. But she keeps her dreams,"
"And those who wish her well will pray that she may always keep them,"--said Walden--"For to lose one"s illusions is to lose the world."
"The world itself may be an illusion!" said Maryllia, drawing near the garden gate and leaning upon it for a moment, as she glanced up at him with a vague sadness in her eyes,--"We never know. I have often felt that it is only a pretty little pageant, with a very dark background behind it!"
He was silent, looking at her. For the first time he caught himself noticing her dress. It was of simple pale blue linen, relieved with white embroidered lawn, and in its cool, fresh, clean appearance was in keeping with the clear bright day. A plain straw garden hat tied across the crown and under the chin with a strip of soft blue ribbon to match the linen gown, was the finish to this "fashionable" young woman"s toilette,--and though it was infinitely becoming to the fair skin, azure eyes, and gold-brown hair of its wearer, it did not suggest undue extravagance, or a Paris "mode." And while he yet almost unconsciously studied the picture she made, resting one arm lightly across his garden gate, she lifted the latch suddenly and swung it open.
"Good-bye!" and she nodded smilingly--"Thank you so much for letting me see your lovely garden! As soon as Cicely arrives, you must come and see her--you will, won"t you?"
"I shall be most happy---" he murmured.
"She will be so interested to hear how you sent her my telegram,"-- continued Maryllia--"And Gigue too--poor old Gigue!--he is sure to come over here some time during the summer. He is such a quaint person! I think you will like him. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye--for the present!" said John with a slight note of appeal in his voice, which was not lost wholly upon the air alone, for Maryllia turned her head back towards him with a laugh.
"Oh, of course!--only for the present! We are really next-door neighbours, and I"m afraid we can"t escape each other unless we each play hermit in separate caves! But I promise not to bore you with my presence very often!"