CHAPTER VI
"My brother will be here directly. He wants to show you his specialbooks," said Miss Wenlock shyly.
The Master's sister was a small and withered lady, who had beensomething of a beauty, and was now the pink of gentle and middle-ageddecorum. She was one of those women it is so easy to ignore till youlive with them. Then you perceive that in their relations to their ownworld, the world they make and govern, they are of the stuff which holdsa country together, without which a country can not exist. She mighthave come out of a Dutch picture--a Terburg or a Metsu--so exquisite wasshe in every detail--her small, white head, her regular features, thelace coif tied under her chin, the ruffles at her wrist, the blackbrocade gown, which never altered in its fashion and which she herselfcut out, year after year, for her maid to make,--the chatelaine of oldNormandy silver, given her by her brother years before, which hung ather waist.
Opposite her sat a very different person, yet of a type no lessprofitable to this mixed life of ours. Mrs. Mulholland was the widow ofa former scientific professor, of great fame in Oxford for his wit andLiberalism. Whenever there was a contest on between science andclericalism in the good old fighting days, Mulholland's ample figuremight have been seen swaying along the road from the Parks toConvocation, his short-sighted eyes blinking at every one he passed, hisfair hair and beard streaming in the wind, a flag of battle to his ownside, and an omen of defeat to the enemy. His _mots_ still circulated,and something of his gift for them had remained with the formidablewoman who now represented him. At a time when short dresses for womenwere coming in universally, she always wore hers long and ample, thoughthey were looped up by various economical and thrifty devices; on thetop of the dress--which might have covered a crinoline, but didn't--ashawl, long after every one else had ceased to wear shawls; and abovethe shawl a hat, of the large mushroom type and indecipherable age. Andin the midst of this antique and generally untidy gear, the youngest andliveliest face imaginable, under snow-white hair: black eyes full ofIrish fun, a pugnacious and humorous mouth, and the general look of oneso steeped in the rich, earthy stuff of life that she might have steppedout of a novel of Fielding's or a page of "Lavengro."
When Constance entered, Mrs. Mulholland turned round suddenly to look ather. It was a glance full of good will, but penetrating also, andcritical. It was as though the person from whom it came had more than amere stranger's interest in the tall young lady in white, now advancingtowards Miss Wenlock.
But she gave no immediate sign of it. She and Miss Wenlock had beendiscussing an Oxford acquaintance, the newly-married wife of one of thehigh officials of the University. Miss Wenlock, always amiable, haddiscreetly pronounced her "charming."
"Oh, so dreadfully charming!" said Mrs. Mulholland with a shrug, "and sosentimental that she hardens every heart. Mine becomes stone when I talkto her. She cried when I went to tea with her--a wedding visit if youplease! I think it was because one of the kangaroos at Blenheim had justdied in childbirth. I told her it was a mercy, considering that any ofthem would hug us to death if they got a chance. Are you asentimentalist, Lady Constance?" Mrs. Mulholland turned gaily to thegirl beside her, but still with the same touch of something coollyobservant in her manner.
Constance laughed.
"I never can cry when I ought to," she said lightly.
"Then you should go to tea with Mrs. Crabbett. She could train anybodyto cry--in time. She cultivates with care, and waters with tears, everysorrow that blows! Most of us run away from our troubles, don't we?"
Constance again smiled assent. But suddenly her face stiffened. It waslike a flower closing, or a light blown out.
Mrs. Mulholland thought--"She has lost a father and a mother within ayear, and I have reminded her. I am a cruel, clumsy wretch."
And thenceforward she roared so gently that Miss Wenlock, who never saida malicious thing herself, and was therefore entirely dependent on SarahMulholland's tongue for the salt of life, felt herself cheated of herusual Sunday entertainment. For there were few Sundays in term-time whenMrs. Mulholland did not "drop in" for tea and talk at Beaumont beforegoing on to the Cathedral service.
But under the gentleness, Constance opened again, and expanded. Mrs.Mulholland seemed to watch her with increasing kindness. At last, shesaid abruptly--
"I have already heard of you from two charming young men."
Constance opened a pair of conscious eyes. It was as though she werealways expecting to hear Falloden's name, and protecting herself againstthe shock of it. But the mistake was soon evident.
"Otto Radowitz told me you had been so kind to him! He is anenthusiastic boy, and a great friend of mine. He deals always insuperlatives. That is so refreshing here in Oxford where we are all soclever that we are deadly afraid of each other, and everybody talksdrab. And his music is divine! I hear they talk of him in Paris asanother Chopin. He passed his first degree examination the other daymagnificently! Come and hear him some evening at my house. Jim Meyrick,too, has told me all about you. His mother is a cousin of mine, and hecondescends occasionally to come and see me. He is, I understand, a'blood.' All I know is that he would be a nice youth, if he had a littlemore will of his own, and had nicer friends!" The small black eyes underthe white hair flamed.
Constance started. Miss Wenlock put up a soothing hand--
"Dear Sarah, are you thinking of any one?"
"Of course I am!" said Mrs. Mulholland firmly. "There is a younggentleman at Marmion who thinks the world belongs to him. Oh, you knowMr. Falloden, Grace! He got the Newdigate last year, and the Greek Versethe other day. He got the Ireland, and he's going to get a First. Hemight have been in the Eleven, if he'd kept his temper, and they sayhe's going to be a magnificent tennis player. And a lot of othertiresome distinctions. I believe he speaks at the Union, and speakswell--bad luck to him!"
Constance laughed, fidgeted, and at last said, rather defiantly--
"It's sometimes a merit to be disliked, isn't it? It means that you'renot exactly like other people. Aren't we all turned out by the gross!"
Mrs. Mulholland looked amused.
"Ah, but you see I know something about this young man at home. Hismother doesn't count. She has her younger children, and they make herhappy. And of course she is absurdly proud of Douglas. But the fatherand this son Douglas are of the same stuff. They have a deal more brainsand education than their forbears ever wanted; but still, in soul, theyremain our feudal lords and superiors, who have a right to the servicesof those beneath them. And everybody is beneath them--especially women;and foreigners--and artists--and people who don't shoot or hunt. Asktheir neighbours--ask their cottagers. Whenever the revolution comes,their heads will be the first to go! At the same time they know--theclever ones--that they can't keep their place except by borrowing theweapons of the class they really fear--the professional class--thewriters and thinkers--the lawyers and journalists. And so they take sometrouble to sharpen their own brains. And the cleverer they are, the moretyrannous they are. And that, if you please, is Mr. Douglas Falloden!"
"I wonder why you are so angry with him, my dear Sarah," said MissWenlock mildly.
"Because he has been bullying my nice boy, Radowitz!" said Mrs.Mulholland vehemently. "I hear there has been a disgraceful amount ofragging in Marmion lately, and that Douglas Falloden--can you conceiveit?--a man in his last term, whom the University imagines itself to beturning out as an educated specimen!--is one of the ring-leaders--thering-leader. It appears that Otto wears a frilled dress shirt--whyshouldn't he?--that, having been brought up in Paris till he wasnineteen, he sometimes tucks his napkin under his chin--that he usesFrench words when he needn't--that he dances like a Frenchman--that herecites French poetry actually of his own making--that he plays too wellfor a gentleman--that he doesn't respect the customs of the college, etcetera. There is a sacred corner of the Junior Common Room, where nofreshman is expected to sit after hall. Otto sat in it--quiteinnocently--knowing nothing--and, instead of apologising, made fun ofJim Meyric
k and Douglas Falloden who turned him out. Then afterwards hecomposed a musical skit on 'the bloods,' which delighted every one incollege, who wasn't a 'blood.' And now there is open war between him andthem. Otto doesn't talk of it. I hear of it from other people. But helooks excited and pale--he is a very delicate creature!--and we, who arefond of him, live in dread of some violence. I never can understand whythe dons are so indulgent to ragging. It is nothing but a continuationof school bullying. It ought to be put down with the strongestpossible hand."
Miss Wenlock had listened in tremulous sympathy, nodding from time totime. Constance sat silent and rather pale--looting down. But her mindwas angry. She said to herself that nobody ought to attack absentpersons who can't defend themselves,--at least so violently. And asMrs. Mulholland seemed to wait for some remark from her, she said atlast, with a touch of impatience:
"I don't think Mr. Radowitz minds much. He came to us--to my uncle's--toplay last night. He was as gay as possible."
"Radowitz would make jokes with the hangman!" said Mrs. Mulholland. "Ah,well, I think you know Douglas Falloden"--the tone was just lightlytouched with significance--"and if you can lecture him--do!" Then sheabruptly changed her subject:
"I suppose you have scarcely yet made acquaintance with your two auntswho live quite close to the Fallodens in Yorkshire?"
Constance looked up in astonishment.
"Do you know them?"
"Oh, quite well!" The strong wrinkled face flashed into laughter. Butsuddenly the speaker checked herself, and laid a worn hand gently onConstance's knee--"You won't mind if I tell you things?--you won't thinkme an impertinent old woman? I knew your father"--was there just animperceptible pause on the words?--"when he was quite a boy; and mypeople were small squires under the shelter of the Risboroughs beforeyour father sold the property and settled abroad. I was brought up withall your people--your Aunt Marcia, and your Aunt Winifred, and all therest of them. I saw your mother once in Rome--and loved her, likeeverybody else. But--as probably you know--your Aunt Winifred--who waskeeping house for your father--gathered up her silly skirts, anddeparted when your father announced his engagement. Then she and yourAunt Marcia settled together in an old prim Georgian house, about fivemiles from the Fallodens; and there they have been ever since. And nowthey are tremendously excited about you!"
"About me?" said Constance, astonished. "I don't know them. They neverwrite to me. They never wrote to father!"
Mrs. Mulholland smiled.
"All the same you will have a letter from them soon. And of course youremember your father's married sister, Lady Langmoor?"
"No, I never even saw her. But she did sometimes write to father."
"Yes, she was not quite such a fool as the others. Well, she willcertainly descend on you. She'll want you for some balls--for adrawing-room--and that kind of thing. I warn you!"
The girl's face showed her restive.
"Why should she want me?--when she never wanted me before--or any ofus?"
"Ah, that's her affair! But it is your other aunts who delight me. YourAunt Marcia, when I first knew her, was in an ascetic phase. Peoplecalled it miserliness--but it wasn't; it was only a moral hatred ofwaste--in anything. We envied her abominably, when I was a girl in myearly teens, much bothered with dressing, because she had invented agarment--the only one of any kind that she wore under her dress. Shecalled it a 'Unipantaloonicoat'--you can imagine why! It includedstockings. It was thin in summer and thick in winter. There was only oneputting on--pouf!--and then the dress. I thought it a splendid idea, butmy mother wouldn't let me copy it. Your Aunt Winifred had just theopposite mania--of piling on clothes--because she said there were'always draughts.' If one petticoat fastened at the back, there must beanother over that which fastened at the front--and another at theside--and so on, _ad infinitum_. But then, alack!--they suddenly droppedall their absurdities, and became quite ordinary people. Aunt Winifredtook to religion; she befriends all the clergy for miles round. She isthe mother of Mother Church. And Aunt Marcia, after having starvedherself of clothes for years and collected nothing more agreeable thansnails, now wears silks and satins, and gossips and goes out to tea, andcollects blue china like anybody else. I connect it with the advent of acertain General who after all went off solitary to Malta, and diedthere. Poor Marcia! But you will certainly have to go and stay there."
"I don't know!" said Constance, her delicate mouth setting ratherstiffly.
"Ah, well--they are getting old!"
Mrs. Mulholland's tone had softened again, and when it softened therewas a wonderful kindness in it.
A door opened suddenly. The Master came in, followed by AlexanderSorell.
"My dear Edward!" said Miss Wenlock, "how late you are!"
"I was caught by a bore, dear, after chapel. Horace couldn't get rid ofhis, and I couldn't get rid of mine. But now all is well. How do you do,Lady Constance? Have you had enough tea, and will you come and seemy books?"
He carried her off, Connie extremely nervous, and wondering into whatbogs she was about to flounder.
But she was a scholar's daughter, and she had lived with books. Shewould have scorned to pretend, and her pose, if she had one, was a poseof ignorance--she claimed less than she might. But the Master soondiscovered that she had many of her father's tastes, that she knewsomething of archaeology--he bore it even when she shyly quotedLanciani--that she read Latin, and was apparently passionately fond ofsome kinds of poetry. And all the time she pleased his tired eyes by heryouth and freshness, and when as she grew at ease with him, and began tochatter to him about Rome, and how the learned there love one another,the Master's startling, discordant laugh rang out repeatedly.
The three in the other room heard it.
"She is amusing him," said Miss Wenlock, looking rather bewildered."They are generally so afraid of him."
The Master put his head into the drawing-room.
"I am taking Lady Constance into the garden, my dear. Will you threefollow when you like?"
He took her through the old house, with the dim faces of former mastersand college worthies shining softly on its panelled walls, in the goldenlights from the level sun outside, and presently they emerged upon thegarden which lay like an emerald encased on three sides by surfaces ofsilver-grey stone, and overlooked by a delicate classical tower designedby the genius of Christopher Wren. Over one-half of the garden lay anexquisite shadow; the other was in vivid light. The air seemed to befull of bells--a murmurous voice--the voice of Oxford; as though thedead generations were perpetually whispering to the living--"We whobuilt these walls, and laid this turf for you--we, who are dead, callto you who are living--carry on our task, continue our march:
"On to the bound of the waste-- On to the City of God!"
A silence fell upon Constance as she walked beside the Master. She wasthinking involuntarily of that absent word dropped by heruncle--"_Oxford is a place of training_"--and there was a passionate andtroubled revolt in her. Other ghostly wills seemed to be threateningher--wills that meant nothing to her. No!--her own will should shape herown life! As against the austere appeal that comes from the inner heartof Oxford, the young and restless blood in her sang defiance. "I willride with him to-morrow--I will--I will!"
But the Master merely thought that she was feeling the perennial spellof the Oxford beauty.
"You are going to like Oxford, I hope?"
"Yes--" said Constance, a little reluctantly. "Oh, of course I shalllike it. But it oppresses me--rather."
"I know!" he said eagerly--always trying to place himself in contactwith the young mind and life, always seeking something from them inwhich he was constantly disappointed. "Yes, we all feel that! We who arealive must always fight the past, though we owe it all we have. Oxfordhas been to me often a witch--a dangerous--almost an evil witch. Iseemed to see her--benumbing the young forces of the present. And thescientific and practical men, who would like to scrap her, havesometimes seemed to me right. And then one changes--one changes!"
His voice dropped. All that was slightly grotesque in his outer man,the broad flat head, the red hair, the sharp wedge-like chin,disappeared for Constance in the single impression of his eyes--paleblue, intensely melancholy, and most human.
"Take up some occupation--some study--" he said to her gently. "Youwon't be long here; but still, ask us for what we can give. In Oxfordone must learn something--or teach something. If not, life heregoes sour."
Constance repeated Sorell's promise to teach her Greek.
"Excellent!" said the Master. "You will be envied. Sorell is a capitalfellow! And one of the ablest of our younger scholars--though ofcourse"--the speaker drew himself up with a slight acerbity--"he and Ibelong to different schools of criticism. He was devoted toyour mother."
Constance assented dumbly.
"And shows already"--thought the Master--"some dangerous signs of beingdevoted to you. Poor wretch!" Aloud he said--"Ah, here they come. I mustget some more chairs."
The drawing-room party joined them, and the gathering lasted a littlelonger. Sorell walked up and down with Constance. She liked himincreasingly--could not help liking him. And apart from his personalcharm, he recalled all sorts of pleasant things and touching memories toher. But he was almost oppressively refined and scrupulous andhigh-minded. "He is too perfect!" she thought rebelliously. "One can'tbe as good as that. It isn't allowed."
As to Mrs. Mulholland, Constance felt herself taken possessionof--mothered--by that lady. She could not understand why, but thoughrather puzzled and bewildered, she did not resist. There was something,indeed, in the generous dark eyes that every now and then touched thegirl's feeling intolerably, as though it reminded her of a tendernessshe had been long schooling herself to do without.
"Come and see me, my dear, whenever you like. I have a house in St.Giles, and all my husband's books. I do a lot of things--I am aguardian--I work at the schools--the town schools for the town children,et cetera. We all try to save our souls by committees nowadays. But myreal business is to talk, and make other people talk. So I am always athome in the evenings after dinner, and a good many people come. BringNora sometimes. Alice doesn't like me. Your aunt will let youcome--though we don't know each other very well. I am very respectable."
The laughing face looked into Constance's, which laughed back.
"That's all right!" said Mrs. Mulholland, as though some confidences hadbeen exchanged between them. "You might find me useful. Consider me afriend of the family. I make rather a good umbrella-stand. People canlean against me if they like. I hold firm. Good-bye. That's theCathedral bell."
But Constance and Sorell, followed discreetly by Annette, departedfirst. Mrs. Mulholland stayed for a final word to the Master, beforeobeying the silver voice from St. Frideswide's tower.
"To think of that girl being handed over to Ellen Hooper, just when allher love affairs will be coming on! A woman with the wisdom of a rabbit,and the feelings of a mule! And don't hold your finger up at me,Master! You know you can't suffer fools at all--either gladly--or sadly.Now let me go, Grace!--or I shan't be fit for church."
* * * * *
"A very pretty creature!" said Ewen Hooper admiringly--"and you lookvery well on her, Constance."
He addressed his niece, who had been just put into her saddle by theneat groom who had brought the horses.
Mrs. Hooper, Alice and Nora were standing on the steps of the old house.A knot of onlookers had collected on the pavement--mostly errand boys.The passing undergraduates tried not to look curious, and hurried by.Constance, in her dark blue riding-habit and a _tricorne_ felt hat whichshe had been accustomed to wear in the Campagna, kept the mare fidgetingand pawing a little that her uncle might inspect both her and her rider,and then waved her hand in farewell.
"Where are you going, Connie?" cried Nora.
"Somewhere out there--beyond the railway," she said vaguely, pointingwith her riding-whip. "I shall be back in good time."
And she went off followed by Joseph, the groom, a man of forty, lean andjockey-like, with a russet and wrinkled countenance which might meananything or nothing.
"A ridiculous hat!" said Alice, maliciously. "Nobody wears such a hat inEngland to ride in. Think of her appearing like that in the Row!"
"It becomes her." The voice was Nora's, sharp and impatient.
"It is theatrical, like everything Connie does," said Mrs. Hooperseverely. "I beg that neither of you will copy her."
Nora walked to the door opening on the back garden, and stood therefrowning and smiling unseen.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Joseph followed close at Connie's side, directing her, tillthey passed through various crowded streets, and left the railwaybehind. Then trotting under a sunny sky, on a broad vacant road, theymade for a line of hills in the middle distance.
The country was early June at its best. The river meadows blazed withbuttercups; the river itself, when Constance occasionally caught aglimpse of its windings, lay intensely blue under a wide azure sky,magnificently arched on a great cornice built of successive strata ofwhite and purple cloud, which held the horizon. Over the Lathom Woodsthe cloud-line rose and fell in curves that took the line of the hill.The woods themselves lay in a haze of heat, the sunlight on the roundedcrests of the trees, and the shadows cast by the westerly sun, all fusedwithin the one shimmering veil of blue. The air was fresh andlife-giving. Constance felt herself in love with life and the wideOxford scene. The physical exercise delighted her, and the breathlesssense of adventure.
But it was disagreeable to reflect, as she must do occasionally, thatthe sphinx-like groom knew perfectly well that she was going to theLathom Woods, that he had the key of the nearest gate in his pocket,that he would be a witness of her meeting with Falloden, whatever theydid with him afterwards, and that Falloden had in all probability paidhim largely to hold his tongue. All that side of it wasodious--degrading. But the thought of the green rides, and the manwaiting for her, set all the blood in her wild veins dancing. Yet therewas little or nothing in her feeling of a girl's yearning for a lover.She wanted to see Falloden--to talk with him and dispute with him. Shecould not be content for long without seeing him. He excitedher--provoked her--haunted her. And to feel her power over him wasdelightful, if it had not been spoilt by a kind of recurrent fear--apanic fear of his power over her.
What did she know of him after all? She was quite aware that herfriends, the Kings, had made some enquiries at Cannes before allowingher to see so much of him as she had done during his stay with the richand hospitable Jaroslavs. She believed Colonel King had not liked himpersonally. But Douglas Falloden belonged to one of the oldest Englishfamilies, settled on large estates in Yorkshire, with distinguishedrecords in all the great services; he was heir presumptive to amarquisate, so long as his uncle, Lord Dagnall, now past seventy, didnot take it into his head to marry; and there was his brilliant careerat Oxford, his good looks and all the rest of it. Constance had a strongdash of the worldling in her mixed character. She had been brought upwith Italian girl friends of the noble class, in whom the practicalinstincts of a practical race were closely interwoven with what theEnglishman thinks of as Italian "romance" or "passion." She haddiscussed dowries and settlements since she was fifteen; and took thecurrent values of wealth and birth for granted. She was quite aware ofher own advantages, and was not at all minded to throw them away. Abrilliant marriage was, perhaps, at the back of her mind, as it is atthe back of the minds of so many beautiful creatures who look andbreathe poetry, while they are aware, within a few pounds, of what canbe done in London on five thousand--or ten thousand--a year. Sheinevitably thought of herself as quite different from the girls of pooror middle-class families, who must earn their living--Nora,for instance.
And yet there was really a gulf between her and the ordinary worldling.It consisted in little else than a double dose of personality--a richersupply of nerve and emotion. She could not imagine life without money,because
she had always lived with rich people. But money was the meresubstratum; what really mattered was the excitement of loving, and beingloved. She had adored her parents with an absorbing affection. Then, asshe grew up, everywhere in her Roman life, among her girl friends, orthe handsome youths she remembered riding in the Villa Borghesegymkhana, she began to be aware of passion and sex; she caught the hintsof them, as it were of a lightning playing through the web of life,flashing, and then gone--illuminating or destroying. Her mind was fullof love stories. At twenty she had been the confidante of many, bothfrom her married and her unmarried friends. It was all, so far, a greatmystery to her. But there was in her a thrilled expectation. Not of alove, tranquil and serene, such as shone on her parents' lives, but ofsomething overwhelming and tempestuous; into which she might fling herlife as one flings a flower into the current of Niagara.
It was the suggestion of such a possibility that had drawn her first toDouglas Falloden. For three golden days she had imagined herselfblissfully in love with him. Then had come disillusion and repulsion.What was violent and imperious in him had struck on what was violent andimperious in her. She had begun to hold him off--to resist him. And thatresistance had been more exciting even than the docility of the firstphase. It had ended in his proposal, the snatched kiss, and a breach.And now, she had little idea of what would happen; and would say toherself, recklessly, that she did not care. Only she must see him--mustgo on exploring him. And as for allowing her intimacy with him todevelop in any ordinary way--under the eyes of the Hoopers--or ofOxford--it was not to be thought of. Rather than be tamely handed overto him in a commonplace wooing, she would have broken off all connectionwith him; and that she had not the strength to do.
* * * * *
"Here is the gate, my lady."
The man produced a key from his pocket and got down to open it.Constance passed into a green world. Three "drives" converged in frontof her, moss-carpeted, and close-roofed by oak-wood in its first richleaf. After the hot sun on the straight and shadeless road outside,these cool avenues stretching away into a forest infinity, seemed tobeckon a visitant towards some distant Elysian scene--some gladehaunted of Pan.
Constance looked down them eagerly. Which was she to take?--suddenly,far down the right hand drive, a horseman--coming into view. Heperceived her, gave a touch to his horse, and was quickly beside her.
Both were conscious of the groom, who had reined in a few yards behind,and sat impassive.
Falloden saluted her joyously. He rode a handsome Irish horse, nearlyblack, with a white mark on its forehead; a nervous and spiritedcreature, which its rider handled with the ease of one trained from hischildhood to the hunting field. His riding dress, with its knee-breechesand leggings pleased the feminine eye; so did his strong curly head ashe bared it, and the animation of his look.
"This is better, isn't it, than ''ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighroad!' I particularly want to show you the bluebells--they're gorgeous!But they're quite on the other side--a long way off. And then you'll betired--you'll want tea. I've arranged it."
"Joseph"--he turned to the groom--"you know the head keeper's cottage?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, go off there and wait. Tell the keeper's wife that I shall bringa lady to tea there in about an hour. She knows." Joseph turnedobediently, took the left hand road, and was soon out of sight.
The two riders paced side by side through the green shadows of the wood.Constance was flushed--but 'she looked happy and gracious. Falloden hadnot seen her so gracious since Oxford had brought them again across eachother. They fell at once, for the first time since her arrival, into theeasy talk of their early Riviera days; and he found himself doing hisvery best to please her. She asked him questions about his approachingschools; and it amused him, in the case of so quick a pupil, to frame a"chaffing" account of Oxford examinations and degrees; to describe therush of an Honour man's first year before the mods' gate is leaped; theloitering and "slacking" of the second year and part of the third; andthen the setting of teeth and girding of loins, when a man realises thatsome of the lost time is gone forever, and that the last struggleis upon him.
"What I am doing now is degrading!--getting 'tips' from thetutors--pinning up lists--beastly names and dates--in my rooms--learninghard bits by heart--cribbing and stealing all I can. And I have stillsome of my first year's work to go through again. I must cut Oxford forthe last fortnight--and go into retreat."
Constance expressed her wonder that any one could ever do any work inthe summer term--
"You are all so busy lunching each other's Sisters and cousins andaunts! It is a great picnic--not a university," she said flippantly.
"Distracting, I admit--but--"
He paused.
"But--what?"
After a moment, he turned a glowing countenance towards her.
"That is not my chief cause of flight!"
She professed not to understand.
"It is persons distract me--not tea-parties. Persons I want to be seeingand talking to--persons I can not keep myself away from."
He looked straight before him. The horses ambled on together, the reinson their necks. In the distance a cuckoo called from the river meadows,and round the two young figures one might have fancied an attendantescort of birds, as wrens, tits, pippets, fled startled bytheir approach.
Constance laughed. The laugh, though very musical, was sarcastic.
"I don't see you as a shuttlecock!"
"Tossed by the winds of fate? You think I can always make myself do whatI wish?"
"That's how I read you--at present."
'Hm--a charming character! Everything calculated--nothing spontaneous.That I think is what you mean?"
"No. But I doubt your being carried away."
He flushed hotly.
"Lady Connie!--"
He paused. Her colour rushed too. She saw what he was thinking of; sheperceived her blunder.
"For what else did you castigate me at Cannes?" he said, in a low voice.And his black eyes looked passionately into hers. But she recoveredherself quickly.
"At any rate, you have more will than most people," she said lightly."Aren't you always boasting of it? But you are quite right to go away."
"I am not going for a week," he put in quickly. "There will be time fortwo more rides."
She made no reply, and they paced on. Suddenly the trees began to thinbefore them, and a splendid wave of colour swept across an open glade infull sunlight.
"Marvellous!" cried Constance. "Oh, stop a moment!"
They pulled up on the brink of a sea of blue. All around them thebluebells lay glowing in the sunshine. The colour and sparkle of themwas a physical delight; and with occasional lingering tufts of primrosesamong them and the young oak scrub pushing up through the blue in everyshade of gold and bronze, they made an enchanted garden of the glade.
Falloden dismounted, tied up his horse, and gathered a bunch for hiscompanion.
"I don't know--ought we?" she said regretfully. "They are not sobeautiful when they are torn away. And in a week they will begone--withered!"
She stooped over them, caressing them, as, taking a strap from thepocket of his own saddle, he tied the flowers to her pommel.
He looked up impetuously.
"Only to spring again!--in this same wood--in other woods--for us tosee. Do you ever think how full the world is of sheer pleasure--smalland great?" And his eyes told her plainly what his pleasure was atthat moment.
Something jarred. She drew herself away, though with fluttering pulses.Falloden, with a strong effort, checked the tide of impulse in himself.He mounted again, and suggested a gallop, through a long stretch ofgreen road on the further side of the glade. They let their horses go,and the flying hoof-beats woke the very heart of the wood.
"That was good!" cried Falloden, as they pulled up, drawing in deepdraughts of the summer wind. Then he looked at her admiringly.
"How well you hold yourself! You a
re a perfect rider!"
Against her will Constance sparkled under his praise. Then they turnedtheir horses towards the keeper's cottage, and the sun fell lower inthe west.
"Mr. Falloden," said Constance presently, "I want you to promise mesomething."
"Ask me," he said eagerly.
"I want you to give up ragging Otto Radowitz!"
His countenance changed.
"Who has been talking to you?"
"That doesn't matter. It is unworthy of you. Give it up."
Falloden laughed with good humour.
"I assure you it does him a world of good!"
She argued hotly; astonished, in her young inexperience, that his willcould so soon reassert itself against hers; sharply offended, indeed,that after she had given him the boon of this rendezvous, he couldhesitate for a moment as to the boon she asked in return--had humbledherself to ask. For had she not often vowed to herself that she wouldnever, never ask the smallest favour of him; while on her side a diet ofrefusals and rebuffs was the only means to keep him in check?
But that diet was now gaily administered to herself.
Falloden argued with energy that a man who has never been to a publicschool has got to be "disciplined" at the university; that OttoRadowitz, being an artist, was specially in need of discipline; that noharm had been done him, or would be done him. But he must be made tounderstand that certain liberties and impertinences would not betolerated by the older men.
"He never means them!" cried Constance. "He doesn't understand. He is aforeigner."
"No! He is an Englishman here--and must behave as such. Don't spoil him,Lady Connie!"
He looked at her imperiously--half smiling, half frowning.
"Remember!--he is my friend!"
"I do remember," he said drily. "I am not likely to forget." Constanceflushed, and proudly dropped the subject. He saw that he had woundedher, but he quietly accepted it. There was something in the littleincident that made her more aware of his overbearing characterthan ever.
"If I married him," she thought, "I should be his slave!"
Tea had been daintily spread for them under a birch-tree near thekeeper's lodge. The keeper's wife served them with smiles and curtsies,and then discreetly disappeared. Falloden waited on Constance as asquire on his princess; and all round them lay the green encirclingrampart of the wood. In the man's every action, there was the homage ofone who only keeps silence because the woman he loves imposes it. ButConstance again felt that recurrent fear creeping over her. She had beena fool--a fool!
He escorted her to the gate of the wood where Joseph was waiting.
"And now for our next merry meeting?" he said, as he got down to tightenher stirrup which had stretched a little.
Constance hurriedly said she could not promise--there were so manyengagements.
Falloden did not press her. But he held her hand when she gave it him.
"Are you angry with me?" he said, in a low voice, while his eyes mockeda little.
"No--only disappointed!"
"Isn't that unkind? Haven't we had a golden time?" His tone smote her alittle.
"It was heavenly," she said, "till--"
"Till I behaved like a brute?"
She laughed excitedly, and waved farewell.
Falloden, smiling, watched her go, standing beside his horse--aSiegfried parting from Brunhilde.
When she and the groom had disappeared, he mounted and rode off towardsanother exit.
"I must be off to-morrow!" he said to himself with decision--"or myschools will go to the dogs!"