beckoned on all sides; and for Francis, as for so manyothers, but a very moderate amount of work was necessary to win himan approved place in the scheme of things, a seat in the slow-wheelingsunshine. It really was not necessary to want, above all to undergoannoyances for the sake of what you wanted, since so many pleasurabledistractions, enough to fill day and night twice over, were so richlyspread around.
Some day he supposed he would marry, settle down and become in time oneof those men who presented a bald head in a club window to the gazeof passers-by. It was difficult, perhaps, to see how you could enjoyyourself or lead a life that paid its own way in pleasure at the age offorty, but that he trusted that he would learn in time. At present itwas sufficient to know that in half an hour two excellent friends wouldcome to dinner, and that they would proceed in a spirit of amiablecontent to the Gaiety. After that there was a ball somewhere (he hadforgotten where, but one of the others would be sure to know), andto-morrow and to-morrow would be like unto to-day. It was idle toask questions of oneself when all went so well; the time for askingquestions was when there was matter for complaint, and with himassuredly there was none. The advantages of being twenty-three yearsold, gay and good-looking, without a care in the world, now that he hadMichael's cheque in his pocket, needed no comment, still less complaint.He, like the crowd who had sufficient to pay for a six-penny seat at amusic-hall, was perfectly content with life in general; to-morrowwould be time enough to do a little more work and glean a little morepleasure.
It was indeed an admirable England, where it was not necessary evento desire, for there were so many things, bright, cheerful things todistract the mind from desire. It was a day of dozing in the sun, likethe submerged, scattered units or duets on the grass of the Green Park,of behaving like the lilies of the field. . . . Francis found he wasrather late, and proceeded hastily to his mother's house in SavileRow to array himself, if not "like one of these," like an exceedinglywell-dressed young man, who demanded of his tailor the utmost of hisart; with the prospect, owing to Michael's generosity, of being paidto-morrow.
Michael, when his cousin had left him, did not at once proceed to hisevening by himself with his piano, though an hour before he had longedto be alone with it and a pianoforte arrangement of the Meistersingers,of which he had promised himself a complete perusal that evening.But Francis's visit had already distracted him, and he found nowthat Francis's departure took him even farther away from his designedevening. Francis, with his good looks and his gay spirits, his easyfriendships and perfect content (except when a small matter of deficitand dunning letters obscured the sunlight for a moment), was exactly allthat he would have wished to be himself. But the moment he formulatedthat wish in his mind, he knew that he would not voluntarily have partedwith one atom of his own individuality in order to be Francis or anybodyelse. He was aware how easy and pleasant life would become if he couldlook on it with Francis's eyes, and if the world would look on him as itlooked on his cousin. There would be no more bother. . . . In amoment, he would, by this exchange, have parted with his own unhappytemperament, his own deplorable body, and have stepped into an amiableand prosperous little neutral kingdom that had no desires and noregrets. He would have been free from all wants, except such as couldbe gratified so easily by a little work and a great capacity for beingamused; he would have found himself excellently fitting the niche intowhich the rulers of birth and death had placed him: an eldest son ofa great territorial magnate, who had what was called a stake in thecountry, and desired nothing better.
Willingly, as he had said, would he have changed circumstances withFrancis, but he knew that he would not, for any bait the world coulddraw in front of him, have changed natures with him, even when, toall appearance, the gain would so vastly have been on his side. It wasbetter to want and to miss than to be content. Even at this moment,when Francis had taken the sunshine out of the room with his departure,Michael clung to his own gloom and his own uncouthness, if by gettingrid of them he would also have been obliged to get rid of his owntemperament, unhappy as it was, but yet capable of strong desire. He didnot want to be content; he wanted to see always ahead of him a goldenmist, through which the shadows of unconjecturable shapes appeared. Hewas willing and eager to get lost, if only he might go wandering on,groping with his big hands, stumbling with his clumsy feet,desiring . . .
There are the indications of a path visible to all who desire. Michaelknew that his path, the way that seemed to lead in the direction ofthe ultimate goal, was music. There, somehow, in that direction lay hisdestiny; that was the route. He was not like the majority of his sexand years, who weave their physical and mental dreams in the loom of agirl's face, in her glance, in the curves of her mouth. Deliberately,owing chiefly to his morbid consciousness of his own physical defects,he had long been accustomed to check the instincts natural to a youngman in this regard. He had seen too often the facility with whichothers, more fortunate than he, get delightedly lost in that goldenhaze; he had experienced too often the absence of attractiveness inhimself. How could any girl of the London ballroom, he had so frequentlyasked himself, tolerate dancing or sitting out with him when there wasFrancis, and a hundred others like him, so pleased to take his place?Nor, so he told himself, was his mind one whit more apt than his body.It did not move lightly and agreeably with unconscious smiles and easylaughter. By nature he was monkish, he was celibate. He could but ceaseto burn incense at such ineffectual altars, and help, as he had helpedthis afternoon, to replenish the censers of more fortunate acolytes.
This was all familiar to him; it passed through his head unbidden,when Francis had left him, like the refrain of some well-known song,occurring spontaneously without need of an effort of memory. It wasa possession of his, known by heart, and it no longer, except formomentary twinges, had any bitterness for him. This afternoon, it istrue, there had been one such, when Francis, gleeful with his cheque,had gone out to his dinner and his theatre and his dance, inviting himcheerfully to all of them. In just that had been the bitterness--namely,that Francis had so overflowing a well-spring of content that hecould be cordial in bidding him cast a certain gloom over theseentertainments. Michael knew, quite unerringly, that Francis and hisfriends would not enjoy themselves quite so much if he was with them;there would be the restraint of polite conversation at dinner instead ofcompletely idle babble, there would be less outspoken normality at theGaiety, a little more decorum about the whole of the boyish proceedings.He knew all that so well, so terribly well. . . .
His servant had come in with the evening paper, and the impliedsuggestion of the propriety of going to dress before he roused himself.He decided not to dress, as he was going to spend the evening alone,and, instead, he seated himself at the piano with his copy of theMeistersingers and, mechanically at first, with the ragged cloud-fleecesof his reverie hanging about his brain, banged away at the overture.He had extraordinary dexterity of finger for one who had had so littletraining, and his hands, with their great stretch, made light work ofoctaves and even tenths. His knowledge of the music enabled him to wakethe singing bird of memory in his head, and before long flute and hornand string and woodwind began to make themselves heard in his inner ear.Twice his servant came in to tell him that his dinner was ready, butMichael had no heed for anything but the sounds which his flying fingerssuggested to him. Francis, his father, his own failure in the lifethat had been thrust on him were all gone; he was with the singers ofNuremberg.
CHAPTER II
The River Ashe, after a drowsy and meandering childhood, passedpeacefully among the sedges and marigolds of its water meadows, suddenlyand somewhat disconcertingly grows up and, without any period oftransition and adolescence, becomes, from being a mere girl of arivulet, a male and full-blooded estuary of the sea. At Coton, forinstance, the tips of the sculls of a sauntering pleasure-boat willalmost span its entire width, while, but a mile farther down, you willsee stone-laden barges and tall, red-winged sailing craft coming up withthe tide, and making fast to the grey wooden quay wall of As
hbridge,rough with barnacles. For the reeds and meadow-sweet of its margin areexchanged the brown and green growths of the sea, with their sharp,acrid odour instead of the damp, fresh smell of meadow flowers, and atlow tide the podded bladders of brown weed and long strings of marinemacaroni, among which peevish crabs scuttle sideways, take the placeof the grass and spires of loosestrife; and over the water, instead ofsinging larks, hang white companies of chiding seagulls. Here at hightide extends a sheet of water large enough, when the wind blows up theestuary, to breed waves that break in foam and spray against the barges,while at the ebb acres of mud flats are disclosed on which the boatslean slanting till the flood lifts them again and makes them strain atthe wheezing ropes that tie them to the quay.
A year before the flame of war went roaring through Europe inunquenchable conflagration it would have seemed that nothing couldpossibly rouse Ashbridge from its red-brick Georgian