CHAPTER XXV
On the following day the somewhat curious religious conversationbetween Arthur and Angela--a conversation which, begun on Arthur'spart out of curiosity, had ended on both sides very much in earnest--the weather broke up and the grand old English climate reasserted itstreacherous supremacy. From summer weather the inhabitants of thecounty of Marlshire suddenly found themselves plunged into a spell ofcold that was by contrast almost Arctic. Storms of sleet drove againstthe window-panes, and there was even a very damaging night-frost,while that dreadful scourge, which nobody in his senses exceptKingsley _can_ ever have liked, the east wind, literally pervaded thewhole place, and went whistling through the surrounding trees andruins in a way calculated to make even a Laplander shiver.
Under these cheerless circumstances our pair of companions--for as yetthey were, ostensibly at any rate, nothing more--gave up their outdoorexcursions and took to rambling over the disused rooms in the oldhouse, and hunting up many a record, some of them valuable and curiousenough, of long-forgotten Caresfoots, and even of the old priorsbefore them; a splendidly illuminated missal being amongst the latterprizes. When this amusement was exhausted, they sat together over thefire in the nursery, and Angela translated to him from her favouriteclassical authors, especially Homer, with an ease and fluency ofexpression that, to Arthur, was little short of miraculous. Or, whenthey got tired of that, he read to her from standard writers, which,elaborate as her education had been, in certain respects, she hadscarcely yet even opened, notably Shakespeare and Milton. Needless tosay, herself imbued with a strong poetic feeling, these immortalwriters were a source of intense delight to her.
"How is it that Mr. Fraser never gave you Shakespeare to read?" askedArthur one day, as he shut up the volume, having come to the end of"Hamlet."
"He said that I should be better able to appreciate it when my mindhad been prepared to do so by the help of a classical and mathematicaleducation, and that it would be 'a mistake to cloy my mental palatewith sweets before I had learnt to appreciate their flavours.'"
"There is some sense in that," remarked Arthur. "By the way, how arethe verses you promised to write me getting on? Have you done themyet?"
"I have done something," she answered, modestly, "but I really do notthink that they are worth producing. It is very tiresome of you tohave remembered about them."
Arthur, however, by this time knew enough of Angela's abilities to besure that her "something" would be something more or less worthhearing, and mildly insisted on their production, and then, to herconfusion, on her reading them aloud. They ran as follows, andwhatever Angela's opinion of them may have been, the reader shalljudge of them for himself:
A STORM ON THE STRINGS
"The minstrel sat in his lonely room, Its walls were bare, and the twilight grey Fell and crept and gathered to gloom; It came like the ghost of the dying day, And the chords fell hushed and low. Pianissimo!
"His arm was raised, and the violin Quivered and shook with the strain it bore, While the swelling forth of the sounds within Rose with a sweetness unknown before, And the chords fell soft and low. Piano!
"The first cold flap of the tempest's wings Clashed with the silence before the storm, The raindrops pattered across the strings As the gathering thunder-clouds took form-- Drip, drop, high and low. Staccato!
"Heavily rolling the thunder roared, Sudden and jagged the lightning played, Faster and faster the raindrops poured, Sobbing and surging the tree-crests swayed, Cracking and crashing above, below. Crescendo!
"The wind tore howling across the wold, And tangled his train in the groaning trees, Wrapped the dense clouds in his mantle cold, Then shivered and died in a wailing breeze, Whistling and weeping high and low, Sostenuto!
"A pale sun broke from the driving cloud, And flashed in the raindrops serenely cool: At the touch of his finger the forest bowed, As it shimmered and glanced in the ruffled pool, While the rustling leaves soughed soft and low. Gracioso!
"It was only a dream on the throbbing strings, An echo of Nature in phantasy wrought, A breath of her breath and a touch of her wings From a kingdom outspread in the regions of thought. Below rolled the sound of the city's din, And the fading day, as the night drew in, Showed the quaint old face and the pointed chin, And the arm that was raised o'er the violin, As the old man whispered his hope's dead tale, To the friend who could comfort, though others might fail, And the chords stole hushed and low. Pianissimo!"
He stopped, and the sheet of paper fell from his hands.
"Well," she said, with all the eagerness of a new-born writer, "tellme, do you think them _very_ bad?"
"Well, Angela, you know----"
"Ah! go on now; I am ready to be crushed. Pray don't spare myfeelings."
"I was about to say that, thanks be to Providence, I am not a critic;but I think----"
"Oh! yes, let me hear what you think. You are speaking so slowly, inorder to get time to invent something extra cutting. Well, I deserveit."
"Don't interrupt; I was going to say that I think the piece above theaverage of second-class poetry, and that a few of the lines touch thefirst-class standard. You have caught something of the 'divineafflatus' that the drunken old fellow said he could not cage. But I donot think that you will ever be popular as a writer of verses if youkeep to that style; I doubt if there is a magazine in the kingdom thatwould take those lines unless they were by a known writer. They wouldreturn them marked, 'Good, but too vague for the general public.'Magazine editors don't like lines from 'a kingdom outspread in theregions of thought,' for, as they say, such poems are apt to excitevagueness in the brains of that dim entity, the 'general public.' Whatthey do like are commonplace ideas, put in pretty language, andsweetened with sentimentality or emotional religious feelings, such asthe thinking powers of their subscribers are competent to absorbwithout mental strain, and without leaving their accustomed channels.To be popular it is necessary to be commonplace, or at the least todescribe the commonplace, to work in a well-worn groove, and not tostartle--requirements which, unfortunately, simple as they seem, veryfew persons possess the art of acting up to. See what happens to theunfortunate novelist, for instance, who dares to break the unwrittenlaw, and defraud his readers of the orthodox transformation scene ofthe reward of virtue and the discomfiture of vice; or to make hiscreation finish up in a way that, however well it may be suited to itstenor, or illustrate its more subtle meaning, is contrary to the'general reader's' idea as to how it should end--badly, as it iscalled. He simply collapses, to rise no more, if he is new at thetrade, and, if he is a known man, that book won't sell."
"You talk quite feelingly," said Angela, who was getting rather bored,and wanted, not unnaturally, to hear more about her own lines.
"Yes," replied Arthur, grimly; "I do. Once I was fool enough to writea book, but I must tell you that it is a painful subject with me. Itnever came out. Nobody would have it."
"Oh! Arthur, I am so sorry; I should like to read your book. But, asregards the verses, I am glad that you like them, and I really don'tcare what a hypothetical general public would say; I wrote them toplease you, not the general public."
"Well, my dear, I am sure I am much obliged to you; I shall value themdoubly, once for the giver's sake, and once for their own."
Angela blushed, but did not reprove the term of endearment which hadslipped unawares from his lips. Poet
ry is a dangerous subject betweentwo young people who at heart adore one another; it is apt to excitethe brain, and bring about startling revelations.
The day following the reading of Angela's piece of poetry was renderedremarkable by two events, of which the first was that the weathersuddenly turned a somersault, and became beautifully warm; and thesecond that news reached the Abbey House that, thanks chiefly to LadyBellamy's devoted nursing--who, fearless of infection, had, to thegreat admiration of all her neighbours, volunteered her services whenno nurse could be found to undertake the case--George was pronouncedout of danger. This piece of news was peculiarly grateful to Philip,for, had his cousin died, the estates must have passed away for everunder the terms of his uncle's will, for he knew that George had madenone. Angela, too, tried, like a good girl as she was, to lash herselfinto enthusiasm about it, though in her heart she went as near hatingher cousin, since his attempted indignity towards herself, as hergentle nature would allow. Arthur alone was cynically indifferent; hehated George without any reservation whatsoever.
And after this their came for our pair of embryo lovers some ten ortwelve such happy days (for there was no talk of Arthur's departure,Philip having on several occasions pointedly told him that the housewas at his disposal for as long as he chose to remain in it). The skywas blue in those days, or only flecked with summer clouds, just asArthur and Angela's perfect companionship was flecked and shaded withthe deeper hues of dawning passion. Alas, the sky in this terrestrialclime is never _quite_ blue!
But as yet nothing of love had passed between them, no kiss or word ofendearment; only when hand touched hand a strange thrill had movedthem both, and sent the warm blood to stain Angela's clear brow, likea wavering tint of sunlight thrown upon the marble features of somewhite Venus; only in each other's eyes they found a holy mystery. Thespell was not yet fully at work, but the wand of earth's greatenchanter had touched them, and they were changed. Angela is hardlythe same girl she was when we met her a little more than a fortnightback. A nameless change has come over her face and manner; the merrysmile, once so bright, has grown softer and more sweet, and thelaughing light of her grey eyes has given place to a look of some suchgratitude and wonder, as that with which the traveller in lonelydeserts gazes on the oasis of his perfect rest.
Many times Arthur had almost blurted out the truth to the woman hepassionately adored, and every day so added to the suppressed fire ofhis love that at length he felt that he could not keep his secret tohimself much longer. And yet he feared to tell it; better, he thought,to live happy, if in doubt, than to risk all his fortune on a singlethrow, for before his eyes there lay the black dread of failure; andthen, what would life be worth? Here with Angela he lived in a Gardenof Eden that no forebodings, no anxieties, no fear of that partiallyscotched serpent George, could render wretched, so long as it wasgladdened by the presence of her whom he hoped to make his Eve. Butwithout, and around where she could not be, there was nothing butclods and thistles and a black desolation that, even in imagination,he dared not face.
And Angela, gazing on veiled mysteries with wondering eyes, was shehappy during those spring-tide days? Almost; but still there was inher heart a consciousness of effort, a sense of transformation andknowledge of the growth of hidden things. The bud bursting into theglory of the rose, must, if there be feeling in a rose, undergo somesuch effort before it can make its beauty known; the butterfly butnewly freed from the dull husk that hid its splendours, at first mustfeel the imperfect wings it stretches in the sun to be irksome to itsunaccustomed sense. And so it was with Angela; she spread her half-grown wings in the sun of her new existence, and found them strange,not knowing as yet that they were shaped to bear her to the flower-crowned heights of love.
Hers was one of those rare natures in which the passion that we knowby the generic term of love, approached as near perfection as ispossible in our human hearts. For there are many sorts and divisionsof love, ranging from the affection, pure, steady, and divine, that isshowered upon us from above, to the degrading madness of such a one asGeorge Caresfoot. It is surely one of the saddest evidences of ourpoor humanity that, even among the purest of us, there are none whocan altogether rid the whiteness of the love they have to offer of itsearthly stain. Indeed, if we could so far conquer the promptings ofour nature as to love with perfect purity, we should become likeangels. But, just as white flowers are sometimes to be found on theblackest peak, so there do bloom in the world spirits as pure as theyare rare--so free from evil, so closely shadowed by the Almighty wing,that they can almost reach to this perfection. Then the love they haveto give is too refined, too holy and strong, to be understood of themass of men: often it is squandered on some unequal and unansweringnature; sometimes it is wisely offered up to Him from whom it came.
We gaze upon an ice-bound river, and there is nothing to tell us thatbeneath that white cloak its current rushes to the ocean. Butpresently the spring comes, the prisoned waters burst their fetters,and we see a glad torrent sparkling in the sunlight. And so it waswith our heroine's heart; the breath of Arthur's passion and the lightof Arthur's eyes had beat upon it, and almost freed the river of itslove. Already the listener might hear the ice-sheets crack and start;soon they will be gone, and her deep devotion will set as strongtowards him as the tide of the torrent towards its receiving sea.
"Fine writing!" perhaps the reader will say; but surely none too fineto describe the most beautiful thing in this strange world, theirrevocable gift of a good woman's love!
However that may be, it will have served its purpose if it makes itclear that a crisis is at hand in the affairs of the heart of two ofthe central actors on this mimic stage.