What"s he thinking? What"s he want?...The river, at high tide, very gently lapped the side of the old wall. Its colour to-night was pure crystal green, the banks and the hills smoky grey behind it. Tiny pink clouds ran in little fleets across the sky, chasing one another in and out between the streamers of smoke that rose from the tranquil chimneys.
Seatown was at rest this evening, scarcely a sound came from the old houses; the birds could be heard calling from the meadows beyond the river. The pink clouds faded into a rosy shadow, then that in its turn gave way to a sky faintly green and pointed with stars. Grey mist enveloped the meadows and the river, and the birds cried no longer. There was a smell of onions and rank seaweed in the air.
Falk"s love-story pursued at first its usual realistic course. She was there near the waterfall waiting for him; they had very little to say to one another. She was depressed to-night, and he fancied that she had been crying. She was not so attractive to him in such a mood. He liked her best when she was intolerant, scornful, aloof. To-night, although she showed no signs of caring for him, she surrendered herself absolutely. He could do what he liked with her. But he did not want to do anything with her.
She leaned over the Seatown wall looking desolately in front of her.
At last she turned round to him and asked him what she had asked him before:
"What do you come after me for?"
"I don"t know," he said.
"It isn"t because you love me."
"I don"t know."
"_I_ know--there"s no mistakin" it when it"s there. I"ve lain awake a lot o" nights wondering what you"re after. You must have your reasons. You take a deal o" trouble."
Then she put her hand on his. It was the first time that she had ever, of her own accord, touched him.
"I"m gettin" to like you," she said. "Seein" so much of you, I suppose.
You"re only a boy when all"s said. And then, somehow or another, men don"t go after me. You"re the only one that ever has. They say I"m stuck up...
Oh, man, but I"m unhappy here at home!"
"Well, then--you"d better come away with me--to London."
Even as he said it he would have caught the words back. What use for them to go? Nothing to live on, no true companionship ...there could be only one end to that.
But she shook her head.
"No--if you cared for me enough, mebbe I"d go. But I don"t know that we"d be together long if we did. I want my own life, my own, own, own life! I can look after myself all right...I"ll be off by myself alone one day."
Then suddenly he wanted her as urgently as he had ever done.
"No, you must never do that," he said. "If you go it must be with me. You must have some one to look after you. You don"t know what London"s like."
He caught her in his arms and kissed her pa.s.sionately, and she seemed to him a new woman altogether, created by her threat that she would go away alone.
She pa.s.sively let him kiss her, then with a little turn in his arms and a little sigh she very gently kissed him of her own will.
"I believe I could care for "ee," she said softly. "And I want to care for some one terrible bad."
They were nearer in spirit than they had ever been before; an emotion of simple human companionship had crept into the unsettled disturbance and quieted it and deepened it. She wore in his eyes a new aspect, something wise and reasonable and comfortable. She would never be quite so mysterious to him again, but her hold on him now was firmer. He was suddenly sorry for her as well as for himself.
For the first time he left her that night with a sense that comradeship might grow between them.
But as he went back up the hill he was terribly depressed and humiliated.
He hated and despised himself for longing after something that he did not really want. He had always, he fancied, done that, as though there would never be time enough in life for all the things that he would wish to test and to reject.
When he went to bed that night he was in rebellion with all the world, but before he fell asleep Annie Hogg seemed to come to him, a gentler, kinder spirit, and to say to him, "It"ll be all right.... I"ll look after "ee....
I"ll look after "ee," and he seemed to sink to sleep in her arms.
Next morning Falk and Joan had breakfast alone with their father, a headache having laid Mrs. Brandon low. Falk was often late for breakfast, but to-day had woken very early, had got up and gone out and walked through the grey mist, turning his own particular trouble over and over in his mind. To-day Annie had faded back from him again; that tenderness that he had felt for her last night seemed to have vanished, and he was aware only of a savage longing to shake himself free of his burden. He had visions this morning of going up to London and looking for work....
Joan saw that to-day was a "Chapter morning" day. She always knew by her father"s appearance when there was to be a Chapter Meeting. He had then an extra gloss, an added splendour, and also an added importance. He really was the smartest old thing, she thought, looking at him this morning with affectionate pride. He looked as though he spent his time in springing in and out of cold baths.
The importance was there too. He had the _Glebshire Morning News_ propped up in front of him, and every now and then he would poke his fine head up over it and look at his children and the breakfast-table and give them a little of the world"s news. In former days it had been only at the risk of their little lives that they had spoken to one another. Now, although restrictions had broken down, they would always hear, if their voices were loud:
"Come, children...come, come. Mayn"t your father read the newspaper in quiet? Plenty of time to chatter during the rest of the day."
He would break forth into little sentences and exclamations as he read.
"Well, that"s settled Burnett"s hash.--Serve him right, too.... Dear, dear, five shillings a hundred now. Phillpott"s going to St. Lummen! What an appointment!..." and so on.
Sometimes he would grow so deeply agitated that he would push the paper away from him and wave vaguely about the table with his hands as though he were learning to swim, letting out at the same time little snorts of indignation and wonder:
"The fools! The idiots! Savage, of all men! Fancy listening to him! Well, they"ll only get what they deserve for their weakness. I wrote to Benson, too--might as well have written to a rhinoceros. Toast, please, Joan!-- Toast, toast. Didn"t you hear me? Savage! What can they be thinking of?
Yes, and b.u.t.ter.... Of course I said b.u.t.ter."
But on "Chapter Days" it was difficult for the newspaper to disturb him.
His mind was filled with thoughts for the plan and policy of the morning.
It was unfortunately impossible for him ever to grasp two things at the same time, and this made his reasoning and the development of any plan that he had rather slow. When the Chapter was to be an important one he would not look at the newspaper at all and would eat scarcely any breakfast. To-day, because the Chapter was a little one, he allowed himself to consider the outside world. That really was the beginning of his misfortune, because the paper this morning contained a very vivid picture of the loss of the _Drummond Castle_. That was an old story by this time, but here was some especial account that provided new details and circ.u.mstances, giving a fresh vivid horror to the scene even at this distance of time.
Brandon tried not to read the thing. He made it a rule that he would not distress himself with the thought of evils that he could not cure. That is what he told himself, but indeed his whole life was spent in warding off and shutting out and refusing to listen.
He had told himself many years ago that it was a perfect world and that G.o.d had made it and that G.o.d was good. To maintain this belief it was necessary that one should not be "Presumptuous." It was "Presumptuous" to imagine for a moment about any single thing that it was a "mistake." If anything _were_ evil or painful it was there to "try and test" us....
A kind of spring-board over the waters of salvation.
Once, some years ago, a wicked atheist had written an article in a magazine manifesting how evil nature was, how the animals preyed upon one another, how everything from the tiniest insect to the largest elephant suffered and suffered and suffered. How even the vegetation lived a short life of agony and frustration, and then fell into foul decay.... Brandon had read the article against his will, and had then hated the writer of it with so deep a hatred that he would have had him horse-whipped, had he had the power. The article upset him for days, and it was only by a.s.serting to himself again and again that it was untrue, by watching kittens at play and birds singing on the branches and roses bursting from bud to bloom, that he could rea.s.sure himself.
Now to-day here was the old distress back again. There was no doubt but that those men and women on the _Drummond Castle_ had suffered in order to win quite securely for themselves a crown of glory. He ought to envy them, to regret that he had not been given the same chance, and yet-- and yet----
He pushed the paper impatiently away from him. It was good that there was nothing important to be discussed at Chapter this morning, because really he was not in the mood to fight battles. He sighed. Why was it always he that had to fight battles? He had indeed the burden of the whole town upon his shoulders. And at that secretly he felt a great joy. He was glad--yes, he was glad that he had....
As he looked over at Joan and Folk he felt tenderly towards them. His reading then about the _Drummond Castle_ made him anxious that they should have a good time and be happy. It might be better for them that they should suffer; nevertheless, if they _could_ be sure of heaven and at the same time not suffer too badly he would be glad.
Suddenly then, across the breakfast-table, a picture drove itself in front of him--a picture of Joan with her baby-face, struggling in the water....
She screamed; she tried to catch on to the side of a boat with her hand.
Some one struck her....
With a shudder of disgust he drove it from him.
"Pah!" he cried aloud, getting up from the table.
"What is it, father?" Joan asked.
"People oughtn"t to be allowed to write such things," he said, and went to his study.
When an hour later he sallied forth to the Chapter Meeting he had recovered his equanimity. His mind now was nailed to the business on hand.
Most innocently as he crossed the Cathedral Green he strutted, his head up, his brow stern, his hands crossed behind his back. The choristers coming in from the choir-school practice in the Cathedral pa.s.sed him in a ragged line. They all touched their mortar-boards and he smiled benignly upon them, reserving a rather stern glance for Brockett, the organist, of whose musical eccentricities he did not at all approve.