Chapter XI
One after another they rose and stretched themselves, and in a fewminutes divided more or less into two separate parties. One of theseparties was dominated by Hughling Elliot and Mrs. Thornbury, who, havingboth read the same books and considered the same questions, were nowanxious to name the places beneath them and to hang upon them storesof information about navies and armies, political parties, natives andmineral products--all of which combined, they said, to prove that SouthAmerica was the country of the future.
Evelyn M. listened with her bright blue eyes fixed upon the oracles.
"How it makes one long to be a man!" she exclaimed.
Mr. Perrott answered, surveying the plain, that a country with a futurewas a very fine thing.
"If I were you," said Evelyn, turning to him and drawing her glovevehemently through her fingers, "I'd raise a troop and conquer somegreat territory and make it splendid. You'd want women for that. I'dlove to start life from the very beginning as it ought to be--nothingsqualid--but great halls and gardens and splendid men and women. Butyou--you only like Law Courts!"
"And would you really be content without pretty frocks and sweets andall the things young ladies like?" asked Mr. Perrott, concealing acertain amount of pain beneath his ironical manner.
"I'm not a young lady," Evelyn flashed; she bit her underlip. "Justbecause I like splendid things you laugh at me. Why are there no menlike Garibaldi now?" she demanded.
"Look here," said Mr. Perrott, "you don't give me a chance. You think weought to begin things fresh. Good. But I don't see precisely--conquer aterritory? They're all conquered already, aren't they?"
"It's not any territory in particular," Evelyn explained. "It's theidea, don't you see? We lead such tame lives. And I feel sure you've gotsplendid things in you."
Hewet saw the scars and hollows in Mr. Perrott's sagacious face relaxpathetically. He could imagine the calculations which even then went onwithin his mind, as to whether he would be justified in asking a womanto marry him, considering that he made no more than five hundred ayear at the Bar, owned no private means, and had an invalid sister tosupport. Mr. Perrott again knew that he was not "quite," as Susan statedin her diary; not quite a gentleman she meant, for he was the son of agrocer in Leeds, had started life with a basket on his back, and now,though practically indistinguishable from a born gentleman, showed hisorigin to keen eyes in an impeccable neatness of dress, lack of freedomin manner, extreme cleanliness of person, and a certain indescribabletimidity and precision with his knife and fork which might be the relicof days when meat was rare, and the way of handling it by no meansgingerly.
The two parties who were strolling about and losing their unity nowcame together, and joined each other in a long stare over the yellow andgreen patches of the heated landscape below. The hot air danced acrossit, making it impossible to see the roofs of a village on the plaindistinctly. Even on the top of the mountain where a breeze playedlightly, it was very hot, and the heat, the food, the immense space, andperhaps some less well-defined cause produced a comfortable drowsinessand a sense of happy relaxation in them. They did not say much, but feltno constraint in being silent.
"Suppose we go and see what's to be seen over there?" said Arthur toSusan, and the pair walked off together, their departure certainlysending some thrill of emotion through the rest.
"An odd lot, aren't they?" said Arthur. "I thought we should neverget 'em all to the top. But I'm glad we came, by Jove! I wouldn't havemissed this for something."
"I don't _like_ Mr. Hirst," said Susan inconsequently. "I suppose he'svery clever, but why should clever people be so--I expect he's awfullynice, really," she added, instinctively qualifying what might haveseemed an unkind remark.
"Hirst? Oh, he's one of these learned chaps," said Arthur indifferently."He don't look as if he enjoyed it. You should hear him talking toElliot. It's as much as I can do to follow 'em at all. . . . I was nevergood at my books."
With these sentences and the pauses that came between them they reacheda little hillock, on the top of which grew several slim trees.
"D'you mind if we sit down here?" said Arthur, looking about him. "It'sjolly in the shade--and the view--" They sat down, and looked straightahead of them in silence for some time.
"But I do envy those clever chaps sometimes," Arthur remarked. "I don'tsuppose they ever . . ." He did not finish his sentence.
"I can't see why you should envy them," said Susan, with greatsincerity.
"Odd things happen to one," said Arthur. "One goes along smoothlyenough, one thing following another, and it's all very jolly and plainsailing, and you think you know all about it, and suddenly one doesn'tknow where one is a bit, and everything seems different from what itused to seem. Now to-day, coming up that path, riding behind you, Iseemed to see everything as if--" he paused and plucked a piece ofgrass up by the roots. He scattered the little lumps of earth which weresticking to the roots--"As if it had a kind of meaning. You've made thedifference to me," he jerked out, "I don't see why I shouldn't tell you.I've felt it ever since I knew you. . . . It's because I love you."
Even while they had been saying commonplace things Susan had beenconscious of the excitement of intimacy, which seemed not only to laybare something in her, but in the trees and the sky, and the progress ofhis speech which seemed inevitable was positively painful to her, for nohuman being had ever come so close to her before.
She was struck motionless as his speech went on, and her heart gavegreat separate leaps at the last words. She sat with her fingers curledround a stone, looking straight in front of her down the mountain overthe plain. So then, it had actually happened to her, a proposal ofmarriage.
Arthur looked round at her; his face was oddly twisted. She was drawingher breath with such difficulty that she could hardly answer.
"You might have known." He seized her in his arms; again and again andagain they clasped each other, murmuring inarticulately.
"Well," sighed Arthur, sinking back on the ground, "that's the mostwonderful thing that's ever happened to me." He looked as if he weretrying to put things seen in a dream beside real things.
There was a long silence.
"It's the most perfect thing in the world," Susan stated, very gentlyand with great conviction. It was no longer merely a proposal ofmarriage, but of marriage with Arthur, with whom she was in love.
In the silence that followed, holding his hand tightly in hers, sheprayed to God that she might make him a good wife.
"And what will Mr. Perrott say?" she asked at the end of it.
"Dear old fellow," said Arthur who, now that the first shock was over,was relaxing into an enormous sense of pleasure and contentment. "Wemust be very nice to him, Susan."
He told her how hard Perrott's life had been, and how absurdly devotedhe was to Arthur himself. He went on to tell her about his mother, awidow lady, of strong character. In return Susan sketched the portraitsof her own family--Edith in particular, her youngest sister, whom sheloved better than any one else, "except you, Arthur. . . . Arthur," shecontinued, "what was it that you first liked me for?"
"It was a buckle you wore one night at sea," said Arthur, afterdue consideration. "I remember noticing--it's an absurd thing tonotice!--that you didn't take peas, because I don't either."
From this they went on to compare their more serious tastes, or ratherSusan ascertained what Arthur cared about, and professed herself veryfond of the same thing. They would live in London, perhaps have acottage in the country near Susan's family, for they would find itstrange without her at first. Her mind, stunned to begin with, now flewto the various changes that her engagement would make--how delightful itwould be to join the ranks of the married women--no longer to hang on togroups of girls much younger than herself--to escape the long solitudeof an old maid's life. Now and then her amazing good fortune overcameher, and she turned to Arthur with an exclamation of love.
They lay in each other's arms and had no notion that they were observed
.Yet two figures suddenly appeared among the trees above them. "Here'sshade," began Hewet, when Rachel suddenly stopped dead. They saw a manand woman lying on the ground beneath them, rolling slightly thisway and that as the embrace tightened and slackened. The man then satupright and the woman, who now appeared to be Susan Warrington, lay backupon the ground, with her eyes shut and an absorbed look upon her face,as though she were not altogether conscious. Nor could you tell from herexpression whether she was happy, or had suffered something. When Arthuragain turned to her, butting her as a lamb butts a ewe, Hewet and Rachelretreated without a word. Hewet felt uncomfortably shy.
"I don't like that," said Rachel after a moment.
"I can remember not liking it either," said Hewet. "I can remember--"but he changed his mind and continued in an ordinary tone of voice,"Well, we may take it for granted that they're engaged. D'you thinkhe'll ever fly, or will she put a stop to that?"
But Rachel was still agitated; she could not get away from the sightthey had just seen. Instead of answering Hewet she persisted.
"Love's an odd thing, isn't it, making one's heart beat."
"It's so enormously important, you see," Hewet replied. "Their lives arenow changed for ever."
"And it makes one sorry for them too," Rachel continued, as though shewere tracing the course of her feelings. "I don't know either of them,but I could almost burst into tears. That's silly, isn't it?"
"Just because they're in love," said Hewet. "Yes," he added after amoment's consideration, "there's something horribly pathetic about it, Iagree."
And now, as they had walked some way from the grove of trees, and hadcome to a rounded hollow very tempting to the back, they proceededto sit down, and the impression of the lovers lost some of its force,though a certain intensity of vision, which was probably the result ofthe sight, remained with them. As a day upon which any emotion has beenrepressed is different from other days, so this day was now different,merely because they had seen other people at a crisis of their lives.
"A great encampment of tents they might be," said Hewet, looking infront of him at the mountains. "Isn't it like a water-colour too--youknow the way water-colours dry in ridges all across the paper--I've beenwondering what they looked like."
His eyes became dreamy, as though he were matching things, and remindedRachel in their colour of the green flesh of a snail. She sat beside himlooking at the mountains too. When it became painful to look any longer,the great size of the view seeming to enlarge her eyes beyond theirnatural limit, she looked at the ground; it pleased her to scrutinisethis inch of the soil of South America so minutely that she noticedevery grain of earth and made it into a world where she was endowed withthe supreme power. She bent a blade of grass, and set an insect on theutmost tassel of it, and wondered if the insect realised his strangeadventure, and thought how strange it was that she should have bent thattassel rather than any other of the million tassels.
"You've never told me you name," said Hewet suddenly. "Miss SomebodyVinrace. . . . I like to know people's Christian names."
"Rachel," she replied.
"Rachel," he repeated. "I have an aunt called Rachel, who put the lifeof Father Damien into verse. She is a religious fanatic--the result ofthe way she was brought up, down in Northamptonshire, never seeing asoul. Have you any aunts?"
"I live with them," said Rachel.
"And I wonder what they're doing now?" Hewet enquired.
"They are probably buying wool," Rachel determined. She tried todescribe them. "They are small, rather pale women," she began, "veryclean. We live in Richmond. They have an old dog, too, who will onlyeat the marrow out of bones. . . . They are always going to church.They tidy their drawers a good deal." But here she was overcome by thedifficulty of describing people.
"It's impossible to believe that it's all going on still!" sheexclaimed.
The sun was behind them and two long shadows suddenly lay upon theground in front of them, one waving because it was made by a skirt, andthe other stationary, because thrown by a pair of legs in trousers.
"You look very comfortable!" said Helen's voice above them.
"Hirst," said Hewet, pointing at the scissorlike shadow; he then rolledround to look up at them.
"There's room for us all here," he said.
When Hirst had seated himself comfortably, he said:
"Did you congratulate the young couple?"
It appeared that, coming to the same spot a few minutes after Hewet andRachel, Helen and Hirst had seen precisely the same thing.
"No, we didn't congratulate them," said Hewet. "They seemed very happy."
"Well," said Hirst, pursing up his lips, "so long as I needn't marryeither of them--"
"We were very much moved," said Hewet.
"I thought you would be," said Hirst. "Which was it, Monk? The thoughtof the immortal passions, or the thought of new-born males to keep theRoman Catholics out? I assure you," he said to Helen, "he's capable ofbeing moved by either."
Rachel was a good deal stung by his banter, which she felt to bedirected equally against them both, but she could think of no repartee.
"Nothing moves Hirst," Hewet laughed; he did not seem to be stung atall. "Unless it were a transfinite number falling in love with a finiteone--I suppose such things do happen, even in mathematics."
"On the contrary," said Hirst with a touch of annoyance, "I considermyself a person of very strong passions." It was clear from the way hespoke that he meant it seriously; he spoke of course for the benefit ofthe ladies.
"By the way, Hirst," said Hewet, after a pause, "I have a terribleconfession to make. Your book--the poems of Wordsworth, which if youremember I took off your table just as we were starting, and certainlyput in my pocket here--"
"Is lost," Hirst finished for him.
"I consider that there is still a chance," Hewet urged, slapping himselfto right and left, "that I never did take it after all."
"No," said Hirst. "It is here." He pointed to his breast.
"Thank God," Hewet exclaimed. "I need no longer feel as though I'dmurdered a child!"
"I should think you were always losing things," Helen remarked, lookingat him meditatively.
"I don't lose things," said Hewet. "I mislay them. That was the reasonwhy Hirst refused to share a cabin with me on the voyage out."
"You came out together?" Helen enquired.
"I propose that each member of this party now gives a short biographicalsketch of himself or herself," said Hirst, sitting upright. "MissVinrace, you come first; begin."
Rachel stated that she was twenty-four years of age, the daughter of aship-owner, that she had never been properly educated; played the piano,had no brothers or sisters, and lived at Richmond with aunts, her motherbeing dead.
"Next," said Hirst, having taken in these facts; he pointed at Hewet. "Iam the son of an English gentleman. I am twenty-seven," Hewet began. "Myfather was a fox-hunting squire. He died when I was ten in the huntingfield. I can remember his body coming home, on a shutter I suppose, justas I was going down to tea, and noticing that there was jam for tea, andwondering whether I should be allowed--"
"Yes; but keep to the facts," Hirst put in.
"I was educated at Winchester and Cambridge, which I had to leave aftera time. I have done a good many things since--"
"Profession?"
"None--at least--"
"Tastes?"
"Literary. I'm writing a novel."
"Brothers and sisters?"
"Three sisters, no brother, and a mother."
"Is that all we're to hear about you?" said Helen. She stated that shewas very old--forty last October, and her father had been a solicitor inthe city who had gone bankrupt, for which reason she had never had mucheducation--they lived in one place after another--but an elder brotherused to lend her books.
"If I were to tell you everything--" she stopped and smiled. "It wouldtake too long," she concluded. "I married when I was thirty, and I havetwo children. My husband is a s
cholar. And now--it's your turn," shenodded at Hirst.
"You've left out a great deal," he reproved her. "My nameis St. John Alaric Hirst," he began in a jaunty tone of voice."I'm twenty-four years old. I'm the son of the Reverend SidneyHirst, vicar of Great Wappyng in Norfolk. Oh, I got scholarshipseverywhere--Westminster--King's. I'm now a fellow of King's. Don't itsound dreary? Parents both alive (alas). Two brothers and one sister.I'm a very distinguished young man," he added.
"One of the three, or is it five, most distinguished men in England,"Hewet remarked.
"Quite correct," said Hirst.
"That's all very interesting," said Helen after a pause. "But of coursewe've left out the only questions that matter. For instance, are weChristians?"
"I am not," "I am not," both the young men replied.
"I am," Rachel stated.
"You believe in a personal God?" Hirst demanded, turning round andfixing her with his eyeglasses.
"I believe--I believe," Rachel stammered, "I believe there are thingswe don't know about, and the world might change in a minute and anythingappear."
At this Helen laughed outright. "Nonsense," she said. "You're not aChristian. You've never thought what you are.--And there are lots ofother questions," she continued, "though perhaps we can't ask them yet."Although they had talked so freely they were all uncomfortably consciousthat they really knew nothing about each other.
"The important questions," Hewet pondered, "the really interesting ones.I doubt that one ever does ask them."
Rachel, who was slow to accept the fact that only a very few things canbe said even by people who know each other well, insisted on knowingwhat he meant.
"Whether we've ever been in love?" she enquired. "Is that the kind ofquestion you mean?"
Again Helen laughed at her, benignantly strewing her with handfuls ofthe long tasselled grass, for she was so brave and so foolish.
"Oh, Rachel," she cried. "It's like having a puppy in the house havingyou with one--a puppy that brings one's underclothes down into thehall."
But again the sunny earth in front of them was crossed by fantasticwavering figures, the shadows of men and women.
"There they are!" exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. There was a touch ofpeevishness in her voice. "And we've had _such_ a hunt to find you. Doyou know what the time is?"
Mrs. Elliot and Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury now confronted them; Mrs. Elliotwas holding out her watch, and playfully tapping it upon the face.Hewet was recalled to the fact that this was a party for which he wasresponsible, and he immediately led them back to the watch-tower, wherethey were to have tea before starting home again. A bright crimson scarffluttered from the top of the wall, which Mr. Perrott and Evelyn weretying to a stone as the others came up. The heat had changed just sofar that instead of sitting in the shadow they sat in the sun, whichwas still hot enough to paint their faces red and yellow, and to colourgreat sections of the earth beneath them.
"There's nothing half so nice as tea!" said Mrs. Thornbury, taking hercup.
"Nothing," said Helen. "Can't you remember as a child chopping up hay--"she spoke much more quickly than usual, and kept her eye fixed uponMrs. Thornbury, "and pretending it was tea, and getting scolded by thenurses--why I can't imagine, except that nurses are such brutes, won'tallow pepper instead of salt though there's no earthly harm in it.Weren't your nurses just the same?"
During this speech Susan came into the group, and sat down by Helen'sside. A few minutes later Mr. Venning strolled up from the oppositedirection. He was a little flushed, and in the mood to answerhilariously whatever was said to him.
"What have you been doing to that old chap's grave?" he asked, pointingto the red flag which floated from the top of the stones.
"We have tried to make him forget his misfortune in having died threehundred years ago," said Mr. Perrott.
"It would be awful--to be dead!" ejaculated Evelyn M.
"To be dead?" said Hewet. "I don't think it would be awful. It's quiteeasy to imagine. When you go to bed to-night fold your hands so--breatheslower and slower--" He lay back with his hands clasped upon his breast,and his eyes shut, "Now," he murmured in an even monotonous voice, "Ishall never, never, never move again." His body, lying flat among them,did for a moment suggest death.
"This is a horrible exhibition, Mr. Hewet!" cried Mrs. Thornbury.
"More cake for us!" said Arthur.
"I assure you there's nothing horrible about it," said Hewet, sitting upand laying hands upon the cake.
"It's so natural," he repeated. "People with children should make themdo that exercise every night. . . . Not that I look forward to beingdead."
"And when you allude to a grave," said Mr. Thornbury, who spoke almostfor the first time, "have you any authority for calling that ruina grave? I am quite with you in refusing to accept the commoninterpretation which declares it to be the remains of an Elizabethanwatch-tower--any more than I believe that the circular mounds orbarrows which we find on the top of our English downs were camps. Theantiquaries call everything a camp. I am always asking them, Well then,where do you think our ancestors kept their cattle? Half the camps inEngland are merely the ancient pound or barton as we call it in my partof the world. The argument that no one would keep his cattle in suchexposed and inaccessible spots has no weight at all, if you reflect thatin those days a man's cattle were his capital, his stock-in-trade, hisdaughter's dowries. Without cattle he was a serf, another man's man. . . ."His eyes slowly lost their intensity, and he muttered a fewconcluding words under his breath, looking curiously old and forlorn.
Hughling Elliot, who might have been expected to engage the oldgentleman in argument, was absent at the moment. He now came up holdingout a large square of cotton upon which a fine design was printed inpleasant bright colours that made his hand look pale.
"A bargain," he announced, laying it down on the cloth. "I've justbought it from the big man with the ear-rings. Fine, isn't it? Itwouldn't suit every one, of course, but it's just the thing--isn't it,Hilda?--for Mrs. Raymond Parry."
"Mrs. Raymond Parry!" cried Helen and Mrs. Thornbury at the same moment.
They looked at each other as though a mist hitherto obscuring theirfaces had been blown away.
"Ah--you have been to those wonderful parties too?" Mrs. Elliot askedwith interest.
Mrs. Parry's drawing-room, though thousands of miles away, behind a vastcurve of water on a tiny piece of earth, came before their eyes. Theywho had had no solidity or anchorage before seemed to be attached to itsomehow, and at once grown more substantial. Perhaps they had been inthe drawing-room at the same moment; perhaps they had passed each otheron the stairs; at any rate they knew some of the same people. Theylooked one another up and down with new interest. But they could do nomore than look at each other, for there was no time to enjoy the fruitsof the discovery. The donkeys were advancing, and it was advisable tobegin the descent immediately, for the night fell so quickly that itwould be dark before they were home again.
Accordingly, remounting in order, they filed off down the hillside.Scraps of talk came floating back from one to another. There were jokesto begin with, and laughter; some walked part of the way, and pickedflowers, and sent stones bounding before them.
"Who writes the best Latin verse in your college, Hirst?" Mr. Elliotcalled back incongruously, and Mr. Hirst returned that he had no idea.
The dusk fell as suddenly as the natives had warned them, the hollowsof the mountain on either side filling up with darkness and the pathbecoming so dim that it was surprising to hear the donkeys' hooves stillstriking on hard rock. Silence fell upon one, and then upon another,until they were all silent, their minds spilling out into the deep blueair. The way seemed shorter in the dark than in the day; and soon thelights of the town were seen on the flat far beneath them.
Suddenly some one cried, "Ah!"
In a moment the slow yellow drop rose again from the plain below; itrose, paused, opened like a flower, and fell in a shower of drops.
"F
ireworks," they cried.
Another went up more quickly; and then another; they could almost hearit twist and roar.
"Some Saint's day, I suppose," said a voice. The rush and embrace ofthe rockets as they soared up into the air seemed like the fiery way inwhich lovers suddenly rose and united, leaving the crowd gazing up atthem with strained white faces. But Susan and Arthur, riding down thehill, never said a word to each other, and kept accurately apart.
Then the fireworks became erratic, and soon they ceased altogether, andthe rest of the journey was made almost in darkness, the mountain beinga great shadow behind them, and bushes and trees little shadows whichthrew darkness across the road. Among the plane-trees they separated,bundling into carriages and driving off, without saying good-night, orsaying it only in a half-muffled way.
It was so late that there was no time for normal conversation betweentheir arrival at the hotel and their retirement to bed. But Hirstwandered into Hewet's room with a collar in his hand.
"Well, Hewet," he remarked, on the crest of a gigantic yawn, "that was agreat success, I consider." He yawned. "But take care you're not landedwith that young woman. . . . I don't really like young women. . . ."
Hewet was too much drugged by hours in the open air to make any reply.In fact every one of the party was sound asleep within ten minutes orso of each other, with the exception of Susan Warrington. She lay fora considerable time looking blankly at the wall opposite, her handsclasped above her heart, and her light burning by her side. Allarticulate thought had long ago deserted her; her heart seemed to havegrown to the size of a sun, and to illuminate her entire body, sheddinglike the sun a steady tide of warmth.
"I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy," she repeated. "I love every one. I'mhappy."