But St. John did not agree. He said that he thought one could really make a great deal of difference by one"s point of view, books and so on, and added that few things at the present time mattered more than the enlightenment of women. He sometimes thought that almost everything was due to education.
In the ballroom, meanwhile, the dancers were being formed into squares for the lancers.av Arthur and Rachel, Susan and Hewet, Miss Allan and Hughling Elliot found themselves together. Arthur and Rachel, Susan and Hewet, Miss Allan and Hughling Elliot found themselves together.
Miss Allan looked at her watch.
"Half-past one," she stated. And I have to despatch Alexander Pope to-morrow"
"Pope!" snorted Mr. Elliot. "Who reads Pope, I should like to know? And as for reading about him - No, no, Miss Allan; be persuaded you will benefit the world much more by dancing than by writing." It was one of Mr. Elliot"s affectations that nothing in the world could compare with the delights of dancing - nothing in the world was so tedious as literature. Thus he sought pathetically enough to ingratiate himself with the young, and to prove to them beyond a doubt that though married to a ninny of a wife, and rather pale and bent and careworn by his weight of learning, he was as much alive as the youngest of them all.
"It"s a question of bread and b.u.t.ter," said Miss Allan calmly. "However, they seem to expect me." She took up her position and pointed a square black toe.
"Mr. Hewet, you bow to me." It was evident at once that Miss Allan was the only one of them who had a thoroughly sound knowledge of the figures of the dance.
After the lancers there was a waltz; after the waltz a polka; and then a terrible thing happened; the music, which had been sounding regularly with five-minute pauses, stopped suddenly. The lady with the great dark eyes began to swathe her violin in silk, and the gentleman placed his horn carefully in its case. They were surrounded by couples imploring them in English, in French, in Spanish, for one more dance, one only; it was still early. But the old man at the piano merely exhibited his watch and shook his head. He turned up the collar of his coat and produced a red silk m.u.f.fler, which completely dashed his festive appearance. Strange as it seemed, the musicians were pale and heavy-eyed; they looked bored and prosaic, as if the summit of their desire was cold meat and beer, succeeded immediately by bed.
Rachel was one of those who had begged them to continue. When they refused she began turning over the sheets of dance music which lay upon the piano. The pieces were generally bound in coloured covers, with pictures on them of romantic scenes - gondoliers astride on the crescent of the moon, nuns peering through the bars of a convent window, or young women with their hair down pointing a gun at the stars. She remembered that the general effect of the music to which they had danced so gaily was one of pa.s.sionate regret for dead love and the innocent years of youth; dreadful sorrows had always separated the dancers from their past happiness.
"No wonder they get sick of playing stuff like this," she remarked, reading a bar or two; "they"re really hymn tunes, played very fast, with bits out of Wagner and Beethoven."
"Do you play? Would you play? Anything, so long as we can dance to it!" From all sides her gift for playing the piano was insisted upon, and she had to consent. As very soon she had played the only pieces of dance music she could remember, she went on to play an air from a sonata by Mozart.
"But that"s not a dance," said some one pausing by the piano.
"It is," she replied, emphatically nodding her head. "Invent the steps." Sure of her melody she marked the rhythm boldly so as to simplify the way. Helen caught the idea; seized Miss Allan by the arm, and whirled round the room, now curtseying, now spinning round, now tripping this way and that like a child skipping through a meadow.
"This is the dance for people who don"t know how to dance!" she cried. The tune changed to a minuet; St. John hopped with incredible swiftness first on his left leg, then on his right; the tune flowed melodiously; Hewet, swaying his arms and holding out the tails of his coat, swam down the room in imitation of the voluptuous dreamy dance of an Indian maiden dancing before her Rajah. The tune marched; and Miss Allan advanced with skirts extended and bowed profoundly to the engaged pair. Once their feet fell in with the rhythm they showed a complete lack of self-consciousness. From Mozart Rachel pa.s.sed without stopping to old English hunting songs, carols, and hymn tunes, for, as she had observed, any good tune, with a little management, became a tune one could dance to. By degrees every person in the room was tripping and turning in pairs or alone. Mr. Pepper executed an ingenious pointed step derived from figure-skating, for which he once held some local championship; while Mrs. Thornbury tried to recall an old country dance which she had seen danced by her father"s tenants in Dorsetshire in the old days. As for Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, they gallopaded round and round the room with such impetuosity that the other dancers shivered at their approach. Some people were heard to criticise the performance as a romp; to others it was the most enjoyable part of the evening.
"Now for the great round dance!" Hewet shouted. Instantly a gigantic circle was formed, the dancers holding hands and shouting out, "D"you ken John Peel,"aw as they swung faster and faster and faster, until the strain was too great, and one link of the chain - Mrs. Thornbury - gave way, and the rest went flying across the room in all directions, to land upon the floor or the chairs or in each other"s arms as seemed most convenient. as they swung faster and faster and faster, until the strain was too great, and one link of the chain - Mrs. Thornbury - gave way, and the rest went flying across the room in all directions, to land upon the floor or the chairs or in each other"s arms as seemed most convenient.
Rising from these positions, breathless and unkempt, it struck them for the first time that the electric lights p.r.i.c.ked the air very vainly, and instinctively a great many eyes turned to the windows. Yes - there was the dawn. While they had been dancing the night had pa.s.sed, and it had come. Outside, the mountains showed very pure and remote; the dew was sparkling on the gra.s.s, and the sky was flushed with blue, save for the pale yellows and pinks in the East. The dancers came crowding to the windows, pushed them open, and here and there ventured a foot upon the gra.s.s.
"How silly the poor old lights look!" said Evelyn M. in a curiously subdued tone of voice. "And ourselves; it isn"t becoming." It was true; the untidy hair, and the green and yellow gems, which had seemed so festive half an hour ago, now looked cheap and slovenly. The complexions of the elder ladies suffered terribly, and, as if conscious that a cold eye had been turned upon them, they began to say good-night and to make their way up to bed.
Rachel, though robbed of her audience, had gone on playing to herself. From John Peel she pa.s.sed to Bach, who was at this time the subject of her intense enthusiasm, and one by one some of the younger dancers came in from the garden and sat upon the deserted gilt chairs round the piano, the room being now so clear that they turned out the lights. As they sat and listened, their nerves were quieted; the heat and soreness of their lips, the result of incessant talking and laughing, was smoothed away. They sat very still as if they saw a building with s.p.a.ces and columns succeeding each other rising in the empty s.p.a.ce. Then they began to see themselves and their lives, and the whole of human life advancing very n.o.bly under the direction of the music. They felt themselves enn.o.bled, and when Rachel stopped playing they desired nothing but sleep.
Susan rose. "I think this has been the happiest night of my life!" she exclaimed. "I do adore music," she said, as she thanked Rachel. "It just seems to say all the things one can"t say oneself." She gave a nervous little laugh and looked from one to another with great benignity, as though she would like to say something but could not find the words in which to express it. "Every one"s been so kind - so very kind," she said. Then she too went to bed.
The party having ended in the very abrupt way in which parties do end, Helen and Rachel stood by the door with their cloaks on, looking for a carriage.
"I suppose you realise that there are no carriages left?" said St. John, who had been out to look. "You must sleep here."
"Oh, no," said Helen; "we shall walk."
"May we come too?" Hewet asked. "We can"t go to bed. Imagine lying among bolsters and looking at one"s washstand on a morning like this - Is that where you live?"
They had begun to walk down the avenue, and he turned and pointed at the white and green villa on the hillside, which seemed to have its eyes shut.
"That"s not a light burning, is it?" Helen asked anxiously.
"It"s the sun," said St. John. The upper windows had each a spot of gold on them.
"I was afraid it was my husband, still reading Greek," she said. "All this time he"s been editing Pindar." Pindar."
They pa.s.sed through the town and turned up the steep road, which was perfectly clear, though still unbordered by shadows. Partly because they were tired, and partly because the early light subdued them, they scarcely spoke, but breathed in the delicious fresh air, which seemed to belong to a different state of life from the air at midday. When they came to the high yellow wall, where the lane turned off from the road, Helen was for dismissing the two young men.
"You"ve come far enough," she said. "Go back to bed."
But they seemed unwilling to move.
"Let"s sit down a moment," said Hewet. He spread his coat on the ground. "Let"s sit down and consider." They sat down and looked out over the bay; it was very still, the sea was rippling faintly, and lines of green and blue were beginning to stripe it. There were no sailing boats as yet, but a steamer was anch.o.r.ed in the bay, looking very ghostly in the mist; it gave one unearthly cry, and then all was silent.
Rachel occupied herself in collecting one grey stone after another and building them into a little cairn; she did it very quietly and carefully.
And so you"ve changed your view of life, Rachel?" said Helen.
Rachel added another stone and yawned. "I don"t remember," she said, "I feel like a fish at the bottom of the sea." She yawned again. None of these people possessed any power to frighten her out here in the dawn, and she felt perfectly familiar even with Mr. Hirst.
"My brain, on the contrary," said Hirst, "is in a condition of abnormal activity." He sat in his favourite position with his arms binding his legs together and his chin resting on the top of his knees. "I see through everything - absolutely everything. Life has no more mysteries for me." He spoke with conviction, but did not appear to wish for an answer. Near though they sat, and familiar though they felt, they seemed mere shadows to each other.
And all those people down there going to sleep," Hewet began dreamily, "thinking such different things, - Miss Warrington, I suppose, is now on her knees; the Elliots are a little startled, it"s not often they get out of breath, and they want to get to sleep as quickly as possible; then there"s the poor lean young man who danced all night with Evelyn; he"s putting his flower in water and asking himself, "Is this love?" - and poor old Perrott, I daresay, can"t get to sleep at all, and is reading his favourite Greek book to console himself - and the others - no, Hirst," he wound up, "I don"t find it simple at all."
"I have a key," said Hirst cryptically. His chin was still upon his knees and his eyes fixed in front of him.
A silence followed. Then Helen rose and bade them good-night. "But," she said, "remember that you"ve got to come and see us."
They waved good-night and parted, but the two young men did not go back to the hotel; they went for a walk, during which they scarcely spoke, and never mentioned the names of the two women, who were, to a considerable extent, the subject of their thoughts. They did not wish to share their impressions. They returned to the hotel in time for breakfast.
CHAPTER XIII.
THERE WERE MANY ROOMS in the villa, but one room which possessed a character of its own because the door was always shut, and no sound of music or laughter issued from it. Every one in the house was vaguely conscious that something went on behind that door, and without in the least knowing what it was, were influenced in their own thoughts by the knowledge that if they pa.s.sed it the door would be shut, and if they made a noise Mr. Ambrose inside would be disturbed. Certain acts therefore possessed merit, and others were bad, so that life became more harmonious and less disconnected than it would have been had Mr. Ambrose given up editing Pindar, Pindar, and taken to a nomad existence, in and out of every room in the house. As it was, every one was conscious that by observing certain rules, such as punctuality and quiet, by cooking well, and performing other small duties, one ode after another was satisfactorily restored to the world, and they shared the continuity of the scholar"s life. Unfortunately, as age puts one barrier between human beings, and learning another, and s.e.x a third, Mr. Ambrose in his study was some thousand miles distant from the nearest human being, who in this household was inevitably a woman. He sat hour after hour among white-leaved books, alone like an idol in an empty church, still except for the pa.s.sage of his hand from one side of the sheet to another, silent save for an occasional choke, which drove him to extend his pipe a moment in the air. As he worked his way further and further into the heart of the poet, his chair became more and more deeply encircled by books, which lay open on the floor, and could only be crossed by a careful process of stepping, so delicate that his visitors generally stopped and addressed him from the outskirts. and taken to a nomad existence, in and out of every room in the house. As it was, every one was conscious that by observing certain rules, such as punctuality and quiet, by cooking well, and performing other small duties, one ode after another was satisfactorily restored to the world, and they shared the continuity of the scholar"s life. Unfortunately, as age puts one barrier between human beings, and learning another, and s.e.x a third, Mr. Ambrose in his study was some thousand miles distant from the nearest human being, who in this household was inevitably a woman. He sat hour after hour among white-leaved books, alone like an idol in an empty church, still except for the pa.s.sage of his hand from one side of the sheet to another, silent save for an occasional choke, which drove him to extend his pipe a moment in the air. As he worked his way further and further into the heart of the poet, his chair became more and more deeply encircled by books, which lay open on the floor, and could only be crossed by a careful process of stepping, so delicate that his visitors generally stopped and addressed him from the outskirts.
On the morning after the dance, however, Rachel came into her uncle"s room and hailed him twice, "Uncle Ridley," before he paid her any attention.
At length he looked over his spectacles.
"Well?" he asked.
"I want a book," she replied. "Gibbon"s History of the Roman Empire. History of the Roman Empire. May I have it?" May I have it?"
She watched the lines on her uncle"s face gradually rearrange themselves at her question. It had been smooth as a mask before she spoke.
"Please say that again," said her uncle, either because he had not heard or because he had not understood.
She repeated the same words and reddened slightly as she did so.
"Gibbon! What on earth d"you want him for?" he enquired.
"Somebody advised me to read it," Rachel stammered.
"But I don"t travel about with a miscellaneous collection of eighteenth-century historians!" her uncle exclaimed. "Gibbon! Ten big volumes at least."
Rachel said that she was sorry to interrupt, and was turning to go.
"Stop!" cried her uncle. He put down his pipe, placed his book on one side, and rose and led her slowly round the room, holding her by the arm. "Plato," he said, laying one finger on the first of a row of small dark books, "and Jorrocksax next door, which is wrong. Sophocles, Swift. You don"t care for German commentators, I presume. French, then. You read French? You should read Balzac. Then we come to Wordsworth and Coleridge. Pope, Johnson, Addison, Wordsworth, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats. One thing leads to another. Why is Marlowe here? Mrs. Chailey, I presume. But what"s the use of reading if you don"t read Greek? After all, if you read Greek, you need never read anything else, pure waste of time - pure waste of time," thus speaking half to himself, with quick movements of his hands; they had come round again to the circle of books on the floor, and their progress was stopped. next door, which is wrong. Sophocles, Swift. You don"t care for German commentators, I presume. French, then. You read French? You should read Balzac. Then we come to Wordsworth and Coleridge. Pope, Johnson, Addison, Wordsworth, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats. One thing leads to another. Why is Marlowe here? Mrs. Chailey, I presume. But what"s the use of reading if you don"t read Greek? After all, if you read Greek, you need never read anything else, pure waste of time - pure waste of time," thus speaking half to himself, with quick movements of his hands; they had come round again to the circle of books on the floor, and their progress was stopped.
"Well," he demanded, "which shall it be?"
"Balzac," said Rachel, "or have you the Speech on the American Revolution, Speech on the American Revolution, Uncle Ridley?" Uncle Ridley?"
"The Speech on the American Revolution?" he asked. He looked at her very keenly again. Another young man at the dance?" he asked. He looked at her very keenly again. Another young man at the dance?"
"No. That was Mr. Dalloway," she confessed.
"Good Lord!" he flung back his head in recollection of Mr. Dalloway.
She chose for herself a volume at random, submitted it to her uncle, who, seeing that it was La Cousine Bette, La Cousine Bette,ay bade her throw it away if she found it too horrible, and was about to leave him when he demanded whether she had enjoyed her dance? bade her throw it away if she found it too horrible, and was about to leave him when he demanded whether she had enjoyed her dance?
He then wanted to know what people did at dances, seeing that he had only been to one thirty-five years ago, when nothing had seemed to him more meaningless and idiotic. Did they enjoy turning round and round to the screech of a fiddle? Did they talk, and say pretty things, and if so, why didn"t they do it under reasonable conditions? As for himself - he sighed, and pointed at the signs of industry lying all about him, which, in spite of his sigh, filled his face with such satisfaction that his niece thought good to leave. On bestowing a kiss she was allowed to go, but not until she had bound herself to learn at any rate the Greek alphabet, and to return her French novel when done with, upon which something more suitable would be found for her.
As the rooms in which people live are apt to give off something of the same shock as their faces when seen for the first time, Rachel walked very slowly downstairs, lost in wonder at her uncle, and his books, and his neglect of dances, and his queer, utterly inexplicable, but apparently satisfactory view of life, when her eye was caught by a note with her name on it lying in the hall. The address was written in a small strong hand unknown to her, and the note, which had no beginning, ran: - I send the first volume of Gibbon as I promised. Personally I find little to be said for the moderns, but I"m going to send you Wedekindaz when I"ve done him. Donne? Have you read Webster and all that set? I envy you reading them for the first time. Completely exhausted after last night. And you? when I"ve done him. Donne? Have you read Webster and all that set? I envy you reading them for the first time. Completely exhausted after last night. And you?
The flourish of initials which she took to be St. J.A.H., wound up the letter. She was very much flattered that Mr. Hirst should have remembered her, and fulfilled his promise so quickly.
There was still an hour to luncheon, and with Gibbon in one hand, and Balzac in the other she strolled out of the gate and down the little path of beaten mud between the olive trees on the slope of the hill. It was too hot for climbing hills, but along the valley there were trees and a gra.s.s path running by the river bed. In this land where the population was centred in the towns it was possible to lose sight of civilisation in a very short time, pa.s.sing only an occasional farmhouse, where the women were handling red roots in the courtyard; or a little boy lying on his elbows on the hillside surrounded by a flock of black strong-smelling goats. Save for a thread of water at the bottom, the river was merely a deep channel of dry yellow stones. On the bank grew those trees which Helen had said it was worth the voyage out merely to see. April had burst their buds, and they bore large blossoms among their glossy leaves with petals of a thick wax-like substance coloured an exquisite cream or pink or deep crimson. But filled with one of those unreasonable exultations which start generally from an unknown cause, and sweep whole countries and skies into their embrace, she walked without seeing. The night was encroaching upon the day. Her ears hummed with the tunes she had played the night before; she sang, and the singing made her walk faster and faster. She did not see distinctly where she was going, the trees and the landscape appearing only as ma.s.ses of green and blue, with an occasional s.p.a.ce of differently coloured sky. Faces of people she had seen last night came before her; she heard their voices; she stopped singing, and began saying things over again or saying things differently, or inventing things that might have been said. The constraint of being among strangers in a long silk dress made it unusually exciting to stride thus alone. Hewet, Hirst, Mr. Venning, Miss Allan, the music, the light, the dark trees in the garden, the dawn, - as she walked they went surging round in her head, a tumultuous background from which the present moment, with its opportunity for doing exactly as she liked, sprung more wonderfully vivid even than the night before.
So she might have walked until she had lost all knowledge of her way, had it not been for the interruption of a tree, which, although it did not grow across her path, stopped her as effectively as if the branches had struck her in the face. It was an ordinary tree, but to her it appeared so strange that it might have been the only tree in the world. Dark was the trunk in the middle, and the branches sprang here and there, leaving jagged intervals of light between them as distinctly as if it had but that second risen from the ground. Having seen a sight that would last her for a lifetime, and for a lifetime would preserve that second, the tree once more sank into the ordinary ranks of trees, and she was able to seat herself in its shade and to pick the red flowers with the thin green leaves which were growing beneath it. She laid them side by side, flower to flower and stalk to stalk, caressing them for, walking alone, flowers and even pebbles in the earth had their own life and disposition, and brought back the feelings of a child to whom they were companions. Looking up, her eye was caught by the line of the mountains flying out energetically across the sky like the lash of a curling whip. She looked at the pale distant sky, and the high bare places on the mountain-tops lying exposed to the sun. When she sat down she had dropped her books on to the earth at her feet, and now she looked down on them lying there, so square in the gra.s.s, a tall stem bending over and tickling the smooth brown cover of Gibbon, while the mottled blue Balzac lay naked in the sun. With a feeling that to open and read would certainly be a surprising experience, she turned the historian"s page and read that - His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the reduction of Aethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a thousand miles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the climate soon repelled the invaders and protected the unwarlike natives of those sequestered regions ... The northern countries of Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labour of conquest. The forests and mora.s.ses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from freedom.ba Never had any words been so vivid and so beautiful - Arabia Felix - Aethiopia. But those were not more n.o.ble than the others, hardy barbarians, forests, and mora.s.ses. They seemed to drive roads back to the very beginning of the world, on either side of which the populations of all times and countries stood in avenues, and by pa.s.sing down them all knowledge would be hers, and the book of the world turned back to the very first page. Such was her excitement at the possibilities of knowledge now opening before her that she ceased to read, and a breeze turning the page, the covers of Gibbon gently ruffled and closed together. She then rose again and walked on. Slowly her mind became less confused and sought the origins of her exaltation, which were twofold and could be limited by an effort to the persons of Mr. Hirst and Mr. Hewet. Any clear a.n.a.lysis of them was impossible owing to the haze of wonder in which they were enveloped. She could not reason about them as about people whose feelings went by the same rule as her own did, and her mind dwelt on them with a kind of physical pleasure such as is caused by the contemplation of bright things hanging in the sun. From them all life seemed to radiate; the very words of books were steeped in radiance. She then became haunted by a suspicion which she was so reluctant to face that she welcomed a trip and stumble over the gra.s.s because thus her attention was dispersed, but in a second it had collected itself again. Unconsciously she had been walking faster and faster, her body trying to outrun her mind; but she was now on the summit of a little hillock of earth which rose above the river and displayed the valley. She was no longer able to juggle with several ideas, but must deal with the most persistent, and a kind of melancholy replaced her excitement. She sank down on to the earth, clasping her knees together, and looking blankly in front of her. For some time she observed a great yellow b.u.t.terfly, which was opening and closing its wings very slowly on a little flat stone.
"What is it to be in love?" she demanded, after a long silence; each word as it came into being seemed to shove itself out into an unknown sea. Hypnotised by the wings of the b.u.t.terfly, and awed by the discovery of a terrible possibility in life, she sat for some time longer. When the b.u.t.terfly flew away, she rose, and with her two books beneath her arm returned home again, much as a soldier prepared for battle.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SUN OF THAT same day going down, dusk was saluted as usual at the hotel by an instantaneous sparkle of electric lights. The hours between dinner and bedtime were always difficult enough to kill, and the night after the dance they were further tarnished by the peevishness of dissipation. Certainly, in the opinion of Hirst and Hewet, who lay back in long arm-chairs in the middle of the hall, with their coffee-cups beside them, and their cigarettes in their hands, the evening was unusually dull, the women unusually badly dressed, the men unusually fatuous. Moreover, when the mail had been distributed half an hour ago there were no letters for either of the two young men. As every other person, practically, had received two or three plump letters from England, which they were now engaged in reading, this seemed hard, and prompted Hirst to make the caustic remark that the animals had been fed. Their silence, he said, reminded him of the silence in the lion-house when each beast holds a lump of raw meat in its paws. He went on, stimulated by this comparison, to liken some to hippopotamuses, some to canary birds, some to swine, some to parrots, and some to loathsome reptiles curled round the half-decayed bodies of sheep. The intermittent sounds - now a cough, now a horrible wheezing or throat-clearing, now a little patter of conversation - were just, he declared, what you hear if you stand in the lion-house when the bones are being mauled. But these comparisons did not rouse Hewet, who, after a careless glance round the room, fixed his eyes upon a thicket of native spears which were so ingeniously arranged as to run their points at you whichever way you approached them. He was clearly oblivious of his surroundings; whereupon Hirst, perceiving that Hewet"s mind was a complete blank, fixed his attention more closely upon his fellow-creatures. He was too far from them, however, to hear what they were saying, but it pleased him to construct little theories about them from their gestures and appearance.
Mrs. Thornbury had received a great many letters. She was completely engrossed in them. When she had finished a page she handed it to her husband, or gave him the sense of what she was reading in a series of short quotations linked together by a sound at the back of her throat. "Evie writes that George has gone to Glasgow. "He finds Mr. Chadbourne so nice to work with, and we hope to spend Christmas together, but I should not like to move Betty and Alfred any great distance (no, quite right), though it is difficult to imagine cold weather in this heat ... Eleanor and Roger drove over in the new trap ... Eleanor certainly looked more like herself than I"ve seen her since the winter. She has put Baby on three bottles now, which I"m sure is wise (I"m sure it is too), and so gets better nights ... My hair still falls out. I find it on the pillow! But I am cheered by hearing from Tottie Hall Green ... Muriel is in Torquay enjoying herself greatly at dances. She is going to show her black pug after all." ... A line from Herbert - so busy, poor fellow! Ah! Margaret says, "Poor old Mrs. Fairbank died on the eighth, quite suddenly in the conservatory, only a maid in the house, who hadn"t the presence of mind to lift her up, which they think might have saved her, but the doctor says it might have come at any moment, and one can only feel thankful that it was in her house and not in the street (I should think so!). The pigeons have increased terribly, just as the rabbits did five years ago ..."" While she read her husband kept nodding his head very slightly, but very steadily in sign of approval.
Near by, Miss Allan was reading her letters too. They were not altogether pleasant, as could be seen from the slight rigidity which came over her large fine face as she finished reading them and replaced them neatly in their envelopes. The lines of care and responsibility on her face made her resemble an elderly man rather than a woman. The letters brought her news of the failure of last year"s fruit crop in New Zealand, which was a serious matter, for Hubert, her only brother, made his living on a fruit farm, and if it failed again, of course, he would throw up his place, come back to England, and what were they to do with him this time? The journey out here, which meant the loss of a term"s work, became an extravagance and not the just and wonderful holiday due to her after fifteen years of punctual lecturing and correcting essays upon English literature. Emily, her sister, who was a teacher also, wrote: "We ought to be prepared, though I have no doubt Hubert will be more reasonable this time." And then went on in her sensible way to say that she was enjoying a very jolly time in the Lakes. "They are looking exceedingly pretty just now. I have seldom seen the trees so forward at this time of year. We have taken our lunch out several days. Old Alice is as young as ever, and asks after every one affectionately. The days pa.s.s very quickly, and term will soon be here. Political prospects not not good, I think privately, but do not like to damp Ellen"s enthusiasm. Lloyd George has taken the Bill up, good, I think privately, but do not like to damp Ellen"s enthusiasm. Lloyd George has taken the Bill up,bb but so have many before now, and we are where we are; but trust to find myself mistaken. Anyhow, we have our work cut out for us ... Surely Meredith lacks the but so have many before now, and we are where we are; but trust to find myself mistaken. Anyhow, we have our work cut out for us ... Surely Meredith lacks the human human note one likes in W.W.?" she concluded, and went on to discuss some questions of English literature which Miss Allan had raised in her last letter. note one likes in W.W.?" she concluded, and went on to discuss some questions of English literature which Miss Allan had raised in her last letter.
At a little distance from Miss Allan, on a seat shaded and made semi-private by a thick clump of palm trees, Arthur and Susan were reading each other"s letters. The big slashing ma.n.u.scripts of hockey-playing young women in Wiltshire lay on Arthur"s knee, while Susan deciphered tight little legal hands which rarely filled more than a page, and always conveyed the same impression of jocular and breezy goodwill.
"I do hope Mr. Hutchinson will like me, Arthur," she said, looking up.
"Who"s your loving Flo?" asked Arthur.
"Flo Graves - the girl I told you about, who was engaged to that dreadful Mr. Vincent," said Susan. "Is Mr. Hutchinson married?" she asked.
Already her mind was busy with benevolent plans for her friends, or rather with one magnificent plan - which was simple too - they were all to get married - at once - directly she got back. Marriage, marriage, that was the right thing, the only thing, the solutionrequired by every one she knew, and a great part of her meditations was spent in tracing every instance of discomfort, loneliness, ill-health, unsatisfied ambition, restlessness, eccentricity, taking things up and dropping them again, public speaking, and philanthropic activity on the part of men and particularly on the part of women to the fact that they wanted to marry, were trying to marry, and had not succeeded in getting married. If, as she was bound to own, these symptoms sometimes persisted after marriage, she could only ascribe them to the unhappy law of nature which decreed that there was only one Arthur Venning, and only one Susan who could marry him. Her theory, of course, had the merit of being fully supported by her own case. She had been vaguely uncomfortable at home for two or three years now, and a voyage like this with her selfish old aunt, who paid her fare but treated her as servant and companion in one, was typical of the kind of thing people expected of her. Directly she became engaged, Mrs. Paley behaved with instinctive respect, positively protested when Susan as usual knelt down to lace her shoes, and appeared really grateful for an hour of Susan"s company where she had been used to exact two or three as her right. She therefore foresaw a life of far greater comfort than she had been used to, and the change had already produced a great increase of warmth in her feelings towards other people.
It was close on twenty years now since Mrs. Paley had been able to lace her own shoes or even to see them, the disappearance of her feet having coincided more or less accurately with the death of her husband, a man of business, soon after which event Mrs. Paley began to grow stout. She was a selfish, independent old woman, possessed of a considerable income, which she spent upon the upkeep of a house that needed seven servants and a charwoman in Lancaster Gate, and another with a garden and carriage-horses in Surrey. Susan"s engagement relieved her of the one great anxiety of her life - that her son Christopher should "entangle himself" with his cousin. Now that this familiar source of interest was removed, she felt a little low and inclined to see more in Susan than she used to. She had decided to give her a very handsome wedding present, a cheque for two hundred, two hundred and fifty, or possibly, conceivably - it depended upon the undergardener and Huths" bill for doing up the drawing-room - three hundred pounds sterling.
She was thinking of this very question, revolving the figures, as she sat in her wheeled chair with a table spread with cards by her side. The Patience had somehow got into a muddle, and she did not like to call for Susan to help her, as Susan seemed to be busy with Arthur.
"She"s every right to expect a handsome present from me, of course," she thought, looking vaguely at the leopard on its hind legs, "and I"ve no doubt she does! Money goes a long way with every one. The young are very selfish. If I were to die, n.o.body would miss me but Dakyns, and she"ll be consoled by the will! However, I"ve got no reason to complain ... I can still enjoy myself. I"m not a burden to any one ... I like a great many things a good deal, in spite of my legs."
Being slightly depressed, however, she went on to think of the only people she had known who had not seemed to her at all selfish or fond of money, who had seemed to her somehow rather finer than the general run; people, she willingly acknowledged, who were finer than she was. There were only two of them. One was her brother, who had been drowned before her eyes, the other was a girl, her greatest friend, who had died in giving birth to her first child. These things had happened some fifty years ago.
"They ought not to have died," she thought. "However, they did - and we selfish old creatures go on." The tears came to her eyes; she felt a genuine regret for them, a kind of respect for their youth and beauty, and a kind of shame for herself; but the tears did not fall; and she opened one of those innumerable novels which she used to p.r.o.nounce good or bad, or pretty middling, or really wonderful. "I can"t think how people come to imagine such things," she would say, taking off her spectacles and looking up with the old faded eyes, that were becoming ringed with white.
Just behind the stuffed leopard Mr. Elliot was playing chess with Mr. Pepper. He was being defeated, naturally, for Mr. Pepper scarcely took his eyes off the board, and Mr. Elliot kept leaning back in his chair and throwing out remarks to a gentleman who had only arrived the night before, a tall handsome man, with a head resembling the head of an intellectual ram. After a few remarks of a general nature had pa.s.sed, they were discovering that they knew some of the same people, as indeed had been obvious from their appearance directly they saw each other.
"Ah yes, old Truefit," said Mr. Elliot. "He has a son at Oxford. I"ve often stayed with them. It"s a lovely old Jacobean house. Some exquisite Greuzesbc - one or two Dutch pictures which the old boy kept in the cellars. Then there were stacks upon stacks of prints. Oh, the dirt in that house! He was a miser, you know. The boy married a daughter of Lord Pinwell"s. I know them too. The collecting mania tends to run in families. This chap collects buckles - men"s shoe-buckles they must be, in use between the years 1580 and 1660; the dates mayn"t be right, but the fact"s as I say. Your true collector always has some unaccountable fad of that kind. On other points he"s as level-headed as a breeder of shorthorns, which is what he happens to be. Then the Pinwells, as you probably know, have their share of eccentricity too. Lady Maud, for instance - " he was interrupted here by the necessity of considering his move, - "Lady Maud has a horror of cats and clergymen, and people with big front teeth. I"ve heard her shout across a table, "Keep your mouth shut, Miss Smith; they"re as yellow as carrots!" across a table, mind you. To me she"s always been civility itself. She dabbles in literature, likes to collect a few of us in her drawing-room, but mention a clergyman, a bishop even, nay, the Archbishop himself, and she gobbles like a turkey-c.o.c.k. I"ve been told it"s a family feud - something to do with an ancestor in the reign of Charles the First. Yes," he continued, suffering check after check, "I always like to know something of the grandmothers of our fashionable young men. In my opinion they preserve all that we admire in the eighteenth century, with the advantage, in the majority of cases, that they are personally clean. Not that one would insult old Lady Barborough by calling her clean. How often d"you think, Hilda," he called out to his wife, "her ladyship takes a bath?" - one or two Dutch pictures which the old boy kept in the cellars. Then there were stacks upon stacks of prints. Oh, the dirt in that house! He was a miser, you know. The boy married a daughter of Lord Pinwell"s. I know them too. The collecting mania tends to run in families. This chap collects buckles - men"s shoe-buckles they must be, in use between the years 1580 and 1660; the dates mayn"t be right, but the fact"s as I say. Your true collector always has some unaccountable fad of that kind. On other points he"s as level-headed as a breeder of shorthorns, which is what he happens to be. Then the Pinwells, as you probably know, have their share of eccentricity too. Lady Maud, for instance - " he was interrupted here by the necessity of considering his move, - "Lady Maud has a horror of cats and clergymen, and people with big front teeth. I"ve heard her shout across a table, "Keep your mouth shut, Miss Smith; they"re as yellow as carrots!" across a table, mind you. To me she"s always been civility itself. She dabbles in literature, likes to collect a few of us in her drawing-room, but mention a clergyman, a bishop even, nay, the Archbishop himself, and she gobbles like a turkey-c.o.c.k. I"ve been told it"s a family feud - something to do with an ancestor in the reign of Charles the First. Yes," he continued, suffering check after check, "I always like to know something of the grandmothers of our fashionable young men. In my opinion they preserve all that we admire in the eighteenth century, with the advantage, in the majority of cases, that they are personally clean. Not that one would insult old Lady Barborough by calling her clean. How often d"you think, Hilda," he called out to his wife, "her ladyship takes a bath?"
"I should hardly like to say, Hugh," Mrs. Elliot t.i.ttered, "but wearing puce velvet, as she does even on the hottest August day, it somehow doesn"t show."
"Pepper, you have me," said Mr. Elliot. "My chess is even worse than I remembered." He accepted his defeat with great equanimity, because he really wished to talk.
He drew his chair beside Mr. Wilfrid Flushing, the newcomer.
"Are these at all in your line?" he asked, pointing at a case in front of them, where highly polished crosses, jewels, and bits of embroidery, the work of the natives, were displayed to tempt visitors.
"Shams, all of them," said Mr. Flushing briefly. "This rug, now, isn"t at all bad." He stooped and picked up a piece of the rug at their feet. "Not old, of course, but the design is quite in the right tradition. Alice, lend me your brooch. See the difference between the old work and the new."
A lady, who was reading with great concentration, unfastened her brooch and gave it to her husband without looking at him or acknowledging the tentative bow which Mr. Elliot was desirous of giving her. If she had listened, she might have been amused by the reference to old Lady Barborough, his great-aunt, but, oblivious of her surroundings, she went on reading.
The clock, which had been wheezing for some minutes like an old man preparing to cough, now struck nine. The sound slightly disturbed certain somnolent merchants, government officials, and men of independent means who were lying back in their chairs, chatting, smoking, ruminating about their affairs, with their eyes half shut; they raised their lids for an instant at the sound and then closed them again. They had the appearance of crocodiles so fully gorged by their last meal that the future of the world gives them no anxiety whatever. The only disturbance in the placid bright room was caused by a large moth which shot from light to light, whizzing over elaborate heads of hair, and causing several young women to raise their hands nervously and exclaim, "Some one ought to kill it!"
Absorbed in their own thoughts, Hewet and Hirst had not spoken for a long time.
When the clock struck, Hirst said: Ah, the creatures begin to stir ..." He watched them raise themselves, look about them, and settle down again. "What I abhor most of all," he concluded, "is the female beast. Imagine being Venning and having to get into bed with Susan! But the really repulsive thing is that they feel nothing at all - about what I do when I have a hot bath. They"re gross, they"re absurd, they"re utterly intolerable!"
So saying, and drawing no reply from Hewet, he proceeded to think about himself, about science, about Cambridge, about the Bar, about Helen and what she thought of him, until, being very tired, he was nodding off to sleep.
Suddenly Hewet woke him up.
"How d"you know what you feel, Hirst?"
Are you in love?" asked Hirst. He put in his eyegla.s.s.