CHAPTER XIII
THE PLEASURES OF A CONSCIENCE
It was half-way down the glen that the full ignominy of his positioncame on Lewis with the shock of a thunder-clap. A hateful bitternessagainst her preserver and the tricks of fate had been his solitaryfeeling, till suddenly he realized the part he had played, and sawhimself for a naked coward. Coward he called himself--withoutreflection; for in such a moment the mind thinks in crude colours andbold lines of division. He set his teeth in his lip, and with a heartsinking at the shameful thought stalked into the farm stables where theGlenavelin servants were.
He could not return to the Pool. Alice was little hurt, so anxiety wasneedless; better let him leave Mr. Stocks to enjoy his heroics inpeace. He would find an excuse; meanwhile, give him quiet and solitudeto digest his bitterness. He cursed himself for the unworthiness of histhoughts. What a pass had he come to when he grudged a little _kudos_to a rival, grudged it churlishly, childishly. He flung from him theself-reproach. Other people would wonder at his ungenerousness, and hissulky ill-nature. They would explain by the first easy discreditablereason. What cared he for their opinion when he knew the far greatershame in his heart?
For as he strode up the woodland path to Etterick the wrappings ofsurface passion fell off from his view of the past hour, and he saw thebald and naked ribs of his own incapacity. It was a trivial incident tothe world, but to himself a momentous self-revelation. He was adreamer, a weakling, a fool. He had hesitated in a crisis, and anotherhad taken his place. A thousand incidents of ready courage in pastsport and travel were forgotten, and on this single slip the terribleindictment was founded. And the reason is at hand; this weakness had atlast drawn near to his life's great passion.
He found a deserted house, but its solitude was too noisy for hisunrest. Bidding the butler tell his friends that he had gone up thehill, he crossed the sloping lawns and plunged into the thicket ofrhododendrons. Soon he was out on the heather, with the great slopes,scorched with the heat, lying still and fragrant before him. He feltsick and tired, and flung himself down amid the soft brackens.
It was the man's first taste of bitter mental anguish. Hitherto hislife had been equable and pleasant; his friends had adored him; theworld had flattered him; he had been at peace with his own soul. He hadknown his failings, but laughed at them cavalierly; he stood on adifferent platform from the struggling, conscience-stricken herd. Nowhe had in very truth been flung neck and crop from the pedestal of hisself-esteem; and he lay groaning in the dust of abasement.
Wratislaw guessed with a friend's instinct his friend's disquietude, andturned his steps to the hill when he had heard the butler's message. Hehad known something of Lewis's imaginary self-upbraidings, and he wasprepared for them, but he was not prepared for the grey and wretchedface in the lee of the pinewood. A sudden suspicion that Lewis had beenguilty of some real dishonour flashed across his mind for the moment,only to be driven out with scorn.
"Lewie, my son, what the deuce is wrong with you?" he cried.
The other looked at him with miserable eyes.
"I am beginning to find out my rottenness."
Wratislaw laughed in spite of himself. "What a fool to go makingpsychological discoveries on such a day! Is it all over the littlemisfortune at the pool?"
Tragedy grew in Lewis's eyes. "Don't laugh, old chap. You don't knowwhat I did. I let her fall into the water, and then I stood staring andlet another man--the other man--save her."
"Well, and what about that? He had a better chance than you. Youshouldn't grudge him his good fortune."
"Good Lord, man, you don't think it's that that's troubling me! I feltmurderous, but it wasn't on his account."
"Why not?" asked the older man drily. "You love the girl, and he's inthe running with you. What more?"
Lewis groaned. "How can I talk about loving her when my love is such atrifling thing that it doesn't nerve me to action? I tell you I loveher body and soul. I live for her. The whole world is full of her.She is never a second out of my thoughts. And yet I am so little of aman that I let her come near death and never try to save her."
"But, confound it, man, it may have been mere absence of mind. You werealways an extraordinarily plucky chap." Wratislaw spoke irritably, forit seemed to him sheer folly.
Lewis looked at him imploringly. "Can you not understand?" he cried.
Wratislaw did understand, and suddenly. The problem was subtler than hehad thought. Weakness was at the core of it, weakness revealed inself-deception and self-accusation alike, the weakness of the finicaldreamer, the man with the unrobust conscience. But the weakness whichLewis arraigned himself on was the very obvious failing of the diffidentand the irresolute. Wratislaw tried the path of boisterousencouragement.
"Get up, you old fool, and come down to the house. You a coward! Youare simply a romancer with an unfortunate knack of tragedy." The manmust be laughed out of this folly. If he were not he would show theself-accusing front to the world, and the Manorwaters, Alice,Stocks--all save his chosen intimates--would credit him with a cowardiceof which he had no taint.
Arthur and George, resigned now to the inevitable lady, had seen in theincident only the anxiety of a man for his beloved, and just a hint ofthe ungenerous in his treatment of Mr. Stocks. They were not preparedfor the silent tragic figure which Wratislaw brought with him.
Arthur had a glint of the truth, but the obtuse George saw nothing. "Doyou know that you are going to have the Wisharts for neighbours for acouple of months yet? Old Wishart has taken Glenavelin from the end ofAugust."
This would have been pleasant hearing at another time, but now it simplydrove home the nail of his bitter reflections. Alice would be near him,a terrible reproach--she, the devotee of strength and competence. Hecould not win her, and it is characteristic of the man that he hadceased to think of Mr. Stocks as his rival. He would lose her to norival; to his ragged incapacity alone would his ill fortune be due.
He struggled to act the part of the cheerful host, and Wratislaw watchedhis efforts grimly. He ate little at dinner, showed no desire to smoke,and played billiards so badly that Wratislaw, an execrable player, wonthe first and last game of his life. The victor took him out of doorsthereafter to walk on the moonlit, fragrant lawn.
"You are taking things to heart," said he.
"And I'm blessed if I can understand you. To me it's sheer mania."
"And to me it's the last link in a chain. I have suspected myself forlong, now I know myself and--ugh! the knowledge is a hideous thing."
Wratislaw stood regarding his companion seriously. "I wonder what willhappen to you, Lewie. Life is serious enough without inventing acrotchety virtue to make it miserable."
"Can't you understand me, Tommy? It isn't that I'm a cad, it's that Iam a coward. I couldn't be a cad supposing I tried. These things are amatter chiefly of blood and bone, and I am not made that way. But Godhelp me! I am a coward. I can't fight worth twopence. Look at myperformance a fortnight ago. The ordinary gardener's boy can beat me atmaking love. I am full of generous impulses and sentiments, but what'sthe use of them? Everything grows cold and I am a dumb icicle when itcomes to action. I knew all this before, but I thought I had kept mybodily courage. I've had a good enough training, and I used to havepluck."
"But you don't mean to tell me that it was funk that kept you out of thepool to-day?" cried the impatient Wratislaw.
"How do I know that it wasn't?" came the wretched answer.
Wratislaw turned on his heel and made to go back.
"You're an infernal idiot, Lewie, and an infernal child. Thank heaven!your friends know you better than you know yourself."
The next morning it was a different man who came down to breakfast. Hehad lost his haggard air, and seemed to have forgotten the night'sepisode.
"Was I very rude to everybody last night?" he asked. "I have a vaguerecollection of playing the fool."
"You were particularly rude about yourself," said Wratislaw.
The young man
laughed. "It's a way I have sometimes. It's an awkwardthing when a man's foes are of his own household."
The others seemed to see a catch in his mirth, a ring as of somethinghollow. He opened some letters, and looked up from one with a twitchingface and a curious droop of the eyelids. "Miss Wishart is all right,"he said. "My aunt says that she is none the worse, but that Stocks hascaught a tremendous cold. An unromantic ending!"
The meal ended, they wandered out to the lawn to smoke, and Wratislawfound himself standing with a hand on his host's shoulder. He noticedsomething distraught in his glance and air.
"Are you fit again to-day?" he asked.
"Quite fit, thanks," said Lewis, but his face belied him. He hadforgiven himself the incident of yesterday, but no proof of a nonsequitur could make him relinquish his dismal verdict. The wide morninglandscape lay green and soothing at his feet. Down in the glen men werewinning the bog-hay; up on the hill slopes they were driving lambs; theAvelin hurried to the Gled, and beyond was the great ocean and theinfinite works of man. The whole brave bustling world was astir, littleand great ships hasting out of port, the soldier scaling the breach, theadventurer travelling the deserts. And he, the fool, had no share inthis braggart heritage. He could not dare to look a man straight in theface, for like the king in the old fable he had lost his soul.