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DEADHAM HARD

A Romance

BY LUCAS MALET

(MARY ST. LEGER HARRISON)

Author of "Sir Richard Calmady," "The Wages of Sin," etc.

1919







"Youth has no boundaries, age has the grave."--BULGARIAN PROVERB




TO MY DEAR FRIEND ACROSS THE OCEAN C. E. O. VEVEY 1899 LONDON 1919




CONTENTS

BOOK I  THE HOUSE OF THE TAMARISKS

CHAPTER

       I. TELLING HOW, UNDER STRESS OF CIRCUMSTANCES, A HUMANIST TURNED
          HERMIT

      II. ENTER A YOUNG SCHOLAR AND GENTLEMAN OF A HAPPY DISPOSITION AND
          GOOD PROSPECTS

     III. THE DOUBTFULLY HARMONIOUS PARTS OF A WHOLE

      IV. WATCHERS THROUGH THE SMALL HOURS

       V. BETWEEN RIVER AND SEA

      VI. IN WHICH THE PAST LAYS AN OMINOUS HAND ON THE PRESENT

     VII. A CRITIC IN CORDUROY


BOOK II  THE HARD SCHOOL OF THINGS AS THEY ARE

       I. IN MAIDEN MEDITATION

      II. WHICH CANTERS ROUND A PARISH PUMP

     III. A SAMPLING OF FREEDOM

      IV. OUT ON THE BAR

       V. WHEREIN DAMARIS MAKES SOME ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE HIDDEN WAYS OF
          MEN

      VI. RECOUNTING AN ASTONISHING DEPOSITION

     VII. A SOUL AT WAR WITH FACT

    VIII. TELLING HOW TWO PERSONS, OF VERY DIFFERENT MORAL CALIBRE, WERE
          COMPELLED TO WEAR THE FLOWER OF HUMILIATION IN THEIR RESPECTIVE
          BUTTONHOLES

      IX. AN EXPERIMENT IN BRIDGE-BUILDING OF WHICH TIME ALONE CAN FIX
          THE VALUES

       X. TELLING HOW MISS FELICIA VERITY UNSUCCESSFULLY ATTEMPTED A
          RESCUE

      XI. IN WHICH DAMARIS RECEIVES INFORMATION OF THE LOST SHOES AND
          STOCKINGS--ASSUMPTION OF THE GOD-HEAD

     XII. CONCERNING A SERMON WHICH NEVER WAS PREACHED AND OTHER MATTERS
          OF LOCAL INTEREST


BOOK III  THE WORLD BEYOND THE FOREST

       I. AN EPISODE IN THE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE OF THE MAN WITH THE BLUE
          EYES

      II. TELLING HOW DAMARIS RENEWED HER ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE BELOVED
          LADY OF HER INFANCY

     III. WHICH CONCERNS ITSELF, INCIDENTALLY, WITH THE GRIEF OF A VICTIM
          OF CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE RECEPTION OF A BELATED CHRISTMAS
          GREETING

      IV. BLOWING ONE'S OWN TRUMPET PRACTISED AS A FINE ART

       V. IN WHICH HENRIETTA PULLS THE STRINGS

      VI. CARNIVAL--AND AFTER

     VII. TELLING HOW DAMARIS DISCOVERED THE TRUE NATURE OF A CERTAIN
          SECRET TO THE DEAR MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES

    VIII. FIDUS ACHATES

      IX. WHICH FEATURES VARIOUS PERSONS WITH WHOM THE READER IS ALREADY
          ACQUAINTED

       X. WHICH IT IS TO BE FEARED SMELLS SOMEWHAT POWERFULLY OF BILGE
          WATER

      XI. WHEREIN DAMARIS MEETS HERSELF UNDER A NOVEL ASPECT

     XII. CONCERNING ITSELF WITH A GATHERING UP OF FRAGMENTS

    XIII. WHICH RECOUNTS A TAKING OF SANCTUARY


BOOK IV  THROUGH SHADOWS TOWARDS THE DAWN

       I. WHICH CARRIES OVER A TALE OF YEARS, AND CARRIES ON

      II. RECALLING, IN SOME PARTICULARS, THE EASIEST RECORDED THEFT IN
          HUMAN HISTORY

     III. BROTHER AND SISTER

      IV. WHEREIN MISS FELICIA VERITY CONCLUSIVELY SHOWS WHAT SPIRIT SHE
          IS OF

       V. DEALING WITH EMBLEMS, OMENS AND DEMONSTRATIONS

      VI. SHOWING HOW SIR CHARLES VERITY WAS JUSTIFIED OF HIS LABOURS

     VII. TELLING HOW CHARLES VERITY LOOKED ON THE MOTHER OF HIS SON

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH WHICH IS ALSO CHAPTER THE LAST




BOOK I

THE HOUSE OF THE TAMARISKS




CHAPTER I

TELLING HOW, UNDER STRESS OF CIRCUMSTANCE, A HUMANIST TURNED HERMIT


A peculiar magic resides in running water, as every student of earth-lore
knows. There is high magic, too, in the marriage of rivers, so that the
spot where two mingle their streams is sacred, endowed with strange
properties of evocation and of purification. Such spots go to the making
of history and ruling of individual lives; but whether their influence is
not more often malign than beneficent may be, perhaps, open to doubt.

Certain it is, however, that no doubts of this description troubled the
mind of Thomas Clarkson Verity, when, in the closing decade of the
eighteenth century, he purchased the house at Deadham Hard, known as
Tandy's Castle, overlooking the deep and comparatively narrow channel by
which the Rivers Arne and Wilner, after crossing the tide-flats and
salt-marsh of Marychurch Haven, make their swift united exit into
Marychurch Bay. Neither was he troubled by the fact that Tandy's
Castle--or more briefly and familiarly Tandy's--for all its commonplace
outward decency of aspect did not enjoy an unblemished moral or social
reputation. The house--a whitewashed, featureless erection--was planted
at right angles to the deep sandy lane leading up from the shore, through
the scattered village of Deadham, to the three-mile distant market town
of Marychurch.

Standing on a piece of rough land--bare, save for a few stunted Weymouth
pines, and a fringe of tamarisk along the broken sea-wall--Tandy's, at
the date in question, boasted a couple of bowed sash-windows on either
side the front and back doors; and a range of five other windows set flat
in the wall on the first floor. There was no second storey. The slate
roofs were mean, low-pitched, without any grace of overshadowing eaves.
At either end, a tall chimney-stack rose like the long ears of some
startled, vacant-faced small animal. Behind the house, a thick plantation
of beech and sycamore served to make its square blank whiteness visible
for a quite considerable distance out to sea. Built upon the site of some
older and larger structure, it was blessed--or otherwise--with a system
of vaults and cellars wholly disproportionate to its existing size. One
of these, by means of a roughly ceiled and flagged passage, gave access
to a heavy door in the sea-wall opening directly on to the river
foreshore.

Hence the unsavoury reputation of the place. For not only did it supply a
convenient receiving house for smuggled goods, but a convenient
rendezvous for the more lawless characters of the neighbourhood--a
back-of-beyond and No Man's Land where the devil could, with impunity,
have things very much his own way. In the intervals of more serious
business, the vaults and cellars of Tandy's frequently resounded to the
agonies and brutal hilarities of cock-fights, dog-fights, and other
repulsive sports and pastimes common to the English--both gentle and
simple--of that virile but singularly gross and callous age. Nevertheless
to Thomas Clarkson Verity, man of peace and of ideas, Tandy's
represented--and continued to represent through over half a
century--rescue, security, an awakening in something little short of
paradise from a long-drawn nightmare of hell. He paid an extortionate
price for the property at the outset, and spent a small fortune on the
enlargement of the house and improvement of the grounds, yet never
regretted his bargain.

For, in good truth, when, in the spring of 1794, the soft, nimble,
round-bodied, very polite, learned and loquacious little gentleman first
set eyes upon its mean roofs, prick ears and vacant whitewashed
countenance, he had been horribly shocked, horribly scared--for all the
inherited valour of his good breeding--and, above all, most horribly
disappointed. History had played very dirty pranks with him, which he
found it impossible as yet to forgive.

Five years earlier, fired, like many another generous spirit, by
extravagant hope of the coming regeneration of mankind, he hurried off to
Paris after the opening of the National Assembly and fall of the
Bastille. With the overture to the millennium in full blast, must he not
be there to hear and see? Associating himself with the Girondist party he
assisted, busily enthusiastic, at the march of tremendous events, until
the evil hour in which friend began to denounce friend, and heads, quite
other than aristocratic--those of men and women but yesterday the idols
and chosen leaders of the people--went daily to the filling of _la veuve_
Guillotine's unspeakable market-basket. The spectacle proved too
upsetting both to Mr. Verity's amiable mind and rather queasy stomach.
Faith failed; while even the millennium seemed hardly worth purchasing at
so detestable a cost. He stood altogether too close to the terrible
drama, in its later stages, to distinguish the true import or progression
of it. Too close to understand that, however blood-stained its cradle,
the goodly child Democracy was veritably, here and now, in the act of
being born among men. Rather did he question whether his own fat little
neck was not in lively danger of being severed; and his own head--so full
of ingenious thoughts and lively curiosity--of being sent flying to join
those of Brissot and Verginaud, of wayward explosive Camille and sweet
Lucile Desmoulins, in that same unspeakable basket.

And to what end? For could he suppose the human race would be nearer, by
the veriest fraction of a millimetre, to universal liberty, equality, and
prosperity, through his insignificant death? Modesty, and a natural
instinct of self-preservation alike answered, "never a jot." Whereupon
with pertinacious, if furtive, activity he sought means of escape. And,
at length, after months of hiding and anxious flitting, found them in the
shape of a doubtfully seaworthy, and undoubtedly filthy, fishing-smack
bound from Le Havre to whatever port it could make on the English south
coast. The two days' voyage was rough, the accommodation and company to
match. Mr. Verity spent a disgusting and disgusted forty-eight hours, to
be eventually put ashore, a woefully bedraggled and depleted figure, in
the primrose, carmine, and dove-grey of a tender April morning on the wet
sand just below the sea-wall of Tandy's Castle.

Never was Briton more thankful to salute his native land, or feel the
solid earth of it under his weary and very shaky feet. He, an epicure,
ate such coarse food, washed down by such coarse ale, as Tandy's could
offer with smiling relish. Later, mounted on a forest pony--an
ill-favoured animal with a wall-eye, pink muzzle, bristly upper and
hanging lower lip, more accustomed to carry a keg of smuggled spirits
strapped beneath its belly than a cosmopolitan savant and social reformer
on its back--he rode the three miles to Marychurch, proposing there to
take the coach to Southampton and, after a measure of rest and refitting,
a post-chaise to Canton Magna, his elder brother's fine place lying in a
fold of the chalk hills which face the Sussex border.

The pony moved slowly and sullenly; but its rider felt no impatience. His
humour was of the kindliest. His heart, indeed, came near singing for
joy, simply, spontaneously, even as the larks sang, climbing up and
upward from salt marsh and meadow, on either side the rutted road, into
the limpid purity of the spring sky. A light wind flapped the
travel-stained, high-collared blue cloth cloak which he wore; and brought
him both the haunting fetid-sweet reek of the mud flats--the tide being
low--and the invigorating tang of the forest and moorland, uprolling
there ahead, in purple and umber to the pale northern horizon. Against
that sombre background, fair and stately in the tender sunlight as a
church of vision or dream, Marychurch Abbey rose above the roofs and
chimneys of the little town.

During the latter half of the eighteenth century, not only were
religious systems very much at a discount among persons of intelligence,
but the Deity himself was relegated to the position of an exploded idea,
becoming an object of vituperation, witty or obscene according to the
humour of the individual critic. As one of the illuminated, Mr. Verity
did not escape the prevailing infection, although an inborn amenity of
disposition saved him from atheism in its more blatantly offensive forms.
The existence of the Supreme Being might be, (probably was) so he feared,
but "a fond thing vainly imagined". Yet such is the constitution of the
human mind that age confers a certain prestige and authority even upon
phantoms and suspected frauds. Hence it followed that Mr. Verity, in the
plenitude of his courtesy, had continued to take off his hat--secretly
and subjectively at all events--to this venerable theological delusion,
so dear through unnumbered centuries to the aching heart and troubled
conscience of humanity.

But in the present glad hour of restored security--his head no longer in
danger of plopping, hideously bodiless, into _la veuve's_ basket, his
inner-man, moreover, so recently and rackingly evacuated by that
abominable Channel passage, now comfortably relined with Tandy's meat and
drink--he went further in the way of acknowledgment. A glow of very vital
gratitude swept over him, so that looking at the majestic church--secular
witness to the soul's faith in and need of Almighty God's protective
mercy and goodness--he took off his hat, no longer metaphorically but
actually, and bowed himself together over the pommel of the saddle with
an irresistible movement of thanksgiving and of praise.

Recovering himself after a minute or so--"Almost thou persuades! me
to be a Christian," he said aloud, shaking his head remonstrantly at
the distant church, while tears started to his busy, politely
inquisitive eyes.

Then, striving by speech to bring his spirits to their accustomed
playfulness and poise, he soliloquized thus, still aloud:

"For, to be candid, what convincing argument can I advance, in the light
of recent experience, to prove that Rousseau, my friends the
Encyclopeadists, or even the great M. de Voltaire, were really wiser in
their generation, truer lovers of the people and safer guides, than St.
Benedict--of blessed memory, since patron of learning and incidentally
saviour of classic literature--whose pious sons raised this most
delectable edifice to God's glory seven hundred years ago?--The tower is
considerably later than the transepts and the nave--fifteenth century I
take it,--Upon my soul, I am half tempted to renounce my allegiance and
to doubt whether our modern standards of civilization surpass, in the
intelligent application of means to ends, those of these mediaeval
cenobites, and whether we are saner philanthropists, deeper philosophers,
more genial humanists than they!"

But here his discourse suffered mortifying interruption. He became aware
the pony stood stock-still in the middle of the road; and, turning its
head, so that he beheld its pink muzzle, bristly upper and hanging lower
lip in disagreeable profile, regarded him with malevolent contempt out of
its one sound eye, as who should say:

"What's the silly fellow trumpeting like this about? Doesn't the veriest
noodle contrive to keep a quiet tongue in his head out on the highway?"

Sensible of a snub, Mr. Verity jerked at the reins and clapped his heels
into the creature's sides, as smartly as fatigue and native civility
permitted, sending it forward at a jog-trot. Nevertheless his
soliloquy--a silent one now--continued, and that with notable
consequences to others besides himself.

For his thought still dallied with the subject of the monastic life, as
lived by those same pious Benedictines here in England long ago. Its
reasoned rejection of mundane agitations, its calm, its leisure, its
profound and ardent scholarship were vastly to his taste,--A man touching
middle-age might do worse, surely, than spend his days between worship
and learning, thus?--He saw, and approved, its social office in offering
sanctuary to the fugitive, alms to the poor, teaching to the ignorant,
consolation to the sick and safe passage heavenward to the dying. Saw,
not without sympathy, its more jovial moments--its good fellowship,
shrewd and witty conversation, well salted stories--whereat a man laughs
slyly in his sleeve--its good cheer, too, with feasts on holy-days and
high-days, rich and succulent.--And in this last connection, as he
reflected, much was to be said for the geographical position of
Marychurch; since if river mists and white dullness of sea fog, drifting
in from the Channel, were to hand, so, also, in their season, were fresh
run salmon, snipe, wood-cock, flocks of wild duck, of plover and other
savoury fowl.

For in this thankfulness of awakening from the hellish nightmare of the
Terror, Mr. Verity's facile imagination tended to run to another extreme.
With all the seriousness of which he was capable he canvassed the notion
of a definite retirement from the world. Public movements, political and
social experiments ceased to attract him. His appetite for helping to
make the wheels of history go round had been satisfied to the point of
nausea. All he desired was tranquillity and repose. He was free of
domestic obligations and close family ties. He proposed to remain
so--philosophy his mistress, science his hand-maid, literature his
pastime, books (remembering the bitter sorrows of the tumbril and
scaffold in Paris) in future, his closest friends.

But, unfortunately, though the great church in all its calm grave,
beauty still held the heart the fair landscape, the monastery, which
might have sheltered his renunciation, had been put to secular uses or
fallen into ruin long years ago. If he proposed to retire from the
world, he must himself provide suitable environment. Marychurch Abbey,
at the end of the eighteenth century, had very certainly nothing to
offer him under that head.

And then, with a swiftness of conception and decision possible only to
mercurial-minded persons, his thought darted back to Tandy's, that
unkempt, morally malodorous back-of-beyond and No Man's Land. Its vacant
whitewashed countenance and long-eared chimney-stacks had welcomed him,
if roughly and grudgingly, to England and to peace. Was he not in some
sort thereby in debt to Tandy's bound by gratitude to the place? Should
he not buy it--his private fortune being considerable--and there plant
his hermitage? Should he not renovate and transform it, redeeming it from
questionable uses, by transporting thither, not himself only but his fine
library, his famous herbarium, his cabinets of crystals, of coins, and of
shells? The idea captivated him. He was weary of destruction, having seen
it in full operation and practised on the gigantic scale. Henceforth he
would devote all the energy he possessed to construction--on however
modest and private a one--to a building up, as personal protest against
much lately witnessed wanton and chaotic pulling-down.

In prosecution of which purpose, hopeful once more and elate, bobbing
merrily cork-like upon the surface of surrounding circumstance--although
lamentably deficient, for the moment, in raiment befitting his position
and his purse--Mr. Verity spent two days at the Stag's Head, in
Marychurch High Street. He made enquiries of all and sundry regarding
the coveted property; and learned, after much busy investigation that
the village, and indeed the whole Hundred of Deadham, formed an outlying
and somewhat neglected portion of his acquaintance, Lord Bulparc's
Hampshire estate.

Here was solid information to go upon. Greatly encouraged, he took the
coach to Southampton, and thence up to town; where he interviewed first
Lord Bulparc's lawyers and then that high-coloured, free-living
nobleman himself.

"Gad, sir," the latter assured him, "you're heartily welcome to the damn
little hole, as far as I'm concerned, if you have the bad taste to fancy
it. I suppose I ought to speak to my son Oxley about this just as a
matter of form. Not that I apprehend Oxley will raise any difficulties as
to entail--you need not fear that. We shall let you off easy enough--only
too happy to oblige you. But I warn you, Verity, you may drop money
buying the present tenant out. If half my agent tells me is true, the
fellow must be a most confounded blackguard, up to the eyes in all
manner of ungodly traffic. By rights we ought to have kicked him out
years ago. But," his lordship chuckled--"I scruple to be hard on any man.
We're none of us perfect, live and let live, you know. Only my dear
fellow, I'm bound to put you on your guard; for he'll stick to the place
like a leech and blood-suck you like a leech too, as long as there's a
chance of getting an extra guinea out of you by fair means or foul."

To which process of blood-sucking Mr. Verity was, in fact, rather
scandalously subjected before Tandy's Castle passed into his possession.
But pass into his possession it finally did, whereupon he fell joyously
to the work of reconstructive redemption.

First of all he ordered the entrance of the underground passage, leading
to the river foreshore, to be securely walled up; and, with a fine
disregard of possible unhealthy consequences in the shape of choke-damp,
the doorways of certain ill-reputed vaults and cellars to be filled with
solid masonry. Neither harborage of contraband, cruel laughter of man, or
yell of tortured beast, should again defile the under-world of
Tandy's!--Next he had the roof of the main building raised, and given a
less mean and meagre angle. He added a wing on the left containing
pleasant bed-chambers upstairs, and good offices below; and, as crowning
act of redemption, caused three large ground-floor rooms, backed by a
wide corridor, to be built on the right in which to house his library and
collections. This lateral extension of the house, constructed according
to his own plans, was, like its designer, somewhat eccentric in
character. The three rooms were semicircular, all window on the southern
garden front, veritable sun-traps, with a low sloped roofing of
grey-green slate to them, set fan-wise.

Such was the house at Deadham Hard when Mr. Verity's labours were
completed. And such did it remain until a good eighty years later, when
it was visited by a youthful namesake and great-great nephew, under
circumstances not altogether unworthy of record.




CHAPTER II

ENTER A YOUNG SCHOLAR AND GENTLEMAN OF A HAPPY DISPOSITION AND
GOOD PROSPECTS


The four-twenty down train rumbled into Marychurch station, and Tom
Verity stepped out of a rather frousty first-class carriage on to the
platform. There hot still September sunshine, tempered by a freshness off
the sea, met him. The effect was pleasurable, adding delicate zest to the
enjoyment of living which already possessed him. Coming from inland, the
near neighbourhood of the sea, the sea with its eternal invitation,
stirred his blood.

For was not he about to accept the said invitation in its fullest and
most practical expression? Witness the fact that, earlier in the day, he
had deposited his heavy baggage at that house of many partings, many
meetings, Radley's Hotel, Southampton; and journeyed on to Marychurch
with a solitary, eminently virgin, cowhide portmanteau, upon the
yellow-brown surface of which the words--"Thomas Clarkson Verity,
passenger Bombay, first cabin R.M.S. _Penang_"--were inscribed in the
whitest of lettering. His name stood high in the list of successful
candidates at the last Indian Civil Service examination. Now he reaped
the reward of past endeavour. For with that deposition of heavy baggage
at Radley's the last farewell to years of tutelage seemed to him to be
spoken. Nursery discipline, the restraints and prohibitions--in their
respective degrees--of preparatory school, of Harchester, of Oxford; and,
above all and through all, the control and admonitions of his father, the
Archdeacon, fell away from him into the limbo of things done with,
outworn and outpaced.

This moved him as pathetic, yet as satisfactory also, since it set him
free to fix his mind, without lurking suspicion of indecorum, upon the
large promise of the future. He could give rein to his eagerness, to his
high sense of expectation, while remaining innocent of impiety towards
persons and places holding, until now, first claim on his obedience and
affection. All this fell in admirably with his natural bent.
Self-reliant, agreeably egotistical, convinced of the excellence of his
social and mental equipment, Tom was saved from excess of conceit by a
lively desire to please, an even more lively sense of humour, and an
intelligence to which at this period nothing came amiss in the way of new
impressions or experiences.

And, from henceforth, he was his own master, his thoughts, actions,
purposes, belonging to himself and to himself alone. Really the position
was a little intoxicating! Realizing it, as he sat in the somewhat stuffy
first-class carriage, on that brief hour's journey from Southampton to
Marychurch, he had laughed out loud, hunching up his shoulders saucily,
in a sudden outburst of irrepressible and boyish glee.

But as the line, clearing the purlieus of the great seaport, turns
south-westward running through the noble oak and beech woods of Arnewood
Forest, crossing its bleak moorlands--silver pink, at the present season,
with fading heather--and cutting through its plantations of larch and
Scotch fir, Tom Verity's mood sobered. He watched the country reeling
away to right and left past the carriage windows, and felt its peculiarly
English and sylvan charm. Yet he saw it all through a dazzle, as of
mirage, in which floated phantom landscapes strangely different in
sentiment and in suggestion.--Some extravagantly luxuriant, as setting to
crowded painted cities, some desert, amazingly vacant and desolate; but,
in either case, poetic, alluring, exciting, as scenes far removed in
climate, faith and civilization from those heretofore familiar can hardly
fail to be. India, and all which India stands for in English history,
challenged his imagination, challenged his ambition, since in virtue of
his nationality, young and inexperienced though he was, he went to her as
a natural ruler, the son of a conquering race. And this last thought
begot in him not only exultation but an unwonted seriousness. While, as
he thus meditated, from out the dazzle as of mirage, a single figure grew
into force and distinctness of outline, a figure which from his childhood
had appealed to him with an attraction at once sinister and heroic--that,
namely, of a certain soldier and ex-Indian official, his kinsman, to pay
a politic tribute of respect to whom was the object of his present
excursion.

In Catholic countries the World gives its children to the Church. In
Protestant countries the process is not infrequently reversed, the Church
giving its children to the World, and that with an alacrity which argues
remarkable faith and courage--of a sort! Archdeacon Verity had carefully
planned this visit for his son, although it obliged the young man to
leave home two days earlier than he need otherwise have done. It was
illuminating to note how the father brought all the resources of a fine
presence, an important manner and full-toned archidiaconal voice to bear
upon proving the expediency of the young man visiting this particular
relation, over whose career and reputation he had so often, in the past,
pursed up his lips and shaken his head for the moral benefit of the
domestic circle.

For the Archdeacon, in common with the majority of the Verity family, was
animated by that ineradicable distrust of anything approaching genius
which distinguishes the English country, or rather county, mind. And that
Sir Charles Verity had failed to conform to the family tradition of
solid, unemotional, highly respectable, and usually very wealthy,
mediocrity was beyond question. He had struck out a line for himself;
and, as the event disclosed, an illustrious one. This the Archdeacon,
being a good Conservative, disapproved. It worried him sadly, making him
actually, if unconsciously, exceedingly jealous. And precisely on that
account, by an ingenious inversion of reasoning, he felt he owed it to
abstract justice--in other words to his much disgruntled self--to make
all possible use of this offending, this renegade personage, when
opportunity of so doing occurred. Now, learning on credible authority
that Sir Charles's name was still one to conjure with in India, it
clearly became his duty to bid his son seek out and secure whatever
modicum of advantage--in the matter of advice and introductions--might be
derivable from so irritating a source.

All of which, while jumping with his own desires, caused Tom much sly
mirth. For might it not be counted among the satisfactory results of his
deposition of heavy baggage at Radley's that, for the first time in his
life, he was at liberty to regard even his father, Thomas Pontifex
Verity, Archdeacon of Harchester and Rector of Canton Magna, in a true
perspective? And he laughed again, though this time softly, indulgently,
able in the plenitude of youthful superiority to extend a kindly
tolerance towards the foibles and ingenuous hypocrisies of poor
middle-age.

But here the train, emerging from the broken hilly country on the
outskirts of the forest, roared along the embankment which carries the
line across the rich converging valleys of the Wilner and the Arne. Tom
ceased to think either of possible advantage accruing to his own
fortunes, or these defects of the family humour which had combined to
dictate his present excursion, his attention being absorbed by the beauty
of the immediate outlook. For on the left Marychurch came into view.

The great, grey, long-backed abbey stands on a heart-shaped peninsula of
slightly rising ground. Its western tower, land-mark for the valleys and
seamark for vessels making the Haven, overtops the avenue of age-old elms
which shade the graveyard. Close about the church, the red brick and
rough-cast houses of the little market-town--set in a wide margin of
salt-marsh and meadow intersected by blue-brown waterways--gather, as a
brood of chickens gathers about a mothering hen. Beyond lie the pale
glinting levels of the estuary, guarded on the west by gently upward
sloping cornlands and on the south by the dark furze and heath-clad mass
of Stone Horse Head. Beyond again, to the low horizon, stretches the
Channel sea.

The very simplicity of the picture gives it singular dignity and repose.
Classic in its clearness of outline and paucity of detail, mediaeval in
sentiment, since the great Norman church dominates the whole, its appeal
is at once wistful and severe. And, this afternoon, just as the nearness
of the sea tempered the atmosphere lifting all oppressive weight from the
brooding sunshine, so did it temper the colouring, lending it an ethereal
quality, in which blue softened to silver, grey to lavender, while green
seemed overspread by powdered gold. The effect was exquisite, reminding
Tom of certain water-colour drawings, by Danvers and by Appleyard,
hanging in the drawing-room of the big house at Canton Magna, and of
certain of Shelley's lyrics--both of which, in their different medium,
breathed the same enchantment of natural and spiritual loveliness, of
nameless desire, nameless regret. And, his nerves being somewhat strained
by the emotions of the day, that enchantment worked upon him strangely.
The inherent pathos of it, indeed, took him, as squarely as unexpectedly,
by the throat. He suffered a sharp recoil from the solicitation of the
future, an immense tenderness towards the past.--A tenderness for those
same years of tutelage and all they had brought him, not only in
over-flowing animal spirits, happy intercourse and intellectual
attainment; but in their limitation of private action, their security of
obligation, of obedience to authority, which at the time had seemed
irksome enough and upon release from which he had so recently
congratulated himself.

Love of home, of England, of his own people--of the Archdeacon, in even
his most full-voiced and moralizing mood--love of things tested,
accustomed and friendly, touched him to the quick. Suddenly he asked
himself to what end was he leaving all these and going forth to encounter
untried conditions, an unknown Nature, a moral and social order equally
unknown? Looking at the peaceful, ethereally lovely landscape, set in
such close proximity and notable contrast to the unrest of that historic
highway of the nations, the Channel sea, he felt small and lonely,
childishly diffident and weak. All the established safety and comfort of
home, all the thoughtless irresponsible delights of vanished boyhood,
pulled at his heart-strings. He wanted, wanted wildly, desperately, not
to go forward but to go back.

Mind and body being healthy, however, the phase was a passing one, and
his emotion, though sincere and poignant, of brief duration. For young
blood--happily for the human story, which otherwise would read altogether
too sad--defies forebodings, gaily embraces risks; and, true soldier of
fortune, marches out to meet whatever fate the battlefield of manhood may
hold for it, a song in its mouth and a rose behind its ear.

Tom Verity speedily came to a steadier mind, pouring honest contempt upon
his momentary lapse from self-confidence. He was ashamed of it. It
amounted to being silly, simply silly. He couldn't understand, couldn't
account for it. What possessed him to get a regular scare like this? It
was too absurd for words. Sentiment?--Yes, by all means a reasonable
amount of it, well in hand and thus capable of translation--if the fancy
took you--into nicely turned elegiac verse; but a scare, a scare pure and
simple, wasn't to be tolerated! And he got up, standing astraddle to
brace himself against the swinging of the train, while he stretched,
settling himself in his clothes--pulled down the fronts of his waistcoat,
buttoned the jacket of his light check suit; and, taking off his
wide-awake, smoothed his soft, slightly curly russet-coloured hair with
his hand. These adjustments, and the assurance they induced that his
personal appearance was all which it should be, completed his moral
restoration. He stepped down on to the platform, into the serene light
and freshness, as engaging and hopeful a youth of three and twenty as any
one need ask to see.

"For The Hard? Very good, sir. Sir Charles's trap is outside in the
station yard. One portmanteau in the van? Quite so. Don't trouble
yourself about it, sir. I'll send a porter to bring it along."

This from the station-master, with a degree of friendly deference far
from displeasing to the recipient of it.

Whatever the defects of the rank and file of the Verity family in
respect of liberal ideas, it can safely be asserted of all its members,
male and female, clerical and lay, alike, that they belonged to the
equestrian order. Hence it added considerably to Tom's recovered
self-complacency to find a smart two-wheel dog-cart awaiting him, drawn by
a remarkably well-shaped and well-groomed black horse. The coachman was
to match. Middle-aged, clean-shaven, his Napoleonic face set as a mask,
his undress livery of pepper-and-salt mixture soberly immaculate. He
touched his hat when our young gentleman appeared and mounted beside him;
the horse, meanwhile, shivering a little and showing the red of its
nostrils as the train, with strident whistlings, drew out of the station
bound westward to Stourmouth and Barryport.

Later the horse broke up the abiding inertia of Marychurch High Street,
by dancing as it passed the engine of a slowly ambulant thrashing
machine; and only settled fairly into its stride when the three-arched,
twelfth century stone bridge over the Arne was passed, and the
road--leaving the last scattered houses of the little town--turned south
and seaward skirting the shining expanse of The Haven and threading the
semi-amphibious hamlets of Horny Cross and Lampit.




CHAPTER III

THE DOUBTFULLY HARMONIOUS PARTS OF A WHOLE


A long, low, rectangular and rather narrow room, supported across the
centre--where passage walls had been cut away--by an avenue of dumpy
wooden pillars, four on either side, leading to a glass door opening on
to the garden. A man's room rather than a woman's, and, judging by
appearances, a bachelor's at that.--Eighteenth-century furniture, not
ignoble in line, but heavy, wide-seated, designed for the comfort of
bulky paunched figures arrayed in long napped waistcoats and full-skirted
coats. Tabaret curtains and upholsterings, originally maroon, now dulled
by sea damp and bleached by sun-glare to a uniform tone in which colour
and pattern were alike obliterated. Handsome copperplate engravings of
Pisa and of Rome, and pastel portraits in oval frames; the rest of the
whity brown panelled wall space hidden by book-cases. These surmounted by
softly shining, pearl-grey Chinese godlings, monsters, philosophers and
saints, the shelves below packed with neatly ranged books.

A dusky room, in spite of its rounded, outstanding sash-windows, two on
either side the glass door; the air of it holding, in permanent solution,
an odour of leather-bound volumes. A place, in short, which, though not
inhospitable, imposed itself, its qualities and traditions, to an extent
impossible for any save the most thick-skinned and thick-witted wholly to
ignore or resist.

Young Tom Verity, having no convenient armour-plating of stupidity,
suffered its influence intimately as--looking about him with quick
enquiring glances--he followed the man-servant across it between the
dumpy pillars. He felt self-conscious and disquieted, as by a smile of
silent amusement upon some watchful elderly face. So impressed, indeed,
was he that, on reaching the door, he paused, letting the man pass on
alone to announce him. He wanted time in which to get over this queer
sensation of shyness, before presenting himself to the company assembled,
there, in the garden outside.

Yet he was well aware that the prospect out of doors--its amplitude of
mellow sunlight and of space, its fair windless calm in which no leaf
stirred--was far more attractive than the room in the doorway of which he
thus elected to linger.

For the glass-door gave directly on to an extensive lawn, set out,
immediately before the house front, with scarlet and crimson geraniums in
alternating square and lozenge-shaped beds. Away on the right a couple of
grey-stemmed ilex trees--the largest in height and girth Tom had ever
seen--cast finely vandyked and platted shadow upon the smooth turf.
Beneath them, garden chairs were stationed and a tea-table spread, at
which four ladies sat--one, the elder, dressed in crude purple, the other
three, though of widely differing ages and aspect, in light coloured
summer gowns.

To the left of the lawn, a high plastered wall--masked by hollies, bay,
yew, and at the far end by masses of airy, pink-plumed tamarisk--shut off
the eastward view. But straight before him all lay open, "clean away to
the curve of the world" as he told himself, not without a pull of emotion
remembering his impending voyage. For, about sixty yards distant, the
lawn ended abruptly in a hard straight line--the land cut off sheer, as
it seemed, at the outer edge of a gravelled terrace, upon which two small
antiquated cannon were mounted, their rusty muzzles trained over swirling
blue-green tide river and yellow-grey, high-cambered sand-bar out to sea.

Between these innocuous engines of destruction, little black cannon balls
had been piled into a mimic pyramid, near to which three men stood
engaged in desultory conversation. One of them, Tom observed as markedly
taller, more commanding and distinguished in bearing, than his
companions. Even from here, the whole length of the lawn intervening,
his presence, once noted, became of arresting importance, focussing
attention as the central interest, the one thing which vitally mattered
in this gracious scene--his figure silhouetted, vertically, against those
long horizontal lines of river, sand-bar, and far-away delicate junction
of opal-tinted sea with opal-tinted sky.

Whereupon Tom became convicted of the agreeable certainty that no
disappointment awaited him. His expectations were about to receive
generous fulfilment. This visit would prove well worth while. So
absorbed, indeed, was he in watching the man whom he supposed--and
rightly--to be his host, that he failed to notice one of the ladies rise
from the tea-table and advance across the lawn, until her youthful
white-clad form was close upon him, threading its way between the glowing
geranium beds.

Then--"You are my cousin, Thomas Verity?" the girl asked, with a grave
air of ceremony.

"Yes--and you--you are my cousin Damaris," he answered as he felt
clumsily, being taken unaware in more respects than one, and, for all his
ready adaptability, being unable to keep a note of surprise out of his
voice and glance.

He had known of the existence of this little cousin, having heard--on
occasion--vaguely irritated family mention of her birth at a time when
the flame of the Mutiny still burned fiercely in the Punjab and in Oudh.
To be born under such very accentuated circumstances could, in the eyes
of every normal Verity, hardly fail to argue a certain obtrusiveness and
absence of good taste. He had heard, moreover, disapproving allusions to
the extravagant affection Sir Charles Verity was said to lavish upon this
fruit of a somewhat obscure marriage--his only surviving child. But the
said family talk, in Tom's case, had gone in at one ear and out at the
other--as the talk of the elder generation mostly does, and will, when
the younger generation is solidly and wholesomely convinced of the
overwhelming importance of its own personal affairs. Consequently, in
coming to Deadham Hard, Tom had thought of this little cousin--in as far
as it occurred to him to think of her at all--as a child in the
schoolroom who, beyond a trifle of good-natured notice at odd moments,
would not enter into the count or matter at all. Now, awakening to the
fact of her proximity, he awoke to the further fact that, with one
exception, she mattered more than anything or anybody else present.

She was, in truth, young--he had been quite right there. Yet, like the
room in the doorway of which he still lingered, like the man standing on
the terrace walk--to whose tall figure the serene immensities of sea and
sky acted as back-cloth and setting--she imposed herself. Whether she was
pretty or plain, Tom was just now incapable of judging. He only knew
that her eyes were wonderful. He never remembered to have seen such
eyes--clear, dark blue-grey with fine shading of eyelash on the lower as
well as the upper lid. Unquestionably they surpassed all ordinary
standards of prettiness. Were glorious, yet curiously embarrassing; too
in their seriousness, their intent impartial scrutiny--under which last,
to his lively vexation, the young man felt himself redden.

And this, considering his superiority in age, sex, and acquirements, was
not only absurd but unfair somehow. For did not he, as a rule, get on
charmingly well with women, gentle and simple, old and young, alike? Had
he not an ingratiating, playfully flirtatious way with them in which he
trusted? But flirtatiousness, even of the mildest description, would not
do here. Instinctively he recognized that. It would not pay at all--in
this stage of the acquaintance, at all events. He fell back on civil
speeches; and these rather laboured ones, being himself rather
discountenanced.

"It is extremely kind of you and Sir Charles to take me on trust like
this," he began. "Believe me I am very grateful. Under ordinary
circumstances I should never have dreamed of proposing myself. But I am
going out to India for the first time--sailing in the _Penang_ the day
after to-morrow. And, as I should be so near here at Southampton, it was,
I own, a great temptation to ask if I might come for a night. I felt--my
father felt--what a privilege it would be for me, a really tremendous
piece of luck, to meet Sir Charles before I started. Such a rare and
memorable send off for me, you know!"

"We were very glad you should propose yourself," Damaris answered, still
with her grave air of ceremony.

"Awfully good of you, I'm sure," the young man murmured.--No, she didn't
stare. He could not honestly call it staring. It was too calm, too
impersonal, too reserved for that. She looked, with a view to arriving
at conclusions regarding him. And he didn't enjoy the process--not in
the least.

"My father is still interested in everything connected with India," she
went on. "He will like to talk to you. We have people with us this
afternoon whom he could not very well leave, or he would have driven into
Marychurch himself to fetch you. Dr. McCabe, who we knew at Bhutpur long
ago, came over unexpectedly from Stourmouth this morning; and my Aunt
Harriet Cowden telegraphed that she and Uncle Augustus would bring Aunt
Felicia, who is staying with them at Paulton Lacy, here to tea.--But, of
course, you know them quite well--Uncle Augustus, I mean, and my aunts."

"Do I not know them!" Tom replied with meaning; while, humour getting the
upper hand thanks to certain memories, he smiled at her.

And, even at this early period in his career, it must be conceded that
Tom Verity's smile was an asset to be reckoned with. Mischievous to the
verge of impudence; but confidential, too, most disarmingly friendly--a
really vastly engaging smile, which, having once beheld, most persons
found themselves more than ready to behold often again.

Under its persuasive influence Damaris' gravity relaxed. She lowered her
eyes, and the soft warm colour deepened in her cheeks.

Her steady gaze removed, the young man breathed more freely. He
congratulated himself. Intercourse was in act of becoming normal and
easy. So far it had been quite absurdly hind-leggy--and for him, _him_,
to be forced into being hind-leggy by a girl of barely eighteen! Now he
prepared to trot gaily, comfortably, off on all fours, when she spoke,
bringing him up to the perpendicular again with a start.

"I love Aunt Felicia very dearly," she announced, as though in protest
against some implied and subtle disloyalty.

"But don't we all love Cousin Felicia?" he returned, promptly, eager to
maintain his advantage. "Isn't she kindness incarnate, Christian
charity personified? As for me, I simply dote on her; and with reason,
for ever since those remote ages in which I wore scratchy pinafores and
horrid little white socks, she has systematically and pertinaciously
spoiled me whenever she stayed at Canton Magna.--Oh! she is an
institution. No family should be without her. When I was small she gave
me chocolates, tin soldiers, pop-guns warranted to endanger my
brothers' and sisters' eyesight. And now, in a thousand ways, conscious
and unconscious," he laughed quietly, naughtily, the words running over
each other in the rapidity of his speech--"she gives me such a blessed
good conceit of myself!"

And Damaris Verity, caught by the wave of his light-heartedness and
inherent desire to please, softened again, her serious eyes alight for
the moment with answering laughter. Whereupon Tom crossed the threshold
and stood close beside her upon the grass in the brooding sunshine, the
beds of scarlet and crimson geraniums ranging away on glowing perspective
to left and right. He glanced at the three ladies seated beneath the
giant ilexes, and back at his companion. He felt absurdly keen further to
excite her friendliness and dispel her gravity.

"Only one must admit cousin Harriet is quite another story," he went on
softly, saucily. "Any conceit our dear Felicia rubs in to you, Harriet
most effectually rubs out. Isn't it so? I am as a worm, a positive worm
before her--can only 'tremble and obey' like the historic lady in the
glee. She flattens me. I haven't an ounce of kick left in me. And then
why, oh why, tell me, Damaris, does she invariably and persistently
clothe herself in violet ink?"

"It is her colour," the girl said, her eyes still laughing, her lips
discreetly set.

"But why, in heaven's name, should she have a colour?" he demanded. "For
identification, as I have a red and white stripe painted on my steamer
baggage? Really that isn't necessary. Can you imagine losing cousin
Harriet? Augustus Cowden mislaying her, for example; and only recovering
her with joyful cries--we take those for granted in his case, of
course--at sight of the violet ink? Not a bit of it. You know as well as
I do identification marks can't ever be required to secure her return,
because under no conceivable circumstances could she ever be lost. She is
there, dear lady, lock, stock, and barrel, right there all the time. So
her raiment of violet amounts to a purely gratuitous advertisement of a
permanently self-evident fact.--And such a shade too, such a positively
excruciating shade!"

But here a movement upon the terrace served, indirectly, to put a term to
his patter. For Sir Charles Verity, raising his voice slightly in passing
emphasis, turned and moved slowly towards the little company gathered at
the tea-table. His two companions followed, the shorter of them
apparently making answer, the words echoing clearly in genial richness of
affirmation across the intervening space--"And so it was, General, am I
not recalling the incident myself? Indeed you're entirely right."

"Come," Damaris said, with a certain brevity as of command.

"And feel a worm?"

"No--come and speak to my father."

"Ah! I shall feel a worm there too," the young man returned, an engaging
candour in his smiling countenance; "and with far better reason, unless I
am greatly mistaken."




CHAPTER IV

WATCHERS THROUGH THE SMALL HOURS


Love, ill-health and debt being, as yet, unknown quantities to young Tom
Verity, it followed that insomnia, with its thousand and one attendant
miseries, was an unknown quantity likewise. Upon the eve of the stiffest
competitive examination those, now outlived, years of tutelage had
imposed on him, he could still tumble into bed secure of lapsing into
unconsciousness as soon as his head fairly touched the pillow. Dreams
might, and usually did, visit him; but as so much incidental music
merely to the large content of slumber--tittering up and down, too
airily light-footed and evanescent to leave any impress on mind or
spirits when he woke.

This night, at Deadham Hard, marked a new departure; sleep proving a less
absolute break in continuity of sensation, a less absolute barrier
between day and day.

The Honourable Augustus and Mrs. Cowden, and Felicia Verity, not without
last words, adjurations, commands and fussings, started on their
twelve-mile drive home to Paulton Lacy about six o'clock. A little later
Dr. McCabe conveyed himself, and his brogue, away in an ancient hired
landau to catch the evening train from Marychurch to Stourmouth. Dinner
followed, shortly after which Damaris vanished, along with her
governess-companion, Miss Theresa Bilson--a plump, round-visaged,
pink-nosed little person, permanently wearing gold eyeglasses, the
outstanding distinction of whose artless existence consisted, as Tom
gathered from her conversation, in a tour in Rhineland and residence of
some months' duration at the university town of Bonn.

Then, at last, came the harvest of the young man's excursion, in the
shape of first-hand records of war and government--of intrigue and of
sedition, followed by stern retributive chastisement--from that famous
soldier, autocratic and practised administrator, his host.

In the opinion of a good many persons Tom Verity's bump of reference
showed very insufficient development. Dons, head-masters, the pedagogic
and professorial tribe generally, he had long taken in his stride quite
unabashed. Church dignitaries, too, left him saucily cool. For--so at
least he argued--was not his elder brother, Pontifex, private chaplain to
the Bishop of Harchester? And did not this fact--he knowing poor old
Ponty as only brother can know brother--throw a rather lurid light upon
the spiritual and intellectual limitations of the Bench? In respect of
the British aristocracy, his social betters, he also kept an open mind.
For had not Lord Bulparc's son and heir, little Oxley, acted as his fag,
boot-black and bacon-frier, for the best part of a year at school?
Notwithstanding which fact--Lord Oxley was of a mild, forgiving
disposition--had not he, Tom, spent the cricket week several summers
running at Napworth Castle; where, on one celebrated occasion, he bowled
a distinguished Permanent Under-Secretary first ball, and, on another,
chided a marquis and ex-Cabinet Minister for misquoting Catullus.

Yet now, sitting smoking and listening to those records of eastern rule
and eastern battle, in the quiet lamp-light of the long room--with its
dark book-cases, faintly gleaming Chinese images, and dumpy pillars--his
native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility. For he was
increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something
pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own
power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir
Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism.
He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost.
There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of
initiative and of thought. Only once or twice, during the course of their
long talk, did the young man detect any sign of personal feeling. Then
for an instant, some veil seemed to be lifted, some curtain drawn aside;
while, with dazzling effect, he became cognizant of underlying
bitterness, underlying romance--of secret dealings of man with man, of
man with woman, and the dealing, arbitrary, immutable, final, of Death
and a Greater than Death, with both.

These revelations though of the briefest, over before he fairly grasped
their import, gone like a breath, were still sufficient to discredit many
preconceived ideas and enlarge his mental horizon to a somewhat anxious
extent. They carried him very far from life as lived at Canton Magna
Rectory; very far from all, indeed, in which the roots of his experience
were set, thus producing an atmosphere of doubt, of haunting and
insidious unrest.

And of that atmosphere he was particularly sensible when, standing in
the hall, flat candlestick in hand, he at last bade Sir Charles Verity
good night.

"It has been a wonderful evening, sir," he said, simply and modestly.
"You have been awfully kind in sparing me so much of your time; but,
indeed, it has not been time wasted. I begin to measure a little what
India means, I hope. Certainly I begin to measure the depth of my own
ignorance. I see I have nearly everything of essential importance still
to learn. And that is a pretty large order--almost staggeringly large now
that, thanks to you, I begin to realize the vastness of the amount."

"The majority of men in your Service never realize it," Charles Verity
returned. "They run in blinkers from first to last.--Not that I underrate
their usefulness. They are honest, painstaking, thoroughly reliable,
according to their lights. They do excellent journeyman work. But there
lies the heart of the whole matter.--Are you content to do journeyman
work only; or do you aspire to something greater?--If the former, then
you had best forget me and all I have told you this evening as fast as
possible. For it will prove a hindrance rather than a help, confusing the
issues.--No--no--listen a moment, my dear boy"--

This kindly, indulgently even, as Tom made a gesture of repudiation and
began to speak.

"If the latter--well, the door stands open upon achievement by no means
contemptible, as the opportunities of modern life go; but, it is only
fair to warn you, upon possibilities of trouble, even of disaster, by no
means contemptible either. For, remember, the world is so constituted
that if you elect to drive, rather than be driven, you must be prepared
to take heavy risks, pay heavy penalties. Understand"--

He laid his hand on the young man's shoulder.

"I do not pose as a teacher, still less as a propagandist. I do not
attempt to direct the jury. The choice rests exclusively with
yourself.--And here rid your mind of any cant about moral obligations.
Both ways have merit, both bring rewards--of sorts--are equally
commendable, equally right. Only this--whether you choose blinkers, your
barrel between the shafts and another man's whip tickling your loins, or
the reins in your own hands and the open road ahead, be faithful to your
choice. Stick to it, through evil report as well as through good."

He lifted his hand off Tom's shoulder. And the latter, looking round at
him was struck--in mingled admiration and repulsion--by his likeness to
some shapely bird of prey, with fierce hooked beak and russet-grey eyes,
luminous, cruel perhaps, yet very sad.

"Above all be careful in the matter of your affections," Sir Charles went
on, his voice deepening. "As you value your career, the pride of your
intellect,--yes--and the pride of your manhood itself, let nothing
feminine tempt you to be unfaithful to your choice. Tempt you to be of
two minds, to turn aside, to turn back. For, so surely as you do, you
will find the hell of disappointment, the hell of failure and regret,
waiting wide-mouthed to swallow you, and whatever span of life may remain
to you, bodily up."

He checked himself, breaking off abruptly, the veil lowered again, the
curtain drawn into place.

"There," he said, "we have talked enough, perhaps more than enough. You
have a long day before you to-morrow, so my dear boy, go to bed. My
quarters are down here."

He made a gesture towards the dark corridor opening off the far side
of the hall.

"You know your way? The room on the right of the landing."

"Yes. I know my way, thanks, sir," Tom answered--

And, thus dismissed, went on upstairs, carrying the silver flat
candlestick, while his shadow, black on the panelled wall, mounted beside
him grotesquely prancing step by step.

The furnishing of his room was of a piece with all below, solid yet not
uncomely. It included a four-post bed of generous proportions, hangings,
curtains and covers of chintz, over which faded purple and crimson roses
were flung broadcast on a honey-yellow ground. The colourings were
discreetly cheerful, the atmosphere not unpleasantly warm, the quiet,
save for the creaking of a board as he crossed the floor, unbroken.
Outwardly all invited to peaceful slumber. And Tom felt more than ready
to profit by that invitation this last night on shore, last night in
England. His attention had been upon the stretch for a good many hours
now, since that--after all rather upsetting--good-bye to home and family
at Canton Magna, following an early and somewhat peripatetic breakfast.
Notwithstanding his excellent health and youthful energy, mind and body
alike were somewhat spent. He made short work of preparation, slipped in
between the fine cool linen sheets, and laid his brown head upon the soft
billowing pillows, impatient neither to think nor feel any more but
simply to sleep.

For some two hours or so he did sleep, though not without phantasmagoria
queerly disturbing. The sweep of his visions was wide, ranging from that
redoubtable county lady, Harriet Cowden _née_ Verity--first cousin of his
father, the Archdeacon, and half-sister to his host--in her violet-ink
hued gown, to fury of internecine strife amid the mountain fastnesses of
Afghanistan,--from the austere and wistful beauty of the grey,
long-backed Norman Abbey rising above the roofs and chimneys of the
little English market-town, to the fierce hectic splendour of Eastern
cities blistering in the implacable sun-glare of the Indian plains. Days
on the Harchester playing fields, days on the river at Oxford, and still
earlier days in the Rectory nursery at home; bringing with them sense of
small bitter sorrows, small glorious triumphs, of laughter and uproarious
fun, of sentimental passages at balls, picnics, garden parties, too, with
charmingly pretty maidens who, in all probability, he would never clap
eyes on again--all these, and impressions even more illusive and
fugitive, playing hide-and-seek among the mazelike convolutions of his
all too active brain.

Then, on a sudden, he started up in bed, aware of external noise and
movement which brought him instantly, almost painfully, broad awake.

For a quite appreciable length of time, while he sat upright in the warm
darkness, Tom failed either to locate the noise which had thus roused
him, or to interpret its meaning. It appeared to him to start at the
river foreshore, pass across the garden, into and through the
ground-floor suite of rooms and corridor which Sir Charles had indicated
as reserved to his particular use.--What on earth could it be? What did
it remind him of?--Why, surely--with a start of incredulous
recognition--the sound of hoofs, though strangely confused and muffled,
such as a mob of scared, over-driven horses might make, floundering
fetlock deep in loose sand.

Alive with curiosity he sprang out of bed, groped his way across to the
window and, putting up the blind, leaned out.

A coppery waning moon hung low in the south-east, and sent a pale rusty
pathway across the sea to where, behind the sand-bar, rippling waves
broke in soft flash and sparkle. Its light was not strong enough to
quench that of the stars crowding the western and the upper sky. Tom
could distinguish the black mass of the great ilex trees on the right.
Could see the whole extent of the lawn, the two sentinel cannon and
pyramid of ammunition set on the terrace along the top of the sea-wall.
And nothing moved there, nothing whatever. The outstretch of turf was
vacant, empty; bare--so Tom told himself--as the back of his own hand.
The sounds seemed to have ceased now that sight denied them visible cause
of existence; and he began to wonder whether his hearing had not played
him false, whether the whole thing was not pure fancy, a delusion born of
agitated dreams.

He pushed the sash up as far as it would go and leaned further out of the
window. The luscious scent of a late flowering species of lonercera,
trained against the house wall, saluted his nostrils, along with a
fetid-sweet reek off the mud-flats of the Haven. Away in the village a
dog yelped, and out on the salt-marshes water-fowl gave faint whistling
cries. Then all settled down into stillness, save for the just audible
chuckle and suck of the river as the stream met the inflowing tide.

The stillness pleased him. For so many nights to come there would be none
of it; but ceaselessly the drumming of the engines, quiver of the screw,
and wash of the water against the ship's side.--All the same he did not
quite like the colour of the moon or that frayed flattened edge of it
westward. Why is there always something a trifle menacing about a waning
moon? He did not like the smell of the mud-flats either. It might not be
actually unhealthy; but it suggested a certain foulness. He yawned, drew
back into the room, and straightening himself up, stretched his hands
above his head. He would get into bed again. He was dog-tired--yes, most
distinctly bed!

Then he stopped short, listening, hastily knelt down by the window and
again leaned out. For once more he heard horses coming up from the shore,
across the garden, into and through the house, hustling and trampling one
another as they shied away from the whip.--There were laggards too--one
stumbled, rolled over in the sand, got on its feet after a nasty
struggle, and tottered onward dead lame. Another fell in its tracks and
lay there foundered, rattling in the throat.

The sounds were so descriptive, so explicit and the impression produced
on Tom Verity's mind so vivid that, carried away by indignation, he found
himself saying out loud:

"Curse them, the brutes, the cowardly brutes, mishandling their cattle
like that! They"--

And he stopped confounded, as it came home to him that throughout the
course of this cruel drama he had seen nothing, literally nothing, though
he had heard so convincingly much. A shiver ran down his spine and he
broke into a sweat, for he knew beyond question or doubt not so much as a
shadow,--let alone anything material--had breasted the sea-wall, passed
over the smooth level turf, or entered--how should it?--the house.

The garden lay outspread before him, calm, uninvaded by any alien being,
man or animal. The great ilex trees were immobile, fixed as the eternal
stars overhead. And he shrank in swift protest, almost in terror, being
called on thus to face things apparently super-normal, forces unexplored
and uncharted, defying reason, giving the lie to ordinary experience and
ordinary belief. Reality and hallucination, jostled one another in his
thought, a giant note of interrogation written against each. For which
was the true and which the false? Of necessity he distrusted the evidence
of his own senses, finding sight and hearing in direct conflict thus.

The two or three minutes that followed were among the most profoundly
disagreeable Tom ever had spent. But at last, a door opened below,
letting forth a shaft of mellow lamp-light. It touched the flower-beds on
the left edging the lawn, giving the geraniums form and colour, laying
down a delicate carpet of green, transmuting black into glowing scarlet.
Tall and spare in his grey and white sleeping-suit, Sir Charles Verity
sauntered out, and stood, smoking, looking out to sea.

Earlier that night, downstairs in the sitting-room, he seemed a storm
centre, generating much perplexity and disquiet. But now Tom welcomed his
advent with a sense of almost absurd satisfaction. To see what was
solidly, incontrovertibly, human could not but be, in itself, a mighty
relief.--Things began to swing into their natural relation, man, living
man, the centre, the dominant factor once more. He, Tom, could now shift
all responsibility, moreover. If the master of the house was on guard,
he might wash his hands of these hateful ghostly goings on--if ghostly
they were--leaving the whole matter to one far stronger and more
competent than himself.

Whereupon he went back to bed; and slept profoundly, royally, until
Hordle the man-servant, moving about the bright chintz bedecked room,
preparing his bath and laying out his clothes, awoke him to the sweetness
of another summer day.




CHAPTER V

BETWEEN RIVER AND SEA


"We had a grand talk last night--Sir Charles was in splendid form. I
enjoyed it down to the ground."

Tom Verity lay, at full length on the upward sloping, sun-warmed bank of
sand and shingle. Only to youth is given enjoyment of perfect laziness
joined with perfect physical vigour. Just because he felt equal to
vaulting the moon or long-jumping an entire continent, should such
prodigious feats be required of him, could he lie thus in glorious
idleness letting the earth cradle and the sun soak into him. Doubts and
disturbances of last night melted in daylight to an almost ludicrous
nothingness and self-confidence reigned; so that he declared the world a
super-excellent place, snapping his fingers at problems and mysteries. A
spark of curiosity pricked him still, it is true, concerning the origin
of certain undeniably queer aural phenomena. He meant to satisfy that
curiosity presently; but the subject must be approached with tact. He
must wait on opportunity.

A few paces from and above him, Damaris sat on the crown of the ridge,
where the light southerly wind, coming up now and again off the sea,
fanned her. A white knitted jersey, pulled on over her linen dress,
moulded the curve of her back, the round of her breasts and turn of her
waist, showing each movement of her gracious young body to the hips, as
she leaned forward, her knees drawn up and her feet planted among the
red, orange, and cream-grey flints and pebbles.

Looking up at her, Tom saw her face foreshortened in the shade of her
broad brimmed garden hat, a soft clear flush on it born of health, fresh
air and sunlight, her eyes shining, the blue of the open sea in their
luminous depths. He received a new impression of her. She belonged to the
morning, formed part of the gladness of universal Nature, an unfettered
nymph-like being. To-day her mood was sprightly, bidding farewell to
ceremony. Yet, he felt, she remained perplexing, because more detached
than is the feminine habit, poised and complete in herself.

And this detachment, this suppression of the sentimental or social
note--he being admittedly a very personable fellow--piqued Tom's male
vanity, so that he rallied her with:

"But by the way, why did you vanish so early, why didn't you stay with us
after dinner last night?"

"I did not want to vanish," she answered. "Nothing is more delightful
than hearing my father talk. But had I stayed Miss Bilson would have
supposed herself free to stay too, and that would have spoiled the
evening. My father doesn't choose to talk freely before Miss Bilson,
because she gets into a foolish excited state and interrupts and asks
questions. She overflows with admiration and that annoys and bores him."

"'She brought him butter in a lordly dish,'" Tom quoted. "The ill-advised
Bilson. Can't one just see her!"

"And it is not her place to admire out loud," Damaris continued. "Over
and over again I have tried to explain that to her. But in some ways, she
is not at all clever. She can't or won't understand, and only tells Aunt
Felicia I am wanting in sympathy and that I hurt her feelings. She has
unreasonably many feelings, I think, and they are so easily hurt. I
always know when the hurting takes place because she sniffs and then
plays Mendelssohn's Songs without Words on the schoolroom piano."

Tom chuckled. She had a caustic tongue on occasion, this
nymph-like creature!

"Alas, poor Bilson!" he said. "For, as Sir Charles walked across the
garden with us down to the ferry, didn't I hear those same sugary
melodies tinkling out of some upper open window?"

"I am afraid you did. You see she had made up her mind to come with me."

"And you were forced to intimate you found yourself quite equal to
conducting the expedition unshepherded?"

"I did not mean to be unkind, but she would have been so dreadfully in
the way"--

Damaris gathered up a handful of little pebbles, and let them dribble
down slowly between her outspread fingers while, turning her head, she
gazed away out to sea.

"This is a day by itself," she said. "It looks like jewels, topazes,
turquoise, and pearls; and it seems full of things which half tell
themselves, and then hide from or pass you by.--I wanted to watch it all
and think; and, she doesn't do it on purpose I know, but somehow Miss
Bilson always interferes with my thinking."

Both the tone and substance of this discourse proved slightly startling
to its hearer. They carried the conversation into regions transcendental;
and to his blissful laziness, the rarefied air of those regions was
unwelcome. To breathe it demanded exertion. So he said, chaffingly:

"Do I interfere with your thinking? I hope not. But if I offend that way,
speak but a word and I disappear like a shot."

"Oh! no," she answered. "How could you interfere? You are part of it. You
started it, you see, because you are going to India."

Whereat, failing to catch the sequence of ideas, male vanity plumed
itself, tickled to the point of amusement. For was not she a child after
all, transparently simple and candid, and very much a woman-child at
that! Tom turning on his side raised himself on one elbow, smiling at her
with easy good-nature.

"How charming of you to adopt me as a special object of thought, and care
so much about my going."

But patronage proved short-lived. The girl's colour deepened, but her
eyes dwelt on him coldly.

"I have only been thinking how fortunate you are, and seeing pictures in
my mind of what you will see which will be new to you--and--and
remembering."

"Oh! of course, I am lucky, tremendously lucky," he hastened to declare,
laughing a little wryly. "Such a journey is a liberal education in
itself, knocking the insularity out of a man--if he has any receptive
faculty that is--and ridding him of all manner of stodgy prejudices. I
don't the least undervalue my good fortune.--But you talk of remembering.
That's stretching a point surely. You must have been a mere baby, my dear
Damaris, when you left India."

"No, I was six years old, and I remember quite well. All my caring for
people, all my thinking, begins there, in the palace of the Sultan-i-bagh
at Bhutpur and the great compound, when my father was Chief
Commissioner."

Her snub duly delivered, and she secure it had gone home, Damaris unbent,
graciously communicative as never before.

"It was all so beautiful and safe there inside the high walls, and yet a
teeny bit frightening because you knew there were other things--as there
are to-day--which you felt but couldn't quite see all about you.
Sometimes they nearly pushed through--I was always expecting and I like
to expect. It hurt me dreadfully to go away; but I had been very ill.
They were afraid I should die and so Dr. McCabe--he was here when you
arrived yesterday--insisted on my being sent to Europe. A lady--Mrs.
Pereira--and my nurse Sarah Watson took me to Paris, to the convent
school where I was to be educated. It was all very strange, but the nuns
were kind. I liked their religion, and I got accustomed to the other
little girls. I had rooms of my own; and French friends of my father's
visited me and took me out on half-holidays. And Aunt Felicia came over
to fetch me for the summer vacations and brought me here"--

Damaris pointed across the tide-way to the river frontage, including with
one sweeping gesture the whole demesne of The Hard from the deep lane on
the one hand, opening funnel-like upon the shore, past sea-wall--topped
at the corner by pink plumed tamarisk, the small twin cannons and pyramid
of ball--the lawn and irregular white house overlooking it, backed and
flanked by rich growth of trees, to a strip of sandy warren and pine
scrub on the other, from out which a line of some half-dozen purple
stemmed, red branched Scotch firs, along with the grey stone built Inn
and tarred wooden cottages on the promontory beyond, showed through a
dancing shimmer of heat haze, against the land-locked, blue and silver
waters of Marychurch Haven.

"I did not like being here at all at first," she told him. "I thought it
a mean place only fit for quite poor people to live in. The house seemed
so pinched and naked without any galleries or verandahs. And I was afraid
because we had so few servants and neither door-keepers or soldiers. I
could not believe that in England there is so little need for protection
against disaffected persons and thieves. The sunshine was pale and thin,
and the dusk made me sad. At Bhutpur the sun used to drop in flame behind
the edge of the world and night leap on you. But here the day took so
long dying. Aunt Felicia used to praise what she called 'the long sweet
English twilight,' and try to make me stop out in the garden to enjoy it
with her. But I could not bear it. The colours faded so slowly. It seemed
like watching some helpless creature bleed to death silently, growing
greyer minute by minute and feebler. I did not want to watch, but go
indoors where the lamps were lighted and it was warm and cosy. I used to
cry dreadfully, when I could get away by myself where Aunt Felicia and
the maids could not see me, cry for my father--he resigned the
Commissionership, you know, when I was sent home and took service in
Afghanistan under the Ameer--and for my darling friend, Mrs. Pereira, and
for the Sultan-i-bagh, where I knew strangers lived now. For the lotus
tank and orange grove, and all my little tame animals and my pretty
play-places I should never, never see any more"--

Overcome by which intimate memories, Damaris' grave voice--which had
taken on a chanting cadence, at once novel and singularly pleasing to the
young man's ear--quavered and broke.

"Poor little exiled princess!" he cried, all his facile kindness to the
fore again. "Yes, it must have been cruelly hard on you. You must have
suffered. No wonder you cried--cried buckets full."

And drawn by pity for that desolate, tropic-bred little child, Tom got on
to his feet and crunched up the loose shingle to the crest of the ridge,
full of a lively desire to pacify and console. But here the soft breeze
met and caressed him, and the whole plain of the tranquil sea came into
view--turquoise shot with pearl, as Damaris recently figured it, and
fringed with topaz where waves, a few inches high and clear as glass,
broke on the yellow sand at the back of the Bar just below.

"How wonderfully lovely!" he exclaimed, carried out of himself by the
extreme fairness of the scene. And, his hands in his trouser pockets he
stood staring, while once again the pull of home, of England, of
tenderness for all that which he was about to leave, dimmed his eyes and
raised a lump in his throat.

"Upon my word, you must be difficult to please if this place doesn't
please you or come up to your requirements, Damaris," he said, presently
sitting down beside her. "No Arabian Nights palace in Asia, I grant you;
yet in its own humbler and--dare I say?--less showy, manner not easy to
beat. Breathe this enchanting air. See the heavenly tints with which our
good dirty useful old Channel has adorned itself. Can you ask for more,
you insatiable person, in the way of beauty?"

Then, slightly ashamed of his outburst, Tom practised a delightful smile,
at once sentimental and flirtatious.

"No, on second thoughts, my dear princess, I keep my commiseration for my
wretched self--every crumb of it. For I am the lonely exile--that is, I
am just about to be--not you. Be advised, don't quarrel with the good
gifts of the gods. Deadham Hard is frankly entrancing. How willingly
would I put off taking ship for your vaunted India, and spend the
unending cycles of eternity here--with you, well understood--in this most
delectable spot instead."

Whereupon Damaris, with mingled gravity and haste, her head bent, so
that hat-crown and hat-brim were presented to the young man's observation
rather than her face, proceeded to explain she had spoken not of the
present but of the past. From the time Sir Charles returned to inhabit
it, The Hard was transformed; his presence conferring interest and
dignity upon it, rendering it a not unworthy dwelling-place
indeed--should any such happen that way--for sages, conquerors, or even
kings. He cared for the little property, a fact to her all sufficient.
For him it held the charm of old associations. The pleasantest days of
his boyhood were spent here with Thomas Clarkson Verity, his great
uncle--who eventually left him the property--nor had he ever failed later
to visit it when home on leave. In pious remembrance of that distant era
and of his entertaining and affectionate, if somewhat eccentric, host and
friend he forbade any alteration in the house or grounds. It continued
to-day just as old Mr. Verity left it. There was no break, even in
details of furnishing or arrangement, with the past. This, to Sir
Charles, added to the natural restfulness of the place. Now after the
great achievements and responsibilities of his Eastern career he found
retirement congenial. The soft equable climate benefited his health.
Rough shooting and good fishing could be had in plenty--stag-hunting,
too, in Arnewood Forest, when he inclined to such sport. The Hard was
sufficiently easy of access from town for friends to come and stay with
him. Convenient for crossing to the Continent too, when he took his
yearly cure at Aix or at Vichy, or went south for a couple of months, as
last winter for instance, to Cette, Montpelier and across, by Pau, to the
Atlantic seaboard at St. Sebastian, Biarritz, and Bayonne.

"When my father travels I go with him," Damaris said, raising her head
and looking at the young man with proud, deliberate eyes. "We both
suffered too much, we must never be separated again. And when we go
abroad, we go alone. There is no one to give advice or interfere. We take
Hordle, to pack and look after the baggage. We are always together, and
I am always happy. I wish we could live like that always, with no settled
home. But after a while, my father grows tired of hotels. He begins to
wish for the quiet of The Hard, and all the things he is accustomed to.
And then, naturally, I begin to wish for it too."

From which statement, made as he judged with intention, Tom apprehended
an attachment of no common order existing between these two persons,
father and child. If, as family gossip disapprovingly hinted, the
affection given appeared to trench on exaggeration, the affection
returned was of kindred quality, fervid, self-realized, absorbing, and
absorbed. Comparing it with his own humorously tolerant filial attitude,
Tom felt at once contrite and injured. The contrast was glaring. But
then, as he hastened to add--though whether in extenuation of his own, or
of his father's, shortcomings remained open to question--wasn't the
contrast between the slightly pompous, slightly bow-windowed, provincial,
Tory cleric and this spare, inscrutable soldier and ruler, glaring
likewise? To demand that the one should either experience or inspire the
same emotions as the other was palpably absurd! Hence (comfortable
conclusion!) neither he, Tom, nor the Archdeacon was really to
blame.--Only, as he further argued, once the absurdity of that same
demand admitted, were you not free to talk of exaggeration, or of the
"grand manner," as you chose? Were not the terms interchangeable, if you
kept an open mind? His personal acquaintance with the "grand manner" in
respect of the affections, with heroical love, amounted, save in
literature, to practically nothing; yet instinctively he applied those
high sounding phrases to the attachment existing between Damaris and her
father. Both as discovery and, in some sort, as challenge to his own
preconceived ideas and methods this gave him food for serious thought.

He made no attempt at comment or answer; but sat silent beside the girl,
bare-headed in the soft wind and sunlight, between the flowing river and
tranquil sea.

The "grand manner"--that was how, naturally, without posing or bombast,
these two persons envisaged life for good or evil--for this last, too,
might be possible!--shaped their purposes and conduct. Sir Charles, he
knew, had played for big stakes. Damaris, he felt intuitively, young
though she was, played and would play for them likewise. He looked at her
with awakened speculation, awakened curiosity. What, he wondered, would
come of it. Did it make her attractive or the reverse? Really he wasn't
at all sure. Whereat he grew restive, the claims of inherent masculine
superiority, let alone those of public school, university and an
honourable profession, asserting themselves. He began to question whether
this young lady did not take up an undue amount of room, thus cramping
him and denying his powers of conversation suitable opportunity of
display. Was not it about time gently to reduce her, relegate her to a
more modest position? To achieve which laudable result--he acted, of
course, for her good exclusively--he prepared to broach the subject of
the unaccountable noises which disturbed his rest last night. He would
cross-examine her as to their origin, thereby teasing and perhaps even
discountenancing her somewhat.

But before Tom could put his benevolent scheme into execution, his
attention was unexpectedly diverted, a quite new element projecting
itself upon the scene.

For some little while an open boat, a hoary though still seaworthy tub of
a thing, deep in draught and broad in the beam, loaded up with
lobster-pots--the skeleton ribs of them black against the surrounding
expanse of shining turquoise and pearl--had slowly neared the Bar from
seaward. The bows, in which a small, withered old man bent double over
the oars, cocked up on end. The stern, where a young man stood erect
among the lobster-pots, was low in the water. Now, as the nose of the
boat grounded, the young man clambered along the gunwale, and balancing
for a minute, tall and straight, on the prow, took a flying leap across
the wide intervening space of breaking wave and clear water, alighting on
his feet, upon the firm sand beyond.

"Good for him! Neatly done," Tom Verity murmured, appreciating the grace
and vigour of the action.

The young man, meanwhile, turning, called to the rower: "Thank you
heartily for putting me ashore, Daddy Proud. I'll go across home by the
ferry. But see here, can you manage her by yourself or shall I help shove
her off for you?"

"Lord love 'ee, I can manage her sure enough," the other called back
shrilly and a trifle truculently. "I knows 'er ways and she knows her
master--ought to by now the old strumpet, if years count for
anythink. So don't 'ee go wetting yer dandy shoes for the likes of
her and me, Cap'en."

And keckling with thin wheezy laughter he straightened his back, and,
planting one oar in the sand, set the boat afloat again skilfully.




CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH THE PAST LAYS AN OMINOUS HAND ON THE PRESENT


Down here on the shore, in the serene morning atmosphere, voices carried
with peculiar distinctness. Every word of the brief colloquy had reached
Tom Verity; and one word at least possessed an Elizabethan flavour
forbidden to ears Victorian, feminine and polite. Noting it Tom reddened
and glanced uneasily at his companion, all inclination to tease giving
place to a laudable desire to shield her from annoyance. But Damaris,
judging by her demeanour, was unaware of any cause of offence; whence,
with relief he concluded that either she had not heard, or that the rank
expression conveyed nothing intelligible to her mind.

Her open hand pressed down upon the rough surface of the pebbles, she
leaned a little backward, her lithe body twisted sideways from the waist,
while she scrutinized the man upon the sands below. And that the latter
presented a gallant and even distinguished appearance, though arrayed in
leather-peaked cap, blue serge reefer jacket and trousers which had
evidently seen service, Tom could not but admit, as he stood just clear
of the ripples of incoming tide staring idly after the receding boat with
its cargo of black ribbed skeleton lobster-pots.--A spirited-looking,
well-made fellow, no doubt; merchant captain or more probably mate--Tom
took him to be about eight-and-twenty--but in an altogether different
rank of life to themselves and therefore a quite unsuitable object for
prolonged and earnest attention. His advent should be treated as an
accident, not elevated thus to the importance of an event. It was not
quite good taste on Damaris' part Tom felt; and he made a show of rising,
saying as he did so, by way of excuse:

"It is wonderfully charming out here. I am loath to break up our little
_tête-à-tête;_ but time waits for no man, worse luck, and if I am to
catch my train I must start directly after luncheon. Sir Charles was good
enough to promise me various letters of introduction to persons in, high
places. He told me to remind him about them. I don't want to be greedy
but I should like those letters. Perhaps I ought to be getting back so as
to see your father about them."

But before Damaris had time to collect her thoughts and reply, the man in
the peaked cap had further asserted his presence. Either becoming
conscious of her observation, or caught by something in Tom Verity's
speech, he wheeled round and looked up at the two in swift, almost
haughty, enquiry. To Tom he vouchsafed little more than a glance, but
upon Damaris his eyes fastened. For a good minute he stared at her, as
though in some sort holding her to ransom. Then with an upward jerk of
the head and an ejaculation, half smothered oath, half sharp laughter--as
of one who registers eminently ironic conclusions--he began deliberately
ascending the slope.

Tom Verity, though possessed of plentiful cheekiness towards the majority
of his elders and betters, was no fire-eater. He preferred diplomacy to
war; and would adroitly evade rather than invite anything approaching a
scene, specially in the presence of a woman. Yet under existing
circumstances retreat had become, as he perceived, not only undignified
but useless. So in his best Oxford manner--a manner ornate, at that
period, and quite crushingly superior--he raised his shoulders, smiled
faintly, resignedly, and disposed himself in an easier attitude, saying:

"Better wait, perhaps, my dear Damaris. I would sooner risk losing those
precious letters than acquire a possible escort for you--and for
myself--down to the river and across the ferry."

And he threw a meaning glance over his shoulder, indicating the
obtrusive stranger.

So doing he received a disturbing impression. For seen thus, at close
quarters, not only was the said stranger notably, even astonishingly
good-looking, but he bore an arresting likeness in build, in carriage, in
expression to--

Tom paused perplexed, racking his brains.--For who, the deuce, was it?
Where had he seen, and that as he could have sworn quite recently, this
same forceful countenance lit by russet-grey eyes at once dauntless and
sad, deep-set, well apart, the lids of them smooth and delicately
moulded? The man's skin was tanned, by exposure, to a tint but a few
shades lighter than that of his gold-brown beard--a beard scrupulously
groomed, trimmed to a nicety and by no means deforming the lower part of
the face since the line of jaw and chin remained clearly discernible.

Tom turned away and looked absently at The Hard in its broad reposeful
frame of lawn and trees. The cool green foliage of a bank of
hydrangeas--running from the great ilexes to the corner of the
house--thick-set with discs of misty pink and blue blossom took his
fancy, as contrast to the beds of scarlet and crimson geranium naming in
the sun. But below any superficial sense of pleasure in outward things,
thought of that likeness--and likeness, dash it all, to whom?--still
vexed him as a riddle he failed to guess. Obligation to guess it, to find
the right answer, obsessed him as of vital interest and importance,
though, for the life of him, he could not tell why. His sense of
proportion, his social sense, his self-complacency, grew restive under
the pressure of it. He told himself it wasn't of the smallest
consequence, didn't matter a fig, yet continued to cudgel his memory.
And, all the while, the sound of deliberate footsteps crunching over the
dry rattling shingle, nearer and nearer, contributed to increase his
inward perturbation.

The footsteps halted close behind him--while for a sensible length of
time a shadow lay across him shutting off the genial warmth--and started
again, passing to the left, as the intruder traversed the crown of the
ridge a few paces from where Damaris was seated, and pursued his way down
to the river-shore on the other side.

"At last--I thank you!" Tom broke out impatiently.

He felt incomprehensibly nervous; and angry with himself for so feeling.

"Commend me to our friend for taking his time about things, and
incidentally wasting ours--yours and mine, I mean! What on earth did he
want? He certainly treated us to a sufficiently comprehensive inspection.
Well, I hope he was satisfied. By the same token, have you any conception
who the fellow is?"

Damaris shook her head. She, too, appeared perturbed. Her eyebrows were
drawn into a little frown and her expression was perplexed to the point
of child-like distress.

"Not any," she answered simply. "Some one staying at Faircloth's Inn
possibly. People come there from Marychurch to spend the day during the
summer. Old Timothy Proud, the lobster-catcher, who brought him round in
his boat, lives at one of the cottages close to the Inn. No," she
repeated, "I have no conception who he is, and yet his face seemed
familiar. I had a feeling that I knew him quite well--had seen him often,
oh! very often before."

"Ah! then you were puzzled by some mysterious likeness,"--Tom began
eagerly, smiling at her. And stopped short, open-mouthed, assailed by so
apparently preposterous a recognition that for the minute it left him
fairly speechless.

But Damaris, busy with her own sensations, her glance still following the
blue-clad figure along the shore and out on to the tumble-down wooden
jetty, failed to remark his embarrassment and thus gave him time to
recover his scattered wits.

"Jennifer is bringing the ferry-boat across," she said presently, "so you
won't have to wait much longer. Not that you need be at all anxious about
those letters. It is not my father's habit to forget a promise. Most
likely they were written last night before he went to bed. He sleeps
badly, I am sorry to say, and is glad to cheat the wakeful hours by
reading and doing his correspondence until late."

As she spoke the young girl rose to her feet, pulling the close-fitting
jersey down over her hips and, stooping, dusted particles of sand off the
hem of her dress.

"There--that's better. Now I am tidy. Shall we go home, cousin Tom?"
she asked.

Her eyes shone with inward excitement and she carried her head proudly,
but her face was white. And he, sensible that she had suddenly hardened
towards him and strove, he could not divine why, to keep him at arm's
length, turned perversely teasing again. He would not await a more
convenient season. Here and now he would satisfy his curiosity--and at
her expense--regarding one at least of the queer riddles Deadham Hard had
sprung on him.

"I did not know your father suffered from sleeplessness," he said. "It
must be horribly trying and depressing. I am glad, in a way, you have
told me, because it may account for my seeing him go out into the garden
from the study last night, or rather very early this morning. It would be
about two o'clock. I put down his appearance to another cause, and"--

He smiled at her, delightfully ingratiating, assaugingly apologetic.

"Shall I own it?--one which, frankly, struck me as a little upsetting and
the reverse of pleasant."

"Weren't you comfortable? I am so sorry," Damaris exclaimed, instincts of
hospitality instantly militant. "What was wrong? You should have called
someone--rung for Hordle. What was it?"

"No--no--my dear Damaris, don't vex yourself I entreat you. I was in
clover, luxuriously comfortable. You've allotted me a fascinating room
and perfect dream of a bed. I feel an ungrateful wretch for so much as
mentioning this matter to you after the way in which you have indulged
me. Only something rather extraordinary really did happen, of which I
honestly confess I am still expiring to find a reasonable and not too
humiliating explanation. For, though I blush to own it"--

He laughed softly, humping up his shoulders after the manner of a naughty
small boy dodging a well-merited box on the ear.--

"Yes, I blush to own it, but I was frightened, downright frightened. I
quailed and I quaked. The sight of Sir Charles stepping out of the study
window filled me with abject rapture. Metaphorically speaking, my craven
soul squirmed at his heels. He was to me as a strong tower and house of
defence.--But look here, Damaris, joking apart, tell me weren't you
disturbed, didn't you hear any strange noises last night?"

"No, none." She hesitated, then with evident reluctance--"I sleep in the
new wing of the house."

"Which you imply, might make a difference?" Tom asked.

"The older servants would tell you that it does."

"And you agree with them?"

Damaris had a moment of defective courage.

"I would rather not discuss the subject, cousin Tom," she said and moved
away down over the shifting shingle.

At first her progress was sober, even stately. But soon, either from the
steep, insecure nature of the ground or from less obvious and material
cause, her pace quickened until it became a run. She ran neatly, deftly,
all of a piece as a boy runs, no trace of disarray or feminine
floundering in her action. More than ever, indeed, did she appear a fine
nymph-like creature; so that, watching her flight Tom Verity was touched
alike with self-reproach and admiration. For he had succeeded in
asserting himself beyond his intention. Had overcome, had worsted her;
yet, as it occurred to him, won a but barren victory. That she was
alienated and resentful he could hardly doubt, while the riddle he had
rather meanly used to procure her discomfiture remained unanswered as
ever, dipped indeed only deeper in mystery. He was hoist with his own
petard, in short; and stood there nonplussed, vexed alike at himself and
at circumstance.

A soft wind, meanwhile, caressed him, as hesitating, uncertain what to do
next, he glanced out over the smiling sea and then back at the delicate
shore line, the white house, the huge evergreen trees and brilliant
flower garden. A glamour covered the scene. It was lovely, intimately,
radiantly lovely as he had lately declared it. Yet just now he grew
distrustful, as though its fair seeming cloaked some subtle trickery and
deceit. He began to wish he had not undertaken this expedition to
Deadham; but gone straight from the normal, solidly engrained
philistinism of dear old Canton Magna to join his ship. In coming here he
had, to put it vulgarly, bitten off more than he could chew. For the
place and its inhabitants seemed to have a disintegrating effect on him.
Never in all his life had he been such a prey to exterior influences,
been twisted and turned to and fro, weather-cock fashion, thus. It was
absurd, of course, to take things too seriously, yet he could not but
fear the Archdeacon's well-intentioned bit of worldliness and his own
disposition to court whatever family prejudice pronounced taboo, were in
process of leading him a very questionable little dance.

Reaction, however, set in before long, as with so lively, light-hearted a
temperament, it was bound to do, the healthy scepticism, healthy optimism
of untried three-and-twenty rising to the surface buoyant as a cork.

Tom Verity shook himself, took off his hat, smoothed his hair, settled
his tie, hitched up the waist of his trousers, stamping to get them into
place, laughed a little, calling himself every sort of silly ass, and
then swung away down the side of the long ridge in pursuit of Damaris.
He acknowledged his treatment of her had been lacking in chivalry. He
hadn't shown himself altogether considerate or even kind. But she
challenged him--perhaps unconsciously--and once or twice had come near
making him feel small.--Oh! there were excuses for his behaviour! Now
however he would sail on another tack. Would placate, discreetly cherish
her until she couldn't but be softened and consent to make it up. After
all maidens of her still tender age are not precisely adamant--such at
least was his experience--where a personable youth is concerned. It only
needed a trifle of refined cajolery to make everything smooth and to
bring her round.

He overtook the fugitive as she reached the low wooden jetty crawling,
like some giant but rather dilapidated black many-legged insect, out over
the stream. Its rows of solidly driven piles were intact, but the staging
they supported had suffered damage from the rush of river floods, let
alone from neglect and age. Handrails were broken down, planks rotted and
wrenched away leaving gaps through which the cloudy greenish blue water
could be seen as it purred and chuckled beneath. Here, at the river
level, it was hot to the point of sultriness, the air heavy, even
stagnant, since the Bar shut off the southerly breeze.

"Upon my word one requires to be in training to race you, my dear
Damaris," the young man said gaily, ostentatiously mopping his forehead.
"And I'm disgracefully soft just now, I know. You beat me utterly and
ignominiously; but then you did have a good three minutes' start. In
common honesty you can't deny that"--

The girl made no response, but began mounting the few sand-strewn steps
on to the jetty. He saw her face in profile, the delicate upward curve of
her long dark eyelashes in the shade of her hat. Saw, too, that her soft
lips quivered as with the effort to repress an outburst of tears. And
this affected him as the wounding of some strong free creature might,
stirring his blood in a fashion new to him and strange. For not only did
he find it piteous; but unseemly, unpermissible somehow, yet marvellously
sweet, startling him out of all preconceived light diplomatic plans,
plucking shrewdly at his complacently unawakened heart.

He came close to her, and putting his hand under her elbow gently held
it.

"Pray, pray be careful," he said. "I don't trust this crazy little pier
of yours one atom. Any one of these boards looks capable of crumbling and
letting one through.--And, Damaris, please don't be cross with me or I
shall be quite miserable. Forgive my having asked you stupid questions. I
was a blundering idiot. Of course, what I heard last night was just some
echo, some trick of wind or of the river and tide. I was half asleep and
imagined the whole thing most likely, magnified sounds as one does,
don't you know, sometimes at night. Your father talked wonderfully, and I
went to bed dazzled, such imagination as I possess all aflame"--

But Damaris shook her head, while her elbow rested rigid upon the palm
of his hand.

"No--what you heard was real," she answered. "I heard once myself--and
the people here know about it. They say the dead smugglers still drive
their ponies up from the beach, across the lawn where the old road was,
and, as it sounds, through the round rooms downstairs, in which my father
lives, on their way up into the forest.--You cannot help seeing--although
you see nothing--how the ponies are ill-used, hounded and flogged. The
last of the drove are lame and utterly worn out. They stumble along
anyhow and one falls. Oh! it is cruel, wicked. And it is--was, really
true, cousin Tom. It must have happened scores of times before old Mr.
Verity, your namesake, put a stop to the iniquity by buying The Hard--I
have only heard the ponies driven once, about this time in September last
year--just before something very sad, quite of my own, happened"--

Damaris stopped, her lips quivering again and too much for speech.

"Don't tell me any more. I can't bear you to be distressed. Pray, pray
don't"--the young man urged incoherently while his grasp on her elbow
tightened somewhat.

For he felt curiously flurried and put about; near cursing himself
moreover for having helped to break up her high serenity thus. The whole
thing was manifestly impossible as he told himself, outside every
recognized law of Nature and sound science. Even during the mistrustful
phantasy-breeding watches of the night, when reason inclines to drag
anchor setting mind and soul rather wildly adrift, he had refused
credence to the apparent evidence of his own senses. Now in broad
daylight, the generous sunshine flooding him, the smooth river purring
and glittering at his feet, belief in grim and ghostly happenings became
more than ever inadmissible, not to say quite arrantly grotesque. Yet
Damaris' version of those same happenings tallied with his own in every
point. And that her conviction of their reality was genuine, profound
indeed to the point of pain, admitted neither of question nor of doubt.




CHAPTER VII

A CRITIC IN CORDUROY


William Jennifer, who successfully combined in his single person the
varied offices of ferryman, rat-catcher, jobbing gardener, amateur
barber, mender of sails and of nets, brought the heavy, flat-bottomed
boat alongside the jetty. Shipping the long sweeps, he coughed behind his
hand with somewhat sepulchral politeness to give warning of his presence.

"Sweethearting--lost to sight and hearing, espoused to forgetfulness," he
murmured, peering up at the two cousins standing in such close proximity
to one another upon the black staging above.

For William Jennifer was a born lover of words and maker of phrases,
addicted to the bandying of pleasantries, nicely seasoned to their
respective age, sex and rank, with all he met; and, when denied an
audience, rather than keep silence holding conversation with himself.

The hot morning induced thirst, which, being allayed by a couple of pints
at Faircloth's Inn, induced desire for a certain easiness of costume. His
waistcoat hung open--he had laid aside his coat--displaying a broad
stitched leather belt that covered the junction between buff corduroy
trousers and blue-checked cotton shirt. On his head, a high
thimble-crowned straw hat, the frayed brim of it pulled out into a poke
in front for the better shelter of small, pale twinkling eyes set in a
foxy face.

The said face, however--for all its sharp-pointed nose, long upper lip,
thin gossipy mouth, tucked in at the corners and opening, redly
cavernous, without any showing of teeth, a stiff sandy fringe edging
cheeks and chin from ear to ear--could on occasion become utterly blank
of expression. It became so now, as Tom Verity, realizing the fact of its
owner's neighbourhood, moved a step or two away from Damaris and,
jumping on board himself, proceeded with rather studied courtesy to hand
her down into the boat.

"Looks as there might have been a bit of a tiff betwixt 'em"--Thus
Jennifer inwardly. Then aloud--"Put you straight across the ferry, sir,
or take you to the breakwater at The Hard? The tide's on the turn, so
we'd slip down along easy and I'm thinking that 'ud spare Miss Verity the
traipse over the shore path. Wonnerful parching in the sun it is for the
latter end of September."

"Oh! to the breakwater by all means," Tom answered with alacrity.

For reaction had set in. Not only was the young man still slightly
flustered, but vexed by the liveliness of his own emotions. Everything
to-day savoured of exaggeration. The most ordinary incidents distended,
inflated themselves in a really unaccountable manner. So that, frankly,
he fought shy of finding himself alone with Damaris again. She seemed so
constantly to betray him into ill-regulated feeling, ill-considered
speech and action, which tended to endanger the completeness of his
self-esteem. Therefore, although admitting his attitude to be scantily
heroic, he welcomed the prospect of the ferryman's chaperonage until such
time as her father or her discarded lady-in-waiting, the innocent and
pink-nosed Bilson, should effect his final deliverance.

"Yes, it is uncommonly hot," he repeated, while, with both arms extended,
he worked to keep the side of the boat from bumping against the range of
piles, backing it clear of the jetty into the fairway of the river. He
found exertion pleasant, steadying.

"Neither Miss Verity nor I shall be sorry to be saved the walk along
that basting path. That is," he added, smiling with disarming
good-temper, "if we're not blocking business and keeping you too long
away from the ferry."

But Jennifer, mightily pleased at his company and having, moreover,
certain scandalous little fishes of his own to fry--or attempt to
fry--waved the objection aside.

The ferry could very well mind itself for a while, he said; and if
anyone should come along they must just hold hands with patience till he
got back, that was all. But passengers were few and far between this time
of year and of day. The "season"--as was the new-fangled fashion to call
it--being now over; trippers tripped home again to wheresoever their
natural habitat might be. The activities of boys' schools, picnic
parties, ambulant scientific societies and field-clubs--out in pursuit of
weeds, of stone-cracking, and the desecration of those old heathen
burying barrows on Stone Horse Head quieted off for the time being.
Deadham, meanwhile, in act of repossessing its soul in peace and
hibernating according to time-honoured habit until the vernal equinox.

Not that he, Jennifer, as he explained, owned to any quarrel with the
alien invasion. Good for trade they were, that tripper lot, though
wonnerful simple, he must say, when they came to talk, blessed with an
almighty wide swallow for any long-eared fairy tale you liked to put on
them. Mortal full of senseless questions, too, fit to make anybody
laugh!--Whereat overcome by joyous memories of human folly, he opened the
red cavern of his apparently toothless mouth, barking up audible mirth,
brief and husky, from the depth of a beer-slaked throat.

He leaned forward while speaking, resting chest and elbows on the
oars--only now and again dipping the blades in the water to steady the
boat in its course as it moved smoothly onward borne by brimming stream
and tide. From out the shadow of his thimble-crowned hat he looked up
knowingly, with the freemasonry of assured good-temper at Tom, who stood
before him hands in pockets, friendly and debonair, class distinctions
for the moment quite forgot. For, let alone immediate convenience of
chaperonage, the young man found unexpected entertainment in this typical
South Saxon, relic, as it struck him, of a bygone age and social order.
Might not that tough and somewhat clumsy body, that crafty, jovial, yet
non-committal countenance, have transferred themselves straight from the
pages of Geoffrey Chaucer into nineteenth-century life? Here, was a
master of primitive knowledge and of arts not taught in modern Board (or
any other) Schools; a merry fellow too, who could, as Tom divined, when
company and circumstances allowed, be broadly, unprintably humorous.

So, in this last connection perhaps, it was just as well that Damaris
still appeared somewhat implacable. Coming on board she had passed
Jennifer--who rowed amidships--and gone right forward, putting as wide a
distance as conditions permitted between her cousin and herself. Now, as
she sat on a pile of red-brown seine nets in the bow of the boat, she
kept her face averted, looking away down the cool liquid highway, and
presenting to his observation a graceful, white-clad but eminently
discouraging back. Her attitude repelled rather than invited advances, so
at least Tom, watching her, certainly thought. This justified his not
following her but staying where he was, and leaving her to herself.
Whereupon annoyance again beset him; for it was very little to his credit
to have mismanaged his dealings with her and alienated her sympathies
thus. With her, it was very evident, he had not been at all a success.
And it pricked his young vanity very shrewdly not to be a success.

From these unsatisfactory reflections William Jennifer's voice, prefaced
by a warning cough, recalled him.

"Making any long stay in these parts, sir?" he enquired.

And when Tom explained that a few hours from now would witness the
termination of his visit, and that, in all probability, many years of
absence from England lay ahead--

"Indeed, indeed, to be sure. Who'd have thought it for a young gentleman
of the quality-like yourself! But, there, some are born under the
traveller's star, sir--created with a roving spirit. And the Lord help
'em, I say, for they're so made as to be powerless to help themselves
seemingly. Rove they must and will, if they are to taste any
contentment--an itch in their feet from the cradle nought but foreign
lands'll serve to pacify. The sight of the ocean now, seems fairly
tormenting to 'em till they can satisfy themselves of what's on the far
side of it."

But, here, the boat being unduly drawn aside by the suck of some local
current, Jennifer was constrained to apply his mind to navigation. He
dipped the long sweeps, and with a steady powerful pull straightened the
course to midstream. Then raising the glistening blades, off which the
water dripped white and pattering, he leaned forward again, resting
elbows and chest on the butt-end of the oars, and once more addressed
himself to polite conversation.

"Not as I've been greatly troubled that way myself. Had my chance of
going to sea and welcome many's the time when I was a youngster. But
always a one for the land, I was. Never had any special fancy for salt
water, though I do make my living of it now, as you may say, in a sense."

During this biographical excursion Tom Verity's attention wandered. His
eyes dwelt on Damaris. She had altered her position turning half round as
she scanned the strip of sandy warren with its row of sentinel Scotch
firs bordering the river. Seen thus, three-quarter face, Tom realized
suddenly not only how really beautiful she was--or rather could at
moments be--but how strangely she resembled Sir Charles her father. There
was likeness not of features alone; but, for all her youthful freshness,
a reflection of his strength, his inscrutability. Whereupon rather
unworthy curiosity reawoke in Tom Verity, to satisfy which he was tempted
to descend to methods not entirely loyal.

Damaris, sitting to windward, must be out of earshot assuredly, yet he
lowered his voice as he said:

"By the way, talking of going to sea, can you tell me anything about the
young sailor whom you took across the ferry just before fetching Miss
Verity and me? I am pretty sure I have met him before and yet I can't
place him somehow."

Jennifer shot a sharply enquiring glance at the speaker; for here, at
first sight, appeared rare opportunity of that same coveted and
scandalous fish-frying! Yet he debated the wisdom of immediate indulgence
in that merry pastime, inherent suspicion of class for class, suspicion
too, of this young gentleman's conspicuously easy, good-natured manner,
preaching caution. A show of friendliness supplies fine cover for the
gaining of one's own ends.--Hadn't he, Jennifer, practised the friendly
manoeuvre freely enough himself on occasion? And he did not in the least
relish the chance of walking into a trap, instead of jovially baiting
one. So he dipped the oars again, and answered slowly as though the
question taxed his memory sorely, his face vacant of expression as an
empty plate.

"Brought him across before I started to fetch you and the young lady,
sir, did I? To be sure, there, let me see. I've had several sea-going
chaps of sorts back and forth this morning. Come and go most days, they
do, come and go without my taking any particular account--the Lord
forgive me, for it ain't over civil--unless strangers should hail me, or
someone out of the common such as Miss Verity and yourself. A passing
show, sir, half the time those I carry; no more to me, bless you, than so
many sand-fleas a-hopping on the beach.--Mr. Blackmore--coast-guard
officer he is--I fetched him across early, with one of his men coming
round from the Head. And that poor lippity-lop, Abram Sclanders'
eldest.--Pity he wasn't put away quiet-like at birth!--Terrible drag he
is on Abram and always will be. Anybody with an ounce of gumption might
have seen he'd be a short-wit from the first.--I took him over; but that
'ud the opposite way about, as he wanted to go shrimping back of the Bar
so he said."

Jennifer paused as in earnest thought.

"No, not a soul to merit your attention, to-day, sir, that I can call to
mind. Unless"--with an upward look of returning intelligence--"but that
ain't very likely either--unless it should be Darcy Faircloth. I'd clean
forgot him, so I had. Cap'en Faircloth, as some is so busy calling 'im,
now, in season and out of season till it's fairly fit to make you
laugh.--Remarkable tall, Johnny-head-in-air young feller with a curly
yaller beard to him."

"That's the man!" Tom exclaimed.

He had distrusted Jennifer's show of ignorance, believing he was being
fenced with, played with, even royally lied to; but this merely served to
heighten his curiosity and amusement. Something of moment must lie, he
felt, behind so much wandering talk, something of value, purposely and
cunningly withheld until time was ripe for telling disclosure.

"Darcy Faircloth--Captain Faircloth?" he could not but repeat, and with
such honest puzzlement and evident desire for further enlightening as to
overcome his hearer's hesitation.

"No--not a likely person for you to be in any wise acquainted with, sir,"
Jennifer returned, wary still, though yielding--"even if you didn't
happen to be a bit new to Deadham yourself, as I may put it. For been
away mostly from his natural home here, young Faircloth has, ever since
he was a little shaver. Mrs. Faircloth--owns the Inn there and all the
appurtenances thereof, sheds, cottages, boats, and suchlike, she
does--always had wonnerful high views for him. Quite the gentleman Darcy
must be, with a boarding school into Southampton and then the best of the
Merchant Service--no before the mast for him, bless you. There was a snug
little business to count on, regular takings in the public, week in and
week out--more particularly of late years in the summer--let alone the
rest of the property--he being the only son of his mother, too, and she a
widow woman free to follow any whimsies as took her about the lad."

Jennifer gave some slow, strong strokes, driving the lumbering boat
forward till the water fairly hissed against its sides. And Tom Verity
still listened, strangely, alertly interested, convinced there was more,
well worth hearing, to follow.

"Oh! there's always bin a tidy lot of money behind young Darcy, and is
yet I reckon, Mrs. Faircloth being the first-class business woman she is.
Spend she may with one hand, but save, and make, she does and no mistake,
Lord love you, with the other. Singular thing though," he added
meditatively, his face growing wholly expressionless, "how little Darcy,
now he's growed up, features old Lemuel his father. Squinny, red-cheeked
little old party, he was; thin as a herring, and chilly, always chilly,
sitting over the fire in the bar-parlour winter and summer too--small
squeaky voice he had minding any one of a penny whistle. But a warm man
and a close one--oh! very secret. Anybody must breakfast overnight and
hurry at that--eat with their loins girded, as you may say, to get
upsides with old Lemuel."

He ceased speaking, and glanced round over his shoulder calculating
the distance to the breakwater, for the boat drew level with the
sea-wall of rough-hewn pinkish-grey granite along the river frontage
of The Hard gardens.

"There's some as 'ud tell you it was the surprise of old Lemuel's life to
find himself a parent," he added, eyeing Tom slyly as he spoke, his mouth
remaining open as in preparation for coming laughter.

For those same scandalous little fishes were well into the frying-pan,
now--sizzling, frizzling. And this was a vastly agreeable moment to
William Jennifer, worth waiting for, worth scheming for. Unprintable
humour looked out of his twinkling eyes while he watched to see how far
Tom Verity caught his meaning. Then as the young man flushed, sudden
distaste, even a measure of shame invading him, Jennifer, true artist in
scandal, turned the conversation aside with an air of indulgent apology.

"But, lor, there, you know how people'll talk in a little country place
where there ain't much doing!--And it ain't for me to speak of what
happened back in those times, being barely out of my teens then and away
cow-keeping over Alton way for Farmer Whimsett. Regular chip of the old
block, he was. Don't breed that sort nowadays. As hearty as you like, and
swallered his three pints of home-brewed every morning with his breakfast
he did, till he was took off quite sudden in his four-score-and-ten
twelve months ago come Michaelmas."

Upon the terrace, by the pyramid of ball and the two little cannons, Sir
Charles Verity stood, holding a packet of newly written letters in his
hand and smoking, while he watched the approaching boat. Damaris rose
from the pile of red-brown fishing-nets and waved to him. Jennifer, too,
glanced up, steadying both oars with one hand while he raised the other
to the brim of his thimble-crowned hat. A couple of minutes more and he
would part company with his passenger, and so judged it safe to indulge
himself with a final fish-frying.

"Mortal fine figure of a man, Sir Charles even yet," he said to Tom
admiringly. "But anybody should have seen him as a young gentleman. When
he used to visit here in old Mr. Verity's time, none in the country-side
could hold a candle to him for looks, as you may say. Turned the females'
heads he did. Might have had his pick of the lot, maids and wives alike
for 'arf a word. Well, good-bye to you, sir"--and, as certain coin
changed hands--"thank ye, sir, kindly. Wish you a pleasant voyage and a
rare good picking up of honours and glories, and gold and silver
likewise, there across the seas and oceans where you're a-going to."




BOOK II

THE HARD SCHOOL OF THINGS AS THEY ARE




CHAPTER I

IN MAIDEN MEDITATION


It was afternoon, about five o'clock. The fine September weather, hot and
cloudless, lasted still. The air was heavy with garden scents, the
aromatic sweetness of sun-baked gorse and pine-scrub on the warren, and
with the reek off the mud-flats of the Haven, the tide being low. Upon
the sandy skirts of the Bar, across the river just opposite, three
cormorants--glossy black against the yellow--postured in extravagant
angular attitudes drying their wings. Above the rim of the silver-blue
sea--patched with purple stains in the middle distance--webs of steamer
smoke lay along the southern sky. Occasionally a sound of voices, the
creak of a wooden windlass and grind of a boat's keel upon the pebbles as
it was wound slowly up the foreshore, came from the direction of the
ferry and of Faircloth's Inn. The effect was languorous, would have been
enervating to the point of mental, as well as physical, inertia had not
the posturing cormorants introduced a note of absurdity and the tainted
breath of the mud-flats a wholesome reminder of original sin.

Under these conditions, at once charming and insidious, Damaris Verity,
resting in a wicker deck-chair in the shade of the great ilex trees,
found herself alone, free to follow her own vagrant thoughts,
perceptions, imaginations without human let or hindrance. Free to dream
undisturbed and interrogate both Nature and her own much wondering soul.

For Sir Charles was away, staying with an old friend and former
brother-in-arms, Colonel Carteret, for a week's partridge shooting over
the Norfolk stubble-fields. Sport promised to be good, and Damaris had
great faith in Colonel Carteret. With him her father was always amused,
contented, safe. Hordle was in attendance, too, so she knew his comfort
in small material matters to be secure. She could think of him without
any shadow of anxiety, her mind for once at rest. And this she enjoyed.
For it is possible to miss a person badly, long for their return
ardently, yet feel by no means averse to a holiday from more active
expenditure of love on their account.

And Theresa Bilson--pleasing thought!--was, for the moment, absent also,
having gone to tea with the Miss Minetts. Two maiden ladies, these, of
uncertain age, modest fortune and unimpeachable refinement, once like
Theresa herself, members of the scholastic profession; but now, thanks to
the timely death of a relative--with consequent annuities and life
interest in a ten-roomed, stone-built house of rather mournful aspect in
Deadham village--able to rest from their ineffectual labours, support the
Church, patronize their poorer and adulate their richer neighbours to
their guileless hearts' content.

Gentility exuded from the Miss Minetts, and--if it is permissible
slightly to labour the simile--their pores were permanently open. Owing
both to her antecedent and existing situation, it may be added, Theresa
Bilson was precious in their sight. For had she not in the past, like
themselves, sounded the many mortifications of a governess' lot; and was
she not now called up higher, promoted indeed to familiar, almost hourly,
intercourse with the great? Miss Felicia Verity was known to treat her
with affection. Mrs. Augustus Cowden, that true blue of county dames and
local aristocrats, openly approved her. She sat daily at Sir Charles
Verity's table and helped to order his household. What more genuine
patents of gentility could be asked? So they listened with a pleasure,
deep almost to agitation, to her performances upon the piano, her
reminiscences of Bonn and the Rhine Provinces, and, above all, to her
anecdotes of life at The Hard and of its distinguished owner's habits and
speech. Thus, by operation of the fundamental irony resident in things,
did Theresa Bilson, of all improbable and inadequate little people,
become to the Miss Minetts as a messenger of the gods; exciting in them
not only dim fluttering apprehensions of the glories of art and delights
of foreign travel, but--though in their determined gentility they knew it
not--of the primitive allurements and mysteries of sex.

The moral effect of this friendship upon Theresa herself was not,
however, of the happiest. Fired by their interest in her recitals she was
tempted to spread herself. At first almost unconsciously, for by instinct
she was truthful, she embroidered fact, magnifying her office not only in
respect of her ex-pupil Damaris but of Damaris' father also. She
represented herself as indispensable to both parent and child, until she
more than half believed that flattering fiction. She began to reckon
herself an essential element in the establishment at The Hard, the pivot
indeed upon which it turned. Whereupon a rather morbid craving for the
Miss Minetts' society developed in her. For, with those two credulous
ladies as audience, she could fortify herself in delusion by recounting
all manner of episodes and incidents not as they actually had, but as she
so ardently desired they might have, taken place.--A pathetic form of
lying this, though far from uncommon to feminine and--more
especially--spinster practice and habit!

Still Theresa was not so besotted but that lucid intervals now and again
afflicted her. One seized her this afternoon, as she prepared to bid
Damaris good-bye. Either conscience pricked with unusual sharpness, or
the young girl's smiling and unruffled acquiescence in her departure
aroused latent alarms. She began to excuse her action in leaving her
charge thus solitary, to protest her devotion; becoming, it may be added,
red and agitated in the process. Her thick, short little fingers worked
nervously on the crook handle of her white cotton umbrella. Her round
light-coloured eyes grew humid to the point of fogging the lenses of her
gold-rimmed glasses.

"But why should you worry so now, just as you are starting, Billy?"
Damaris reasoned, with the rather cruel logic of cool eighteen in face of
hot and flustered nine-and-thirty. "Only at luncheon you were telling me
how much you always enjoy spending an afternoon at the Grey House. I
thought you looked forward so much to going. What has happened to turn
you all different, like this, at the last minute?"

"Nothing has happened exactly; but I have scruples about visiting my
own friends and letting you remain alone when Sir Charles is from home.
It might appear a dereliction of duty--as though I took advantage of
his absence."

"Nobody would think anything so foolish," Damaris declared. "And then you
knew he would be away this week when you made the engagement."

Theresa gulped and prevaricated.

"No, surely not--I must have mistaken the date."

"But you were quite happy at luncheon, and you couldn't have mistaken the
date then," Damaris persisted.

Whereupon poor Theresa lost herself, the worthy and unworthy elements in
her nature alike conspiring to her undoing. In her distraction she
sniffed audibly. A tear ran down either side of her pink shiny nose and
dropped on the folds of shepherd's-plaid silk veiling her plump bosom.
For, with some obscure purpose of living up to her self-imposed
indispensability, Miss Bilson was distinctly dressy at this period,
wearing her best summer gown on every possible occasion and tucking a
bunch of roses or carnations archly in her waist-belt.

"Do you think it kind to insist so much on my passing forgetfulness?" she
quavered. "The habit of criticizing and cavilling at whatever I say grows
on you, Damaris, and it so increases the difficulties of my position. I
know I am sensitive, but that is the result of my affection for you. I
care so deeply, and you are not responsive. You chill me. As I have told
dear Miss Felicia--for I must sometimes unburden myself"--

This hastily, as Damaris' eyes darkened with displeasure.

--"For the last year, ever since you have nominally been out of the
schoolroom, I have seen my influence over you lessen, and especially
since poor Mrs. Watson's death"--

"We will not talk about Nannie, please," Damaris said quietly.

"Yes, but--as I told your Aunt Felicia--since then I have tried more than
ever to win your entire confidence, to make up to you for the loss of
poor Watson and fill her place with you."

"No one else can ever fill the place of the person one has loved,"
Damaris returned indignantly. "It isn't possible. I should be ashamed to
let it be possible. Nannie was Nannie--she had cared for me all my life
and I had cared for her. She belongs to things about which you"--

And there the girl checked herself, aware of something almost ludicrously
pitiful in the smug tearful countenance and stumpy would-be fashionable
figure. Hit a man your own size, or bigger, by all means if you are game
to take the consequences. But to smite a creature conspicuously your
inferior in fortune--past, present, and prospective--is unchivalrous, not
to say downright mean-spirited. So Damaris, swiftly repentant, put her
arm round the heaving shoulders, bent her handsome young head and kissed
the uninvitingly dabby cheek--a caress surely counting to her for
righteousness.

"Don't find fault with me any more, Billy," she said. "Indeed I never
hurt you on purpose. But there are such loads of things to think
about, that I get absorbed in them and can't attend sometimes directly
on the minute."

"Absent-mindedness should be corrected rather than encouraged," Miss
Bilson announced, sententious even amid her tears.

"Oh! it amounts to more than absent-mindedness I'm afraid--a sort of
absent-every-thingedness when it overtakes me. For the whole of me seems
to go away and away, hand in hand and all together," Damaris said, her
eyes alight with questions and with dreams. "But don't let us discuss
that now," she added. "It would waste time, and it is you who must go
away and away, Billy, if you are not to put the poor Miss Minetts into a
frantic fuss by being late for tea. They will think some accident has
happened to you. Don't beep them in suspense, it is simply
barbarous.--Good-bye, and don't hurry back. I have heaps to amuse me.
I'll not expect you till dinner-time."

Thus did it come about that Damaris reposed in a deck chair, under the
shade of the great ilex trees, gazing idly at the webs of steamer smoke
hanging low in the southern sky, at the long yellow-grey ridge of the Bar
between river and sea, and at the cormorants posturing in the hot
afternoon sunshine upon the sand.

Truly she was free to send forth her soul upon whatever far fantastic
journey she pleased. But souls are perverse, not to be driven at will,
choosing their own times and seasons for travel. And hers, just now,
proved obstinately home-staying--had no wings wherewith to fly, but must
needs crawl a-fourfoot, around all manner of inglorious personal matters.
For that skirmish with her ex-governess, though she successfully bridled
her tongue and conquered by kindness rather than by smiting, had clouded
her inward serenity, not only by its inherent uselessness, but by
reminding her indirectly of an occurrence which it was her earnest desire
to forget.

Indirectly, mention of her beloved nurse, Sarah Watson--who journeying
back from a visit to her native Lancashire, just this time last year, had
met death swift and hideous in a railway collision--recalled to Damaris
the little scene, of a week ago, with Tom Verity when ho had asked her,
in the noonday sunshine out on the Bar, for some explanation of his
strange nocturnal experience. She went hot all over now, with exaggerated
childish shame, thinking of it. For had not she, Damaris Verity, though
nurtured in the creed that courage is the source and mother of all
virtues, shown the white feather, incontinently turned tail and run away?
Remembrance of that running scorched her, so that more than once,
awakening suddenly in the night, her fair young body was dyed rose-red
with the disgrace of it literally from head to heel. She was bitterly
humiliated by her own poltroonery, ingenuously doubtful as to whether she
could ever quite recover her self-respect; glad that every day put two
hundred miles and more of sea between her and Tom Verity, since he had
witnessed that contemptible fall from grace.

Nevertheless, after her first consternation--in which, to avoid further
speech with him she had sought refuge among the unsavoury seine nets in
the fore-part of Jennifer's ferry-boat--Tom Verity's probable opinion of
her undignified action troubled her far less than the cause of the said
action itself. For exactly what, after all, had so upset her, begetting
imperative necessity of escape? Not the apparent confirmation of that
ugly legend concerning ghostly ponies driven up across The Hard garden
from the shore. From childhood, owing both to temperament and local
influences, her apprehension of things unseen and super-normal had been
remarkably acute. From the dawn of conscious intelligence these had
formed an integral element in the atmosphere of her life; and that
without functional disturbance, moral or physical, of a neurotic sort.
She felt no morbid curiosity about such matters, did not care to dwell
upon or talk of them.--Few persons do who, being sane in mind and body,
are yet endowed with the rather questionable blessing of the Seer's sixth
sense.--For while, in never doubting their existence her reason
acquiesced, her heart turned away, oppressed and disquieted, as from
other mysterious actualities common enough to human observation, such as
illness, disease, deformity, old age, the pains of birth and of death.
Such matters might perplex and sadden, or arouse her indignant pity; but,
being strong with the confidence of untouched youth and innocence, they
were powerless, in and by themselves, to terrify her to the contemptible
extremity of headlong flight.

This she recognized, though less by reasoning than by instinct; and so
found herself compelled to search deeper for the cause of her recent
disgrace. Not that she willingly prosecuted that search; but that the
subject pursued her, simply refusing to leave her alone. Continually it
presented itself to her mind, and always with the same call for escape,
the same foreboding of some danger against which she must provide.
Always, too, it seemed to hinge upon Tom Verity's visit, and something in
her relation to the young man himself which she could not define. She
revolved the question now--Theresa being safely packed off to her
tea-party--in shade of the ilex trees, with solemn eyes and finely
serious face.

There was not anything unusual in receiving visitors at The Hard. Men
came often to see her father, and she took her share in entertaining all
such comers as a matter of course. Some she "didn't much care about,"
some she liked. But, with the exception of Colonel Carteret from
childhood her trusted friend and confidant, their coming and going was
just part of the accustomed routine, a survival from the life at the
Indian summer palace of long ago, and made no difference. Yet, though she
was still uncertain whether she did like Tom Verity or not, his coming
and going had indisputably made a difference. It marked, indeed, a new
departure in her attitude and thought. Her world, before his advent, was
other than that in which she now dwelt.

For one thing, Tom was much younger than the majority of her father's
guests--a man not made but still early in the making, the glamour of
promise rather than the stark light of finality upon him. This affected
her; for at eighteen, a career, be it never so distinguished, which has
reached its zenith, in other words reached the end of its tether, must
needs have a touch of melancholy about it. With the heat of going on in
your own veins, the sight of one who has no further go strikes chill to
the heart. And so, while uncertain whether she quite trusted him or not,
Damaris--until the unlucky running away episode--had taken increasing
pleasure in this new cousin's company. It both interested and diverted
her. She had not only felt ready to talk to him; but,--surprising
inclination!--once the ice of her natural reserve broken, to talk to him
about herself.

Half-shyly she dwelt upon his personal appearance.--A fine head and
clever face, the nose astute, slightly Jewish in type, so she thought.
His eyes were disappointing, too thickly brown in colour, too opaque.
They told you nothing, were indeed curiously meaningless; and, though
well set under an ample brow, were wanting in depth and softness owing to
scantiness of eyelash. But his chin satisfied her demands. It was square,
forcible, slightly cleft; and his mouth, below the fly-away reddish
moustache, was frankly delightful.--Damaris flushed, smiling to herself
now as she recalled his smile. Whereupon the humiliation of that thrice
wretched running away took a sharper edge. For she realized, poor child,
how much--notwithstanding her proud little snubbing of him--she coveted
his good opinion, wished him to admire and to like her; wanted, even
while she disapproved his self-complacency and slightly doubted his
truthfulness, to have him carry with him a happy impression of her--carry
it with him to that enchanted far Eastern land in which all the poetry of
her childhood had its root. For, if remembrance of her remained with him,
and that agreeably, she herself also found "Passage to India" in a sense.
And this idea, recondite though it was, touched and charmed her fancy--or
would have done so but for the recollection of her deplorable
flight.--Oh! what--what made her run away? From what had she thus run? If
she could only find out! And find, moreover, the cause sufficient to
palliate, to some extent at least, the woefulness of her cowardice.

But at this point her meditation suffered interruption. The three
cormorants, having finished their sun-bath, rose from the sand and
flapped off, flying low and sullenly in single file over the sea parallel
with the eastward-trending coast-line.

With the departure of the great birds her surroundings seemed to lose
their only element of active and conscious life. The brooding sunlit
evening became oppressive, so that in the space of a moment Damaris
passed from solitude, which is stimulating, to loneliness, which is only
sad. Meanwhile the shadow cast by the ilex trees had grown sensibly
longer, softer in outline, more transparent and finely intangible in
tone, and the reek of the mud-flats more potent, according to its habit
at sundown and low tide.

It quenched the garden scents with a fetid sweetness, symbolic perhaps of
the languorous sheltered character of the scene and of much which had or
might yet happen there--the life breath of the _genius loci_, an at once
seductive and, as Tom Verity had rightly divined, a doubtfully wholesome
spirit! Over Damaris it exercised an unwilling fascination, as of some
haunting refrain ending each verse of her personal experience. Even when,
as a little girl of eight, fresh from the gentle restraints and rare
religious and social amenities of an aristocratic convent school in
Paris, she had first encountered it, it struck her as strangely
familiar--a thing given back rather than newly discovered, making her
mind and innocent body alike eager with absorbed yet half-shuddering
recognition. A good ten years had elapsed since then, but her early
impression still persisted, producing in her a certain spiritual and
emotional unrest.

And at that, by natural transition, her thought turned from Tom Verity to
fix itself upon the one other possible witness of her ignominy--namely,
the young master mariner who, coming ashore in Proud, the
lobster-catcher's cranky boat, had walked up the shifting shingle to the
crown of the ridge and stood watching her, in silence, for a quite
measurable period, before passing on his way down to the ferry. For, from
her first sight of him, had he not seemed to evoke that same sense of
remembrance, to be, like the reek off the mud-flats, already well-known,
something given back to her rather than newly discovered? She was still
ignorant as to who ho was or where he came from, having been far too
engrossed by mortification to pay any attention to the conversation
between her cousin and Jennifer during their little voyage down the
tide-river, and having disdained to make subsequent enquiries.--She had a
rooted dislike to appear curious or ask questions.--But now, reviewing
the whole episode, it broke in on her that the necessity for escape and
foreboding of danger, which culminated in her flight, actually dated
from the advent of this stranger rather than from Tom's request for
enlightenment concerning unaccountable noises heard in the small hours.

Damaris slipped her feet down off the leg-rest, and sat upright, tense
with the effort to grasp and disentangle the bearings of this revelation.
Was her search ended? Had she indeed detected the cause of her
discomfiture; or only pushed her enquiry back a step further, thus
widening rather than limiting the field of speculation? For what
conceivable connection, as she reflected, could the old lobster-catcher's
passenger have with any matter even remotely affecting herself!

Then she started, suddenly sensible of a comfortable, though warmly
protesting, human voice and presence at her elbow.

"Yes, you may well look astonished, Miss Damaris. I know how late it is,
and have been going on like anything to Lizzie over her carelessness.
Mrs. Cooper's walked up the village with Laura about some extra meat
that's wanted, and when I came through for your tea if that girl hadn't
let the kitchen fire right out!--Amusing herself down in the stable-yard,
I expect, Mrs. Cooper being gone.--And the business I've had to get a
kettle to boil!"

Verging on forty, tall, dark, deep-bosomed and comely, a rich flush on
her cheeks under the clear brown skin thanks to a kitchen fire which
didn't burn and righteous anger which did, Mary Fisher, the upper
housemaid, set a tea-tray upon the garden table beside Damaris' chair.

"That's what comes of taking servants out of trades-peoples' houses," she
went on, as she marshalled silver tea-pot and cream-jug--embossed with
flamboyant many-armed Hindu deities--hot cakes, ginger snaps and
saffron-sprinkled buns. "You can't put any real dependence on them, doing
their work as suits themselves just anyhow and anywhen. Mrs. Cooper and I
knew how it would be well enough when Miss Bilson engaged Lizzie Trant
and Mr. Hordle said the same. But it wasn't one atom of use for us to
speak. The Miss Minetts recommended the girl--so there was the finish of
it. And that's at the bottom of your being kept waiting the best part of
a hour for your tea like this, Miss."

Notwithstanding the exactions of a somewhat tyrannous brain and her
conviction of high responsibilities, the child, which delights to be
petted, told stories and made much of, was strong in Damaris still. This
explosion of domestic wrath on her behalf proved eminently soothing. It
directed her brooding thought into nice, amusing, everyday little
channels; and assured her of protective solicitude, actively on the
watch, by which exaggerated shames and alarms were withered and
loneliness effectually dispersed. She felt smoothed, contented. Fell,
indeed, into something of the humour which climbs on to a friendly lap
and thrones it there blissfully careless of the thousand and one ills,
known and unknown, which infant flesh is heir to. She engaged the comely
comfortable woman to stay and minister further to her.

"Pour out my tea for me, Mary, please," she said, "if you're not busy.
But isn't this your afternoon off, by rights?"

And Mary, while serving her, acknowledged that not only was it "by
rights" her "afternoon off;" but that Mr. Patch, the coachman, had
volunteered to drive her into Marychurch to see her parents when he
exercised the carriage horses. But, while thanking him very kindly, she
had refused. Was it likely, she said, she would leave the house with Sir
Charles and Mr. Hordle away, and Miss Bilson taking herself off to visit
friends, too?

From which Damaris gathered that, in the opinion of the servants' hall,
Theresa's offence was rank, it stank to heaven. She therefore, being
covetous of continued contentment, turned the conversation to less
controversial subjects; and, after passing notice of the fair weather,
the brightness of the geraniums and kindred trivialities, successfully
incited Mary to talk of Brockhurst, Sir Richard Calmady's famous place in
the north of the county, where--prior to his retirement to his native
town of Marychurch, upon a generous pension--her father, Lomas Fisher,
had for many years occupied the post of second gardener. Here was
material for story-telling to the child Damaris' heart's content! For
Brockhurst is rich in strange records of wealth, calamity, heroism, and
sport, the inherent romance of which Mary's artless narrative was
calculated to enhance rather than dissipate.

So young mistress listened and maid recounted, until, the former
fortified by cakes and tea, the two sauntered, side by side--a tall
stalwart black figure, white capped and aproned and an equally tall
but slender pale pink one--down across the lawn to the battery where
the small obsolete cannon so boldly defied danger of piracy or
invasion by sea.

The sun, a crimson disc, enormous in the earth-mist, sank slowly, south
of west, behind the dark mass of Stone Horse Head. The upper branches of
the line of Scotch firs in the warren and, beyond them, the upper windows
of the cottages and Inn caught the fiery light. Presently a little wind,
thin, perceptibly chill, drew up the river with the turning of the tide.
It fluttered Mary Fisher's long white muslin apron strings and lifted her
cap, so that she raised her hand to keep it in place upon her smooth
black hair. The romance of Brockhurst failed upon her tongue. She grew
sharply practical.

"The dew's beginning to rise, Miss Damaris," she said, "and you've only
got your house shoes on. You ought to go indoors at once."

But--"Listen," Damaris replied, and lingered.

The whistling of a tune, shrill, but true and sweet, and a rattle of
loose shingle, while a young man climbed the seaward slope of the Bar.
The whistling ceased as he stopped, on the crest of the ridge, and stood,
bare-headed, contemplating the sunset. For a few seconds the fiery light
stained his hands, his throat, his hair, his handsome bearded face; then
swiftly faded, leaving him like a giant leaden image set up against a
vast pallor of sea and sky.

Mary Fisher choked down a hasty exclamation.

"Come, do come, Miss Damaris, before the grass gets too wet," she said
almost sharply. "It's going to be a drenching dew to-night."

"Yes--directly--in a minute--but, Mary, tell me who that is?"

The woman hesitated.

"Out on the Bar, do you mean? No one I am acquainted with, Miss."

"I did not intend to ask if he was a friend of yours," Damaris
returned, with a touch of grandeur, "but merely whether you could tell
me his name."

"Oh! it's Mrs. Faircloth's son I suppose--the person who keeps the Inn. I
heard he'd been home for a few days waiting for a ship"--and she turned
resolutely towards the house. "It's quite time that silver was taken
indoors and the library windows closed. But you must excuse me, Miss
Damaris, I can't have you stay out here in that thin gown in the damp.
You really must come with me, Miss."

And the child in Damaris obeyed. Dutifully it went, though the soul of
the eighteen-year-old Damaris was far away, started once more on an
anxious quest.

She heard the loose shingle shift and rattle under Faircloth's feet as he
swung down the near slope to the jetty. The sound pursued her, and again
she was overtaken--overwhelmed by foreboding and desire of flight.




CHAPTER II

WHICH CANTERS ROUND A PARISH PUMP


Not until the second bell was about to cease ringing did Theresa
Bilson--fussily consequential--reappear at The Hard.

During the absence of the master of the house she would have much
preferred high tea in the schoolroom, combined with a certain laxity as
to hours and to dress; but Damaris, in whom the sense of style was
innate, stood out for the regulation dignities of late dinner and evening
gowns. To-night, however, thanks to her own unpunctuality, Miss Bilson
found ample excuse for dispensing with ceremonial garments.

"No--no--we will not wait," she said, addressing Mary and her attendant
satellite, Laura, the under-housemaid, as--agreeably ignorant of the
sentiment of a servants' hall which thirsted for her blood--she passed
the two standing at attention by the open door of the dining-room. "I am
not going to change. I will leave my hat and things down here--Laura can
take them to my room later--and have dinner as I am."

During the course of that meal she explained how she had really quite
failed to observe the hour when she left the Grey House. Commander and
Mrs. Battye were at tea there; and the vicar--Dr. Horniblow--looked in
afterwards. There was quite a little meeting, in fact, to arrange the
details of the day after to-morrow's choir treat. A number of upper-class
parishioners, she found, were anxious to embrace this opportunity of
visiting Harchester, and inspecting the Cathedral and other sights of
that historic city, under learned escort. It promised to be a most
interesting and instructive expedition, involving moreover but moderate
cost.--And every one present--Theresa bridled over her salmon cutlet and
oyster sauce--everyone seemed so anxious for her assistance and advice.
The vicar deferred to her opinion in a quite pointed manner; and spoke,
which was so nice of him, of her known gift of organization. "So we claim
not only your sympathy, Miss Bilson, but your active co-operation," he
had said. "We feel The Hard should be officially represented."

Here the speaker became increasingly self-conscious and blushed.

"What could I do, therefore, but remain even at the risk of being a
trifle late for dinner?" she asked. "It would have been so extremely
uncivil to the Miss Minetts to break up the gathering by leaving before
full agreement as to the arrangements had been reached. I felt I must
regard it as a public duty, under the circumstances. I really owed it to
my position here, you know, Damaris, to stay to the last."

It may be observed, in passing, that Miss Bilson was fond of food and
made a good deal of noise in eating, particularly when, as on the present
occasion, she combined that operation with continuous speech. This may
account for Damaris bestowing greater attention on the manner than the
matter of her ex-governess' communications. She was sensible that the
latter showed to small advantage being rather foolishly excited and
elate, and felt vexed the maids should hear and see her behaving thus. It
could hardly fail to lower her in their estimation.

As to the impending parochial invasion of Harchester--during the earlier
stages of dinner Damaris hardly gave it a second thought, being still
under the empire of impressions very far removed from anything in the
nature of choir treats. She still beheld the fiery glare of an expiring
sunset, and against the ensuing pallor of sea and sky a leaden-hued
human, figure strangely, almost portentously evident. That it appeared
noble in pose and in outline, even beautiful, she could not deny. But
that somehow it frightened her, she could equally little deny. So it came
about that once again, as Mary and her satellite Laura silently waited
at table, and as Theresa very audibly gobbled food in and words out,
Damaris shrank within herself seeming to hear a shrill sweet whistling
and the shatter of loose pebbles and shifting shingle under Faircloth's
pursuing feet.

The young man's name aroused her interest, not to say her curiosity, the
more deeply because of its association, with a locality exploration of
which had always been denied her--a Naboth's vineyard of the imagination,
near at hand, daily in sight, yet personal acquaintance with which she
failed to possess even yet. The idea of an island, especially a quite
little island, a miniature and separate world, shut off all by itself, is
dreadfully enticing to the infant mind--at once a geographical entity and
a cunning sort of toy. And Faircloth's Inn, with the tarred wooden houses
adjacent, was situated upon what, to all intents and purposes, might pass
as an island since accessible only by boat or by an ancient paved
causeway daily submerged at high tide.

Skirting the further edge of the warren, a wide rutted side lane leads
down to the landward end of the said causeway from the village green,
just opposite Deadham post office and Mrs. Doubleday's general shop.--A
neglected somewhat desolate strip of road this, between broken earthbanks
topped by ragged firs, yet very paintable and dear to the sketch-book of
the amateur. In summer overgrown with grass and rushes, bordered by
cow-parsley, meadowsweet, pink codlings-and-cream, and purple flowered
peppermint, in winter a marsh of sodden brown and vivid green; but at all
seasons a telling perspective, closed by the lonely black and grey island
hamlet set in the gleaming tide.

Small wonder the place stirred Damaris' spirit of enquiry and adventure!
She wanted to go there, to examine, to learn how people lived cut off
from the mainland for hours twice every day and night. But her early
attempts at investigation met with prompt discouragement from both her
nurse and her aunt, Felicia Verity. And Damaris was not of the
disposition which plots, wheedles, and teases to obtain what it wants;
still less screams for the desired object until for very weariness
resistance yields. Either she submitted without murmuring or fearlessly
defied authority. In the present case she relinquished hope and purpose
obediently, while inwardly longing for exploration, of her "darling
little island" all the more.

But authority was not perhaps altogether unjustified of its decision, for
the inhabitants of the spot so engaging to Damaris' imagination were a
close corporation, a race of sailors and fishermen and, so said rumour,
somewhat rough customers at that. They lived according to their own
traditions and unwritten laws, entertained a lordly contempt for
wage-earning labourers and landsmen, and, save when money was likely to
pass, were grudging of hospitality even to persons of quality setting
foot within their coasts.

To their reprehensible tendencies in this last respect the Miss Minetts
could bear painful witness, as--with hushed voices and entreaties the
sorry tale might "go no further"--they more than once confided to Theresa
Bilson. For one Saturday afternoon--unknown to the vicar--being zealous
in the admonishing of recalcitrant church-goers and rounding up of
possible Sunday-school recruits, they crossed to the island at low tide;
and in their best district visitor manner--too often a sparkling blend of
condescension and familiarity, warranted to irritate--severally demanded
entrance to the first two of the black cottages.--The Inn they avoided.
Refined gentlewomen can hardly be expected, even in the interests of
religion, to risk pollution by visiting a common tavern, more
particularly when a company of half-grown lads and blue jerseyed men--who
may, of course, have been carousing within--hangs about its morally
malodorous door.

Of precisely what followed their attempted violation of the privacy of
those two cottages, even the Miss Minetts themselves could subsequently
give no very coherent account. They only knew that some half-hour later,
with petticoats raised to a height gravely imperilling decency, they
splashed landward across the causeway--now ankle-deep in water--while the
lads congregated before the Inn laughed boisterously, the men turned away
with a guffaw, dogs of disgracefully mixed parentage yelped, and the
elder female members of the Proud and Sclanders families flung phrases
lamentably subversive of gentility after their retreating figures from
the foreshore.

Modesty and mortification alike forbade the outraged ladies reporting the
episode to Dr. Horniblow in extenso. But they succeeded in giving Miss
Bilson a sufficiently lurid account of it to make "the darling little
island," in as far as her charge, Damaris, was concerned, more than ever
taboo. Their request that the story might "go no further" she interpreted
with the elasticity usually accorded to such requests; and proceeded, at
the first opportunity, to retail the whole shocking occurrence to her
pupil as an example of the ingratitude and insubordination of the common
people. For Theresa was nothing if not conservative and aristocratic.
From such august anachronisms as the divine right of kings and the Stuart
succession, down to humble bobbing of curtseys and pulling of forelocks
in to-day's village street, she held a permanent brief for the classes as
against the masses. Unluckily the Miss Minetts' hasty and watery
withdrawal, with upgathered skirts, across the causeway had appealed to
Damaris' sense of comedy rather than of tragedy.--She didn't want to be
unkind, but you shouldn't interfere; and if you insisted on interfering
you must accept whatever followed. The two ladies in question were richly
addicted to interfering she had reason to think.--And then they must have
looked so wonderfully funny scuttling thus!

The picture remained by her as a thing of permanent mirth. So it was
hardly surprising, in face of the dominant direction of her thoughts
to-night, that, when the Miss Minetts' name punctuated Theresa's
discourse recurrent as a cuckoo-cry, remembrance of their merrily
inglorious retirement from the region of Faircloth's Inn should present
itself. Whereupon Damaris' serious mood was lightened as by sudden
sunshine, and she laughed.

Hearing which infectiously gay but quite unexpected sound, Miss Bilson
stopped dead in the middle both of a nectarine and a sentence.

"What is the matter, Damaris?" she exclaimed. "I was explaining our
difficulty in securing sufficient conveyances for some of our party to
and from Marychurch station. I really do not see any cause for amusement
in what I said."

"There wasn't anything amusing, dear Billy, I'm sure there wasn't,"
Damaris returned, the corners of her mouth still quivering and her eyes
very bright. "I beg your pardon. I'm afraid I wasn't quite attending. I
was thinking of something else. You were speaking about the carriage
horses, weren't you? Yes."

But Theresa turned sulky. She had been posing, planing in mid-air around
the fair castles hope and ambition are reported to build there. Her fat
little feet were well off the floor, and that outbreak of laughter let
her down with a bump. She lost her head, lost her temper and her
opportunity along with it, and fell into useless scolding.

"You are extremely inconsequent and childish sometimes, Damaris," she
said. "I find it most trying when I attempt to talk to you upon practical
subjects, really pressing subjects, and you either cannot or will not
concentrate. What can you expect in the future when you are thrown more
on your own resources, and have not me--for instance--always to depend
upon, if you moon through life like this? It must lead to great
discomfort not only for yourself but for others. Pray be warned in time."

Damaris turned in her chair at the head of the table. A station not
unconnected, in Theresa's mind, with the internal ordering of those same
air-built castles, and consistently if furtively coveted by her. To Sir
Charles's chair at the bottom of the table, she dared not aspire, so
during his absence reluctantly retained her accustomed place at the side.

"You need not wait any longer, Mary," Damaris said, over her shoulder.

"Why?" Theresa began fussily, as the two maids left the room.

"Why?" Damaris took her up. "Because I prefer our being alone during
the remainder of this conversation. I understand that you want to ask
me about something to do with this excursion to Harchester. What is
it, please?"

"My dear Damaris," the other protested, startled and scenting unexpected
danger, "really your manner"--

"And yours.--Both perhaps would bear improvement. But that is by the way.
What is it, please, you want?"

"Really you assert yourself"--

"And you forget yourself--before the servants, too, I do not like it at
all. You should be more careful."

"Damaris," she cried aghast, confounded to the verge of tears--"Damaris!"

"Yes--I am giving you my full attention. Pray let us be practical," the
young girl said, sitting up tall and straight in the shaded lamp-light,
the white dinner-table spread with gleaming glass and silver, fine china,
fruit and flowers before her, the soft gloom of the long low room behind,
all tender hint of childhood banished from her countenance, and her eyes
bright now not with laughter but with battle. "Pray let us finish with
the subject of the choir treat. Then we shall be free to talk about more
interesting things."

Miss Bilson waved her hands hysterically.

"No--no--I never wish to mention it again. I am too deeply hurt by your
behaviour to me, Damaris--your sarcasm.--Of course," she added, "I see I
must withdraw my offer. It will cause the greatest inconvenience and
disappointment; but for that I cannot hold myself responsible, though it
will be most painful and embarrassing to me after the kind appreciation I
have received. Still I must withdraw it"--

"Withdraw what offer?"

"Why the offer I was explaining to you just now, when you ordered the
maids out of the room. You really cannot deny that you heard what I said,
Damaris, because you mentioned the carriage horses yourself."

Theresa sipped some water. She was recovering if not her temper, yet her
grasp on the main issue. She wanted, so desperately, to achieve her
purpose and, incidentally, to continue to play, both for her own benefit
and that of the parish, her self-elected role of Lady Bountiful, of
"official representative of The Hard"--as Dr. Horniblow by a quite
innocent if ill-timed flourish of speech had unfortunately put it.

"The conveyances in the village are insufficient to take the whole party
to the station," she continued. "An extra brake can be had at the Stag's
Head in Mary church; but a pair of horses must be sent in to-morrow
afternoon to bring it over here. I saw"--she hesitated a moment--"I
really could see no objection to Patch taking our horses in to fetch the
brake, and driving a contingent to the station in it next morning."

"And meeting the train at night, I suppose?" Damaris said calmly.

"Of course," Theresa answered, thus unconsciously declaring herself a
rank outsider, and rushing blindly upon her fate.

For what thoroughbred member of the equestrian order does not know that
next--and even that not always--to the ladies of his family and,
possibly, the key of his cellar, an Englishman's stable is sacrosanct?
Dispose of anything he owns rather than his horses. To attempt touching
them is, indeed, to stretch out your hand against the Ark of the Covenant
and risk prompt withering of that impious limb. Yet poor Theresa
blundered on.

"I told the vicar that, Sir Charles being from home, I felt I might make
the offer myself, seeing how much it would simplify the arrangements and
how very little work Patch has when you and I are alone here. It is a
pity there is not time to obtain Sir Charles's sanction. That would be
more proper, of course, more satisfactory. But under the circumstances it
need not, I think, be regarded as an insuperable objection. I told the
Miss Minetts and the vicar"--

Here Miss Bilson blushed, applying fork and spoon, in coy confusion, to
the remains of the nectarine upon her plate.

"I told them," she repeated, "knowing Sir Charles as well as I do, I felt
I might safely assure them of that."

In Damaris, meanwhile, anger gradually gave place to far more complex
emotions. She sat well back in her chair, and clasped her hands firmly in
her flowered Pompadour-muslin lap. Her eyes looked enormous as she kept
them fixed gravely and steadily upon the speaker. For extraordinary ideas
and perceptions concerning the said speaker crowded into her young head.
She did not like them at all. She shrank from dwelling upon or following
them put. They, indeed, made her hot and uncomfortable all over. Had
Theresa Bilson taken leave of her senses, or was she, Damaris, herself in
fault--a harbourer of nasty thoughts? Consciously she felt to grow older,
to grow up. And she did not like that either; for the grown-up world, to
which Theresa acted just now as doorkeeper, struck her as an ugly and
vulgar-minded place. She saw her ex-governess from a new angle--a more
illuminating than agreeable one, at which she no longer figured as
pitiful, her little assumptions and sillinesses calling for the
chivalrous forbearance of persons more happily placed; but as actively
impertinent, an usurper of authority and privileges altogether outside
her office and her scope. She was greedy--not a pretty word yet a true
one, covering both her manner of eating and her speech. Registering which
facts Damaris was sensible of almost physical repulsion, as from
something obscurely gross. Hence it followed that Theresa must, somehow,
be stopped, made to see her own present unpleasantness, saved from
herself in short--to which end it became Damaris' duty to unfurl the flag
of revolt.

The young girl arrived at this conclusion in a spirit of rather pathetic
seriousness. It is far from easy, at eighteen, to control tongue and
temper to the extent of joining battle with your elders in calm and
dignified sort. To lay about you in a rage is easy enough. But rage is
tiresomely liable to defeat its own object and make you make a fool of
yourself. Any unfurling of the flag would be useless, and worse than
useless, unless it heralded victory sure and complete--Damaris realized
this. So she kept a brave front, although her pulse quickened and she had
a bad little empty feeling around her heart.

Fortunately, however, for her side of the campaign, Theresa--emboldened
by recapitulation of her late boastings at the Miss Minetts'
tea-table--hastened to put a gilded dome to her own indiscretion and
offence. For nothing would do but Damaris must accompany her on this
choir treat! She declared herself really compelled to press the point. It
offered such an excellent opportunity of acquiring archaeological
knowledge--had not the Dean most kindly promised to conduct the party
round the Cathedral himself and deliver a short lecture _en route_?--and
of friendly social intercourse, both of which would be very advantageous
to Damaris. As she was without any engagement for the day clearly neither
should be missed. Of course, everyone understood how unsuitable it would
be to ask Sir Charles to patronize parish excursions and events.--Here
Miss Bilson became lyrical, speaking with gasping breath and glowing
face, of "a call to exalted spheres of action, of great Proconsuls,
Empire Builders, Pillars of the State."--Naturally you hesitated to
intrude on the time and attention of such a distinguished person--that in
point of fact was her main reason for disposing of the matter of the
carriage horses herself. How could she trouble Sir Charles with such a
homely detail?--But Damaris' case, needless to remark, was very
different. At her age it was invidious to be too exclusive. Miss Felicia
Verity felt--so she, Theresa, was certain--that it was a pity Damaris did
not make more friends in the village now she was out of the schoolroom.
May and Doris Horniblow were sweet girls and highly educated. They, of
course, were going. And Captain Taylor, she understood would bring his
daughter, Louisa--who was home for a few days before the opening of term
at the Tillingworth High School where she was second mistress.

"It is always well to realize the attainments of young people of your own
age, even if they are not in quite the same social grade as yourself.
Your going would give pleasure too. It will be taken as a compliment to
the vicar and the Church--may really, in a sense, be called patriotic
since an acknowledgment of the duty we owe, individually, to the local
community of which we form part. And then," she added, naively giving
herself away at the last, "of course, if you go over to the station in
the brake Patch cannot make any difficulties about driving it."

Here Theresa stayed the torrent of her eloquence and looked up, to find
Damaris' eyes fixed upon her in incredulous wonder.

"Have you nothing to say, dear, in answer to my proposition?" she
enquired, with a suddenly anxious, edgy little laugh.

"I am afraid I have a lot to say, some of which you won't like."

"How so?" Theresa cried, still playfully. "You must see how natural and
reasonable my suggestion is." Then becoming admonitory. "You should learn
to think a little more of others.--It is a bad habit to offer opposition
simply for opposition's sake."

"I do not oppose you for the mere pleasure of opposing," Damaris began,
determined her voice should not shake. "But I'm sorry to say, I can't
agree to the horses being used to draw a loaded brake. I could not ask
Patch. He would refuse and be quite right in refusing. It's not their
work--nor his work either."

She leaned forward, trying to speak civilly and gently.

"There are some things you don't quite understand about the stables, or
about the servants--the things which can't be done, which it's impossible
to ask.--No,--wait, please--please let me finish"--

For between astonishment, chagrin, and an inarticulate struggle to
protest, Miss Bilson's complexion was becoming almost apoplectic and her
poor fat little cheeks positively convulsed.

"I dislike saying such disagreeable things to you, but it can't be
avoided. It would be cowardly of me not to tell you the truth.--You shall
have the brougham the day after to-morrow, and I'll write to Miss Minett
in the morning, and tell her you will call for her and her sister, on
your way to Marychurch, and that you will bring them back at night. I
will give Patch his orders myself, so that there may be no confusion. And
I will subscribe a pound to the expenses of the choir treat. That is all
I can promise in the way of help."

"But--but--Damaris, think of the position in which you place me! I cannot
be thrust aside thus. I will not submit. It is so humiliating, so--so--I
offered the horses. I told the vicar he might consider it settled about
the extra brake"--

"I know. That was a mistake. You had no right to make such an offer."

For justice must take its course. Theresa must be saved from herself.
Still her implacable young saviour, in proportion as victory appeared
assured, began to feel sad. For it grew increasingly plain that Theresa
was not of the stuff of which warriors, any more than saints, are made.
Stand up to her and she collapsed like a pricked bubble.--So little was
left, a scum of colourless soap suds, in which very certainly there is no
fight. Again she showed a pitiful being, inviting chivalrous forbearance.

"You are very hard," she lamented, "and you are always inclined to side
with the servants against me. You seem to take pleasure in undermining
my influence, while I am so ready and anxious to devote myself to you.
You know there is nothing, nothing I would not do for you and--and for
Sir Charles."

Theresa choked, coughed, holding her handkerchief to her eyes.

"And what reward do I meet with?" she asked brokenly. "At every turn I am
thwarted. But you must give way in this case, Damaris. Positively you
must. I cannot allow myself to be publicly discredited through your
self-will. I promised the horses for the extra brake. The offer was made
and accepted--accepted, you understand, actually accepted. What will the
vicar say if the arrangement is upset? What will every one think?"

Damaris pushed her chair back from the table and rose to her
feet.--Forbearance wore threadbare under accusation and complaint. No,
Theresa was not only a little too abject, but a little too disingenuous,
thereby putting herself beyond the pale of rightful sympathy. Even while
she protested devotion, self looked out seeking personal advantage. And
that devotion, in itself, shocked Damaris' sense of fitness where it
involved her father. It wasn't Theresa's place to talk of devotion
towards him!

Moreover the young girl began to feel profoundly impatient of all this to
do and bother. For wasn't the whole affair, very much of a storm in a
teacup, petty, paltry, quite unworthy of prolonged discussion such as
this? She certainly thought so, in her youthful fervour and inexperience;
while--the push of awakening womanhood giving new colour and richness
to her conception of life--nature cried out for a certain extravagance in
heroism, in largeness of action of aspiration. She was athirst for noble
horizons, in love with beauty, with the magnificence of things, seen and
unseen alike. In love with superb objectives even if only to be reached
through a measure of suffering, and--searching, arresting, though the
thought was to her--possibly through peril of death.

In such moods there is small room for a Bilson régime and outlook. A
flavour of scorn marked her tone as she answered at last:

"Oh, you can lay the blame on me--or rather tell the truth, which amounts
to the same thing. Say that, my father being away, I refused my consent
to the horses being taken out. Say you appealed to me but I was
hopelessly obstinate. It is very simple."




CHAPTER III

A SAMPLING OF FREEDOM


When two persons, living under the same roof, have the misfortune to fall
out a hundred and one small ways are ready to hand for the infliction of
moral torment. The weak, it may be added, are not only far more addicted
to such inflictings than the strong, but far more resourceful in their
execution. Theresa Bilson's conduct may furnish a pertinent example.

From the moment of emerging from her bed-chamber, next morning, she
adopted an attitude which she maintained until she regained the chaste
seclusion of that apartment at night. During no instant of the
intervening hours did she lapse from studied speechlessness unless
directly addressed, nor depart from an air of virtuous resignation to
injustice and injury--quite exquisitely provoking to the onlooker. Twice
during the morning Damaris, upon entering the schoolroom, discovered her
in tears, which she proceeded to wipe away, furtively, with the greatest
ostentation.--Dramatic effect, on the second occasion was, however,
marred by the fact that she was engaged in retrimming a white chip hat,
encircled by a garland of artificial dog-roses, blue glass grapes and
assorted foliage--an occupation somewhat ill-adapted to tragedy. In
addition to making her ex-pupil--against whom they were mainly
directed--first miserable and then naughtily defiant by these manoeuvres,
she alienated any sympathy which her red-rimmed eyelids and dolorous
aspect might otherwise have engendered in the younger and less critical
members of the establishment, by sending Alfred, the hall-boy, up to the
vicarage with a note and instructions to wait for an answer, at the very
moment when every domestic ordinance demanded his absorption in the
cleaning of knives and of boots. Being but human, Alfred naturally
embraced the heaven-sent chance of dawdling, passing the time of day with
various cronies, and rapturously assisting to hound a couple of wild,
sweating and snorting steers along the dusty lane, behind the churchyard,
to Butcher Cleave's slaughter-house: with the consequence that his menial
duties devolved upon Laura and Lizzie, who, supported by the heads of
their respective departments, combined to "give him the what for," in no
measured terms upon his eventual and very tardy return.

It is not too much to say that, by luncheon time Theresa--whether
wilfully or not--had succeeded in setting the entire household by the
ears; while any inclinations towards peace-making, with which Damaris
might have begun the day, were effectively dissipated, leaving her
strengthened and confirmed in revolt. Around the stables, and the
proposed indignity put upon Patch and the horses, this wretched quarrel
centred so--as at once a vote of confidence and declaration of
independence--to the stables Damaris finally went and ordered the
dog-cart at three o'clock. For she would drive, and drive, throughout the
course of this gilded September afternoon. Drive far away from foolishly
officious and disingenuous Theresa, far from Deadham, so tiresome just
now in its irruption of tea-parties and treats. She would behold peaceful
inland horizons, taste the freedom of spirit and the content which the
long, smooth buff-coloured roads, leading to unknown towns and unvisited
country-side, so deliciously give.

She stood at the front door, in blue linen gown, white knitted jersey and
white sailor hat, buttoning her tan doeskin driving-gloves, a gallant,
gravely valiant young creature, beautifully unbroken as yet by any real
assent to the manifold foulness of life--her faith in the nobility of
human nature and human destiny still finely intact. And that was just
where her revolt against poor Theresa Bilson came in. For Theresa broke
the accepted law, being ignoble; and thereby spoiled the fair pattern,
showed as a blot.--Not that she meant to trouble any more about Theresa
just now. She was out simply to enjoy, to see and feel, rather than
reason, analyse or think. So she settled herself on the sloping
high-cushioned seat, bracing her feet against the driving iron, while
Mary, reaching up, tucked the dust-rug neatly about her skirts.
Patch--whose looks and figure unmistakably declared his
calling--short-legged and stocky, inclining to corpulence yet nimble on
his feet, clean shaven, Napoleonic of countenance, passed reins and whip
into her hands as Tolling, the groom, let go the horse's head.

The girl squared her shoulders a little, and the soft colour deepened in
her cheeks, as she swung the dog-cart down the drive and out of the
entrance gate into the road--here a green-roofed tunnel, branches meeting
overhead, thickly carpeted with dry sand blown inward from the beach--and
on past the whitewashed cottages, red brick and grey stone houses of
Deadham village, their gardens pleasant with flowers, and with apple and
pear trees weighted down by fruit. Past the vicarage and church, standing
apart on a little grass-grown monticule, backed by a row of elms, which
amid their dark foliage showed here and there a single bough of
verdigris-green or lemon-yellow--first harbingers of autumn. Into the
open now, small rough fields dotted with thorn bushes and bramble-brakes
on the one side; and on the other the shining waters of the Haven.
Through the hamlet of Lampit, the rear of whose dilapidated sheds and
dwellings abut on reed-beds and stretches of unsightly slime and ooze. A
desolate spot, bleak and wind-swept in winter, and even under blue skies,
as to-day basking in sunshine, degraded by poverty and dirt.

Some half-mile further is Horny Cross where, as the name indicates, four
roads meet. That from Deadham to the edge of the forest runs north; the
other, from Beaupres-on-Sea to Marychurch, Stourmouth and Barryport, due
west. Damaris, having a fancy to keep the coast-line out of sight, chose
the former, following the valley of the Arne, between great flat meadows
where herds of dairy cows, of red Devons and black Welsh runts, feed in
the rich deep grass. In one place a curve of the river brings it, for
three hundred yards or more, close under the hanging woods, only the
width of the roadway between the broad stream and living wall of trees.
Here transparent bluish shadow haunted the undergrowth, and the air grew
delicately chill, charged with the scent of fern, of moist earth, leaf
mould, and moss.

Such traffic as held the road was leisurely, native to the scene and
therefore pleasing to the sight.--For the age of self-moving machines on
land had barely dawned yet; while the sky was still wholly inviolate.--A
white tilted miller's wagon, a brewer's dray, each drawn by well-favoured
teams with jingling bells and brass-mounted harness, rumbling farm carts,
a gypsy van painted in crude yellow, blue, and red and its accompanying
rabble of children, donkeys and dogs, a farmer's high-hung, curtseying
gig, were in turn met or passed. For the black horse, Damaris driving it,
gave place to none, covering the mounting tale of miles handsomely at an
even, swinging trot.

At Lady's Oak, a noble tree marking some ancient forest boundary and
consequently spared when the needs of the British Navy, during the French
wars of the early years of the century, condemned so many of its fellows
to the axe--the flattened burnished dome of which glinted back the
sunlight above a maze of spreading branches and massive powder-grey
trunk--the main road forks. Damaris turned to the left, across the
single-arch stone bridge spanning the Arne, and drove on up the long
winding ascent from the valley to the moorland and fir plantations which
range inland behind Stourmouth. This constituted the goal of her journey,
for once the high-lying plateau reached, leagues of country open out far
as the eye carries to the fine, bare outline of the Wiltshire downs.

She checked the horse, letting it walk, while she took stock of her
surroundings.

It may be asserted that there are two ways of holding converse with
Nature. The one is egotistic and sentimental, an imposing of personal
tastes and emotions which betrays the latent categoric belief that the
existence of external things is limited to man's apprehension of them--a
vilely conceited if not actually blasphemous doctrine! The other is that
of the seeker and the seer, who, approaching in all reverence, asks no
more than leave to listen to the voice of external things--recognizing
their independent existence, knowing them to be as real as he is, as
wonderful, in their own order as permanent, possibly as potent even for
good and evil as himself. And it was, happily, according to this latter
reading of the position, instinctively, by the natural bent of her mind,
that Damaris attempted converse with the world without.

The glory of the heather had passed, the bloom now showing only as
silver-pink froth upon an ocean of warm brown. But the colouring was
restful, the air here on the dry gravel soil light and eager, and the
sense of height and space exhilarating. A fringe of harebells, of orange
hawkweed and dwarf red sorrel bordered the road. Every small oasis of
turf, amongst the heath and by the wayside, carried its pretty crop of
centaury and wild thyme, of bed-straw, milkwort, and birdsfoot trefoil.
Furzechats tipped about the gorse bushes, uttering a sharp, gay, warning
note. A big flight of rooks, blue-black against the ethereal blue of the
distance, winged their way slowly homeward to the long avenue of dark
trees leading to a farm in the valley. The charm of the place was clear
and sane, its beauty simple almost to austerity. This the young girl
welcomed. It washed her imagination free of the curious questionings,
involuntary doubts and suspicions, which the house and garden at The
Hard, steeped in tradition, thick with past happenings, past passions,
were prone to breed in her. No reek off the mud-flats, any more than over
luscious garden scents, tainted the atmosphere. It was virgin as the soil
of the moorland--a soil as yet untamed and unfertilized by the labour of
man. And this effect of virginity, even though a trifle _farouche_,
harsh, and barren in the perfection of its purity, appealed to Damaris'
present mood. Her spirit leapt to meet it in proud fellowship. For it
routed forebodings. Discounted introspective broodings. Discounted even
the apparently inevitable--since nobody and nothing, so the young girl
told herself with a rush of gladly resolute conviction, is really
inevitable unless you permit or choose to have them so.--Gallant this,
and the mother of brave doings; though--as Damaris was to discover later,
to the increase both of wisdom and of sorrow--a half-truth only. For man
is never actually master of people or of things; but master, at most, of
his own attitude towards them. In this alone can he claim or exercise
free-will.

Then--because general ideas, however inspiriting, are rather heavy diet
for the young, immature minds growing quickly tired in the efforts to
digest them--Damaris, having reached this happy, if partially erroneous,
climax of emancipation, ceased to philosophize either consciously or
unconsciously. The russet moorland and spacious landscape shut the door
on her, had no more to tell her, no more to say. Or, to be strictly
accurate, was it not rather perhaps that her power of response, power to
interpret their speech and assimilate their message had reached its term?
All her life the maturity of her brain had inclined--rather
fatiguingly--to outrun the maturity of her body, so that she failed "to
continue in one stay" and trivial hours trod close on the heels of hours
of exaltation and of insight.

With a sigh and a sense of loss--as though noble companions had withdrawn
themselves from her--she gathered up the reins and sent the horse
forward. She fell into comfortable friendly conversation with the
Napoleonic-countenanced Patch, moreover, consulting him as to the
shortest way, through the purlieus of Stourmouth, into the Marychurch
high road and so home to Deadham Hard. For, to tell the truth, she became
aware she was hungry and very badly in want of her tea.

Theresa Bilson, setting out the next morning in solitary state, contrived
to maintain the adopted attitude until the front gates were safely
passed. Then she relaxed and looked out of the brougham windows with a
fussy brightness more consonant to the joys of impending union with the
Miss Minetts and the day's impending trip. She made no further effort to
secure Damaris' participation in the social and educational advantages
which it promised. On the contrary she left the young lady severely alone
and at home, as one administering well-merited punishment. Thus
effectively demonstrating, as she wished to believe, her personal
authority; and suiting, as she would have stoutly denied, her personal
convenience. For Damaris on a string, plus the extra brake and carriage
horses, was one story; Damaris on her own, minus those animals and
much-debated vehicle, quite another. Unless the presence of her ex-pupil
could be made to redound to her own glory, Theresa much preferred
reserving representation of The Hard and its distinguished proprietor
wholly and solely to herself. So in the spirit of pretence and of
make-believe did she go forth; to find, on her return, that spirit prove
but a lying and treacherous ally--and for more reasons than one.

It happened thus. Supported by the two brindled tabby house cats,
Geraldine and Mustapha--descendants of the numerous tribe honoured,
during the last half-century of his long life, by Thomas Clarkson
Verity's politely affectionate patronage--Damaris spent the greater part
of the morning in the long writing room.

She had judged and condemned Theresa pretty roundly it is true,
nevertheless she felt a little hurt and sore at the latter's treatment
of her. Theresa need not have kept up the quarrel till the very last so
acridly. After all, as she was going out purely for own pleasure and
amusement, she might have found something nice and civil to say at
parting. And then the mere fact of being left behind, of being out of
it, however limited the charms of a party, has a certain small stab to
it somehow--as most persons, probing youthful experiences, can testify.
It is never quite pleasant to be the one who doesn't go!--The house,
moreover, when her father was absent, always reminded Damaris of an
empty shrine, a place which had lost its meaning and purpose. To-day,
though windows and doors were wide open letting in a wealth of sunshine,
it appeared startlingly lifeless and void. The maids seemed unusually
quiet. She heard no movement on the staircase or in the rooms above.
Neither gardener nor garden-boy was visible. She would have hailed the
whirr of the mowing machine or swish of a broom on the lawn.--Oh! if
only her poor dear Nannie were still alive, safe upstairs, there in the
old nursery!

And at that the child Damaris felt a lump rise in her throat. But the
girl, the soon-to-be woman, Damaris choked it down bravely. For nobody,
nothing--so she assured herself, going back to the lesson learned
yesterday upon the open moorland--is really inevitable unless you suffer
or will it so to be. Wherefore she stiffened herself against recognition
of loneliness, stiffened herself against inclination to mourning, refused
to acquiesce in or be subjugated by either and, to the better forgetting
of them, sought consolation among her great-great uncle's books.

For at this period Damaris was an omnivorous reader, eager for every form
of literature and every description of knowledge--whether clearly
comprehended or not--which the beloved printed page has to give. An
eagerness, it may be noted, not infrequently productive of collisions
with Theresa, and at this particular juncture all the more agreeable to
gratify on that very account. For Theresa would have had her walk only in
the narrow, sheltered, neatly bordered paths of history and fiction
designed, for the greater preservation of female innocence, by such
authors as Miss Sewell, Miss Strickland, and Miss Yonge. Upon Damaris,
however, perambulation of those paths palled too soon. Her intellect and
heart alike demanded wider fields of drama, of religion and of science,
above all wider and less conventional converse with average human nature,
than this triumvirate of Victorian sibyls was willing or capable to
supply. It is undeniable that, although words and phrases, whole episodes
indeed, were obscure even unintelligible to her, she found the memoirs of
Benvenuto Cellini and Saint Simon more interesting than the "Lives of the
Queens of England; Vathek," more to her taste than "Amy Herbert"; and,
if the truth must be told, "The Decameron," and "Tristram Shandy" more
satisfying to her imagination than "The Heir of Redcliffe" or "The Daisy
Chain." To Damaris it seemed, just now, that a book the meaning of which
was quite clear to her and could be grasped at sight, hardly repaid the
trouble of reading, since it afforded no sense of adventure, no
excitement of challenge or of pursuit, no mirage of wonder, no delightful
provocation of matters outside her experience and not understood. About
these latter she abstained from asking questions, having much faith in
the illuminating power of the future. Given patience, all in good time
she would understand everything worth understanding.--That there are
things in life best not understood, or understood only at your peril, she
already in some sort divined.--Hence her reading although of the order
obnoxious to pedants, as lacking in method and accurate scholarship, went
to produce a mental atmosphere in which honest love of letters and of
art, along with generous instincts of humanity quicken and thrive.

On this particular morning Damaris elected to explore to the Near East,
in the vehicle of Eöthen's virile and luminous prose. She sat in one of
the solid wide seated arm-chairs at the fire-place end of a long room,
near a rounded window, the lower sash, of which she raised to its full
height. Outside the row of geranium beds glowed scarlet and crimson in
the calm light. Beyond them the turf of the lawn was overspread by
trailing gossamers, and delicate cart-wheel spider's webs upon which the
dew still glittered. In the shrubberies robins sang; and above the river
great companies of swallows swept to and fro, with sharp twitterings,
restlessly gathering for their final southern flight.

No sooner had Damaris fairly settled down with her book, than Mustapha
jumped upon her knees; and after, preliminary buttings and tramplings,
curled himself round in gross comfort, his soft lithe body growing warmer
and heavier, on her lap, as his sleep deepened. Where a bar of sunshine
crossed the leather inset of the writing-table, just beside her in the
window, Geraldine--his counterpart as to markings and colouring, but
finer made, more slender of barrel and of limb--fitted herself into the
narrow space between a silver inkstand and a stack of folded newspapers,
her fore-paws tucked neatly under her chest, furry elbows outward. Her
muzzle showed black, as did the rims of her eyelids which enhanced the
brightness and size of her clear, yellow-green eyes. Her alert, observant
little head was raised, as, with gently lashing tail, she watched an
imprisoned honey-bee buzzing angrily up and down between the
window-sashes.

An elfin creature, Geraldine,--repaying liberal study. Scornfully secure
of the potency of her own charms where mankind, or Tomcat-kind, might be
concerned, royally devoid of morals, past-mistress in all sprightly,
graceful, feline devilries, she was yet a fond mother, solicitous to the
point of actual selflessness regarding the safety and well-being of her
successive and frequently recurrent litters. She suckled, washed, played
with and educated those of her kittens who escaped the rigours of
stable-bucket and broom, until such time as they were three to four
months old. After which she sent them flying, amid cuffings and spittings
extraordinary, whenever they attempted to approach her; and, oblivious of
their orphaned and wistful existence, yielded herself with bewitching
vivacity, to fresh intrigues and amours new.

The long quiet morning indoors, with cats and books for company, at once
soothed Damaris and made her restless. After luncheon she put on hat,
gloves, and walking shoes, and went down across the lawn to the sea-wall.
Waylaying her in the hall, Mary had essayed to learn her programme, and
anchor her as to time and place by enquiring when and where tea should be
served. But Damaris put the kindly woman off.--She couldn't say
exactly--yet--would ring and let Mary know when she came in. If any one
called, she was not at home.

In truth her active young body asked for movement and exercise, while
scenes and phrases from the pages of Eöthen still filled her mind. She
longed for travel. Not via Marychurch to Harchester, well understood,
shepherded by Theresa Bilson, the members of the Deadham Church choir and
their supporters; but for travel upon the grand scale, with all its
romance and enlargement of experience, its possible dangers and certain
hardships, as the author of Eöthen had known it and her father, for that
matter, had known it in earlier days too. She suffered the spell of the
East--always haunting the chambers of her memory and ready to be stirred
in active ascendency, as by her morning's reading to-day--suffered the
spell not of its mysterious cities and civilizations alone, but of its
vast solitudes and silences, desert winds and desert sands.

And hence it came about that, as her mood of yesterday sent her inland to
pacify her imagination by gazing at the peaceful English country-side, so
her present mood sent her down to the shore to satisfy, or rather further
stimulate, her nostalgia for the East by gazing out to sea.

The cause in both cases was the same, namely, the inward tumult of her
awakening womanhood, and still more, perhaps, the tumult of awakening
talent which had not as yet found its appointed means of expression. She
was driven hither and thither by the push of her individuality to
disengage itself from adventitious surroundings and circumstances, and
realize its independent existence.--A somewhat perilous crisis of
development, fruitful of escapades and unruly impulses which may leave
their mark, and that a disfiguring one, upon the whole of a woman's
subsequent career.

Immediately, however, Damaris' disposition to defy established convention
and routine took the mildest and apparently most innocuous form--merely
the making, by herself, of a little expedition which, accompanied by
others, she had made a hundred times before. From the terrace she went
down the flight of steps, built into the width of the sea-wall, whence a
tall wrought-iron gate opens direct upon the foreshore. Closing it behind
her, she followed the coastguard-path, at the base of the
river-bank--here a miniature sand cliff capped with gravel, from eight
to ten feet high--which leads to the warren and the ferry. For she would
take ship, with foxy-faced William Jennifer as captain and as crew, cross
to the broken-down wooden jetty and, landing there, climb the crown of
the Bar and look south-east, over the Channel highway, towards far
distant countries of the desert and the dawn.




CHAPTER IV

OUT ON THE BAR


All which was duly accomplished though with a difference. For on reaching
the head of the shallow sandy gully opening on the tide, where the
flat-bottomed ferry-boat lay, Damaris found not Jennifer but the withered
and doubtfully clean old lobster-catcher, Timothy Proud, in possession.
This disconcerted her somewhat. His appearance, indeed--as he stood
amongst a miscellaneous assortment of sun-bleached and weather-stained
foreshore lumber, leaning the ragged elbows of his blue jersey upon the
top of an empty petroleum barrel and smoking a dirty clay pipe--was so
far from inviting, that the young girl felt tempted to relinquish her
enterprise and go back by the way she had come.

But, as she hesitated, the old man catching sight of her and scenting
custom, first spat and then called aloud.

"Might 'e be wanting the Ferry, Miss?" Thus directly challenged, Damaris
could not but answer in the affirmative.

"Put 'e across to the Bar?" he took her up smartly. "Nat'rally I
will--bean't I here for the very purpose?--Put 'e across I will and on
the tick too."

And, after further expectoration, relinquishing the support of the oil
barrel, he joined her and shambled down the sandy track at her side,
talking. Damaris hastened her step; but bent back and creaking breath
notwithstanding, Proud kept pace with her, his speech and movements alike
animated by a certain malicious glee.

"William 'e give hisself an 'oliday," he explained, "to take the little
dorgs and ferrets up to Butcher Cleave's ratting. Powerful sight of
varmin there allers be round they sheds and places. Comes after the
innards and trimmings they do, as bold as you please."

"Oh, yes--no doubt. I understand," Damaris said, at once anxious to
arrest the flow of his unsavoury eloquence yet to appear civil, since she
was about to make use of his services.

"'Normous great rats they be," he however continued, with evident relish.
"'Normous and fierce as tigers, the rascals, what with feasting on flesh
and fatness like so many lords. So 'mind the ferry for me, will you,
Daddy,' William says, coming round where was I taking my morning pint
over at the Inn. 'You're a wonderful valorous man of your years'--and so
thank the powers, Miss, I be--'can handle the old scraw as clever as I
can myself,' William says. 'There ain't much about water, salt or fresh,
nor whatsoever moves on the face of it, nor down below in the belly of
it, any man can teach you.' Which may seem putting it a bit high yet
ain't no more than truth and justice, Miss, so you needn't fear to trust
yourself across the ferry along of me."

"I have no fear," Damaris answered curtly and loftily, holding herself
very erect, her face slightly flushed, her eyes war-like.

For he was a repulsive old man, and said repulsive things such as she had
never heard put thus plainly into words before. She felt soiled by even
this brief association with him. She wanted to hear no more of his ugly
high-coloured talk, although of his skill as a waterman she entertained
no doubt. Stepping lightly and quickly up on to the square stern of the
ferry-boat, she went forward and kept her back resolutely turned upon the
old fellow as he scrambled on board after her, shoved off and settled to
the oars. The river was low, and sluggish from the long drought with
consequently easy passage to the opposite bank. It took but a short five
minutes to reach the jetty, crawling like some gigantic, damaged,
many-legged insect out over the smooth gleaming water.

Instead of the legal twopence, Damaris dropped a couple of shillings into
Daddy Proud's eager hand--with a queenly little air; and, without
waiting for his thanks, swung herself up on to the black planking and
turned to go down the sand-strewn wooden steps.

"Pleased to fetch 'e back, Miss, any hour you like to name," Proud called
after her, standing up and fingering the shillings with one hand while
with the other he steered the boat's side away from the slippery
weed-grown piles.

"Thank you, I don't quite know when I shall be back," she answered over
her shoulder.

For her main desire was to get quit of his unpleasant neighbourhood. She
would go for a long walk by the coast-guard path across the sand-hills,
right out to Stone Horse Head. Would stay out till sundown, in the hope
that by then Jennifer might have seen fit to exchange the manly joys of
ratting for his more prosaic duties at the ferry, and so save her from
further association with his displeasing deputy.

But, the ridge of the Bar reached, other thoughts and impulses took
possession of her. For the sea this afternoon showed an infinitely
beguiling countenance. Not as highway of the nations, still less as
violent and incalculable, holding cruelties of storm and tempest in its
heart, did it present itself to her view; but rather as some gentle,
softly inviting and caressing creature decked forth in the changeful
colours of a dove's neck and breast. Opaline haze veiled the horizon,
shutting off all unrestful sense of distance. The tide was low and little
waves, as of liquid crystal, chased one another over the gleaming sands.
Out to where the haze met and covered it the smooth expanse of sea was
unbroken by passing boat or ship; nor was any person within sight upon
the long line of the beach. Damaris found herself alone--but deliciously
alone, with this enchanted dream sea for companion in the sunshine, under
the vault of tender blue sky.

And, for the present at least, she asked nothing better, humanity being
at a decided discount with her, thanks first to the extreme tiresomeness
of Theresa Bilson and later the extreme unsavouriness of Timothy Proud.
The element thus eliminated, nothing interfered, nothing jarred; so that
she could yield herself to an ecstasy of contemplation, active rather
than passive, in that imagination, breaking the bounds of personality,
made her strangely one with all she looked on. Consciousness of self was
merged in pure delight. Never could she remember to have felt so
light-hearted, so happy with the spontaneous, unconditioned happiness
which is sufficient to itself, unclouded by thought of what has been or
what may be.

Pushed by her own radiant emotion and an instinct, deriving from it, to
draw even closer to that Everlasting Beauty of Things which is uncreated
by and independent of the will and work of man, she ran down the slope,
and sitting on the shingle slipped off her shoes and stockings. Took off
her hat, too, and leaving the lot lying there, just above high-tide mark,
gathered her skirts in one hand, and, bare-headed thus and bare-footed,
danced out over the wet gleaming sands a graceful flying figure, until
the little waves played and purred about her ankles. Her action was
symbolic, born of the gay worship welling up within her, a giving of
herself to the shining infinite of Nature as just now manifest--things
divine and eternal glimmering through at her--in this fair hour of
solitude and brooding peace.

Till her mood softened, Damaris danced thus alone, unwitnessed on the
shore. Then, as she sobered, happy still though the crisis of ecstasy had
passed, smaller seeings began to charm her fancy and her eyes.--Pinkish
yellow starfish, long ribbons of madder-red or emerald seaweed, their
colours the more living and vivid for the clear water covering them.
Presently a company of five birds--their mottled brown and olive bodies
raised on stilt-like legs thin as a straw--claimed her notice. So
bewitched was she by their quaint and pretty ways, that she could not but
follow them as they chased one another in and out of the rippling waves,
ran quickly and bowed catching something eatable floating upon the tide,
scattered and then joined up into a joyous chorus of association with
gentle twittering cries. Watching them, dreaming, standing now and again
looking out over the sweet wonder of the placid sea, sometimes wading
ankle deep, sometimes walking on the firm floor of uncovered sand,
Damaris passed onward losing count of time.

The birds led her eastward, up channel, to the half-mile distant nose of
the Bar, round which the rivers, released at last from their narrow
channel, sweep out into Marychurch Bay. Here, on a sudden, they took
wing, and Damaris looking after them, bade them an unwilling farewell,
for their innocent society had been sweet. And with that she became aware
she was really quite tired and would be glad to rest awhile, the
afternoon being young yet, before turning homeward. The longer she stayed
the more hope there was of finding Jennifer at the ferry; and more than
ever, the glamour of her wild hour of Nature worship still upon her, did
she recoil from any sort of association with foul old Timothy Proud.

Therefore she went up across the moist gleaming levels to the
tide-line, and picking her way carefully among the black jumble of
seaweed and sea-litter which marked it, sat down in a fan-shaped
depression in the dry, clean, blown sand some few paces above. The
sunshine covered it making it warm to her bare feet. The feel and blond
colour of it brought to mind her reading of this morning--a passage in
Eöthen telling of the striking of camp at dawn, the desert waiting to
claim its own again and obliterate, with a single gesture, all sign or
token of the passing sojourn of man. Clasping her hands behind her
head, Damaris lay back, the warm sand all around her, giving beneath
her weight, fitted itself into the curves of her body and limbs--only
it visible and the soft blue of the sky above. For a little while she
rested open-eyed in the bright silent stillness, and then, unknowing of
the exact moment of surrender, she stretched with a fluttering sigh,
turned on her side and dreamlessly slept.

And, while she thus slept, two events took place eminently germane to the
further unfolding of this history.--The weather changed, and the local
degenerate, Abram Sclanders' half-idiot son--the poor "lippity-lop" who,
according to Jennifer, had far better been "put away quiet-like at
birth"--committed theft.

Of the first event, Damaris gradually became sensible, before her actual
awakening. She grew restless, her bed of sand seeming robbed of comfort,
bleak and uneasy, so that she started up, presently, into a sitting
position, rubbing her eyes with her fists baby-fashion, unable for the
minute to imagine how or why she came to be lying like this out on the
Bar, hatless, shoe and stockingless. Looking about her, still in
questioning bewilderment, she observed that in the south-west a great
bank of cloud had risen. It blotted out the sun, deadening all colour.
The opaline haze, turned to a dull falling mist, closed down and in,
covering the sand-hills and the dark mass of Stone Horse Head and even
blurring the long straight lines of the sandbank and nearer shingle. The
sea had risen, but noiselessly, creeping up and up towards her, no line
of white marking the edge of its slothful oncoming.

Damaris stood up, pulling her white jersey--the surface of it already
furred with moisture--low over her hips. For she felt shivery, and the
air was thick and chill to breathe causing a tightness in her throat.

"The glory has departed, very much departed, so I had best make haste to
depart also," she told herself; but told herself gallantly, smiling at
her own strange plight in a spirit of adventure, discovering in it the
excitement of novel experience.

She picked her way over the shingle and black sea litter of high-water
mark, and started to run along the narrow strip between it and the
advancing tide. To run would circulate her blood, warm her through and
keep her gallant humour up; still she had to own she found this heavy
going, for her feet were numb and the sand seemed to pluck at and weigh
them down. Her run slackened to a walk. Then she ventured a yard or two
out into the shallow water, hoping there to meet with firmer foothold;
but here it proved altogether too cold. She had the misfortune, moreover,
to tread on the top end of a razor shell, buried upright, which cut the
skin making her limp from pain and sharpness of smarting. So perforce,
she took to the deep blown sand again above high-water mark, and ploughed
along slowly enough in growing weariness and discomfort.

Never, surely, was any half-mile so long as this between the place of her
farewell to the mottled stilt-legged birds and subsequent sleeping, and
the place where she left her hat and shoes and stockings! In the dimness
and chill of the falling mist, it seemed to lengthen and lengthen to an
altogether incomprehensible extent. Time and again she stopped and
scanned the ground immediately before her, certain she should see there
those so lightly discarded and now so earnestly desired items of
clothing. Once in possession of them she would simply scurry home. For
visions of warm, dry pretty garments, of Mary's, comely ministering
presence, of tea, of lamp-light and--yes, she would allow herself that
culminating luxury--of a fine log fire in the long sitting-room,
presented themselves to her imagination in most alluring sequence--the
spirit of adventure, meanwhile, as must be owned, beginning to sing small
and hang a diminished head.

But on a sudden, raising her eyes from their persistent search, Damaris
realized she must have missed and already passed the spot. For she was
close upon the tract of sand-hills--a picture of desolation in the sullen
murk, the winding hollows between their pale formless elevations bearing
a harsh growth of neutral tinted sword-like grasses.

She had come too far by a quarter of a mile at least, so she judged, and
must turn her face eastward again and laboriously plough her way back.
But the return journey was crowned with no better success than the
outward one. Carefully, methodically she quartered the beach; but simply
her things weren't there, had vanished, leaving neither token or trace.

She was confronted moreover by the unpleasant fact that it grew late.
Soon the dusk would fall, its coming hastened by the mist, now settling
into a steady drizzle of rain precursor of a dark and early night. To
hunt any longer would be useless. She must give it up. Yet her maidenly
pride, her sense of what is seemly and becoming, revolted from exposing
herself to Timothy Proud's coarse leering glances or even--should he by
luck be her waterman--to Jennifer's more respectful curiosity,
dishevelled and but half-dressed as she was. And then the actual distance
to be traversed appeared to her dishearteningly great. For she was
weary--quite abominably weary now she came to think of it. Her feet were
bruised and blistered. They ached. Her throat ached too, and she
shivered. Cold, though it was, she must wait a minute or two and rest
before attempting the ascent of the slope.

Damaris sat down, pulling her skirts as low as they would come over her
bare legs, and clasping her hands round her knees, bowed, huddled
together to gain, if it might be, some sensation of warmth. For a little
she thought of that only--warmth--her mind otherwise a blank. But soon
the consuming sadness of the place in the waning light penetrated her
imagination, penetrated, indeed, her whole being. Only a few hours ago
she had danced here, in ecstasy born of the sunshine, the colour, the
apparently inexhaustible beauty of things uncreated by, and independent
of, the will and work of man. Contrast that scene, and the radiant
emotion evoked by it, with this? Which was real, the enduring revelation?
Was this truth; the other no more than mirage--an exquisite dissembling
and lovely lie?

Such thoughts are hardly wholesome at eighteen--hardly wholesome perhaps
at any age, if life is to be lived sweetly, with honest profit to one's
own soul and to the souls of others. Yet remembering back, down the dim
avenues of childhood, Damaris knew she did not formulate the question,
entertain the suspicion, for the first time. Only, until now, it had
stayed in the vague, a shapeless nightmare horror, past which she could
force herself to run with shut eyes. It didn't jump out of the vague,
thank goodness, and bar her passage. But now no running or shutting of
eyes availed. It had jumped out. She stared at it, and, in all its
undermining power of discouragement, it stared back.--What if the deepest
thing, the thing which alone lasted, the thing which, therefore, you
were bound in the end to accept, to submit to, was just darkness, sorrow,
loneliness of worn body and shrinking spirit, by the shore of a cold,
dumb, and tenantless, limitless sea--what then?

From which undesirable abyss of speculation she was aroused by the sound
of her own name--"Damaris Verity, hey--Damaris Verity"--shouted, not
roughly though in tones of urgent command, from above and behind her on
the crest of the Bar. Along with it came the rattle of shifting shingle
under a strong active tread.

Hearing which the young girl's senses and faculties alike sprang to
attention. She rose from her dejected attitude, stood up and faced round,
forgetful of aches and weariness and of woeful ultimate questionings,
while in glad surprise her heart went out to meet and welcome the--to
her--best beloved being in this, no longer, sorry world.

For even thus, at some fifty yards distant through the blur of falling
rain, the figure presented to her gaze, in height, build, and fashion of
moving, was delightfully familiar, as were the tones of the voice which
had hailed her--if in not quite equal degree the manner of that hail.
Some change in his plans must have taken place, or some letter miscarried
advising her of her father's earlier return. Finding her out he had come
to look for her.--This was perfectly as it should be. Had Colonel
Carteret come home with him, she wondered. And then there flashed through
her, with a singular vividness, recollection of another, long, long ago
escapade--when as a still almost baby child she had stepped off alone, in
daring experiment, and fallen asleep, in the open as to-day. But in
surroundings how amazingly different!--A place of fountains, cypresses
and palms, she curled up in a black marble chair, set throne fashion,
upon a platform of blood red sandstone, an age-old Oriental garden
outstretched below. Colonel Carteret--"the man with the blue eyes" as she
always had called him--awakened her, bringing an adorable and, as it
proved in the sequel, a tragic birthday gift.--Tragic because to it
might, actually if indirectly, be traced the breaking up of her
childhood's home in the stately Indian pleasure palace of the
Sultan-i-bagh at Bhutpur, her separation from her father and exile--as
she had counted it--to Europe.

It is among the doubtful privileges of highly sensitized natures, such as
Damaris', that, in hours of crisis, vision and pre-vision go hand in
hand. As there flashed through her remembrance of that earlier sleep in
the open, there flashed through her also conviction that history would
still further repeat itself. Now, as then, the incident of sleep preluded
the receipt of a gift, adorable perhaps, yet freighted with far-reaching
consequences to herself and her future. Of just what that gift might
consist she had no idea; but of its approach she felt as certain as of
the approach of the man swinging down through the rain over the rattling
pebbles. And her gladness of welcome declined somewhat. She could have
cried off, begged for postponement. For she was very tired, after all.
She didn't want anything now, anything which--however delightful in
itself--demanded effort, demanded even the exertion of being very
pleased. She shied away, in short. And then commendably rallied her
forces, resolute not to be found unworthy or ungrateful.

"Yes--come. I am here," she called in response to that lately heard
calling of her name, desiring to make an act of faith whereby to assure
herself she was indeed ready, and assure her hearer of her readiness to
accept the impending gift.

"I am here," she began again to affirm, but stopped abruptly, the words
choking in her throat.

For, as with decreasing distance the figure grew distinct, she saw, to
her blank amazement, not Sir Charles Verity, her father, as she expected,
but the blue reefer jacket, peaked cap, and handsome bearded face of
Darcy Faircloth, the young merchant sea-captain, emerge from the blur of
the wet. And the revulsion of feeling was so sharp, the shock at once so
staggering and intimate--as summing up all the last ten days confused
experience--that Damaris could not control herself. She turned away with
a wail of distress, threw out her hands, and then, covering her eyes with
them, bowed her head.

The young man came forward and stood near her; but an appreciable time
elapsed before he spoke. When he presently did so, his voice reached
her as again singularly familiar in tone, though strange in diction and
in accent.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," he began, "but I hailed you just now, and
you told me to come.--I concluded you meant what you said. Not, I'm
afraid, that your giving your permission or withholding it would have
made much difference in the upshot. Timothy Proud let on, in my hearing,
that he set you across the river soon after two o'clock, and that there'd
been no call for the ferry since. So I took one of my own boats and just
came over to look for you--in case you might have met with some mishap or
strayed among the sand-hills and couldn't find your"--

Thus far he spoke with studied calm and restraint. But here, as though
struck by a fresh and very objectionable idea, he broke out:

"Nothing has happened has it? No cowardly brute has interfered with
you or upset you? Dear God alive, don't tell me I'm too late, don't
tell me that."

Upon Damaris this sudden, though to her unaccountable, violence and heat
acted as a cordial. She raised her head, pushing back the damp hair from
her forehead, and displaying a proud if strained and weary face.

"No," she said, "of course not. Who would venture to be rude to me? I
have not seen anyone all the afternoon--until now, when you came. And,"
she added by way of further explanation--she didn't want to be ungracious
or unkind, but she did want, in justice to herself, to have this
understood--"in the distance I didn't recognize you. I mistook you for
someone else"--

"Who else?" he took her up, and with a queer flicker--if of a smile, then
one with a keenish edge to it--in his eyes and about his mouth.

"For my father," Damaris answered. "It was a stupid mistake, because he
is away staying in Norfolk for partridge shooting, and I have not any
real reason to expect him home for several days yet."

"But in this deceptive light," Faircloth took her up again, while--as she
could not help observing--that flicker became more pronounced. It seemed
silently to laugh and to mock.--"Oh! to be sure that accounts for your
mistake as to my identity. One sees how it might very well come about."

He took off his cap, and threw back his head looking up into the
low wet sky.

"At night all cats are grey, aren't they," he went on, "little ones as
well as big? And it's close on night now, thanks to this dirty weather.
So close on it, that--though personally I'm in no hurry--I ought to get
you back to The Hard, or there'll be a regular hue and cry after
you--rightly and probably too, if your servants and people have any
notion of their duty."

"I am quite ready," Damaris said.

She strove to show a brave front, to keep up appearances; but she felt
helpless and weak, curiously confused by and unequal to dealing with
this masterful stranger--who yet, somehow did not seem like a stranger.
Precisely in this was the root of her confusion, of her inability to
deal with him.

"But hardly as you are," he commented, on her announcement she was ready.
"Let me help to put on your shoes and stockings for you first." And this
he said so gently and courteously, that Damaris' lips began to quiver,
very feminine and youthful shame at the indignity of her present plight
laying hold on her.

"I can't find them," she pitifully declared. "I have looked and looked,
but I can't find them anywhere. I left my things just here. Can anyone
have stolen them while I was out at the end of the Bar? It is so
mysterious and so dreadfully tiresome. I should have gone home long ago,
before the rain began, if I could have found them."

And with that, the whole little story--childish or idyllic as you
please--of sunshine and colour, of beguiling birds beguiling sea, of
sleep, and uneasy awakening when the cloud-bank rising westward devoured
the fair face of heaven, of mist and fruitless seeking, even some word of
the fear which forever sits behind and peeps over the shoulder of all
wonder and all beauty, got itself--not without eloquent passages--quickly
yet gravely told. For the young man appeared to derive considerable
pleasure from listening, from watching her and from questioning her
too--still, gently and courteously though closely, as if each detail were
of interest and of value.

"And now you know all about it, Captain Faircloth," Damaris said in
conclusion, essaying to laugh at her own discomfiture. "And I am very
tired, so if you will be kind enough to row me across the ferry, I shall
be grateful to you, and glad, please, to go home at once."

"By all means," he answered. "Only, you know, I can't very well let you
cut your feet to pieces on these cruel stones, so I am just going to
carry you up over the Bar"--

"No--no--I can perfectly well walk. I mean to walk--see," she cried.

And started courageously up the rough ascent, only to slip, after a few
paces, and to stagger. For as soon as she attempted to move, she felt
herself not only weak, but oddly faint and giddy. She lurched forward,
and to avoid falling instinctively clutched at her companion's
outstretched hand. Exactly what passed between the young man and young
girl in that hand-clasp--the first contact they had had of one
another--it might seem far-reached and fantastic to affirm; yet that it
steadied not only Damaris' trembling limbs, but her trembling and
over-wrought spirit, is beyond question. For it was kind and more than
kind--tender, and that with the tenderness of right and usage rather than
of sentimental response to a passing sentimental appeal.

"There, there," he said, "what's the use of working to keep up this
little farce any longer? Just give in--you can't put off doing so in the
end. Why not at once, then, accept defeat and spare both yourself and me
pain? You are no more fit to walk, than you are fit to fly--to fly away
from me!--That's what you want, isn't it? Ah! that flight will come, no
doubt, all in good time.--But meanwhile, be sensible. Put your left arm
round my neck--like this, yes. Then--just a little hoist, and, if you'll
not worry but keep still, nothing's easier."

As he spoke, Faircloth stooped, lightly and with no apparent exertion
lifting her high, so that--she clasping his neck as instructed--the main
weight of her body rested upon his shoulder. With his right arm he held
her just above the waist, his left arm below her knees cradling her.

"Now rest quiet," he said. "Know you are safe and think only of
comfortable things--among them this one, if you care to, that for once in
my life I am content."

Yet over such yielding and treacherous ground, upward to the crown of the
ridge and downward to the river, progress could not be otherwise than
slow. Twilight, and that of the dreariest and least penetrable, overtook
them before Faircloth, still carrying the white-clothed figure, reached
the jetty. Here, at the bottom of the wooden steps he set Damaris down,
led her up them and handed her into the boat--tied up to, and the tide
being at the flood, now little below the level of the staging.




CHAPTER V

WHEREIN DAMARIS MAKES SOME ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE HIDDEN WAYS OF MEN


Throughout their singular journey--save for briefest question and answer
about her well-being at the commencement of it--the two had kept silence,
as though conscious Faircloth's assertion of contentment struck a chord
any resolution of which might imperil the simplicity of their relation.
Thus far that relation showed a noble freedom from embarrassment. It
might have continued to do so but for a hazardous assumption on his part.

When first placing Damaris in the stern of the boat, the young man
stripped off his jacket and, regardless of her vaguely expressed protest,
wrapped it round her feet. It held the living warmth of his body; and,
chilled, dazed, and spent, as Damaris was, that warmth curiously soothed
her, until the ink-black boat floating upon the brimming, hardly less
inky, water faded from her knowledge and sight. She drooped together,
passing into a state more comparable to coma than to natural slumber, her
will in abeyance, thought and imagination borne under by the immensity of
her fatigue.

As Faircloth, meanwhile, pulled clear of the outstanding piles of the
jetty, he heard voices and saw lights moving down by the ferry on the
opposite shore. But these, and any invitation they might imply, he
ignored. If the hue and cry after Damaris, which he had prophesied, were
already afoot, he intended to keep clear of it, studiously to give it the
slip. To this end, once in the fairway of the river he headed the boat
downstream, rowing strongly though cautiously for some minutes, careful
to avoid all plunge of the oars, all swish of them or drip. Then, the
lights now hidden by the higher level and scrub of the warren, he sat
motionless letting the boat drift on the seaward setting current.

The fine rain fell without sound. It shut out either bank creating a
singular impression of solitude and isolation, and of endlessness too.
There seemed no reason why it should ever cease. And this delusion of
permanence, the enclosing soft-clinging darkness served to heighten. The
passage of time itself seemed arrested--to-morrow becoming an
abstraction, remote and improbable, which could, with impunity, be left
out of the count. With this fantastic state of things, Faircloth had no
quarrel. Though impatient of inaction, as a rule definite and autocratic
enough, he really wasn't aware of having any particular use for
to-morrow. Content still held sway. He was satisfied, profoundly, yet
dreamingly, satisfied by an achievement long proposed, long waited for,
the door upon which had opened to-day by the merest accident--if anything
can justly be called accident, which he inclined to believe it could not.

He had appointed, it should be added, a limit in respect of that
achievement, which he forbade himself to pass; and it was his habit very
rigidly to obey his own orders, however little disposed he might be to
obey those of other people. He had received, as he owned, more than he
could reasonably have expected, good measure pressed down and running
over. The limit was now reached. He should practise restraint--leave the
whole, affair where it stood. But the effect of this darkness, and of
drifting, drifting, over the black water in the fine soundless rain, with
its illusion of permanence, and of the extinction of to-morrow--and the
retributions and adjustments in which to-morrow is so frequently and
inconveniently fertile--enervated him, rendering him a comparatively easy
prey to impulse, should impulse chance to be stirred by some adventitious
circumstance. The Devil, it may be presumed, is very much on the watch
for such weakenings of moral fibre, ready to pounce, at the very shortest
notice, and make unholy play with them!

To Faircloth's ruminative eyes, the paleness in the stern of the boat,
indicating Damaris Verity's drooping figure, altered slightly in outline.
Whereupon he shipped the oars skillfully and quietly, and going aft knelt
down in front of her. Her feet were stretched out as, bowed together, she
sat on the low seat. His jacket had slipped away exposing them to the
weather, and the young man laying his hands on them felt them cold as in
death. He held them, chafed them, trying to restore some degree of
circulation. Finally, moved by a great upwelling of tenderness and of
pity, and reckoning her, since she gave no sign, to be asleep, he bent
down and put his lips to them.

But immediately the girl's hands were upon his shoulders.

"What are you doing, oh! what are you doing?" she cried.

"Kissing your feet."

Then the Devil, no doubt, flicking him, he let go restraint, disobeyed
his own orders, raised his head, and looking at her as in the enfolding
obscurity she leaned over him, said:

"And, if it comes to that, who in all the round world has a better right
than I, your brother, to kiss your feet?"

For some, to him, intolerable and interminable seconds, Faircloth waited
after he had shot his bolt. The water whispered and chuckled against the
boat's sides in lazy undertones, as it floated down the sluggish stream.
Beyond this there was neither sound nor movement. More than ever might
time be figured to stand still. His companion's hands continued to rest
upon his shoulders. Her ghostly, dimly discerned face was so near his own
that he could feel, now and again, her breath upon his forehead; but she
was silent. As yet he did not repent of his cruelty. The impulse which
dictated it had not spent itself. Nevertheless this suspense tried him.
He grew impatient.

"Damaris," he said, at last, "speak to me."

"How can I speak to you when I don't understand," she answered gravely.
"Either you lie--which I should be sorry to accuse you of doing--or you
tell me a very terrible thing, if, that is, I at all comprehend what you
say.--Are you not the son of Mrs. Faircloth, who lives at the inn out by
the black cottages?"

"Yes, Lesbia Faircloth is my mother. And I ask for no better. She has
squandered love upon me--squandered money, upon me too; but wisely and
cleverly, with results. Still--" he paused--"well, it takes two,
doesn't it, to make a man? One isn't one's mother's son only."

"But Mrs. Faircloth is a widow," Damaris reasoned, in wondering
directness. "I have heard people speak of her husband. She was married."

"But not to my father. Do you ask for proofs--just think a minute. Whom
did you mistake me for when I called you and came down over the Bar in
the dusk?"

"No--no--" she protested trembling exceedingly. "That is not possible.
How could such a thing happen?"

"As such things mostly do happen. It is not the first case, nor will it
by a long way, I reckon, be the last. They were young, and--mayn't we
allow--they were beautiful. That's often a good deal to do with these
accidents. They met and, God help them, they loved."

"No--no--" Damaris cried again.

Yet she kept her hands on Faircloth's shoulders, clinging to him in the
excessive travail of her innocent spirit--though he racked her--for
sympathy and for help.

"For whom, after all, did you take me?" he repeated. "If there wasn't
considerable cause it would be incredible you should make such a mistake.
Can you deny that I am hall-marked, that the fact of my parentage is
written large in my flesh?"

He felt her eyes fixed on him, painfully straining to see him through the
rain and darkness; and, when she spoke again, he knew she knew that he
did not lie.

"But wasn't it wrong" she said.

"I suppose so. Only as it gave me life and as I love life I'm hardly the
person to deliver an unbiased opinion on that point."

"Then you are not sad, you are not angry?" Damaris presently and rather
unexpectedly asked.

"Yes--at times both, but not often or for long together. As I tell you I
love life--love it too well to torment myself much about the manner of my
coming by it. It might show more refinement of feeling perhaps to hang my
head and let a certain ugly word blast my prospects. But I don't happen
to see the business that way. On the contrary I hope to get every ounce
of advantage out of it I can--use it as a spur rather than a hobble. And
I love my profession too. It gives you room and opportunity. I am waiting
now for my first ship, my first command. That's a fine thing and a strong
one. For your first ship is as a bride to you, and your first command
makes you as a king among men. Oh! on a small scale I grant; but, as far
as it reaches, your authority is absolute. On board your own ship you are
master with a vengeance--if you like. And I do like."

Faircloth said the last few words softly, but with a weight of meaning
not to be misunderstood. He bent down, once more, chafed Damaris' feet
and wrapped his jacket carefully round them.

"And, while you and I are alone together, there is something--as we've
spoken so freely--which I want to tell you, so that there may be no
misconception about me or about what I want.--As men in my rank of life
go, I am well off. Rich--again on a small scale; but with means
sufficient to meet all my needs. I'm not a spend-thrift by nature,
luckily. And I have amply enough not only to hold my own in my profession
and win through, but to procure myself the pleasures and amusements I
happen to fancy. I want you to remember that, please. Tell me is it quite
clear to you?"

"Yes," Damaris said, "you have made it quite clear."

Yet for the first time he jarred on her, as with a more than superficial
difference of breeding and of class. This mention of money offended her
taste, seeming to lower the level upon which their extraordinary and--to
her--terrible conversation had thus far moved. It hurt her with another
kind of hurting--not magnificent, not absorbing, but just common. That in
speaking of money he was protecting himself, proudly self-guarding his
own honour and that of his mother, Lesbia Faircloth, never, in her
innocence of what is mean and mercenary, occurred to Damaris.

So she took her hands off his shoulders and clasped them in her lap.
Clasped them with all her poor strength, striving even in this extreme,
to maintain some measure of calm and of dignity. She must hold out, she
told herself, just simply by force of will hold out, till she was away
from him. After that, chaos--for thoughts, discoveries, apprehensions of
possibilities in human intercourse hitherto undreamed of, were marshalled
round her in close formation shoulder to shoulder. They only waited. An
instant's yielding on her part, and they would be on to her, crushing
down and in, making her brain reel, her mind stagger under their stifling
crowded assault.

"Go back and row," she said, at once imploring and imperious. "Row
quickly. I am very tired. I am cold. I want to be at home--to be in my
own place."




CHAPTER VI

RECOUNTING AN ASTONISHING DEPOSITION


Theresa Bilson bustled upstairs. Barring the absence of the extra brake,
which had caused--and for this she could not be sorry since didn't it
justify her "attitude" towards her recalcitrant ex-pupil?--some
inconvenient overcrowding in transit to and from the station, and barring
the rain, which set in between five and six o'clock, the expedition to
Harchester passed off with considerable _éclat_. Such, in any case, was
Theresa's opinion, she herself having figured conspicuously in the
foreground. During the inspection of the Cathedral the Dean paid her
quite marked attention; thanks, in part, to her historical and
archaeological knowledge--of which she made the most, and to her
connection with the Verity family--of which she made the most also. In
precisely what that connection might consist, the learned and timid old
gentleman, being very deaf and rather near-sighted, failed to gather. He
determined, however, to be on the safe side.

"Our genial Archdeacon," he said, "and his distinguished kinsman, Sir
Charles? Ah! yes--yes--indeed--to be sure--with the greatest pleasure."

And he motioned the blushing Theresa to fall into step with him, and with
Dr. Horniblow, at the head of the Deadham procession.

The afterglow of that triumphal progress irradiated her consciousness
still, when--after depositing the Miss Minetts upon their own doorstep,
with playful last words recalling the day's mild jokes and rallyings--she
drove on to The Hard to find the household there in a state of sombre and
most admired confusion.

Thus to arrive home in possession of a fine bag of news, only to
discover an opposition and far finer bag ready awaiting you may well
prove trying to the most high-souled and amiable of temper. By this time,
between success and fatigue, Theresa could not be justly described as
either high-souled or sweet tempered. She was at once inflated and on
edge, and consequently hotly indignant, as though the unfairest march
possible had been stolen upon her.

She bustled upstairs, and crossing the landing turned into the schoolroom
passage--a long, lamp-lit vista, hung with old Chinese wall-paper, the
running pattern of buds and flowers, large out of all proportion to the
bridges, palms, pagodas and groups of little purple and blue-clad men and
women disposed, in dwindling perspective, upon its once white surface.
Half-way along the passage, their backs towards her, Mary and Mrs.
Cooper, the cook--a fair, mild middle-aged, and cow-like person, of ample
proportions--stood conversing in smothered tones.

"And it's my belief he's been and told her, or anyhow that she guesses,
pore dear young lady," the latter, with upraised hands, lamented.

Theresa just caught these strange words. Caught too, Mary's hurried
rejoinder--"For mercy's sake, Mrs. Cooper, not a hint of that to any
living soul"--before the two women, sensible of the swish and patter of
her self-important entry, turned and moved forward to meet, or--could it
be?--to intercept her. Their faces bore a singular expression, in Mrs.
Cooper's case of sloppy, in Mary's of stern yet vivid alarm. Deeply
engaged though she was with her private grievance, Miss Bilson could not
but observe this. It made her nervous.

"What is the meaning," she began, her voice shrill with agitation, "of
the extraordinary story about Miss Damaris which Laura reports to me?
Someone is evidently very much in fault."

"Please don't speak quite so loud, Miss," Mary firmly admonished her.
"I've just got Miss Damaris quieted off to sleep, and if she's roused up
again, I won't answer for what mayn't happen."

"But what has happened? I insist upon knowing," Theresa declared, in
growing offence and agitation.

"Ah! that's just what we should be thankful enough to have you tell us,
Miss," Mrs. Cooper chimed in with heavy and reproachful emphasis upon
the pronouns.

To even the mild and cow-like revenge is sweet. Though honestly
distressed and scared, the speaker entertained a most consoling
conviction she was at this moment getting even with Theresa Bilson and
cleverly paying off old scores.

"The pore dear young lady's caught her death as likely as not, out
there across the river in the wet, let alone some sneaking rascal
making off with her stockings and shoes. When I saw her little naked
feet, all blue with the cold, it made my heart bleed, regularly bleed,
it did. I could only give thanks her Nanna, pore Mrs. Watson, who
worshipped the very ground Miss Damaris trod on, was spared living to
see that afflicting sight."

Then with a change of tone exasperating--as it was designed to be--to
one, at least, of her hearers, she added:

"I'll have that soup ready against Miss Damaris wakes, Mary, in case she
should fancy it. Just touch the bell, will you, and I'll bring it up
myself. It's not suitable to give either of the girls a chance for
prying. They're a deal too curious as it is. And I'm only too pleased to
watch with you, turn and turn about, as I told you, whenever you feel to
require a rest. Lizzie will have to see to the cooking anyhow--except
what's wanted for Miss Damaris. I couldn't put my mind into kitchen work
to-night, not if you paid me ever so."

And on large flat feet she moved away towards the back-staircase, leading
down to the offices from the far end of the passage, leaving an odour of
pastry behind her and of cloves.

"To think of what to-morrow may bring, ah! dear me," she murmured
as she went.

During the ten minutes or so which immediately followed Theresa Bilson
boxed the compass in respect of sensations, the needle, as may be noted,
invariably quivering back to the same point--namely, righteous anger
against Damaris. For was not that high-spirited maiden's imperviousness
to influence and defiance of authority--her, Theresa's, influence and
authority--the mainspring of all this disastrous complication? Theresa
found it convenient to believe so, and whip herself up to almost frantic
determination in that belief. It was so perfectly clear. All the more
clear because her informant, Mary, evidently did not share her belief.
Mary's account of to-day's most vexatious transactions betrayed
partizanship and prejudice, such as might be expected from an uneducated
person, offering--as Theresa assured herself--a pertinent example of the
workings of "the servant mind." Nevertheless uneasy suspicion dogged her,
a haunting though unformulated dread that other persons--one person above
all others--might endorse Mary's prejudices rather than her own, so
reasonably based, conviction.

"If only Mr. Patch had been in there'd have been somebody to depend on,"
the woman told her, recounting the anxious search after vanished Damaris.
"But he'd driven into Marychurch of course, starting ever so early
because of the parcels he had your orders to call for at the several
shops, before meeting the train. And the gardeners had left work on
account of the wet; so we'd nobody to send to make enquiries anywhere
except Tolling, and that feather-head Alfred, who you can't trust half a
minute out of your sight." Here she paused in her narrative and made a
move, adroitly driving Theresa Bilson before her out on to the landing,
thus putting a greater distance between that tormented spinster and the
neighbourhood of Damaris' bed-chamber. Her handsome brown eyes held the
light of battle and her colour was high. She straightened a chair,
standing against the wall at the stair-head, with a neatly professional
hand in passing.

"Mrs. Cooper and I were fairly wild waiting down on the sea-wall with the
lantern, thinking of drowning and--worse,--when"--she glanced sharply at
her companion and, lowering her eyes altered the position of the chair by
a couple of inches--"when Captain Faircloth's boat came up beside the
breakwater and he carried Miss Damaris ashore and across the garden."

"Stop"--Theresa broke in--"I do not follow you. Faircloth, Captain
Faircloth? You are not, I earnestly hope, speaking of the owner of that
low public-house on the island?"

"Yes--him," Mary returned grimly, her eyes still lowered.

"And do you mean me to understand that this young man carried Miss
Damaris--actually carried her"--Miss Bilson choked and cleared her throat
with a foolish little crowing sound--"carried her all the way into the
house--in his arms?"

"Yes, in his arms, Miss. How else would you have had him carry her?--And,
as gentle and careful as any woman could, too--into the house and right
upstairs here"--pointing along the passage as if veritably beholding the
scene once more--"and into her own bedroom."

"How shocking. How extremely improper!"

Theresa beat her fat little hands hysterically together. She credited
herself with emotions of the most praiseworthy and purest; ignorant that
the picture conjured up before her provoked obscure physical jealousies,
obscure stirrings of latent unsatisfied passion. More than ever, surely,
did the needle quiver back to that fixed point of most righteous anger.

"Such--such a proceeding cannot have been necessary. It ought not to have
been permitted. Why did not Miss Damaris walk?"

"Because she was in a dead faint, and we'd all the trouble in life to
bring her round."

"Indeed," she said, and that rather nastily. "I am sorry, but I cannot
but believe Miss Damaris might have made an effort to walk--with your
assistance and that of Cooper, had you offered it. As I remarked at
first, someone is evidently very much to blame. The whole matter must be
thoroughly sifted out, of course. I am disappointed, for I had great
confidence in you and Cooper--two old servants who might really have been
expected to possess some idea of the--the respect due to their master's
daughter. What will Sir Charles say when he hears of this objectionable
incident?"

"That's just what Mrs. Cooper and I are wondering, Miss," Mary took her
up with so much meaning that Miss Bilson inwardly quailed, sensible of
having committed a rather egregious blunder. This she made efforts to
repair by sheering off hurriedly on another tack.

"Not that I shall trouble Sir Charles with the matter, unless
circumstances arise which compel me to do so--as a duty. My great object,
of course, is at all times to spare him any domestic annoyance."

She began pulling off her gloves, a new pair and tight. Her hands were
moist and the glove-fingers stuck, rendering their removal lengthy and
difficult.

"To-morrow I shall have a thorough explanation with Miss Damaris and
decide what action it is my duty to take after hearing her version of the
events of this afternoon. I should prefer speaking to her to-night--"

"Miss Damaris isn't fit to talk about anything to-night."

Theresa pulled at the right-hand glove--the kid gave with a little
shriek, the thumb splitting out. She was in a state of acute indecision.
Could she retire from this contest without endangering her authority,
without loss of prestige, or must she insist? She had no real wish to
hasten to her ex-pupil's bedside. She would be glad to put off doing so,
glad to wait. She was conscious of resentment rather than affection. And
she felt afraid, unformulated suspicion, unformulated dread, again
dogging her. That Damaris was really ill, she did not believe for an
instant. Damaris had excellent health. The maids exaggerated. They
delighted in making mysteries. Uneducated persons are always absurdly
greedy of disaster, lugubriously credulous.--Yes, on the whole she
concluded to maintain her original attitude, the attitude of yesterday
and this morning; concluded it would be more telling to keep up the
fiction of disgrace--because--Theresa did not care to scrutinize her own
motives or analyse her own thought too closely. She was afraid, and she
was jealous--jealous of Damaris' beauty, of the great love borne her by
her father, jealous of the fact that a young man--hadn't she, Theresa,
seen the young sea-captain once or twice in the village recently and been
fluttered by his notable good looks?--had rescued the girl, and carried
her home, carried her up here across the landing and along the familiar
schoolroom passage, with its patterned Chinese wall-paper, gently and
carefully, in his arms.

And these qualifying terms--gentle and careful--rankled to the point even
of physical disturbance, so that Miss Bilson again became guilty of
inelegantly choking, and clearing her throat for the second time with a
foolish crowing sound.

"I will postpone my interview with Miss Damaris until after breakfast
to-morrow," she said, thus leaving Mary Fisher virtually, if not
admittedly, master of the field.

But long before breakfast time, in the grey and mournful autumn
morning, Patch rattled the dog-cart the seven miles into Stourmouth, as
fast as the black horse could travel, to fetch Damaris' old friend, the
retired Indian Civil surgeon, Dr. McCabe. For, coming to herself, in
the intervals of distracted fever dreams, she had asked for him, going
back by instinct to the comfort of his care of her in childish
illnesses long ago. Since she was ill enough, so Mary said, to need a
doctor, let it be him.

"Not Mr. Cripps out of the village, or Dr. Risdon from Marychurch. I
won't see them. I will not see anyone from near here. Keep them away from
me," she commanded. "I know Miss Bilson will try to send for one or the
other. But I won't see either. Promise you'll keep them away."

When, after his visit, Theresa Bilson, considerably flustered and
offended, found McCabe breakfasting in the dining-room and offered
profuse apologies for the inconvenience to which he must have been put by
so early and unnecessary a call, the tender-hearted and garrulous, but
choleric Irishman cut her uncommonly short.

"And would you be supposing then, that if the dear blessed child should
be desirous of consulting me I wouldn't have rejoiced to come to her a
thousand times as early and from ten thousand times as far?" he enquired,
between large mouthfuls of kidney and fried bacon. "The scheming little
pudding-faced governess creature, with a cherry nose and an envious eye
to her"--he commented to himself.

"But you do not apprehend anything serious?" Theresa said
stiffly--"Merely a slight chill?"

"With a temperature dancing up and down like a mad thing between a
hundred and one and a hundred and three? I'm dashed if I like the looks
of her at all, at all, Miss Bilson; and I am well acquainted with her
constitution and her temperament. She's as delicate a piece of feminine
mechanism as it's ever been my fortune to handle, and has been so from a
child. Mind and body so finely interwoven that you can't touch the one
without affecting the other--that is where danger comes in.--And I am
glad to find she has so competent a nurse as Mary Fisher--a wholesome
woman and one to put faith in. I have given my full instructions to her."

"But I"--Theresa began fussily, her face crimson.

"Oh! I don't doubt you're devotion itself; only my first consideration is
my patient, and so I make free to use my own judgment in the selection of
my assistants. No disrespect to you, my dear lady. You are at home in
more intellectual spheres than that of the sick-room. And now," he wiped
his mouth with his napkin, twinkling at her over the top of it with small
blue-grey eyes, at once merry, faithful, and cunning--"I'll be bidding
you good-bye till the evening. I have told Mary Fisher I'll be glad to
sleep here to-night. And I'll despatch a telegram to Sir Charles on my
way through the village."

"Sir Charles?" Theresa cried.

"Yes," he answered her. "I find the darling girl's illness as
serious as that."




CHAPTER VII

A SOUL AT WAR WITH FACT


The deepest and most abiding demand of all sentient creatures, strong and
weak alike, is for safety, or, that being unattainable, for a sense of
safety, an illusion even of safety.

This, so universal demand, dictated, in Damaris' case, her prayer for Dr.
McCabe's attendance. He belonged to the safeties of her childhood, to the
securely guarded, and semi-regal state--as, looking back, she recalled
it--of the years when her father held the appointment of Chief
Commissioner at Bhutpur. Dr. McCabe was conversant with all that; the
sole person available, at this juncture, who had lot or part in it. And,
as she had foreseen--when drifting down the tide-river in the rain and
darkness--once the supporting tension of Faircloth's presence removed,
chaos would close in on her. It only waited due opportunity. That
granted, as a tempest-driven sea it would submerge her. In the welter of
the present, she clutched at the high dignities and distinctions of the
past as at a lifebelt. Not vulgarly, in a spirit of self-aggrandizement;
but in the simple interests of self-preservation, as a means of keeping
endangered sanity afloat. For the distinctions and dignities of that
period were real too, just as uncontrovertible a contribution to her
knowledge of men and of things, just as vital an element in her
experience, as chaos let loose on her now. The one in no degree
invalidated the truth or actuality of the other.

But to keep this in mind, to remember it all the time, while imagination
galloped with fever brought on by chill and exposure, and reason
wandered, losing touch with plain commonsense through the moral shock she
had sustained, was difficult to the point of impossibility. She needed a
witness, visible and material, to the fact of those former happier
conditions; and found it, quaintly enough, in the untidy person and
humorous, quarrelsome, brick-dust coloured face--as much of the said
face, that is, as was discoverable under the thick stiff growth of sandy
hair surrounding and invading it--of the Irish doctor, as he sat by her
bed, ministered to and soothed her with reverent and whimsical delicacy.

As long as he was there, her room retained its normal, pleasant and
dainty aspect. All Damaris' little personal effects and treasures
adorning dressing and writing-tables, the photographs and ornaments upon
the mantelshelf, her books, the prints and pictures upon the walls--even
the white dimity curtains and covers, trellised with small faded pink and
blue roses--seemed to smile upon her, kindly and confiding. They wanted
to be nice, to console and encourage her--McCabe holding them in place
and in active good-will towards her, somehow, with his large freckled,
hairy-backed hands. But let him go from the room, let him leave her, and
they turned wicked, behaving as they had behaved throughout the past
rather dreadful night and adding to the general chaos by tormenting
tricks and distortions of their own.

The beloved photographs of her father, in particular, were cruel. They
grew inordinately large, stepped out of their frames, and stalked to and
fro in troops and companies. The charcoal drawing of him--done last year
by that fine artist, James Colthurst, as a study for the portrait he was
to paint--hanging between the two western windows, at right angles to her
bed where she could always see it, proved the worst offender. It did not
take the floor, it is true, but remained in its frame upon the wall. Yet
it too came alive, and looked full at her, compelling her attention,
dominating, commanding her; while, slowly, deliberately it changed, the
features slightly losing their accentuation, growing youthful, softer in
outline, the long drooping moustache giving place to a close-cut beard.
The eyes alone stayed the same, steady, luminous, a living silence in
them at once formidable and strangely sad. Finally--and this the poor
child found indescribably agitating and even horrible--their silence was
broken by a question. For they asked what she, Damaris, meant to say,
meant to do, when he--her father, the all-powerful Commissioner Sahib of
her babyhood's faith and devotion--came home here, came back?

Yet whose eyes, after all, were they which thus asked? Was it not, rather
the younger man, the bearded one, who claimed, and of right, an answer to
that question? And upon Damaris it now dawned that these two, distinct
yet interchangeable personalities--imprisoned, as by some evil magic in
one picture--were in opposition, in violent and impious conflict, which
conflict she was called upon, yet was powerless, to avert or to assuage.

Not once but many times--since the transformation was persistently
recurrent--the girl turned her face to the wall to gain relief from the
sight of it and the demand it so fearfully embodied, pressing her dry
lips together lest any word should escape them. For the whole matter, as
she understood it was secret, sacred too as it was agonizing. No one must
guess what lay at the root of her present suffering--not even comfortable
devoted Mary, nor that invaluable lifebelt, Dr. McCabe. She held the
honour of both those conflicting interchangeable personalities in her
hands; and, whether she were strong enough to adjust their differences or
not, she must in no wise betray either of them. The latent motherhood in
her cried out to protect and to shield them both, to spare them both. For
in this stage of the affair, while the hallucinations of deadly fever--in
a sense mercifully--confused her, its grosser aspects did not present
themselves to her mind. She wandered through mazes, painful enough to
tread; but far removed from the ugliness of vulgar scandal. That her
sacred secret, for instance, might be no more than a _secret de
Polichinelle_ suspected by many, did not, so far, occur to her.

Believing it to be her exclusive property, therefore, she, inspired by
tender cunning, strove manfully to keep it so. To that end she made play
with the purely physical miseries of her indisposition.--With shivering
fits and scorching flushes, cold aching limbs and burning, aching head.
With the manifold distractions of errant blood which, leaving her heart
empty as a turned-down glass, drummed in her ears and throbbed behind her
eyeballs. These discomforts were severely real enough, in all conscience,
to excuse her for being self-occupied and a trifle selfish; to justify a
blank refusal to receive Theresa Bilson, or attempt to retail and discuss
the events of yesterday. All she craved was quiet, to be left alone, to
lie silent in the quiet light of the covered grey day.

In the earlier hours of it, silver rain showers travelled across the sea
to spend themselves, tearfully, against the panes of her bedroom
windows. But towards evening the cloud lifted, revealing a watery
sunset, spread in timid reds and yellows behind Stone Horse Head and the
curving coast-line beyond, away to Stourmouth and Barryport. The faint
tentative colours struck in long glinting shafts between the trunks and
branches of the stone pines and Scotch firs in the so-called
Wilderness--a strip of uncultivated land within the confines of the
grounds dividing the gardens from the open Warren to the West--and
gleamed in at the windows, faintly dyeing the dimity hangings and
embroidered linen counterpane of Damaris' bed.

Throughout the afternoon she had been less restless. So that Mary Fisher,
judging her to be fairly asleep, some five minutes earlier had folded her
needlework together, and, leaving the chair where she sat sewing, went
softly from the room.

But that brightening of sunset disturbed Damaris, bringing her slowly
awake. For a time she lay watching, though but half consciously the
tinted radiance as--the trees now stirred by a little wind drawing out of
the sunset--it shifted and flitted over the white surfaces. At first it
pleased her idle fancy. But presently distressed her, as too thin, too
chill, too restlessly unsubstantial, the veriest chippering ghost of
colour and of light. It affected her with a desolating sadness as of
failure; of great designs richly attempted but petering out into a
pitiful nothingness; of love which aped and mimicked, being drained of
all purpose and splendour of hot blood; of partings whose sorrow had lost
its savour, yet which masqueraded in showy crape for a heart-break long
grown stale and obsolete.

Her temperature rushed up; and she threw off the bedclothes, raising
herself on her elbow, while the shafts of thin brightness wavered
fitfully. Through them she saw the photographs of her father step out of
their frames again, and growing very tall and spare, stalk to and fro.
Other figures joined them--those of women. Her poor dear Nannie, in the
plain quaker-grey cotton gown and black silk apron she used to wear, even
through the breathless hot-weather days, at the Sultan-i-bagh long ago.
And Henrietta Pereira, too, composed and delicately sprightly, arrayed in
full flounced muslins and fine laces with an exquisiteness of high
feminine grace and refinement which had enthralled her baby soul and
senses, and, which held her captive by their charm even yet. A handsome,
high-coloured full-breasted, Eurasian girl, whom she but dimly
recollected, was there as well. And with these another--carrying very
certainly no hint of things oriental about her--an English woman and of
the people, in dull homely clothing, grave of aspect and of bearing; yet
behind whose statuesque and sternly patient beauty a great flame seemed
to quiver, offering sharp enough contrast to the frail glintings of the
rain-washed sunset amid which she, just now, moved.

At sight of the last comer, Damaris started up, tense with wonder and
excitement, since she knew--somehow--this final visitant belonged not to
the past so much as to the present, that her power was unexhausted and
would go forward to the shaping of the coming years. Which knowledge drew
confirmation from what immediately followed. For, as by almost
imperceptible degrees the brightness faded in the west, the figures, so
mysteriously peopling the room, faded out also, until only the woman in
homely garments was left. By her side stood the charcoal drawing of Sir
Charles Verity from off the wall--or seemed to do so, for almost at
once, Damaris saw that dreaded interchange of personality again take
place. Saw the strongly marked features soften in outline, the face grow
bearded yet younger by full thirty years.

Both the woman and the young man looked searchingly at her; and in the
eyes of both she read the same question--what did she mean to do, what to
say, when her father, the object of her adoration, came home to her, came
back to Deadham Hard?

"I will do right," she cried out loud to them in answer, "Only trust me.
I am so tired and it is all so difficult to believe and to understand.
But I am trying to understand. I shall understand, if you will give me
time and not hurry me. And, when I understand, indeed, indeed, you may
trust me, whatever it costs, to do right."

Just then Mary opened the door, entering quickly, and behind her came Dr.
McCabe, to find Damaris talking, talking wildly, sitting up, parched and
vivid with fever, in the disordered bed.




CHAPTER VIII

TELLING HOW TWO PERSONS, OF VERY DIFFERENT MORAL CALIBRE, WERE COMPELLED
TO WEAR THE FLOWER OF HUMILIATION IN THEIR RESPECTIVE BUTTONHOLES


Cross-country connections by rail were not easy to make, with the
consequence that Sir Charles Verity,--Hordle, gun-cases, bags and
portmanteaux, in attendance--did not reach The Hard until close
upon midnight.

Hearing the brougham at last drive up, Theresa Bilson felt rapturously
fluttered. Her course had been notably empty of situations and of
adventure; drama, as in the case of so many ladies of her profession--the
pages of fiction notwithstanding--conspicuously cold-shouldering and
giving her the go-by. Now, drama, and that of richest quality might
perhaps--for she admitted the existence of awkward conjunctions--be said
to batter at her door. She thought of the Miss Minetts, her ever-willing
audience. She thought also--as so frequently during the last, in some
respects, extremely unsatisfactory twenty-four hours--of Mr. Rochester
and of Jane Eyre. Not that she ranged herself with Jane socially or as to
scholastic attainments. In both these, as in natural refinement,
propriety and niceness of ideas, she reckoned herself easily to surpass
that much canvassed heroine. The flavour of the evangelical
charity-school adhered--incontestably it adhered, and that to Jane's
disadvantage. No extravagance of Protestantism or of applied
philanthropy, thank heaven, clouded Theresa's early record. The genius of
Tractarianism had rocked her cradle, and subsequently ruled her studies
with a narrowly complacent pedantry all its own. Nevertheless in moments
of expansion, such as the present, she felt the parallel between her own
case and that of Jane did, in certain directions, romantically hold.
Fortified by thought of the Miss Minetts' agitated interest in all which
might befall her, she indulged in imaginary conversations with that great
proconsul, her employer--the theme of which, purged of lyrical
redundancies, reduced itself to the somewhat crude announcement that
"your daughter, yes, may, alas, not impossibly be taken from you; but I,
Theresa, still remain."

When, however, a summons to the presence of the said employer actually
reached her, the bounce born of imaginary conversations, showed a
tendency, as is its habit, basely to desert her and soak clean away. She
had promised herself a little scene, full of respectful solicitude, of
sympathy discreetly offered and graciously accepted, a drawing together
through the workings of mutual anxiety leading on to closer intercourse,
her own breast, to put it pictorially, that on which the stricken parent
should eventually and gratefully lean. But in all this she was
disappointed, for Sir Charles did not linger over preliminaries. He came
straight and unceremoniously to the point; and that with so cold and
lofty a manner that, although flutterings remained, they parted company
with all and any emotions even remotely allied to rapture.

Charles Verity stood motionless before the fire-place in the long
sitting-room. He still wore a heavy frieze travelling coat, the fronts of
it hanging open. His shoulders were a trifle humped up and his head bent,
as he looked down at the black and buff of the tiger skin at his feet.
When Theresa approached with her jerky consequential little walk--pinkly
self-conscious behind her gold-rimmed glasses--he glanced at her,
revealing a fiercely careworn countenance, but made no movement to shake
hands with or otherwise greet her. This omission she hardly noticed,
already growing abject before his magnificence--for thus did his
appearance impress her--which, while claiming her enthusiastic
admiration, enjoined humility rather than the sentimental expansions in
which her imaginary conversations had so conspicuously abounded.

"I have seen Dr. McCabe," he began. "His report of Damaris' condition is
very far from reassuring. He tells me her illness presents peculiar
symptoms, and is grave out of all proportion to its apparent cause. This
makes me extremely uneasy. It is impossible to question her at present.
She must be spared all exertion and agitation. I have not attempted to
see her yet."

He paused, while anger towards her ex-pupil waxed warm in Theresa once
again. For the pause was eloquent, as his voice had been when speaking
about his daughter, of a depth of underlying tenderness which filled his
hearer with envy.

"I must therefore ask you, Miss Bilson," he presently went on, "to give
me a detailed account of all that took place yesterday. It is important I
should know exactly what occurred."

Whereat Theresa, perceiving pitfalls alike in statement and in
suppression of fact, hesitated and gobbled to the near neighbourhood of
positive incoherence, while admitting, and trying to avoid admitting, how
inconveniently ignorant of precise details she herself was.

"Perhaps I erred in not more firmly insisting upon an immediate enquiry,"
she said. "But, at the time, alarm appeared so totally uncalled for. I
assumed, from what was told me, and from my knowledge of the strength of
Damaris' constitution, that a night's rest would fully restore her to her
usual robust state of health, and so deferred my enquiry. The servants
were excited and upset, so I felt their account might be misleading--all
they said was so confused, so far from explicit. My position was most
difficult, Sir Charles," she assured him and incidentally, also, assured
herself. "I encountered most trying opposition, which made me feel it
would be wiser to wait until this morning. By then, I hoped, the maids
would have had time to recollect themselves and recollect what is
becoming towards their superiors in the way of obedience and respect."

Charles Verity threw back his head with a movement of impatience, and
looked down at her from under his eyelids--in effect weary and a
little insolent.

"We seem to be at cross purposes, Miss Bilson," he said. "You do not, I
think quite follow my question. I did not ask for the servants' account
of the events of yesterday--whatever those events may have been--but for
your own."

"Ah! it is so unfortunate, so exceedingly unfortunate," Theresa broke
out, literally wringing her hands, "but a contingency, an accident, which
I could not possibly have foreseen--I cannot but blame Damaris, Sir
Charles"--

"Indeed?" he said.

"No, truly I cannot but blame her for wilfulness. If she had
consented--as I so affectionately urged--to join the choir treat to
Harchester, this painful incident would have been spared us."

"Am I to understand that you went to Harchester, leaving my daughter
here alone?"

"Her going would have given so much pleasure in the parish," Theresa
pursued, dodging the question with the ingenuity of one who scents mortal
danger. "Her refusal would, I knew, cause sincere disappointment. I could
not bring myself to accentuate that disappointment. Not that I, of
course, am of any importance save as coming from this house, as--as--in
some degree your delegate, Sir Charles."

"Indeed?" he said.

"Yes, indeed," Theresa almost hysterically repeated.

For here--if anywhere--was her chance, as she recognized. Never again
might she be thus near to him, alone with him--the normal routine made it
wholly improbable.--And at midnight too. For the unaccustomed lateness of
the hour undoubtedly added to her ferment, provoking in her obscure and
novel hopes and hungers. Hence she blindly and--her action viewed from a
certain angle--quite heroically precipitated herself. Heroically, because
the odds were hopelessly adverse, her equipment, whether of natural or
artificial, being so conspicuously slender. Her attempt had no backing in
play of feature, felicity of gesture, grace of diction. The commonest
little actress that ever daubed her skin with grease-paint, would have
the advantage of Theresa in the thousand and one arts by which, from
everlasting, woman has limed twigs for the catching of man. Her very
virtues--respectability, learning, all the proprieties of her narrowly
virtuous little life--counted for so much against her in the present
supreme moment of her self-invented romance.

"You hardly, I dare say," she pursued--"how should you after the
commanding positions you have occupied?--appreciate the feelings of the
inhabitants of this quiet country parish towards you. But they have a
lively sense, believe me, of the honour you confer upon them, all and
severally--I am speaking of the educated classes in particular, of
course--by residing among them. They admire and reverence you so much, so
genuinely; and they have extended great kindness to me as a member of
your household. How can I be indifferent to it? I am thankful, Sir
Charles, I am grateful--the more so that I have the happiness of knowing
I owe the consideration with which I am treated, in Deadham, entirely to
you.--Yes, yes," she cried in rising exaltation, "I do not deny that I
went to Harchester yesterday--went--Dr. Horniblow thus expressed it when
inviting me--'as representing The Hard.' I was away when Damaris made
this ill-judged excursion across the river to the Bar. Had she confided
her intention to me, I should have used my authority and forbade her. But
recently we have not been, I grieve to say, on altogether satisfactory
terms, and our parting yesterday was constrained, I am afraid."

Theresa blushed and swallowed. Fortunately her sense of humour was
limited; but, even so, she could not but be aware of a dangerous decline.
Not only of bathos, but of vulgar bathos, from which gentility revolted,
must she be the exponent, thanks to Damaris' indiscretion!

"You require me to give you the details, Sir Charles," she resumed, "and
although it is both embarrassing and repugnant to me to do so, I obey. I
fear Damaris so far forgot herself--forgot I mean what is due to her age
and position--as to remove her shoes and stockings and paddle in the
sea--a most unsuitable and childish occupation. While she was thus
engaged her things--her shoes and stockings--appear to have been stolen.
In any case she was unable to find them when tired of the amusement she
came up on to the beach. Moreover she was caught in the rain. And I
deeply regret to tell you--but I merely repeat what I learned from Mary
Fisher and Mrs. Cooper when I returned--it was not till after dark, when
the maids had become so alarmed that they despatched Tolling and Alfred
to search for her, that Damaris landed from a boat at the breakwater,
having been brought down the river--by--by"--

Throughout the earlier portion of her recital Charles Verity stood in the
same place and same attitude staring down at the tiger skin. Twice or
thrice only he raised his eyes, looking at the speaker with a flash of
arrogant interrogation.

Upon one, even but moderately, versed in the secular arts of twig-liming,
such flashes would have acted as an effective warning and deterrent. Not
so upon Theresa. She barely noticed them, as blindly heroic, she pounded
along leading her piteous forlorn hope. Her chance--her unique chance, in
nowise to be missed--and, still more, those obscure hungers, fed by the
excitement of this midnight _tête-à-tête,_ rushed her forward upon the
abyss; while at every sputtering sentence, whether of adulation,
misplaced prudery, or thinly veiled animosity towards Damaris, she became
more tedious, more frankly intolerable and ridiculous to him whose favour
she so desperately sought. Under less anxious circumstances Charles
Verity might have been contemptuously amused at this exhibition of futile
ardour. Now it exasperated him. Yet he waited, in rather cruel patience.
Presently he would demolish her, if to do so appeared worth the trouble.
Meanwhile she should have her say, since incidentally he might learn
something from it bearing upon the cause of Damaris' illness.

But now, when, at the climax of her narrative, Theresa--seized by a spasm
of retrospective resentment and jealousy, the picture of the young man
carrying the girl tenderly in his arms across the dusky lawns arising
before her--choked and her voice cracked up into a bat-like squeaking,
Charles Verity's self-imposed forbearance ran dry.

"I must remind you that neither my time nor capacity of listening are
inexhaustible, Miss Bilson," he said to her. "May I ask you to be so good
as to come to the point. By whom was Damaris rescued and brought home
last night?"

"Ah! that is what I so deeply regret," Theresa quavered, still
obstinately dense and struggling with the after convulsion of her choke.
"I felt so shocked and annoyed on your account, Sir Charles, when the
maids told me, knowing how you would disapprove such a--such an incident
in connection with Damaris.--She was brought home, carried"--she
paused--"carried indoors by the owner of that objectionable public-house
on the island. He holds some position in the Mercantile Marine, I
believe. I have seen him recently once or twice myself in the
village--his name is Faircloth."

Theresa pursed up her lips as she finished speaking. The glasses of her
gold pince-nez seemed to gleam aggressively in the lamp-light. The backs
of the leather-bound volumes in the many book-cases gleamed also, but
unaggressively, with the mellow sheen--as might fancifully be figured--of
the ripe and tolerant wisdom their pages enshrined. The pearl-grey
porcelain company of Chinese monsters, saints and godlings, ranged above
them placid, mysteriously smiling, gleamed as well.

For a time, silence, along with these various gleamings, sensibly, even a
little uncannily, held possession of the room. Then Charles Verity moved,
stiffly, and for once awkwardly, all of a piece. Backed against the
mantelshelf, throwing his right arm out along it sharply and
heavily--careless of the safety of clock and of ornaments--as though
overtaken by sudden weakness and seeking support.

"Faircloth? Of course, his name is Faircloth." he repeated absently.
"Yes, of course."

But whatever the nature of the weakness assailing him, it soon,
apparently, passed. He stood upright, his face, perhaps, a shade more
colourless and lean, but in expression fully as arrogant and formidably
calm as before.

"Very well, Miss Bilson," he began. "You have now given me all the
information I require, so I need detain you no longer--save to say
this.--You will, if you please, consider your engagement as my daughter's
companion terminated, concluded from to-night. You are free to make such
arrangements as may suit you; and you will, I trust, pardon my adding
that I shall be obliged by your making them without undue delay."

"You do not mean," Theresa broke out, after an interval of speechless
amazement--"Sir Charles, you cannot mean that you dismiss me--that I am
to leave The Hard--to--to go away?"

"I mean that I have no further occasion for your services."

Theresa waved her arms as though playing some eccentric game of ball.

"You forget the servants, the conduct of the house, Damaris' need of a
chaperon, her still unfinished education--All are dependent upon me."

"Hardly dependent," he answered. "These things, I have reason to think,
can safely be trusted to other hands, or be equally safely be left to
take care of themselves."

"But why do you repudiate me?" she cried again, rushing upon her fate in
the bitterness of her distraction. "What have I done to deserve such
harshness and humiliation?"

"I gave the most precious of my possessions--Damaris--into your keeping,
and--and--well--we see the result. Is it not written large enough, in all
conscience, for the most illiterate to read?--So you must depart, my dear
Miss Bilson, and for everyone's sake, the sooner the better. There can be
no further discussion of the matter. Pray accept the fact that our
interview is closed."

But Theresa, now sensible that her chance was in act of being finally
ravished away from her, fell--or rose--perhaps more truly the
latter--into an extraordinary sincerity and primitiveness of emotion.
She cast aside nothing less than her whole personal legend, cast aside
every tradition and influence hitherto so strictly governing her conduct
and her thought. Unluckily the physical envelope could not so readily be
got rid of. Matter retained its original mould, and that one neither
seductive nor poetic.

She went down upon her fat little knees, held her fat little hands aloft
as in an impassioned spontaneity of worship.

"Sir Charles," she prayed, while tears running down her full cheeks
splashed upon her protuberant bosom--"Sir Charles"--

He looked at the funny, tubby, jaunty, would-be smart, kneeling figure.

"Oh! you inconceivably foolish woman," he said and turned away.

Did more than that--walked out into the hall and to his own rooms,
opening off the corridor. In the offices a bell tinkled. Theresa
scrambled on to her feet, just as Hordle, in response to its summons,
arrived at the sitting-room door.

"Did you ring, Miss?" he asked grudgingly. Less than ever was she in
favour with the servants' hall to-night.

Past intelligible utterance, Theresa merely shook her head in reply. Made
a return upon herself--began to instruct him to put out the lamps in the
room. Remembered that now and henceforth the right to give orders in this
house was no longer hers; and broke into sobbing, the sound of which her
handkerchief pressed against her mouth quite failed to stifle.

About an hour later, having bathed and changed, Sir Charles Verity made
his way upstairs. Upon the landing Dr. McCabe met him.

"Better," he said, "thank the heavenly powers, decidedly better.
Temperature appreciably lower, and the pulse more even. Oh! we're on the
road very handsomely to get top dog of the devil this bout, believe me,
Sir Charles."

"Then go to bed, my dear fellow," the other answered. "I will take
over the rest of the watch for you. You need not be afraid. I can be an
admirable sick-nurse on occasion. And by the way, McCabe, something has
come to my knowledge which in my opinion throws considerable light upon
the symptoms that have puzzled you. Probably I shall be more sure of my
facts before morning. I will explain to you later, if it should seem
likely to be helpful to you in your treatment of the case. Just now, as
I see it, the matter lies exclusively between me"--he smiled looking at
his companion full and steadily--"between me"--he repeated, "and my
only child."

All which upon the face of it might, surely, be voted encouraging
enough. Yet:

"Should there be any that doubt the veritable existence of hell fire,"
the doctor told himself, as he subsequently and thankfully pulled on his
night-shirt, "to recover them, and in double quick time, of their heresy
let 'em but look in my friend Verity's eyes."--And he rounded off the
sentence with an oath.




CHAPTER IX

AN EXPERIMENT IN BRIDGE-BUILDING OF WHICH TIME ALONE CAN FIX THE VALUES


Damaris lay on her side, her face turned to the wall. When Charles
Verity, quietly crossing the room, sat down in an easy chair, so placed
at the head of the half-tester bed as to be screened from it by the
dimity curtains, she sighed and slightly shifted her position.

Leaning back, he crossed his legs and let his chin drop on his breast.
He had barely glanced at her in passing, receiving a vague impression
of the outline of her cheek, of her neck, and shoulders, of her head,
dark against the dim whiteness on which it rested, and the long dark
stream of her hair spread loose across the pillows. He had no wish for
recognition--not yet awhile. On the contrary, it was a relief to have
time in which silently to get accustomed to her presence, to steep
himself in the thought of her, before speech should define the new
element intruded, as he believed, into his and her relation. Though
little enough--too little, so said some of his critics--hampered by
fear in any department, he consciously dreaded the smallest
modification of that relation. Among the many dissatisfactions and
bitternesses of life, it shone forth with a steady light of purity and
sweetness, as a thing unspoiled, unbreathed on, even, by what is
ignoble or base. And not the surface of it alone was thus free from all
breath of defilement. It showed clear right through, as some gem of the
purest water. To keep it thus inviolate, he had made sacrifices in the
past neither easy nor inconsiderable to a man of his temperament and
ambitions. Hence that its perfection should be now endangered was to
him the more exquisitely hateful.

Upon the altar of that hatred, promptly without scruple he sacrificed
the wretched Theresa. Most of us are so constituted that, at a certain
pass, pleasure--of a sort--is to be derived from witnessing the anguish
of a fellow creature. In all save the grossly degenerate that pleasure,
however, is short-lived. Reflection follows, in which we cut to ourselves
but a sorry figure. With Charles Verity, reflection began to follow
before he had spent many minutes in Damaris' sick-room. For here the
atmosphere was, at once, grave and tender, beautifully honest in its
innocence of the things of the flesh.--The woman had been inconceivably
foolish, from every point of view. If she had known, good heavens, if she
had only known! But he inclined now to the more merciful view that,
veritably, she didn't know; that her practical, even her theoretic,
knowledge was insufficient for her to have had any clear design. It was
just a blind push of starved animal instinct. Of course she must go. Her
remaining in the house was in every way unpermissible; still he need not,
perhaps, have been so cold-bloodedly precipitate with her.

Anyhow the thing was done--it was done--He raised his shoulders and
making with his hands a graphic gesture of dismissal, let his chin drop
on to his breast again.

For the East had left its mark on his attitude towards women with one
exception--that of his daughter--Charles Verity, like most men, not
requiring of himself to be too rigidly consistent. Hence Theresa, and
all which pertained to her, even her follies, appeared to him of
contemptibly small moment compared with the developments for which those
follies might be held accidentally responsible. His mind returned to
that main theme painfully. He envisaged it in all its bearings, not
sparing himself. Suffered, and looked on at his own suffering with a
stoicism somewhat sardonic.

Meanwhile Damaris slept. His nearness had not disturbed her, indeed he
might rather suppose its effect beneficent. For her breathing grew even,
just sweetly and restfully audible in the intervals of other sounds
reaching him from out of doors.

The wind, drawing out of the sunset, freshened during the night. Now it
blew wet and gustily from south-west, sighing through the pines and
Scotch firs in the Wilderness. A strand of the yellow Banksia rose,
trained against the house wall, breaking loose, scratched and tapped at
the window-panes with anxious appealing little noises.

Many years had elapsed since Charles Verity spent a night upstairs in
this part of the house, and by degrees those outdoor sounds attracted his
attention as intimately familiar. They carried him back to his boyhood,
to the spacious dreams and projects of adolescence. He could remember
just such gusty wet winds swishing through the trees, such petulant
fingering of errant creepers upon the windows, when he stayed here during
the holidays from school at Harchester, on furlough from his regiment,
and, later, on long leave from India, during his wonderful little
great-uncle's lifetime.

And his thought took a lighter and friendlier vein, recalling that
polished, polite, encyclopedic minded and witty gentleman, who had lived
to within a few months of his full century with a maximum of interest and
entertainment to himself, and a minimum of injury or offence to others.
To the last he retained his freshness of intellectual outlook, his
insatiable yet discreet curiosity. Taking it as a whole, should his life
be judged a singularly futile or singularly enviable one? Nothing
feminine, save on strictly platonic lines, was recorded to have entered
it at any period. Did that argue remarkable wisdom or defective courage,
or some abnormal element in a composition otherwise deliciously mundane
and human?

Charles had debated this often. Even as a boy it had puzzled him. As a
young man he had held his own views on the subject, not without lasting
effect. For one winter he had passed at The Hard, in the fine bodily
health and vigour of his early thirties, this very lack of women's
society contributed, by not unnatural reaction, to force the idea of
woman hauntingly upon him--thereby making possible a strange and hidden
love passage off the Dead Sea fruit of which he was in process of
supping here to-night.

He moved, bent forward, setting his elbows on the two chair arms,
closing his eyes as he listened, and leaning his forehead upon his
raised hands. For in the plaintive voice of the moist, fitful
southwesterly wind how, to his bearing, the buried, half-forgotten drama
re-lived and reenacted itself!

It dated far back, to a period when his career was still undetermined,
hedged about by doubts and uncertainties--before the magnificent and
terrible years of the Mutiny brought him, not only fame and distinction,
but a power of self-expression and of plain seeing.--Before, too, his not
conspicuously happy marriage. Before the Bhutpur appointment tested and
confirmed his reputation as a most able if most autocratic ruler. Before,
finally, his term of service under the Ameer in Afghanistan--that
extraordinary experience of alternate good and evil fortune in barbaric
internecine warfare, the methods and sentiments of which represented a
swing back of three or four centuries, Christianity, and the attitude of
mind and conduct Christianity inculcates, no longer an even nominal
factor, Mahomet, sword in hand, ruthlessly outriding Christ.

He had done largely more than the average Englishman, of his age and
station, towards the making of contemporary history. Yet it occurred to
him now, sitting at Damaris' bedside, those intervening years of
strenuous public activity, of soldiering and of administration, along
with the honours reaped in them, had procured cynically less substantial
result, cynically less ostensible remainder, than the brief and hidden
intrigue which preceded them. They sank away as water spilt on sand--thus
in his present pain he pictured it--leaving barely a trace. While that
fugitive and unlawful indulgence of the flesh not only begot flesh, but
spirit,--a living soul, henceforth and eternally to be numbered among the
imperishable generations of the tragic and marvellous children of men.

Then, aware something stirred close to him, Charles Verity looked up
sharply, turning his head; to find Damaris--raised on one elbow planted
among the pillows--holding aside the dimity curtain and gazing
wonderingly yet contentedly in his face.

"Commissioner Sahib," she said, softly, "I didn't know you'd come back.
I've had horrid bad dreams and seemed to see you--many of you--walking
about. The room was full of you, you over and over again; but not like
yourself, frightening, not loving me, busy about something or somebody
else. I didn't at all enjoy that.--But I am awake now, aren't I? I
needn't be frightened any more; because you do love me, don't you--and
this really is you, your very ownself?"

She put up her face to be kissed. But he, in obedience to an humility
heretofore unfelt by and unknown to him, leaning sideways kissed the hand
holding aside the curtain rather than the proffered lips.

"Yes, my darling, very surely it is me," he said. "Any multiplication of
specimens is quite superfluous--a single example of the breed is enough,
conceivably more than enough."

But to his distress, while he spoke, he saw the content die out of
Damaris' expression and her eyes grow distended and startled. She glanced
oddly at the hand he had just kissed and then at him again.

"It seems to me something must have happened which I can't exactly
remember," she anxiously told him, sitting upright and leaving go the
curtain which slipped back into place shutting off the arm-chair and its
occupant. "Something real, I mean, not just bad dreams. I know I had to
ask you about it, and yet I didn't want to ask you."

Charles Verity rose from his place, slowly walked the length of the room;
and, presently returning, stood at the foot of the bed. Damaris still sat
upright, her hands clasped, her hair hanging in a cloud about her to
below the waist. The light was low and the shadow cast by the bed-curtain
covered her. But, through it, he could still distinguish the startled
anxiety of her great eyes as she pondered, trying to seize and hold some
memory which escaped her. And he felt sick at heart, assured it could be
but a matter of time before she remembered; convinced now, moreover, what
she would, to his shame and sorrow, remember in the end.

The purity in which he delighted, and to which he so frequently and
almost superstitiously had turned for refreshment and the safeguarding of
all the finest instincts of his own very complex nature, would, although
she remembered, remain essentially intact. But, even so, the surface of
it must be, as he apprehended, henceforth in some sort dimmed, and that
by the breath of his own long ago misdoing. The revelation of passion and
of sex, being practically and thus intimately forced home on her, the
transparent innocence of childhood must inevitably pass away from her;
and, through that same passing she would consciously go forward,
embracing the privileges and the manifold burdens, the physical and
emotional needs and aspirations of a grown woman. The woman might,
would--such was his firm belief--prove a glorious creature. But it was
not she whom he wanted. Her development, in proportion as it was rich and
complete, led her away from and made her independent of him.--No, it
wasn't she, but the child whom he wanted. And, standing at the foot of
Damaris' bed, he knew, with a cruel certainty, he was there just simply
to watch the child die.

Yes, it was a mere matter of time. Sooner or later she would put a
leading question--her methods being bravely candid and direct. Of course,
it was open to him to meet that question with blank denial, open to him
to lie--as is the practice of the world when such damnably awkward
situations come along.--A solution having, in the present case, the
specious argument behind it that in so doing he would spare her, save her
pain, in addition to the obvious one that he would save his own skin.
Moreover, if he lied he could trust Damaris' loyalty. Whether she
believed it or not, she would accept his answer as final. No further
question upon the subject would ever pass her lips. The temptation was
definite and great. For might not the lie, if he could stomach his
disgust at telling it, even serve to prolong the life of the child?
Should he not sell his honour to save his honour--if it came to that?

Thus he debated, his nature battling with itself, while at that battle he
stoically, for a time, looked on. But when, at last, the climax was
reached, and Damaris commenced to speak, stoicism dragged anchor. For he
could conquer neither his disgust nor his sorrow, could find courage
neither for his denial nor for watching the child die. Leaving the foot
of the bed, he went and sat down in the arm-chair, where the dimity
curtain screened Damaris from his, and him from Damaris' sight.

"Commissioner Sahib," she began, her voice grave and low, "it has come
back to me--the thing I had to ask you, but it is very hard to say. If it
makes you angry, please try to forgive me--because it does hurt me to ask
you. It hurts me through and through. Only I can't speak of it. I
oughtn't just to leave it. To leave it would be wrong--wrong by you."

"Very well, my darling, ask me then," he said, a little hoarsely.

"You have heard about my being out on the Bar and--and all that?"

"Yes," he said, "I have heard."

"Captain Faircloth, who found me and brought me home, told me something."

Damaris' voice broke into tones of imploring tenderness.

"I love you, Commissioner Sahib, you know how I love you--but--but is
what Captain Faircloth told me true?"

Whereupon temptation surged up anew, inviting, inciting Charles Verity
to lie--dressing up that lie in the cloak of most excellent charity, of
veritable duty towards Damaris' fine courage and her precious innocence.
And he hedged, keeping open, if only for a few minutes longer, the way
of escape.

"How can I answer until I know what he did tell you?" he took her up, at
last, almost coldly.

"That he is your son--is my brother," Damaris said.

Even at this pass, Charles Verity waited before finally committing
himself, thereby unwittingly giving sentiment--in the shape of the
Powers of the Air--the chance to take a rather unfairly extensive hand
in the game.

For while he thus waited, he could not but be aware, through the tense
silence otherwise reigning in the room, of the tap and scratch of the
rose-spray upon the window-panes; of the swish of the moist gusty wind
sweeping from across the salt-marsh and mud-flats of the Haven--from the
black cottages, too, beyond the warren, gathered, as somewhat sinister
boon companions, about the bleak, grey stone-built Inn. And this served
to transfix his consciousness with visions of what once had been--he
knowing so exactly how it would all sound, all look out there, the
wistful desolation, the penetrating appeal bred of the inherent sadness
of the place on a wild autumn night such as this.

"Yes," he said at last, and putting a great constraint upon himself he
spoke calmly, without sign of emotion. "What the young man told is true,
Damaris, perfectly true."

"I--I thought so," she answered back, gravely. "Though I didn't
understand"--And, after a moment's pause, with a certain hopelessness of
resignation--"Though I don't understand even now."

In her utterance Charles Verity so distinctly heard the last words of
the--to him--dying child, that, smitten with raging bitterness of grief
and of regret, he said:

"Nevertheless it is, in my opinion, disgraceful, abominable, that he
should have made the occasion, or, to put the matter at its best, have
taken advantage of the occasion, when you were alone and, in a sense, at
his mercy, to tell you this most unhappy thing."

"No, no," Damaris cried, in her generous eagerness catching back the
curtain and looking at him nobly unselfconscious, nobly zealous to defend
and to set right. "You mustn't think that. He didn't start with any
intention of telling me. He fancied I might have lost my way among the
sand-hills, that I might be frightened or get some harm, and so came
straight to look for me, and take care of me. He was very beautifully
kind; and I felt beautifully safe with him--safe in the same way I feel
safe with you, almost."

Her mouth was soft, her eyes alight--dangerously alight now, for
her pulse had quickened. As she pleaded and protested her
temperature raced up.

"It happened later," she went on, "when we were in the boat, and it was
partly my fault. He wrapped my feet up in his coat. They were very cold.
And he believed I was asleep because I didn't speak or thank him. I was
so tired, and everything seemed so strange. I couldn't rouse myself
somehow to speak. And as he wrapped them in his coat, he kissed my feet,
thinking I shouldn't know. But I wasn't asleep, and it displeased me. I
felt angry, just as you felt when you condemned him just now."

"Ah! as I felt just now!" he commented, closing his eyes and, just
perceptibly, bowing his head.

"Yes, Commissioner Sahib, as you felt just now--but as, please you
mustn't go on feeling.--What he had done seemed to me treacherous; and it
pained as well as displeased me. But in all that I was unjust and
mistaken.--And it was then, because he saw he'd pained me, displeased and
made me angry, that he told me in self-defence--told me to show he wasn't
treacherous, but had the right--a right no one else in all the world has
over me except yourself."

"And you believed this young man, you forgave his audacity, and admitted
his right?" Sir Charles said.

He leaned back in the angle of the chair, away from her, smiling as he
spoke--a smile which both bade farewell and mocked at the sharpness and
futility of the grief which that farewell brought with it. For this was a
grown woman who pleaded with him surely, acting as advocate? A child,
compelled to treat such controversial, such debatable matters at all,
would have done so to a different rhythm, in a different spirit.

"Forgave him? But after just the first, when, I had time to at all think
of it," Damaris answered with rather desperate bravery, "I couldn't see
there was anything for me to forgive. It was the other way about. For
haven't I so much which he might very well feel belonged, or should have
belonged, to him?"

"You cut deep, my dear," Sir Charles said quietly.

Still holding back the curtain with one hand, Damaris flung herself
over upon her face. She would not give way, she would not cry, but her
soul was in travail. These words, as coming from her father, were
anguish to her. She could look at him no longer, and lying outstretched
thus, the lines of her gracious body, moulded by the embroidered linen
quilt, quivered from head to heel. Still that travail of soul should
bring forth fruit. She would not give in, cost what anguish it might,
till all was said.

"I only want to do what is right," she cried, her voice half stifled by
the pillows. "You know, surely you know, how I love you, Commissioner
Sahib, from morning till night and round till morning again, always and
above all, ever since I can first remember. But this is different to
anything that has ever happened to me before, and it wouldn't be right
not to speak about it. It would be there all the time, and it would
creep in between us--between you and me--and interfere in all my
thinking about you."

"It may very well do that in any case, my dear," he said.

"No--no," Damaris answered hotly, "not if I do right now--right by both.
For you must not entertain wrong ideas about him--about Captain Faircloth
I mean. You must not suppose he said a word about my having what might,
or ought to be his. He couldn't do so. He isn't the least that sort of
person. He took pains to make me understand--I couldn't think why at
first, it seemed a little like boasting--that he is quite well off and
that he's very proud of his profession. He doesn't want anything
from--from us. Oh! no," she cried, "no."

And, in her excitement, Damaris raised herself, from the small of her
back, resting on her elbows, sphinx-like in posture, her hands and
arms--from the elbows--stretched out in front of her across the pillows.
Her face was flushed, her eyes blazed. There was storm and vehemence in
her young beauty.

"No--he's too much like you, you yourself, Commissioner Sahib, to want
anything, to accept anything from other people. He means to act for
himself, and make people and things obey him, just as you yourself do.
And," she went on, with a daring surely not a little magnificent under
the circumstances--"he told me he loved life too well to care very much
how he came by it to begin with."

Damaris folded her arms, let her head sink on them as she finished
speaking, and lay flat thus, her face hidden, while she breathed short
and raspingly, struggling to control the after violence of her emotion.

The curtain hung straight. The wind took up its desolate chant again. And
Sir Charles Verity sat back in the angle of the arm-chair, motionless,
and, for the present, speechless.

In truth he was greatly moved, stirred to the deep places of perception,
and of conscience also. For this death of childhood and birth of
womanhood undoubtedly presented a rare and telling spectacle, which, even
while it rent him, in some aspects enraged and mortified him, he still
appreciated. He found, indeed, a strangely vital, if somewhat cruel,
satisfaction in looking on at it--a satisfaction fed, on its more humane
and human side, by the testimony to the worth of the unknown son by the
so well-beloved daughter. Respecting himself he might have cause for
shame; but respecting these two beings for whose existence--whether born
in wedlock or out of it--he was responsible, he had no cause for shame.
In his first knowledge of them as seen together, they showed strong,
generous, sure of purpose, a glamour of high romance in their
adventitious meeting and companionship.

This was the first, the unworldly and perhaps deepest view of the matter.
In it Charles Verity allowed himself to rest, inactive for a space. That
there were, not one, but many other views of the said matter, very
differently attuned and coloured he was perfectly well aware. Soon these
would leap on him, and that with an ugly clamour which he consciously
turned from in repulsion and weary disgust. For he was very tired, as he
now realized. The anxiety endured during his tedious cross-country
journey, the distasteful tragic-comedy of the _scéne de séduction_ so
artlessly made him by unlucky Theresa Bilsen, followed by this prolonged
vigil; lastly the very real tragedy--for such it in great measure
remained and must remain--of his interview with Damaris and the re-living
of long buried drama that interview entailed, left him mentally and
physically spent. He fell away into meditation, mournful as it was
indefinite, while the classic lament of another age and race formed
itself silently upon his lips.

"_Comprehenderunt me iniquitates meae, et non potui ut viderem.
Multiplicatae sunt super capillos capitis mei; et cor meum dereliquit
me_," he quoted, in the plenitude of his existing discouragement.

At his time of life, he told himself, earth held no future; and in
heaven--as the Churches figure it--namely, an adjustment of the balance
on the other side death, his belief was of the smallest. A sea of
uncertainty, vast, limitless, laps the shores of the meagre island of the
present--which is all we actually have to our count. Faith is a
gift.--You possess it, or you possess it not; yet without it--

But here his attention was caught, and brought home to that very present,
by a movement upon the bed and Damaris' voice, asking tremulously:

"Commissioner Sahib are you angry, too angry to speak to me?"

Whereupon Charles Verity got up, gathered back the curtain stuffing it in
between the head board and the wall, and stood, tall, spare, yet
graceful, looking down at her. Whether from fatigue or from emotion, his
expression was softer, his face less keen than usual, and the likeness
between him and Darcy Faircloth proportionately and notably great.

"No, my dear," he said, "why should I be angry? What conceivable right
have I to be angry? As a man sows so does he reap. I only reap to-day
what I sowed eight or nine-and-twenty years ago--a crop largely composed
of tares, though among those tares I do find some modicum of wheat. Upon
that modest provision of wheat I must make shift to subsist with the best
grace I may. No, don't cry, my darling. It is useless. Tears never yet
altered facts. You will only do yourself harm, and put a crown to my
self-reproach."

He sat down on the side of the bed, taking her hand, holding and
coaxing it.

"Only let there be no doubt or suspicion on your part, my dear," he went
on. "As you have travelled so far along this dolorous way, take courage
and travel a little farther. To stop, to turn back, is only to leave your
mind open to all manner of imaginations worse very likely than the truth.
I will be quite plain with you. This episode--which I do not attempt to
explain or excuse--took place, and ended, several years before I first
met your mother. And it ended absolutely. Never, by either written or
spoken word, have I held any communication with Lesbia Faircloth since.
Never have I attempted to see her--this in the interests of her
reputation every bit as much as in those of my own. For her station in
life she was a woman of remarkable qualities and character. She had made
an ugly, a repulsive marriage, and she was childless.--More than this it
is not seemly I should tell you."

Charles Verity waited a minute or so. He still coaxed Damaris' hand,
calmly, soothingly. And she lay very still watching him; but with
half-closed eyes, striving to prevent the tears which asked so
persistently to be shed. For her heart went out to him in a new and
over-flowing tenderness, in an exalted pity almost maternal. Never had she
felt him more attractive, more, in a sense, royally lovable than in this
hour of weariness, of moral nakedness, and humiliation.

"Not until I had rejoined my regiment in India," he presently continued,
in the same low even tones, "did I hear of the birth of her son. I have
never seen him--or made enquiries regarding him. I meant to let the
dead bury its dead in this matter. For everyone concerned it seemed best
and wisest so. Therefore all you have told me to-night comes as news to
me--and in some respects as good news. For I gather I have no reason to
be ashamed of this young man--which on your account, even more than on my
own, is so much clear gain.--But I oughtn't to have brought you here to
live at Deadham. I ought to have taken the possibility of some accidental
revelation, such as the present one, into serious account and saved you
from that. To expose you, however remotely, to the risk was both callous
and stupid on my part. I own I have a strong sentiment for this house. It
seemed natural and restful to return to it--the only house to call a
home, I have ever had. And so much has happened during the last eight or
nine-and-twenty years, to occupy my mind, that I had grown indifferent
and had practically forgotten the risks. This was selfish,
self-indulgent, lacking in consideration and reverence towards you,
towards your peace of mind, your innocence.--And for it, my darling, I
beg your forgiveness."

Damaris sat up in the bed, raised her face to be kissed.

"No--no," she implored him, "don't say that. I can't bear to have you say
it--to have you speak as if you had been, could ever be anything but
beautiful and perfect towards me. I can't have you, not even for a little
minute, step down, from the high place, which is your own, and talk of
forgiveness. It hurts me.--I begin to understand that your world, a man's
world, is different to my world--the world, I mean, in which I have been
brought up. I know what is right for myself--but it would be silly to
believe mine is the only rightness"--

"Ah!" Charles Verity murmured, under his breath, "alas! for the child
that is dead."

And leaning forward he kissed her lips.




CHAPTER X

TELLING HOW MISS FELICIA VERITY UNSUCCESSFULLY ATTEMPTED A RESCUE


With the assistance of the Miss Minetts, reinforced by a bribe of five
shillings, Theresa Bilson procured a boy on a bicycle, early the
following morning, to convey a note the twelve miles to Paulton Lacy--Mr.
Augustus Cowden's fine Georgian mansion, situate just within the Southern
boundaries of Arnewood Forest. Miss Felicia Verity, to whom the note was
addressed, still enjoyed the hospitality of her sister and
brother-in-law; but this, as Mrs. Cowden gave her roundly to understand,
must not be taken to include erratic demands upon the stables. If she
required unexpectedly to visit her brother or her niece at Deadham Hard,
she must contrive to do so by train, and by such hired conveyances as the
wayside station of Paulton Halt at this end of her journey, and of
Marychurch at the other, might be equal to supplying.

"In my opinion, Felicia, it is quite ridiculous you should attempt to go
there at all to-day," Mrs. Cowden, giving over for the moment her study
of the _Morning Post,_ commandingly told her. "If Damaris has got a cold
in her head through some imprudence, and if Charles has called Miss
Bilson over the coals for not being more strict with her, that really is
no reason why Augustus' and my plans for the afternoon should be set
aside or why you should be out in the rain for hours with your
rheumatism. I shall not even mention the subject to Augustus. We arranged
to drive over to Napworth for tea, and I never let anything interfere
with my engagements to the Bulparcs as you know. I encourage Augustus to
see as much as possible of his own people.--I have no doubt in my own
mind that the account of Damaris' illness is absurdly exaggerated. You
know how Charles spoils her! She has very much too much freedom; and
little Miss Bilson, though well-meaning, is incapable of coping with a
headstrong girl like Damaris. She ought--Damaris ought I mean--to have
been sent to a finishing school for another year at least. She might then
have found her level. If Charles had consulted me, or shown the least
willingness to accept my advice, I should have insisted upon the
finishing school. It would have been immensely to Damaris' advantage. I
have known all along that the haphazard methods of her education were
bound to have deplorable results.--But look here, Felicia, if you really
intend to go on this wild-goose-chase notwithstanding the rain, let the
boy who brought the note order Davis' fly for you on his way back. He
passes Paulton Halt. I shall not expect you before dinner to-night. Now
that is settled."

With which she returned to her interrupted study of the _Morning Post_.

The above pronouncement while rendering Felicia Verity somewhat uneasy,
in nowise turned her from her purpose. Her powers of sympathy were as
unlimited as they were confused and, too often, ineffective. Forever she
ran after the tribulations of her fellow creatures, pouring forth on them
treasures of eager sympathy, but without discrimination as to whether the
said tribulations were in fact trivial or profound, deserving or
deserved. That anyone under any circumstances, should suffer, be
uncomfortable or unhappy, filled her with solicitude. The loss of an
eyelash, the loss of a fortune, the loss of the hope of a lifetime
equally ranked. Illness and disease appealed to her in hardly less degree
than unfortunate affairs of the heart. She practised the detection of
extenuating circumstances as one might practise a fine art. She wallowed
in sentiment, in short; but that with such native good-breeding and
singleness of mind, as went far to redeem the said wallowings from
morbidity or other offence. Her friends and acquaintances loved her,
quite unconscionably made use of her, secretly laughed at her, grew weary
of her, declared that "of such are the Kingdom of Heaven;" and, having
successfully exploited her, turned with relief to the society of persons
frankly belonging to the kingdoms of earth. Men petted but did not
propose to her; affected to confide in her, but carefully withheld the
heart of their confessions. Tall, thin, gently hurried and bird-like, she
yet bore a quaint, almost mirthful, resemblance to her brother, Sir
Charles Verity. Such was the lady who responded, in a spirit of liveliest
charity, to Theresa's wildly waved flag of distress.

By the time Miss Verity reached Marychurch the rain amounted to a
veritable downpour. Driven by the southwesterly wind, it swept in sheets
over the low-lying country, the pallid waters, drab mud-flats, dingy
grey-green salt-marsh, and rusty brown reed-beds of the estuary. The
dusty road, running alongside this last through the hamlets of Horny
Cross and Lampit, grew hourly deeper in gritty mud. Beyond question
summer and all its dear delights were departed and the chill mournfulness
of autumn reigned in their stead.

With the surrounding mournfulness, Miss Verity's simple, yet devious,
mind played not ungratefully. For it seemed to her to harmonize with the
true inwardness of her mission, offering a sympathetic background to the
news of her niece's indisposition and the signals of distress flown by
her little _protégée_, Theresa Bilson. The note addressed to her by the
latter was couched in mysterious and ambiguous phrases, the purport of
which she failed to grasp. Theresa's handwriting, usually so neat and
precise, was wobbly, bearing unmistakable traces of severe agitation and
haste. She hinted at nothing short of catastrophe, though whether in
relation to herself, to her ex-pupil, or to Sir Charles, Miss Verity
couldn't for the life of her discover. It was clear in any case, however,
that affairs at The Hard had, for cause unknown, gone quite startlingly
astray, and that Theresa found herself entirely unequal to righting
them--hence her outcry.

Under these circumstances, it struck Miss Verity as only tasteful and
tactful that her approach to the distracted dwelling should take place
unheralded by rumble of wheels or beat of horse-hoofs, should be pitched
in a, so to speak, strictly modest and minor key. On arriving at the
front gate she therefore alighted and, bidding her grumpy and streaming
flyman take himself and his frousty landau to the Bell and Horns in
Deadham village there to await her further orders, proceeded to walk up
the carriage-drive under the swaying, dripping trees.

About fifty yards from the gate the drive turns sharply to the left; and,
just at the turn, Miss Verity suddenly beheld a tall figure clad in a
seaman's oilskins and sou'wester, coming towards her from the direction
of the house. Youth and good looks--more especially perhaps masculine
ones--whatever rank of life might exhibit them, acted as a sure passport
to Miss Verity's gentle heart. And the youth and good looks of the man
approaching her became momentarily more incontestable. His bearing, too,
notwithstanding the clumsiness of his shiny black over-garment, had a
slightly ruffling, gallantly insolent air to it, eminently calculated to
impress her swift and indulgent fancy.

The young man, on his part, calmly took stock of her appearance, as she
beat up against the wind, her flapping waterproof cloak giving very
inefficient protection to the rather girlish dove-grey cashmere dress,
picked out with pink embroidery, beneath it. At first his eyes challenged
hers in slightly defiant and amused enquiry. But as she smiled back at
him, sweetly eager, ingenuously benignant, his glance softened and his
hand went up to his sou'wester with a courteous gesture.

"What weather!" she exclaimed. "How fearfully wet!"--while her expression
testified to a flattering interest and admiration.

"Yes, it's a wild day," he said, in answer. "I expect We've seen the last
of the sun, anyhow for this week."

The incident, though of the most casual and briefest, gave a new
direction to Miss Verity's thought. It pleased and intrigued her,
bringing a pretty blush to her thin cheeks. "Who and what can he be?" she
said to herself. "Where can I have seen him before?" And the blush
deepened. "I must really describe him to Charles and find out who he is."

This monologue brought her as far as the front door, at which, it may be
added, she--though by no means impatient--did in point of fact ring twice
before the man-servant answered it. Although Mr. Hordle had the reputation
of "being fond of his joke" in private life, in his official capacity his
manner offered a model of middle-aged sedateness and restraint. To-day
neither humour nor reserve were in evidence, but a harassed and hunted
look altogether surprising to Miss Verity. He stared at her, stared past
her along the drive, before attempting to usher her into the hall and
relieve her of her umbrella and her cloak.

"Sir Charles doesn't expect me, Hordle," she said. "But hearing Miss
Damaris was unwell I came over from Paulton Lacy at once."

"Quite so, ma'am. Sir Charles has not left his room yet. He did not reach
home till late, and he sat up with Miss Damaris the rest of the night."

"Oh! dear--did he? Then, of course, I wouldn't disturb him on any
account, Hordle. I had better see Miss Bilson first. Will you tell her
I am here?"

"I can send Laura to enquire, ma'am. But, I doubt if Miss Bilson, will
care to come downstairs at present."

"She is with Miss Damaris?"

"No, ma'am, Miss Bilson is not with Miss Damaris."

Hordle paused impressively, sucking in his under lip.

"If I might presume to advise, ma'am, I think it would be wise you should
see Miss Bilson in the schoolroom--and go up by the back staircase,
ma'am, if you don't object so as to avoid passing Miss Damaris' bedroom
door. I should not presume to suggest it, ma'am, but that our orders as
to quiet are very strict."

In this somewhat ignominious method of reaching her objective Miss
Verity, although more and more mystified, amiably acquiesced--to be
greeted, when Hordle throwing open the schoolroom door formally announced
her, by a sound closely resembling a shriek.

Entrenched behind a couple of yawning trunks, a litter of feminine
apparel and of personal effects--the accumulation of a long term of
years, for she was an inveterate hoarder--encumbering every available
surface, the carpet included, Theresa Bilson stood as at bay.

"My dear friend," Miss Verity exclaimed advancing with kindly
outstretched hands--"what is the meaning of this?"--She looked at the
miscellaneous turn-out of cupboards and chests of drawers, at the display
of garments not usually submitted to the public gaze. "Are you preparing
a rummage sale or are you--but no, surely not!--are you packing? I cannot
describe how anxious I am to hear what has occurred. My sister, Mrs.
Cowden, was extremely adverse to my facing the bad weather; but, I felt
your note could only be answered in person. Let me hear everything."

She drew Theresa from behind the luggage entrenchments, and, putting
aside an assortment of derelict hats and artificial flowers strewn in
most admired confusion on the sofa, made her sit down upon the said piece
of furniture beside her.

Whereupon, in the pensive, rain-washed, mid-day light, which served to
heighten rather than mitigate the prevailing, very unattractive and
rather stuffy disorder obtaining in the room, Theresa Bilson, not without
chokings and lamentations, gave forth the story of her--to herself quite
spectacular--deposition from the command of The Hard and its household.
She had sufficiently recovered her normal attitude, by this time, to pose
to herself, now as a heroine of one of Charlotte Bronte's novels, now as
a milder and more refined sample of injured innocence culled from the
pages of Charlotte Yonge. A narrow, purely personal view inevitably
embodies an order of logic calculated to carry conviction; and Theresa,
even in defeat, retained a degree of self-opinionated astuteness. She
presented her case effectively. To be discharged, and that in disgrace,
to be rendered homeless, cast upon the world at a moment's notice, for
that which--with but trifling, almost unconscious, manipulation of
fact--could be made to appear as nothing worse than a venial error of
judgment, did really sound and seem most unduly drastic punishment.

Miss Verity's first instinct was to fling herself into the breech; and,
directly her brother emerged from his room, demand for her _protégée_
redress and reinstatement. Her second instinct was--she didn't, in truth,
quite know what--for she grew sadly perplexed as she listened.

Her sympathy, in fact, split into three inconveniently distinct and
separate streams. Of these Theresa's woes still claimed the widest and
deepest, since with Theresa she was in immediate and intimate contact.
Yet the other two began to show a quite respectable volume and current,
as she pictured Damaris marooned on the Bar and Sir Charles ravished away
from the seasonable obligation of partridge shooting to take his place at
his daughter's bedside.

"But this young Captain Faircloth, of whom you speak," she presently
said, her mind taking one of its many inconsequent skippits--"who so
providentially came to the dearest child's assistance--could he, I
wonder, be the same really very interesting-looking young man I met in
the drive, just now, when I came here?"

And Miss Verity described him, while a pretty stain of colour illuminated
her cheek once more.

"You think quite possibly yes?--How I wish I had known that at the time.
I would certainly have stopped and expressed my gratitude to him. Such a
mercy he was at hand!--Poor dearest Damaris! I hope his good offices
have already been acknowledged. Do you know if my brother has seen and
thanked him?"

The expression of Theresa's round little face, still puffy and blotched
from her last night's weeping, held a world of reproachful remindings.

"Ah! no," the other cried conscience-stricken--"no, of course not. How
thoughtless of me to ask you. And"--another mental skippit--"and that you
should be forbidden the sick-room too, not permitted to nurse Damaris! My
poor friend, indeed I do feel for you. I so well understand that must
have caused you more pain than anything."

A remark her hearer found it not altogether easy to counter with
advantage to her own cause, so wisely let it pass in silence.

"I know--I know, you can hardly trust yourself to speak of it. I am so
grieved--so very grieved. But one must be practical. I think you are wise
to yield without further protest. I will sound my brother--just find out
if he shows any signs of relenting. Of course, you can understand, I
ought to hear his view of the matter too--not, that I question your
account, dear friend, for one instant. Meanwhile make all your
arrangements."

"The village!"--Theresa put in, with a note of despair this time
perfectly genuine.

"Ah, yes--the village. But if I take you away, in my fly I mean, that
will give you a position, a standing. It will go far to prevent
unpleasant gossip!"

Miss Verity's soul looked out of her candid eyes with a positive
effulgence of charity.

"Oh! I can enter so fully into your shrinking from all that. We will
treat your going as temporary, merely temporary--in speaking of it both
here and at Paulton Lacy. Of course, you might stay with your friends,
the good Miss Minetts; but I can't honestly counsel your doing so. I am
afraid Sir Charles might not quite like your remaining in Deadham
directly after leaving his house. It might be awkward, and give rise to
tiresome enquiries and comment. One has to consider those things.--No--I
think it would be a far better plan that you should spend a week at
Stourmouth. That would give us time to see our way more clearly. I know
of some quite nice rooms kept by a former maid of Lady Bulparc's. You
would be quite comfortable there--and, as dinner at Paulton Lacy isn't
till eight, I could quite well go into Stourmouth with you myself this
afternoon. And, my dear friend, you will, won't you, forgive my speaking
of this"--

Miss Verity--whose income, be it added, was anything but princely--gave
an engagingly apologetic little laugh.

"Pray don't worry yourself on the score of expense. The week in
Stourmouth must cost you nothing. As I recommend the rooms I naturally am
responsible--you go to them as my guest, of course.--Still I'll sound my
brother at luncheon, and just see how the land lies. But don't build too
much on any change of front. I don't expect it--not yet. Later, who knows
Meanwhile courage--do try not to fret."

And Miss Verity descended the backstairs again.

"Poor creature--now her mind will be more at rest, I do trust. I am
afraid Charles has been rather severe. I never think he does quite
understand women. But how should he after only being married for
three--or four years, was it?--Such a very limited experience!--It is a
pity he didn't marry again, while Damaris was still quite small--some
really nice woman who one knows about. But I suppose Charles has never
cared about that side of things. His public work has absorbed him. I
doubt if he has ever really been in love"--Miss Verity sighed.--"Yes,
Hordle, thanks I'll wait in the long sitting-room. Please let Sir Charles
know I am there, that I came over to enquire for Miss Damaris. He is
getting up?--Yes--I shall be here to luncheon, thanks."

But, during the course of luncheon, that afore-mentioned split in Miss
Verity's sympathies was fated to declare itself with ever growing
distinctness. The stream consecrated to Theresa's woes--Theresa herself
being no longer materially present--declined in volume and in force,
while that commanded by Felicia's affection for her brother soon rushed
down in spate. Perhaps, as she told herself, it was partly owing to the
light--which, if pensive upstairs in the white-walled schoolroom, might,
without exaggeration, be called quite dismally gloomy in the
low-ceilinged dining-room looking out on the black mass of the ilex
trees over a havoc of storm-beaten flower-beds--but Sir Charles struck
her as so worn, so aged, so singularly and pathetically sad. He was
still so evidently oppressed by anxiety concerning Damaris that, to hint
at harsh action on his part, or plead Theresa's cause with convincing
earnestness and warmth, became out of the question. Miss Verity hadn't
the heart for it.

"Be true to your profession of good Samaritan, my dear Felicia," he
begged her with a certain rueful humour, "and take the poor foolish
woman off my hands. Plant her where you like, so long as it is well out
of my neighbourhood. She has made an egregious fiasco of her position
here. As you love me, just remove her from my sight--let this land have
rest and enjoy its Sabbaths in respect of her at least. I'll give you a
cheque for her salary, something in excess of the actual amount if you
like; for, heaven forbid, you should be out of pocket yourself as a
consequence of your good offices.--Now let us, please, talk of some less
unprofitable subject."

Brightly, sweetly eager, Miss Verity hastened to obey, as she believed,
his concluding request.

"Ah! yes," she said, "that reminds me of something about which I do so
want you to enlighten me.--This young Captain Faircloth, who so
opportunely appeared on the scene and rescued darling Damaris, I believe
I met him this morning, as I walked up from the front gate. I wondered
who he was. His appearance interested me, so did his voice. It struck me
as being so quaintly like some voice I know quite well--and I stupidly
cannot remember whose."

The coffee-cups chattered upon the silver tray as Hordle handed it to
Miss Verity.

"You spoke to him then?" Sir Charles presently said.

"Oh! just in passing, you know, about the weather--which was phenomenally
bad, raining and blowing too wildly at the moment. I supposed you had
seen him. He seemed to be coming away from the house."

Charles Verity turned sideways to the table, bending down a little over
the tray as he helped him. The coffee splashed over into the saucer; yet
it was not the hand holding the coffee-pot, but those holding the tray
that shook. Whereupon Charles Verity glanced up into the manservant's
face, calmly arrogant.

"Pray be careful, Hordle," he said. And then--"Is Miss Verity right in
supposing Captain Faircloth called here this morning?"

"I beg your pardon, Sir Charles. Yes, Sir Charles, he did."

"What did he want?"

"He came to enquire after Miss Damaris, Sir Charles. I understood him to
say he was going away to sea shortly."

"Did he ask for me?"

"No, Sir Charles," rather hurriedly; and later, with visible effort to
recapture the perfection of well-trained nullity.--"He only asked after
Miss Damaris."

"When he calls again, let me know. Miss Damaris wishes to see him if she
is sufficiently well to do so."

"Very good, Sir Charles."

And during this conversation, Felicia felt keenly distressed and
perplexed. It made her miserable to think evil of anyone--particularly an
old and trusted servant. But from the moment of her arrival Hordle's
manner had seemed so very strange. Of course it was horrid even to
suspect such a thing; but was it possible that he over-indulged
sometimes, that he, in plain English, drank? Poor dear Charles--if he
knew it, what an additional worry! It really was too deplorable.--Anyway
she could alleviate his worries to a certain extent by carrying Theresa
off. She would do so at once.--Was there an evening train from
Stourmouth, which stopped at Paulton Halt? Well--if there wasn't she must
get out at Marychurch, and drive from there. She only trusted she would
be in time to dress for dinner. Harriet was such a stickler for
etiquette.

From all which it may be deduced that the confessions, made to Miss
Verity to-day, had this in common with those habitually heard by
her--that the point of the story had been rather carefully left out.




CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH DAMARIS RECEIVES INFORMATION OF THE LOST SHOES AND
STOCKINGS--ASSUMPTION OF THE GOD-HEAD


As Darcy Faircloth prophesied, the wild weather lasted throughout that
week. Then, the rain having rained itself out, the wind backed and the
skies cleared. But all to a different mode and rhythm. A cold white sun
shone out of a cold blue sky, diapered, to the north above the indigo and
umber moorland and forest, with perspectives of tenuous silken-white
cloud. Land and sky were alike washed clean, to a starkness and nakedness
calling for warm clothing out of doors, and well-stoked fires within.

At the beginning of the next week, invited by that thin glinting
sunshine--beneath which the sea still ran high, in long, hollow-backed
waves, brokenly foam-capped and swirling--Damaris came forth from her
retreat, sufficiently convalescent to take up the ordinary routine of
life again. But this, also, to a changed mode and rhythm, having its
source in causes more recondite and subtle than any matter of fair or
foul weather.

To begin with she had, in the past week, crossed a certain bridge there
is no going back over for whoso, of her sex, is handicapped or
favoured--in mid-nineteenth century the handicap rather than the favour
counted even more heavily than it does to-day, though even to-day, as
some of us know to our cost, it still counts not a little!--by possession
of rarer intelligence, more lively moral and spiritual perceptions, than
those possessed by the great average of her countrymen or countrywomen.
Damaris' crossing of that bridge--to carry on the figure--affected her
thought of, and relation to everyone and everything with which she now
came in contact. She had crossed other bridges on her eighteen years'
journey from infancy upwards; but, compared with this last, they had been
but airy fantastic structures, fashioned of hardly more substantial stuff
than dreams are made of.--Thus, anyhow, it appeared to her as she lay
resting in her pink-and-white curtained bed, watching the loose
rose-sprays tremble against the rain-spattered window-panes.--For this
last bridge was built of the living stones of fact, of deeds actually
done; and, just because it was so built, for one of her perceptions and
temperament, no recrossing of it could be possible.

So much to begin with.--To go on with, even before Dr. McCabe granted her
permission to emerge from retirement, all manner of practical matters
claimed her attention; and that not unwholesomely, as it proved in the
sequel. For with the incontinent vanishing of Theresa Bilson into space,
or,--more accurately--into the very comfortable lodgings provided for her
by Miss Verity in Stourmouth, the mantle of the ex-governess-companion's
domestic responsibilities automatically descended upon her ex-pupil. The
said vanishing was reported to Damaris by Mary, on the day subsequent to
its occurrence, not without signs of hardly repressed jubilation. For
"Egypt," in this case represented by the Deadham Hard servants' hall, was
unfeignedly "glad at her departing."

"A good riddance, I call it--and we all know the rest of that saying,"
Mrs. Cooper remarked to an audience of Hordle and Mary Fisher, reinforced
by the Napoleonic Patch and his wife--who happened to have looked in from
the stables after supper--some freedom of speech being permissible,
thanks to the under-servants' relegation to the kitchen.

"I never could see she was any class myself. But the airs and graces
she'd give herself! You'll never persuade me she wasn't sweet on the
master. That was at the back of all her dressings up, and flouncings and
fidgetings. The impidence of it!--You may well say so, Mrs. Patch. But
the conceit of some people passes understanding. To be Lady Verity, if
you please, that was what she was after. To my dying day I shall believe
it. Don't tell me!"

Mary's announcement of the event was couched in sober terms, shorn of
such fine flowers of suggestion and comment. Yet it breathed an
unmistakable satisfaction, which, to Damaris' contrition, found instant
echo in her own heart. She ought, she knew, to feel distressed at poor
Theresa's vanishing--only she didn't and couldn't. As an inherent
consequence of the afore-chronicled bridge-crossing, Theresa was more
than ever out of the picture. To listen to her chatterings, to evade her
questionings would, under existing circumstances, amount to a daily trial
from which the young girl felt thankful to escape. For Damaris
entertained a conviction the circumstances in question would call for
fortitude and resource of an order unknown, alike in their sternness and
their liberality of idea, to Theresa's narrowly High Anglican and
academic standards of thought and conduct. She therefore ascertained from
her informant that Miss Verity had been as actively instrumental in the
vanishing--had, to be explicit, taken "Miss Bilson, and all her luggage
(such a collection!) except two disgraceful old tin boxes which were to
be forwarded by the carrier, away with her in her own Marychurch
fly."--And at this Damaris left the business willingly enough, secure
that if tender-hearted Aunt Felicia was party to the removal, it would
very surely be effected with due regard to appearances and as slight
damage to "feelings" as could well be.

Later Sir Charles referred briefly to the subject, adding:

"When you require another lady-in-waiting we will choose her ourselves, I
think, rather than accept a nominee of my sister Felicia's. She is
certain to have some more or less unsuitable and incapable person on
hand, upon whom she ardently desires to confer benefits."

"But must I have another lady-in-waiting?" Damaris meaningly and
pleadingly asked.

Charles Verity drew his hand down slowly over his flowing moustache, and
smiled at her in tender amusement, as she sat up in a much lace and
ribbon befrilled jacket, her hair hanging down in a heavy plait on
either side the white column of her warmly white throat. Her face was
refined to a transparency of colouring, even as it seemed of texture,
from confinement to the house and from lassitude following upon fever,
which, while he recognized its loveliness, caused him a pretty sharp
pang. Still she looked content, as he told himself. Her glance was frank
and calm, without suggestion of lurking anxiety.

Nor was she unoccupied and brooding--witness the counterpane strewn with
books, with balls of wool, a sock in leisurely process of knitting, and,
in a hollow of it, Mustapha, the brindled cat, luxuriously sleeping
curled round against her feet.

"Heaven knows I've no special craving your lady-in-waiting should find a
speedy successor," he said. "But to do without one altogether might
appear a rather daring experiment. Your aunts would be loud in protest."

"What matters isn't the aunts, is it, but ourselves?" Damaris quite gaily
took him up.

"But wouldn't you be lonely, my dear, and would you not find it
burdensome to run the house yourself?"

"No--no," she cried. "Not one bit. Anyway let me try, Commissioner
Sahib. Let us be by ourselves together--beautifully by ourselves, for a
time at least."

"So be it then," Charles Verity said.

And perhaps, although hardly acknowledged, in the mind of each the same
consideration operated. For there remained a thing still to be done
before the new order could be reckoned as fully initiated, still more
fully established,--a thing which, as each knew, could be best done
without witnesses; a thing which both intended should very surely be
done, yet concerning which neither proposed to speak until the hour of
accomplishment actually struck.

That hour, in point of fact, struck sooner than Damaris anticipated, the
sound and sight of it reaching her without prelude or opportunity of
preparation. For early in the afternoon of the second day she spent
downstairs, as, sitting at the writing table in the long drawing-room,
she raised her eyes from contemplation of the house-keeping books spread
out before her, she saw her father walking slowly up from the sea-wall
across the lawn. And seeing him, for the moment, her mind carried back to
that miracle of interchangeable personalities so distressingly haunting
her at the beginning of her illness, when James Colthurst's charcoal
sketch of her father played cruel juggler's tricks upon her. For beside
him now walked a man so strangely resembling him in height, in bearing
and in build that, but for the difference of clothing and the bearded
face, it might be himself had the clock of his life been set back by
thirty years.

Damaris' first instinct was of flight. Just as when, out on the Bar with
her cousin, Tom Verity, now nearly a month ago, overcome by a foreboding
of far-reaching danger she had--to the subsequent bitter wounding of her
self-respect and pride--shown the white feather, ignominiously turned
tail and run away, was she tempted to run away now.

For it seemed too much. It came too close, laying rough hands not only
upon the deepest of her love and reverence for her father, but upon that
still mysterious depth of her own nature, namely her apprehension of
passion and of sex. A sacred shame, an awe as at the commission of some
covert act of impiety, overcame her as she looked at the two men walking,
side by side, across the moist vividly green carpet of turf in the chill
white sunshine, the plain of an uneasy grey sea behind them. She wanted
to hide herself, to close eyes and ears against further knowledge.
Yes--it came too close; and at the same time made her feel, as never
before, isolated and desolate--as though a great gulf yawned between her
and what she had always counted pre-eminently her own, most securely her
property because most beloved.

She had spoken valiantly on Faircloth's behalf, had generously acted as
his advocate; yet now, beholding him thus in open converse with her
father, the wings of love were scorched by the flame of jealousy--not so
much of the young man himself, as of a past which he stood for and in
which she had no part. Therefore to run--yes, run and hide from further
knowledge, further experience and revelation, to claim the privileges,
since she was called on to endure the smart, of isolation.--Yet to run,
as she almost directly began to reason, was not only cowardly but
useless. Fact remains fact, and if she refused to accept it, range
herself in line with it to-day, she in nowise negatived but merely
postponed the event. If not to-day, then to-morrow she was bound to empty
the cup. And she laughed at the specious half-truth which had appeared so
splendid and exhilarating a discovery--the half-truth that nothing is
really inevitable unless you yourself will it to be so. For this was
inevitable, sooner or later unescapable, fight against it, fly from it as
she might.

Therefore she must stay, whether she liked it or not--stay, because to do
otherwise was purposeless, because she couldn't help herself, because
there was nowhere to run to, in short--

She heard footsteps upon the flags outside the garden door, speech, calm
and restrained, of which she could not distinguish the import.
Mechanically Damaris gathered the scattered house-keeping books lying
before her upon the table--baker's, butcher's, grocer's, corn-chandler's,
coal-merchant's--into a tight little heap; and, folding her hands on the
top of them, prayed simply, almost wordlessly, for courage to hold the
balance even, to seek not her own good but the good of those two others,
to do right. Then she waited.

The door opened, closed, and, after a minute's pause, one of the two
men--Damaris did not know which, she could not bring herself to
look--coming from between the stumpy pillars walked towards her down the
half-length of the room; and bent over her, resting one hand on the back
of her chair, the other on the leather inlay of the writing-table just
beside the little pile of house-books.

The hand was young, sunburnt, well-shaped, the finger nails well kept.
Across the back of it a small-bodied, wide-winged sea-bird, in apparent
act of flight, and the letters D.V.F. were tattooed in blue and crimson.
A gold bangle, the surface of it dented in places and engraved with
Japanese characters, encircled the fine lean wrist. These Damaris saw,
and they worked upon her strangely, awakening an emotion of almost
painful tenderness, as at sight of decorations pathetically fond,
playfully child-like and ingenuous. While, as he bent over her, she also
became aware of a freshness, a salt sweetness as of the ocean and the
great vacant spaces where all the winds of the world blow keen and free.

"Sir Charles wrote to me," Faircloth said a little huskily. "He told me I
might come and see you again and talk to you, and bid you good-bye before
I go to sea. And I should have been here sooner, but that I was away at
Southampton Docks, and the letter only reached me this morning. I
telegraphed and started on at once. And he--Sir Charles--walked out over
the warren to meet me, and brought me up here right to the door. And on
the way we talked a little,--if he chose he could make the very stones
speak, I think--and he said one or two things for which--I--well--I thank
first Almighty God, and next to God, you--Damaris"--

This last imperatively.

"You did ask for me? You did wish to have me come to you?"

"Yes, I did wish it," she answered. "But I never knew how much until now,
when he has brought you. For that is the right, the beautiful, safe way
of having you come to me and to this house."

Yet, as she spoke, she lightly laid her hand over the tattooed image of
the flying sea-bird, concealing it, for it moved her to the point of
active suffering in its quaint prettiness fixed thus indelibly up in the
warm live flesh.

At the touch of her hand Faircloth drew in his breath sharply, seeming to
wince. Then, at last, Damaris looked up at him, her eyes full of
questioning and startled concern.

"I didn't hurt you?" she asked, a vague idea of suffering, attached to
that fanciful stigmata, troubling her.

"Hurt me--good Lord, how could you, of all people, hurt me?" he gently
laughed at her. "Unless you turned me down, gave me to understand that,
on second thoughts, you didn't find me up to your requirements or some
mean class devilry of that kind--of which, by the way, had I judged you
capable, you may be sure I should have been uncommonly careful never to
come near you again.--No, it isn't that you hurt me; but that you delight
me a little overmuch, so that it isn't easy to keep quite level-headed.
There's so much to hear and to tell, and such scanty time to hear or tell
it in, worse luck."

"You are obliged to go so soon?"

The flames of jealousy had effectually, it may be noted, died down
in Damaris.

"Yes--we're taking on cargo for all we're worth. We are booked to sail
by noon the day after to-morrow. I stretched a point in leaving at all,
which won't put me in the best odour with my officers and crew,
or--supposing they come to hear of it--with my owners either. I am
giving my plain duty the slip; but, in this singular ease, it seemed to
me, a greater duty stood back of and outweighed the plain obvious
one--since it mounted to a reconstruction, a peace-making, ridding the
souls of four persons of an ugly burden. I wanted the affair all
settled up and straightened out before this, my maiden voyage, in
command of a ship of my own. For me it is a great event, a great step
forward. And, perhaps I'm over-superstitious--most men of my trade are
supposed to be touched that way--but I admit I rather cling to the
notion of this private peace-making, this straightening out of an
ancient crookedness, as a thing of good augury, a favourable omen. As
such--let alone other reasons"--and he looked down at Damaris with a
fine and delicate admiration--"I desired it and, out of my heart, I
prize it.--Do you see?"

"Yes--indeed a thing of good augury"--she affirmed.

Yet in speaking her lips shook. For, in truth, poor child, she was
hard-pressed. This intimate intercourse, alike in its simple directness
and its novelty, began to wear on her to the point of physical distress.
She felt tremulous and faint. Not that Faircloth jarred upon or was
distasteful to her. Far from that. His youth and health, the unspoiled
vigour and force of him, captivated her imagination. Even the dash of
roughness, the lapses from conventional forms of speech and manner she
now and again observed in him, caught her fancy, heightening his
attraction for her. Nor was she any longer tormented by a sense of
isolation. For, as she recognized, he stole nothing away which heretofore
belonged to her. Rather did he add his own by no means inconsiderable
self to the sum of her possessions.--And in that last fact she probably
touched the real crux, the real strain, of the present, to her
disintegrating, situation. For in him, and in his relation to her, a
wonderful and very precious gift was bestowed upon her, namely another
human life to love and live for.--Bestowed on her, moreover, without
asking or choice of her own, arbitrarily, through the claim of his and
her common ancestry and the profound moral and spiritual obligations, the
mysterious affinities, which a common ancestry creates.

Had she possessed this gift from childhood, had it taken its natural
place in her experience through the linked and orderly progress of the
years, it would have been wholly welcome, wholly profitable and sweet.
But it was sprung upon her from the outside, quite astoundingly
ready-made. It bore down on her, and at a double, foot, horse, and siege
guns complete. Small discredit to her if she staggered under its onset,
trembled and turned faint! For as she now perceived, it was exactly this
relation of brother and sister of which she had some prescience, some dim
intuition, from her first sight of Faircloth as he stood among the
skeleton lobster-pots on board Timothy Proud's old boat. It was this call
of a common blood which begot in her unreasoning panic, which she had run
from and so wildly tried to escape. And yet it remained a gift of great
price, a crown of gold; but oh! so very heavy--just at this moment
anyhow--for her poor proud young head.

Lifting her hand off Faircloth's, she made a motion to rise. Change of
attitude and place might bring her relief, serve to steady her nerves and
restore her endangered composure! Brooding over the whole singular matter
in the peace and security of her room upstairs, her course had appeared a
comparatively easy one, granted reasonable courage and address. But the
young man's bodily presence, as now close beside her, exercised an
emotional influence quite unforeseen and unreckoned with. Under it her
will wavered. She ceased to see her way clearly, to be sure of herself.
She grew timid, bewildered, unready both of purpose and of speech.

Faircloth, meanwhile, being closely observant of her, was quick to
detect her agitation. He drew aside her chair, and backed away, leaving
her free to pass.

"I am afraid we have talked too long," he said. "You're tired. I ought to
have been more careful of you, remembered how ill you have been--and that
partly through my doing too. So now, I had better bid you good-bye, I
think, and leave you to rest."

But Damaris, contriving to smile tremulous lips notwithstanding, shook
her head. For, in lifting her hand from his, she caught sight of the
tattooed blue-and-crimson sea-bird and the initials below it. And again
her heart contracted with a spasm of tenderness; while those three
letters, more fully arresting her attention, aroused in her a fascinated,
half-shrinking curiosity. What did they mean? What could they stand for?
She longed intensely to know--sure they were in some sort a symbol, a
token, not without special significance for herself. But shyness and a
quaint disposition, dating from her childhood, to pause and hover on the
threshold of discovery, thus prolonging a period of entrancing,
distracting suspense, withheld her. She dared not ask--in any case dared
not ask just yet; and therefore took up his words in their literal
application.

"Indeed, you haven't talked too long," she assured him, as she went over
to the tiger skin before the fire-place, and standing there looked down
into the core of the burning logs. "We have only just begun to talk, so
it isn't that which has tried me. But--if you won't misunderstand--pray
don't--the thought of--of you, and of all that which lies between us, is
still very new to me. I haven't quite found you, or myself in my relation
to you, yet. Give me time, and indeed, I won't disappoint you."

Faircloth, who had followed her, put his elbows on the mantelshelf, and
sinking his head somewhat between his shoulders, stared down at the
burning logs too.

"Ah! when you take that tone, I'm a little scared lest I should turn out
to be the disappointment, the failure, in this high adventure of ours,"
he said under his breath.

"So stay, please," the young girl went on, touched by, yet ignoring, his
interjected comment. "Let me get as accustomed as I can now, so that I
may feel settled. That is the way to prevent my being tired--the way to
rest me, because it will help to get all my thinkings about you into
place.--Yes, please stay.--That is," she added with a pretty touch of
ceremony--"if you have time, and don't yourself wish to go."

"I wish it! What, in heaven's name, could well be further from any wish
of mine?" Faircloth broke out almost roughly, without raising his eyes.
"Do you suppose when a man's gone thirsty many days, he is in haste to
forego the first draught of pure water offered to him--and that after
just putting his lips to the dear comfort of it?"

"Ah! you care too much," Damaris cried, smitten by swift shrinking
and dread.

Faircloth lifted his head and looked at her, his face keen, brilliant
with a far from ignoble emotion.

"It is not, and never will be possible--so I fancy"--he said, "to care
too much about you."

And he fell into contemplation of the glowing logs again.

But Damaris, seeing his transfigured countenance, hearing his rejoinder,
penetrated, moreover, by the conviction of his entire sincerity, felt the
weight of a certain golden crown more than ever heavy upon her devoted
young head. She stepped aside, groping with outstretched hands behind her
until she found and held on to the arm of the big sofa stationed at
right angles to the hearth. And she waited, morally taking breath, to
slip presently on to the wide low seat of it and lean thankfully against
its solidly cushioned back for support.

"Neither for you, or for my ship"--Faircloth went on, speaking, as it
seemed, more to himself than to his now pale companion. "I dare couple
you and her together, though she is no longer in the dew of her youth.
Oh! I can't defend her looks, poor dear. She has seen service. Is only a
battered, travel-weary old couple-of-thousand-ton cargo boat, which has
hugged and nuzzled the foul-smelling quays of half the seaports of
southern Europe and Asia. All the same--next to you--she's the best and
finest thing life, up to now, has brought me, and I love her.--My
affection for her, though," he went on, "is safe to be transitory. She is
safe to have rivals and successors in plenty--unless, of course, by some
ugly turn of luck, she and I go to the bottom in company."

Faircloth broke off. A little sound, a little gesture of protest and
distress, making him straighten himself up and turn quickly, his eyes
alight with enquiry and laughter.

"May I take that to mean I'm not quite alone in my caring," he asked;
"but that you, Damaris, care, perhaps, just a trifling amount too?"

He went across to the sofa, sat down sideways, laying his right arm along
the back of it, and placing his left hand--inscribed with the fanciful
device--over the girl's two hands clasped in her lap. The strong, lean
fingers exercised a quiet, steady pressure, for a minute. After which he
leaned back, no longer attempting to touch her, studiously indeed keeping
his distance, while he said:

"The other affection is stable for ever--safe from all rivals or
successors. That is another reason why I jumped at the chance Sir
Charles's letter gave me of coming here to-day, and seeing you, with this
room--as I hoped--in which so much of your time must be spent, for
background. I wanted to stamp a picture of you upon my memory, burn it
right into the very tissue of my brain, so that I shall always have it
with me, wherever I go, and however rarely we meet.--Because, as I see
it, we shall rarely meet. We ought to be clear on that point--leave no
frayed edges. There is a bar between us, which for the sake of others, as
well as for your sake, it is only right and decent I should respect, a
wall of partition through which I shouldn't attempt to break."

"I know--but it troubles me," Damaris murmured. "It is sad."

"Yes, of course, it is sad. But it's just the penalty that is bound to be
paid, and which it is useless to ignore or lie to ourselves about.--So I
shall never come, unless he--Sir Charles--sends for me as he did to-day,
or unless you send. Only remember your picture will never leave me. I
have it safe and sound"--Faircloth smiled at her.--"It will be with me
just as actually and ineffaceably as this is with me."

He patted the back of his left hand.

"Nothing, short of death, can rub either out. I have pretty thoroughly
banked against that, you see. So you've only to send when, and if, you
want me. I shall turn up--oh! never fear, I shall turn up."

"And I shall send--we shall both send," Damaris answered gravely, even a
little brokenly.

The crown might be heavy; but she had strangely ceased to desire to be
rid of it, beginning, indeed, to find its weight oddly satisfying, even,
it may be asserted, trenching on the exquisite. And, with this altered
attitude, a freedom of spirit, greater than she had enjoyed since the
commencement of the whole astonishing episode, since before her cousin
Tom Verity's visit in fact, came upon her. It lightened her heart. It
dispelled her fatigue--which throughout the afternoon had been, probably,
more of the moral than bodily sort. Her soul no longer beat its wings
against iron bars, fluttered in the meshes of a net; but looked forth shy
yet serene, accepting the position in which it found itself. For
Faircloth inspired her with deepening faith. He needed no guiding, as she
told herself; but was strong enough, as his words convincingly testified,
clear-sighted and quick-witted enough, to play his part in the
complicated drama without prompting. Hadn't he done just what she
asked?--Stayed until, by operation of some quality in himself or--could
it be?--simply through the mysterious draw of his and her brother and
sisterhood, she had already grown accustomed, settled in her thought of
him, untormented by the closeness of his presence and unabashed.

And having reached this vantage-point, discovering the weight of the
crown dear now rather than irksome, Damaris permitted herself a closer
observation of her companion than ever before. Impressions of his
appearance she had received in plenty--but received them in flashes,
confusing from their very vividness. Confusing, also, because each one of
them was doubled by a haunting consciousness of his likeness to her
father. The traits common to both men, rather than those individually
characteristic of the younger, had been in evidence. And, in her present
happier mood, Damaris also desired a picture to set in the storehouse of
memory. But it must represent this brother of hers in and by himself,
divorced, as far as might be, from that pursuing, and, to her, singularly
agitating likeness.

Her design and her scrutiny were easier of prosecution that, during the
last few minutes, Faircloth had retired into silence, and an attitude of
abstraction. Sitting rather forward upon the sofa, his legs crossed,
nursing one blue serge trousered knee with locked hands, his glance
travelled thoughtfully over the quiet, low-toned room and its varied
contents. Later, sought the window opposite, and ranged across the garden
and terrace walk, with its incident of small ancient cannon, to the long
ridge of the Bar--rising, bleached, wind-swept, and notably deserted
under the colourless sunshine, beyond the dark waters of the tide river
which raced tumultuously seaward in flood.

Seen thus in repose--and repose is a terrible tell-tale,--the lines of
the young man's face and figure remained firm, gracefully angular and
definite. No hint of slackness or sloppiness marred their effect. The
same might be said of his clothes, which though of ordinary regulation
colour and cut--plus neat black tie and stiff-fronted white shirt,
collar, and wristbands--possessed style, and that farthest from the cheap
or flashy. Only the gold bangle challenged Damaris' taste as touching on
florid; but its existence she condoned in face of its wearer's hazardous
and inherently romantic calling. For the sailor may, surely, be here and
there permitted a turn and a flourish, justly denied to the safe
entrenched landsman.

If outward aspects were thus calculated to engage her approval and
agreeably fill in her projected picture, that which glimmered through
them--divined by her rather than stated, all being necessarily more an
affair of intuition than of knowledge--gave her pleasure of richer
quality. High-tempered she unquestionably read him, arrogant and on
occasion not inconceivably remorseless; but neither mean nor ungenerous,
his energy unwasted, his mind untainted by self-indulgence. If he were
capable of cruelty to others, he was at least equally capable of turning
the knife on himself, cutting off or plucking out an offending member.
This appealed to the heroic in her. While over her vision, as she thus
considered him, hung the glamour of youth which, to youth, displays such
royal enchantments--untrodden fields of hope and promise inviting the
tread of eager feet, the rush of glorious goings forward towards
conquests, towards wonders, well assured, yet to be. The personality of
this man clearly admitted no denial, as little bragged as it apologized,
since his candour matched his force of will.

Taking stock of him thus, from the corner of the sofa, imagination,
intelligence, affections alike actively in play, Damaris' colour rose,
her pulse quickened, and her great eyes grew wide, finely and softly gay.

Faircloth moved. Turned his head. Met her eyes, and looking into them his
face blanched perceptibly under its _couche_ of sunburn.

"Damaris," he said, "Damaris, what has happened?--Stop though, you
needn't tell me. I know. We've found one another--haven't we?--Found one
another more in the silence than in the talking.--Queer, things should
work that way! But it puts a seal on fact. For they couldn't so work
unless the same stuff, the same inclination, were embedded right in the
very innermost substance of both of us. You look rested. You look
glad--bless you.--Isn't that so?"

"Yes," she simply told him.

Faircloth set his elbows on his knees, his chin on his two hands, wrist
against wrist, and his glance ranged out over the garden again, to the
pale strip of the Bar spread between river and sea.

"Then I can go," he said, "but not because I've tired you."

"I shall never be tired any more from--from being with you."

"I don't fancy you will. All the same I must go, because my time's up. My
train leaves Marychurch at six, and I have to call at the Inn, to bid my
mother good-bye, on my way to the station."

Was the perfect harmony, the perfect adjustment of spirit to spirit a wee
bit jarred, did a mist come up over the heavenly bright sky, Faircloth
asked himself? And answered doggedly that, if it were so, he could not
help it. For since, by all ruling of loyalty and dignity, the wall of
partition was ordained to stand, wasn't it safer to remind both himself
and Damaris, at times, of its presence? He must keep his feet on the
floor, good God--keep them very squarely on the floor--for otherwise,
wasn't it possible to conceive of their skirting the edge of unnamable
abysses? In furtherance of that so necessary soberness of outlook he now
went on speaking.

"But before I go, I want to hark back to a matter of quite ancient
history--your lost shoes and stockings--for thereby hangs a tale."

And he proceeded to tell her how, about a week ago, being caught by a
wild flurry of rain in an outlying part of the island, behind the black
cottages and Inn, he took shelter in a disused ruinous boat-house opening
on the great reed-beds which here rim the shore. A melancholy, forsaken
place, from which, at low tide, you can walk across the mud-flats to
Lampit, with a pleasing chance of being sucked under by quicksands. Abram
Sclanders' unhappy half-witted son haunted this boat-house, it seemed,
storing his shrimping nets there, any other things as well, a venerable
magpie's hoard of scraps and lumber; using it as a run-hole, too, when
the other lads hunted and tormented him according to their healthy,
brutal youthful way.

--A regular joss-house, he'd made of it. And set up in one corner, white
and ghostly--making you stare a minute when you first came inside--a
ship's figure-head, a three-foot odd Britannia, pudding-basin bosomed and
eagle-featured, with castellated headgear, clasping a trident in her
hand. She, as presiding deity and--

"In front of her," Faircloth said, his chin still in his hands and eyes
gazing away to the Bar--"earth and pebbles banked up into a flat-topped
mound, upon which stood your shoes filled with sprays of hedge fruit and
yellow button-chrysanthemums--stolen too, I suppose, from one of the
gardens at Lampit. They grow freely there. Your silk stockings hung round
her neck, a posy of flowers twisted into them.--When I came on this
exhibition, I can't quite tell you how I felt. It raised Cain in me to
think of that degraded, misbegotten creature pawing over and playing
about with anything which had belonged to you. I was for making
Sclanders, his father, bring him over and give him the thrashing of his
life, right there before the proofs of his sins."

"But you didn't," Damaris cried. "You didn't. What do my shoes and
stockings matter? I oughtn't to have left them on the shore. It was
putting temptation in his way."

Faircloth looked at her smiling.

"No I didn't, and for two reasons. One that I knew--even then--you would
find excuses, plead for mercy, as you have just now. Another, those
flowers. If I had found--well--what I might have found, oh! he should
have had the stick or the dog-whip without stint. But one doesn't
practise devil-worship with flowers. It seemed to me some craving after
beauty was there, as if the poor germ of a soul groped out of the
darkness towards what is fair and sweet. I dared not hound it back into
the darkness, close down any dim aspiration after God it might have. So I
left its pitiful joss-house inviolate, the moan of the wind and sighing
of the great reed-beds making music for such strange rites of worship as
have been, or may be, practised within. Any god is better than
none--that's my creed, at least. And to defile any man's god--however
trumpery--unless you're amazingly sure you've a better one to offer him
in place of it is to sin against the Holy Ghost."

Faircloth rose to his feet.

"Time's up"--he said. "I must go. Here is farewell to the most beautiful
day of my life.--But see, Damaris"--

And he knelt down, in front of her.

"Leave your shoes and stockings cast away on the Bar and thereby open the
door--for some people--on to the kingdom of heaven, if you like. But
don't, don't, if you've the smallest mercy for my peace of mind ever
wander about there again alone. I've a superstition against it. Something
unhappy will come of it. It isn't right. It isn't safe. When--when I
called you and you answered me through the mist, I had a horrible fear I
was too late. You see I care--and the caring, after to-day, very
certainly will not grow less. Take somebody, one of your women, always,
with you. Promise me never to be out by yourself."

Wondering, inexpressibly touched, Damaris put her hands on his shoulders.
His hands sprang to cover them.

"Of course, I promise," she said.

And, closing her eyes, put up her lips to be kissed.

Then the rattle of the glass door on to the garden as it shut. In the
room a listening stillness, a great all-invading emptiness. Finally
Hordle, with the tea-tray, and--

"Mrs. Cooper, if it isn't troubling you, Miss, would be glad to have the
house-books to pay, as she's walking up the village after tea."




CHAPTER XII

CONCERNING A SERMON WHICH NEVER WAS PREACHED AND OTHER MATTERS OF
LOCAL INTEREST


Before passing on to more dignified matters, that period of nine days
demands to be noted during which the inhabitants of Deadham, all very
much agog, celebrated the wonder of Miss Bilson's indisputable
disappearance and Damaris Verity's reported adventure.

Concerning the former, Dr. Horniblow, good man, took himself seriously to
task, deploring his past action and debating his present duty.

"It is no use, Jane," he lamented to his wife. The two had retired for
the night, darkness and the bedclothes covering them. "I am very much
worried about my share in the matter."

"But, my dear James, you really are overscrupulous. What share had you?"

The clerical wife does not always see eye to eye with her spouse in
respect of his female parishioners, more particularly, perhaps, the
unmarried ones. Mrs. Horniblow loved, honoured, and--within reasonable
limits--obeyed her James; but this neither prevented her being shrewd,
nor knowing her James, after all, to be human. Remembrance of Theresa,
heading the Deadham procession during the inspection of Harchester
Cathedral, sandwiched in between him and the Dean, still rankled in her
wifely bosom.

"I overpersuaded Miss Bilson to accompany us on the choir treat. I forgot
she must not be regarded as an entirely free agent. She has shown
interest in parish work and really proved very useful and obliging. Her
acquaintance with architecture--the technical terms, too--is unusually
accurate for a member of your sex."

"Her business is teaching," said the lady.

"And I can't but fear I have been instrumental in her loss of an
excellent position."

"If her learning is as remarkable as you consider it, she will doubtless
soon secure another."

"Ah! you're prejudiced, my love. One cannot but be struck, at times, by
the harshness with which even women of high principle, like yourself,
judge other women."

"Possibly the highness of my principles may be accountable for my
judgments--in some cases."

"Argument is very unrestful," the vicar remarked, turning over on his
side.

"But there would be an end of conversation if I always agreed with you."

"Tut--tut," he murmured. Then with renewed plaintiveness--"I cannot make
up my mind whether it is not my duty, my chivalrous duty, to seek an
interview with Sir Charles Verity and explain--put the aspects of the
case to him as I see them."

"Call on him by all means. I'll go with you. We ought, in common
civility, to enquire for Damaris after this illness of hers. But don't
explain or attempt to enlarge on the case from your own point of view.
Sir Charles will consider it an impertinence. It won't advantage Miss
Bilson and will embroil you with the most important of your parishioners.
The wisdom of the serpent is permitted, on occasion even recommended."

"A most dangerous doctrine, Jane, most dangerous, save under authority."

"What authority can be superior to that under which the recommendation
was originally given?"

"My love, you become slightly profane.--I implore you don't argue--and at
this hour! When a woman touches on exegesis, on theology "--

"All I know upon those subjects you, dear, have taught me."

"Ah! well--ah! well"--the good man returned, at once mollified and
suspicious. For might not the compliment be regarded as something of a
back-hander? "We can defer our decision till to-morrow. Perhaps we had
better, as you propose, call together. I need not go straight to the
point, but watch my opportunity and slip in a word edgeways."

He audibly yawned--the hint, like the yawn, a broad one. The lady did
not take it, however. So far she had held her own; more--had nicely
secured her ends. But further communications trembled upon her tongue.
The word is just--literally trembled, for they might cause anger, and
James' anger--it happened rarely--she held in quite, to herself,
uncomfortable respect.

"I fear there is a good deal of objectionable gossip going about the
village just now," she tentatively commenced.

"Then pray don't repeat it to me, my love"--another yawn and an irritable
one. "Gossip as you know is abhorrent to me."

"And to me--but one needs to be forearmed with the truth if one is to
rebut it conclusively. Only upon such grounds should I think of
mentioning this to you."

She made a dash.

"James, have you by chance ever heard peculiar rumours about young Darcy
Faircloth's parentage?"

"In mercy, Jane--what a question!--and from you! I am
inexpressibly shocked."

"So was I, when--I won't mention names--when such rumours were hinted to
me. I assured the person with whom I was talking that I had never heard a
word on the subject. But she said, 'One can't help having eyes.'"

"Or, some of you, noses for carrion."

Here he gave her the advantage. She was not slow to make play with it.

"Now it is my turn to be shocked," she said--"and not, I think, James,
without good cause."

"Yes, I apologize," the excellent man answered immediately. "I apologize;
but to have so foul a suggestion of parochial scandal let loose on me
suddenly, flung in my teeth, as I may say--and by you! I was taken off
my guard and expressed myself coarsely. Yes, Jane, I apologize."

"Then I have you authority for contradicting these rumours?"

The Vicar of Deadham groaned in the darkness, and rustled under the
bedclothes. His perplexity was great on being thus confronted by the
time-honoured question as to how far, in the interests of public
morality, it is justifiable for the private individual roundly to lie.
Finally he banked on compromise, that permanently presiding genius of the
Church of England 'as by law established.'

"You have me on the hip, my love," he told his wife quite meekly.

But, as she began rather eagerly to speak, he stopped her.

"Let be, my dear Jane," he bade her, "let be. I neither deny or confirm
the rumours to which I imagine you allude. Silence is most becoming for
us both. Continue to assure any persons, ill-advised and evil-minded
enough to approach you--I trust they may prove but few--that you have
never heard a word of this subject. You will never--I can confidently
promise you--hear one from me.--I shall make it my duty to preach on the
iniquity of back-biting, tale-bearing, scandal-mongering next Sunday,
and put some to the blush, as I trust. St. Paul will furnish me with
more than one text eminently apposite.--Let me think--let me
see--hum--ah! yes."

And he fell to quoting from the Pauline epistles in Greek--to the lively
annoyance of his auditor, whose education, though solid did not include a
knowledge of those languages vulgarly known as "dead." She naturally
sought means to round on him.

"Might you not compromise yourself rather by such a sermon, James?" she
presently said.

"Compromise myself? Certainly not.--Pray, Jane, how?"

"By laying yourself open to the suspicion of a larger acquaintance with
the origin of those rumours than you are willing to admit."

The shaft went home.

"This is a mere attempt to draw me. You are disingenuous."

"Nothing of the sort," the lady declared. "My one object is to protect
you from criticism. And preaching upon gossip must invite rather than
allay interest, thus giving this particular gossip a new lease of
life. The application would be too obvious. Clearly, James, it would
be wiser to wait."

"The serpent, again the serpent--and one I've warmed in my bosom,
too"--Then aloud--"I will think it over, my love. Possibly your view
may be the right one. It is worth consideration.--That must be
sufficient. And now, Jane, I do implore you give over discussion and
let us say good night."

It may be registered as among the consequences of these nocturnal
exercises, that Dr. Horniblow abstained from tickling the ears of his
congregation, on the following Sunday, with a homily founded upon the sin
tale-bearing; and that he duly called, next day, at The Hard accompanied
by his wife.

The visit--not inconceivably to his inward thanksgiving--proved
unfruitful of opportunity for excusing Miss Bilson, to her former
employer, by accusing himself, Sir Charles Verity's courtesy being of an
order calculated to discourage any approach to personal topics.
Unfruitful, also, of enlightenment to Mrs. Horniblow respecting matters
which--as the good lady ashamedly confessed to herself--although
forbidden by her lord, still intrigued her while, of course, they most
suitably shocked. For the life of her she could not help looking out for
signs of disturbance and upheaval. But found none, unless--and that
presented a conundrum difficult of solution--Damaris' pretty social
readiness and grace in the reception of her guests might be, in some way,
referable to lately reported events. That, and the fact the young girl
was--as the saying is--"all eyes"--eyes calm, fathomless, reflective,
which yet, when you happened to enter their sphere of vision, covered
you with a new-born gentleness. Mrs. Horniblow caught herself growing
lyrical--thinking of stars, of twin mountain lakes, the blue-purple of
ocean. A girl in love is blessed with just such eyes--sometimes.
Whereupon, remembering her own two girls, May and Doris--good as gold,
bless them, yet, her shrewdness pronounced, when compared with Damaris,
but homely pieces--the excellent woman sighed.

What did it all then amount to? Mrs. Horniblow's logic failed. "All
eyes"--and very lovely ones at that--Damaris might be; yet her
tranquillity and serenity appeared beyond question. Must thrilling
mystery be voted no more than a mare's-nest?--Only, did not the fact
remain that James had refused to commit himself either way, thereby
naturally landing himself in affirmation up to the neck? She gave it up.

But, even in the giving up, could not resist probing just a little. The
two gentlemen were out of earshot, standing near the glass door.--How
James' black, bow-windowed figure and the fixed red in his clean-shaven,
slightly pendulous cheeks, did show up to be sure, in the
light!--Unprofitable gift of observation, for possession of which she so
frequently had cause to reproach herself.--

"You still look a little run down and pale, my dear," she said. "It isn't
for me to advise, but wouldn't a change of air and scene be good, don't
you think?"

Damaris assured her not--in any case not yet. Later, after Christmas, she
and her father might very likely go abroad. But till then they had a full
programme of guests.

"Colonel Carteret comes to us next week; and my aunt Felicia always likes
to be here in November. She enjoys that month at the seaside, finding it,
she says, so poetic."

Damaris smiled, her eyes at once, and more than ever, eloquent and
unfathomable.

"And I learned only this morning an old Anglo-Indian friend of ours, Mrs.
Mackinder, whom I should be quite dreadfully sorry to miss, is spending
the autumn at Stourmouth."

Mrs. Horniblow permitted herself a dash.

"At Stourmouth--yes?" she ventured. "That reminds me. I hear--how far the
information is correct I cannot pretend to say--that kind little person,
Miss Bilson, has been there with Miss Verity this last week. I observed
we had not met her in the village just lately. I hope you have good news
of her. When is she expected back?"

Without hesitation or agitation came the counter-stroke.

"I don't know," Damaris answered. "Her plans, I believe, are uncertain at
present. You and Dr. Horniblow will stay to tea with us, won't
you?"--this charmingly. "It will be here in a very few minutes--I can
ring for it at once."

And the lady laughed to herself, good-temperedly accepting the rebuff.
For it was neatly delivered, and she could admire clever fencing even
though she herself were pinked.--As to tea, she protested positive shame
at prolonging her visit--for didn't it already amount rather to a
"visitation?"--yet retained her seat with every appearance of
satisfaction.--If the truth must be told, Mrs. Cooper's cakes were
renowned throughout society at Deadham, as of the richest, the most
melting in the mouth; and James--hence not improbably the tendency to
abdominal protuberance--possessed an inordinate fondness for cakes. He
had shown himself so docile in respect of projected inflammatory sermons,
and of morning calls personally conducted by his wife, that the latter
could not find it in her heart to ravish him away from these approaching
very toothsome delights. Nay--let him stay and eat--for was not such
staying good policy, she further reflected, advertising the fact she bore
no shadow of malice towards her youthful hostess for that neatly
delivered rebuff.

After this sort, therefore, was gossip, for the time being at all events,
scotched if not actually killed. Parochial excitement flagged the sooner,
no doubt, because, of the four persons chiefly responsible for its
creation, two were invisible and the remaining two apparently quite
unconscious of its ever having existed.--Mrs. Lesbia Faircloth, at the
Inn, the Vicar's wife left out of the count.--If Sir Charles Verity and
Damaris had hurried away, gossip would have run after them with liveliest
yelpings. But this practise of masterly inactivity routed criticism. How
far was it studied, cynical on the part of the father, or innocent upon
that of the daughter, she could not tell one bit; but that practically it
carried success along with it, she saw to be indubitable. "Face the music
and the band stops playing"--so she put it to herself, as she walked down
the drive to the front gate, her James--was he just a trifle crestfallen,
good man?--strolling, umbrella in hand, beside her.

All subsequent outbreaks of gossip may be described as merely sporadic.
They did not spread. As when, for instance, peppery little Dr.
Cripps--still smarting under Dr. McCabe's introduction into preserves he
had reckoned exclusively his own--advised himself to throw off a nasty
word or so on the subject to Commander Battye and Captain Taylor, over
strong waters and cigars in his surgery--tea, the ladies, and the
card-table left to their own devices in the drawing-room meanwhile--one
evening after a rubber of whist.

"Damn bad taste, I call it, in a newcomer like Cripps," the sailor had
remarked later to the soldier. "But if a man isn't a gentleman what can
you expect?"--And with that, as among local persons of quality, the
matter finally dropped.

Mrs. Doubleday and Butcher Cleave, to give an example from a lower social
level, agreed, across the former's counter in the village shop, that--

"It is the duty of every true Christian to let bygones be bygones--and a
downright flying in the face of Providence, as you may say, to do
otherwise, when good customers, whose money you're sure of, are so
scarce. For without The Hard and--to give everyone their due--without the
Island also, where would trade have been in Deadham these ten years and
more past? Mum's the word, take it from me,"--and each did take it from
the other, with rich conviction of successfully making the best of both
worlds, securing eternal treasure in Heaven while cornering excellent
profits on earth.

William Jennifer had many comments to make in the matter, and with
praiseworthy reticence concluded to make them mainly to himself. The
majority of them, it is to be feared, were humorous to the point of being
unsuited to print, but the refrain may pass--

"And to think if I hadn't happened to choose that particular day to take
the little dorgs and the ferrets ratting, the 'ole bleesed howd'ye do
might never have come to pass! Tidy sum, young master Darcy's in my debt,
Lord succour him, for the rest of his nat'ral life!"




BOOK III

THE WORLD BEYOND THE FOREST




CHAPTER I

AN EPISODE IN THE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE OF THE MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES


Thus far, for the surer basing of our argument, it has appeared advisable
to proceed step by step. But the foundations being now well and truly
laid, the pace of our narrative may, with advantage, quicken; a twelve
month be rounded up in a page, a decade, should convenience so dictate,
in a chapter.

To the furthering of which advance, let it be stated that the close of
the year still in question marked the date, for Damaris, of two matters
of cardinal importance. For it was then Sir Charles Verity commenced
writing his history of the reign of Shere Ali, covering the eleven years
following the latter's accession to the very turbulent throne of
Afghanistan in 1863.--Colonel Carteret may be held mainly responsible for
the inception of this literary enterprise, now generally acclaimed a
classic. Had not Sir William Napier, so he argued, made the soldier, as
historian, for ever famous? And why should not Charles Verity, with his
unique knowledge of court intrigues, of the people and the country, do
for the campaigns of the semi-barbarous Eastern ruler, that which Sir
William had done for Wellington's campaign in the Spanish Peninsular?

Carteret prophesied--and truly as the event richly proved--a finely
fascinating book would eventually come of it. Meanwhile--though this
argument, in favour of the scheme, he kept to himself--the preparation of
the said book would supply occupation and interest of which his old
friend appeared to him to stand rather gravely in need. For that
something was, just now, amiss with Charles Verity, Carteret could not
disguise from himself. He was changed, in a way a little broken--so at
least the younger man's kindly, keenly observant, blue eyes regretfully
judged him. He fell into long silences, seeming to sink away into some
abyss of cheerless thought; while his speech had, too often, a bitter
edge to it. Carteret mourned these indications of an unhappy frame of
mind. Did more--sought by all means in his power to conjure them away.

"We must make your father fight his battles over again, dear witch," he
told Damaris, pacing the terrace walk topping the sea-wall beside her,
one evening in the early November dusk. "His record is a very brilliant
one and he ought to get more comfort out of the remembrance of it. Let's
conspire, you and I, to make him sun himself in the achievements and
activities of those earlier years. What do you say?"

"Oh! do it, do it," she answered fervently. "He is sad--and I am so
afraid that it is partly my fault."

"Your fault? Why what wicked practises have you been up to since I was
here last?" he asked, teasing her.

A question evoking, in Damaris, sharp inward debate. For her father's
melancholy humour weighed on her, causing her perplexity and a measure of
self-reproach. She would have given immensely much to unburden herself to
this wise and faithful counsellor; and confide to him the--to
her--strangely moving fact of Darcy Faircloth's existence. Yet,
notwithstanding her conviction of Colonel Carteret's absolute loyalty,
she hesitated; restrained in part by modesty, in part by the fear of
being treacherous. Would it be altogether honourable to give away the
secret places of Charles Verity's life--of any man's life if it came to
that--even to so honourable and trusted a friend? She felt handicapped by
her own ignorance moreover, having neither standards nor precedents for
guidance. She had no idea--how should she?--in what way most men regard
such affairs, how far they accept and condone, how far condemn them. She
could not tell whether she was dealing with a case original and
extraordinary, or one of pretty frequent occurrence in the experience of
those who, as the phrase has it, know their world. These considerations
kept her timid and tongue-tied; though old habit, combined with
Carteret's delightful personality and the soothing influence of the dusky
evening quiet, inclined her to confidences.

"It's not anything I've done," she presently took him up gravely. "But,
quite by chance, I learned something which I think the Commissioner Sahib
would rather not have had me hear. I had to be quite truthful with him
about it; but I was bewildered and ill. I blurted things out rather I'm
afraid, and hurt him more than I need have done. I was so taken by
surprise, you see."

"Yes, I see," Carteret said, regardless of strict veracity. For he didn't
see, though he believed himself on the road to seeing and that some
matter of singular moment.

"He was beautiful to me--beautiful about everything--everybody," she
asserted. "And we love one another not less, but more, he and I--of that
I am sure. Only it's different--different. We can't either of us quite go
back to the time before--and that has helped to make him sad."

Carteret listened in increasing interest aware that he sounded
unlooked-for depths, apprehensive lest those depths should harbour
disastrous occurrences. He walked the length of the terrace before again
speaking. Then, no longer teasing but gently and seriously, he asked her:

"Do you feel free to tell me openly about this, and let me try to help
you--if it's a case for help?"

Damaris shook her head, looking up at him through the soft enclosing
murk, and smiling rather ruefully.

"I wish I knew--I do so wish I knew," she said. "But I don't--not yet,
anyway. Help me without my telling you, please. The book is a splendid
idea. And then do you think you could persuade him to let us go away
abroad, for a time? Everything here must remind him--as it does me--of
what happened. It was quite right," she went on judicially--"for
everyone's sake, we should stay here just the same at first. People,"
with a scornful lift of the head Carteret noted and admired--"might have
mistaken our reason for going away. They had to be made to understand we
were perfectly indifferent.--I knew all that, though we never discussed
it. One does things, sometimes, just because it's right they should be
done, without any sort of planning--just by instinct. Still I know we
can't be quite natural here. What happened comes between us. We're each
anxious about the other and feel a constraint, though we never speak of
it. That can't be avoided, I suppose, for we both suffered a good deal at
the time--but he most, much the most because"--

Damaris paused.

"Because why?"

"I suppose because I'm young; and then, once I got accustomed to the
idea, I saw it meant what was very wonderful in some ways--a
wonderfulness which, for me, would go on and on--a whole new country for
me to explore and travel in, quite my own--and--and--which I couldn't
help loving."

"Heigh ho! heigh ho!" Carteret put in softly. "This becomes exciting,
dear witch, you know."

"I don't want to be tantalizing," she answered him, still pacing in the
growing dimness of land and sea.

The dead black mass of the great ilex trees looked to touch the low
hanging sky. A grey gleam, here and there, lit the surface of the
swirling tide-river. The boom of the slow plunging waves came from the
back of the Bar, and now and again wild-fowl cried, faint and distant,
out on the mud-flats of the Haven.

"Listen," Damaris said. "It is mournful here. It tells you the same
things over and over again. It sort of insists on them. The place seems
so peaceful, but it never lets you alone, really. And now, after what
happened, it never leaves him--the Commissioner Sahib--alone. It repeats
the same story to him over and over again. It wears him as dropping water
wears away stone. And there is no longer the same reason for staying
there was at first. Persuade him to go away, to take me abroad. And come
with us--couldn't you?--for a little while at least. Is it selfish to ask
you to leave your hunting and shooting so early in the season? I don't
want to be selfish. But he isn't well. Whether he isn't well in his body
or only in his thinkings, I can't tell. But it troubles me. He sleeps
badly, I am afraid. The nights must be very long and lonely when one
can't sleep.--If you would come, it would be so lovely. I should feel so
safe about him. You and the book should cure him between you. I'm
perfectly sure of that. To have you would make us both so happy"--

And, in her innocent importunity, Damaris slipped her hand within Colonel
Carteret's arm sweetly coaxing him.

He started slightly. Threw back his head, standing, straight and tall, in
the mysterious twilight beside her. Raised his deerstalker cap, for a
moment, letting the moist chill of the November evening dwell on his hair
and forehead.

Though very popular with women, Carteret had never married, making a home
for his elder sister, Mrs. Dreydel--widow of a friend and fellow officer
in the then famous "Guides"--and her four sturdy, good-looking boys at
the Norfolk manor-house, which had witnessed his own birth and those of a
long line of his ancestors. To bring up a family of his own, in addition
to his sister's, would have been too costly, and debt he abhorred.
Therefore, such devoirs as he paid the great goddess Aphrodite, were but
few and fugitive--he being by nature and temperament an idealist and a
notably clean liver. By his abstention, however, sentiment was
fine-trained rather than extinguished. His heart remained young, capable
of being thrilled in instant response to any appeal of high and delicate
quality. It thrilled very sensibly, now, in response to the appeal of
Damaris' hand, emphasizing her tender pleading regarding her father. She
touched, she charmed him to an extent which obliged him rather sharply to
call his senses to order. Hadn't he known her ever since she was a babe
a span long? Wasn't she, according to all reason, a babe still, in as far
as any decently minded male being of his mature age could be concerned?
He told himself, at once humorously and sternly, he ought to feel so,
think so--whether he did or not. And ought, in his case, was a word not
to be played fast and loose with. Once uttered it must be obeyed.

Wherefore, thus conclusively self-admonished, he put his cap on his head
again and, bending a little over Damaris, patted her hand affectionately
as it rested upon his arm.

"Very good--I'll hold myself and my future at your disposition," he gaily
said to her. "As much hunting and shooting as I care for will very well
keep. Don't bother your pretty head about them. During the Christmas
holidays, my nephews will be ready enough, in all conscience, to let fly
with my guns and ride my horses, so neither will be wasted. I'll go along
with you gladly, for no man living is dearer to me than your father, and
no business could be more to my taste than scotching and killing the
demons which plague him. They plague all of us, in some form or other, at
times, as life goes on."

Very gently he disengaged his arm from her hand.

"Take me indoors," he said, "and give me my tea--over which we'll further
discuss plots for kidnapping Verity and carrying him off south. The
French Riviera for preference?--Hullo--what the deuce is that?"

For, as he spoke, the two cats appearing with miraculous suddenness out
of nowhere--as is the custom of their priceless tribe--rushed wildly
past. Fierce, sinuous, infinitely graceful shapes, leaping high in air,
making strange noises, chirrupings and squeakings, thudding of quick
little paws, as they chased one another round the antiquated,
seaward-trained cannon and pyramid of ball.

For a minute or so Damaris watched them, softly laughing. Then, in the
content bred of Carteret's promise and the joy of coming travel,
something of their frisky spirit caught her too--a spirit which, for all
young creatures, magically haunts the dusk. And, as they presently fled
away up the lawn, Damaris fled after them, circling over the moist
grass, darting hither and thither, alternately pursuing and pursued.

Colonel Carteret, following soberly, revolving many thoughts, did not
overtake her until the garden door was reached. There, upon the
threshold, the light from within covering and revealing her, she awaited
him. Her bosom rose and fell, her breathing being a little hurried, her
face a little flushed. Her grave eyes sparkled and danced.

"Oh! you've made me so glad, so dreadfully glad," she said. "And I never
properly thanked you. Forgive me. I never can resist them--I went mad
with the cats."

Her young beauty appeared to Carteret very notable; and, yes--although
she might disport herself in this childishly frolic fashion--it was
idle to call her, or pretend her any longer a babe. For cause to him
unknown, through force of some experience of which he remained
ignorant, she had undeniably come into the charm and mystery of her
womanhood--a very fair and noble blossoming before which reverently, if
wistfully, he bowed his head.

"It's good to have you declare yourself glad, dear witch, in that case
I'm glad too," he answered her. "But as to forgiveness, I'm inclined to
hold it over until you leave off being tantalizing--and, upon my word, I
find you uncommonly far from leaving off just now!"

"You mean until I tell you what happened?"

Carteret nodded, searching her face with wise, fearless, smiling eyes.

"Ah! yes," he said, "we can put it that way if you please." Damaris
hesitated detecting some undercurrent of meaning which puzzled her.

"I may never have to tell you. My father may speak of it--or you may just
see for yourself. Only then, then"--she with a moving earnestness prayed
him--"be kind, be lenient. Don't judge harshly--promise me you won't."

And as she spoke her expression softened to a great and unconscious
tenderness; for she beheld, in thought, a wide-winged sea-bird, above
certain letters, tattooed in indigo and crimson upon the back of a lean
shapely brown hand.

"I promise you," Carteret said, and passed in at the door marvelling
somewhat sadly.

"Is it that?" he asked himself. "If so, it comes early. Has she gone the
way of all flesh and fallen in love?"

And this conversation, as shall presently be set forth, ushered in that
second matter of cardinal importance, already referred to, which for
Damaris marked the close of this eventful year.




CHAPTER II

TELLING HOW DAMARIS RENEWED HER ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE BELOVED LADY OF
HER INFANCY


The windows of the sitting-room--upon the first floor of the long,
three-storied, yellow-painted hotel--commanded a vast and glittering
panorama of indented coast-line and purple sea. Here and there, in the
middle distance, little towns, pale-walled and glistering, climbed upward
amid gardens and olive yards from the rocky shore. Heathlands and pine
groves covered the intervening headlands and steep valleys, save where
meadows marked the course of some descending stream. To the north-east,
above dark wooded foot-hills, the flushed whiteness of snow-summits cut
delicately into the solid blue of the sky.

Stretched upon the sun-faded, once scarlet cushions of the window-seat,
Damaris absorbed her fill of light, and warmth, and colour. Pleading
imperative feminine mendings, she stayed at home this afternoon. She felt
disposed to rest--here in the middle of her pasture, so to say--and
resting, both count her blessings and dream, offering hospitality to all
and any pleasant visions which might elect to visit her. And, indeed,
those blessings appeared a goodly company, worthy of congratulation and
of gratitude. She let the black silk stocking, the toe of which she
affected to darn, slip neglected on to the floor while she added up the
pleasant column of them.

The journey might be counted as a success--that to start with. For her
father was certainly better, readier of speech and of interest in outside
things. Oh! the dear "man with the blue eyes" had a marvellous hand on
him--tactful, able, devoted, always serene, often even gay. Never could
there be another so perfect, because so sane and comfortable, a friend.
Her debt to him was of old standing and still for ever grew. How she
could ever pay it she didn't know! Which consideration, for an instant,
clouded her content. Not that she felt the obligation irksome; but, that
out of pure affection, she wanted to make him some return, some
acknowledgment; wanted to give, since to her he had so lavishly given.

Then the book--of all Carteret's clever manipulations the cleverest! For
hadn't it begun to grip her father, and that quite divertingly much? He
was occupied with it to the point of really being a tiny bit
self-conscious and shy. Keen on it, transparently eager--though
contemptuous, in high mighty sort, of course, of his own eagerness when
he remembered. Only, more than half the time he so deliciously failed to
remember.--And with that Damaris' thought took another turn, a more
private and personal one.

For in truth the book gripped her, too, in most intimate and novel
fashion, revealing to her the enchantments of an art in process of being
actively realized in living, constructive effort. Herein she found, not
the amazement of a new thing, but of a thing so natural that it appeared
just a part of her very self, though, until now, an undiscovered one. To
read other people's books is a joyous employment, as she well knew; but
to make a book all one's own self, to watch and compel its growth into
coherent form and purpose is--so she began to suspect--among the rarest
delights granted to mortal man.

Her own share of such making, in the present case, was of the humblest
it is true, mere spade labour and hod-bearing--namely, writing from
Charles Verity's dictation, verifying names and dates, checking
references and quotations. Still each arresting phrase, each felicitous
expression, the dramatic ring of some virile word, the broad onward
sweep of stately prose in narrative or sustained description, not only
charmed her ear but challenged her creative faculty. She put herself to
school in respect of it all, learning day by day a lesson.--This was the
way it should be done. Ambition prodded her on.--For mightn't she
aspire to do it too, some day? Mightn't, granted patience and
application, the writing of books prove to be her business, her
vocation? The idea floated before her, vague as yet, though infinitely
beguiling. Whereupon the whole world took on a new significance and
splendour, as it needs must when nascent talent claims its own, asserts
its dawning right to dominion and to freedom.

And there the pathos of her father's position touched her nearly. For
wasn't it a little cruel this remarkable gift of his should so long have
lain dormant, unsuspected by his friends, unknown to the reading public,
only to disclose itself, and that by the merest hazard, as a last
resource?--It did not seem fair that he had not earlier found and enjoyed
his literary birthright.

Damaris propounded this view to Colonel Carteret with some heat. But he
smilingly discounted her fondly indignant lament.

"Better late than never anyhow, my dear witch," he said. "And just
picture the satisfaction of this brilliant rally when, as we'd reason to
believe, he himself reckoned the game was up! Oh! there are points about
a tardy harvest such as this, by no means to be despised. Thrice blessed
the man who, like your father, finding such a harvest, also finds it to
be of a sort he can without scruple reap."

Of which cryptic utterance Damaris, at the time, could--to quote her own
phrase--"make no sense!"--Nor could she make sense of it, now, when
counting her blessings, she rested, in happy idleness, upon the faded
scarlet cushions of the window-seat.

She remembered the occasion quite well on which Carteret thus expressed
himself one afternoon, during their stay in Paris, on the southward
journey. She had worn a new myrtle-green, black-braided, fur-trimmed
cloth pelisse and hat to match, as she also remembered, bought the day
before at a fascinating shop in the Rue Castiglione. Agreeably conscious
her clothes were not only very much "the right thing" but decidedly
becoming, she had gone, with him, to pay a visit of ceremony at the
convent school--near the Church of St. Germain-les-Près--where, as a
little girl of six, fresh from India and the high dignities of the
Bhutpur Sultan-i-bagh, she had been deposited by her father's old friend,
Mrs. John Pereira, who had brought her and Sarah Watson, her nurse, back
to Europe.

The sojourn at the convent--once the surprise of translation from East to
West, from reigning princess to little scholar was surmounted--proved
fertile in gentle memories. The visit of to-day, not only revived these
memories, but added to their number. For it passed off charmingly.
Carteret seemed by no means out of place among the nuns--well-bred and
gracious women of hidden, consecrated lives. They, indeed, appeared
instinctively drawn to him and fluttered round him in the sweetest
fashion imaginable; he, meanwhile, bearing himself towards them with an
exquisite and simple courtesy beyond all praise. Never had Damaris
admired the "man with the blue eyes" more, never felt a more perfect
trust in him, than when beholding him as _Mousquetaire au Couvent_ thus!

As they emerged again into the clear atmosphere and resonance of the
Paris streets, and made their way back by the Rue du Bac, the Pont Royal
and the gardens of the Tuileries, to their hotel in the Rue de Rivoli,
Carteret spoke reverently of the religious life, and the marvellous
adaptability of the Catholic system to every need, every attitude of the
human heart and conscience. He spoke further of the loss those inevitably
sustain, who--from whatever cause--stand outside the creeds, unable to
set their spiritual God-ward hopes and aspirations within a definite
external framework of doctrine and practice hallowed by tradition.

"I could almost wish those dear holy women had gathered your little soul
into the fold, when they had you in their keeping and made a good
Catholic of you, dearest witch," he told her. "It would have been a
rather flagrant case of cradle-snatching, I own, but I can't help
thinking it would have simplified many difficulties for you."

"And raised a good many, too," Damaris gaily answered him. "For Aunt
Harriet Cowden would have been furious, and Aunt Felicia distressed and
distracted; and poor Nannie--though she really got quite tame with the
Sisters, and came to respect them in the end--would have broken her heart
at my being taught to worship images, and have believed hell yawned to
devour me. Oh! I think it was more fair to wait.--All the same I loved
their religion--I love it still."

"Go on loving it," he bade her.--And at once turned the conversation to
other themes--that of her father, Charles Verity among them, and the book
on Afghanistan, the fair copy of the opening chapters of which was just
completed.

Then, the stimulating, insistent vivacity of Paris going a little to
Damaris' head--since urging, as always, to fullness of enterprise,
fullness of endeavour, giving, as always, immense joy and value to the
very fact of living--she lamented the late development of her father's
literary genius. A lament which called forth Carteret's consolatory
rejoinder, along with this--to her--cryptic assertion as to the thrice
blessed state of the man whose harvest, when tardy, is of a description
he need not scruple to reap.

"Why," she asked herself, "should he have said that unless with
reference to himself. Reference to some private harvest which he himself
scrupled to reap?"

Damaris slipped her feet from the cushioned window-seat to the floor, and
stooping down recovered her fallen black silk stocking. She felt
disturbed, slightly conscience-stricken. For it had never occurred to
her, strong, able, serene of humour and of countenance as he was, that
the "man with the blue eyes" could have personal worries, things--as she
put it--he wanted yet doubted whether he ought to have. Surely his
unfailing helpfulness and sympathy gave him the right, in fee-simple, to
anything and everything he might happen to covet. That he should covet
what was wrong, what was selfish, detrimental to others, seemed
incredible. And the generous pity of her youthful tenderness, her
impatience of all privation, all disappointment or denial for those she
held in affection, overflowed in her. She longed to do whatever would
greatly please him, to procure for him whatever he wanted. Wouldn't it be
delicious to do that--if she could only find out!

But this last brought her up against a disquieting lesson lately
learned.--Namely, against recognition of how very far the lives of
men--even those we know most dearly and closely--and the lives of us
women are really apart. She thought of her father and Darcy Faircloth and
their entirely unsuspected relation. This dulled the edge of her
enthusiasm. For wasn't it only too probably the same with them all?
Loyalty compelled the question. Had not every man a secret, or secrets,
only penetrable, both for his peace of mind and for your own, at
considerable risk?

Damaris planted her elbows on the window-sill, her chin in the hollow of
her hands. Her eyes were solemn, her face grave with thought.--Verily the
increase of knowledge is the increase of perplexity, if not of actual
sorrow. Even the apparently safest and straightest paths are beset with
"pitfall and with gin" for whoso studies to pursue truth and refuse
subscription to illusion. Your charity should be wide as the world
towards others. Towards yourself narrow as a hair, lest you condone your
own weakness, greed, or error. Of temptation to any save very venial sins
Damaris had, in her own person, little conception as yet.--Still to a
maiden of eighteen, though she may have a generous proportion of health
and beauty, sufficient fortune and by no means contemptible intelligence,
noble instincts, complications and distresses, both of the practical and
theoretic order, may, and do, at times occur. Damaris suffered the shock
of such now; and into what further jungles of cheerless speculation she
might have been projected it is impossible to say, had not persons and
events close at hand claimed her attention.

The Grand Hotel at St. Augustin is situated upon a long narrow
promontory, which juts out into the sea at right angles to the main trend
of the coast-line. It faces east, turning its back upon the little
town--built on the site of a Roman colonial city, originally named in
honour of the pagan Emperor rather than the Christian Confessor and
ascetic. Mediaeval piety bestowed on it the saintly prefix, along with a
round-arched cathedral church, of no great size, but massive proportions
and somewhat gloomy aspect.

From the terrace garden and carriage drive, immediately in front of the
hotel, the ground drops sharply, beneath scattered pines with undergrowth
of heather, wild lavender, gum-cistus, juniper, mastic and myrtle, to the
narrow white beach a hundred feet below. Little paths traverse the rough
descent. And up one of these, halting to rest now and then on a
conveniently placed bench in the shade of some spreading umbrella pine,
to discourse to the company of gentlemen following in her wake, or
contemplate the view, came a notably graceful and telling figure.

As the lady advanced with leisurely composure, Damaris, gazing down from
her point of vantage in the first floor window, received the impression
of a person almost extravagantly finished and feminine, in which all
irregularities and originalities of Nature had suffered obliteration by
the action of art. Not art of the grosser sort, dependent on dyes, paint
and cosmetics. The obliteration was not superficial merely, and must have
been achieved by processes at once subtle and profound. The result
obtained, however, showed unquestionably charming--if in a line slightly
finical and exotic--as she picked her way through the fragrant
undergrowth of the pine wood, slanting sunshine playing on her dark blue
raiment, wide-brimmed white hat, and floating veil.

Coming completely into view at last, when stepping from the path on to
the level carriage drive, a gold chain she wore, from which dangled a
little bunch of trinkets and a long-handled lorgnette, glinted, catching
the light. Damaris gave an exclamation of sudden and rapturous
recognition. So far she had had eyes for the lady only; but now she took
a rapid scrutiny of the latter's attendants. With two of them she was
unacquainted. The other two were her father and Carteret.

Whereupon rapture gave place to a pang of jealous alarm and resentment.
For they belonged to her, those dear two; and to see them even thus
temporarily appropriated by someone else caused her surprising agitation.
They had been so good, so apparently content, alone with her upon this
journey. It would be too trying, too really intolerable to have outsiders
interfere and break up their delightful solitude _à trois_, their
delightful intercourse! Yet, almost immediately, the girl flushed, going
hot all over with shame, scolding herself for even passing entertainment
of such unworthy and selfish emotions.

"For it is Henrietta Pereira," she said half aloud. "My own darling,
long-ago Henrietta, who used to be so beautifully kind to me and give me
presents I loved above everything."

And, after a pause, the note of alarm sounding again though modified to
wistfulness--

"Will she care for me still, and shall I still care for her--but I must
care--I must--now I'm grown up?"

To set which disturbing questions finally at rest, being a valiant young
creature, Damaris permitted herself no second thoughts, no vacillation or
delay; but went straight downstairs and crossing the strip of terrace
garden, bare-headed as she was, waited at the head of the steps leading up
from the carriage drive to greet the idol of her guileless infancy.

To Colonel Carteret who, bringing up the rear of the little procession
was the first to notice her advent, she made a touching and gallant
picture. Her face had gone very pale and he saw, or fancied he saw, her
lips tremble. But her solemn eyes shone with a steady light, and,
whatever the excitement affecting her, she held it bravely in check.
Noting all which he could not but speculate as to whether she had any
knowledge of a certain romantic attachment--culminating on the one hand
in an act of virtuous treachery, on the other in an act of
renunciation--which had overshadowed and wrenched from its natural
sequence so large a portion of her father's life. He earnestly hoped she
was ignorant of all that; although the act of renunciation, made for her,
Damaris' sake, represented a magnificent gesture if an exaggerated and
almost fanatical one, on Charles Verity's part. It gave the measure of
the man's fortitude, the measure of his paternal devotion. Still
knowledge of it might, only too readily, prove a heavy burden to a young
girl's imaginative and tender conscience. Yes--he hoped she had been
spared that knowledge.

If she had escaped it thus far--as he reflected not without
amusement--the other actor in that rather tragic drama, now so
unexpectedly and arrestingly present in the flesh, could be trusted not
to enlighten her. He knew Henrietta Pereira of old, bless her hard little
heart. Not only did she detest tragedy, but positively revelled in any
situation where clever avoidance of everything even remotely approaching
it was open to her. She ruled the sublime and the ridiculous alike
impartially out of the social relation; and that with so light though
determined a touch, so convincing yet astute a tact and delicacy, you
were constrained not only to submit to, but applaud her strategy.

Had she not within the very last hour given a masterly example of her
powers in this line? For when he, Carteret, and Charles Verity, strolling
in all innocence along the shore path back from St. Augustin, had to
their infinite astonishment met her and her attendant swains face to
face, she hadn't turned a hair. Her nerve was invincible. After clasping
the hand of each in turn with the prettiest enthusiasm, she had
introduced--"My husband, General Frayling--Mr. Marshall Wace, his
cousin," with the utmost composure. Thus making over to them any
awkwardness which might be going and effectually ridding herself of it.

Carteret felt his jaw drop for the moment.--He had heard of John
Pereira's death two years ago, and welcomed the news on her account,
since, if report said true, that dashing cavalry officer had taken to
evil courses. Gambling and liquor made him a nuisance, not to say
disgrace to his regiment, and how much greater a one to his wife. Poor
thing, she must have had a lot to endure and that of the most sordid! It
wasn't nice to think about. Clearly Pereira's removal afforded matter for
thankfulness.

But of this speedy reconstruction on her part, in the shape of a third
matrimonial venture, he had heard never a word. How would Verity take
it?--Apparently with a composure as complete as her own.--And then the
inherent humour of the position, and her immense skill and coolness in
the treatment of it, came uppermost. Carteret felt bound to support her
and help her out by accepting her little old General--lean-shanked and
livery, with pompously outstanding chest, aggressive white moustache and
mild appealing eye--as a matter of course. Bound to buck him up, and
encourage him in the belief he struck a stranger as the terrible fellow
he would so like to be, and so very much feared that he wasn't.
Carteret's large charity came into play in respect of the superannuated
warrior; who presented a pathetically inadequate effect, specially when
seen, as now, alongside Charles Verity. Surely the contrast must hit the
fair Henrietta rather hard? Carteret expended himself in kindly
civilities, therefore, going so far as to say "sir" once or twice in
addressing Frayling. Whereat the latter's timorous step grew almost
jaunty and his chest more than ever inflated.

If Henrietta carried things off to admiration in the first amazement of
impact, she carried them off equally to admiration in her meeting with
Damaris. It was the prettiest little scene in the world.

For reaching up and placing her hands on the girl's shoulders her
chiselled face--distinct yet fragile in outline as some rare
cameo--suffused for once with transparent, shell-like pink, she kissed
Damaris on either cheek.

"Ah! precious child, most precious child," she fondly murmured. "What an
enchanting surprise! How little I imagined such a joy was in store for me
when I came out this afternoon!"

And louder, for the benefit of the assistants.

"Yes--here are my husband, General Frayling, and Mr. Wace his cousin--he
shall sing to you some day--that by the way--who is travelling with us.
But they must talk to you later. I can't spare you to them now. I am
greedy after our long separation and want to have you all to myself."

And, including the four gentlemen in a gesture of friendly farewell, she
put her arm round Damaris' waist, gently compelling her in the direction
of a group of buff-painted iron chairs, placed in a semicircle in the
shade of ilex and pine trees at the end of the terrace.

"I have so much to hear," she said, "so many dropped threads to pick up,
and it is impossible to talk comfortably and confidentially in a crowd.
Our men must really contrive to play about by themselves for a little
while and leave me to enjoy you in peace."

"But won't they mind?" Damaris asked, upon whom the spell of the elder
woman's personality began sensibly to work.

"Let them mind, let them mind," she threw off airily in answer. "So much
the better. It will do them good. It is excellent discipline for men to
find they can't always have exactly their own way."

Which assertion served to dissipate any last remnant of jealous alarm
Damaris' mind may have unconsciously harboured. In its place shy
curiosity blossomed, and quick intimate pleasure in so perfectly
fashioned and furnished a creature. For wasn't her childish adoration
fully justified? Wasn't her darling Henrietta a being altogether
captivating and unique? Damaris loved the feeling of that arm and hand
lightly clasping her waist. Loved the faint fragrance--hadn't it
intoxicated her baby senses?--pervading Henrietta's hair, her clothes,
her whole pretty person. Loved the tinkle of the bunch of trinkets
dangling from the long chain which reached below her waist. She had
feared disappointment. That, as she now perceived, was altogether
superfluous. Henrietta enthralled her eyes, enthralled her affection. She
longed to protect, to serve her, to stand between her and every rough
wind which blew, because she was so pretty, so extraordinarily and
completely civilized from head to foot.

No doubt in the generosity of her youthful inexperience Damaris
exaggerated the lady's personal charm. Yet the dozen years
intervening--since their last meeting--had, in truth, dealt mercifully
with the latter's good looks. A trifle pinched, a trifle faded she might
be, as compared with the Henrietta of twelve years ago; but immediately
such damage, such wear and tear of the fleshly garment, showed at its
least conspicuous. She negotiated the double encounter, as Carteret had
noted, with admirable sang-froid; but not, as to the first one in any
case, without considerably greater inward commotion than he gave her
credit for. She was in fact keyed up by it, excited, taken out of herself
to an unprecedented extent, her native optimism and egoism in singular
disarray. Yet thereby, through that very excitement, she recaptured for
the time being the physical loveliness of an earlier period. Beauty is
very much a matter of circulation; and the blood cantered, not to say
galloped, through Henrietta's veins.

The sight of Charles Verity did indeed put back the clock for her in
most astounding sort. Henrietta was no victim of impulse. Each of her
three marriages had been dictated by convenience, carefully thought out
and calculated. Over neither husband had she, for ever so brief a
period, lost her head. But over Charles Verity she had come perilously
near losing it--once. That, it is not too much to say, constituted the
greatest sensation, the greatest emotion of her experience. As a rule
the most trying and embarrassing part of encountering a former lover is
that you wonder what, under Heaven, induced you to like him so well?
Here the position was reversed, so that Henrietta wondered--with a
sickening little contraction of the heart--what, under Heaven, had
prevented her liking him much more, why, under Heaven, she ever let him
go? Of course, as things turned out, it was all for the best, since her
insensibility made for righteousness, or anyhow for respectability--in
the opinion of the world the same, if not an even superior article. She
ought to congratulate herself, ought to feel thankful. Only just now she
didn't. On the contrary she was shaken--consciously and most
uncomfortably shaken to the very deepest of such depths as her shallow
soul could boast--sitting here, on a buff-painted chair in the shade of
the pines and ilex trees, in company with Damaris, holding the girl's
hand in both her own with a clinging, slightly insistent, pressure as it
rested upon her lap.

"Dearest child, I believe, though you have grown so tall, I should have
recognized you anywhere," she said.

"And I you," Damaris echoed. "I did, I did, after just the first
little minute."

"Ah! you've a memory for faces too?"

Her glance wandered to the group of men gathered before the hotel
portico--Sir Charles and General Frayling side by side, engaged in civil
if not particularly animated conversation. The two voices reached her
with a singular difference of timbre and of tone. Carteret spoke,
apparently making some proposition, some invitation, in response to which
the four passed into the house.

Henrietta settled herself in her chair with a movement of sensible
relief. While they remained there she must look, and it was not quite
healthy to look.--Her good, little, old General, who only asked
respectfully to adore and follow in her wake--a man of few demands and
quite tidy fortune--and after poor, besotted, blustering, gambling,
squashily sentimental and tearful Johnnie Pereira wasn't he a haven of
rest--oh, positively a haven of rest? All the same she preferred his
not standing there in juxtaposition to Charles Verity. She much
preferred their all going indoors--Carteret along with the rest, if it
came to that.

She turned and smiled upon Damaris.

"However good your memory for faces may be, I find it very sweet you
should have recognized mine after 'just the first little minute,'" she
said, with a coaxing touch of mimicry. "You haven't quite parted company
with the baby I remember so well, even yet. I used to call you my downy
owl, with solemn saucer eyes and fierce little beak. You were
extraordinarily, really perplexingly like your father then. A miniature
edition, but so faithful to the original it used, sometimes, to give me
the quaintest jump."

Henrietta mused, raising one hand and fingering the lace at her throat
as seeking to loosen it. Damaris watched fascinated, in a way
troubled, by her extreme prettiness. Every point, every detail was so
engagingly complete.

"You are like Sir Charles still; but I see something which is not
him--the personal equation, I suppose, developing in you, the element
which is individual, exclusively your own and yourself. I should enjoy
exploring that."

She looked at Damaris very brightly for an instant, then looked down.

"I want to hear more about Sir Charles," she said. "Of all the
distinguished men I have been fortunate enough to know, who--who have let
me be their friend, no one has ever interested me more than he. We have
known one another ever since I was a girl and his career meant so much to
me. I followed it closely, rejoiced in his promotion, his successes; felt
indignant--and said so--when he met with adverse criticism. I am speaking
of his Indian career. When he accepted that Afghan command, it made a
break. We lost touch, which I regretted immensely. From that time onward
I only knew what any and everybody might know from the newspapers--except
occasionally when I happened to meet Colonel Carteret."

The explanation was lengthy, laboured, not altogether spontaneous.
Damaris vaguely mystified by it made no comment. Henrietta raised her
head, glancing round from under lowered eyelids.

"You appreciate the ever-faithful Carteret?" she asked, an edge of
eagerness in her voice.

"The dear 'man with the blue eyes?' Of course I love him, we both love
him almost better than anybody in the world," Damaris warmly declared.

"And he manifestly returns your affection. But, dearest child, why
'almost.' Is that reservation intentional or merely accidental?"

Then seeing the girl's colour rise.

"Perhaps it's hardly a fair question. Forgive me. I forgot how long it
is since we met, forgot I'm not, after all, talking to the precious
little downy owl, who had no more serious secrets than such as might
concern her large family of dolls."

"I am not sure the 'almost' was quite true." Damaris put in hastily, her
cheeks more than ever aflame.

"Yes it was, most delicious child--I protest it was. And I'm not sure I'm
altogether sorry."

Slightly, daintily, she kissed the flaming cheek.

"But I do love Colonel Carteret," Damaris repeated, with much wide-eyed
earnestness. "I trust him and depend on him as I do on nobody else."

"'Almost' nobody else?"

Damaris shook her head. She felt a wee bit disappointed in Henrietta.
This persistence displeased her as trivial, as lacking in perfection of
breeding and taste.

"Quite nobody," she said. And without permitting time for rejoinder
launched forth into the subject of the book on the campaigns of Shere
Ali, which, as she explained, had been undertaken at Carteret's
suggestion and with such encouraging result. She waxed eloquent regarding
the progress of the volume and its high literary worth.

"But I was a little nervous lest my father should lose his interest and
grow slack when we were alone, and he'd only me to talk things over with
and to consult, so I begged Colonel Carteret to come abroad with us."

"Ah! I see--quite so," Henrietta murmured. "It was at your request."

"Yes. He was beautifully kind, as he always is. He agreed at once, gave
up all his own plans and came."

"And stays"--Henrietta said.

"Yes, for the present. But to tell the truth I'm worried about his
staying."

"Why?"--again with a just perceptible edge of eagerness.

"Because, of course, I have no right to trade on his kindness, even for
my father's sake or the sake of the book."

"And that is your only reason?"

"Isn't it more than reason enough? There must be other people who want
him and things of his own he wants to do. It would be odiously selfish of
me to interfere by keeping him tied here. I have wondered lately whether
I oughtn't to speak to him about it and urge his going home. I was
worrying rather over that when you arrived this afternoon, and then the
gladness of seeing you put it out of my head. But how I wish you would
advise me, Henrietta, if it's not troubling you too much. You and they
have been friends so long and you must know so much better than I can
what's right. Tell me what is my duty--about his staying, I mean--to, to
them both, do you think?"

Henrietta Frayling did not answer at once. Her delicate features
perceptibly sharpened and hardened, her lips becoming thin as a thread.

"You're not vexed with me? I haven't been tiresome and asked you
something I shouldn't?" Damaris softly exclaimed, smitten with alarm of
unintended and unconscious offence.

"No--no--but you put a difficult question, since I have only impressions
and those of the most, fugitive to guide me. Personally, I am always
inclined to leave well alone."

"But is this well?--There's just the point."

"You are very anxious"--

"Yes, I am very anxious. You see I care dreadfully much."

Henrietta bent down, giving her attention to an inch of kilted
silk petticoat, showing where it should not, beneath the hem of
her blue skirt.

"I hesitate to give you advice; but I can give you my impressions--for
what they may be worth. Seeing Colonel Carteret this afternoon he struck
me as being in excellent case--enviably young for his years and content."

"You thought so? Yet that's just what has worried me. Once or twice
lately I have not been sure he was quite content."

"Oh! you put it too high!" Henrietta threw off. "Can one ever be sure
anyone--even one's own poor self--is quite content?"

And she looked round, bringing the whole artillery of her still great, if
waning, loveliness suddenly to bear upon Damaris, dazzling, charming,
confusing her, as she said:

"My precious child, has it never occurred to you Colonel Carteret may
stay on, not against has will, but very much with it? Or occurred to you,
further, not only that the pleasures of your father's society are by no
means to be despised; but that you yourself are a rather remarkable
product--as quaintly engagingly clever, as you are--well--shall we
say--handsome, Damaris?"

"I am deputed to enquire whether you propose to take tea indoors, Miss
Verity, or have it brought to you here; and, in the latter case, whether
we have leave to join you?"

The speaker, Marshall Wace--a young man of about thirty years of age--may
be described as soft in make, in colouring slightly hectic, in manner a
subtle cross between the theatrical and the parsonic. Which, let it be
added, is by no means to condemn him wholesale, laugh him off the stage
or out of the pulpit. In certain circles, indeed, these traits, this
blend, won for him unstinted sympathy and approval. He possessed talents
in plenty, and these of an order peculiarly attractive to the amateur
because tentative rather than commanding. Among his intimates he was seen
and spoken of as one cloaked with the pathos of thwarted aspirations.
Better health, less meagre private means and a backing of influence, what
might he not have done? His star might have flamed to the zenith!
Meanwhile it was a privilege to help him, to such extent as his extreme
delicacy of feeling permitted. That it really permitted a good deal, one
way or another, displaying considerable docility under the infliction of
benefits, would have been coarse to perceive and unpardonably brutal to
mention.--Such, anyhow, was the opinion held by his cousin, General
Frayling, at whose expense he now enjoyed a recuperative sojourn upon the
French Riviera. Some people, in short, have a gift of imposing
themselves, and Marshall Wace may be counted among that conveniently
endowed band.

He imposed himself now upon one at least of his hearers. For, though the
address might seem studied, the voice delivering it was agreeable,
causing Damaris, for the first time, consciously to notice this member of
Mrs. Frayling's retinue. She felt amiably disposed towards him since his
intrusion closed a conversation causing her no little disturbance of
mind. Henrietta's last speech, in particular, set her nerves tingling
with most conflicting emotions. If Henrietta so praised her that praise
must be deserved, for who could be better qualified to give judgment on
such a subject than the perfectly equipped Henrietta? Yet she shrank in
distaste, touched in her maiden modesty and pride, from so frank an
exposition of her own charms. It made her feel unclothed, stripped in the
market-place--so to speak--and shamed. Secretly she had always hoped she
was pretty rather than plain. She loved beauty and therefore naturally
desired to possess it. But to have the fact of that possession thus
baldly stated was another matter. It made her feel unnatural, as though
joined to a creature with whom she was insufficiently acquainted, whose
ways might not be her ways or its thoughts her thoughts. Therefore the
young man, Marshall Wace, coming as a seasonable diversion from these
extremely personal piercings and probings, found greater favour in her
eyes than he otherwise might. And this with results, for Damaris'
gratitude, once engaged, disdained to criticize, invariably tending to
err on the super-generous side.

Yes, they would all have tea out here, if Henrietta was willing. And, if
Henrietta would for the moment excuse her, she would go and order
Hordle--her father's man--to see to the preparation of it himself.
Foreign waiters, whatever their ability in other departments, have no
natural understanding of a tea-pot and are liable to the weirdest ideas of
cutting bread and butter.

With which, conscious she was guilty of somewhat incoherent chatter,
Damaris sprang up and swung away along the terrace, through the clear
tonic radiance, buoyant as a caged bird set free.

"Go with her, Marshall, go with her," Mrs. Frayling imperatively bade
him.

"And leave you, Cousin Henrietta?"

She rose with a petulant gesture.

"Yes, go at once or you won't overtake her. I am tired, really wretchedly
tired--and am best left alone."




CHAPTER III

WHICH CONCERNS ITSELF, INCIDENTALLY, WITH THE GRIEF OF A VICTIM OF
CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE RECEPTION OF A BELATED CHRISTMAS GREETING


Henrietta Frayling left the Grand Hotel, that afternoon, in a chastened
frame of mind. Misgivings oppressed her. She doubted--and even more than
doubted--whether she had risen to the full height of her own reputation,
whether she had not allowed opportunity to elude her, whether she had not
lost ground difficult to regain. The affair was so astonishingly sprung
upon her. The initial impact she withstood unbroken--and from this she
derived a measure of consolation. But afterwards she weakened. She had
felt too much--and that proved her undoing. It is foolish, because
disabling, to feel.

Her treatment of Damaris she condemned as mistaken, admitting a point of
temper. It is hard to forgive the younger generation their youth, the
infinite attraction of their ingenuous freshness, the fact that they have
the ball at their feet. Hence she avoided the society of the young of her
own sex--as a rule. Girls are trying when pretty and intelligent, hardly
less trying--though for other reasons--when the reverse. Boys she
tolerated. In the eyes of young men she sunned herself taking her ease,
since these are slow to criticize, swift to believe--between eighteen and
eight-and-twenty, that is.--We speak of the mid-Victorian era and then
obtaining masculine strain.

Misgivings continued to pursue her during the ensuing evening and even
interfered with her slumbers during the night. This--most unusual
occurrence--rendered her fretful. She reproached her tractable and
distressed little General with having encouraged her to walk much too
far. In future he swore to insist on the carriage, however confidently
she might assert the need of active exertion. She pointed out the fallacy
of rushing to extremes; which rather cruelly floored him, since
"rushing," in any shape or form, had conspicuously passed out of his
programme some considerable time ago.

"My wife is not at all herself," he told Marshall Wace, at breakfast next
morning--"quite overdone, I am sorry to say, and upset. I blame myself.
I must keep a tight hand on her and forbid over exertion."

With a small spoon, savagely, daringly he beat in the top of his
boiled egg.

"I must be more watchful," he added. "Her nervous energy is deceptive. I
must refuse to let it override my better judgment and take me in."

By luncheon time, however, Henrietta was altogether herself, save for a
pretty pensiveness, and emerged with all her accustomed amiability from
this temporary eclipse.

The Fraylings occupied a small detached villa, built in the grounds of
the Hôtel de la Plage--a rival and venerably senior establishment to the
Grand Hotel--situate just within the confines of St. Augustin, where the
town curves along the glistering shore to the western horn of the little
bay. At the back of it runs the historic high road from Marseilles to the
Italian frontier, passing through Cannes and Nice. Behind it, too, runs
the railway with its many tunnels, following the same, though a somewhat
less serpentine, course along the gracious coast.

To the ex-Anglo-Indian woman, society is as imperative a necessity as
water to a fish. She must foregather or life loses all its savour; must
entertain, be entertained, rub shoulders generally or she is lost.
Henrietta Frayling suffered the accustomed fate, though to speak of
rubbing shoulders in connection with her is to express oneself
incorrectly to the verge of grossness. Her shoulders were of an order far
too refined to rub or be rubbed. Nevertheless, after the shortest
interval consistent with self-respect, such society as St. Augustin and
its neighbourhood afforded found itself enmeshed in her dainty net. Mrs.
Frayling's villa became a centre, where all English-speaking persons
met. There she queened it, with her General as loyal henchman, and
Marshall Wace as a professor of drawing-room talents of most varied sort.

Discovery of the party at the Grand Hotel, took the gilt off the
gingerbread of such queenings, to a marked extent, making them look
make-shifty, lamentably second-rate and cheap. Hence Henrietta's
fretfulness in part. For with the exception of Lady Hermione
Twells--widow of a once Colonial Governor--and the Honourable Mrs.
Callowgas _née_ de Brett, relict of a former Bishop of Harchester, they
were but scratch pack these local guests of hers. Soon, however, a scheme
of putting that discovery to use broke in on her musings. The old
friendship must, she feared, be counted dead. General Frayling's
existence, in the capacity of husband, rendered any resurrection of it
impracticable. She recognized that. Yet exhibition of its tombstone, were
such exhibition compassable, could not fail to bring her honour and
respect. She would shine by a reflected light, her glory all the greater
that the witnesses of it were themselves obscure--Lady Hermione and Mrs.
Callowgas excepted of course. Carteret's good-nature could be counted on
to bring him to the villa. And Damaris must be annexed. Assuming the rôle
and attitude of a vicarious motherhood, Henrietta herself could hardly
fail to gain distinction. It was a touching part--specially when played
by a childless woman only a little--yes, really only quite a little--past
her prime.

Here, indeed, was a great idea, as she came to grasp the possibilities
and scope of it. As chaperon to Damaris how many desirable doors would be
open to her! Delicately Henrietta hugged herself perceiving that, other
things being equal, her own career was by no means ended yet. Through
Damaris might she not very well enter upon a fresh and effective phase of
it? How often and how ruefully had she revolved the problem of advancing
age, questioning how gracefully to confront that dreaded enemy, and
endure its rather terrible imposition of hands without too glaring a loss
of prestige and popularity! Might not Damaris' childish infatuation
offer a solution of that haunting problem, always supposing the
infatuation could be revived, be recreated?

Ah! what a double-dyed idiot she had been yesterday, in permitting
feeling to outrun judgment!--With the liveliest satisfaction Henrietta
could have boxed her own pretty ears in punishment of her passing
weakness.--Yet surely time still remained wherein to retrieve her error
and restore her ascendency. Damaris might be unusually clever; but she
was also finely inexperienced, malleable, open to influence as yet. Let
Henrietta then see to it, and that without delay or hesitation, bringing
to bear every ingenious social art, and--if necessary--artifice, in which
long practice had made her proficient.

To begin with she would humble herself by writing a sweet little letter
to Damaris. In it she would both accuse and excuse her maladroitness of
yesterday, pleading the shock of so unlooked-for a coming together and
the host of memories evoked by it.--Would urge how deeply it affected
her, overcame her in fact, rendering her incapable of saying half the
affectionate things it was in her heart to say. She might touch on the
subject of Damaris' personal appearance again; which, by literally taking
her breath away, had contributed to her general undoing.--On second
thoughts, however, she decided it would be politic to avoid that
particular topic, since Damaris was evidently a little shy in respect of
her own beauty.--Henrietta smiled to herself.--That is a form of shyness
exceedingly juvenile, short-lived enough!

Marshall should act as her messenger, she being--as she could truthfully
aver--eager her missive might reach its destination with all possible
despatch. A letter, moreover, delivered by hand takes on an importance,
makes a claim on the attention, greater than that of one received by
post. There is a personal gesture in the former mode of transmission by
no means to be despised in delicate operations such as the present--"I
want to set myself right with you _at once_, dearest child, in case, as I
fear, you may have a little misunderstood, me yesterday. Accident having
so strangely restored us to one another, I long to hold you closely if
you will let me do so."--Yes, it should run thus, the theme embroidered
with high-flashing colour of Eastern reminiscence--the great subtropic
garden of the Sultan-i-bagh, for example, its palms, orange grove and
lotus tank, the call of the green parrots, chant of the well-coollie and
creak of the primitive wooden gearing, as the yoke of cream white oxen
trotted down and laboriously backed up the walled slope to the well-head.

Mrs. Frayling set herself to produce a very pretty piece of sentiment,
nicely turned, decorated, worded, and succeeded to her own
satisfaction. Might not she too, at this rate, claim possession of the
literary gift--under stress of circumstance? The idea was a new one. It
amused her.

And what if Damaris elected to show this precious effusion to
her father, Sir Charles? Well, if the girl did, she did. It might
just conceivably work on him also, to the restoration of
past--infatuation?--Henrietta left the exact term in doubt. But her hope
of such result was of the smallest. Exhibition of a tombstone was the
most she could count upon.--More probably he would regard it critically,
cynically, putting his finger through her specious phrases. She doubted
his forgiveness of a certain act of virtuous treachery even yet;
although he had, in a measure, condoned her commission of it by making
use of her on one occasion since, namely, that of her bringing Damaris
back twelve years ago to Europe. But whether his attitude were cynical
or not, he would hold his peace. Such cogent reasons existed for silence
on his part that if he did slightly distrust her, hold her a little
cheap, he would hardly venture to say as much, least of all to
Damaris.--Venture or condescend?--Again Mrs. Frayling left the term in
doubt and went forward with her schemes, which did, unquestionably just
now, add a pleasing zest to life.

The innocent subject of these machinations received both the note and its
bearer in a friendly spirit, though she was already, as it happened, rich
in letters to-day. The bi-weekly packet from Deadham--addressed in Mary
Fisher's careful copy-book hand--arrived at luncheon time, and
contained, among much of apparently lesser interest, a diverting
chronicle of Tom Verity's impressions and experiences during the first
six weeks of his Indian sojourn. The young man's gaily self-confident
humour had survived his transplantation. He wrote in high feather, quite
unabashed by the novelty of his surroundings, yet not forgetting to pay
honour where honour was due.

"It has been 'roses, roses all the way' thanks to Sir Charles's
introductions, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful," he told
her. "They have procured me no end of delightful hospitality from the
great ones of the local earth, and really priceless opportunities of
getting into touch with questions of ruling importance over here. I am
letting my people at home know how very much I owe, and always shall owe,
to his kindness in using his influence on my behalf at the start."

Damaris glowed responsive to this fine flourish of a tone, and passed the
letter across the small round dinner table to her father. Opened a fat
packet, enclosed in an envelope of exaggerated tenuity, from Miss
Felicia, only to put it aside in favour of another letter bearing an
Italian stamp and directed in a, to her, unfamiliar hand.

This was modest in bulk as compared with Miss Felicia's; but while
examining it, while touching it even, Damaris became aware of an inward
excitement, of a movement of tenderness not to be ignored or denied.

Startled by her own prescience, and the agitation accompanying it, she
looked up quickly to find Carteret watching her; whereupon, mutely,
instinctively, her eyes besought him to ask no questions, make no
comment. For an appreciable space he kept her in suspense, his glance
holding and challenging hers in close observation. Then as though,
not without a measure of struggle, granting her request, he smiled
at her, and, turning his attention to the contents of his plate,
quietly went on with the business of luncheon. Damaris meanwhile,
conscience-stricken--she couldn't tell why--by this silent interchange
of intelligence, this silent demand on his forbearance, on his
connivance in her secrecy, laid the letter face downwards on the white
table-cloth, unopened.

Later, Sir Charles Verity being busy with his English correspondence and
Carteret having disappeared--gone for a solitary walk, as she divined,
being, as she feared, not quite pleased with her--she read it in the
security of her bedroom, seated, for greater ease, upon the polished
parquet floor just inside an open, southward-facing French window, where
the breeze coming up off the sea gently fanned her face.

The letter began without preamble:

"We made this port--Genoa--last night. All day we have been discharging
cargo. Half my crew has gone ashore, set on liquoring and wenching after
the manner of unregenerate sailor-men all the world over. The other half
follows their bad example to-morrow, as we shall be lying idle in honour
of the Christmas festival. On board discipline is as strict as I know how
to make it, but ashore my hand is lifted off them. So long as they turn
up on time they are free to follow their fancy, even though it lead them
to smutty places. My own fancies don't happen to lie that way, for which
I in nowise praise myself. It is an affair of absence of inclination
rather than overmuch active virtue. I am really no better than they,
seeing I yield to the only temptation which takes me--the temptation to
write to you. I have resisted it times out of number since I bade you
good-bye at The Hard. But Christmas-night turns one a bit soft and
craving for sight and touch of those who belong to one. So much I dare
say, though I go back on nothing I said to you then about the keeping up
of decent barriers. Only being Christmas-night-soft I give myself the
licence of a holiday--for once. The night is clear as glass and the city
rises in a great semicircle, pierced by and outlined in twinkling lights,
right up to the ring of forts crowning the hills, where the sky begins--a
sky smothered in stars. I have been out, on deck, looking at it all, at
the black masts and funnels of the ships ranging to right and left
against the glare of the town, and at the oily, black water, thick with
floating filth and garbage and with wandering reflections like jewels and
precious metals on the surface of it--the rummiest mixture of fair and
foul. And then, all that faded out somehow--and I saw black water again,
but clean this time and with no reflections, under a close-drawn veil of
falling rain; and I felt to lift you out of the boat and carry you in
across the lawn and up to your room. And then I could not hold out
against temptation any longer, but came here into my cabin and sat down
to write to you. The picture of you, wet and limp and helpless in my
arms, is always with me, stamped on the very substance of my brain, as is
the other picture of you in the drawing-room lined with book-cases, where
we found one another for the second time. Found one another in spirit, I
mean; an almost terribly greater finding than the first one, because it
can go on for ever as it belongs to the part of us which does not die.
That is my faith anyhow. To-morrow morning I will go ashore and into one
of those big, tawdry Genoa churches, and listen to the music, standing in
some quiet corner, and think about you and renew my vows to you. It won't
be half bad to keep Christmas that way.

"I don't pretend to be a great letter-writer, so if this one has
funny fashions to it you must forgive both them and me. I write as I
feel and must leave it so. The voyage has been good, and my poor old
tub has behaved herself, kept afloat and done her best, bravely if a
bit wheezingly, in some rather nasty seas. When we are through here I
take her across to Tripoli and back along the African coast to
Algiers, then across to Marseilles. I reckon to reach there in six
weeks or two months from now. You might perhaps be willing to write a
line to me there--to the care of my owners, Messrs. Denniver, Holland
& Co. Their office is in the Cannebière. I don't ask you to do this,
but only tell you I should value it more than you can quite
know.--Now my holiday is over and I will close down till next
Christmas-night--unless miracles happen meanwhile--so good-bye.--Here
is a boatload of my lads coining alongside, roaring with song and as
drunk as lords.--God bless you. In spirit I once again kiss your dear
feet. Your brother till death and after.

"DARCY FAIRCLOTH."

Dazed, enchanted, held captive by the secular magic pertaining to those
who "go down to the sea in ships" and ply their calling in the great
waters, held captive, too, by the mysterious prenatal sympathies which
unite those who come of the same blood, Damaris stayed very still,
sitting child-like upon the bare polished floor, while the wind murmured
through the spreading pines, shading the terrace below, and gently fanned
her throat and temples.

For Faircloth's letter seemed to her very wonderful, alike in its vigour,
its simplicity and--her lips quivered--its revelation of loving.--How he
cared--and how he went on caring!--There were coarse words in it, the
meaning of which she neither knew nor sought to know; but she did not
resent them. The letter indeed would have lost some of its living force,
its convincing reality, had they been omitted. They rang true, to her
ear. And just because they rang true the rest rang blessedly true as
well. She gloried in the whole therefore, breathing through it a larger
air of faith and hope, and confident fortitude. The kindred qualities of
her own heart and intelligence, the flush of her fine enthusiasm, sprang
to meet and join with the fineness of it, its richness of promise and of
good omen.

For a time mind and emotion remained thus in stable and exalted
equilibrium. Then, as enchantment reached its necessary term and her
apprehensions and thought began to work more normally, she badly wanted
someone to speak to. She wanted to bear witness, to testify, to pour
forth both the moving tale and her own sensations, into the ear of some
indulgent and friendly listener. She--she--wanted to tell Colonel
Carteret about it, to enlist his interest, to read him, in part at least,
Darcy Faircloth's letter, and hear his confirmation of the noble spirit
she discerned in it, its poetry, its charm. For the dear man with the
blue eyes would understand, of that she felt confident, understand
fully--and it would set her right with him, if, as she suspected, he was
not somehow quite pleased with her. She caressed the idea, while, so
doing, silence and concealment grew increasingly irksome to her. Oh! she
wanted to speak--and to her father she could not speak.

With that both Damaris' attitude and expression changed, the glory
abruptly departing. She got up off the floor, left the window, and sat
down very soberly, in a red-velvet covered arm-chair, placed before the
flat stone hearth piled with wood ashes.

There truly was the fly in the ointment, the abiding smirch on the
otherwise radiant surface--as she now hailed it--of this strangely moving
fraternal relation. The fact of it did come, and, as she feared, would
inevitably continue to come between her and her father, marring to an
appreciable degree their mutual confidence and sympathy. At Deadham he
had braced himself to deal with the subject in a spirit of rather
magnificent self-abnegation. But the effort had cost him more than she
quite cared to estimate, in lowered pride and moral suffering. It had
told on not only his mental but his physical health. Now that he was in
great measure restored, his humour no longer saturnine, he no longer
remote, sunk in himself and inaccessible, it would be not only
injudicious, but selfish, to the verge of active cruelty, to press the
subject again upon his notice, to propose further concessions, or further
recognition of its existence. She couldn't ask that of him--ten thousand
times no, she couldn't ask it--though not to ask it was to let the breach
in sympathy and confidence widen silently and grow.

So much was sadly clear to her. She unfolded Faircloth's letter and read
it through a second time, in vain hope of discovering some middle way,
some leading. Read it, feeling the first enchantment but all
cross-hatched now and seamed with perplexity and regret. For decent
barriers must stand, he declared, which meant concealment indefinitely
prolonged, the love of brother and sister wasted, starved to the mean
proportions of an occasional furtive letter; sacrificed, with all its
possibilities of present joy and future comfort, to hide the passage of
long-ago wrongdoing in which it had its source.

Her hesitation went a step behind this presently, arguing as to how that
could be sin which produced so gracious a result. It wasn't logical an
evil tree should bear such conspicuously good fruit. Yet conscience and
instinct assured her the tree was indeed evil--a thing of license, of
unruly passion upon which she might not look. Had it not been her first
thought--when Faircloth told her, drifting down the tide-river in the
chill and dark--that he must feel sad, feel angry having been wronged by
the manner of his birth? He had answered "yes," thereby admitting the
inherent evil of the tree of which his existence was the fruit--adding,
"but not often and not for long," since he esteemed the gift of life too
highly to be overnice as to the exact method by which he became possessed
of it. He palliated, therefore, he excused, but he did not deny.

By this time Damaris' mind wheeled in a vicious circle, perpetually
swinging round to the original starting-point. The moral puzzle proved
too complicated for her, the practical one equally hard of solution. She
stood between them, her father and her brother. Their interests
conflicted, as did the duty she owed each; and her heart, her judgment,
her piety were torn two ways at once. Would it always be thus--or would
the pull of one prove conclusively the stronger? Would she be compelled
finally to choose between them? Not that either openly did or ever would
strive to coerce her. Both were honourable, both magnanimous. And, out of
her heart, she desired to serve both justly and equally--only--only--upon
youth the pull of youth is very great.

She put her hands over her eyes, shrinking, frightened. Was it possible
she loved Darcy Faircloth best?

A knocking. Damaris slipped the letter into the pocket of her dress, and
rising crossed the room and opened the door.

Hordle stood in the pale spacious corridor without. He presented Marshall
Wace's card. The gentleman, he said rather huffily, had called, bringing
a message from Mrs. Frayling as Hordle understood, which he requested to
deliver to Miss Damaris in person. He begged her to believe he was in no
hurry. If she was engaged he could perfectly well wait.--He would do so
in the hotel drawing-room, until it was convenient to her to allow him a
few minutes' conversation.

So, for the second time, this young man's intrusion proved by no means
unwelcome, as offering Damaris timely escape. She went down willingly
to receive him. Yesterday he struck her as a pleasant and agreeable
person--and of a type with which she was unacquainted. It would be
interesting to talk to him.--She felt anxious, moreover, to learn what
Henrietta, lovely if not entirely satisfactory Henrietta, could
possibly want.




CHAPTER IV

BLOWING OF ONE'S OWN TRUMPET PRACTISED AS A FINE ART


The slender little Corsican horses, red-chestnut in colour and active as
cats, trotted, with a tinkle of bells, through the barred sunshine and
shadow of the fragrant pine and cork woods. The road, turning inland,
climbed steadily, the air growing lighter and fresher as the elevation
increased--a nip in it testifying that January was barely yet out. And
that nip justified the wearing of certain afore-mentioned myrtle-green,
fur-trimmed pelisse, upon which Damaris' minor affections were, at this
period, much set. Though agreeably warm and thick, it moulded her bosom,
neatly shaped her waist, and that without any defacing wrinkle. The broad
fur band at the throat compelled her to carry her chin high, with a not
unbecoming effect. Her cheeks bloomed, her eyes shone bright, as she sat
beside Mrs. Frayling in the open victoria, relishing the fine air, the
varying prospect, her own good clothes, her companion's extreme
prettiness and lively talk.

This drive, the prelude to Henrietta's campaign, presented that lady at
her best. The advantage of being--as Henrietta--essentially artificial,
is that you can never, save by forgetful lapse into sincerity, be untrue
to yourself. Hence what a saving of scruples, of self-accusation, of
self-torment! Her plans once fixed she proceeded to carry them out with
unswerving ease and spontaneity. She refused to hurry, her only
criterion of personal conduct being success; and success, so she
believed, if sound, being a plant of gradual growth. Therefore she gave
both herself and others time. Once fairly in the saddle, she never
strained, never fussed.

Her cue to-day was to offer information rather than to require it.
Curious about many things she might be; but gratification of her
curiosity must wait. Damaris, on her part, listened eagerly, asking
nothing better than to be kept amused, kept busy, helped to forget.--Not
Faircloth's letter--very, very far from that!--but the inward conflict of
opposing loves, opposing duties, which meditation upon his letter so
distractingly produced. Relatively all, outside that conflict and the
dear cause of it, was of small moment--mere play stuff at best. But her
brain and conscience were tired. She would be so glad, for a time, only
to think about play stuff.

"I want you to go on being kind to Marshall Wace," Henrietta in the
course of conversation presently said. "He told me how charmingly you
received him yesterday, when he called with my note. He was so pleased.
He is exaggeratedly sensitive owing to unfortunate family complications
in the past."

Damaris pricked up her ears, family complications having latterly
acquired a rather painful interest for her.

"Poor man--I'm sorry," she said.

"His mother, a favourite cousin of my husband, General Frayling, married
an impossible person--eloped with him, to tell the truth. Her people, not
without reason, were dreadfully put out. The children were brought up
rather anyhow. Marshall did not go to a public school, which he imagines
places him at a disadvantage with other men. Perhaps it does. Men always
strike me as being quaintly narrow-minded on that subject. Later he was
sent to Cambridge with the idea of his taking Orders and going into the
Church. My husband's elder brother, Leonard Frayling, is patron of
several livings. He would have presented Marshall to the first which fell
vacant, and thus his future would have been secured. But just as he was
going up for deacon's orders, Marshall, rather I can't help feeling like
a goose, developed theological difficulties. They were perfectly genuine,
I don't doubt; but they were also singularly ill-timed--a little earlier,
a little later, or not at all would have been infinitely more convenient.
So there he was, poor fellow, thrown on the world at three-and-twenty
with no profession and no prospects; for my brother-in-law washed his
hands of him when the theological difficulties were announced. Marshall
tried bear-leading; but people are not particularly anxious to entrust
their boys to a non-public school man afflicted by religious doubts. He
thought of making use of his really exquisite voice and becoming a public
singer; but the training is fearfully expensive, and so somehow that plan
also fell through. For a time I am afraid he was really reduced to great
straits, with the consequence that he broke down in health. Through
friends, my husband got to hear of Marshall's miserable
circumstances--shortly after our marriage it was--and felt it incumbent
upon him to go to the rescue."

Henrietta paused, thereby giving extra point to what was to follow, and
pulled the fur rug up absently about her waist.

"For the last eighteen months," she said, "Marshall has practically
made his home with us. The arrangement has its drawbacks, of course.
For one thing the General and I are never alone, and that is a trial to
us both. Two's company and three's none. When a husband and wife are
really devoted they don't want always to have a third wheel to the
domestic cart."

Then, as if checking further and very natural inclination to repining,
she looked round at Damaris, smiling from behind her thick white net veil
with most disarming sweetness.

"No--no--I'm not naughty. I don't mean to complain about it," she
prettily protested. "For I do so strongly feel if one sets out to do good
it shouldn't be by driblets, with your name, in full, printed in
subscription lists against every small donation. You should plump for
your _protégé_, and that with the least ostentation possible. The General
and I are careful not to let people know Marshall stays with us as a
guest. It is rather a slip speaking of it even to you; but I can trust
you not to repeat what I say. I am sure of that."

Damaris laid a hand fondly, impulsively upon the elder woman's knee.

"For certain you can trust me. For certain anything you say to me is just
between our two selves. I should never dream of repeating it."

"There speaks the precious downy owl of long ago," Mrs. Frayling brightly
cried, "bustling up in defence of its own loyalty and honour. Ah!
Damaris, how very delicious it is to have you with me!"

For, her main point having been made, she now adroitly discarded pathos.
Another word regarding her philanthropic harbourage of the young man,
Marshall Wace, remained to be spoken--but not yet. Let it come in later,
naturally and without hint of insistence.

"We must be together as much as possible during the next few weeks," she
went on--"as often as Sir Charles can be persuaded to spare you to me.
Whether the General and I shall ever make up our minds to settle down in
a home of our own, where I could ask you to stay with us, I don't know.
I'm afraid we are hopelessly nomadic. Therefore I am extra anxious to
make the most of the happy accident which has thrown us together, anxious
to get every ounce possible of intercourse out of it.--We quite
understand you have luncheon with me on Thursday, don't we?--and that you
stay and help me through the afternoon. I am always at home on Thursdays
to the neighbours. They aren't all of them conspicuously well-bred or
exciting; but I have learnt to take the rough with the smooth, the boring
along with the gifted and brilliant. India is a good school in which to
learn hospitality. The practise of that virtue becomes a habit. And I for
one quite refuse to excuse myself from further exercise of it on coming
back to Europe. The General feels with me; and we have laid ourselves out
to be civil to our compatriots here at St. Augustin this winter. A few
people were vexatiously stiff and starched at first; but each one of them
has given in, in turn. They really do, I believe, appreciate our little
social efforts."

"Who wouldn't give in to you Henrietta?" Damaris murmured.

Whereupon Mrs. Frayling delicately beamed on her; and, agreeable
unanimity of sentiment being thus established, conversation between the
two ladies for a while fell silent.

The little chestnut horses, meantime, encouraged with "Oh hè-s" and "Oh
là-s" by their driver, trotted and climbed, climbed and trotted, until
the woodland lay below and the Signal de la Palu was reached. A wide
level space on a crest of the foot-hills--with flag staff bearing the
valorous tricolor, and rustic log-built restaurant offering
refreshment--opening upon the full splendour of the Maritime Alps.

Damaris stepped out of the carriage, and, patting the near horse on the
neck in passing, went forward across the sparse turf, starred with tiny
clear coloured flowers, to the edge of the platform.

The Provençal coachman, from his perch on the box-seat of the victoria,
his rough-caste crumpled countenance sun-baked to the solid ruddy brown
of the soil of his own vineyard, followed her movements with approving
glances.--For she was fresh as an opening rose the young English _Mees_,
and though most elegant, how agile, how evidently strong!

Innocent of the admiration she excited, Damaris stood absorbed, awed
even, by the grandeur of the scene. Many hundred feet below, the rent
chasm down which it took its course steeped in violet gloom, the
milk-white waters of an ice-fed river impetuously journeyed to the
fertile lowlands and the sea. Opposite, across the gorge, amazingly
distinct in the pellucid atmosphere, rose the high mountains, the
undefiled, untrodden and eternal snows. Azure shadow, transparent,
ethereal, haunted them, bringing into evidence enormous rounded shoulder,
cirque, crinkled glacier, knife-edge of underlying rock.

They belonged to the deepest the most superb of life, this rent gorge,
these mountains--like Faircloth's letter. Would beautiful and noble
sights, such as these, always in future give her an ache of longing for
the writer of that letter, for the romance, the poetry, of the
unacknowledged relation he bore to her? Tears smarted hot in Damaris'
eyes, and resolutely, if rather piteously, she essayed to wink them away.
For to her it just now seemed, the deepest, the most superb of life was
also in great measure the forbidden. The ache must be endured, then, the
longing go unsatisfied, since she could only stay the pain of them by
doing violence to plain and heretofore fondly cherished, duties.

But her tears defied the primitive process of winking. Not so
cheaply could she rid herself of their smart and the blurred
distorted vision they occasioned. She pulled out her handkerchief
petulantly and wiped them. Then schooled herself to a colder, more
moderate and reasonable temper.

And, so doing, her thought turned gratefully to Mrs. Frayling. For
mercifully Henrietta was here to help fill the void; to, in a manner,
break her fall. Henrietta didn't belong to the depths or the heights,
that she regretfully admitted. With the eternal snows she possessed
little or nothing in common. But, at a lower, more everyday level, had
not she a vast amount to offer, what with her personal loveliness, her
social cleverness, her knowledge of the world and its ways? She might not
amount to the phoenix of Damaris' childhood's adoration; but she was very
friendly, very diverting, delightfully kind. Damaris honestly believed
all these excellent things of her.--She had been stupidly fastidious
three days ago, and failed to do Henrietta justice. What she had
learned--by chance--this afternoon, of Henrietta's unselfishness and
generous treatment of Marshall Wace bore effectively convincing witness
to the sweetness of her disposition and kindness of her heart. Damaris
felt bound to make amends for that unspoken injustice, of which she now
repented. How better could she do so than by giving herself warmly,
without reserve or restraint, in response to the interest and attention
Henrietta lavished upon her?--At eighteen, to be wooed by so finished and
popular a person was no mean compliment.--She wouldn't hold back,
suspicious and grudging; but enjoy all Henrietta so delightfully offered
to the uttermost.

And there, as though clenching the conclusion thus arrived at, Mrs.
Frayling's voice gaily hailed her, calling:

"Damaris, Damaris, here is our tea--or rather our coffee. Come, darling
child, and partake before it gets cold."

So after a brief pause, spent in determined looking, the girl bowed her
head in mute farewell; and turned her back perhaps courageously, perhaps
unwisely and somewhat faithlessly, upon the mountains, and the rare
mysteries of their untrodden snows. She went across the sparse turf,
starred with tiny clear, coloured flowers, her face stern, for all its
youthful bloom and softness, her eyes meditative and profound.

The owner of the log-built restaurant, a thick-set, grizzled veteran of
the Franco-Prussian war, the breast of his rusty velveteen jacket proudly
bearing a row of medals, stood talking to Mrs. Frayling, hat in hand. His
right foot had suffered amputation some inches above the ankle, and he
walked with the ungainly support of a crutch-topped peg-leg strapped to
the flexed knee.

As Damaris approached the carriage, he swept back the fur rug in
gallantly respectful invitation; and, so soon as she ensconced herself on
the seat beside Henrietta, bending down he firmly and comfortably tucked
it round her. He declared, further, as she thanked him, it an honour in
any capacity to serve her, since had not Madame, but this moment, so
gracefully informed him of the commanding military career of the
Mademoiselle's father, possessor of that unique distinction the Victoria
Cross--a person animated, moreover, as Madame reported, by sincere
sympathy for the tragic sorrows of well-beloved and so now cruelly
dismembered France.

Damaris heard, in this singing of her father's praises, a grateful
reconciling strain. She found it profitable, just now, to recall the
heroic deeds, the notable achievements which marked his record. Her
coffee tasted the more fragrant for it, the butter the fresher, the
honey the sweeter wherewith she spread the clean coarse home-baked bread.
She ate, indeed, with a capital appetite, the long drive and stimulating
air, making her hungry. Possibly even her recent emotion contributed to
that result; for in youth heartache by no means connotes a disposition
towards fasting, rather does diet, generous in quantity, materially
assist to soothe its anguish.

This meal, in fact, partaken of in the open, alone with Henrietta,
object of her childhood's idolatry--the first they had shared since
those remote and guileless years--assumed to Damaris a sacramental
character, though of the earthly and mundane rather than transcendental
kind. Its communion was one of good fellowship, of agreement in
cultivation of the lighter social side; which, upon our maiden's part,
implied tacit consent to conform to easier standards than those until
now regulating her thought and action, implied tacit acceptance of
Henrietta as example and as guide.

Whether the latter would have found cause for self-congratulation, could
she have fathomed the precise cause of this apparently speedy conquest
and speedy surrender, is doubtful; since it, in fact, took its rise less
in the fascination of devotion given, than in that of devotion denied.
She happened to be here on the spot at a critical juncture, and thus to
catch the young girl's heart on the rebound. That was all--that, joined
with Damaris' instinctive necessity to play fair and pay in honest coin
for every benefit received.

So much must be said in extenuation of our nymph-like damsel's apparent
subjection to levity--a declension which, in the sequel and in certain
quarters, went neither unnoticed nor undeplored. But to labour this point
is to forestall history. Immediately her change of attitude announced its
existence innocently enough. For the sacramental meal once consumed, and
courteous parting words bestowed upon the valiant soldier broken in his
country's wars, the coachman mounted the box, and gathering up the reins,
with "Ho hè's" and "ho là's," swung his horses half round the level and
plunged them over the hill-side, along a steep woodland track, leading by
serpentine twists and curves down to join the Corniche Road--a blonde
ribbon rimming the indentations of the five-mile distant coast.

Damaris steadied herself well back on the seat of the carriage as it
swayed and bumped over ruts and tree-roots to the lively menace of its
springs. She studiously kept her face turned towards her companion, a
myrtle-green shoulder as studiously turned towards the view. For she
found it wiser not even to glance in that direction, lest rebellious
regrets and longings should leap on her across the violet-blotted abyss
from out those shining Alpine citadels. While to strengthen herself in
allegiance to Mrs. Frayling and to, what may be called, the lighter side,
she pushed one hand into that lady's muff and coaxed the slender
pointed-fingers hiding in the comfortable pussy-warmth within.

"Tell me stories, Henrietta, please," she entreated, "about all the
people whom you've asked to your party on Thursday. Dress them up for me
and put them through their paces, so that I may know who they all are
when I see them and make no mistakes, but behave to them just as you
would wish me to."

"Gradate your attentions and not pet the wrong ones?"

Mrs. Frayling gave gentle squeeze for squeeze in the pussy-warmth,
laughing a trifle impishly.

"You sinful child," she said--"Gracious, what jolts--my spine will soon
be driven through the top of my skull at this rate!--Yes, sinful in
tempting me to gibbet my acquaintances for your amusement."

"But why gibbet them? Aren't they nice, don't you care for them?"

"Prodigiously, of course. Yet would you find it in the least interesting
or illuminating if I indexed their modest virtues only?"

"I think the old soldier found it both interesting and illuminating when
you indexed my father's virtues just now."

"Sir Charles's virtues hardly come under the head of modest ones," Mrs.
Frayling threw off almost sharply. "Give me someone as well worth
acclaiming and I'll shout with the best! But you scarcely quote your
father as among the average, do you?--The people whom you'll meet on
Thursday compared to him, I'm afraid, are as molehills to the mountains
yonder. If I described them by their amiable qualities alone they'd be as
indistinguishable and as insipid as a row of dolls. Only through their
aberrations, their unconscious perfidies, iniquities, do they develop
definiteness of outline and begin to live. Oh! nothing could be unkinder
than to whitewash them. Take Mrs. Callowgas, for instance, with one eye
on the Church, the other on the world. The permanent inconsistency of her
attitude, as I may say her permanent squint, gives her a certain _cachet_
without which she'd be a positive blank.--She is most anxious to meet
you, by the way, and Sir Charles--always supposing he is self-sacrificing
enough to come--because she knows connections of his and yours at
Harchester, a genial pillar of the Church in the form of an Archdeacon,
in whom, as I gather, her dear dead Lord Bishop very much put his trust."

"Tom Verity's father, I suppose," Damaris murmured, her colour rising,
the hint of a cloud too upon her brow.

"And who may Tom Verity be?" Mrs. Frayling, noting both colour and cloud,
alertly asked.

"A distant cousin. He stayed with us in the autumn just before he went
out to India. He passed into the Indian Civil Service from Oxford at the
top of the list."

"Praiseworthy young man."

"Oh! but you would like him, Henrietta," the girl declared. "He is very
clever and very entertaining too when"--

"When?"

"Well, when he doesn't tease too much. He has an immense amount to talk
about, and very good manners."

"Also, when he does not tease too much?--And you like him?"

"I don't quite know," Damaris slowly said. "He did not stay with us
long enough for me to make up my mind. And then other things happened
which rather put him out of my head. He was a little conceited, perhaps,
I thought."

"Not unnaturally, being at the top of the pass list. But though other
things put him out of your head, he writes to you?"

In the pussy-warmth within her muff, Mrs. Frayling became sensible
that Damaris' hand grew unresponsive, at once curiously stiff and
curiously limp.

"He has written twice. Once on the voyage out, and again soon after he
arrived. The--the second letter reached me this week."

Notwithstanding sunshine, the eager air, and lively bumping of the
descent, Henrietta observed the flush fade, leaving the girl white as
milk. Her eyes looked positively enormous set in the pallor of her face.
They were veiled, telling nothing, and thereby--to Mrs. Frayling's
thinking--betraying much. She scented a situation--some girlish
attachment, budding affair of the heart.

"My father gave Tom Verity letters of introduction, and he wanted us to
know how kindly he had been received in consequence."

"Most proper on his part," Mrs. Frayling said.

She debated discreet questioning, probing--the establishment of herself
in the character of sympathetic confidante. But decided against that. It
might be impolitic, dangerous even, to press the pace. Moreover the young
man, whatever his attractions, might be held a negligible quantity in as
far as any little schemes of her own were concerned at present, long
leave and reappearance upon the home scene being almost certainly years
distant.--And, just there, the hand within the muff became responsive
once more, even urgent in its seeking and pressure, as though appealing
for attention and tenderness.

"Henrietta, I don't want to be selfish, but won't you go on telling me
stories about your Thursday party people?--I interrupted you--but it's
all new, you see, and it interests me so much," Damaris rather
plaintively said.

Mrs. Frayling needed no further inducement to exercise her really
considerable powers of verbal delineation. Charging her palette with
lively colours, she sprang to the task--and that with a sprightly
composure and deftness of touch which went far to cloak malice and rob
flippancy of offence.

Listening, Damaris brightened--as the adroit performer intended she
should--under the gay cascade of talk. Laughed at length, letting finer
instincts of charity go by the wall, in her enjoyment of neatly turned
mockeries and the sense of personal superiority they provoked. For
Henrietta's dissection of the weaknesses of absent friends, inevitably
amounted to indirect flattery of the friend for whose diversion that
process of dissection was carried out.

She passed the whole troop in review.--To begin with Miss Maud Callowgas,
in permanent waiting upon her ex-semi-episcopal widowed mother--in age a
real thirty-five though nominal twenty-eight, her muddy complexion,
prominent teeth and all too long back.--Her designs, real or imagined,
upon Marshall Wace. Designs foredoomed to failure, since whatever his
intentions--Henrietta smiled wisely--they certainly did not include Maud
Callowgas's matrimonial future in their purview.

Herbert Binning followed next--the chaplain who served the rather staring
little Anglican church at Le Vandou, a suburb of St. Augustin much
patronized by the English in the winter season, and a chapel somewhere in
the Bernese Oberland during the summer months. Energetic, athletic, a
great talker and squire of dames--in all honesty and correctness, this
last, well understood, for there wasn't a word to be breathed against the
good cleric's morals. But just a wee bit impressionable and flirtatious,
as who might not very well be with such a whiney-piney wife as Mrs.
Binning, always ailing; what mind she might (by stretch of charity) be
supposed to possess exclusively fixed upon the chronic irregularities of
her internal organs? Recumbency was a mania with her and she had a
disconcerting habit of wanting to lie down on the most inconveniently
unsuitable occasions.--To mitigate his over-flowing energies, which cried
aloud for work, Mr. Binning took pupils. He had two exceptionably nice
boys with him this winter, in the interval between leaving Eton and going
up to Oxford, namely, Peregrine Ditton, Lord Pamber's younger son, and
Harry Ellice, a nephew of Lady Hermione Twells. They were very well-bred.
Their high spirits were highly infectious. They played tennis to
perfection and Harry Ellice danced quite tidily into the
bargain.--Damaris must make friends with them. They were her
contemporaries, and delightfully fresh and ingenuous.

Lady Hermione herself--here Henrietta's tone conveyed restraint, even
comparative reverence--who never for an instant forgot she once had
reigned over some microscopic court out in the far Colonial
wilderness, nor allowed you to forget it either. Her glance half
demanded your curtsy. Still she was the "real thing" and, in that,
eminently satisfactory--genuine _grande dame_ by right both of birth
and of training.

"She won't condescend to tell me so, being resolved to keep me very much
in my proper place," Henrietta continued; "but I learned yesterday from
Mary Ellice--Harry's sister, who lives with her--that she is intensely
desirous to meet Sir Charles. She wants to talk to him about Afghanistan
and North-west Frontier policy. A brother of hers it appears was at one
time in the Guides; and she is under the impression your father and
Colonel Carteret would have known him.--By the way, dearest child, they
do mean to honour me, those two, don't they, with their presence on
Thursday?"

"Of course they will, since you asked them. Why, they love to come
and see you."

"Do they?" Mrs. Frayling said--"Anyhow, let us hope so. I can trust
Carteret's general benevolence, but I am afraid your father will be
unutterably bored with my rubbishing little assembly."

"But, of course, he'll be nice to everybody too--as tame and gentle as
possible with them all to please you, don't you see, Henrietta."

"Ah! no doubt, all to please me!" she repeated. And fell to musing,
while the carriage, quitting at last the rough forest track, rattled out
on to the metalled high road, white in dust.

Here the late afternoon sun still lay hot. The booming plunge of the
tideless sea, breaking upon the rocks below, quivered in the quiet air.
Henrietta Frayling withdrew her hands from her muff, unfastened the
collar of her sable cape. The change from the shadowed woods to this
glaring sheltered stretch of road was oppressive. She felt strangely
tired and spent. She trusted Damaris would not perceive her uncomfortable
state and proffer sympathy. And Damaris, in fact, did nothing of the
sort, being very fully occupied with her own concerns at present.

Half a mile ahead, pastel-tinted, green-shuttered houses--a village of a
single straggling street--detached themselves in broken perspective from
the purple of pine-crowned cliff and headland beyond. Behind them the
western sky began to grow golden with the approach of sunset. The road
lead straight towards that softly golden light--to St. Augustin. It led
further, deeper into the gold, deeper, as one might fancy, into the heart
of the coming sunset, namely to the world-famous seaport of Marseilles.

Damaris sought to stifle remembrance of this alluring fact, as soon as it
occurred to her. She must not dally with it--no she mustn't. To in
anywise encourage or dwell on it, was weak and unworthy, she having
accepted the claims of clearly apprehended duty. She could not go back on
her decision, her choice, since, in face of the everlasting hills, she
had pledged herself.

So she let her eyes no longer rest on the high-road, but looked out to
sea--where, as tormenting chance would have it, the black hull of a big
cargo boat, steaming slowly westward, cut into the vast expanse of blue,
long pennons of rusty grey smoke trailing away from its twin rusty-red
painted funnels.

Hard-pressed, the girl turned to her companion, asking abruptly,
inconsequently--"Is that every one whom you expect on Thursday,
Henrietta?"

For some seconds Mrs. Frayling regarded her with a curious lack of
intelligent interest or comprehension. Her thoughts, also, had run
forward into the gold of the approaching sunset; and she had some
difficulty in overtaking, or restraining them, although they went no
further than the Grand Hotel; and--so to speak--sat down there all of a
piece, on a buff-coloured iron chair, which commanded an uninterrupted
view of four gentlemen standing talking before the front door.

"On Thursday?" she repeated--"Why Thursday?"--and her usually
skilful hands fumbled with the fastening of her sable cape. Their
helpless ineffectual movements served to bring her to her senses,
bring her to herself.

"Really you possess an insatiable thirst for information regarding my
probable guests, precious child," she exclaimed. "All--of course not. I
have only portrayed the heads of tribes as yet for your delectation. We
shall number many others--male and female--of the usual self-expatriated
British rank and file.--Derelicts mostly."

Lightly and coldly, Henrietta laughed.

"Like, for example, the General and myself. Wanderers possessed of a
singularly barren species of freedom, without ties, without any
sheet-anchor of family or of profession to embarrass our movements,
without call to live in one place rather than another. All along this
sun-blessed Riviera you will find them swarming, thick as flies,
displaying the trumpery spites and rivalries through which, as I started
by pointing out to you, they can alone maintain a degree of individuality
and persuade themselves and others they still are actually alive."

Shocked at this sudden bitterness, touched to the quick by generous pity,
regardless of possible onlookers--here in the village street, where the
hoof-beats of the trotting horses echoed loud from the house-walls on
either side--Damaris put her arms round Henrietta Frayling, clasping,
kissing her.

"Ah! don't, Henrietta," she cried. "Don't dare to say such ugly,
lying things about your dear self. They aren't true. They're absurdly,
scandalously untrue.--You who are so brilliant, so greatly admired,
who have everyone at your feet! You who are so kind too,--think of all
the pleasure you have given me to-day, for instance--and then think
how beautifully good you've been, and all the time are being, to poor
Mr. Wace"--

Whether Mrs. Frayling's surprising lapse into sincerity and bald
self-criticism were intentional, calculated, or not, she was undoubtedly
quick to see and profit by the opening which Damaris' concluding words
afforded her.

"How sweet you are, darling child! How very dear of you to scold me
thus!" she murmured, gently disengaging herself and preening her
feathers, somewhat disarranged by the said darling child's
impetuous onset.

"I know it is wrong to grumble. Yet sometimes--as one grows older--one
gets a dreadful sense that the delights of life are past; and that
perhaps one has been overscrupulous, over-timid and so missed the
best.--That is one reason why I find it so infinitely pleasing to have
you with me--yet pathetic too perhaps.--Why? Well, I don't know that I am
quite at liberty to explain exactly why."

Henrietta smiled at her long, wistfully and oh! so sagely.

"And, indirectly, that reminds me I am most anxious you should not
exaggerate, or run off with any mistaken ideas about my dealings with
poor Marshall Wace. I don't deny I did find his constantly being with us
a trial at first. But I am reconciled to it. A trifle of discipline,
though screamingly disagreeable, is no doubt sometimes useful--good for
one's character, I mean. And I really have grown quite attached to him.
He has charming qualities. His want of self-confidence is really his
worst fault--and what a trivial one if you've had experience of the
horrid things men can do, gamble, for example, and drink."

Henrietta paused, sighed. The yellow facade of the Grand Hotel came into
sight, a pale spot amid dark trees in the distance.

"And Marshall, poor fellow," she continued, "is more grateful to me,
that I know, than words can say. So do like him and encourage him a
little--it would be such a help and happiness to me as well as to him,
dearest Damaris."




CHAPTER V

IN WHICH HENRIETTA PULLS THE STRINGS


Mrs. Frayling's afternoon party passed off to admiration. But this by no
means exhausted her social activities. Rather did it stimulate them; so
that, with Damaris' amusement as their ostensible object and excuse, they
multiplied exceedingly. Henrietta was in her native element. Not for
years had she enjoyed herself so much. This chaperonage, this vicarious
motherhood, was rich in opportunity. She flung wide her nets, even to the
enmeshing of recruits from other larger centres, Cannes, Antibes and
Nice. This more ambitious phase developed later. Immediately our
chronicle may address itself to the initial Thursday, which, for our
nymph-like maiden, saw the birth of certain illusions destined to all too
lengthy a span of life.

Luncheon at the villa--or as Henrietta preferred it called, The
Pavilion--set in the grounds of the Hôtel de la Plage and dependent for
service upon that house--was served at mid-day. This left a considerable
interval before the advent of the expected guests. Mrs. Frayling refused
to dedicate it to continuous conversation, as unduly tiring both for
Damaris and for herself. They must reserve their energies, must keep
fresh. Marshall Wace was, therefore, bidden to provide peaceful
entertainment, read aloud--presently, perhaps, sing to them at such time
as digestion--bad for the voice when in process--might be supposed
complete. The young man obeyed, armed with Tennyson's _Maud_ and a volume
of selected lyrics.

His performance fairly started General Frayling furtively vanished in
search of a mild _siesta_. It inflated his uxorious breast with pride to
have his Henrietta shine in hospitality thus. But his lean shanks
wearied, keeping time to the giddy music. Wistfully he feared he must be
going downhill, wasn't altogether the man he used to be, since he found
the business of pleasure so exhaustingly strenuous. And that was beastly
unfair to his lovely wife--wouldn't do, would not do at all, by Gad!
Therefore did he vanish into a diminutive and rather stuffy smoking-room,
under the stairs, unfasten his nankeen waistcoat, unfasten his
collar-stud, doze and finally, a little anxiously, sleep.

Whatever Marshall Wace's diffidence in ordinary intercourse, it
effectually disappeared so soon as he began to declaim or to recite. The
histrionic in him declared itself, rising dominant. Given a character to
impersonate, big swelling words to say, fine sentiments to enunciate, he
changed to the required colour chameleon-like. You forgot--at least the
feminine portion of his audience, almost without exception, forgot--that
his round light-brown eyes stared uncomfortably much; that his nose, thin
at the root and starting with handsome aquiline promise, ended in a
foolish button-tip. Forgot that his lips were straight and compressed,
wanting in generous curves and in tenderness--an actor's mouth,
constructed merely for speech. Forgot the harsh quality of the triangular
redness on either cheek, fixed and feverish. Ceased to remark how the
angle of the jaw stood away from and beyond the sinewy, meagre neck, or
note the rise and fall of Adam's apple so prominent in his throat.--No
longer were annoyed by the effeminate character of the hands, their
retracted nails and pink, upturned finger-tips, offering so queer a
contrast to the rather inordinate size of his feet.

For the voice rarely failed to influence its hearers, to carry you indeed
a little out of yourself by its variety of intonation, its fire and
fervour, its languishing modulations, broken pauses, yearning melancholy
of effect. The part of the neurotic hero of the--then--Laureate's poem,
that somewhat pinch-beck Victorian Hamlet, suited our young friend,
moreover, down to the ground. It offered sympathetic expression to his
own nature and temperament; so that he wooed, scoffed, blasphemed,
orated, drowned in salt seas of envy and self-pity, with a simulation of
sincerity as convincing to others as consolatory to himself.

And Damaris, being unlearned in the curious arts of the theatre, listened
wide-eyed, spellbound, until flicked by the swishing skirts of fictitious
emotion into genuine, yet covert, excitement. As the reading progressed
Henrietta Frayling's presence increasingly sank into unimportance. More
and more did the poem assume a personal character, of which, if the
reader were hero, she--Damaris--became heroine. Marshall Wace seemed to
read not to, but definitely at her; so that during more than one ardent
passage, she felt herself go hot all over, as though alone with him, an
acknowledged object of his adoring, despairing declarations. This she
shrank from, yet--it must be owned--found stirring, strangely and not
altogether unpleasantly agitating. For was not this _protégé_ of
Henrietta's--whom the latter implored her to encourage and treat
kindly--something of a genius? Capable of sudden and amazing
transformation, talking to you with a modesty and deference agreeably
greater than that of most young men of his age; then, on an instant,
changing at will, and extraordinarily voicing the accumulated wrongs,
joys and sorrows of universal humanity? Could Henrietta, who usually
spoke of him in tones of commiseration, not to say of patronage, be aware
how remarkable he really was? Damaris wondered; regarding him, meanwhile,
with innocent respect and admiration. For how tremendously much he must
have experienced, how greatly he must have suffered to be able to portray
drama, express profound emotion thus! That the actor's art is but
glorified make-believe, the actor himself too often hollow as a drum,
though loud sounding as one, never for an instant occurred to her. How
should it?

Therefore when Mrs. Frayling--recollecting certain mysteries of the
toilet which required attention before the arrival of her expected
guests--brought the performance to an abrupt termination, Damaris felt a
little taken aback, a little put about, as though someone should be
guilty of talking millinery in church.

For--"Splendid, my dear Marshall, splendid," the lady softly yet
emphatically interrupted him. "To-day you really surpass yourself. I
never heard you read better, and I hate to be compelled to call a halt.
But time has flown--look."

And she pointed to the blue and gold Sévres clock upon the mantelpiece.

"Miss Verity is an inspiring auditor," he said, none best pleased at
being thus arbitrarily arrested in midcourse. "For whatever merit my
reading may have possessed, your thanks are due to her rather than to me,
Cousin Henrietta."

He spoke to the elder woman. He looked at the younger. With a nervous yet
ponderous movement--it was Marshall Wace's misfortune always to take up
more room than by rights belonged to his height and bulk--he got on to
his feet. Inattentively let drop the volume of poems upon a neighbouring
table, to the lively danger of two empty coffee cups.

The cups rattled. "Pray be careful," Mrs. Frayling admonished him with
some sharpness. The performance had been prolonged. Not without intention
had she effaced herself. But, by both performance and effacement, she had
been not a little bored, having a natural liking for the limelight. She,
therefore, hit out--to regret her indiscretion the next moment.

"Nothing--nothing," she prettily added. "I beg your pardon, Marshall, but
I quite thought those cups would fall off the table--So stupid of me."

The fixed red widened, painfully inundating the young man's countenance.
He was infuriated by his own awkwardness. Humiliated by Mrs. Frayling's
warning, of which her subsequent apology failed to mitigate the disgrace.
And that this should occur just in the hour of satisfied vanity, of
agreeable success--and before Damaris! In her eyes he must be miserably
disqualified henceforth.

But his misfortunes worked to quite other ends than he anticipated. For
Damaris came nearer, her expression gravely earnest as appealing to him
not to mind, not to let these things vex him.

"I have never heard anyone read so beautifully," she told him. "You make
the words come alive so that one sees the whole story happening. It is
wonderful. I shall always remember this afternoon because of your
reading--and shall long to hear you again--often, I know, long for that."

Wace bowed. This innocent enthusiasm was extremely assuaging to his
wounded self-esteem.

"You have but to ask me, Miss Verity. I shall be only too honoured,
too happy to read to you whenever you have leisure and inclination
to listen."

But here Mrs. Frayling put her arm round Damaris' waist, affectionately,
laughingly, and drew her towards the door.

"Come, come, darling child--don't be too complimentary or Marshall will
grow unbearably conceited.--You'll put on flannels, by the way, Marshall,
won't you?" she added as an after-thought.

"I shall not play tennis this afternoon," he answered, his nose in the
air. "There will be plenty for a change of setts without me. I am not
good enough for Binning and his two young aristocrats, and I don't choose
to make sport for the Philistines by an exhibition of my ineptitude. I
have no pretentious to being an athlete."

"Nonsense, Marshall, nonsense," she took him up quickly, conscious his
reply was not in the best taste. "You wilfully underrate yourself."

Then later, as, still entwined, she conducted Damaris upstairs to her
bed-chamber.

"There you have the position in a nutshell," she said. "Still am I not
right? For hasn't he charm, poor dear fellow, so very much cleverness--so
really gifted isn't he?"

And as the girl warmly agreed:

"Ah! I am so very glad you appreciate him.--And you have yet to hear
him sing! That takes one by storm, I confess--Unhappy Maud
Callowgas!--But you see how frightfully on edge he is--how he turns off
for no valid reason, imagines himself a failure, imagines himself out
of it? In point of fact he plays a quite passable game of tennis--and
you heard what he said? These fits of depression and self-depreciation
amount to being tragic. One requires endless tact to manage him and
save him from himself."

Henrietta paused, sighed, sitting on the stool before her toilette table,
neatly placing tortoiseshell hairpins, patting and adjusting her bright
brown hair.

"I could have bitten my tongue out for making that wretched slip about
the coffee cups; but I was off my guard for once. And like all artistic
people Marshall is a little absent-minded--absorbed to the point of not
seeing exactly what he is doing.--Poor young man, I sometimes tremble for
his future. Such a highly strung, sensitive nature amounts almost to a
curse. If he got into wrong hands what mightn't the end be?--Catastrophe,
for he is capable of fatal desperation. And I must own men--with the
exception of my husband who is simply an angel to him--do not always
understand and are not quite kind to him. He needs a wise loving woman to
develop the best in him--there is so very much which is good--and to
guide him."

"Well," Damaris said, and that without suspicion of irony, "dearest
Henrietta, hasn't he you?"

Mrs. Frayling took up the ivory hand-glass, and sitting sideways on the
dressing-stool, turned her graceful head hither and thither, to obtain
the fuller view of her back hair.

"Me? But you forget, I have other claims to satisfy. I can't look after
him for ever. I must find him a wife I suppose; though I really shall be
rather loath to give him up. His gratitude and loneliness touch me so
much," she said, looking up and smiling, with a little twist in her
mouth, as of playful and unwilling resignation, captivating to see.

By which cajoleries and expression of praiseworthy sentiment, Henrietta
raised herself notably in Damaris' estimation--as she fully intended to
do. Our maiden kissed her with silent favour; and, mysteries of the
toilette completed, more closely united than ever before--that is, since
the date of the elder's second advent--the two ladies, presenting the
prettiest picture imaginable, went downstairs again, gaily, hand in hand.




CHAPTER VI

CARNIVAL--AND AFTER


Tall and slim, in the black and white of his evening clothes, Colonel
Carteret leaned his shoulder against an iron pillar of the verandah of
the Hôtel de la Plage, and smoked, looking meditatively down into the
moonlit garden. Through the range of brightly lighted open windows
behind him came the sound of a piano and stringed instruments, a subdued
babble of voices, the whisper of women's skirts, and the sliding rush of
valsing feet.

To-night marked the culmination and apex of Henrietta Frayling's social
effort. It was mid-March, mid-Lent--which last fact she made an
excuse--after taking ecclesiastical opinion on the subject, namely, that
of Herbert Binning, the Anglican chaplain--for issuing invitations to a
Cinderella dance. Damaris Verity, it appeared, had never really, properly
and ceremoniously "come out"--a neglect which Henrietta protested should
be repaired. Positively, but very charmingly, she told Sir Charles it
must. She only wished the affair could be on a larger, more worthy scale.
This was, after all, but a makeshift--the modest best she could arrange
under the circumstances. But he--Sir Charles--must not refuse. It would
give her such intense pleasure to have the darling child make her
official _début_ under her, Henrietta's, auspices. The hours would of
necessity be early, to avoid disturbance of the non-dancing residents in
the hotel. But, if the entertainment were bound to end at midnight, it
could begin at a proportionately unfashionable hour. For once _table
d'hôte_ might surely be timed for six o'clock; and the dining-room--since
it offered larger space than any other apartment--be cleared, aired, and
ready for dancing by a quarter-past eight.--Henrietta unquestionably had
a way with her; proprietors, managers, servants alike hastening obedient
to her cajoling nod.--Thanks to importations by road and rail, from other
coast resorts, she reckoned to muster sixteen to twenty couples.--A
rubbishing apology at best, in the matter of a "coming out" ball, for a
girl of Damaris' position and deserts--no one could know that better than
she, Henrietta, herself did!

"A poor thing but mine own," she quoted, when enlarging upon the scheme
to Charles Verity. "But as at Easter we are fated to scatter, I suppose,
and go our several roads with small promise of reunion, you must really
be gracious, dear friend, and, for old sake's sake, give in to my
desires. It's my last chance, for heaven knows how long--not impossibly
for ever."

Carteret happened to be present during the above conversation. Had he
not, it may be doubted whether it would ever have taken place--with this
dash of affecting reminiscence in any case. Allusions to a common past
were barred for excellent reasons, as between these two persons, save
strictly in public. Even so it struck him as a humorous piece of audacity
on the lady's part. Her effrontery touched on the colossal! But it
succeeded, always had done so.--In his judgment of Henrietta, Carteret
never failed to remember, being compact of chivalry and of truthfulness,
that he had once on a time been a good half in love with her
himself.--All the same he was not sure her close association with Damaris
met with his approval.

That association had grown, Jonah's gourd-like, during the last six
weeks, until, as he rather uneasily noted, the two were hardly ever
apart. Luncheons, teas, picnics, excursions, succeeded one another.
Afternoons of tennis in the hotel grounds, the athletic gregarious
Binning and his two pupils, Peregrine Ditton and Harry Ellice in
attendance. Sometimes the latter's sister, Mary Ellice, joined the
company--when Lady Hermione condescended to spare her--or the long-backed
Miss Maud Callowgas. Afternoons of reading and song, too, supplied by
Marshall Wace.--Carteret felt self-reproachful, yet knew his charity
too often threatened to stop short of the young man Wace--though the
beggar had a voice to draw tears from a stone, plague him!--At intervals,
all-day expeditions were undertaken to Monte Carlo, or shopping raids
upon Cannes or Nice.

Yes, verily--as he reflected--Henrietta Frayling did keep the ball
rolling with truly Anglo-Indian frivolity and persistence, here in the
heart of Europe! And was that altogether wholesome for Damaris? He
delighted to have the beautiful young creature enjoy herself, spread her
wings, take her place among the courted and acclaimed. But he prized her
too highly not to be ambitious for her; and would have preferred her
social education to be conducted on more dignified and authorized lines,
in the great world of London, namely, or Paris. When all came to all,
this was hardly good enough.

No one, he honestly admitted, trumpeted that last truth more loudly than
Henrietta--at times. Nevertheless she went on and on, making the business
of this rather second-rate pleasure-seeking daily of greater importance.
How could Damaris be expected to discriminate, to retain her sense of
relative values, in the perpetual scrimmage, the unceasing rush? Instinct
and nobility of nature go an immensely long way as preservatives--thank
God for that--still, where you have unsophistication, inexperience, a
holy ignorance, to deal with, it is unwise to trust exclusively to their
saving grace. Even the finest character is the safer--so he supposed--for
some moulding and direction in its first contact with the world, if it is
to come through the ordeal unscathed and unbesmirched. And to ask such
moulding and direction of Henrietta Frayling was about as useful as
asking a humming-bird to draw a water-cart.

He was still fond of Henrietta and derived much silent entertainment from
witnessing her manoeuvres. But he was under no delusion regarding her. He
considered her quite the most selfish woman of his acquaintance, though
also one of the most superficially attractive. Hers was a cold, not a
hot selfishness, refined to a sort of exquisiteness and never for an
instant fleshly or gross. But that selfishness, in its singleness of
purpose, made her curiously powerful, curiously capable of influencing
persons of larger and finer spirit than herself--witness her ascendency
over Charles Verity during a long period of years, and that without ever
giving, or even seriously compromising, herself.

Into whoever she fixed her dainty little claws, she did it with an eye to
some personal advantage. And here Carteret owned himself puzzled--for
what advantage could she gain from this close association with Damaris?
The girl's freshness went, rather mercilessly, to show up her fading.

At times, it is true, watching her pretty alacrity of manner, hearing her
caressing speech, he inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt,
believe her self-forgetful, her affection genuine, guiltless of design or
after-thought. If so, so very much the better! He was far from grudging
her redemption, specially at the hands of Damaris.--Only were things, in
point of fact, working to this commendable issue? With the best will in
the world to think so, he failed to rid himself of some prickings of
anxiety and distrust.

And from such prickings he sensibly suffered to-night, as he leaned his
shoulder against the iron pillar of the verandah at the Hôtel de la
Plage, and looked down into the _claire obscure_ of the moonlit gardens,
while over the polished floor of the big room at his back, the rhythmical
tread of the dancers' feet kept time to the music of piano and sweet
wailing strings.--For that a change showed increasingly evident in
Damaris he could not disguise from himself. In precisely what that change
consisted it was not easy to say. He discovered it more in an attitude of
mind and atmosphere than in outward action or even in words said. But she
was not quite the same as the grave and steadfast young creature who had
asked his help for her father, and indirectly for herself, in the moist
chill of the November twilight at The Hard--and who, receiving promise
of such help, had darted away over the drenched lawn in company with the
wildly gambolling cats alternately pursuing and pursued. Nor was she
quite the same as when he had walked with her, through the resounding
Paris streets, to pay her devoirs to her former guardians and teachers at
the convent school; and, later returning, had spoken to her of the safety
of religion, the high worth of the doctrine and practice of a definite
historic creed.

Her relation to her father appeared--and this pained Carteret--to lack
its old intimacy, its intensity of consideration and tenderness. Her
interest in the child of his brain, his belated literary experiment, was
less sustained and spontaneous. How could it flourish in its former
proportions when she was so much away, so often absent from morning till
night?--Not without leave though, for she scrupulously asked permission
before answering Henrietta's gay call and taking part in that lady's
junketings and jaunts. Sir Charles never refused the requested
permission; but, while granting it, did he not tend to retreat into his
former sardonic humour, fall into long silences, become inaccessible
again and remote? The book went forward; yet, more than once recently,
Carteret had questioned whether his friend would ever get himself fairly
delivered of the admirable volume were not he--Carteret--permanently at
hand to act midwife. An unpleasant idea pursued him that Sir Charles
went, in some strange fashion, in fear of Damaris, of her criticism, her
judgment. Yet fear seemed a hatefully strong and ugly word to employ as
between a father and daughter so straitly, heretofore, bound to one
another in love.

And then--there lay the heart of the worry, proving him only too likely a
graceless jealous middle-age curmudgeon, a senile sentimentalist, thus
did he upbraidingly mock himself--were there not signs of Damaris
developing into a rather thorough paced coquette? She accepted the homage
offered her with avidity, with many small airs and graces--_à la_
Henrietta--of a quite novel sort. Old General Frayling--poor pathetic old
warrior--was her slave. Peregrine Ditton, Harry Ellice, even the cleric
Binning--let alone the permanently self-conscious, attitudinizing
Wace--with other newer acquaintances, English and foreign, ran at her
heels. And she let them run, bless her, even encouraged their running by
turns of naughty disdain and waywardness. She was fatal to boys--that was
in the natural course of things. And fatal to those considerably older
than boys--perhaps--

The music flew faster and faster--stopped with a shriek and a crash.
Laughing, talking, the dancers streamed out of the hot brightly lighted
room into the soft peace, the delicate phantasy of the colourless
moonlight.

Carteret drew back, flattening himself against the iron pillar in the
shadow, as they passed down the steps into the garden below; the women's
pale airy forms and the men's dark ones, pacing the shining paths in
groups and couples, between the flower-beds, under the flat-headed pines,
the shaggy-stemmed palms and towering eucalyptus, in and out massed banks
of blossoming shrubs and dwarf hedges of monthly roses.

Midway in the light-hearted procession came Damaris, Peregrine Ditton on
one side of her, Harry Ellice on the other. Leaving the main alley, the
trio turned along a path, running parallel to the verandah, which opened
into a circle surrounding the stone basin of a tinkling fountain,
immediately below Colonel Carteret's post of solitary observation.

Damaris carried the demi-train of her white satin gown over her arm,
thereby revealing a wealth of lace frilled petticoat, from beneath
which the toes of her high-heeled, white satin shoes stepped with a
pretty measured tread. The two boys, leaning a little towards one
another, talked across her, their voices slightly raised in argument,
not to say dispute.

"I call it rotten mean to bag my dance like that, I tell you.--Go
away?--No I swear I won't go away, won't budge one blessed inch unless
Miss Verity actually orders me to. If my dance was stolen, all the more
reason I should have her to talk to now as a sort of make-up. So you
just clear out, if you please, my good chap, and leave the field to your
elders and betters. Remove your superfluous carcass till further
notice.--Vamoose, my son, do you hear?"

This excitedly from Peregrine Ditton. They reached the fountain. Damaris
stayed her measured walk, and stood gazing at the jet of water in its
uprush and myriad sparkling fall. Ellice answered chaffingly yet with an
underlying growl; and the dispute threatened to wax warm. But the girl
heeded neither disputant, her attention rapt in watching the play of the
falling water.

Throughout the evening she had easily been chief centre of attraction,
besieged by partners. And those not only her present rival attendants or
Marshall Wace; but by Mrs. Frayling's various importations, plus Mr.
Alban Titherage--a fat, smart and very forthcoming young London
stock-broker, lately established, in company of a pretty, silly,
phthisis-stricken wife, at the Grand Hotel. Very much mistress of
herself, Damaris had danced straight through the programme with an air of
almost defiant vivacity. Now, as it seemed, her mood had changed and
sobered. For presently Colonel Carteret saw her bosom heave, while she
fetched a long sigh and, raising her head, glanced upwards, her great
eyes searching the shadowed space of the verandah.

The cool lunar brightness flooded her upturned face, her bare neck and
arms, the glittering folds of her satin gown. She was exceedingly fair to
look upon just now. For an appreciable length of time her glance met
Carteret's and held it; giving him--though the least neurotic of men,
calm of body and of mind--a strange sensation as of contact with an
electric current which tingled through every nerve and vein. And this,
although he perceived that, dazzled by the moonlight, she either did not
see or quite failed to recognize him. An expression of disappointment,
akin, so he read it, to hope defeated, crossed her face. She lowered her
eyes, and moved slowly forward along the path, the boys on either side
her. Again Peregrine Ditton took up his tale--in softened accents though
still as one sorely injured and whose temper consequently inclines not
unjustly to the volcanic.

"Upon my honour, I think you might have given me just a minute's law,
Miss Verity," he protested. "It was no fault of mine being late. Maud
Callowgas kept me toddling to the most unconscionable extent. First she
wanted an ice, and then a tumbler of lemon squash; and then she lost her
fan, or pretended she did, and expected me to hunt for the beastly thing.
I give you my word I was as rude as sin, in hope of shaking her off; but
she didn't, or wouldn't, see what I was driving at. There was no getting
away from her. I tell you she sticks like a burr, that girl, once she
lays hold of you. Octopuses aren't in it. Her power of adhesion is
something utterly frantic "--

Here Ellice cut in with a doubtless scathing though, to Carteret,
inaudible remark, at which Damaris laughed outright; and the fresh young
voices trailed away in the distance alternately mocking and remonstrant.

As he listened, still conscious of contact with that surprising electric
current, Carteret found himself taking stock of his own forty-nine years
with swift and lively repugnance. To accept the sum of them, and the
limitations and restrictions that sum is currently supposed to entail,
proved just now astonishingly difficult. Damaris, as beheld in the
fantastic loveliness of the moonlight, her searching, unseeing eyes
meeting and dwelling upon his own, the look of disappointment and defeat
crossing her sweetly serious countenance, wrought upon him begetting a
dangerous madness in his blood. That it was dangerous and a madness, and
therefore promptly to be mastered and ejected, he would not permit
himself an instant's doubt. Yet it very shrewdly plagued him, daring even
to advance specious arguments upon its own behalf.

For, when he came to consider matters, was he not in perfect health, more
sound and fit than many a man but half his age? And were not his
fortunes just now at a specially happy turn, his sister, Mrs. Dreydel,
having lately been blessed with a windfall, in the shape of yearly
income, which--did he so choose--relieved him of much expenditure on her
account. Her eldest son had received his commission. The three younger
boys had done well as to scholarships thereby materially reducing the
cost of their education. Never had he, Carteret, been so free to consult
his private desires; and never, as he knew too profoundly well, had his
desires taken so definite and delicious a form. Nevertheless it remained
a madness to be mastered, to be ejected.--His last thought, as his first,
pronounced it that.

Unconsciously, pushed by this stress of rather turbulent sensations,
Carteret walked the length of the verandah and drew up in the full glare
of the moonlight. From here he could see the curve of the shore; and,
beyond the quay and esplanade and last scattered houses of the little
town, the lighthouse marking the tip of the western horn of the bay. He
could hear the soft stealthy plunge and following rush of the sea up the
white shelving beach. Could hear also--less soothing sound--through the
open windows of the drawing-room of the Pavilion, just across the garden,
Marshall Wace singing, with all the impassioned fervour of his rich and
well-trained baritone, a ballad, then much in vogue, entitled "The Lost
Chord." The words, to Carteret's thinking, were futile, meaning anything,
everything, or nothing, according to your private interpretation of them.
But as to the fine quality and emotional appeal of the voice there could
not be two opinions, as it palpitated thus in the mild night air. Was
Damaris Verity a member of the singer's devout audience? Were her hands
among those which now enthusiastically applauded the conclusion of the
song? Under his breath, slowly, gently but most comprehensively, Carteret
swore. And felt all the better for that impious exercise, even amused at
this primitive expression of his moral and sentimental disturbance, and
so on the high-road, as he fondly imagined, to capture his habitual
attitude of charity and tolerance once again. But heaven had further
trial of his fortitude and magnanimity, not to say his good honest horse
sense, in store to-night.

For, as the clapping of hands died down, the whisper of a woman's dress,
upon the asphalt of the verandah just behind him, caught his ear, and
Damaris came rapidly towards him.

"So you are here after all, dear Colonel Sahib," she cried. "I felt you
were when I was down there looking at the fountain. It sort of pulled at
me with remindings of you ages and ages ago, in the gardens of the club
at Bhutpur--when you brought me a present--a darling little green jade
elephant in a sandalwood box, as a birthday gift from Henrietta. Later
there was a terrible tragedy. An odious little boy broke my elephant, on
purpose, and broke my heart along with it."

Carteret made a determined effort over himself, taking her up lightly.

"But not altogether past mending, dear witch--judging by existing
appearances."

"Ah! I'm none so sure of that," Damaris answered him back with a pretty
quickness--"if it hadn't been for you. For I was very ill, when you came
again to the Sultan-i-bagh--don't you remember?--the night of the riots
and great fires in the Civil Lines and Cantonments, just at the breaking
of the monsoon."

"Yes, I remember," he said.

And wondered to himself--thereby gaining ease and a measure of
tranquillity, inasmuch as he thought of another man's plight rather than
of his own--whether Damaris had knowledge of other occurrences, not
unallied to tragedy, which had marked that same night of threatened
mutiny and massacre and of bellowing tempest, not least among them a vow
made by her father, Charles Verity, and made for her sake.

"The whole story comes back in pictures," she went on, "whenever I look
at fountains playing, because of the water-jets in the canal in the
Bhutpur club garden where you gave me Henrietta's present. You see it all
dates from then. And it came back to me specially clearly just now,
partly because I felt lonely--"

"Lonely?--How lonely," he smilingly interjected, "with a goodly youth as
a protector on either hand?"

"Yes--lonely," Damaris repeated, ignoring the allusion to her devoted if
irascible escort. "Dance music always makes one rather sad--don't you
think so? It seems to ache with everything one wants and hasn't got; and
the ache goes on.--I turned homesick for--for India, and for my green
jade elephant I used to love so dreadfully much.--I've all that is left
of him, still wrapped in the same rice paper in the same sandalwood box
you brought him in, put away with my best treasures in my own room at
The Hard."

She came nearer, stood beside him, bending down a little as she rested
her hands on the top of the iron balustrade of the verandah, while her
eyes followed the curve of the bay to where the lighthouse rose, a
black column with flashing headpiece, above the soft glitter of the
moonlit sea.

"And homesick, Colonel Sahib, for you," she said.

"For me?" he exclaimed almost involuntarily, roughly startled out of his
partially recovered tranquillity and ease.

"Yes"--she said, looking up at him. "Isn't that quite natural, since
you have stepped in so often to help me when things have gone rather
wrong?--I knew you must be somewhere quite close by. I sort of felt
you were there. And you were there--weren't you? Why did you hide
yourself away?"

Carteret could not bring himself immediately to answer. He was perplexed,
infinitely charmed, distrustful, all at once--distrustful, though for
very different reasons, both of himself and of her.

"Are things, then, going rather wrong now?" he asked presently.

For he judged it wise to accept her enigmatic speech according to its
most simple and obvious interpretation. By so doing he stood, moreover,
to gain time; and time in his existing perplexity appeared to him of
cardinal importance.

"That's just what I'm not sure about." Damaris spoke slowly, gravely, her
glance again fixed upon the beacon light set for the safety of passing
ships on the further horn of the bay. "If I could be sure, I should know
what to do--know whether it is right to keep on as--as I am. Do you see?"

But what, at this juncture, Carteret did, in point of fact, most
consciously see was the return of Henrietta Frayling's scattered guests,
from the Pavilion and other less fully illuminated quarters, towards the
main building of the hotel. From the improvised ball-room within chords
struck on the piano and answering tuning of strings invited to the
renewal of united and active festivity. In the face of consequently
impending interruption he hazarded a trifle of admonition.

"Dearest witch, you elect to speak in riddles," he gently told her. "I am
in the dark as to your meaning; so, if I am guilty of uttering
foolishness, you must pardon me. But I own I could wish--just a
bit--that, in some particulars, you wouldn't keep on--I quote your own
words--as you are, or rather have been just lately."

"Why?" she asked, without moving.

"Because, to be quite honest with you, I am not altogether satisfied
about your father. I am afraid he is getting back into the habit of mind
we set out to cure him of, you and I, last November."

Damaris sprang to attention.

"And I haven't noticed it. I Wouldn't stop to notice it. I have been too
busy about my own concerns and have neglected him."

Arrayed in her spotless virgin finery, her head carried proudly, though
her eyes were sombre with self-reproach, self-accusation, and her lips
quivered, she confronted Carteret. And his clean loyal soul went out to
her in a poignant, an exquisite, agony of tenderness and of desire. He
would have given his right hand to save her pain. Given his life gladly,
just then, to secure her welfare and happiness; yet he had struck
her--for her own good possibly--possibly just blindly, instinctively, in
self-defence. He tried to shut down the emotion which threatened to
betray him and steady on to the playfully affectionate tone of their
customary intercourse; but it is to be feared the effort lacked
convincingness of quality.

"No--no," he said, "you take it altogether too hard. You exaggerate, dear
witch, to the point of extravagance. You have been less constantly with
your father than usual--you're the delight of his life after all, as you
must very well know--and inevitably he has missed you. Nothing worse than
that. The damage, such as it is, can easily be repaired."

"Ah! but the damage, as you call it, starts behind all that in something
else--something older, much deeper down, of which I doubt whether any
lasting reparation is possible. I did try to repair it. All my going out
with Henrietta, and this rushing about lately, began in that
trying--truly it did, Colonel Sahib. And then I suppose I got above
myself--as poor Nannie used to say--and came to care for the rushing
about just for its own sake"--

"My dance, I believe, Miss Verity."

The speaker, Mr. Alban Titherage--well-groomed, rosy and
self-complacent--pulled down the fronts of his white waistcoat. He
inclined to distinct rotundity of person, and the garment in question,
though admirable in cut, showed, what with the exertions of dancing, a
damnable tendency, as he expressed it, to "ride up."

"And my dance next afterwards, Miss Verity"--this from Peregrine Ditton,
his youthful, well-bred, if somewhat choleric, countenance presenting
itself over the top of the stock-broker's smooth and not conspicuously
intelligent head.

Damaris looked from one to the other of these claimants for her favour,
with instant and very becoming composure.

"I'm dreadfully sorry," she told them collectively, "but surely there is
some mistake. Both those next dances--they are the last, I'm afraid, too,
aren't they?--belong to Colonel Carteret."

"The deuce they do!" Ditton exploded, turning scarlet. With a cocked eye
and a jaunty movement of the head Mr. Titherage shot out his right shirt
cuff, and pointed a stout forefinger at certain hieroglyphics inscribed
on its glossy surface.

"Your name, Miss Verity, and written with an indelible pencil, to the
permanent embellishment of my best party-going linen and witness to your
infidelity."

"I can only repeat I am dreadfully sorry," Damaris said, with a becoming
air of concern, "if the confusion has arisen through my fault. But"--

She appealed to Carteret.

"They always were your dances, weren't they?"

"Without doubt," he affirmed.

Amusedly and very kindly he smiled upon the angry boy and portly young
man, although the beat of his pulse was accelerated and his throat felt
queerly dry.

"I am sure you understand how impossible it is for me to release Miss
Verity from her promise," he said courteously. "Would you willingly do so
yourselves, were the positions reversed and either of you happy enough to
stand in my shoes at this moment?"

Titherage gave a fat good-tempered laugh.

"By George, you have me there, Colonel. Under such A1 circumstances catch
me making way for a stranger! Not if I know it."

With which he attempted jovially to put his arm through that of his
companion in misfortune and lead Ditton away. But the latter flung off
from him with a petulant, half-smothered oath; and, his back very
straight, his walk very deliberate, pushed through the cheerfully
discoursing throng into the ball-room.

Damaris turned about, resting her hands on the top of the iron balustrade
again and gazed out to sea. Her breath came with a catch in it.

"Colonel Sahib," she said, proudly if just a trifle brokenly, "are
you angry?"

"Angry?--good Lord!"

Then recovering control of senses and of sense--"But, dear witch," he
asked her--"since when, if I may venture to enquire, have you become an
adept in the fine art of--well--lying?"

Damaris looked around, her face irradiated by laughter.

"And you played up, oh! so beautifully quick! I was a teeny bit afraid
you might fail me. For the idea came all of a minute, there wasn't time
to warn you. And that was fortunate perhaps--for me. You might have had
scruples. And I was obliged to do it. After talking about the things
which really matter, I couldn't dance with that vulgar little man
again--or with those jealous boys. They had an idiotic quarrel, actual
quarrel, down in the garden. It displeased me. I told them so, and left
them, and came here to find you--because of the fountain and the sort of
home-sickness it gave me."

Between laughing and crying, Damaris held out her hands, the white
moonlight covering her.

"Oh! I am tired of rushing about," she said. "Come and dance with
me--it's nonsense to tell me you can't dance, and that you've forgotten
how, because you have danced once this evening already--with Henrietta. I
watched you and you dance better than anybody."

"With Henrietta--that's rather a different matter!"

"I should hope it was," Damaris took him up naughtily. "But dance with
me, and then, then please take me home. Yes," as he tried to speak. "I
know I had arranged to stay the night at the Pavilion. But I'll find some
excuse to make to Henrietta--Haven't you just told me I'm proficient in
lying?--You were going to walk back? Why shouldn't I walk with you? I
won't be five minutes changing into my day clothes. It would be so
fascinating down on the shore road at night. And I should get quiet all
inside of me. I am tired of rushing about, Colonel Sahib, it hasn't been
a success."

She stopped breathless, her hands pressed over her lace and satin
swathed bosom.

"Now come and dance,--oh! so beautifully, please, come and dance."




CHAPTER VII

TELLING HOW DAMARIS DISCOVERED THE TRUE NATURE OF A CERTAIN SECRET TO THE
DEAR MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES


The beat of a tideless sea, upon the shore, is at once unrestful and
monotonous; in this only too closely resembling the beat of the human
heart, when the glory of youth has departed. The splendid energy of the
flow and grateful easing of the ebb alike are denied it. Foul or fair,
shine or storm, it pounds and pounds--as a thing chained--without
relief of advance or of recession, always at the same level, always in
the same place.

Suspicion of this cheerless truth was borne in upon Carteret
as--bare-headed, his overcoat upon his arm, the night being singularly
mild and clement--he walked with Damaris through the streets of the
silent town. The dwellers in St. Augustin, both virtuous or otherwise,
had very effectually retired to their beds behind drawn curtains, closed
shutters, locked doors, and gave no sign. Vacancy reigned, bringing in
its train an effect of suspense and eeriness, causing both our friends
involuntarily to listen, with slightly strained hearing, for sounds which
did not come. Once a cat, nimble and thin, streaked out of a cavernous
side-alley across the pallor of the pavement and cobbled roadway, to be
swallowed up in a black split--knife narrow, as it seemed--between the
blank house fronts opposite. And once, as they turned into the open space
of the Grand Place--unreal and stark with its spidery framework of
stalls, set up ready for to-morrow's market, under the budding plane
trees--they encountered a tired gendarme making his round, picturesque of
aspect in _képi_ and flowing cloak. His footsteps brisked up, as he met
and treated them to a discreetly sympathetic and intelligent
observation, only to lag again wearily as soon as they had passed.

These were the sole creatures in St. Augustin, save themselves, visibly
alive and awake. Yet whether other beings, other presences, unmaterial,
imponderable, intangible, did not walk the streets along with them, is
open to doubt. More than once Damaris shrank close to Carteret, startled
by and apprehensive of she knew not what. For who dare say in such a
place what leavings-over there may not be from times pre-Christian and
remote, when mighty Rome ruled, and the ancient gods bore sway over that
radiant coast? On the outskirts of St. Augustin you may visit a fine
amphitheatre, still perfect save for some ruin along the upper tier of
seats; and in the centre of the town, within a stone's throw of the
somewhat gloomy cathedral church, may trace the airy columns and portions
of the sculptured architrave of a reputed temple of Venus, worked into
the facade of the municipal buildings.

Turning out of the Grande Place by an avenue on the right, Damaris and
Carteret gained the esplanade following the curve of the bay. Here a
freshness of the sea pleasantly accosted them along with that unrestful,
monotonous trample of waves upon the beach.

Not until they reached this stage of the homeward journey, and, setting
their faces eastward, paced the pale level asphalt of this wide
promenade, did any sustained effort of conversation arise. Thus far they
had proffered fugitive remarks only, lapsing speedily into somewhat
constrained silence. For a coldness, or shyness, might appear to have
sprung up between them, oddly holding them asunder in thought and moral
attitude after the close association of the dance--a reaction from its
contact so surprisingly more intimate than any they had yet experienced,
from that harmonious rhythmic unity of purpose and of movement which, in
dancing, alike excites emotion quasi-physical, and so alluringly serves
to soothe and allay the emotion it excites.

These aspects of their association affected Damaris but dimly, since
speaking a language of which she barely knew the alphabet. Carteret they
took in a different measure. He read their direction and potency with
clear understanding, the insidious provocations and satisfactions of them
printed in large type. With a rush, his youth returned and troubled him.
Or was it the phantom of youth merely? His heart-beats but the beat of a
tideless sea. He feared as much.--Oh, these tardy harvests, these tardy
harvests--are they not to most men a plague rather than a benison, since,
in honour and fine feeling, so abominably perilous to reap!

For the greater promotion of calm and of sanity he welcomed the young
girl's change of dress. The powder-blue walking suit, with belted jacket
and kilted skirt, brought her more within the terms of their ordinary
intercourse. But the impression of the fair young body, lately so close
against his own, clothed in bride-like raiment, fresh as an opening
flower and vaguely fragrant, could not easily be dispelled. Strive as he
might to put it from him, the impression remained recurrent. Therefore it
must not be held to Carteret's discredit if his senses took part with his
nobler affections just now, against his considered judgment; or that he
fared badly at the hands of the sea-born goddess--worshipped hero in her
temple in ancient days, with music, with dance and with nameless rites of
sex, when the moon rode high heaven at the full, even as to-night.

Her influence was still abroad, and in his flesh Carteret shrewdly
suffered it; yet neither basely nor bestially, being clean of life and of
spirit. He whipped himself even, with rather sorry humour, seeing, in
Damaris' willingness to entrust herself thus to his sole care in the
midnight loneliness, a handsomer compliment to his morals than to his
manhood. How little, bless her, she knew what stuff men are made
of!--therein underrating her acquaintance with fact, as her conversation
presently and surprisingly proved to him.

The revelation began in all apparent innocence--for:

"I'm not ungrateful to Henrietta," Damaris said, breaking silence softly
yet abruptly, as speaking to herself rather than addressing him, in
apology and argument. "And I'm dreadfully sorry to have vexed her--for
she was vexed with me for not staying at the Pavilion to-night, as I
promised. She was really quite cross."

"She will get over that--never fear," Carteret answered off the surface.

"Still it troubles me to have vexed her. I must have seemed so
unreasonable, making silly sounding excuses--because I could not explain
to her why I really wanted so much to go home."

"You find a limit to the dear lady's powers of comprehension or of
sympathy?" he asked, again off the surface.

"I suppose I must do so, because there are things it never occurs to one
to speak of to Henrietta."

"Whole cartloads of them," Carteret comprehensively agreed.

"And yet I don't know why."

"Don't you? Well, I think I do perhaps know why; and knowing, I must
confess to being not altogether sorry your confidences are restricted,
dear witch, in that particular direction."

The use of the pet name, though involuntary--possibly on that very
account--eased his fever. Clearly he must get back to their former
relation. Rejoice in her beauty, in her sweet faith and dependence, love
her--yes--he admitted the word,--but for God's sake keep the physical
side out of the business. Damaris' easily-aroused loyalty, meanwhile,
caught alight.

"Oh, but we've just been Henrietta's guests," she said, with a pretty
mingling of appeal and rebuke--"and it seems hardly kind, does it, to
find faults in her. She has been beautifully good to me all this time,
ending up with this dance which she gave on purpose to please me."

"And herself also," Carteret returned.

--Yes decidedly he felt better, steadier, to the point of now trusting
himself to look at his companion, notwithstanding the strange influences
abroad in the magical moonlight, with his accustomed smiling,
half-amused indulgence. The unremitting trample of the waves, there on
the right, made for level-headedness actually if a little
mercilessly--so he thought.

"I don't wish to be guilty of taking Mrs. Frayling's name in vain a
second time," he went on--"you've pulled me up, and quite rightly, for
doing so once already--but depend upon it, she enjoyed her ball every
morsel as much as you did. In respect of the minor delights of existence,
she slumbers not nor sleeps, our perenially charming and skilful
Henrietta."

"You think she enjoyed it too? I am glad."

Then after an interval of silence, her whole figure alert, her
speech eager:

"See there--see there, Colonel Sahib--yes, far, far out to sea--aren't
those the lights of a ship?"

"Yes," he answered--"creeping westward--bound for Toulon, most likely, or
possibly for Marseilles."

And he would have moved forward. But Damaris unaccountably lingered.
Carteret waited a good three to four minutes to suit her convenience; but
the delay told on him. The night and hour down here by the shore, on the
confines of the silent town, were too full of poetry, too full of
suggestion, of the fine-drawn excitement of things which had been and
might not impossibly again be. It was dangerous to loiter, and in such
company, though waves might beat out a constant reminder with merciless
pertinacity upon the beach.

"Come, dear witch, come," he at last urged her. "We still have more than
a mile to go and a pretty stiff hill to climb. It grows late, you will be
abominably tired to-morrow. Why this fascination for a passing steamer,
probably some unromantic, villainously dirty old tramp too, you would not
condescend to look at by daylight."

"Because,"--Damaris began. She came nearer to him, her expression
strangely agitated.--"Oh! Colonel Sahib, if I could only be sure it
wasn't treacherous to tell you!"

"Tell me what? One of the many things it would never occur to you to
confide to Mrs. Frayling?" he said, trying to treat her evident emotion
lightly, to laugh it off.

"To Henrietta? Of course not. It would be unpardonable, hateful to tell
Henrietta."

She flushed, her face looking, for the moment, dark from excess of
colour.

"You are the only person I could possibly tell."

Carteret moved aside a few steps. He too felt strangely agitated. Wild
ideas, ideas of unholy aspect, presented themselves to him--ideas, again,
beyond words entrancing and sweet. He fought with both alike, honestly,
manfully. Returned and took Damaris' hand quietly, gently in both his.

"Look here, dear witch," he said, "all this evening a--to me--unknown
spirit has possessed you. You haven't been like yourself. You have made
me a little anxious, a little alarmed on your account."

"Oh! it isn't only this evening," she caught him up. "It has been going
on for weeks."

"So I have seen--and that is not good for you, isn't for your happiness.
So, if I am--as you say--the only person you care to acquaint with this
matter, had not you better tell me here and now? Better worry yourself no
more with mysteries about it, but let us, once and for all, have the
thing out?"

"I should be thankful," Damaris said simply, looking him in the eyes--"if
I could be sure I wasn't sacrificing some one else--their pride I
mean--their--their honour."

For a few seconds Carteret paused, meeting her grave and luminous
glance. Then:

"I think you may risk it," he said. "I promise you this some-one-else's
honour shall be sacred to me as my own. Without your direct request no
word of what you choose to tell me will ever pass my lips."

"Ah! I'm very sure of that,"--Her smile, her voice bore transparent
testimony to a faith which went, somewhat giddily, not only to her
hearer's heart but to his head. "It isn't a question of your repeating
anything; but of your thinking differently of some one you care for very
much--and who is almost as dependent on you, Colonel Sahib, as I am
myself. At least I fear you might.--Oh! I am so perplexed, I'm in such
a maze," she said. "I've nothing to go on in all this, and I turn it
over and over in my mind to no purpose till my head aches. You see I
can't make out whether this--the thing which began it all and happened
oh! long ago--is extraordinary--one which you--and most people like
you--in your position, I mean--would consider very wrong and
disgraceful; or whether it often happens and is just accepted, taken for
granted, only not talked about."

Carteret felt cold all down his spine. For what, in God's name, could
this supremely dear and--as he watched her grave and sweetly troubled
countenance--supremely lovely child, be driving at?

"And I care so dreadfully much," she went on. "It is the story of the
darling little green jade elephant over again--like its being broken and
spoilt. Only now I'm grown up I don't give in and let it make me ill.
There was a time even of that--of illness, I mean--at first just before
you came to The Hard last autumn. But I wouldn't suffer it, I would not
let the illness go on. I got over that. But then a second crisis occurred
soon after we came here; and I thought Henrietta's kindness opened a way
out. So I rushed about whenever and wherever she invited me to rush. But
as I told you this evening--just before we had our two dances, you
remember."

"Am I likely to forget!" Carteret murmured under his breath.

"The rushing about has not proved a success. I thought it would help to
stifle certain longings and keep me nearer to my father--more at one with
him. But it didn't, it made me neglect him. You see--you see"--the words
were dragged from her, as by active suffering and distress of mind--"I
had to choose between him and another person. One cannot serve two
masters. I choose him. His claim was the strongest in duty. And I love to
see him satisfied and peaceful. He always ranked first in everything I
felt and did ever since I can remember; and I so want him to stay first.
But I have been pulled two ways, and seem to have got all astray somehow
lately. I haven't been really true to myself any more than to him--only
frivolous and busy about silly pleasures."

"Don't let the frivolity burden your precious conscience," Carteret
comfortably told her, touched by the pathos of her self-reproach. For her
sincerity was surely, just now, unimpeachable and she a rare creature
indeed! Love, he could less than ever banish; but surely he might utterly
banish distrust and fear?--"As frivolity goes, dear witch, and greed of
pleasure, yours have been innocent enough both in amount and in quality,
heaven knows!"

"I should like to believe so--but all that's relative, isn't it? The real
wrongness of what you do, depends upon the level of rightness you start
from, I mean."

"Insatiable casuist!" Carteret tenderly laughed at her.

And with that, by common though unspoken consent, they walked
onward again.

Even while so doing, however, both were sensible that this resumption of
their homeward journey marked a period in, rather than the conclusion of,
their conversation. Some outside compelling force--so in any case it
appeared to Carteret--encompassed them. It was useless to turn and
double, indulge in gently playful digression. That force would inevitably
make them face the innermost of their own thought, their own emotion, in
the end. In obedience to which unwelcome conviction, Carteret presently
brought himself to ask her:

"And about this other person--for we have wandered a bit from the point
at issue, haven't we?--whose interests as I gather clash, for some
reason, with those of your father, and whose pride and honour you are so
jealously anxious to safeguard."

"His pride, yes," Damaris said quickly, her head high, a warmth in her
tone. "His honour is perfectly secure, in my opinion."

"Whose honour is in danger then?--Dear witch, forgive me, but don't you
see the implication?"

Damaris looked around at him with unfathomable eyes. Her lips parted, yet
she made no answer.

After a pause Carteret spoke again, and, to his own hearing, his voice
sounded hoarse as that of the tideless sea upon the beach yonder.

"Do you mean me to understand that the conflict between your father's
interests and those of this other person--this other man's--arise from
the fact that you love him?"

"Yes," Damaris calmly declared.

"Love him,"--having gone thus far Carteret refused to spare himself. He
turned the knife in the wound--"Love him to the point of marriage?"

There, the word was said. Almost unconsciously he walked onward without
giving time for her reply.--He moistened his lips, weren't they dry as a
cinder? He measured the height to which hope had borne him, to-night, by
the shock, the positive agony of his existing fall. At the young girl,
_svelte_ and graceful, beside him, he could not look; but kept his eyes
fixed on the mass of the wooded promontory, dark and solid against the
more luminous tones of water and of sky, some half-mile distant. Set high
upon the further slope of it, from here invisible, the Grand Hotel
fronted--as he knew--the eastward trending coast. Carteret wished the
distance less, since he craved the shelter of that friendly yellow-washed
caravanserai. He would be mortally thankful to find himself back there,
and alone, the door of his bachelor quarters shut--away from the beat of
the waves, away from the subtle glory of this Venus-ridden moon now
drawing down to her setting. Away, above all, from Damaris--delivered
from the enchantments and perturbations, both physical and moral, her
delicious neighbourhood provoked.

But from that fond neighbourhood, as he suddenly became aware, he was in
some sort delivered already. For she stopped dead, with a strange choking
cry; and stood solitary, as it even seemed forsaken, upon the wide grey
whiteness of the asphalt of the esplanade. Behind her a line of
lamps--pale burning under the moonlight--curved, in perspective, with the
curving of the bay right away to the lighthouse. On her left the crowded
houses of the sleeping town, slashed here and there with sharp edged
shadows, receded, growing indistinct among gardens and groves. The
scene, as setting to this single figure, affected him profoundly, taken
in conjunction with that singular cry. He retraced the few steps dividing
him from her.

"Marriage?" she almost wailed, putting out her hands as though to prevent
his approach. "No--no--never in life, Colonel Sahib. You quite dreadfully
misunderstand."

"Do I?" Carteret said, greatly taken aback, while, whether he would
or no, unholy ideas again flitted through his mind maliciously
assailing him.

"It has nothing to do with that sort of loving. It belongs to something
much more beautifully part of oneself--something of one's very, very own,
right from the very beginning."

"Indeed!" he said, sullenly, even roughly, his habitual mansuetude giving
way before this--for so he could not but take it--contemptuous flinging
of his immense tenderness, his patient, unswerving devotion, back in his
face. "Then very certainly I must plead guilty to not understanding, or
if you prefer it--for we needn't add to our other discomforts by
quarrelling about the extra syllable--of misunderstanding. In my
ignorance, I confess I imagined the love, which finds its crown and seal
of sanctity in marriage, can be--and sometimes quite magnificently
is--the most beautiful thing a man has to give or a woman to receive."

Damaris stared at him, her face blank with wonder.

Set at regular intervals between the tall blue-grey painted lamp
standards, for the greater enjoyment of visitors and natives, stone
benches, of a fine antique pattern, adorn St. Augustin's esplanade. Our
much-perplexed maiden turned away wearily and sat down upon the nearest
of these. She held up her head, bravely essaying to maintain an air of
composure and dignity; but her shoulders soon not imperceptibly quivered,
while, try hard as she might, setting her teeth and holding her breath,
small plaintive noises threatened betrayal of her tearful state.

Carteret, quite irrespective of the prescience common to all true lovers
where the beloved object's welfare is concerned, possessed unusually
quick and observant hearing. Those small plaintive noises speedily
reached him and pierced him as he stood staring gloomily out to sea.
Whereupon he bottled up his pain, shut down his natural and admirably
infrequent anger, and came over to the stone bench.

"You're not crying, dearest witch, are you?" he asked her.

"Yes, I am," Damaris said. "What else is there left for me to
do?--Everyone I care for I seem to make unhappy. Everything I do goes
wrong. Everything I touch gets broken and spoilt somehow."

"Endless tragedies of little green jade elephants?" he gently
bantered her.

"Yes--endless. For now I have hurt you. You are trying to be good and
like your usual self to me; but that doesn't take me in. I know all
through me I have hurt you--quite dreadfully badly--though I never, never
meant to, and haven't an idea how or why."

This was hardly comforting news to Carteret. He attempted no disclaimer;
while she, after fumbling rather helplessly at the breast-pocket of her
jacket, at last produced a folded letter and held it out to him.

"Whether it's treacherous or not, I am obliged to tell you," she said,
with pathetic desperation. "For I can't bear any more. I can't but try my
best to keep you, Colonel Sahib. And now you are hurt, I can only keep
you by making you understand--just everything. You may still think me
wrong; but anyhow my wrongness will be towards somebody else, not towards
you.--So please read this, and don't skip, because every word helps to
explain. Read it right through before you ask me any questions--that's
more fair all round.--If you go across there--under the lamp, I
mean--there still is light enough, I think, for you to be able to see."

And Carteret, thus admonished--partly to pacify her, partly to satisfy a
very vital curiosity which stirred in him to compass the length, breadth,
and height of this queer business, learn the truth and so set certain
vague and agitating fears at rest--did as Damaris bade him. Standing in
the conflicting gaslight and moonlight, the haunted quiet of the small
hours broken only by the trample and wash of the sea, he read Darcy
Faircloth's letter from its unconventional opening, to its equally
unconventional closing paragraph.

"Now my holiday is over and I will close down till next Christmas
night--unless miracles happen meanwhile--so good-bye--Here is a boatload
of my lads coming alongside, roaring with song and as drunk as
lords.--God bless you. In spirit I once again kiss your dear feet"--

Carteret straightened himself up with a jerk. Looked at Damaris sitting
very still, a little sunk together, as in weariness or dejection upon the
stone bench. His eyes blazed fierce, for once, with questions he burned
yet dreaded to ask. But on second thoughts--they arrived to him
swiftly--he restrained his impatience and his tongue. Mastering his heat
he looked down at the sheet of note-paper again. He would obey Damaris,
absorb the contents of this extraordinary document, the facts it conveyed
both explicitly and implicitly, to the last word before he spoke.

Happily the remaining words were few. "Your brother," he read, "till
death and after"--followed by a name and date.

At the name he stared fairly confounded. It meant nothing whatever to
him.--That is, at first. Then, rising as a vision from out some
subconscious drift of memory, he saw the cold, low-toned colouring of
wide, smooth and lonely waters, of salt-marsh, of mud-flat and reed-bed
in the lowering light of a late autumn afternoon--a grey, stone-built
tavern, moreover, above the open door of which, painted upon a board,
that same name of Faircloth figured above information concerning divers
liquors obtainable within. Yes--remembrance grew more precise and stable.
He recalled the circumstances quite clearly now. He had seen it on his
way back from a solitary afternoon's wild fowl shooting on Marychurch
Haven; during his last visit to Deadham Hard.

So much was certain. But the name in its present connection? Carteret's
imagination shied. For, to have the existence of an illegitimate son of
your oldest and dearest friend thus suddenly thrust upon you, and that by
a young lady of the dearest friend's family, is, to say the least of it,
a considerable poser for any man. It may be noted as characteristic of
Carteret that, without hesitation, he recognized the sincerity and fine
spirit of Faircloth's letter. Characteristic, also, that having seized
the main bearings of it, his feeling was neither of cynical acquiescence,
or of covert and cynical amusement; but of vicarious humiliation, of
apology and noble pitying shame.

He came over and sat down upon the stone bench beside Damaris.

"Dear witch," he said slowly, "this, if I apprehend it aright, is a
little staggering. Forgive me--I did altogether, and I am afraid rather
crassly, misunderstand. But that I could hardly help, since no remotest
hint of this matter has ever reached me until now."

Damaris let her hand drop, palm upwards, upon the cool, slightly rough,
surface of the seat. Carteret placed the folded letter in it, and so
doing, let his hand quietly close down over hers--not in any sense as a
caress, but as assurance of a sympathy it was forbidden him, in decency
and loyalty, to speak. For a while they both remained silent. Damaris
was first to move. She put the letter back into the breast-pocket of
her jacket.

"I am glad you know, Colonel Sahib," she gravely said. "You see how
difficult it has all been."

"I see--yes"--

After a pause, the girl spoke again.

"I only came to know it myself at the end of last summer, quite by
accident. I was frightened and tried not to believe. But there was no way
of not believing. I had lost my way in the mist out on the Bar. I mistook
the one for the other--my brother, I mean, for"--

Damaris broke off, her voice failing her.

"Yes," Carteret put in gently, supportingly.

He leaned back, his arms crossed upon his breast, his head carried
slightly forward, slightly bent, as he watched the softly sparkling line
of surf, marking the edge of the plunging waves upon the sloping shore.
Vicarious shame claimed him still. He weighed man's knowledge, man's
freedom of action, man's standards of the permissible and unpermissible
as against those of this maiden, whose heart was at once so much and so
little awake.

"For my father," she presently went on. "But still I wanted to deny the
truth. I was frightened at it. For if that was true so much else--things
I had never dreamed of until then--might also be true. I wanted to get
away, somehow. But later, after I had been ill, and my father let him
come and say good-bye to me before he went to sea, I saw it all
differently, and far from wanting to get away I only longed that we
might always be together as other brothers and sisters are. But I knew
that wasn't possible. I was quite happy, especially after you came with
us, Colonel Sahib, out here. Then I had this letter and the longing grew
worse than ever. I did try to school myself into not wanting, not
longing--did silly things--frivolous things, as I told you. But I can't
stop wanting. It all came to a head, somehow to-night, with the dancing
and music, and those foolish boys quarrelling over me--and then your
showing me that--instead of being faithful to my father, I have
neglected him."

"Ah, you poor sweet dear!" Carteret said, greatly moved and
turning to her.

In response she leaned towards him, her face wan in the expiring
moonlight, yet very lovely in its pleading and guileless affection.

"And my brother is beautiful, Colonel Sahib," she declared, "not only to
look at but in his ideas. You would like him and be friends with him,
though he doesn't belong to the same world as you--indeed you would. And
he is not afraid--you know what I mean?--not afraid of being alive and
having adventures. He means to do big things--not that he has talked
boastfully to me, or been showy. Please don't imagine that. He knows
where he comes in, and doesn't pretend to be anybody or anything beyond
what he is. Only it seems to me there is a streak of something original
in him--almost of genius. He makes me feel sure he will never bungle any
chance which comes in his way. And he has time to do so much, if chances
do come"--this with a note of exultation. "His life is all before him,
you see. He is so beautifully young yet."




CHAPTER VIII

FIDUS ACHATES


In which final pronouncement of Damaris' fond tirade, Carteret heard the
death knell of his own fairest hopes. He could not mistake the set of the
girl's mind. Not only did brother call to sister, but youth called to
youth. Whereat the goad of his forty-nine years pricked him shrewdly.

He must accept the disabilities of the three decades, plus one year,
which divided him in age from Damaris, as final; and range himself with
the elder generation--her father's generation, in short. How, after
all, could he in decency go to his old friend and say: "Give me your
daughter." The thing, viewed thus, became outrageous, offensive not
only to his sense of fitness, but of the finer and more delicate
moralities. For cradle-snatching is not, it must be conceded, a
graceful occupation; nor is a middle-aged man with a wife still in her
teens a graceful spectacle. Sentimentalists may maunder over it in
pinkly blushing perversity; but the naughty world thinks otherwise,
putting, if not openly its finger to its nose, at least secretly its
tongue in its cheek. And rightly, as he acknowledged. The implication
may be coarse, libidinous; but the instinct producing it is a sound
one, both healthy and just.

Therefore he had best sit no longer upon stone benches by the sounding
shore, in this thrice delicious proximity and thrice provocative magic of
the serene southern night. All the more had best not do so, because
Damaris proved even more rare in spirit, exquisite in moral and
imaginative quality--so he perhaps over-fondly put it--than ever before.
Carteret got on his feet and walked away a few paces, continuing to
heckle himself with merciless honesty and rather unprintable
humour--invoking even the historic name of Abishag, virgin and martyr,
and generally letting himself "have it hot."

A self-chastisement which may be accounted salutary, since, as he
administered it, his thought again turned to a case other than his own,
namely, that of Charles Verity. To pronounce judgment on his friend's
past relations with women, whether virtuous or otherwise, was no business
of his. Whatever irregularities of conduct that friend's earlier career
may have counted, had brought their own punishment--were indeed actually
bringing it still, witness current events. It wasn't for him, Carteret,
by the smallest fraction to add to that punishment; but rather, surely,
to do all in his power to lighten the weight of it. Here he found safe
foothold. Let him invite long-standing friendship, with the father, to
help him endure the smart of unrequited love for the daughter. To pretend
these two emotions moved on the same plane and could counter-balance one
another, was manifestly absurd; but that did not affect the essence of
the question. Ignoring desire, which to-night so sensibly and
disconcertingly gnawed at his vitals, let him work to restore the former
harmony and sweet strength of their relation. If in the process he could
obtain for Damaris--without unseemly revelation or invidious
comment--that on which her innocent soul was set he would have his
reward.--A reward a bit chilly and meagre, it is true, as compared
with--Comparisons be damned!--Carteret left his pacing and came back to
the stone bench.

"Well, I have formed my own conclusions in respect of the whole matter.
Now tell me what you actually want me to do, and I will see how far it
can be compassed, dear witch." he said.

Damaris had risen too, but she was troubled.

"Ah! I still spoil things," she wailed. "I was so happy telling
you about--about Faircloth. And yet somehow I've hurt you again. I
know I have."

Carteret took her by the elbow lightly, gently, carrying her onward
beside him over the wide pallor of the asphalt.

"Hurt me, you vanitatious creature? Against babes of your tender age,
I long ago became hurt-proof"--he gaily lied to her. "What do you take
me for?--A fledgling like the Ditton boy, or poor Harry Ellice, with
whose adolescent affections you so heartlessly played chuck-farthing at
our incomparable Henrietta's party to-night?--No, no--but joking apart,
what exactly is it you want me to do for you? Take you to Marseilles
for the day, perhaps, to meet this remarkable young sea-captain and go
over his ship?"

"He is remarkable," Damaris chimed in, repeating the epithet with eager
and happier emphasis.

"Unquestionably--if I'm to judge both by your account of him and by the
tenor of his letter."

"And you would take me? Oh! dear Colonel Sahib, how beautifully good you
are to me."

"Of course, I'll take you--if"--

"If what?"

"If Sir Charles gives his consent."

He slipped Damaris' hand within his arm, still bearing her onward. The
last of the long line of gas-lamps upon the esplanade, marking the curve
of the bay, was now left behind. A little further and the road
forked--the main one followed the shore. The other--a footpath--mounted
to the left through the delicate gloom and semi-darkness of the wood
clothing the promontory. Carteret did not regret that impending
obscurity, apprehending it would be less embarrassing, under cover of it,
to embark on certain themes which must be embarked upon were he to bring
his purpose to full circle.

"Listen, my dear," he told her, "while I expound. Certain laws of
friendship exist, between men, which are imperative. They must be
respected. To evade them, still worse, wilfully break them is to be
guilty of unpardonably bad taste and bad feeling--to put it no higher.
Had your father chosen to speak to me of this matter, well and good. I
should have felt honoured by his confidence, have welcomed it--for he is
dearer to me than any man living and always must be.--But the initiative
has to come from him. Till he speaks I am dumb. For me to approach the
subject first is not possible."

"Then the whole beautiful plan falls through," she said brokenly.

"No, not at all, very far from that," he comforted her. "I gather you
have already discussed it with your father. You must lay hold of your
courage and discuss it again. I know that won't be easy; but you owe it
to him to be straightforward, owe it to his peculiar devotion to you.
Some day, perhaps, when you are older and more ripe in experience, I may
tell you, in plain language of a vow he once made for your sake--when he
was in his prime, too, his life strong in him, his powers at their
height. Some persons might consider his action exaggerated and fanatical.
But such accusations can be brought against most actions really heroic.
And that this action, specially in a man of his temperament, may claim to
be heroic there can be, in my opinion, no manner of doubt."

The path climbed steeply through the pine wood. Damaris' hand grew
heavy on Carteret's arm. Once she stumbled, and clung to him in
recovering her footing, thereby sending an electric current tingling
through his nerves again.

"He did what was painful, you mean, and for my sake?"

"Say rather gave up something very much the reverse of painful,"
Carteret answered, his voice not altogether under control, so that it
struck away, loud and jarring, between the still ranks of the
tree-trunks to right and left.

"Which is harder?"

"Which is much harder--immeasurably, incalculably harder, dearest witch."

After a space of silence, wherein the pines, lightly stirred by some
fugitive up-draught off the sea, murmured dusky secrets in the vault of
interlacing branches overhead, Carteret spoke again. He had his voice
under control now. Yet, to Damaris' hearing, his utterance was permeated
by an urgency and gravity almost awe-inspiring, here in the loneliness
and obscurity of the wood. She went in sudden questioning,
incomprehensible fear of the dear man with the blue eyes. His arm was
steady beneath her hand, supporting her. His care and protection sensibly
encircled her, yet he seemed to her thousands of miles away, speaking
from out some depth of knowledge and of reality which hopelessly
transcended her experience. She felt strangely diffident, strangely
ignorant. Felt, though she had no name for it, the mystical empire,
mystical terror of sex as sex.

"The night of the breaking of the monsoon, of those riotings and fires at
Bhutpur, your father bartered his birthright, in a certain particular,
against your restoration to health. The exact nature of that renunciation
I cannot explain to you. The whole transaction lies beyond the range of
ordinary endeavour; and savours of the transcendental--or the
superstitious, if you please to take it that way. But call it by what
name you will, his extravagant gamble with the Lords of Life and Death
worked, apparently. For you got well; and you have stayed well, dear
witch--thanks to those same Lords of Life and Death, whose favour your
father attempted to buy with this act of personal sacrifice. He was
willing to pay a price most men would consider prohibitive to secure your
recovery. And, with an unswerving sense of honour, he has gone on paying,
until that which, at the start, must have amounted to pretty severe
discipline has crystallized into habit. What you tell me of this young
man, Darcy Faircloth's history, goes, indirectly, to strengthen my
admiration for your father's self-denying ordinance, both in proposing
and in maintaining this strange payment."

There--it was finished, his special pleading. Carteret felt unfeignedly
glad. He was unaccustomed to put forth such elaborate expositions, more
particularly of a delicate nature and therefore offering much to avoid as
well as much to state.

"So you are bound to play a straight game with him--dear child. Believe
me he deserves it, is finely worthy of it. Be open with him. Show him
your letter. Ask his permission--if you have sufficient courage. Your
courage is the measure of the sincerity of your desire in this business.
Do you follow me?"

"Yes--but I shall distress him," Damaris mournfully argued.

She was bewildered, and in her bewilderment held to the immediate
and obvious.

"Less than by shutting him out from your confidence, by keeping him at
arm's length."

"Neglecting him?"

"Ah! so that rankles still, does it? Yes, neglecting him just a
trifle, perhaps."

"But the neglect is over--indeed, it is over and utterly done with."

And in the ardour of her disclaimer, Damaris pressed against Carteret,
her face upturned and, since she too was tall, very close to his.

"Just because it is over and done with I begged you to bring me back
with you to-night. I wanted to make a clean break with all the
frivolities, while everything was quite clear to me. I wanted, while I
still belonged to you, Colonel Sahib, through our so beautifully dancing
together twice"--

"God in Heaven!" Carteret said under his breath. For what a past-master
in the art of the torturer is your white souled maiden at moments!

"To go right away from all that rushing about worldliness--I don't blame
Henrietta--she has been sweet to me--but it is worldliness, rather, isn't
it?--and to be true to him again and true to myself. I wanted to return
to my allegiance. You believe me, don't you? You made me see, Colonel
Sahib, you brought my foolishness home to me--Oh! yes, I owe you endless
gratitude and thanks. But I was uneasy already. I needed a wholesome
shove, and you gave it. And now you deliver a much-needed supplementary
shove--one to my courage. I obey you, Colonel Sahib, without question or
reservation--not on the chance of getting what I long for; but because
you have convinced me of what is right. I will tell him--tell my
father--all about everything--to-morrow."

"It is now to-morrow--and, with the night, many dreams have packed up
their traps and fled."

"But we needn't be sorry for that," Damaris declared, in prettily rising
confidence. "The truth is going to be better than the dreams, isn't it?"

"For you, yes--with all my heart, I hope."

"But for you--why not for you?" she cried, smitten by anxiety regarding
him and by swift tenderness.

They had reached the end of the upward climbing path, and stepped from
the semi-darkness of the wood into the greater clarity of the gravel
terrace in front of the hotel. Far below unseen waves again beat upon the
beach. The sound reached them faintly. The dome of the sky, thick sown
with stars, appeared prodigious in expanse and in height. It dwarfed the
block of hotel buildings upon the right. Dwarfed all visible things, the
whole earth, indeed, which it so sensibly enclosed. Dwarfed also, and
that to the point of desolation, the purposes and activities of
individual human lives. How could these count, what could they matter in
presence of the countless worlds swinging, there, through the illimitable
fields of space?

To Carteret this thought, or rather this sensation, of human
insignificance brought a measure of stoic consolation. He lifted Damaris'
hand off his arm, and held it, while he said, smiling at her:

"For me--yes, of course. Why not? For me too, dearest witch, truth is
assuredly the most profitable bedfellow."

Then, as she shrank, drawing away a little, startled by the crudeness of
the expression:

"I enjoyed our two dances," he told her, "and I shall enjoy taking you to
Marseilles and making Faircloth's acquaintance, if our little scheme
works out successfully--if it is sanctioned, permitted. After that--other
things being equal--I think I ought to break camp and journey back to
England, to look after my property and my sister's affairs. I have gadded
long enough. It is time to get into harness--such harness as claims me in
these all too easy-going days. And now you must really go indoors without
further delay, and go to bed. May the four angels of pious tradition
stand at the four corners of it, to keep you safe in body, soul and
spirit. Sleep the sleep of innocence and wake radiant and refreshed."

"Ah! but you're sad--you are sad," Damaris cried, her lips quivering.
"Can't I do anything?--I would do so much, would love so much--beyond
anything--to make you unsad."

The man with the blue eyes shook his head.

"Impossible, alas! Your intervention, in this case, is finally ruled out,
my sweet lamb," he affectionately, but conclusively said.




CHAPTER IX

WHICH FEATURES VARIOUS PERSONS WITH WHOM THE READER IS ALREADY ACQUAINTED


Some are born great, some attain greatness, and some have it thrust upon
them to the lively embarrassment of their humble and retiring little
souls. To his own notable surprise, General Frayling, on the morning
following his wife's Cinderella dance, awoke to find himself the centre
of interest in the life of the pretty pavilion situated in the grounds of
the Hôtel de la Plage. He owed this unaccustomed ascendency to physical
rather than moral or intellectual causes, being possessed of a
temperature, the complexion of the proverbial guinea, and violent pains
in his loins and his back.

These anxious symptoms developed--one cannot but feel rather unjustly--as
the consequence of his own politeness, his amenity of manner, and the
patient attentions he paid on the previous evening to one of his wife's
guests. He had sat altogether too long for personal comfort in a draughty
corner of the hotel garden, with Mrs. Callowgas. Affected by the poetic
influences of moon, stars, and sea, affected also conceivably by pagan
amorous influences, naughtily emanating from the neighbouring Venus
Temple--whose elegant tapering columns adorn the façade of the local
Mairie--Mrs. Callowgas became extensively reminiscent of her dear dead
Lord Bishop. Protracted anecdotes of visitations and confirmation tours,
excerpts from his sermons, speeches and charges, arch revelations of his
diurnal and nocturnal conversation and habits--the latter tedious to the
point of tears when not slightly immodest--poured from her widowed lips.
The good lady overflowed. She frankly babbled. General Frayling listened,
outwardly interested and civil, inwardly deploring that he had omitted
to put on a waistcoat back-lined with flannel--waxing momentarily more
conscious, also, that the iron--of the hard cold slats composing the seat
of his garden chair--if not entering into his soul, was actively entering
a less august and more material portion of his being through the slack of
his thin evening trousers. He endured both tedium and bodily suffering
with the fortitude of a saint and martyr; but next morning revealed him
victim of a violent chill demanding medical aid.

The native local practitioner was reported mono-lingual, and of small
scientific reputation; while our General though fluent in vituperative
Hindustani, and fairly articulate in Arabic, could lay no claim to
proficiency in the French language. Hence probable deadlock between
doctor and patient. Henrietta acted promptly, foreseeing danger of
jaundice or worse; and bade Marshall Wace telegraph to Cannes for an
English physician. As a nurse she was capable if somewhat
unsympathetic--illness and death being foreign to her personal programme.
She attended upon her small sick warrior assiduously; thereby earning the
admiration of the outsiders, and abject apologies for "being such a
confounded nuisance to you, my love," from himself. Her maid, a
Eurasian--by name Serafina Lousada, whom she had brought with her from
Bombay a couple of years earlier, prematurely-wrinkled of skin and
shrunken of figure, yet whose lustrous black eyes still held the embers
of licentious fires--would readily have shared her labours. But Henrietta
was at some trouble to eliminate Serafina from the sick-chamber, holding
her tendencies suspect as insidiously and quite superfluously
sentimental, where any male creature might be concerned.

Carteret and Sir Charles Verity, on the other hand, she encouraged with
the sweetest dignity imaginable, to take turns at the bedside--and to
look in upon her drawing-room, also, on their way back and forth thither.
A common object and that a philanthropic one, gives unimpeachable
occasions of intimacy. These Henrietta did not neglect, though touching
them with a disarming pensiveness of demeanour. The invalid was, "the
thing "--the thought of him wholly paramount with her. Her anxiety might
be lightened, perhaps, but by no means deleted, by the attentions of
these friends of former years.--A pretty enough play throughout, as the
two gentlemen silently noted, the one with kindly, the other with
sardonic, humour.

Her henchman, Marshall Wace, meanwhile, Henrietta kept on the run until
the triangular patch of colour, straining either prominent cheek-bone,
was more than ever accentuated. There was method, we may however take it,
in the direction of these apparently mad runnings, since they so
incessantly landed the runner in the _salon_ of the Grand Hotel crowning
the wooded headland. Damaris she refused to have with her. No--she
couldn't consent to any clouding of the darling child's bright spirit by
her private worries. Trouble, heaven knows, is bound to overtake each one
of us more than soon enough! She--Henrietta--could endure her allotted
portion of universal tribulation best in the absence of youthful
witnesses.

But let Marshall carry Damaris news daily--twice daily, if needs be. Let
him read with her, sing to her; so that she, charming child, should miss
her poor Henrietta, and their happy meetings at the little pavilion, the
less. Especially let him seek the young girl, and strive to entertain
her, when Sir Charles and Colonel Carteret were engaged on their good
Samaritan visits to General Frayling.

"This break in our cherished intercourse," Henrietta wrote, in one of
those many Wace-borne bulletins, "grieves me more than I can express.
Permit Marshall to do all in his power to make up for this hospital
incarceration of mine. Poor dear fellow, it is such a boon to him. I
really crave to procure him any pleasure I can--above all the pleasure of
being with you, which he values so very highly. All his best qualities
show in this time of trial. He is only too faithful and wears himself to
positive fiddle-strings in my service and that of the General. I send him
to you, darling child, for a little change and recreation--relaxation
from the strain of my husband's illness. Marshall is so sympathetic and
feels for others so deeply. His is indeed a rare nature; but one which
does not, alas! always quite do itself justice. I attribute this to an
unfortunate upbringing rather than to any real fault in himself. So be
good to him, Damaris. In being good to him--as I have said all along--you
are being good to your fondly loving and, just now, sorely tried
Henrietta Frayling."

All which sounded a note designed to find an echo in Damaris' generous
heart. Which it did--this the more readily because, still penitent for
her recent trifle of wild-oats sowing, our beloved maiden was
particularly emulous of good works, the missionary spirit all agog in
her. She was out to comfort, to sympathize and to sustain. Hence she
doubly welcomed that high-coloured hybrid, Wace--actor, cleric, vocalist
in one. Guilelessly she indulged and mothered him, overlooking his
egoism, his touchiness and peevishness, his occasional defects of
breeding and of taste. She permitted him, moreover, to talk without
restraint upon his favourite subject--that of himself. To retail the
despairs of an ailing and unhappy childhood; the thwarted aspirations of
a romantic and sensitive boyhood; the doubts and disappointments of a
young manhood conspicuously rich in promise, had the fates and his fellow
creatures but shown themselves more intelligently sensible of his merits
and his needs.

For this was the burden of his recurrent lament. Throughout life he had
been misunderstood.

"But you, Miss Verity, do understand me," he almost passionately
declared, waving white effeminate hands. "Ah! a pure influence such
as yours"--

Here, rather to Damaris' thankfulness, words appeared to fail him. He
moved to the piano and exhaled his remaining emotion in song.

Affairs had reached the above point about ten days after Henrietta's
party and Damaris' midnight walk with Colonel Carteret by the shore of
the sounding sea. General Frayling, though mending, was still possessed
of a golden complexion and a temperature slightly above the normal, while
his dutiful wife, still self-immured, was in close attendance, when an
event occurred which occasioned her considerable speculation and
perplexity.

It came about thus. At her request Marshall Wace walked up to the
station early that morning, to secure the English papers on their arrival
by the mail train from Paris. After a quite unnecessarily long interval,
in Henrietta's opinion, he returned with an irritable expression and
flustered manner. Such, at least, was the impression she received on his
joining her in the wide airy corridor outside the General's sick-chamber.

"I thought you were never coming back," she greeted him. "What has
detained you?"

"The Paris train was late," he returned. "And--wait an instant, Cousin
Henrietta. I want to speak to you. Yes, I am hot and tired, and I am put
out--I don't deny it."

"Why?" Henrietta asked him indifferently.

Her own temper was not at its brightest and best. The office of
ministering angel had begun most woefully to pall on her. What if this
illness betokened a break up of health on the part of General Frayling?
Bath chairs, hot bottles, air-cushions, pap-like meals and such kindred
unlovelinesses loomed large ahead! That was the worst of marrying an old,
or anyhow an oldish, man. You never could tell how soon the natural order
of things might be reversed, and you obliged to wait hand and foot on
him, instead of his waiting hand and foot on you. Henrietta felt fretful.
Her looking-glass presented a depressing reflection of fine lines and
sharpened features. If she should wilt under this prolonged obligation of
nursing, her years openly advertise their number, and she grow faded,
_passée_, a woman who visibly has outlived her prime? She could have
shaken the insufficiently dying General in his bed! Yes, insufficiently
dying--for, in heaven's name, let him make up his mind and that
speedily--get well and make himself useful, or veritably and finally
depart before, for the preservation of her good looks, it was too late.

"I met Sir Charles Verity at the station," Wace went on. "He was coming
out of the first class _salle d'attente_. He stopped and spoke to me,
enquired for cousin Fred; but his manner was peculiar, autocratic to a
degree. He made me feel in the way, feel that he was annoyed at my being
there and wanted to get rid of me."

"Imagination, my dear Marshall. In all probability he wasn't thinking
about you one way or the other, but merely about his own affairs, his
own--as Carteret reports--remarkably clever book.--But why, I wonder, was
he at the station so early?"

Henrietta stood turning the folded newspaper about and idly scanning the
head-lines, while the wind, entering by the open casements at the end of
the corridor, lifted and fluttered the light blue gauze scarf she wore
round her shoulders over her white frilled morning gown.

"He didn't tell me," the large, soft, very hot young man said. "You may
call it imagination, Cousin Henrietta; but I can't. I am positive his
manner was intentional. He meant to snub me, by intimating of how slight
account I am in his estimation. It was exceedingly galling. I do not want
to employ a vulgar expression--but he looked down his nose at me as if I
was beneath contempt. You know that insolent, arrogant way of his?"

"Oh, la-la!" Henrietta cried. "Don't be so childish!"--Though she did in
point of fact know the said way perfectly well and admired it. Once upon
a time hadn't Sir Charles, indeed, rather superbly practised it in
her--Henrietta's--defence?

She sighed; while her temper took a nasty turn towards her yellow-faced,
apologetic little General, waiting patiently for sight of the English
newspapers, under the veil of mosquito netting in his little bed. Even in
his roaring forties--had his forties ever roared though?--she doubted
it--not to save his life could he ever have looked down his nose at an
offending fellow-man like that.--Ah! Charles Verity--Charles Verity!--Her
heart misgave her that she had been too precipitate in this third
marriage. If she had waited?--

"Of course, with my wretchedly short sight, I may have been mistaken,"
Wace continued, pointedly ignoring her interruption, "but I am almost
convinced I recognized Colonel Carteret and Miss Verity--Damaris--through
the open door, on the other side of the _salle d'attente,_ in the crowd
on the platform about to take their places in the train from Cannes,
which had just come in."

Henrietta ceased to scan the head-lines or deplore her matrimonial
precipitation.

"Carteret and Damaris alone and together?" she exclaimed with
raised eyebrows.

"Yes, and it occurred to me that I there touched upon the explanation, in
part at least, of Sir Charles Verity's offensive manner. He had been to
see them off and was, for some reason, unwilling that we--you and I,
cousin Henrietta--should know of their journey."

Even in private life, at the very head-waters and source of her intrigues
and her scheming, Henrietta cleverly maintained an effect of secrecy. She
showed herself an adept in the fine art of outflanking incautious
intruders. Never did she wholly reveal herself or her purposes; but
reserved for her own use convenient run-holes, down which she could
escape from even the most intimate of her co-adjutors and employees. If
masterly in advance, she showed even more masterly in retreat; and that
too often at the expense of her fellow intriguers. Without scruple she
deserted them, when personal safety or personal reputation suggested the
wisdom of so doing. Though herself perplexed and suspicious, she now
rounded on Wace, taking a high tone with him.

"But why, my dear Marshall, why?" she enquired, "should Sir Charles
object to our--as you put it--_knowing_? That seems to me an entirely
gratuitous assumption on your part. In all probability Mary Ellice and
the boys were on the platform too, only you didn't happen to catch sight
of them. And, in any case, our friends at the Grand Hotel are not
accountable to us for their comings and goings. They are free agents, and
it does really strike me as just a little gossipy to keep such a very
sharp eye upon their movements.--Don't be furious with me"--

Henrietta permitted herself to reach up and pat the young man on the
shoulder, playfully, restrainingly. An extraordinarily familiar
proceeding on her part, marking the strength of her determination to
avoid any approach to a quarrel, since she openly denounced and detested
all those demonstrations, as between friends and relations, which come
under the generic title of "pawing."

"No, pray don't be furious with me," she repeated. "I quite appreciate
how sensitive you naturally must be upon the subject of Damaris."

"You have given me encouragement, cousin Henrietta"--this resentfully.

"And why not? Don't be disingenuous, my dear Marshall. I have given you
something much more solid than mere encouragement, namely active help,
opportunity. In the right direction, to the right person, I have
repeatedly praised you. But the prize, in this case, is to him who has
address and perseverance to win it. You possess signal advantages through
your artistic tastes, your music, your reciting. But I have never
disguised from you--now honestly, have I?--there were obstacles and even
prejudices to be overcome."

"Sir Charles despises me."

"But his daughter gives ample proof that she does not. And--you don't
propose to marry Sir Charles, do you?"

Henrietta laughed a trifle shrilly. The tone of that laugh pierced her
hearer's armour of egoism. He stared at her in interrogative
surprise--observing which she hastened to retreat down a run-hole.

"Ah!" she cried, "it is really a little too bad to tease you, Marshall.
But one can't but be tempted to do so at moments. You take everything so
terribly _au grand sérieux_, my young friend."

"You mean to convey that I am ponderous?"

"Well--perhaps--just a shade," she archly agreed. "And of ponderosity you
must make an effort to cure yourself.--Mind, though a fault, I consider
it one on the right side--in the connection, that is, which we have just
now been discussing. When a girl has as much intelligence as--we needn't
name names, need we?--she resents perpetual chaff and piffle. They bore
her--seem to her a flagrant waste of time. Her mind tends to scorn
delights and live laborious days--a tendency which rectifies itself
later as a rule. All the same in avoiding frivolity, one must not rush to
the other extreme and be heavy in hand. A happy mien in this as in all
things, my dear Marshall."

"I cannot so far degrade myself as to be an opportunist," he returned
sententiously.

"Yet the opportunist arrives; and to arrive is the main thing, after
all--at least I imagine so.--Now I really cannot stay here any longer
giving you priceless advice; but must take the General his
newspapers.--By the way, did Sir Charles say anything about coming to see
him this afternoon?"

As she asked the question Henrietta ran her eye down over the
announcements in the Court Circular. Marshall replied in the negative.
She made no comment, hardly appearing to notice his answer. But, as
she stepped lightly and delicately away down the airy corridor to the
door of the sick-room, over her blue gauze draped shoulder she flung
back at him--

"This confinement to the house is getting quite on my nerves. I must
really allow myself a little holiday.--Take a drive to-morrow if Frederic
is no worse. I will call at the Grand Hotel, I think, and see darling
Damaris, just for a few minutes, myself."

Information which went far to restore her hearer's equanimity. His
affairs, as he recognized, were in actively astute safe-keeping.

Marshall Wace spent the rest of the morning in the drawing-room of the
villa, at the piano, composing a by no means despicable setting of
Shelley's two marvellous stanzas, which commence:

"Rarely, rarely comest thou,
  Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
  Many a day and night?"

The rich baritone voice, vibrant with apparent passion, swept out
through the open windows, across the glittering garden. Miss Maud
Callowgas, walking along that portion of the esplanade immediately in
front of the hotel, paused in the grilling sunshine to listen. Heaven
upon earth seemed to open before her pale, white-lashed eyes. If she
could only ascertain what fortune she might eventually count on
possessing--but Mama was so dreadfully close about everything to do with
money! The Harchester bishopric was a fat one, worth from ten to fifteen
thousand a year. That she knew from the odious, impudent questions asked
about it by some horrible nonconformist member, in the House of Commons,
just after her father's death. Surely Mama must have saved a
considerable amount out of so princely an income? She had always kept
down expenses at the Palace. The servants left so often because they
declared they had not enough to eat.

Then through the open window of the villa embowered in roses, there amid
the palms and pines--and in a falling cadence too:

"How shall ever one like me
  Win thee back again?"

But Maud Callowgas needed no winning, being very effectually won already,
so it was superfluous thus movingly to ask the question. The mid-day sun
striking through her black-and-white parasol made her feel dizzy and
faint.--If only she could learn the amount of her fortune, she could let
Mrs. Frayling learn the amount of it too--just casually, in the course of
conversation, and then--Everyone said Mrs. Frayling was doing her best to
"place" her cousin-by-marriage, to secure him a well-endowed wife.




CHAPTER X

WHICH IT IS TO BE FEARED SMELLS SOMEWHAT POWERFULLY OF BILGE WATER


Warm wind, hot sun, the confused sound and movement of a great southern
port, all the traffic and trade of it, man and beast sweating in the
splendid glare. Rattle of cranes, scream of winches, grind of wheels, and
the bellowing of a big steamer, working her way cautiously through the
packed shipping of the basin, to the blue freedom of the open sea.--Such
was the scene which the boatswain and white-jacketed steward, leaning
their folded arms on the bulwarks and smoking, lazily watched.

The _Forest Queen_ rode high at the quayside, having discharged much, and
taken on but a moderate amount of cargo for her homeward voyage. This was
already stowed. She had coaled and was bound to clear by dawn. Now she
rested in idleness, most of her crew taking their pleasure ashore, a
Sabbath calm pervading her amid the strident activities going forward on
every hand. The ship's dog, a curly-haired black retriever, lay on the
clean deck in the sunshine stretched on his side, all four legs limp,
save when, pestered beyond endurance, he whisked into a sitting position
to snap at the all too numerous flies.

The boatswain--a heavily built East Anglian, born within sight of Boston
Stump five-and-forty years ago, his face seamed and pitted by smallpox
almost to the extinction of expression and altogether to that of
eyebrows, eyelashes and continuity of beard--spat deliberately and
voluminously into the oily, refuse-stained water, lapping against the
ship's side over twenty feet below, and resumed a desultory conversation
which for the moment had fallen dead.

"So that's the reason of his giving us hell's delight, like he has all
day, cleaning up?--Got a lady coming aboard to tea has he? If she's too
fine to take us as we are, a deal better let 'er stay ashore, in my
opinion. Stuff a' nonsense all this set out, dressing up and dressing
down. Vanity at the bottom of it--and who's it to take in?--For a tramp's
a tramp, and a liner's a liner; and all the water in God's ocean, and all
the rubbing and scrubbing on man's earth, won't convert the one into the
other, bless you."

He pointed away, with his pipestem, to the violet-shadowed mouth of one
of the narrow lanes opening between the slop-shops, wine-shops, and cheap
eating-houses--their gaudy striped, flounced awnings bellying and
straining in the fervid southerly breeze--which lined the further side of
the crowded quay.

"As well try to wash some gutter-bred, French trollop, off the streets in
behind there, into a white-souled, white-robed heavenly angel," he
grumbled on. "All this purifying of the darned old hulk's so much labour
lost. Gets the men's monkey up too, putting all this extray work on 'em."

He leaned down again, folding his arms along the top of the bulwarks.

"And, angel or trollop, I find no use for her, nor any other style of
woman either, on board this 'ere blasted rusty iron coffin," he said.

Whereat the stewart, a pert-eyed, dapper little cockney--amateur of the
violin and noted impersonator of popular music-hall comedians--took him
up in tones of amiable argument.

"Your stomach's so turned on the subject of females you can't do 'em
justice. Gone sour, regularly sour, it is. And I don't hold with you
there, Partington, never shall and never do. I'm one as can always find a
cosy corner in me manly bosom for the lidies--blame me if I can't, the
pore 'elpless little lovey-doveys. After all's said and done Gawd made
'em just as much as 'e made you, Partington, that 'e did."

"And called you in, sonny, to lend 'im an 'and at the job, didn't 'e?
All I can say is you'd both have been better employed putting in your
time and talents somewhere else."

After which sally the two smoked in silence, while the ship's dog
alternately stretched himself on the hot boards, and started up with a
yelp to snap at the cloud of buzzing flies again.

The steward merely bided his time, however, and enquired presently with a
nice air of nonchalance:

"Never been married, Partington, 'ave you? I've often known that put a
fellow sadly off the sex."

"Never," the other replied, "though I came precious near it once, when I
was a youngster and greener--greener even than you with your little
lovey-doveys and your manly bosom, William, which is allowing a lot. But
my wife as was to 'ave been--met her down Bristol way, gone blind silly
on 'er I was--got took with the smallpox the week before the ceremony was
pulled off, and give me all she had to spare of the disease with her
dying breath. Soft chap as I was then, I held it as a sort of a
compliment. Afterwards, when the crape had worn a bit brown, I saw it was
jealousy of any other female I might come to cast my eye over as made her
act like that."

"A private sore!" William commented. "To tell you gospel truth,
Partington, I guessed as much. But you should learn to tike the larger
view. Blimey, you should rise above that. To be marked like you are is a
misfortune, I don't pretend to the contrary, looking at it along the
level so to speak. But beauty's so much dust and ashes, if yer can just
boost yerself up to tike the larger view. Think of all that pore dying
woman mayn't 'ave saved you from by making yer outward fascinations less
staring to the sex? Regular honey-pot to every passing petticoat you
might 'ave been."

He broke off, springing erect and shading his eyes with one hand to
obtain a better view.

"My Sammy--whoever's the skipper a bringing 'ome 'ere with him? Dooks and
duchesses and all the blamed airistorkracy?--English too, or I'm a
blooming nigger.--Tea for a lidy?--I should rather think it.--Partington,
I'm off to put meself inside of a clean jacket and make sure the
cockroaches ain't holding a family sing-song on my best white
table-cloth.--Say, that young ole man of ours don't stop 'arf way up the
ladder, once 'e starts climbing. Gets to the top rung 'e does stright
orf, s'elp me. And tikes 'is ease there, seemingly, as to the manner
born. Looks like he does any'ow, the way 'e's behaving of hisself
now.--So long, bo'sun," he added jauntily. "I'm called from yer side to
descend the companion _ong route_ for higher spheres. Sounds like a
contradiction that, but ain't so.--See you again when the docks 'as
quitted this fond old floating 'earse of ours and took themselves back to
their 'ereditary marble 'alls to roost."

On the other side of the quay, meanwhile, in the brave dancing breeze and
the sunshine, Darcy Faircloth stepped down on to the uneven paving just
opposite to where the _Forest Queen_ lay. Colonel Carteret followed and
stood aside, leaving him to hand Damaris out of the open carriage.

For this was the younger man's day; and, as the elder ungrudgingly
acknowledged, he played the part of host with a nice sense of taste, his
hospitality erring neither in the direction of vulgar lavishness, nor of
over-modesty and economy. Breeding tells, is fertile in social
intuitions, as Carteret reflected, even when deformed by an ugly bar
sinister. During the past hours he had been observant--even above his
wont--jealous both for his friend Charles Verity and his dear charge,
Damaris, in this peculiar association. The position was a far from easy
one, so many slips of sorts possible; but the young merchant sea-captain
had carried it off with an excellent simplicity and unconscious
grace.--In respect of a conveyance, to begin with, he eschewed hiring a
hack, and met his arriving guests, at the station, with the best which
the stables of the _Hôtel du Louvre et de la Paix_ could produce. Had
offered a quiet well-served luncheon at that same stately hostelry
moreover, in preference to the more flashy and popular restaurants of the
town. Afterwards he had driven them, in the early hours of the
afternoon, up to the church of _Notre Dame de la Garde_, which, perched
aloft on its eminence, godspeeds the outward bound and welcomes the
homecoming voyager, while commanding so noble a prospect of port and
city, of islands sacred to world-famous romance, and wide horizons of
rich country and historic sea.

And now, before parting, Faircloth brought them to his ship. To this
private kingdom of his and all it implied--and denied too--of social
privilege, social distinction. Implied, further, of administrative and
personal power--all it set forth of the somewhat rugged facts of his
profession and daily environment. Of this small world he was undisputed
autocrat, Grand Cham of this miniature Tartary--of this iron-walled
two-thousand-ton empire, the great white Czar.

So far Carteret had lent himself to the extensive day's "outing" in a
spirit of very sweet-tempered philosophy. He had been delightful,
unfailing in courtesy and tactful address. Now, having analysed his
host's character to his own satisfaction, he felt justified in giving
himself a holiday from the office of chaperon and watch-dog. He had
fulfilled his promise, royally done his duty by Damaris in that
quasi-avuncular relation which he had assumed in place of a closer
and--how profoundly more--coveted one; thereby earning temporary release
from her somewhat over-moving neighbourhood. Not but what he had been
keenly, almost painfully, interested in watching this drama of brother
and sister, and gauging the impulses, the currents of action and of
emotion which lay behind it. Gauging too the difficulties, even dangers,
inherent in it, the glamour and the clouding of shame--whether
conventional or real he did not pretend exactly to determine--which so
strangely wrapped it about. To use Damaris' favourite word, they were
very "beautiful" both in themselves and in their almost mystic affection,
these two young creatures. And just on that very account he would be glad
to get away from them, to be no longer onlooker, or--to put it
vulgarly--gooseberry, fifth wheel to the cart.

He went with them as far as the shoreward end of the up-sloping
gangway.--A tall grey-clad figure, with an equally tall blue-clad figure
on the other side of the young girl's, also tall, biscuit-coloured
one,--a dash of pink showing in her burnt-straw hat, pink too at her
throat and waist seen between the open fronts of her dust-coat.--But at
the gangway he stopped.

"Dear witch," he said, "I have some telegrams I should be glad to send
off, and another small matter of business to transact in the town, so
here, I will leave you, if you permit, in our friend's safe-keeping"--he
smiled upon Faircloth. "At the station, at five-thirty, we meet. _Au
revoir_, then."

And, without waiting for any reply, he sauntered away along the
sun-flooded quay between piled up bales of merchandize, wine barrels,
heaps of sand, heaps too of evilly smelling hides, towering cases and
crates. His shadow--clear violet upon the grey of the granite--from his
feet onwards, travelled before him as he walked. And this leading by,
this following of, his own shadow, casual accident of light and of
direction though in all common sense he must account it, troubled the
peace of the man with the blue eyes, making him feel wistful, feel past
the zenith of his allotted earthly achievement, queerly out of the
running, aged and consequently depressed.

Upon Damaris the suddenness of his exit reacted in a sensation of
constraint. Carteret had been very exquisite to her throughout this
delicate adventure, throughout these hours of restrained yet exalted
emotion. Left thus to her own resources she grew anxious, consciously
diffident. The, in a sense, abnormal element in her relation to Faircloth
darted down on her, so that she could not but remember how slight, after
all, was her actual acquaintance with him, how seldom--only thrice in
point of fact--had he and she had speech of one another.

Upon Faircloth, Carteret's withdrawal also reacted, though with different
effect. For an instant he watched the tall retreating form of this, as he
perceived, very perfect gentleman. Then he turned to Damaris, looking her
over from head to heel, in keen somewhat possessive fashion. And as,
meeting his eyes, bravely if shyly, her colour deepened.

"You are happy?" he affirmed rather than asked.

"As the day is long," she answered him steadily.

"But the day's not been overlong, by chance, has it?"

"Not half long enough."

"All's well, then, still." He pressed her--"You aren't weary of me yet?"

Damaris reassuringly shook her head.

Nevertheless she was very sensible of change in the tenor of their
intercourse, sensible of a just perceptible hardness in his bearing and
aspect. For some cause, the nature of which she failed to divine though
she registered the fact of its existence, he no longer had complete faith
in her, was no longer wholly at one with her in sympathy and in belief.
He needed wooing, handling. And had she the knowledge and the art
successfully to handle this sun-browned, golden-bearded, rather
magnificent young master mariner--out here in the open too, the shout of
the great port in her ears, the dazzle of the water and the push of the
warm wind upon her face?

"Ah, why waste precious time in putting questions to which you surely
already know the answer?" with a touch of reproach she took him up. "Show
me rather where you live--where you eat and sleep, where you walk up and
down, walk quarter-deck, when you are far away there out at sea."

"Does all that really interest you?"

Damaris' lips quivered the least bit.

"Why have you turned perverse and doubting? Isn't it because they
interest me, above and beyond anything, beautifully interest me, that I
am here?--It would have been very easy to stay away, if I hadn't
wanted--as I do want--to be able to fancy you from morning until night,
to know where you sit, know just what you first see when in the grey of
the morning you first wake."

Faircloth continued to look at her; but his expression softened, gaining
a certain spirituality.

"I have questioned more than once to-day whether I had not been foolhardy
in letting you come here--whether distance wasn't safest, and the hunger
of absence sweeter than the full meal of your presence for--for both of
us, things being between us as they actually are. What if the bubble
burst?--I have had scares--hideous scares--lest you should be
disappointed in me."

"Or you in me?" Damaris said.

"No. Only your being disappointed in me could disappoint me in you--and
hardly that, because you'd have prejudice, facts even, natural and
obvious enough ones, upon your side. Faircloth's Inn on Marychurch Haven
and your Indian palace, as basis to two children's memories and outlook,
are too widely divergent, when one comes to think of it. When listening
to you and Colonel Carteret talking at luncheon I caught very plain sight
of that. Not that he talked of set purpose to read me a wholesome lesson
in humility--never in life. He's not that sort. But the lesson went home
all the more directly for that very reason.--Patience one little minute,"
he quickly admonished her as she essayed to speak--"patience. You ask,
with those dear wonderful eyes of yours, what I'm driving at.--This,
beloved one--you see the waiting carriage over there. Hadn't we best get
into it, turn the horses' heads citywards again, and drink our tea, you
and I, on the way up to the station somewhere very much else than on
board this rough-and-tumble rather foul-breathed cargo boat?--I'm so
beastly afraid you may be disgusted and shocked by the interval between
what you're accustomed to and what I am. To let you down"--

Faircloth's handsome face worked. Whereat Damaris' diffidence took to
itself wings and flew away. Her heart grew light.

"Let me down?" she said. "You can't let me down. Oh! really, really
you're a little slow of comprehension. We are in this--in everything that
has happened since I first knew who you are, and everything which is
going to happen from now onwards--in it together. What joins us goes
miles, miles deeper and wider than any petty surface things. Must I tell
you how much I care? Can't you feel it for yourself?"

And she stepped before him on to the upward sloping gangway plank.




CHAPTER XI

WHEREIN DAMARIS MEETS HERSELF UNDER A NOVEL ASPECT


Damaris threw back the bedclothes, her eyes still dim with slumber, and
gathered herself into a sitting position, clasping her knees with both
hands. She had a vague impression that something very pleasant awaited
her attention; but, in the soft confusion of first awakening, could not
remember exactly what it was.

To induce clearer consciousness she instinctively parted the mosquito
curtains, slipped her feet down over the side of the bed; and, a little
crouched together and fumbly--baby-fashion--being still under the
comfortable empire of sleep, crossed the room and set back the inward
opening casements of the south window. Thereupon the outdoor freshness,
fluttering her hair and the lace and nain-sook of her nightdress,
brought her, on the instant, into full possession of her wandering wits.
She remembered the nature of that charmingly pleasant something; yet
paused, before yielding it attention, held captive by the spectacle of
returning day.

It was early. The disc of the sun still below the horizon. But shafts of
light, striking up from it, patterned the underside of a vast dapple of
fleecy cloud--heliotrope upon the back-cloth of blue ether--with fringes
and bosses of scarlet flame. Against this, occupying the foreground, the
pine trees, which sheltered the terrace, showed up a deep greenish purple
bordering upon black.

Leaning out over the polished wooden bar--which topped the ironwork of
the window-guard--Damaris sought and gained sight of the sea. This,
darker even than the tufted foliation of the pines--since still untouched
by sunlight--spread dense and compact as molten metal, with here and
there a sheen, like that of the raven's wing, upon its corrugated
surface. To Damaris it appeared curiously forbidding. Seeing it thus she
felt, indeed, to have taken Nature unawares, surprised her without
disguise; so that for once she displayed her veritable face--a face not
yet made up and camouflaged to conceal the fact of its in-dwelling terror
from puny and defenceless man.

With that the girl's thoughts flew, in longing and solicitude, to
Faircloth, whose business so perpetually brought him into contact with
Nature thus naked and untamed.--By now, and over as sinister a sea--since
westward the dawn would barely yet have broke--the _Forest Queen_ must be
steaming along the Andalusian coast, making for Gibraltar and the Straits
upon her homeward voyage. And by some psychic alchemy, an influence more
potent and tangible than that of ordinary thought, her apprehension fled
out, annihilating distance, bridging intervening space. For, just as
certainly as Damaris' fair body leaned from the open window, so certainly
did her fair soul or--to try a closer and more scientific definition--her
living consciousness, stand in the captain's cabin of the ocean-bound
tramp, making Darcy Faircloth turn smiling in his sleep, he having vision
and glad sense of her--which stayed by him, tempering his humour to a
peculiar serenity throughout the ensuing day.

That their correspondence was no fictitious one, a freak of disordered
nerves or imagination, but sane and actual, both brother and sister could
convincingly have affirmed. And this although time--as time is usually
figured--had neither lot nor part in it. Such projections of personality
are best comparable, in this respect, to the dreams which seize us in the
very act of waking--vivid, coherent and complete, yet ended by the
selfsame sound or touch by which they are evoked.

In Damaris' case, before the scarlet, dyeing the cloud dapple, warmed to
rose, or the dense metallic sea caught reflections of the sunrise,
broadening incandescence, her errant consciousness was again cognizant
of, subjected to, her immediate surroundings. She was aware, moreover,
that the morning sharpness began to take a too unwarrantable liberty
with her thinly clad person for comfort. She hastily locked the casements
together; and then waited, somewhat dazed by the breathless pace of her
strange and tender excursion, looking about her in happy amazement.

And, so doing, her eyes lighted upon a certain oblong parcel lying on her
dressing-table. There was the charmingly pleasant something which awaited
her attention! A present, and the most costly, the most enchanting one
(save possibly the green jade elephant of her childish adoration) she had
ever received!

She picked up, not only the precious parcel, but a hand-mirror lying near
it; and, thus armed, bestowed herself, once more, in her still warm bed.

The last forty-eight hours had been fertile in experiences and in events,
among which the arrival of this gift could by no means be accounted the
least exciting.--Hordle had brought the packet here to her, last night,
about an hour after she and her father--standing under the portico--waved
reluctant farewells to Colonel Carteret, as the hotel omnibus bore him
and his baggage away to the station to catch the mail train through to
Paris. This parting, when it actually came about, proved more distressing
than she had by any means prefigured. She had no notion beforehand what a
really dreadful business she would find it, after these months of close
association, to say good-bye to the man with the blue eyes.

"We shall miss you at every turn, dear, dear Colonel Sahib," she almost
tearfully assured him. "How we are going ever to live without you I
don't know."

And impulsively, driven by the excess of her emotion to the point of
forgetting accustomed habits and restraints, she put up her lips for a
kiss. Which, thus invited, kiss Carteret, taking her face in both hands
for the minute, bestowed upon her forehead rather than upon those
proffered lips. Then his glance met Charles Verity's, held it in silent
interchange of friendship needing no words to declare its quality or
depth; and he turned away abruptly, making for the inside of the waiting
omnibus--cavernous in the semi-darkness--distributing largesse to all and
sundry as he went.

Damaris was aware of her father's arm passed through hers, holding her
against his side with a steadying pressure, as they went together across
the hall on their way to the first floor sitting-room. Aware of poor,
pretty, coughing little Mrs. Titherage's raised eyebrows and enquiring
stare, as they passed her with her coffee, cigarette, and fat, florid
stock-broker husband--who, by the way, had the grace to keep his eyes
glued to the patience cards, ranged upon the small table before him,
until father and daughter were a good half-way up the flight of stairs.
Later, when outwardly mistress of herself, the inclination to tears
successfully conquered and her normal half-playful gravity regained, she
went to her bedroom, Hordle had brought her this beguiling packet.

Inside the silver paper wrappings she found a red leather jewel case, and
a note in Carteret's singularly definite hand, character rather than
script, the severe yet decorative quality of Arabic about it.

"To the dear witch," it read, "in memory of our incomparable Henrietta's
dance, and of the midnight walk which followed it, and of our hours of
pleasant sightseeing at Marseilles."

No signature followed, only the date.

Now, sitting up in bed, while the day came into full and joyous being,
Nature's face duly decked and painted by the greatly reconciling sun,
Damaris read the exquisitely written note again. The writing in itself
moved her with a certain home-sickness for the East, which it seemed in
some sort to embody and from which to hail. Then meanings she detected,
behind the apparently light-hearted words, filled her with gratitude.
They reminded her gently of duties accepted, promises made. They gathered
in Faircloth, too, by implication; thus assuring her of sympathy and
approval where she needed them most.

She opened the case and, taking out the string of pearls it contained,
turned them about and about, examining, counting, admiring their lustre
and ethereal loveliness. They were graduated from the size of a
hemp-seed, so she illustrated it, on either side the diamond clasp, to
that of a marrow-fat pea. Not all of them--and this charmed her fancy as
giving them individuality and separate life--were faultlessly perfect;
but had minute irregularities of shape, tiny dimples in which a special
radiance hovered. She clasped the necklace round her throat, and, holding
up the hand-mirror, turned her head from side to side--with pardonable
vanity--to judge and enjoy the effect.

Damaris was unlearned in the commercial value of such treasures; nor did
money seem exactly a graceful or pretty thing--in some respects our
maiden was possessed of a very unworldly innocence--to think of in
connection with a present. Still she found it impossible not to regard
these jewels with a certain awe. What the dear Colonel Sahib must have
spent on them! A small fortune she feared. In the buying of this
all-too-costly-gift, then, consisted that business transaction he had
made the excuse for leaving her alone with Faircloth, upon the quay
alongside which lay the _Forest Queen_.

Oh! he surpassed himself! Was too indulgent, too munificent to her!--As
on a former occasion, she totted up the sum of his good deeds. Hadn't he
given up his winter's sport for her sake? Didn't she--and wouldn't an
admiring English reading public presently--owe to his suggestion her
father's noble book? When she had run wild for a space, and sold herself
to unworthy frivolities, hadn't he led her back into the right road, and
that with the lightest, courtliest, hand imaginable, making all
harmonious and sweetly perfect, once more, between her father and
herself? Lastly, hadn't he procured her her heart's desire in the meeting
with Darcy Faircloth--and, incidentally, given her the relief of free
speech, now and whenever she might desire to claim it, concerning the
strange and secret relationship which dominated her imagination and so
enriched the hidden places of her daily life and thought?

Damaris held up the hand-mirror contemplating his gift, this necklace of
pearls; and, from that, by unconscious transition fell to contemplating
her own face. It interested her. She looked at it critically, as at some
face other than her own, some portrait, appraising and studying it. It
was young and fresh, surely, as the morn--in its softness of contour and
fine clear bloom; yet grave to the verge of austerity, owing partly to
the brown hair which, parted in the middle and drawn down in a plain
full sweep over the ears, hung thence in thick loose plait on either
side to below her waist. She looked long and curiously into her own
eyes, "dear wonderful eyes," as Faircloth, her brother, so deliciously
called them. And with that her mouth curved into a smile, sight of which
brought recognition, new and very moving, of her own by no means
inconsiderable beauty.

She went red, and then white almost as her white nightdress and the white
pillows behind her. Laid the mirror hastily down, and held her face in
both hands as--as Carteret had held it last night, at the moment of
parting, when he had kissed not her lips but her forehead. Yet very
differently, since she now held it with strained, clinging fingers, which
hurt, making marks upon the flesh.--For could it be that--the other kind
of love, such as men bear the woman of their choice, which dictated
Carteret's unfailing goodness to her--the love that he had bitterly and
almost roughly defended when she praised the love of brother and sister
as dearest, purest, and therefore above all best?

Was it conceivable this hero of a hundred almost fabulous adventures, of
hair-breath escapes, and cunningly defied dangers in Oriental,
semi-barbarous, wholly gorgeous, camps, Courts and cities, this
philosopher of gently humorous equanimity, who appeared to weigh all
things in an equal balance and whom she had regarded as belonging to an
age and order superior to her own, had set his affections upon her
singling her out from among all possible others? That he wanted her for
his own, wanted her exclusively and as his inseparable companion, the
object of--

A sentence from the English marriage service flashed across her
mind.--"With my body I thee worship," it ran, "and with all my worldly
goods I thee endow."

"With my body I thee worship"--He, her father's elect and beloved friend,
in whom she had always so beautifully trusted, who had never failed her,
the dear man with the blue eyes--and she, Damaris? Her womanhood,
revealed to itself, at once shrank back bewildered, panic-stricken, and,
passion-stricken, called to her aloud.

For here Carteret's grace of bearing and of person, his clean health,
physical distinction and charm, arose and confronted her. The visible,
tangible attributes of the man--as man--presented themselves in fine
relief, delighting her, stirring her heretofore dormant senses, begetting
in her needs and desires undreamed of until now, and, even now, in
substance incomprehensible. She was enchanted, fevered, triumphant; and
then--also incomprehensibly--ashamed.

As the minutes passed, though the triumph continued to subsist, the shame
subsisted also, so that the two jostled one another striving for the
mastery. Damaris took her hands from her face, again clasped them about
her drawn-up knees, and sat, looking straight in front of her with
sombre, meditative eyes. To use a phrase of her childhood, she was busy
with her "thinkings"; her will consciously hailing emotion to the
judgment-seat of intelligence for examination and for sentence.

If this was what people commonly understand when they speak of love, if
this was the love concerning which novelists write and poets sing--this
riot of the blood and heady rapture, this conflict of shame and triumph
in which the animal part of one has so loud a word to say--she didn't
like it. It was upsetting, to the confines of what she supposed
drunkenness must be. It spoilt things heretofore exquisite, by giving
them too high a colour, too violent a flavour. No--she didn't like it.
Neither did she like herself in relation to it--like this unknown,
storm-swept Damaris. Nor--for he, alas! couldn't escape inclusion--this
new, unfamiliar presentment of the man with the blue eyes. Yet--and here
was a puzzle difficult of solution--even while this new presentment of
him, and conception of his sentiment towards her, pulled him down from
his accustomed pedestal in her regard, it erected for him another
pedestal, more richly sculptured and of more costly material--since had
not his manifold achievements, the whole fine legend as well as the whole
physical perfection of him, manifested themselves to, and worked upon her
as never before?--Did this thing, love, then, as between man and woman,
spring from the power of beauty while soiling and lowering beauty--bestow
on it an hour of extravagant effulgence, of royal blossoming, only to
degrade it in the end?--The puzzle is old as humanity, old, one may say,
as sex. Little wonder if Damaris, sitting up in her maidenly bedchamber,
in the unsullied brightness of the early morning hour, failed to find any
satisfactory answer to it.

Her thoughts ranged out to the other members of her little local
court--to Peregrine Ditton and Harry Ellice, to Marshall Wace. Had they
personal experience of this disquieting matter? Was it conceivable the
boys' silly rivalries and jealousies concerning her took their rise in
this? Did it inspire the fervour of Marshall Wace's singing, his
flattering dependence on her sympathy?--Suspicion widened. Everywhere she
seemed to find hint and suggestion of this--no, she wouldn't too
distinctly define it. Let it remain nameless.--Everywhere, except in
respect of her father and of her brother. There she could spend her heart
in peace. She sighed with a sweetness of relief, unclasping her hands,
raising her fixed, bowed head.

The hotel, meanwhile, was sensibly in act of coming awake. Doors opened,
voices called. From the other side of the corridor sounded poor little
Mrs. Titherage's hacking cough, increasing to a convulsive struggle
before, the fit at last passing off, it sunk into temporary quiescence.
André, the stout, middle-aged _valet de chambre_, hummed snatches of gay
melody as he rubbed and polished the parquet flooring without. These
noises, whether cheerful or the contrary, were at least ordinary enough.
By degrees they gained Damaris' ear, drawing her mind from speculation
regarding the nature, origin, prevalence and ethics of love. Soon
Pauline, the chamber-maid, would bring her breakfast-tray, coffee and
rolls, those pale wafer-like pats of butter which taste so good, and thin
squares of beetroot sugar which are never half as sweet as one would
like. Would bring hot water and her bath, too, and pay her some nicely
turned little compliment as to the becoming effect of her night's
sleep.--Everything would pick itself up, in short, and go on, naturally
and comfortably just as before.

Before what?

Damaris straightened the hem of the sheet over the billowing edge of
flowered down quilt; and, while so doing, her hand came in contact both
with the mirror and the open jewel-case. She looked at this last with an
expression bordering on reproach, unfastened the pearls from her throat,
and laid them on the wadded, cream-coloured velvet lining. She delighted
to possess them and deplored possessing them in the same breath. They
spoke to her too freely and conclusively, told her too much. She would
rather not have acquired this knowledge either of Carteret or of
herself.--If it really were knowledge?--Again she repeated the question,
arising from the increasing normality of surrounding things--Before what?

For when all was said and done, the dear man with the blue eyes had
veritably and very really departed. Throughout the night his train had
been rushing north-north-westward to Paris, to England, to that Norfolk
manor-house of his, where his sister, his nephews, all his home
interests and occupations awaited him. What proof had she that more
intimate and romantic affairs did not await him there, or thereabouts,
also? Had not she, once and for all, learned the lesson that a man's
ways are different and contain many unadvertised occupations and
interests? If he had wished to say something, anything, special to her,
before going away, how easily--thus she saw the business--how easily he
might have said it! But he hadn't spoken, rather conspicuously, indeed,
had avoided speaking. Perhaps it was all a silly, conceited mistake of
her own--a delusion and one not particularly creditable either to her
intelligence or her modesty.

Damaris shut up the jewel-case. The pearls were entrancing; but somehow
she did not seem to think she cared to look at them any more--just now.

When her breakfast arrived she ate it in a pensive frame of mind. In a
like frame of mind she went through the routine of her toilette. She felt
oddly tired; oddly shy, moreover, of her looking-glass.

Miss Felicia Verity had made a tentative proposal, about a week before,
of joining her niece and her brother upon the Riviera. She reported much
discomfort from rheumatism during the past winter. Her doctor advised a
change of climate. Damaris, while brushing and doing up her hair,
discovered in herself a warm desire for Miss Felicia's company. She
craved for a woman--not to confide in, but to somehow shelter behind. And
Aunt Felicia was so perfect in that way. She took what you gave in a
spirit of gratitude almost pathetic; and never asked for what you didn't
give, never seemed even to, for an instant, imagine there was anything
you withheld from her. It would be a rest--a really tremendous rest, to
have Aunt Felicia. She--Damaris--would propound the plan to her father as
soon as she went downstairs.

After luncheon and a walk with Sir Charles, her courage being higher, she
repented in respect of the pearl necklace. Put it on--and with results.
For that afternoon Henrietta Frayling--hungry for activity, hungry for
prey, after her prolonged abstention from society--very effectively
floated into the forefront of the local scene.




CHAPTER XII

CONCERNING ITSELF WITH A GATHERING UP OP FRAGMENTS


An unheralded invasion on the part of the physician from Cannes had
delayed, by a day, Henrietta's promised descent upon, or rather ascent
to, the Grand Hotel.

That gentleman, whose avaricious pale grey eye belied the extreme
silkiness of his manner--having been called to minister to Lady Hermione
Twells in respect of some minor ailment--elected to put in the overtime,
between two trains, in a visit to General Frayling. For the date drew
near of his yearly removal from the Riviera to Cotteret-les-Bains, in the
Ardennes, where, during the summer season, he exploited the physical
infelicities and mental credulities of his more wealthy fellow-creatures.
The _établissement_ at Cotteret was run by a syndicate, in which Dr.
Stewart-Walker held--in the name of an obliging friend and solicitor--a
preponderating number of shares. At this period of the spring he always
became anxious to clear up, not to say clear out, his southern clienètle
lest any left-over members of it should fall into the clutches of one of
his numerous local rivals. And, in this connection, it may be noted as
remarkable to how many of the said clientèle a "cure" at
Cotteret-les-Bains offered assurance of permanent restoration to health.

Among that happy band, as it now appeared, General Frayling might
be counted. The dry, exciting climate of St. Augustin, and its
near neighbourhood to the sea, were calculated to aggravate the
gastric complications from which that polite little warrior so
distressingly suffered.

"This, I fear we must recognize, my dear madam, is a critical period with
your husband; and treatment, for the next six months or so, is of
cardinal importance; I consider high inland air, if possible forest air,
indispensable. What I should _like_ you to do is to take our patient
north by slow stages; and I earnestly counsel a course of waters before
the return to England is attempted."

Thereupon, agreeable visions of festive toilettes and festive casinos
flitting through Henrietta's mind, she named Homburg and other German
spas of world-wide popularity. But at such ultra-fashionable resorts, as
Dr. Stewart-Walker, with a suitable air of regret, reminded her, the
season did not open until too late to meet existing requirements.

"Let me think, let me think," he repeated, head sagely bent and
forefinger on lip.

He ran through a number of Latin terms, to her in the main
incomprehensible; then looked up, relieved and encouraging.

"Yes, we might, I believe, safely try it. The medical properties of the
springs--particularly those of La Nonnette--meet our patient's case
excellently. And I should not lose sight of him--a point, I own, with me,
for your husband's condition presents features of peculiar interest.
Cotteret-les-Bains, my dear madam--in his case I can confidently
recommend it. Lady Hermione talks of taking the cure at Cotteret this
spring. But about that we shall see--we shall see. The question demands
consideration. As you know, Lady Hermione is charmingly outspoken,
emphatic; but I should be false to my professional honour, were I to
allow her wishes to colour my judgment.--Meanwhile I have reason to know
that other agreeable people are going to Cotteret shortly. Not the rank
and file. For such the place does not pretend to cater. There the
lucrative stock-broker, or lucrative Jew, is still a _rara avis_. Long
may he continue to be so, and Cotteret continue to pride itself on its
exclusiveness!--In that particular it will admirably suit you, Mrs.
Frayling."

To a compliment so nicely turned Henrietta could not remain insensible.
Before the destined train bore Dr. Stewart-Walker back to his more
legitimate zone of practise, she saw herself committed to an early
striking of camp, with this obscure, if select, _ville d'eaux_ as her
destination.

In some respects the prospect did not smile on her. Yet as, next day,
emancipated at length from monotonies of the sick-chamber, she drove
behind the free-moving little chestnut horses through the streets of the
town--sleepy in the hot afternoon quiet--and along the white glaring
esplanade, Henrietta admitted the existence of compensations. In the
brilliant setting of some world-famous German spa, though she--as she
believed--would have been perfectly at her ease, what about her
companions? For in such scenes of high fashion, her own good clothes are
not sufficient lifebelt to keep a pretty woman quite complacently afloat.
Your male associates must render you support, be capable of looking the
part and playing up generally, if your enjoyment is to be complete. And
for all _that_ Marshall Wace, frankly, couldn't be depended on. Not only
was he too unmistakably English and of the middle-class; but the clerical
profession, although he had so unfortunately failed it, or it so unkindly
rejected him, still seemed to soak through, somehow, when you saw him in
public. A whiff of the vestry queerly clung to his coats and his
trousers, thus meanly giving away his relinquished ambitions; unless, and
that was worse still, essaying to be extra smart, a taint of the
footlights declared itself in the over florid curl of a hat-brim or
sample of "neck-wear." To head a domestic procession, in eminently
cosmopolitan circles, composed of a small, elderly, very palpable invalid
and a probable curate in mufti, demanded an order of courage to which
Henrietta felt herself entirely unequal. Preferable the obscurity of
Cotteret-les-Bains--gracious heaven, ten thousand times preferable!

Did not Dr. Stewart-Walker, moreover, hold out hopes that, by following
his advice, the General's strength might be renewed, if not precisely
like that of the eagle, yet in the more modest likeness of some good,
biddable, burden-bearing animal--the patient ass, if one might so put it
without too obvious irony? As handyman, aide-de-camp, and, on occasion,
her groom of the chambers, the General had deserved very well of
Henrietta. He had earned her sincere commendation. To restore him to that
level of convenient activity was, naturally, her main object; and if a
sojourn at some rather dull spot in the Ardennes, promised to secure this
desired end, let it be accepted without hesitation. For the proverbial
creaking, yet long-hanging, gate--here Henrietta had the delicacy to take
refuge in hyperbole--she had no liking whatever. She could not remember
the time when Darby and Joan had struck her as an otherwise than
preposterous couple, offspring of a positively degraded sentimentality.

But there, since it threatened depressing conclusions, Henrietta agreed
with herself to pursue the line of reflection no further.--"Sufficient
unto the day"--to look beyond is, the thirties once passed, to raise
superfluous spectres. And this day, in itself supplied food for
reflections of a quite other character; ones which set both her curiosity
and partiality for intrigue quite legitimately afire.

The morning post had brought her a missive from Colonel Carteret
announcing his "recall" to England, and deploring the imposed haste of
it as preventing him from making his adieux to her in person. The
letter contained a number of flattering tributes to her own charms and
to old times in India, the pleasures of which--unforgettable by him--he
had had the happiness of sharing with her. Yet--to her reading of
it--this friendly communication remained enigmatic, its kindly
sentences punctuated by more than one interjectional enquiry. Namely,
what was the cause of this sudden "recall"? And what was his reason for
not coming to say good-bye to her? Haste, she held an excuse of almost
childish transparency. It went deeper than that. Simply he had wanted
not to see her.

Since the night of the dance no opportunity had occurred for observing
Carteret and Damaris when together.--Really, how General Frayling's
tiresome illness shipwrecked her private plans!--And, from the beginning,
she had entertained an uneasy suspicion regarding Carteret's attitude.
Men can be so extraordinarily feeble-minded where young girls are
concerned! Had anything happened during her withdrawal from society? In
the light, or rather the obscurity, of Carteret's letter, a visit to
Damaris became more than ever imperative.

Her own competence to extract the truth from that guileless maiden,
Henrietta in nowise questioned. "The child," she complacently told
herself, when preparing to set forth on her mission, "is like wax in
my hands."

The above conviction she repeated now, as the horses swept the victoria
along the shore road, while from beneath her white umbrella she
absently watched the alternate lift and plunge of the dazzling
ultramarine and Tyrian purple sea upon the polished rocks and pebbles
of the shelving beach.

To Henrietta Nature, save as decoration to the human drama, meant
nothing. But the day was hot, for the time of year royally so, and this
rejoiced her. She basked in the sunshine with a cat-like luxury of
content. Her hands never grew moist in the heat, nor her hair untidy, her
skin unbecomingly red, nor her general appearance in the least degree
blousy. She remained enchantingly intact, unaffected, except for an added
glint, an added refinement. To-day's temperature justified the adoption
of summer attire, of those thin, clear-coloured silk and muslin fabrics
so deliciously to her taste. She wore a lavender dress. It was new, every
pleat and frill inviolate, at their crispest and most uncrumpled. In this
she found a fund of permanent satisfaction steeling her to intrepid
enterprise.

Hence she scorned all ceremonies of introduction. She dared to pounce.
Having ascertained the number of Sir Charles Verity's sitting-room she
refused obsequious escort, tripped straight upstairs unattended, rapped
lightly, opened the door and--with swift reconnoitering of the scene
within--announced her advent thus:

"Damaris, are you there? Ah! yes. Darling child. At last!"

During that reconnoitering she inventoried impressions of the room and
its contents.--Cool, first--blue walls, blue carpet, blue upholstering of
sofa and of chairs. Not worn or shabby, but so graciously faded by sun
and air, that this--decoratively speaking--most perilous of colours
became innocuous, in a way studious, in keeping with a large
writing-table occupying the centre of the picture, laden with manuscripts
and with books. The wooden outside shutters of two of the three windows
were closed, which enhanced the prevailing coolness and studiousness of
effect. Red cushions, also agreeably faded, upon the window-seats, alone
echoed, in some degree, the hot radiance obtaining out of doors--these,
and a red enamelled vase holding sprays of yellow and orange-copper
roses, placed upon a smaller table before which Damaris sat, her back
towards the invader.

At the sound of the latter's voice, the girl started, raised her head
and, in the act of looking round, swept together some scattered sheets of
note-paper and shut her blotting-book.

"Henrietta!" she cried, and thereupon sprang up; the lady, meanwhile,
advancing towards her with outstretched arms, which enclosed her in a
fragrant embrace.

"Yes--nothing less than Henrietta"--imprinting light kisses on either
cheek. "But I see you are busy writing letters, dearest child. I am in
the way--I interrupt you?"

And, as Damaris hastily denied that such was the case:

"Ah! but I do," she repeated. "I have no right to dart in on you thus _à
l'improviste_. It is hardly treating such an impressive young
person--absolutely I believe you have grown since I saw you last!--yes,
you are taller, darling child--handsomer than ever, and a tiny bit
alarming too--what have you been doing with, or to, or by
yourself?--Treating her--the impressive young person, I mean--with proper
respect. But it was such a chance. I learnt that you were alone"--A fib,
alas! on Henrietta's part.--"And I couldn't resist coming. I so longed to
have you, like this, all to myself. What an eternity since we met!--For
me a wearing, ageing eternity. The duties of a sick-room are so horribly
anxious, yet so deadening in their repetition of ignoble details. I could
not go through with them, honestly I could not--though I realize it is a
damning admission for a woman to make--if it wasn't that I am rather
absurdly attached to what good Dr. Stewart-Walker persists in calling
'our patient.' Is not that enough in itself?--To fall from all normal
titles and dignities and become merely a patient? No, joking apart, only
affection makes nursing in any degree endurable to me. Without its saving
grace the whole business would be too unpardonably sordid."

She pursed up her lips, and shivered her graceful shoulders with the
neatest exposition of delicate distaste.

"And too gross. But one must face and accept the pathetic risk of being
eventually converted in _garde malade_ thus, if one chooses to marry a
man considerably older than oneself. It is a mistake. I say so though I
committed it with my eyes open. I was betrayed by my affection."

As she finished speaking Henrietta stepped across to the sofa and sat
down. The airy perfection of her appearance lent point to the plaintive
character of this concluding sentence. The hot day, the summer
costume--possibly the shaded room also--combined to strip away a good ten
years from her record. Any hardness, any faint sense of annoyance, which
Damaris experienced at the abruptness of her guest's intrusion melted.
Henrietta in her existing aspect, her existing mood proved irresistible.
Our tender-hearted maiden was charmed by her and coerced.

"But General Frayling is better, isn't he?" she asked, also taking her
place upon the sofa. "You are not any longer in any serious anxiety about
him, darling Henrietta? All danger is past?"

"Oh, yes--he is better of course, or how could I be here? But I have
received a shock that makes me dread the future."

Which was true, though in a sense other than that in which her hearer
comprehended it. For the studious atmosphere of the room reacted upon
Henrietta, as did its many silent testimonies to Sir Charles Verity's
constant habitation. This was his workshop. She felt acutely conscious
of him here, nearer to him in idea and in sentiment than for many years
past. The fact that he did still work, sought new fields to conquer,
excited both her admiration and her regrets. He disdained to be laid on
the shelf, got calmly and forcefully down off the shelf and spent his
energies in fresh undertakings. Once upon a time she posed as his
Egeria, fancying herself vastly in the part. During the Egerian period
she lived at a higher intellectual and emotional level than ever before
or since, exerting every particle of brain she possessed to maintain
that level. The petty interests of her present existence, still more,
perhaps, the poor odd and end of a yellow little General in his
infinitely futile sick-bed, shrank to a desolating insufficiency. Surely
she was worthy--had, anyway, once been worthy--of better things than
that? The lavender dress, notwithstanding its still radiantly uncrumpled
condition, came near losing its spell. No longer did she trust in it as
in shining armour. Her humour soured. She instinctively inclined to
revenge herself upon the nearest sentient object available--namely to
stick pins into Damaris.

"Sweetest child," she said, "you can't imagine how much this room means
to me through its association with your father's wonderful book.--Oh!
yes, I know a lot about the book. Colonel Carteret has not failed to
advertise his acquaintance with it. But, what have I said?"

For at mention of that gentleman's name Damaris, so she fancied, changed
colour, the bloom fading upon her cheeks, while her glance became
reserved, at once proud and slightly anxious.

"Is it forbidden to mention the wonderful book at this stage of its
development? Though even if it were," she added, with a rather impish
laugh, looking down at and fingering the little bunch of trinkets,
attached to a long gold chain, which rested in her lap--"Carteret would
hardly succeed in holding his peace. Speak of everything, sooner or
later, he must."

She felt rather than saw Damaris' figure grow rigid.

"Have you ever detected that small weakness in him? But probably not. He
keeps overflowings for the elder members of his acquaintance, and in the
case of the younger ones does exercise some caution. Ah! yes, I've no
doubt he seems to you a model of discretion. Yet, in point of fact, when
you've known him as long as I, you will have discovered he is a more than
sufficiently extensive sieve."

Then, fearing she had gone rather far, since Damaris remained rigid
and silent:

"Not a malicious sieve," the lady hastened to add, raising her eyes. "I
don't imply that for a single instant. On the contrary I incline to
believe that his attitude of universal benevolence is to blame for this
inclination to gossip. It is so great, so all-enclosing, that I can't
help feeling it blunts his sense of right and wrong to some extent. He is
the least censorious of men and therefore--though it may sound cynical to
say so--I don't entirely trust his judgment. He is too ready to make
excuses for everyone.--But, my precious child, what's the matter? What
makes you look so terrifically solemn and severe?"

And playfully she put her hand under the girl's chin, drawing the grave
face towards her, smilingly studying, then lightly and daintily kissing
it. In the course of this affectionate interlude, the string of pearls
round Damaris' throat, until now hidden by the V-shaped collar of her
soft lawn shirt, caught Henrietta's eye. Their size, lustre and worth
came near extracting a veritable shriek of enquiry and jealous admiration
from her. But with praiseworthy promptitude she stifled her astonishment
and now really rampant curiosity. Damaris but half yielded to her
blandishments. She must cajole more successfully before venturing to
request explanation. Therefore she cried, soothingly, coaxfully:

"There--there--descend from those imposing heights of solemnity, or upon
my word you will make me think my poor little visit displeases and bores
you. That would be peculiarly grievous to me, since it is, in all
probability, my last."

"Your last?" Damaris exclaimed.

"Yes, darling child, the fiat, alas! has gone forth. We are ordered away
and start for Cotteret-les-Bains in a day or two. Dr. Stewart-Walker
considers the move imperative on account of General Frayling's health.
This was only settled yesterday. Marshall would have rushed here to tell
you; but I forbade him. I felt I must tell you myself. I confess it is a
blow to me. Our tenancy of the Pavilion expires at the end of the month;
but I proposed asking for an extension, and, if that failed, taking up
our abode at the hotel for a while. To me Dr. Stewart-Walker's orders
come as a bitter disappointment, for I counted on remaining until
Easter--remaining just as long as you and Sir Charles and Carteret
remained, in fact."

Here the bloom, far from further extinction, warmed to a lovely blush.
Henrietta's curiosity craned its naughty neck standing on tiptoe. But,
the blush notwithstanding, Damaris looked at her with such sincerity of
quickening affection and of sympathy that she again postponed
cross-examination.

For over this piece of news our maiden could--in its superficial aspects
at all events--lament in perfect good faith. She proceeded to do so,
eagerly embracing the opportunity to offer thanks and praise. All
Henrietta's merits sprang into convincing evidence. Had not her
hospitality been unstinted--the whole English colony had cause to mourn.

"But for you they'd still be staring at one another, bristling like so
many strange dogs," Damaris said. "And you smoothed them all down so
divertingly. Oh! you were beautifully clever in that. It was a lesson in
the art of the complete hostess. While, as for me, Henrietta, you've
simply spoiled me. I can never thank you enough. Think of the amusements
past counting you planned for me, the excursions you've let me share with
you--our delicious drives, and above all my coming-out dance."

Whereat Mrs. Frayling disclaimingly shook her very pretty head.

"In pleasing you I have merely pleased myself, dearest, so in that
there's no merit.--Though I do plead guilty to but languid enthusiasm
for girls of your age as a rule. Their conversation and opinions are
liable to set my teeth a good deal on edge. I have small patience, I'm
afraid, at the disposal of feminine beings at once so omniscient and so
alarmingly unripe.--But you see, a certain downy owl, with saucer eyes
and fierce little beak, won my heart by its beguiling ways a dozen
years ago."

"Darling Henrietta!" Damaris softly murmured; and, transported by
sentiment to that earlier date when the said darling Henrietta
commanded her unqualified adoration, began playing with the
well-remembered bunch of trinkets depending from the long gold chain
the lady wore about her neck.

Watching her, Mrs. Frayling sighed.

"Ah, my child, the thought of you is inextricably joined to other
thoughts upon which I should be far wiser not to dwell--far wiser to put
from me and forget--only they are stronger than I am--and I can't."

There was a ring of honest human feeling in Henrietta Frayling's
voice for once.

"No, no--I am more justly an object of commiseration than anyone I leave
behind me at St. Augustin."

And again she laughed, not impishly, but with a hardness altogether
astonishing to her auditor.

"Think," she cried, "of my sorry fate!--Not only a wretchedly ailing
husband on my hands, needing attention day and night, but a wretchedly
disconsolate young lover as well. For poor Marshall will be
inconsolable--only too clearly do I foresee that.--Picture what a pair
for one's portion week in and week out!--Whereas you, enviable being, are
sure of the most inspiring society. Everything in this quiet room"--

She indicated the laden writing-table with a quick, flitting gesture.

"So refreshingly removed from the ordinary banal hotel _salon_--is
eloquent of the absorbing, far-reaching pursuits and interests amongst
which you live. Who could ask a higher privilege than to share your
father's work, to be his companion and amanuensis?"--She paused, as
emphasising the point, and then mockingly threw off--"Plus the smart
_beau sabreur_ Carteret, as devoted bodyguard and escort, whenever you
are not on duty. To few women of your age, or indeed of any age, is
Fortune so indulgent a fairy godmother as that!"

Astonished and slightly resentful at the sharpness of her guest's
unprovoked onslaught, Damaris had dropped the little bunch of trinkets
and backed into her corner of the sofa.

"Colonel Carteret has gone," she said coldly, rather irrelevantly, the
statement drawn from her by a vague instinct of self-defence.

"Gone!" Henrietta echoed, with equal irrelevance. For she was singularly
discomposed.

"Yes, he started for England last night. But you must know that already,
Henrietta. He wrote to you--he told me so himself."

But having once committed herself by use of a word implying ignorance,
Mrs. Frayling could hardly do otherwise than continue the deception.
Explanation would be too awkward a business. The chances of detection,
moreover, were infinitesimal. There were things she meant to say which
would sound far more unstudied and obvious could she keep up the fiction
of ignorance. This, quickly realizing, she again and more flagrantly
fibbed. The voluntary lie acts as a tonic giving you--for the moment at
least--most comforting conceit of your own courage and perspicacity. And
Henrietta just now stood in need of a tonic. She had been strangely
overcome by the force of her own emotion--an accident which rarely
happened to her and which she very cordially detested when it did.

"Someone must have omitted to post the letter, then," she said, with a
suitable air of annoyance. "How exceedingly careless--unless it has not
been sent over from the hotel to the Pavilion. I have been obliged, more
than once, to complain of the hall porter's very casual delivery of my
letters. I will make enquiries directly, if I don't find it on my return.
But this is all by the way. Tell me, dearest child, what is the reason of
Colonel Carteret's leaving so suddenly? Is it not surprisingly
unexpected?"

"He was wanted at home on business of some sort," Damaris replied, as she
felt a little lamely. She was displeased, worried by Henrietta. It was
difficult to choose her words. "He has been away for a long time, you
see. I think he has been beautifully unselfish in giving up so much of
his time to us."

"Do you?" Henrietta enquired with meaning. "If I remember right we
discussed that point once before. I can repeat now what I then told you,
with even firmer assurance, namely, that he struck me as remarkably well
pleased with himself and his surroundings and generally content."

"Of course he loves being with my father," Damaris hastened to put in,
having no wish to enlarge on the topic suggested by the above speech.

"Of course. Who doesn't, or rather who wouldn't were they sufficiently
fortunate to have the chance. But come--to be honest--_je me demande_, is
it exclusively Sir Charles whom Carteret loves to be with?"

And as she spoke, Henrietta bent forward from the waist, her dainty
lavender skirts spread out on the faded blue of the sofa mattress, the
contours of her dainty lavender bodice in fine relief against the faded
blue cushions, her whole person, in the subdued light, bright and
apparently fragile as some delicate toy of spun glass. She put out her
hand, and lightly, mischievously, touched the string of pearls encircling
the girl's throat.

"And what is the meaning of these, then," she asked, "you sweetly
deceiving little puss!"

It was cleverly done, she flattered herself. She asserted nothing,
implied much, putting the onus of admission or denial upon Damaris. The
answer came with grave and unhesitating directness.

"Colonel Carteret gave them to me."

"So I imagined. They are the exquisite fruit, aren't they, of the little
expedition by train of two days ago?"

Damaris' temper rose, but so did her protective instinct. For that
journey to Marseilles, connected as it was with the dear secret of Darcy
Faircloth, did not admit of investigation by Henrietta.

"About where and when Colonel Carteret may have got them for me, I know
nothing," she returned. "He left them to be given to me last night
after he went."

She unclasped the necklace.

"They are very lovely pearls, aren't they? Pray look at them if you care
to, Henrietta," she said.

Thus at once invited and repulsed--for that it amounted to a repulse she
could not but acknowledge--Mrs. Frayling advised herself a temporary
retreat might be advisable. She therefore discoursed brightly concerning
pearls and suchlike costly frivolities. Inwardly covetousness consumed
her, since she possessed no personal ornament of even approximate value.

The conversation drifted. She learned the fact of Miss Felicia's
projected arrival, and deplored her own approaching exile the less. Only
once, long ago, had she encountered Miss Verity. The memory afforded her
no satisfaction, for that lady's peculiar brand of good breeding and--as
she qualified it--imbecility, did not appeal to her in the least. There
was matter of thankfulness, therefore, she had not elected to join Sir
Charles and Damaris sooner. She would undoubtedly have proved a most
tiresome and impeding element. Unless--here Henrietta's mind
darted--unless she happened to take a fancy to Marshall. Blameless
spinsters, of her uncertain age and of many enthusiasms, did not
infrequently very warmly take to him--in plain English, fell over head
and ears in love with him, poor things, though without knowing it, their
critical faculty being conspicuous by its absence where their own hearts
were concerned.--By the way that was an idea!--Swiftly Henrietta reviewed
the possibilities it suggested.--As an ally, an auxiliary, Miss Felicia
might be well worth cultivation. Would it not be diplomatic to let
Marshall stay on at the Hôtel de la Plage by himself for a week or so?
The conquest of Miss Felicia might facilitate another conquest on which
her--Henrietta's--mind was set. For such mature enamoured virgins,
as she reflected, are almost ludicrously selfless. To ensure the
happiness of the beloved object they will even donate to him their
rival.--Yes--distinctly an idea! But before attempting to reduce it to
practice, she must make more sure of her ground in another direction.

During the above meditation, Henrietta continued to talk off the
surface, her mind working on two distinct planes. Damaris, off the
surface, continued to answer her.

Our maiden felt tired both in body and in spirit. She felt all "rubbed
up the wrong way"--disturbed, confused. The many moral turns and twists
of Henrietta's conversation had been difficult to follow. But from
amid the curious maze of them, one thing stood out, arrestingly
conspicuous--Henrietta believed it then also. Believed Carteret cared for
her "in _that_ way"--thus, with a turning aside of the eyes and
shrinking, she phrased it. It wasn't any mistaken, conceited imagination
of her own since Henrietta so evidently shared it. And Henrietta must be
reckoned an expert in that line, having a triad of husbands to her
credit--a liberality of allowance in matrimony which had always appeared
to Damaris as slightly excessive. She had avoided dwelling upon this so
outstanding feature of her friend's career; but that it gave assurance of
the latter's ability to pronounce upon "caring in _that_ way" was she now
admitted incontestable.

Whether she really felt glad or sorry Henrietta's expert opinion
confirmed her own suspicions, Damaris could not tell. It certainly tended
to complicate the future; and for that she was sorry. She would have
liked to see the road clear before her--anyhow for a time--complications
having been over numerous lately. They were worrying. They made her feel
unsettled, unnatural. In any case she trusted she shouldn't suffer again
from those odious yet alluring feelings which put her to such shame this
morning.--But--unpleasant thought--weren't they, perhaps, an integral
part of the whole agitating business of "caring in _that_ way?"

Her eyes rested in wide meditative enquiry upon Henrietta, Henrietta
sitting up in all her finished elegance upon the faded blue sofa and so
diligently making company conversation. Somehow, thus viewing her, it
was extremely difficult to suppose Henrietta had ever experienced
excited feelings. Yet--the wonder of it!--she'd actually been married
three times.

Then, wearily, Damaris made a return upon herself. Yes--she was glad,
although it might seem ungrateful, disloyal, the man with the blue eyes
had gone away. For his going put off the necessity of knowing her own
mind, excused her from making out exactly how she regarded him, thus
relegating the day of fateful decision to a dim distance. Henrietta
accused him of being a sieve.--Damaris grew heated in strenuous denial.
That was a calumny which she didn't and wouldn't credit. Still you could
never be quite sure about men--so she went back on the old, sad,
disquieting lesson. Their way of looking at things, their angle of
admitted obligation is so bewilderingly different!--Oh! how thankful she
was Aunt Felicia would soon be here. Everything would grow simpler,
easier to understand and to manage, more as it used to be, with dear Aunt
Felicia here on the spot.

At this point she realized that Mrs. Frayling was finishing a sentence to
the beginning of which she had not paid the smallest attention. That was
disgracefully rude.

"So I am to go home then, dearest child, and break it to Marshall that he
stands no chance--my poor Marshall, who has no delightful presents with
which to plead his cause!"

"Mr. Wace?--Plead his cause? What cause? I am so sorry,
Henrietta--forgive me. It's too dreadful, but I am afraid I wasn't quite
listening"--this with most engaging confusion.

"Yes--his cause. I should have supposed his state of mind had been
transparently evident for many a long day."

"But indeed--Henrietta, you must be mistaken. I don't know what you
mean"--the other interposed smitten by the liveliest distress and alarm.

The elder lady waved aside her outcry with admirable playfulness and
determination.

"Oh! I quite realize how crazy it must appear on his part, poor dear
fellow, seeing he has so little to offer from the worldly and commercial
standpoint. As he himself says--'the desire of the moth for the star, of
the night for the morrow.' Still money and position are not everything
in life, are they? Talent is an asset and so, I humbly believe, is the
pure devotion of a good man's heart. These count for something, or used
to do so when I was your age. But then the women of my generation were
educated in a less sophisticated school. You modern young persons are
wiser than we were no doubt, in that you are less romantic, less easily
touched.--I have not ventured to give Marshall much encouragement. It
would have been on my conscience to foster hopes which might be dashed.
And yet I own, darling child, your manner not once nor twice, during our
happy meetings at the Pavilion, when he read aloud to us or sang, gave me
the impression you were not entirely indifferent. He, I know, has thought
so too--for I have not been able to resist letting him pour out his hopes
and fears to me now and then. I could not refuse either him or myself
that indulgence, because"--

Mrs. Frayling rose, and, bending over our much tried and now positively
flabbergasted damsel, brushed her hair with a butterfly kiss.

"Because my own hopes were also not a little engaged," she said. "Your
manner to my poor Marshall, your willingness to let him so often be with
you made me--perhaps foolishly--believe not only that his sad life might
be crowned by a signal blessing, but you might be given to me some day as
a daughter of whom I could be intensely proud. I have grown to look upon
Marshall in the light of a son, and his wife would"--

Damaris had risen also. She stood at bay, white, strained, her lips
quivering.

"Do--do you mean that I have behaved badly to Mr. Wace, Henrietta? That I
have flirted with him?"

Mrs. Frayling drew her mouth into a naughty little knot. There were
awkward corners to be negotiated in these questions. She avoided them by
boldly striking for the open.

"Oh! it is natural, perfectly natural at your rather thoughtless time of
life. Only Marshall's admiration for you is very deep. He has the poetic
temperament which makes for suffering, for despair as well as for
rapture. And his disillusionments, poor boy, have been so grievously
many.--But Colonel Carteret--yes--dearest child, I do quite follow.--It's
an old story. He has always had _des bonnes fortunes_."

Since her return to Europe, Mrs. Frayling had become much addicted to
embellishing her conversation with such foreign tags, not invariably, it
may be added, quite correctly applied or quoted.

"Women could never resist him in former days in India. They went down
before his charms like a row of ninepins before a ball. I don't deny a
passing _tendresse_ for him myself, though I was married and very happily
married. So I can well comprehend how he may take a girl's fancy by
storm. _Sans peur et sans reproche_, he must seem to her.--And so in the
main, I dare say, he is. At worst a little easy-going, owing to his
cultivation of the universally benevolent attitude. Charity has a habit
of beginning at home, you know; and a man usually views his own
delinquencies at least as leniently as he views those of others. But that
leniency is part of his charm--which I admit is great.--Heaven forbid, I
should undermine your faith in it, if there is anything settled between
you and him."

"But there isn't, there isn't," Damaris broke in, distressed beyond all
calmness of demeanour. "You go too fast, Henrietta. You assume too
much. Nothing is settled of--of that sort. Nothing of that sort has
ever been said."

Mrs. Frayling raised her eyebrows, cast down her eyes, and fingered the
bunch of trinkets hanging from her gold chain in silence for a few
seconds. The ring of sincerity was unquestionable--only where did that
land her? Had not she, in point of fact, very really gone too fast? In
defeat Henrietta became unscrupulous.

"Merely another flirtation, Damaris?" she said. "Darling child, I am just
a wee bit disappointed in you."

Which, among her many fibs, may rank amongst her most impudent and
full-fed, though by no means her last.

Here, the door opened behind her. Henrietta turned alertly, hailing any
interruption which--her bolt being shot--might facilitate her retreat
from a now most embarrassing situation. After all she had planted more
than one seed, which might fruitfully grow, so at that she could leave
matters.--The interruption, however, took a form for which she was
unprepared. To her intense disgust her nerves played her false. She gave
the oddest little stifled squeak as she met Charles Verity's glance,
fixed upon her in cool, slightly ironic scrutiny.

Some persons very sensibly bring their mental atmosphere along with them.
You are compelled to breathe it whether you like or not. The atmosphere
Charles Verity brought with him, at this juncture, was too masculine,
intellectually too abstract yet too keenly critical, for comfortable
absorption by Henrietta's lungs. Her self-complacency shrivelled in it.
She felt but a mean and pitiful creature, especially in her recent
treatment of Damaris. It was a nasty moment, the more difficult to
surmount because of that wretchedly betraying squeak. Fury against
herself gingered her up to action. She must be the first to speak.

"Ah! how delightful to see you," she said, a little over-playing the
part--"though only for an instant. I was in the act of bidding Damaris
farewell. As it is I have scandalously outstayed my leave; but we had a
thousand and one things, hadn't we, to say to one another."

She smiled upon both father and daughter with graceful deprecation.

"_Au, revoir_, darling child--we must manage to meet somehow, just once
more before I take my family north"--

And still talking, new lavender dress, trinkets, faint fragrance and all,
she passed out on to the corridor accompanied by Sir Charles Verity.




CHAPTER XIII

WHICH RECOUNTS A TAKING OF SANCTUARY


Left alone Damaris sat down on the window-seat, within the shelter of the
wooden shutters which interposed a green barred coolness between her and
the brilliant world without. That those two, her father and Henrietta
Frayling, should thus step off together, the small, softly crisp,
feminine figure beside the tall, fine-drawn and--in a way--magnificent
masculine one, troubled her. Yet she made no attempt to accompany or to
follow them. Her head ached. Her mind and soul ached too. She felt spent
and giddy, as from chasing round and round in an ever-shifting circle
some tormenting, cleverly lovely thing which perpetually eluded her.
Which thing, finally, floated out of the door there, drawing a
personage unmeasurably its superior, away with it, and leaving
her--Damaris--deserted.

Leaving, moreover, every subject on which its nimble tongue had lighted,
damaged by that contact--at loose ends, frayed and ravelled, its inwove
pattern just slightly discoloured and defaced. The patterned fabric of
Damaris' thought and inner life had not been spared, but suffered
disfigurement along with the rest. She felt humiliated, felt unworthy.
The ingenious torments of a false conscience gnawed her. Her better
judgment pronounced that conscience veritably false; or would, as she
believed, so pronounce later when she had time to get a true perspective.
But, just now, she could only lamentably, childishly, cry out against
injustice. For wasn't Henrietta mainly responsible for the character of
her intercourse with Marshall Wace? Hadn't Henrietta repeatedly entreated
her to see much of him, be kind to him?--Wishing, even in her present
rebellion to be quite fair, she acknowledged that she had enjoyed his
singing and reading; that she had felt pleased at his eagerness to
confide his troubles to her and talk confidentially about himself. She
not unwillingly accepted a mission towards him, stimulated thereto by
Henrietta's plaudits and thanks.

And--and Colonel Carteret? For now somehow she no longer, even in
thought, could call him by her old name for him, "the dear man with the
blue eyes."--Could it be true, as Henrietta intimated, that he went
through life throwing the handkerchief first to one woman and then to
another? That there was no real constancy or security in his affections,
but all was lightly come and lightly go with him?

How her poor head ached! She held it in both hands and closed her
eyes.--She would not think any more about Colonel Carteret. To do so made
her temples throb and raised the lump, which is a precursor of tears, in
her throat.

No--she couldn't follow Henrietta's statements and arguments either way.
They were self-contradictory. Still, whose ever the fault, that the young
man Wace should be unhappy on her account, should think she--Damaris--had
behaved heartlessly to him, was quite dreadful. Humiliating too--false
conscience again gnawing. Had she really contracted a debt towards him,
which she--in his opinion and Henrietta's--tried to repudiate? She seemed
to hear it, the rich impassioned voice, and hear it with a new
comprehension. Was "caring in _that_ way" what it had striven to tell
her; and had she, incomparably dense in missing its meaning, appeared to
sanction the message and to draw him on? Other people understood--so at
least Henrietta implied; while she, remaining deaf, had rather cruelly
misled him. Ought she not to do something to make up? Yet what could she
do?--It had never occurred to her that--that--

She held her head tight. Held it on, as with piteous humour she told
herself, since she seemed in high danger of altogether losing it.--Must
she believe herself inordinately stupid, or was she made differently to
everybody else? For, as she now suspected, most people are constantly
occupied, are quite immensely busy about "caring in _that_ way." And she
shrank from it; actively and angrily disliked it. She felt smirched, felt
all dealings as between men and women made suspect, rendered ugly, almost
degraded by the fact--if fact it was--of that kind of caring and excited
feelings it induces, lurking just below the surface, ready to dart
out.--And this not quite honestly either. The whole matter savoured of
hypocrisy, since the feelings disguised themselves in beautiful sounds,
beautiful words, clothing their unseemliness with the noble panoply of
poetry and art, masquerading in wholesome garments of innocent
good-comradeship.

--A grind of wheels on the gravel below. Henrietta's neat limpid accents
and Charles Verity's grave ones. The flourish and crack of a whip and
scrambling start of the little chestnut horses. The rhythmical beat of
their quick even trot and thin tinkle of their collar bells receding into
the distance.

These sounds to our sorrowfully perplexed maiden opened fresh fields of
uneasy speculation. For those diverse accents--the speakers being
unseen--heard thus in conjunction, seized on and laboured her
imagination. Throughout the past months of frequent meeting, Damaris had
never quite understood her father's attitude towards Henrietta Frayling.
It was marked by reserve; yet a reserve based, as she somehow divined,
upon an uncommon degree of former intimacy. Judging from remarks let drop
now and again by Henrietta, they knew, or rather had known, one another
very well indeed. This bore out Damaris' own childhood's recollections;
though in these last she was aware of lacunae, of gaps, of spaces
unbridged by any coherent sequence of remembered events. A dazzling and
delicious image, the idol of her baby adoration--thus did memory paint
that earlier Henrietta. Surrounding circumstances remained shadowy. She
could not recall them even in respect of herself, still less in respect
of her father. So that question, as to the past, ruled the present. What
had parted them, and how did they to-day envisage one another? She could
not make out. Had never, indeed, attempted seriously to make out, shying
from such investigation as disloyal and, in a way, irreverent. Now
investigation was forced on her. Her mind worked independent of her will,
so that she could neither prevent or arrest it. Sir Charles showed
himself scrupulously attentive and courteous to General Frayling. He
offered no spoken objection to her association with Henrietta. Yet an
unexplained element did remain. Subtlely, but perceptibly, it permeated
both her father's and Henrietta's speech and bearing. She, Damaris, was
always conscious of a certain constraint beneath their calm and
apparently easy talk. Was their relation one of friendship or of covert
enmity?--Or did these, just perceptible, peculiarities of it betoken
something deeper and closer still?

Suspicion once kindled spreads like a conflagration.--Damaris' hands
dropped, a dead weight, into her lap. She sat, strained yet inert, as
though listening to catch the inner significance of her own unformulated
question, her eyes wide and troubled, her lips apart. For might it not be
that they had once--long ago--in the princely, Eastern pleasure palace of
her childhood--cared in _that_ way?

Then the tears which, what with tiredness and the labour pains of her
many conflicting emotions, had threatened more than once to-day, came
into their own. She wept quietly, noiselessly, the tears running down her
cheeks unchecked and unheeded. For there was no escape. Turn where she
would, join hands with whom she would in all good faith and innocence,
this thing reared its head and, evilly alluring looked at her. Now it set
its claim upon her well-beloved Sultan-i-bagh--and what scene could in
truth be more sympathetic to its display? She felt the breath of high
romance. Imagination played strange tricks with her. She could feel, she
could picture, a drama of rare quality with those two figures as
protagonists. It dazzled while wounding her. She remembered Faircloth's
words, spoken on that evening of fateful disclosure when knowledge of
things as they are first raped her happy ignorance, while the boat
drifted through the shrouding darkness of rain upon the inky waters of
the tide-river.--"They were young," he had said, "and mayn't we allow
they were beautiful? They met and, God help them, they loved."

The statement covered this case, also, to a nicety. It explained
everything. But what an explanation, leaving her, Damaris, doubly
orphaned and desolate! For the first case, that of which Faircloth
actually had spoken, brought her royal, if secret compensation in the
brotherhood and sisterhood it made known. But this second case brought
nothing, save a sense of being tricked and defrauded, the victim of a
conspiracy of silence. For nothing, as it now appeared, was really her
own, nor had really belonged to her. "Some one," so she phrased it in the
incoherence of her pain, "had always been there before her." What she
supposed her exclusive property was only second-hand, had been already
owned by others. They let her play at being first in the field, original
and sole proprietress, because it saved them trouble by keeping her quiet
and amused. But all the while they knew better and must have smiled at
her possessive antics once her silly back was turned. And here Damaris
lost sight of reasonable proportion and measure, exaggerating wildly, her
pride and self-respect cut to the quick.

It was thus, in the full flood of mystification and resentment, Charles
Verity found her when presently he returned. Sensible of something very
much amiss, since she stayed within the shadow of the closed shutters,
silent and motionless, he crossed the room and stood before her looking
down searchingly into her upturned face. Stubborn in her misery, she met
his glance with mutinous, and hard, if misty, eyes.

"Weeping, my dear? Is the occasion worth it? Has Mrs. Frayling then
taken so profound a hold?" he asked, his tone mocking, chiding her yet
very gently.

Damaris hedged. To expose the root of her trouble became impossible under
the coercion of that gently bantering tone.

"It's not Henrietta's going; but that I no longer mind her going."

"A lost illusion--yes?" he said.

"I can't trust her. She--she isn't kind."

"Eh?" he said. "So you too have made that illuminating little discovery.
I supposed it would be only a matter of time. But you read character, my
dear, more quickly than I do. What it has taken you months to discover,
took me years."

His frankness, the unqualified directness of his response, though
startling, stimulated her daring.

"Then--then you don't really like Henrietta?" she found audacity
enough to say.

"Ah! there you rush too headlong to conclusions," he reasoned, still with
that same frankness of tone. "She is an ingenious, unique creature,
towards whom one's sentiments are ingenious and unique in their turn. I
admire her, although--for you are right there--she is neither invariably
trustworthy nor invariably kind. Admire her ungrudgingly, now I no longer
ask of her what she hasn't it in her to give. Limit your demand and you
limit the risks of disappointment--a piece of wisdom easier to enunciate
than to apply."

Lean, graceful, commanding under the cloak of his present gentle humour,
Charles Verity sat down on the faded red cushion beside Damaris, and laid
one arm along the window-ledge behind her. He did not touch her; being
careful in the matter of caresses, reverent of her person, chary of
claiming parental privileges unasked.

"In the making of Henrietta Frayling," he went on, "by some accident soul
was left out. She hasn't any. She does not know it. Let us hope she never
will know it, for it is too late now for the omission to be rectified."

"Are you laughing at me?" Damaris asked, still stubborn, though his
presence enclosed her with an at once assuaging and authoritative charm.

"Not in the least. I speak that which I soberly believe. Just as some
ill-starred human creatures are born physically or mentally
defective--deformed or idiots--so may they be born spiritually
defective. Why not? My reason offers no scientific or moral objection to
such a belief. In other respects she is conspicuously perfect. But,
verily, she has no soul; and the qualities which--for happiness or
misery--draw their life from the soul, she does not possess. Therefore
she sparkles, lovely and chill as frost. Is as astute as she is cold at
heart; and can, when it suits her purpose, be both false and cruel
without any subsequent prickings of remorse. But this very coldness and
astuteness save her from misdeeds of the coarser kind. Treacherous she
has been, and, for aught I know, may on occasions still be. But, though
temptation has pretty freely crossed her path, she has never been other
than virtuous. She is a good woman--in the accepted, the popular sense of
the word."

Silence stole down upon the room. Damaris remained motionless, leaning
forward gathered close into herself, her hands still heavy in her lap.
Could she accept this statement as comfort, or must she bow under it
as rebuke?

"Why," she asked at last huskily--the tears were no longer upon her
cheeks but queerly in her throat, impeding utterance, "do you tell me
these things?"

"To prevent you beholding lying visions, my dear, or dreaming lying
dreams of what might very well have been but--God be thanked--never has
been--never was.--Think a minute--remember--look."

And once more Damaris felt the breath of high romance and touched drama
of rare quality, with those same two figures as protagonists, and that
same Indian pleasure palace as their stage; but this time with a notable
difference of sentiment and of result.

For she visualized another going of Henrietta, a flight before the dawn.
Saw, through a thick scent-drenched atmosphere, between the expiring
lamp-light and broadening day, a deserted child beating its little hands,
in the extremity of its impotent anguish, upon the pillows of a
disordered unmade bed. Saw a man, too, worn and travel-stained from long
riding throughout the night, lost to all decent dignities of
self-control, savage with the animalism of frustrated passion, rage to
and fro amidst the litter of a smart woman's hurried packing, a trail of
pale blue ribbon plucking at and tripping him entangled in the rowels of
his spurs.

All this she saw; and knew that her father--sitting on the cushioned
window-seat beside her, his legs crossed, his chin sunk on his
breast--saw it also. That he, indeed, voluntarily and of set purpose made
her see, transferring the living picture from his consciousness to her
own. And, as she watched, each detail growing in poignancy and
significance she--not all at once, but gropingly, rebelliously and only
by degrees--comprehended that purpose, and the abounding love, both of
herself and of justice, which dictated it. Divining the root of her
trouble and the nature of her suspicion he took this strange means to
dissipate them. Setting aside his natural pride, he caused her to look
upon his hour of defeat and debasement, careless of himself if thereby he
might mend her hurt and win her peace of mind.

Damaris was conquered. Her stubbornness went down before his sacrifice.
All the generosity in her leapt forth to meet and to acclaim the signal
generosity in him--a generosity extended not only towards herself but to
Henrietta Frayling as well. This last Damaris recognized as superb.--He
bade her remember. And, seeing in part through her own eyes, in part
through his, she penetrated more deeply into his mind, into the rich
diversity and, now mastered, violence of his character, than could
otherwise have been possible. She learnt him from within as well as from
without. He had been terrible--so she remembered--yet beautiful in his
fallen god-head. She had greatly feared him under that aspect. Later, she
more than ever loved him; and that with a provenant, protective and, baby
though she was, a mothering love. He was beautiful now; but no longer
terrible, no longer fallen--if not the god-head, yet the fine flower of
his manhood royally and very sweetly disclosed. Her whole being yearned
towards him; but humbly, a note of lowliness in her appreciation, as
towards something exalted, far above her in experience, in
self-knowledge and self-discipline.

She was, indeed, somewhat overwhelmed, both by realization of his
distinction and of her own presumption in judging him, to the point of
being unable as yet to look him in the face. So she silently laid hold of
his hand, drew it down from the window-ledge and round her waist.
Slipping along the cushioned seat until she rested against him, she laid
her head back upon his shoulder. Testimony in words seemed superfluous
after that shared consciousness, seemed impertinent even, an anti-climax
from which both taste and insight recoiled.

For a while Charles Verity let the silent communion continue. Then, lest
it should grow enervating, to either or to both, he spoke of ordinary
subjects--of poor little General Frayling's illness, of Miss Felicia's
plans, of his own book. It was wiser for her, better also for himself, to
step back into the normal thus quietly closing the door upon their dual
act of retrospective clairvoyance.

Damaris, catching his intention, responded; and if rather languidly yet
loyally played up. But, before the spell was wholly broken and frankness
gave place to their habitual reserve, there was one further question she
must ask if the gnawings of that false conscience, begotten in her by
Henrietta's strictures, were wholly to cease.

"Do you mind if we go back just a little minute," she said.

"Still unsatisfied, my dear?"

"Not unsatisfied--never again that as between us two, Commissioner Sahib.
You have made everything beautifully, everlastingly smooth and clear."

"Then why tempt Providence, or rather human incertitude, by going back?"

"Because--can I say it quite plainly?"

"As plainly as you will."

"Because Henrietta tells me I have--have flirted--have played fast and
loose with--with more than one person."

A pause, and the question came from above her--her head still lying
against his breast--with a trace of severity, or was it anxiety?

"And have you?"

"Not intentionally--not knowingly," Damaris said.

"If that is so, is it not sufficient?"

"No--because she implies that I have raised false hopes, and so entangled
myself--and that I ought to go further, that, as I understand her, I
ought to be ready to marry--that it is not quite honourable to withdraw."

Charles Verity moved slightly, yet held her close. She felt the rise and
fall of his ribs as he breathed slow and deep.

"Do you want to marry?" he at last asked her.

"No," she said, simply. "I'd much rather not, if I can keep out of it
without acting unfairly by anyone--if you don't agree with Henrietta, and
don't think I need. You don't want me to marry do you?"

"God in heaven, no," Charles Verity answered. He put her from him, rose
and moved about the room.

"To me, the thought of giving you in marriage to any man is little short
of abhorrent," he said hoarsely.

For fear clutched him by the throat. The gift of pearls, the little scene
of last night, and Damaris' emotion in bidding Carteret farewell,
confronted him. The idea had never occurred to him before. Now it glared
at him, or rather he glared at it. It would be torment to say "yes"; and
yet very difficult to say his best friend "nay." Anger kindled against
Henrietta Frayling. Must this be regarded as her handiwork? Yet he could
hardly credit it. Or had she some other candidate--Peregrine Ditton,
young Harry Ellice?--But they were mere boys.--Of Marshall Wace he never
thought, the young man being altogether outside his field of vision in
this connection.

Long habit of personal chastity made Charles Verity turn, with a greater
stabbing and rending of repulsion, from the thought of marriage for
Damaris. She asserted she had no wish to marry, that she--bless her sweet
simplicity!--would rather not. But this bare broaching of the subject
threw him into so strange a tumult that, only too evidently, he was no
competent observer, he laboured under too violent a prejudice. He had no
right to demand from others the abstinence he chose himself to practise.
Carteret, in desiring her, was within his rights. Damaris within hers,
were she moved by his suit. Marriage is natural, wholesome, the
God-ordained law and sanction of human increase since man first drew
breath here upon earth. To condemn obedience to that law, by placing any
parental embargo upon Damaris' marriage, would be both a defiance of
nature and act of grossest selfishness.

He sat down on the window-seat again; and forced himself to put his arm
around that fair maiden body, destined to be the prize, one day, of some
man's love; the prey--for he disdained to mince matters, turning the
knife in the wound rather--the prey of some man's lust. He schooled
himself, while Damaris' heart beat a little tempestuously under his hand,
to invite a conclusion which through every nerve and fibre he loathed.

"My dear," he said, "I spoke unadvisedly with my lips just now, letting
crude male jealousy get the mastery of reason and common sense. Put my
words out of your mind. They were unjustifiable, spoken in foolish heat.
If you are in love with anyone"--

Damaris nestled against him.

"Only with you, dearest, I think," she said.

Charles Verity hesitated, unable to speak through the exquisite blow she
delivered and his swift thankfulness.

"Let us put the question differently then--translating it into the
language of ordinary social convention. Tell me, has anyone
proposed to you?"

Damaris, still nestling, shook her head.

"No--no one. And I hope now, no one will. I escaped that, partly thanks
to my own denseness.--It is not an easy thing, Commissioner Sahib, to
explain or talk about. But I have come rather close to it lately,
and"--with a hint of vehemence--"I don't like it. There is something in
it which pulls at me but not at the best part of me. So that I am divided
against myself. Though it does pull, I still want to push it all away
with both hands. I don't understand myself and I don't understand it, I
would rather be without it--forget it--if you think I am free to do so,
if you are satisfied that I haven't intentionally hurt anyone or
contracted a--a kind of debt of honour?"

"I am altogether satisfied," he said. "Until the strange and ancient
malady attacks you in a very much more virulent form, you are free to
cast Henrietta Frayling's insinuations to the winds, to ignore them and
their existence."




BOOK IV

THROUGH SHADOWS TOWARDS THE DAWN




CHAPTER I

WHICH CARRIES OVER A TALE OF YEARS, AND CARRIES ON


The last sentence was written. His work finished. And, looking upon his
completed creation, Charles Verity saw that it was good. Yet, as he put
the pen back in the pen-tray and, laying the last page of manuscript face
downwards upon the blotting-paper passed his hand over it, he was less
sensible of exultation than of a pathetic emptiness. The book had come to
be so much part of him that he felt a nasty wrench when he thus finally
rid himself of it.

He had kept the personal pronoun out of it, strictly and austerely,
desiring neither self-glorification nor self-advertisement. Yet his mind
and attitude towards life seasoned and tempered the whole, giving it
vitality and force. This was neither a "drum-and-trumpet history"
designed to tickle the vulgar ear, nor a blank four-wall depository of
dry facts, names, dates, statistics, such as pedants mustily adore; but a
living thing, seen and felt. Not his subconscious, but that much finer
and--as one trusts--more permanent element in our human constitution, his
super-conscious self found expression in its pages and travelled freely,
fruitfully, through them amid luminous and masterful ideas. At times the
intellectual sweep threatened to be overdaring and overwide; so that, in
the interests of symmetry and balance of construction, he had been forced
to clip the wings of thought, lest they should bear him to regions too
remotely high and rare. Race, religion, customs and the modifications of
these, both by climate and physical conformation of the land on the face
of which they operate, went to swell the interest and suggestion of his
theme. In handling such varied and coloured material the intellectual
exercise had been to him delicious, as he fashioned and put a fine edge
to passages of admirable prose, coined the just yet startling epithet,
perfected the flow of some graceful period, and ransacked the English
language for fearless words in which to portray the mingled splendour and
vileness of a barbaric oriental Court, the naked terrors of tribal feuds
and internecine war.

The occupation had, indeed, proved at once so refreshing and so absorbing
that he went leisurely, lengthening out the process of production until
it came nearer covering the thirty months of elephantine gestation than
the normal human nine.

With but two brief sojourns to England, for the consultation of certain
authorities and of his publishers, the said near on thirty months were
passed in wandering through Southern France, Central Italy, and, taking
ship from Naples to Malaga, finally through Eastern and Northern Spain.
Charles Verity was too practised a campaigner for his power of
concentration to depend on the stability or familiarity of his
surroundings. He could detach himself, go out into and be alone with his
work, at will. But the last chapter, like the first, he elected to write
in the study at The Hard. A pious offering of incense, this, to the
pleasant memory of that excellent scholar and devoted amateur of letters,
his great-uncle, Thomas Clarkson Verity, whose society and conversation
awakened the literary sense in him as a schoolboy, on holiday from
Harchester, now nearly five decades ago. He judged it a matter of good
omen, moreover,--toying for the moment with kindly superstition--that the
book should issue from a house redeemed by his kinsman from base and
brutal uses and dedicated to the worship of knowledge and of the printed
word. That fat, soft-bodied, mercurial-minded little gentleman--to whom
no record of human endeavour, of human speculation, mental or moral
experiment, came amiss--would surely relish the compliment, if his
curious and genial ghost still, in any sort, had cognizance of this, his
former, dwelling-place.

The Hard, just now, showed a remarkably engaging countenance, the year
standing on the threshold of May.--Mild softly bright weather made amends
for a wet and windy April, with sunshine and high forget-me-not blue
skies shading to silver along the sea-line. The flower-beds, before the
garden house-front, were crowded with early tulips, scarlet, golden, and
shell-pink. Shrubberies glowed with rhododendrons, flamed with azaleas.
At the corner of the battery and sea-wall, misty grey-green plumes of
tamarisk veiled the tender background of grey-blue water and yellow-grey
sand. Birds peopled the scene. Gulls, in strong fierce flight, laughed
overhead. Swallows darted back and forth, ceaselessly twittering, as they
built their cup-shaped mud nests beneath the eaves. Upon the lawn
companies of starlings ran, flapping glossy wings, squealing, whistling;
to the annoyance of a song thrush, in spotted waistcoat and neatly
fitting brown _surtout_, who, now tall, now flattened to the level of the
turf, its head turned sideways, peered and listened, locating the
presence of the victim worm.--Three or four vigorous pecks--the starlings
running elsewhere--to loosen the surrounding soil, and the moist pink
living string was steadily, mercilessly, drawn upward into the
uncompromising light of day, to be devoured wriggling, bit by bit, with
most unlovely gusto.--The chaff-chaff sharpened his tiny saw tipping
about the branches of the fir trees in the Wilderness, along with the
linnets, tits, and gold-finches.

Such, out of doors, was the home world which received Damaris after those
many months of continental travel, on the eve of her twenty-first
birthday. To pass from the dynamic to the static mode must be always
something of an embarrassment and trial, especially to the young with
whom sensation is almost disconcertingly direct and lively. Damaris
suffered the change of conditions not without a measure or doubt and
wonder. For they made demands to which she had become unaccustomed, and
to which she found it difficult to submit quite naturally and simply. A
whole social and domestic order, bristling with petty obligations, closed
down upon her, within the bounds of which she felt to move awkwardly, at
first, conscious of constraint.

Sympathetic Mrs. Cooper, comely and comfortable Mary, and the Napoleonic
Patch, still reigned in house and stable. Laura had returned to her
former allegiance on the announcement of "the family's" arrival, and
other underlings had been engaged by the upper servants in conclave. To
these latter entered that Ulysses, Mr. Hordle, so rendering the
establishment once again complete.

The neighbours duly called--Dr. and Mrs. Horniblow, conscious of notable
preferment, since high ecclesiastical powers had seen fit to present the
former to a vacant canonry at Harchester. For three months yearly he
would in future be resident in the cathedral city. This would necessitate
the employment of a curate at Deadham, for the spiritual life of its
inhabitants must by no means suffer through its vicar's promotion. At the
moment of Sir Charles and Damaris' return the curate excitement was at
its height. It swept through the spinster-ranks of the congregation like
an epidemic. They thrilled with unacknowledgeable hopes. The Miss
Minetts, though mature, grew pink and quivered, confessing themselves not
averse to offering board and lodging to a suitable, a well-connected,
well-conducted paying guest. To outpourings on the enthralling subject of
the curate, Damaris found herself condemned to listen from every feminine
visitor in turn. It held the floor, to the exclusion of all other topics.
Her own long absence, long journeys, let alone the affairs of the world
at large, were of no moment to these very local souls. So our young lady
retired within herself, deploring the existence of curates in general,
and the projected, individual, Deadham curate in particular, with a
heartiness she was destined later to remember. Had it been
prophetic?--Not impossibly so, granted the somewhat strange prescience by
which she was, at times, possessed.

For the psychic quality that, from a child, now and again had manifested
itself in her--though happily unattended by morbid or hysteric
tendencies, thanks to her radiant health--grew with her growth. To her,
in certain moods and under certain conditions, the barrier between things
seen and unseen, material and transcendental, was pervious. It yielded
before the push of her apprehension, sense of what it guards, what it
withholds within an ace of breaking through.

Affairs of the heart would, so far, seem to have begun and ended with the
winter spent at St. Augustin. Now and again Damaris met an Englishman, or
foreigner, who stirred her slightly. But if one accident of travel
brought them together, another accident of travel speedily swept them
apart. The impression was fugitive, superficial, fading out and causing
but momentary regret. Colonel Carteret she only saw in London, during
those two brief visits to England. He had been captivating, treating her
with playful indulgence, teasing a little; but far away, somehow--so she
felt him--though infinitely kind. And the dear man with the blue
eyes--for she could use her old name for him again now, though she
couldn't quite tell why--looked older. The sentimental passage at St.
Augustin assumed improbability--a fact over which she should, in all
reason, have rejoiced, yet over which she, in point of fact when safe
from observation, just a little wept.

From Henrietta some few letters reached her. One of them contained the
news that Marshall Wace, surmounting his religious doubts and
scruples--by precisely what process remained undeclared--had at last
taken Holy Orders. Concerning this joyful consummation Henrietta waxed
positively unctuous. "He had gone through so much"--the old cry!--to
which now was added conviction that his own trials fitted him to minister
the more successfully to his brethren among the sorely tried.

"His preaching will, I feel certain, be quite extraordinarily original
and sympathetic--full of poetry. And I need hardly tell you what an
immense relief it is both to the General and to myself to feel he is
settled in life, and that his future is provided for--though not,
alas! in the way I fondly hoped, and which--for his happiness' sake
and my own--I should have chosen," she insidiously and even rather
cynically wrote.

But, if in respect of the affections our maiden, during these two years,
made no special progress and gained no further experimental knowledge of
the perilous workings of sex, her advance in other departments was ample.

For faith now called to her with no uncertain note. The great spiritual
forces laid hold of her intelligence and imagination, drawing, moulding,
enlightening her. In the library of a somewhat grim hotel at Avila, in
old Castile, she lighted upon an English translation of the life of St.
Theresa--that woman of countless practical activities, seer and sybil,
mystic and wit. The amazing biography set her within the magic circle of
Christian feminine beatitude; and opened before her gaze mighty
perspectives of spiritual increase, leading upward through unnumbered
ranks of prophets, martyrs, saints, angelic powers, to the feet of the
Virgin Mother, with the Divine Child on her arm.--He, this last, as
gateway, intermediary, between the human soul and the mystery of God
Almighty, by whom, and in whom, all things visible and invisible subsist.
For the first time some dim and halting perception, some faintest hint
and echo, reached Damaris of the awful majesty, the awful beauty of the
fount of Universal Being; and, caught with a great trembling, she
worshipped.

This culminating perception, in terms of time, amounted to no more than a
single flash, the fraction of an instant's contact. An hour or so later,
being very young and very human, the things of everyday resumed their
sway. A new dress engaged her fancy, a railway journey through--to
her--untrodden country excited her, a picturesque street scene held her
delighted interest. Nevertheless that had taken place within her--call it
conversion, evocation, the spiritual receiving of sight, as you
please--upon which, for those who have once experienced it, there is no
going back while life and reason last. Obscured, overlaid, buried beneath
the dust of the trivial and immediate, the mark of revelation upon the
forehead and the heart can never be obliterated quite. Its resurrection
is not only possible but certain, if not on the near side, then surely on
the farther side of death.

And not only did faith thus call her, at this period, but art, in its
many forms, called her likewise. The two, indeed, according to her
present understanding of them, moved--though at different levels--side by
side, singularly conjoined, art translating faith into terms of sound,
form and colour, faith consecrating and supplementing art. All of which,
as she pondered, appeared to her only fitting and reasonable--the object
of art being to capture beauty and touch reality, the substance of faith
being nothing less than beauty and reality absolute.

With Sir Charles sometimes, but more often with her aunt, Miss
Felicia--most enthusiastic, diligent and ingenuous of sightseers--she
visited buildings of historic interest, galleries of statuary and of
pictures. For here, too, in architecture, in marble god or hero, upon
painted panel or canvas, she caught, at moments, some flickering shadow
of the everlasting light, touched at moments both by its abiding terror
and the ecstasy of its everlasting youth. But this appreciation of the
height and grandeur of man's endeavour was new in her. To Nature she had
from childhood, been curiously near. She sought expression and
confirmation of it with silent ardour, her mind aflame with the joy of
recognition. And, as daily, hourly background to these her many
experiments and excursions, was the stable interest of her father's book.
For in the pages of that, too, she caught sight of beauty and reality of
no mean order, held nobly to ransom through the medium of words.

And while this high humour still possessed her, alive at every point,
her thoughts--often by day, still oftener in dreams or wakeful
intervals by night--rapt away beyond the stars, she was called upon, as
already noted, to pass abruptly from the dynamic to the static mode.
Called on to embrace domestic duties, and meet local social
obligations, including polite endurance of long-drawn disquisitions
regarding Canon Horniblow's impending curate. The drop proved
disconcerting, or would have eminently done so had not another
element--disquieting yet very dear--come into play.

Meantime the change from the stimulating continental atmosphere to the
particularly soft and humid, not to say stagnant, English one, acted as a
drop too. She drooped during the process of acclimatization. The fetid
sweet reek off the mud-flats of the Haven oppressed and strangely pursued
her, so that she asked for the horses to take her to the freshness of the
high lying inland moors, for a boat to carry her across the tide-river to
the less confined air and outlook of the Bar. Sight and sense of the
black wooden houses, upon the forbidden island, hanging like disreputable
boon companions about the grey stone-built inn, oppressed and strangely
pursued her too. She could see them from her bedroom between the red
trunks of the bird-haunted Scotch firs in the Wilderness. First thing, on
clear mornings, the sunlight glittered on the glass of their small
windows. Last thing, at night, the dim glow of lamp-light showed through
open doorway, or flimsy curtain from within. They stood alone, but
curiously united and self-sufficing, upon the treeless inhospitable piece
of land, ringed by the rivers, the great whispering reed-beds and the
tide. Their life was strangely apart from, defiant of, that of the
mainland and the village. It yielded obedience to traditions and customs
of an earlier, wilder age; and in so much was sinister, a little
frightening. Yet out of precisely this rather primitive and archaic
environment came Darcy Faircloth, her half-brother, the human being
closest to her by every tie of blood and sentiment in the world save
one--the father of them both. The situation was startling, alike in its
incongruities and in its claims.

During those two years of continental wandering--following upon her
meeting with him at Marseilles--the whole sweet and perplexing matter of
Faircloth had fallen more or less into line, taking on a measure of
simplicity and of ease. She thought of him with freedom, wrote to him
when he could advise her of his next port of call.--To him at Deadham, by
his request, he being very careful for her, she never wrote.--And
therefore, all the more perhaps, being here at Deadham, his home and all
the suggestive accessories of it so constantly before her eyes, did her
relation to him suffer a painful transformation. In remembrance she had
come to picture him on board his ship, governing his little floating
kingdom with no feeble or hesitating sway. But here every impeding fact
of class and education, every worldly obstacle to his and her
intercourse, above all the hidden scandal of his birth sprang into high
relief. All the dividing, alienating influences of his antecedents, his
social position and her own, swung in upon her with aggravated intensity
and pathos.

Away, she felt sweetly secure of him. Sure his and her bond remained
inviolate. Sure his affection never wavered or paled, but stood always at
the flood, a constant quantity upon which she could draw at need; or--to
change the metaphor--a steady foundation upon which her heart could
safely build. He would not, could not, ever fail her. This had been
sufficient to stay her longing for sight and speech of him, her longing
for his bodily presence. But now, in face of the very concrete facts of
the island, the inn, which bore his name and where his mother lived and
ruled, of the property he owned, the place and people to which--by half
at least of his nature and much more than half his memory--he belonged,
the comfort of this spiritual esoteric relation became but a meagre
evasive thing. It was too unsubstantial. Doubts and fears encircled it.
She grew heart-sick for some fresh testimony, some clear immediate
assurance that time and absence had not staled or undermined the romance.

If only she could speak of it! But that was forbidden by every obligation
of filial piety. Never had her relation to her father been more tender,
more happy; yet only through sudden pressure of outward circumstance
could she speak to him of Faircloth. To do so, without serious necessity,
would be, as she saw it, a wanton endangering of his peace.--If only the
dear man with the blue eyes hadn't removed himself! She had counted upon
his permanent support and counsel, on his smoothing away difficulties
from the path of her dealings with Faircloth; but he appeared to have
given her altogether the go-by, to have passed altogether out of her
orbit. And meditating, in the softly bright May weather beneath those
high forget-me-not blue skies, upon his defection, our maiden felt quite
desperately experienced and grown up, thrown back upon her own resources,
thrown in upon her rather solitary life.

Throughout the summer visitors came and went; but never those two desired
figures, Faircloth or Carteret. Dr. McCabe, vociferous in welcome,
affectionate, whimsical and choleric, trundled over from Stourmouth on a
bicycle of phenomenal height.

"On the horse without wheels I'm proficient enough," he declared. "Know
the anatomy of the darlin' beast as well as I do my own, inside and out.
But, be dashed, if the wheels without the horse aren't beyond me quite.
Lord love you, but the skittish animal's given me some ugly knocks, cast
me away, it has, in the wayside ditch, covering me soul with burning
shame, and me jacket with malodorous mud."

At intervals Aunt Harriet Cowden and Uncle Augustus drove over in state
the twelve miles from Paulton Lacy--the lady faithful to garments dyed,
according to young Tom Verity, in the horrid hues of violet ink. She
expressed her opinions with ruthless frankness, criticized, domineered,
put all and sundry in--what she deemed--"their place"; and departed for
the big house on the confines of Arnewood Forest again, to, had she but
known it, a chorus of sighings of relief from those she left behind her
and on whose emotional and intellectual tastes and toes she so
mercilessly trod.

Garden parties, tennis tournaments, the Napworth cricket week, claimed
Damaris' attendance in turn, along with agreeable display of her foreign
spoils in the matter of Paris hats and frocks. Proofs arrived in big
envelopes perpetually by post; first in the long, wide-margined galley
form, later in the more dignified one of quire and numbered page. The
crude, sour smell of damp paper and fresh printer's ink, for the first
time assailed our maiden's nostrils. It wasn't nice; yet she sniffed it
with a quaint sense of pleasure. For was it not part of the whole
wonderful, beautiful business of the making of books? To the artist the
meanest materials of his art have a sacredness not to be denied or
ignored. They go to forward the birth of the precious whole, and hence
are redeemed, for him, from all charge of common or uncleanness.

Finally Miss Felicia, arriving in mid-June, paid an unending visit, of
which Damaris felt no impatience. Miss Felicia during the last two years
had, indeed, become a habit. The major affairs of life it might be both
useless and unwise to submit to her judgment. She lost her way in them,
fluttering ineffectual, gently hurried and bird-like. But, in life's
minor affairs, her innocent enthusiasm was invaluable as an encouraging
asset. It lent point and interest to happenings and occupations otherwise
trivial or monotonous. If silly at times, she never was
stupid--distinction of meaning and moment.--A blameless creature,
incapable of thinking, still more of speaking, evil of the worst or
weakest, her inherent goodness washed about you like sun-warmed water, if
sterile yet translucently pure.

And so the months accumulated. The clear colours of spring ripened to the
hotter gamut of mid-summer, to an August splendour of ripening harvest in
field, orchard and hedgerow, and thence to the purple, russet and gold of
autumn. The birds, their nesting finished, ceased from song, as the
active care of hungry fledglings grew on them. The swallows had gathered
for their southern flight, and the water-fowl returned from their
northern immigration to the waters and reed-beds of the Haven, Sir
Charles Verity's book, in two handsome quarto volumes, had been duly
reviewed and found a place of honour in every library, worth the name, in
the United Kingdom, before anything of serious importance occurred
directly affecting our maiden. Throughout spring, summer and the first
weeks of autumn, she marked time merely. Her activities and emotions--in
as far, that is, as outward expression of these last went--were
vicarious, those of others. She glowed over and gloried in the triumph of
her father's book, it is true, but it was his adventure, after all,
rather than her own.

Then suddenly, as is the way with life, events crowded on one
another, the drama thickened, sensation was tuned to a higher pitch.
And it all began, not unludicrously, through the praiseworthy, if
rather ill-timed moral indignation of Canon Horniblow's newly
installed curate, Reginald Sawyer.




CHAPTER II

RECALLING, IN SOME PARTICULARS, THE EASIEST RECORDED THEFT IN
HUMAN HISTORY


He was short, neat, spectacled, in manner prompt and perky, in age under
thirty, a townsman by birth and education, hailing from Midlandshire.
Further, a strong advocate of organization, and imbued with the deepest
respect for the obligations and prerogatives of his profession upon the
ethical side. He took himself very seriously; and so took, also, the
decalogue as delivered to mankind amid the thunders of Sinai. Keep the
Ten Commandments, according to the letter, and you may confidently expect
all things, spiritual and temporal, to be added unto you--such was the
basis of his teaching and of his private creed.

He came to Deadham ardent for the reformation of that remote, benighted
spot, so disgracefully, as he feared--and rather hoped--behind the times.
He suspected its canon-vicar of being very much too easy-going; and its
population, in respect of moral conduct, of being lamentably lax. In
neither of which suppositions, it must be admitted, was he altogether
incorrect. But he intended to alter all that!--Regarding himself thus, in
the light of a providentially selected new broom, he applied himself
diligently to sweep. A high-minded and earnest, if not conspicuously
well-bred young man, he might in a suburban parish have done excellent
work. But upon Deadham, with its enervating, amorous climate and queer
inheritance of forest and seafaring--in other words poaching and
smuggling--blood, he was wasted, out of his element and out of touch. The
slow moving South Saxon cocked a shrewd sceptical eye at him, sized him
up and down and sucked in its cheek refusing to be impressed. While by
untoward accident, his misfortune rather than his fault, the earliest of
his moral sweepings brought him into collision with the most reactionary
element in the community, namely the inhabitants of the black cottages
upon the Island.

The event fell out thus. The days shortened, the evenings lengthened
growing misty and secret as October advanced. The roads became plashy and
rutted, the sides of them silent with fallen leaves under foot. An odd
sense of excitement flickers through such autumn twilights. Boys herded
in little troops on wickedness intent. Whooping and whistling to disarm
their elders' suspicion until the evil deed should be fairly within
reach, then mum as mice, stealthily vanishing, becoming part and parcel
of the earth, the hedge, the harsh dusky grasses of the sand-hills, the
foreshore lumber on the beach.

Late one afternoon, the hour of a hidden sunset, Reginald Sawyer called
at The Hard; and to his eminent satisfaction--for social aspirations were
by no means foreign to him--was invited to remain to tea. The
ladies--Damaris and Miss Felicia--were kind, the cakes and cream
superlative. He left in high feather; and, at Damaris' suggestion, took a
short cut through the Wilderness and by a path crossing the warren to the
lane, leading up from the causeway, which joins the high-road just
opposite the post office and Mrs. Doubleday's shop. By following this
route he would save quite half a mile on his homeward journey; since the
Grey House, where he enjoyed the Miss Minetts' assiduous and genteel
hospitality, is situate at the extreme end of Deadham village on the road
to Lampit.

Out on the warren, notwithstanding the hour and the mist, it was still
fairly light, the zigzagging sandy path plainly visible between the
heath, furze brakes, stunted firs and thorn bushes. The young clergyman,
although more familiar with crowded pavements and flare of gas-lamps than
open moorland in the deepening dusk, pursued his way without difficulty.
What a wild region it was though! He thought of the sober luxury of the
library at The Hard, the warmth, the shaded lights, the wealth of books;
of the grace of Damaris' clothing and her person, and wondered how
people of position and education could be content to live in so out of
the way and savage a spot. It was melancholy to a degree, in his
opinion.--Oh! well, he must do his best to wake it up, infuse a spirit of
progress into it more in keeping with nineteenth-century ideas. Everyone
would be grateful to him--

A little questioning pause--assurance in momentary eclipse. Then with
renewed cheerfulness--Of course they would--the upper classes, that is.
For they must feel the disadvantages of living in such a back-water. He
gave them credit for the wish to advance could they but find the way.
All they needed was leadership, which Canon Horniblow--evidently past
his work--was powerless to supply. He, Sawyer, came as a pioneer. Once
they grasped that fact they would rally to him. The good Miss Minetts
were rallying hard, so to speak, already. Oh! there was excellent
material in Deadham among the gentlefolk. It merely needed working,
needed bringing out.

From the lower, the wage-earning class, sunk as it was in ignorance, he
must, he supposed, expect but a poor response, opposition not impossibly.
Opposition would not daunt him. You must be prepared to do people good,
if not with, then against their will. He was here to make them rebel
against and shake off the remnants of the Dark Ages amid which they so
extraordinarily appeared still to live. He had no conception so low a
state of civilization could exist within little over a hundred miles of
the metropolis!--It was a man's work, anyhow, and he must put his back
into it. Must organize--word of power--organize night classes, lectures
with lantern slides, social evenings, a lads' club. Above all was there
room and necessity for this last. The Deadham lads were very rowdy, very
unruly. They gathered at corners in an objectionable manner; hung about
the public-house. He must undersell the public-house by offering counter
attractions. Amongst the men he suspected a sad amount of drinking. Their
speech, too, was so reprehensibly coarse. He had heard horrible language
in the village street. He reproved the offenders openly, as was his duty,
and his admonitions were greeted with a laugh, an insolent, offensive,
jeering laugh.

Sawyer cut at the dark straggling furzes bordering the path with his
walking-stick. Recollection of that laugh made him go red about the ears;
made his skin tingle and his eyes smart. It represented an insult not
only to himself but to his cloth. Yet he'd not lost control of himself,
he was glad to remember, though the provocation was rank--

He cut at the furze again, being by nature combative. And--stopped short,
with a start, a tremor running through him. Something rustled, scuttled
away amongst the bushes, and something flapped upward behind him into the
thick lowering sky above. A wailing cry--whether human, or of bird or
beast, he was uncomfortably ignorant--came out of the mist ahead, to be
answered by a like and nearer cry from a spot which he failed, in his
agitation, to locate.

Under ordinary conditions the young cleric was neither troubled by
imagination nor lacking in pluck. His habitual outlook was sensible,
literal and direct. But, it must be owned, this wide indistinct
landscape, over which pale vapours trailed and brooded, the immense
loneliness of the felt rather than seen, expanse of water, marsh and
mud-flat of the Haven--the tide being low--along with the goblin
whispering chuckle of the river speeding seaward away there on his left,
made him oddly jumpy and nervous. No human being was in sight, neither
did any human dwelling show signs of habitation. He wished he had gone
round by the road and through the length of the village. He registered a
vow against short cuts--save in broad daylight--for his present
surroundings inspired him with the liveliest distrust. They were to him
positively nightmarish. He suffered the nastiest little fears of what
might follow him, what might, even now, peer and lurk. Heretofore he had
considered the earth as so much dead matter, to be usefully and
profitably exploited by all-dominant man--specially by men of his own
creed and race. But now the power of the earth laid hands on him. She
lived, and mankind dwindled to the proportions of parasitic insects, at
most irritating some small portions of her skin, her vast indifferent
surface. Such ideas had never occurred to him before. He resented
them--essayed to put them from him as trenching on blasphemy.

Starting on again, angry alike with himself for entertaining, and with
the unknown for engendering, such subversive notions, his pace
unconsciously quickened to a run. But the line of some half-dozen ragged
Scotch firs, which here topped the low cliff bordering the river, to his
disordered vision seemed most uncomfortably to run alongside him,
stretching gaunt arms through the encircling mist to arrest his flight.

He regarded them with an emotion of the liveliest antipathy; consciously
longing, meanwhile, for the humming thoroughfares of his native
industrial town, for the rattle and grind of the horse-trams, the
brightly lighted shop-fronts, the push all about him of human labour, of
booming trade and vociferous politics. Even the glare of a gin palace,
flooding out across the crowded pavement at some street corner, would
have, just now, been fraught with solace, convinced prohibitionist though
he was. For he would, at least, have been in no doubt how to feel towards
that stronghold of Satan--righteously thanking God he was not as those
reprehensible others, who passed in and out of its ever-swinging doors.
While towards this earth dominance, this dwarfing of human life by the
life of things he had hitherto called inanimate, he did not know how to
feel at all. It attacked some unarmoured, unprotected part of him.
Against its assault he was defenceless.

With a sense of escape from actual danger, whether physical or moral he
did not stay to enquire, he stumbled, a few minutes later, through a gap
in the earth-bank into the wet side lane. Arrived, he gave himself a
moment's breathing space. It was darker here than out upon the warren;
but, anyhow, this was a lane. It had direction and meaning. Men had
constructed it for the linking up of house with house, hamlet with
hamlet. Like all roads, it represented the initial instinct of communal
life, the basis of a reasoned social order, of civilization in short.
He walked forward over the soft couch of fallen, water-soaked leaves,
his boots squelching at times into inches of sucking mud, and his
spirits rose. He began to enter into normal relations both with himself
and with things in general. A hundred yards or so and the village green
would be reached.

Then on his left, behind an ill-kept quick-set hedge that guarded a strip
of garden and orchard, he became aware of movement. Among the apple trees
three small figures shuffled about some dark recumbent object. For the
most part they went on all fours, but at moments reared up on their hind
legs. Their action was at once silent, stealthy and purposeful. Our young
clergyman's shortness of sight rendered their appearance the more
peculiar. His normal attitude was not so completely restored, moreover,
but that they caused him another nervous tremor. Then he grasped the
truth; while the detective, latent in every moralist, sprang to
attention. Here were criminals to be brought to justice, criminals caught
red-handed. Reginald Sawyer, having been rather badly scared himself,
lusted--though honestly ignorant of any personal touch in the matter--to
very badly scare others.

Standing back beside the half-open gate, screened by the hedge, here high
and straggling, he awaited the psychological moment, ready to pounce. To
enter the orchard and confront these sinners with their crime, if their
activities did by chance happen to be legitimate, was to put himself
altogether in the wrong. He would bide his time, would let them conclude
their--in his belief--nefarious business and challenge them as they
passed out.

Nor had he long to wait. The two smaller boys, breathing hard, hoisted
the bulging, half-filled sack on to the back of their bigger
companion; who, bowed beneath its weight, grunting with exertion,
advanced towards the exit.

Sawyer laid aside his walking-stick, and, as the leader of the procession
came abreast of him, pounced. But missed his aim. Upon which the boy cast
down the sack, from the mouth of which apples, beets, turnips rolled into
the road; and, with a yelp, bolted down the lane towards the causeway,
leaving his accomplices to their fate. These, thrown into confusion by
the suddenness of his desertion, hesitated and were lost. For, pouncing
again, and that the more warily for his recent failure, Sawyer collared
one with either hand.

They were maladorous children; and the young clergyman, grasping woollen
jersey-neck and shirt-band, the backs of his hands in contact with the
backs of their moist, warm, dirty little necks, suffered disgust, yet
held them the more firmly.

"I am convinced you have no right to that fruit or to those vegetables.
You are stealing. Give an account of yourselves at once."

And he shook them slightly to emphasize his command. One hung on his
hand, limp as a rag. The other showed fight, kicking our friend liberally
about the shins, with hobnailed boots which did, most confoundly, hurt.

"You lem' me go," he cried. "Lem' me go, or I'll tell father, and first
time you come along by our place 'e'll set the ratting dawgs on to you.
Our ole bitch 'as got 'er teeth yet. She'll bite. Ketch the fleshy part
of your leg, she will, and just tear and bite."

This carrying of war into the enemy's country proved as disconcerting as
unexpected, while to mention the sex of an animal was, in Reginald
Sawyer's opinion, to be guilty of unpardonable coarseness. The atmosphere
of a Protestant middle-class home clung to him yet, begetting in him a
squeamishness, not to say prudery, almost worthy of his hostesses, the
Miss Minetts. He shook the culprits again, with a will. He also blushed.

"If you were honest you would be anxious to give an account of
yourselves," he asserted, ignoring the unpleasant matter of the dogs. "I
am afraid you are very wicked boys. You have stolen these vegetables and
fruits. Thieves are tried by the magistrates, you know, and sent to
prison. I shall take you to the police-station. There the constable will
find means to make you confess."

Beyond provoking a fresh paroxysm of kicking, these adjurations were
without result. His captives appeared equally impervious to shame,
contrition or alarm. They remained obstinately mute. Whereupon it began
to dawn upon their captor that his position risked becoming not a little
invidious, since the practical difficulty of carrying his threats into
execution was so great. How could he haul two sturdy, active children,
plus a sack still containing a goodly quantity of garden produce, some
quarter of a mile without help? To let them go, on the other hand, was
to have them incontinently vanish into those trailing whitish vapours
creeping over the face of the landscape. And, once vanished, they were
lost to him, since he knew neither their names nor dwelling place; and
could, with no certainty, identify them, having seen them only in the
act of struggle and in this uncertain evening light. He felt himself
very nastily planted on the horns of a dilemma, when on a sudden there
arrived help.

A vehicle of some description turned out of the main road and headed
down the lane.

Laocoön-like, flanked on either hand by a writhing youthful figure,
Reginald Sawyer called aloud:

"Hi!--Stop, there--pray, stop."

Darcy Faircloth lighted down out of a ramshackle Marychurch station fly,
and advanced towards the rather incomprehensible group.

"What's happened? What's the matter?" he said. "What on earth do you want
with those two youngsters?"

"I want to convey them to the proper authorities," Sawyer answered, with
all the self-importance he could muster. He found his interlocutor's
somewhat abrupt and lordly manner at once annoying and impressive, as
were his commanding height and rather ruffling gait. "These boys have
been engaged in robbing a garden. I caught them in the act, and it is my
duty to see that they pay the penalty of their breach of the law. I count
on your assistance in taking them to the police-station."

"You want to give them in charge?"

"What else?--The moral tone of this parish is, I grieve to say,
very low."

Sawyer talked loud and fast in the effort to assert himself.

"Low and coarse," he repeated. "Both as a warning to others, and in
the interests of their own future, an example must be made of these
two lads."

"Must it?" Faircloth said, towering above him in the pale
bewildering mist.

The little boys, who had remained curiously and rather dangerously still
since the advent of this stranger, now strained together, signalling,
whispering. Sawyer shook them impatiently apart.

"Steady there, please," Faircloth put in sharply. "It strikes me you take
a good deal upon yourself. May I ask who you are?"

"I am the assistant priest," Reginald began. But his explanation was cut
short by piping voices.

"It's Cap'en Darcy, that's who it is. We never meant no 'arm, Cap'en.
That we didn't. The apples was rotting on the ground, s'h'lp me if they
wasn't. Grannie Staples was took to the Union last Wednesday fortnight,
and anyone's got the run of her garden since. Don't you let the new
parson get us put away, Cap'en. We belongs to the Island--I'm William
Jennifer's Tommy, please Cap'en, and 'e's Bobby Sclanders 'e is."

And being cunning, alike by nature and stress of circumstance, they
pathetically drooped, blubbering in chorus:

"We never didn't mean no 'arm, Cap'en. Strike me dead if we did."

At which last implied profanity Reginald Sawyer shuddered, loosening
his grasp.

Of what followed he could subsequently give no definite account. The
dignities of his sacred profession and his self-respect alike reeled
ignominiously into chaos. He believed he heard the person, addressed as
Captain Darcy, say quietly:

"Cut it, youngsters. Now's your chance."

He felt that both the children violently struggled, and that the round
hard head of one of them butted him in the stomach. He divined that
sounds of ribald laughter, in the distance, proceeded from the driver
of the Marychurch station fly. He knew two small figures raced whooping
down the lane attended by squelchings of mud and clatter of heavy
soled boots.

Knew, further, that Captain Darcy, after nonchalantly picking up the
sack, dropping it within the garden hedge and closing the rickety gate,
stood opposite him and quite civilly said:

"I am sorry I could not give you the sort of assistance, sir, which you
asked. But the plan would not have worked."

Sawyer boiled over.

"You have compounded a felony and done all that lay in your power to
undermine my authority with my parishioners. Fortunately I retain the
boys' names and can make further enquiries. This, however, by no means
relieves you of the charge of having behaved with reprehensible levity
both towards my office and myself."

"No--no," Faircloth returned, goodnaturedly. "Sleep upon it, and you will
take an easier view of the transaction. I have saved you from putting
unmerited disgrace upon two decent families and getting yourself into hot
water up to the neck. I know these Deadham folk better than you do. I'm
one of them, you see, myself. They've uncommonly long memories where
they're offended, though it may suit them to speak you soft. Take it from
me, you'll never hound them into righteousness. They turn as stubborn as
so many mules under the whip."

He hailed the waiting flyman.

"Good evening to you, sir," he said. And followed by the carriage, piled
with sea-chest and miscellaneous baggage, departed into the
mysteriousness of deepening dusk.

Had the young clergyman been willing to leave it at that, all might yet
have been well, his ministry at Deadham a prolonged and fruitful one,
since his intentions, at least, were excellent. But, as ill-luck would
have it, while still heated and sore, every feather on end, his natural
combativeness almost passionately on top, turning out in the high-road he
encountered Dr. Cripps, faring westward like himself on the way to visit
a patient at Lampit. The two joined company, falling into a conversation
the more confidential that the increasing darkness gave them a sense of
isolation and consequent intimacy.

Of all his neighbours, the doctor--a peppery disappointed man, struggling
with a wide-strewn country practice mainly prolific of bad debts,
conscious of his own inefficiency and perpetually smarting under imagined
injuries and slights--was the very last person to exercise a mollifying
influence upon Sawyer in his existing angry humour. The latter recounted
and enlarged upon the insults he had just now suffered. His hearer fanned
the flame of indignation with comment and innuendo--recognized Faircloth
from the description, and proceeded to wash his hands in scandalous
insinuation at the young sea-captain's expense.

For example, had not an eye to business dictated the sheltering from
justice of those infant, apple-stealing reprobates? Their respective
fathers were good customers! The islanders all had the reputation of hard
drinkers--and an innkeeper hardly invites occasion to lower his receipts.
The inn stood in old Mrs. Faircloth's name, it is true; but the son
profited, at all events vicariously, by its prosperity. A swaggering
fellow, with an inordinate opinion of his own ability and merits; but in
that he shared a family failing. For arrogance and assumption the whole
clan was difficult to beat.

"You have heard whose son this young Faircloth is, of course?"

Startled by the question, and its peculiar implication, Reginald Sawyer
hesitatingly admitted his ignorance.

The Grey House stands flush with the road, and the two gentlemen finished
their conversation upon the doorstep. Above them a welcoming glow shone
through the fanlight; otherwise its windows were shuttered and blank.

"This is a matter of common knowledge," Dr. Cripps said; "but one about
which, for reasons of policy, or, more truly, of snobbery, it is the
fashion to keep silent. So, for goodness' sake, don't give me as your
authority if you should ever have occasion to speak of it"--

And lowering his voice he mentioned a name.

"As like as two peas," he added, "when you see them side by side--which,
in point of fact, you never do. Oh! I promise you the whole dirty
business has been remarkably well engineered--hush-money, I suppose.
Sometimes I am tempted to think poverty is the only punishable sin in
this world. For those who have a good balance at their bankers there is
always a safe way out of even the most disgraceful imbroglios of this
sort. But I must be moving on, Mr. Sawyer. I sympathize with your
annoyance. You have been very offensively treated. Good night."

The young clergyman remained planted on the doorstep, incapable of
ringing the bell and presenting himself to his assiduously attentive
hostesses, the Miss Minetts, for the moment.

He was, in truth, indescribably shocked. Deadham presented itself to
his mind as a place accursed, a veritable sink of iniquity. High and
low alike, its inhabitants were under condemnation.--And he had so
enjoyed his tea with the ladies at The Hard. Had been so flattered by
their civility, spreading himself in the handsome room, agreeably
sensible of its books, pictures, ornaments, and air of cultured
leisure.--While behind all that, as he now learned, was this glaring
moral delinquency! Never had he been more cruelly deceived. He felt
sick with disgust. What callousness, what hypocrisy!--He recalled his
disquieting sensations in crossing the warren. Was the very soil of
this place tainted, exhaling evil?

He made a return upon himself. For what, after all, was he here for save
to let in light and combat evil, to bring home the sense of sin to the
inhabitants of this place, convincing them of the hatefulness of the
moral slough in which they so revoltingly wallowed. He must slay and
spare not. He saw himself as David, squaring up to Goliath, as Christian
fighting single-handed against the emissaries of Satan who essayed to
defeat his pilgrimage. Yes, he would smite these lawbreakers hip and
thigh, whatever their superficial claims to his respect, whatever their
worldly position. He would read them all a lesson--that King Log, Canon
Horniblow, included.

He at once pitied and admired himself, not being a close critic of
his own motives; telling himself he did well to be angry, while
ignoring the element of personal pique which gave point and
satisfaction to that anger.

He was silent and reserved with the Miss Minetts at supper; and retired
early to his own room to prepare a sermon.




CHAPTER III

BROTHER AND SISTER


Upon the Sunday morning following, Damaris went to the eleven o'clock
service alone. Miss Felicia Verity attended church at an earlier hour
to-day, partly in the interests of private devotion, partly in those of a
person she had warmly befriended in the past, and wanted to befriend in
the present--but with delicacy, with tact and due consideration for the
susceptibilities of others. She wished earnestly to effect a
reconciliation; but not to force it. To force it was to endanger its
sincerity and permanence. It should seem to come about lightly,
naturally. Therefore did she go out early to perfect her plans--of which
more hereafter--as well as to perform her religious duties. Sir Charles
Verity was from home, staying with Colonel Carteret for partridge
shooting, over the Norfolk stubble-fields. The habit of this annual visit
had, for the last two seasons, been in abeyance; but now, with his return
to The Hard, was pleasantly revived, although this autumn, owing to
business connected with the publication of his book, the visit took place
a few weeks later than usual.

Hence did Damaris--arrayed in a russet-red serge gown, black velvet
collar and cuffs to its jacket of somewhat manly cut, and a russet-red
upstanding plume in her close-fitting black velvet hat--set forth alone
to church. This, after redirecting such letters as had arrived for her
father by the morning post. One of them bore the embossed arms of the
India Office, and signature of the, then, Secretary of State for that
department in the corner of the envelope. She looked at it with a measure
of respect and curiosity, wondering as to the purport of its contents.
She studied the envelope, turning it about in the hope of gleaning
enlightenment from its external aspect. Still wondering, slightly
oppressed even by a persuasion--of which she could not rid herself--that
it held matters of no common moment closely affecting her father, she
went out of the house, down the sheltered drive, and through the entrance
gates. Here, as she turned inland, the verve of the clear autumn morning
rushed on her, along with a wild flurry of falling leaves dancing to the
breath of the crisp northerly breeze.

A couple of fine days, with a hint of frost in the valley by night, after
a spell of soft mists and wet, sent the leaves down in fluttering
multitudes, so that now all trees, save the oaks only, were bare.
These--by which the road is, just here, overhung--still solidly clothed
in copper, amber and--matching our maiden's gown--in russet-red, offered
sturdy defiance to the weather. The sound of them, a dry crowded
rustling, had a certain note of courage and faithfulness in it which
caused Damaris to wait awhile and listen; yet a wistfulness also, since
to her hearing a shudder stirred beneath its bravery, preluding the
coming rigours of winter.

And that wistfulness rather strangely enlarged its meaning and area, as
the reiterated ting, tang, tong of Deadham's church bells recalled the
object of her walk. For English church services, of the parochial variety
such as awaited her, had but little, she feared, to give. Little, that
is, towards the re-living of those instants of exalted spiritual
perception which had been granted to her at distant Avila.

In overstrained and puritanic dread of idolatory, the English Church has
gone lamentably far to forfeit its sacramental birthright. It savours too
strongly of the school and class-room, basing its appeal upon words, upon
spoken expositions, instructive no doubt, but cold, academic. It offers
no tangible object of worship to sight or sense. Its so-called altars are
empty. Upon them no sacrifice is offered, no presence abidingly dwells.
In its teaching the communion of saints and forgiveness of sins are
phrases rather than living agencies. Its atmosphere is self-conscious,
its would-be solemnity forced.--This, in any case, was how Damaris saw
the whole matter--though, let us hasten to add, she was modest enough to
question whether the fault might not very well be in herself rather than
in our national variant of the Christian Faith. Many sweet, good
persons--dear Aunt Felicia among them--appeared to find Anglican
ministrations altogether sufficient for their religious needs. But to
Damaris those ministrations failed to bring any moment of vision, of
complete detachment. She must be to blame, she supposed--which was
discouraging, a little outcasting and consequently sad.

In a somewhat pensive spirit she therefore, pursued her way, until, where
the prospect widened as she reached the village green, a larger sky
disclosed itself flaked with light cirrus cloud. This glory of space, and
the daring northerly breeze blowing out from it, sent her fancy flying.
It beckoned to journeyings, to far coasts and unknown seas--an offshore
wind, filling the sails of convoys outward bound. And, with the thought
of ships upon the sea, came the thought of Darcy Faircloth, and that with
sharp revolt against the many existing hindrances to his and her
intercourse. Freedom seemed abroad this morning. Even the leaves declared
for liberty, courting individual adventure upon the wings of that daring
wind. And this sense of surrounding activity worked upon Damaris, making
her doubly impatient of denials and arbitrary restraints. She sent her
soul after Darcy Faircloth across the waste of waters, fondly, almost
fiercely seeking him. But her soul refused to travel, curiously turning
homeward again, as though aware not the prodigious fields of ocean, nor
any loud-voiced foreign port of call, held knowledge of him, but rather
the immediate scene, the silver-glinting levels of the Haven and lonely
stone-built inn.

Deadham church, originally a chapelry of Marychurch Abbey, crowns a green
monticule in the centre of Deadham village, backed by a row of big
elms.--A wide, low-roofed structure, patched throughout the course of
centuries beyond all unity and precision of design; yet still showing
traces of Norman work in the arch of the belfry and in the pillars
supporting the rafters of the middle aisle. At the instance of a former
vicar, the whole interior received a thick coat of whitewash, alike over
plaster and stone. This, at the time in question, had been in places
scraped off, bringing to light some mural paintings of considerable
interest and antiquity.

In the chancel, upon the gospel side, is a finely-carved tomb, with
recumbent figures of an armoured knight and richly-robed lady, whose
slippered feet push against the effigy of a particularly alert,
sharp-muzzled little hound. The two front pews, in the body of the
church, at the foot of the said tomb, are allotted to the owner and
household at The Hard. The slender, lively little hound and the two
sculptured figures lying, peaceful in death, for ever side by side,
touched and captivated Damaris from the first time she set eyes on them.
She reverenced and loved them, weaving endless stories about them when,
in the tedium of prayer or over-lengthy sermon, her attention, all too
often, strayed.

This morning the three bells jangled altogether as she reached the
churchyard gate. Then the smallest tolled alone, hurrying stragglers. She
was indeed late, the bulk of the congregation already seated, the Canon
at the reading-desk and Mrs. Horniblow wheezing forth a voluntary upon
the harmonium, when she walked up the aisle.

But, during her brief passage, Damaris could not but observe the
largeness of the assembly. An uncommon wave of piety must have swept over
the parish this morning! The Battyes and Taylors were present in force.
Farmers and tradespeople mustered in impressive array. Even Dr.
Cripps--by no means a frequent churchgoer--and his forlorn-looking,
red-eyed little wife were there. The Miss Minetts had a lady with them--a
plump, short little person, dressed with attempted fashion, whose back
struck Damaris as quaintly familiar, she catching a glimpse of it in
passing. Most surprising of all, William Jennifer headed a contingent
from the Island, crowding the men's free seats to right and left of the
west door. An expectancy, moreover, seemed to animate the throng. Then
she remembered, the new curate, Reginald Sawyer, had informed her and
Miss Felicia two evenings ago when he had called and been bidden to stay
to tea, that he would preach for the first time at the eleven o'clock
service. So far he had only occupied the pulpit on Sunday afternoons,
when a country congregation is liable to be both scanty and somnolent.
To-day he would prove himself before the heads of tribes, before the
notables. And Damaris wished him well, esteeming him a worthy young man,
if somewhat provincial and superfluously pompous.

In the servants' pew directly behind, Mary and Mrs. Cooper were duly
ensconced, supported by Mr. Patch, two small male Patches, white-collared
and shining with excess of cleanliness, wedged in between him and his
stable sub-ordinate Conyers, the groom. The Hard thus made a commendably
respectable show, as Damaris reflected with satisfaction.

She stood, she knelt, her prayer book open upon the carved margin of the
tomb, the slender crossed legs and paws of the alert little marble dog
serving as so often before for bookrest. Canon Horniblow boomed and
droned, like some unctuous giant bumble-bee, from the reading-desk. The
choir intoned responses from the gallery with liberal diversity of pitch.
And presently, alas! Damaris' thoughts began to wander, making flitting
excursions right and left. For half-way through the litany some belated
worshipper arrived, causing movement in the men's free seats. This oddly
disturbed her. Her mind flew again to Faircloth, and the strange
impression of her own soul's return declaring this and no other to be his
actual neighbourhood. And if it indeed were so?--Damaris thrust back the
emotions begotten of that question, as unpermissibly stormy at this time
and in this place.

She tried to fix her thoughts wholly upon the office. But, all too soon
they sprang aside again, now circling about the enigmatic back beheld in
the Miss Minetts' pew. Of whom did that round, dressy little form remind
her? Why--why--of Theresa, of course. Not Theresa, genius and saint of
Spanish Avila; but Theresa Bilson, her sometime governess-companion of
doubtfully amiable memory. She longed to satisfy herself, but could only
do so by turning round and looking squarely--a manoeuvre impossible
during the prayers, but which might be accomplished later, when the
congregation rose to sing the hymn before the sermon.

She must wait. And during that waiting light, rather divertingly, broke
in on her. For supposing her belief as to the lady's identity correct,
must not dear Aunt Felicia be party to this resurrection? Had not she
known, and stolen forth this morning to perfect some innocent plot of
peace-making? In furtherance of which she now cunningly remained at home,
thus leaving Damaris free to offer renewal of favour or withhold it as
she pleased. Was not that deliciously characteristic of Aunt Felicia and
her permanent effort to serve two masters--to make everybody happy, and,
regardless of conflicting interests, everybody else too?--Well, Damaris
was ready to fulfil her wishes. She bore Theresa no ill-will. An
inclination to grudge or resentment seemed to her unworthy. Whatever
Theresa's tiresomenesses, they were over and done with, surely, quite
immensely long ago.

The hymn given out and the tune of it played through, the assembly
scraped and rustled to its feet. Damaris standing, in height overtopping
her neighbours, discreetly turned her head. Let her eyes rest an instant,
smiling, upon the upturned polished countenances of the two small
Patches--shyly watching her--and then seek a more distant goal. Yes,
veritably Theresa Bilson in the flesh--very much in the flesh, full of
face and plump of bosom, gold-rimmed glasses gleaming, her mouth opened
wide in song. It was a little astonishing to see her so unchanged. For
how much had happened since the day of that choir-treat, at Harchester,
which marked her deposition, the day of Damaris' sleep in the sunshine
and awakening in the driving wet out on the Bar.--The day wherein so much
began, and so much ended, slashed across and across with an extravagance
of lasting joy and lasting pain!--In the sense of it all Damaris lost
herself a little, becoming forgetful of her existing situation. She
looked past, over Theresa and beyond.

At the extreme end of the church, in the last of the free seats where
the light from the west door streamed inward, a man's figure detached
itself with singular distinctness from the background of whitewashed
wall. He, too, overtopped his fellows, and that by several inches. And
from the full length of the building, across the well-filled benches, his
glance sought and met that of Damaris, and held it in fearless, high
security of affection not to be gainsaid.

The nice, clean-shining little Patches, still watching shyly out of their
brown, glossy, mouse-like eyes, to their extreme mystification saw the
colour flood Damaris' face, saw her lips tremble and part as in prelude
to happy speech. Then saw her grow very pale, and, turning away, clutch
at the head of the alert little hound. Mrs. Cooper delivered herself of a
quite audible whisper to the effect--"that Miss Damaris was took
faint-like, as she feared." And Mary leaned forward over the front of the
pew in quick anxiety. But our maiden's weakness was but passing. She
straightened herself, stood tall and proudly again, looking at the knight
and his lady lying so peacefully side by side upon their marble couch.
She gathered them into her gladness--they somehow sympathized, she felt,
in her present sweet and poignant joy. Her soul had known best, had been
right in its homing--since Faircloth was here--was here.

That sweet, poignant joy flooded her, so that she wordlessly gave thanks
and praise. He was in life--more, was within sight of her, hearing the
same sounds, breathing the same air. Across the short dividing space,
spirit had embraced spirit. He claimed her.--Had not his will, indeed,
far more than any curiosity regarding the identity of poor, plump little
Theresa, compelled her to look around?

She demanded nothing further, letting herself dwell in a perfection of
content--without before or after--possible only to the pure in heart and
to the young.

The hymn concluded, Damaris knelt, while Reginald Sawyer, having mounted
into the pulpit, read the invocation; mechanically rose from her knees
with the rest, and disposed herself in the inner corner of the pew,
sitting sideways so that her left hand might rest upon the carven marble
margin of the tomb. She liked touch of it still, in the quietude of her
great content, cherishing a pretty fancy of the knight and his lady's
sympathy and that also of their sprightly little footstool dog.

Otherwise she was deaf to outward things, deliciously oblivious, wrapped
away sweetly within herself. Hence she quite failed to notice how
awkwardly Sawyer stumbled, treading on the fronts of his long surplice
when going up the pulpit stairs. How he fumbled with his manuscript as
he flattened it out on the cushioned desk. Or how husky was his voice,
to the point of the opening sentences being almost inaudible. The young
clergyman suffered, indeed, so it appeared, from a painfully excessive
fit of nervousness. All this she missed, not awakening from her state of
blissful trance until the sermon had been under way some good five to
ten minutes.

Her awakening even then was gradual. It was also unpleasant. It began in
vague and uneasy suspicion of something unusual and agitating toward. In
consciousness of a hushed and strained attention, very foreign to the
customary placid, not to say bovine, indifference of the ordinary country
congregation. The preacher's voice was audible enough now, in good truth,
though still under insufficient control. It roared, cracked upward,
approaching a scream. Sentences trod on one another's heels, so rapid was
his delivery; or bumped and jolted so overlaid was it with emphasis. He,
dealt in ugly words, too--"lies, drunkenness, theft, profanity;" and
worse still, "uncleanness, adultery, carnal debauchery." For not venial
sins only, but mortal sins likewise were rife in Deadham, as he averred,
matters of common knowledge and everyday occurrence--tolerated if not
openly encouraged, callously winked at. The public conscience could
hardly be said to exist, so indurated was it, so moribund through lack of
stimulation and through neglect. Yet such wickedness, sooner or later,
must call down the vengeance of an offended God. It would be taken upon
these lawbreakers. Here or hereafter these evil-livers would receive the
chastisement their deeds invited and deserved. Let no man deceive
himself. God is just. He is also very terrible in judgment. Hell yawns
for the impenitent.

Breathless, he paused; and a subdued sigh, an instinctive shuffling of
feet ran through the assembly.--Yet these were but generalities after
all, often heard before, when you came to think, though seldom so
forcibly put. Every man made liberal gift of such denunciations to his
neighbours, rather than applied their lesson to himself. But Reginald
Sawyer was merely gathering energy, gathering courage for more detailed
assault. He felt nervous to the verge of collapse--a new and really
horrible experience. His head was hot, his feet cold. The temptation
simply and crudely to give in, bundle down the pulpit stairs and bolt,
was contemptibly great. His eyesight played tricks on him. Below there,
in the body of the church, the rows of faces ran together into irregular
pink blots spread meaninglessly above the brown of the oaken pews, the
brown, drab, and black, too, of their owners' Sunday best. Here and
there a child's light frock or white hat intruded upon the prevailing
neutral tints; as did, in a startling manner, Damaris Verity's
russet-red plume and suit.

Time and again, since he began his sermon, had that dash of rich colour
drawn his reluctant attention. He recoiled from, oddly dreaded it--now
more than ever, since to him it rather mercilessly focussed the subject
and impending climax of his denunciatory address.

The pause began to affect the waiting congregation, which stirred
uneasily. Some one coughed. And Sawyer was a sufficiently practised
speaker to know that, once you lose touch with an audience, it is next to
impossible successfully to regain your ascendency over it. Unless he was
prepared to accept ignominious defeat he must brace himself, or it would
be too late. He abominated defeat. Therefore, summoning all his native
combativeness, he took his own fear by the throat, straightened his
manuscript upon the desk, and vehemently broke forth into speech.

--Did his hearers deny or doubt the truth of his assertions, suppose that
he spoke at random, or without realization of the heavy responsibility
he incurred in advancing such accusations? They were in error, so he told
them. He advanced no accusations which he could not justify by examples
chosen from among themselves, from among residents in this parish. He
would be false to his duty both to them--his present audience--and to his
and their Creator, were he to abstain from giving those examples out of
respect of persons. Other occupants of this pulpit might have--he feared
had--allowed worldly considerations to influence and silence them.

A nasty cut this, at the poor vicar-canon, increasingly a prey to
distracted fidgets, sitting helpless in the chancel.

But of such pusillanimity, such time-serving, he--Reginald
Sawyer--scorned to be guilty. The higher placed the sinner, the more
heinous the sin.--He would deal faithfully with all, since not only was
the salvation of each one in jeopardy, but his own salvation was in peril
likewise, inasmuch as, at the dread Last Assize, he would be required to
give account of his stewardship in respect of this sinful place.

Thus far Damaris had listened in deepening distaste. Surely the young man
very much magnified his office, was in manner exaggerated, in matter
aggressive and verbose? Notwithstanding its attempted solemnity and heat,
his sermon seemed to be conventional, just a "way of talking," and a
conceited one at that. But, as he proceeded to set forth his promised
examples of local ill-living, distaste passed into bewilderment and
finally into a sense of outrage, blank and absolute. He named no names,
and wrapped his statements up in Biblical language. Yet they remained
suggestive and significant enough. He spoke, surely, of those whose
honour was dearest to her, whom she boundlessly loved. Under plea of
rebuking vice, he laid bare the secrets, violated the sanctities of their
private lives. Yet was not that incredible? All decencies of custom and
usage forbade it, stamped such disclosure as unpermissible, fantastic. He
must be mad, or she herself mad, mishearing, misconceiving him.

"Adulterous father, bastard son--publican sheltering youthful offenders
from healthy punishment in the interests of personal gain."--Of that last
she made nothing, failed to follow it. But the rest?--

It was true, too. But not as he represented it, all its tragic beauty,
all the nobleness which tempered and, in a measure at least, discounted
the great wrong of it, stripped away--leaving it naked, torn from its
setting, without context and so without perspective. Against this not
only her tenderness, but sense of justice, passionately fought. He made
it monstrous and, in that far, untrue, as caricature is untrue, crying
aloud for explanation and analysis. Yet who could explain? Circumstances
of time and place rendered all protest impossible. Nothing could be done,
nothing said. Thus her beloved persons were exposed, judged, condemned
unheard, without opportunity of defence.

And realizing this, realizing redress hopelessly barred, she cowered
down, her head bowed, almost to the level of the marble couch whereon the
figures of knight and lady reposed in the high serenity of love and
death. Happier they than she, poor child, for her pride trailed in the
dust, her darling romance of brother and sister and all the rare pieties
of her heart, defiled by a shameful publicity, exposed for every Tom,
Dick and Harry to paw over and sneer at!

Horror of a crowd, which watches the infliction of some signal disgrace,
tormented her imagination, moreover, to the temporary breaking of her
spirit. Whether that crowd was, in the main, hostile or sympathetic
mattered nothing. The fact that it silently sat there, silently observed,
made every member of it, for the time, her enemy. Even the trusted
servants just behind, comfortable comely Mary, soft Mrs. Cooper, the
devoted Patch, were hateful to her as the rest. Their very loyalty--which
she for no instant doubted--went only to fill the cup of her humiliation
to the brim.

Reginald Sawyer's voice continued; but what he said now she neither heard
nor cared. Her martyrdom could hardly suffer augmentation, the whole
world seemed against her, she set apart, pilloried.--But not alone.
Faircloth was set apart, pilloried, also. And remembering this, her
courage revived. The horror of the crowd lifted. For herself she could
not fight; but for him she could fight, with strength and conviction, out
of the greatness of her love for him, out of her recognition that the
ignominy inflicted upon him was more bitter, more cruel, than any
inflicted upon her. For those who dare, in a moment the worst can turn
best.--She would make play with the freedom which this breach of
convention, of social reticence, of moral discretion, conferred upon her.
The preacher had gone far in demolition. She would go as far, and
further, in construction, in restitution. Would openly acknowledge the
bond which joined Faircloth to her and to her people, by openly claiming
his protection now, in this hour of her disgrace and supreme dismay. She
would offer no excuse, no apology. Only there should be no more attempted
concealment or evasion of the truth on her part, no furtiveness in his
and her relation. Once and for all she would make her declaration, cry it
from the house-top in fearless yet tender pride.

Damaris stood up, conspicuous in her red dress amid that rather drab
assembly as a leaping flame. She turned about, fronting the perplexed and
agitated congregation, her head carried high, her face austere for all
its youthful softness, an heroic quality, something, indeed, superlative
and grandiose in her bearing and expression, causing a shrinking in those
who saw her and a certain sense of awe.

Her eyes sought Faircloth again. Found him, and unfalteringly spoke with
him, bidding him claim her as she, claimed him, bidding him come. Which
bidding he obeyed; and that at the same rather splendid level of
sentiment, worthily sustaining her abounding faith in him. For a touch of
the heroic and superlative was present in his bearing and expression,
also, as he came up the church between the well-filled pews--these
tenanted, to left and right, by some who figured in his daily life,
figured in his earliest recollections, by others, newcomers, to him, even
by sight, barely known; yet each and all, irrespective of age, rank, and
position, affecting his outlook and mental atmosphere in some particular,
as every human personality does and must, with whom one's life, ever so
transiently, is thrown. Had he had time to consider them, this cloud of
witnesses might have proved disturbing even to his masterful will and
steady nerve. But he had not time. There was for him--so perfectly--the
single object, the one searching yet lovely call to answer, the one act
to be performed.

Reaching the front pew upon the gospel side, Darcy Faircloth took
Damaris' outstretched hand. He looked her in the eyes, his own
worshipful, ablaze at once with a great joy and a great anger; and then
led her back, down the length of the aisle, through the west door into
the liberty of the sunshine and the crisp northerly wind outside.

Standing here, the houses and trees of the village lay below them. The
whole glinting expanse of the Haven was visible right up to the town of
Marychurch gathered about its long-backed Abbey, whose tower, tall and in
effect almost spectral, showed against the purple ridges of forest and
moorland beyond. Over the salt marsh in the valley, a flock of plovers
dipped and wheeled, their backs and wide flapping wings black, till, in
turning, their breasts and undersides flashed into snow and pearl.

And because brother and sister, notwithstanding diversities of upbringing
and of station, were alike children of the open rather than of cities,
born to experiment, to travel and to seafaring round this ever-spinning
globe, they instinctively took note of the extensive, keen though
sun-gilded prospect--before breaking silence and giving voice to the
emotion which possessed them--and, in so doing, found refreshment and a
brave cleansing to their souls.

Still holding Faircloth's hand, and still silent, her shoulder touching
his now and again in walking, Damaris went down the sloping path, hoary
lichen-stained head-and-foot stones set in the vivid churchyard grass--as
yet unbleached by the cold of winter--on either side. The sense of his
strength, of the fine unblemished vigour of his young manhood, here
close beside her--so strangely her possession and portion of her natural
inalienable heritage--filled her with confident security and with a
restful, wondering calm. So that the shame publicly put on her to shed
its bitterness, her horror of the watching crowd departed, fading out
into unreality. Though still shaken, still quivering inwardly from the
ordeal of the past hour, she already viewed that shame and horror as but
accidents to be lived down and disregarded, by no means as essential
elements in the adventurous and precious whole. Presently they would
altogether lose their power to wound and to distress her, while this
freedom and the closer union, gained by means of them, continued
immutable and fixed.

It followed that, when in opening the churchyard gate and holding it back
for her to pass, Faircloth perforce let go her hand and, the spell of
contact severed, found himself constrained to speak at last, saying:

"You know you have done a mighty splendid, dangerous thing--no less than
burned your boats--and that in the heat of generous impulse, blind,
perhaps--I can't but fear so--to the heavy cost."

Damaris could interrupt him, with quick, sweet defiance:

"But there is no cost!"

And, to drive home the sincerity of her disclaimer, and further reassure
him, she took his hand again and held it for an instant close against her
bosom, tears and laughter together present in her eyes.

"Ah! you beautiful dear, you beautiful dear," Faircloth cried, brokenly,
as in pain, somewhat indeed beside himself. "Before God, I come near
blessing that blatant young fool and pharisee of a parson since he has
brought me to this."

Then he put her a little way from him, penetrated by fear lest the white
love which--in all honour and reverence--he was bound to hold her in,
should flush ever so faintly, red.

"For, after all, it is up to me," he said, more to himself than to her,
"to make very sure there isn't, and never--by God's mercy--shall be,
any cost."

And with that--for the avoidance of the congregation, now streaming
rather tumultuously out of church--they went on across the village green,
hissed at by slow waddling, hard-eyed, most conceited geese, to the lane
which leads down to the causeway and warren skirting the river-bank.




CHAPTER IV

WHEREIN MISS FELICIA VERITY CONCLUSIVELY SHOWS WHAT SPIRIT SHE IS OF


Her attraction consisted in her transparency, in the eager simplicity
with which she cast her home-made nets and set her innocuous springes.
To-day Miss Felicia was out to wing the Angel of Peace, and crowd that
celestial messenger into the arms of Damaris and Theresa Bilson
collectively and severally. Such was the major interest of the hour. But,
for Miss Felicia the oncoming of middle-age by no means condemned the
lesser pleasures of life to nullity. Hence the minor interest of the hour
centred in debate as to whether or not the thermometer justified her
wearing a coat of dark blue silk and cloth, heavily trimmed with ruchings
and passementerie, reaching to her feet. A somewhat sumptuous garment
this, given her by Sir Charles and Damaris last winter in Madrid. She
fancied herself in it greatly, both for the sake of the dear donors, and
because the cut of it was clever, disguising the over-narrowness of her
maypole-like figure and giving her a becoming breadth and fulness.

She decided in favour of the coveted splendour; and at about a
quarter-past twelve strolled along the carriage-drive on her way to the
goose green and the village street. There, or thereabouts, unless her
plot lamentably miscarried, she expected to meet her niece and that
niece's ex-governess-companion, herded in amicable converse by the
pinioned Angel of Peace. Her devious and discursive mind fluttered to and
fro, meanwhile, over a number of but loosely connected subjects.

Of precisely what, upon a certain memorable occasion, had taken place
between her brother, Sir Charles, and poor Theresa--causing the latter
to send up urgent signals of distress to which she, Miss Felicia,
instantly responded--she still was ignorant. Theresa had, she feared,
been just a wee bit flighty, leaving Damaris unattended while herself
mildly gadding. But such dereliction of duty was insufficient to account
for the arbitrary fashion in which she had been sent about her business,
literally--the word wasn't pretty--chucked out! Miss Felicia always
suspected there must be _something_, she would say _worse_--it sounded
harsh--but something _more_ than merely that. Her interpretations of
peculiar conduct were liable to run in terms of the heart. Had Theresa,
poor thing, by chance formed a hopeless attachment?--Hopeless, of course,
almost ludicrously so; yet what more natural, more comprehensible,
Charles being who and what he was? Not that he would, in the faintest
degree, lend himself to such misplaced affection. Of that he was
incapable. The bare idea was grotesque. He, of course, was guiltless.
But, assuming there _was_ a feeling on Theresa's side, wasn't she equally
guiltless? She could not help being fascinated.--Thus Miss Felicia was
bound to acquit both. Alike they left the court without a stain on their
respective characters.

Not for worlds would she ever dream of worrying Charles by attempting to
reintroduce poor Theresa to his notice. But with Damaris it was
different. The idea that any persons of her acquaintance were at sixes
and sevens, on bad terms, when, with a little good will on their part
and tactful effort upon hers, they might be on pleasant ones was to her
actively afflicting. To drop an old friend, or even one not
conspicuously friendly if bound to you by associations and habit,
appeared to her an offence against corporate humanity, an actual however
fractional lowering of the temperature of universal charity. The loss to
one was a loss to all--in some sort. Therefore did she run to adjust, to
smooth, to palliate.

Charles was away--it so neatly happened--and Theresa Bilson here, not, it
must be owned, altogether without Miss Felicia's connivance. If darling
Damaris still was possessed of a hatchet she must clearly be given, this
opportunity to bury it. To have that weapon safe underground would be,
from every point of view, so very much nicer.

At this point in her meditations beneath the trees bordering the carriage
drive, their bare tops swaying in the breeze and bright sunshine, Miss
Felicia fell to contrasting the present exhilarating morning with that
dismally rainy one, just over three years ago, when--regardless of her
sister, Mrs. Cowden's remonstrances--she had come here from Paulton Lacy
in response to Theresa's signals of distress. Just at the elbow of the
drive, so she remembered, she had met a quite astonishingly good-looking
young man, brown-gold bearded, his sou'wester and oilskins shining with
wet. She vaguely recalled some talk about him with her brother, Sir
Charles, afterwards during luncheon.--What was it?--Oh! yes, of course,
it was he who had rescued Damaris when she was lost out on the Bar, and
brought her home down the tide-river by boat. She had often wanted to
know more about him, for he struck her at the time as quite out of the
common, quite remarkably attractive. But on the only occasion since when
she had mentioned the subject, Damaris drew in her horns and became
curiously uncommunicative. It was all connected, of course, with the dear
girl's illness and the disagreeable episode of Theresa's dismissal.--How
all the more satisfactory, then, that the Theresa business, in any case,
was at this very hour in process of being set right! Miss Felicia had
advised Theresa how to act--to speak to Damaris quite naturally and
affectionately, taking her good-will for granted. Damaris would be
charming to her, she felt convinced.

Felicia Verity held the fronts of her long blue coat together, since the
wind sported with them rather roughly, and went forward with her quick,
wavering gait.

It was a pity Damaris did not marry she sometimes felt. Of course,
Charles would miss her quite terribly. Their love for one another was so
delightful, so really unique. On his account she was glad.--And yet--with
a sigh, while the colour in her thin cheeks heightened a little--lacking
marriage a woman's life is rather incomplete. Not that she herself had
reason for complaint, with all the affection showered upon her! The last
two years, in particular, had been abundantly blessed thanks to Charles
and Damaris. She admired them, dear people, with all her warm heart and
felt very grateful to them.

Here it should be registered, in passing, that the resilience of Felicia
Verity's inherent good-breeding saved her gratitude from any charge of
grovelling, as it saved her many enthusiasms from any charge of
sloppiness. Both, if exaggerated, still stood squarely, even gallantly
upon their feet.

Her mind switched back to the ever fertile question of the married and
the single state. She often wondered why Charles never espoused a second
wife. He would have liked a son surely? But then, were it possible to
find a fault in him, it would be that of a little coldness, a little
loftiness in his attitude towards women. He was too far above them in
intellect and experience, she supposed, and through all the remarkable
military commands he had held, administrative posts he had occupied,
quite to come down to their level. In some ways Damaris was very like
him--clever, lofty too at moments. Possibly this accounted for her
apparent indifference to affairs of the heart and to lovers. Anyhow, she
had ample time before her still in relation to all that.

Miss Felicia passed into the road. About fifty yards distant she saw the
servants--Mary, Mrs. Cooper and Patch--standing close together in a
quaint, solemn, little bunch. The two small Patches circled round the
said bunch, patiently expectant, not being admitted evidently to whatever
deliberations their elders and betters had in hand.

Felicia Verity's relations with the servants were invariably excellent.
Yet, finding them in mufti, outside the boundaries of her brother's
demesne thus, she was conscious of a certain modesty, hesitating alike to
intrude upon their confabulations and to pass onward without a trifle
amiable of talk. She advanced, smiling, nodded to the two women, then--

"A delicious day, isn't it, Patch?" she said, adding, for lack of a more
pertinent remark--"What kind of sermon did the new curate, Mr. Sawyer,
give you?--A good one, I hope?"

A pause followed this guileless question, during which Mary looked on the
ground, Mrs. Cooper murmured: "Oh! dear, oh, dear!" under her breath, and
Patch swallowed visibly before finding voice to reply:

"One, I regret to say, ma'am, he never ought to have preached."

"Poor young man!" she laughed it off. "You're a terribly severe critic,
I'm afraid, Patch. Probably he was nervous."

"And reason enough. You might think Satan himself stood at his elbow, the
wicked things he said."

This statement, coming from the mild and cow-like Mrs. Cooper, caused
Felicia Verity the liveliest surprise. She glanced enquiringly from one
to the other of the little group, reading constraint and hardly repressed
excitement in the countenance of each. Their aspect and behaviour struck
her, in fact, as singular to the point of alarm.

"Mary," she asked, a trifle breathlessly, "has anything happened? Where
is Miss Damaris?"

"Hadn't she got back to The Hard, ma'am, before you came out?"

"No--why should she? You and the other servants always reach home first."

"Miss Damaris went out before the rest," Mrs. Cooper broke forth in
dolorous widowed accents. "And no wonder, pore dear young lady, was it,
Mr. Patch? My heart bled for her, ma'am, that it did."

Miss Felicia, gentle and eager, so pathetically resembling yet not
resembling her famous brother, grew autocratic, stern as him
almost, for once.

"And you allowed Miss Damaris to leave church alone--she felt unwell,
I suppose--none of you accompanied her? I don't understand it at
all," she said.

"Young Captain Faircloth went out with Miss Damaris. She wished it,
ma'am," Mary declared, heated and resentful at the unmerited rebuke. "She
as good as called to him to come and take her out of church. It wasn't
for us to interfere, so we held back."

"Captain Faircloth? But this becomes more and more extraordinary! Who is
Captain Faircloth?"

"Ah! there you touch it, you must excuse my saying, ma'am." Mrs.
Cooper gasped.

But at this juncture, Patch, rising to the height of masculine
responsibility, flung himself gallantly--and how unwillingly--into the
breach. He was wounded in his respect and respectability alike, wounded
for the honour of the family whom he had so long and faithfully served.
He was fairly cut to the quick--while these three females merely darkened
judgment by talking all at cross purposes and all at once. Never had the
solid, honest coachman found himself in a tighter or, for that matter, in
anything like so tight a place. But, looking in the direction of the
village, black of clothing, heavy of walk and figure, he espied, as he
trusted, approaching help.

"If you please, ma'am," he said, touching his black bowler as he
spoke, "I see Canon Horniblow coming along the road. I think it would
be more suitable for him to give you an account of what has passed.
He'll know how to put it with--with the least unpleasantness to all
parties. It isn't our place--Mrs. Cooper's, Mary's, or mine--if you'll
pardon my making so free with my opinion, to mention any more of
what's took place."

Felicia Verity, now thoroughly frightened, darted forward. The fronts of
her blue coat again flew apart, and that rich garment stood out in a
prodigious frill around and behind her from the waist, as she leaned on
the wind, almost running in her agitation and haste.

"My dear Canon," she cried, "I am in such anxiety. I learn something has
happened to my niece, who I had come to meet. Our good servants are so
distractingly mysterious. They refer me to you. Pray relieve my
uncertainty and suspense."

But, even while she spoke, Miss Felicia's anxiety deepened, for the
kindly, easy-going clergyman appeared to suffer, like the servants, from
some uncommon shock. His large fleshy nose and somewhat pendulous
cheeks were a mottled, purplish red. Anger and deprecation struggled in
his glance.

"I was on my way to The Hard," he began, "to express my regrets--offer my
apologies would hardly be too strong a phrase--to your niece, Miss
Verity, and to yourself. For I felt compelled, without any delay, to
dissociate myself from the intemperate procedure of my colleague--of my
curate. He has used, or rather misused, his official position, has
grievously misused the privileges of the pulpit--the pulpit of our parish
church--to attack the reputation of private individuals and resuscitate
long-buried scandals."

The speaker was, unquestionably, greatly distressed. Miss Felicia,
though more than ever bewildered, felt for him warmly. It pained her
excessively to observe how his large hands clasped and unclasped, how
his loose lips worked.

"Let me assure you," he went on, "though I trust that is superfluous--"

"I am certain it is, dear Dr. Horniblow," she feelingly declared.

"Thanks," he replied. "You are most kind, most indulgent to me, Miss
Verity.--Superfluous, I would say, to assure you that my colleague
adopted this deplorable course without my knowledge or sanction. He
sprang it on me like a bomb-shell. As a Christian my conscience, as a
gentleman my sense of fair play, condemns his action."

"Yes--yes--I sympathize.--I am convinced you are incapable of any
indiscretion, any unkindness, in the pulpit or out of it. But why, my
dear Canon, apologize to us? How can this unfortunate sermon affect me or
my niece? How can the scandal you hint at in any respect concern us?"

"Because," he began, that mottling of purple increasingly deforming his
amiable face.--And there words failed him, incontinently he stuck. He
detested strong language, but--heavens and earth--how could he put it to
her, as she gazed at him with startled, candid eyes, innocent of guile as
those of a babe? Only too certainly no word had reached her of the
truth. The good man groaned in spirit for, like Patch, he found himself
in a place of quite unexampled tightness, and with no hope of shunting
the immense discomfort of it on to alien shoulders such as had been
granted the happier Patch.

"Because," he began again, only to suffer renewed agony of wordlessness.
In desperation he shifted his ground.

"You have heard, perhaps, that your niece, Miss Damaris, left the church
before the conclusion of the sermon? I do not blame her"--

He waved a fatherly hand. Miss Verity acquiesced.

"Or rather was led out by--by Captain Faircloth--a young officer in the
mercantile marine, whose abilities and successful advance in his
profession this village has every reason to respect."

He broke off.

"Let us walk on towards The Hard. Pray let us walk on.--Has no rumour
ever reached you, Miss Verity, regarding this young man?"

The wildest ideas flitted through Miss Felicia's brain.

--The figure in shiny oilskins--yet preposterous, surely?--After all, an
affair of the heart--misplaced affection--Damaris?--Did this account for
the apparent indifference?

--How intensely interesting; yet how unwise.--How--but she must keep her
own counsel. The wind, now at her back, glued the blue coat
inconveniently against and even between her legs, unceremoniously
whisking her forward.

"Rumours--oh, none," she protested.

"None?" he echoed despairingly. "Pray let us walk on."

A foolish urgency on his part this, she felt, since she was already
almost on the run.

"None that, by birth, Captain Faircloth is somewhat nearly related to
your family--to your--your brother, Sir Charles, in fact?"

There, the incubus was off his straining chest at last! He felt easier,
capable of manipulating the situation to some extent, smoothing down its
rather terrible ascerbities.

"Such connections do," he hastened to add, "as we must regretfully
admit, exist even in the highest, the most exalted circles.
Irregularities of youth, doubtlessly deeply repented of. I repeat sins
of youth, at which only the sinless--and they, alas! to the shame of my
sex are lamentably few--can be qualified to cast a stone.--You, you
follow me?"

"You mean me to understand"--

"Yes, yes--exactly so--to understand that this young man is
reputed to be"--

"Thank you, my dear Canon--thank you," Felicia Verity here interposed
quickly, yet with much simple dignity, for on a sudden she became
singularly unflurried and composed.

"I do, I believe, follow you," she continued.--"You have discharged your
difficult mission with a delicacy and consideration for which I am
grateful; but I am unequal to discussing the subject in further detail
just now.--To me, you know, my brother is above criticism. Whatever
incidents may--may belong to former years, I accept without cavil or
question, in silence--dear Dr. Horniblow--in silence. His wishes upon
this matter--should he care to confide them to me--and those of my
niece, will dictate my conduct to--towards my nephew, Captain
Faircloth.--Believe me, in all sincerity, I thank you. I am very much
indebted to you for the information you have communicated to me. It
simplifies my position. And now," she gave him her hand, "will you pardon
my asking you to leave me?"

Walking slowly--for he felt played out, pretty thoroughly done for, as he
put it, and beat--back to the vicarage and his belated Sunday dinner:--

"And of such are the Kingdom of Heaven," James Horniblow said to
himself--perhaps truly.

He also said other things, distinctly other things, in which occurred the
name of Reginald Sawyer whose days as curate of Deadham were numbered. If
he did not resign voluntarily, well then, pressure must, very certainly,
be employed to make him resign.

Meanwhile that blue-coated, virginal member of the Kingdom of Heaven
sped homeward at the top of her speed. She was conscious of immense
upheaval. Never had she felt so alive, so on the spot. The portals of
highest drama swung wide before her. She hastened to enter and pour forth
the abounding treasures of her sympathy at the feet of the actors in this
most marvellous piece. That her own part in it must be insignificant,
probably not even a speaking one, troubled her not the least. She was out
for them, not for herself. It was, also, characteristic of Miss Felicia
that she felt in nowise shocked. Not the ethical, still less the social
aspects of the drama affected her, but only its human ones. These dear
people had suffered, and she hadn't known it. They suffered still. She
enclosed them in arms of compassion.--If to the pure all things are pure,
Felicia Verity's purity at this juncture radiantly stood the test. And
that, not through puritanical shutting of the eyes or juggling with fact.
As she declared to Canon Horniblow, she accepted the incident without
question or cavil--for her brother. For herself, any possibility of
stepping off the narrow path of virtue, and exploring the alluring,
fragrant thickets disposed to left of it and to right, had never, ever so
distantly, occurred to her.

She arrived at The Hard with a bright colour and beating heart. Crossed
the hall and waited at the drawing-room door. A man's voice was audible
within, low-toned and grave, but very pleasant. It reminded her curiously
of Charles--Charles long ago on leave from India, lightening the heavy
conventionalities of Canton Magna with his brilliant, enigmatic, and--to
her--all too fugitive presence. Harriet had never really appreciated
Charles--though she was dazzled by his fame at intervals--didn't really
appreciate him to this day. Well, the loss was hers and the gain
indubitably Felicia's, since the elder sister's obtuseness had left the
younger sister a free field.--At thought of which Felicia softly laughed.

Again she listened to the man's voice--her brother Charles's delightful
young voice. It brought back the glamour of her girlhood, of other
voices which had mingled with his, of dances, picnics, cricket matches,
days with the hounds. She felt strangely moved, transported; also
strangely shy--so that she debated retirement. Did not, of course,
retire, but went into the drawing-room with a gentle rush, a dart
between the stumpy pillars.

"I hoped that I should find you both," she said. "Yes," to Damaris'
solemn and enquiring eyes--"I happened to meet our good, kind Canon and
have a little conversation with him. I hope"--to Faircloth--"you and I
may come to know one another better, know one another as friends. You are
not going?--No, indeed, you must stay to luncheon. It would grieve
me--and I think would grieve my brother Charles also, if you refused to
break bread in this house."




CHAPTER V

DEALING WITH EMBLEMS, OMENS AND DEMONSTRATIONS


Deadham resembled most country parishes in this, that, while revelling in
internal dissensions, when attacked from without its inhabitants promptly
scrapped every vendetta and, for the time being, stood back to back
against the world.

As one consequence of such parochial solidarity, the village gentry set
in a steady stream towards The Hard on the Monday afternoon following
the historic Sunday already chronicled. Commander and Mrs. Battye
called. Captain and Mrs. Taylor called, bringing with them their
daughter Louisa, a tight-lipped, well instructed High School mistress,
of whom her parents stood--one couldn't but notice it--most wholesomely
in awe. As is the youthful cuckoo in the nest of the hedge sparrow, so
was Louisa Taylor to the authors of her being.--Mrs. Horniblow called
also, flanked by her two girls, May and Doris--plain, thick-set,
energetic, well-meaning young persons, whom their shrewd mother loved,
sheltered, rallied, and cherished, while perfectly aware of their
limitations as to beauty and to brains. Immediately behind her slipped
in Mrs. Cripps. The doctor abstained, conscious of having put a match to
the fuse which had exploded yesterday's astounding homiletic torpedo.
The whole affair irritated him to the point of detestable ill-temper.
Still, if only to throw dust in the public eye, the house of Cripps must
be represented. He therefore deputed the job--like so many another
ungrateful one--to his forlorn-looking and red-eyed spouse. This vote of
confidence, if somewhat crudely proposed and seconded, was still so
evidently sincere and kindly meant that Damaris and Miss Felicia felt
constrained to accept it in good part.

Conversation ran upon the weather, the crops, the migratory wild fowl
now peopling the Haven, the Royal Family--invariably a favourite topic
this, in genteel circles furthest removed from the throne--in anecdotes
of servants and of pets interspersed with protests against the rise in
butcher Cleave's prices, the dullness of the newspapers and the
surprising scarcity of eggs.--Ran on any and every subject, in short,
save that of sermons preached by curates enamoured of the Decalogue.

Alone--saving and excepting Dr. Cripps--did the Miss Minetts fail to put
in an appearance. This of necessity, since had not they, figuratively
speaking, warmed the viper in their bosoms, cradled the assassin upon
their hearth? They were further handicapped, in respect of any
demonstration, by the fact of Theresa Bilson's presence in their midst.
Owing to the general combustion, Miss Felicia and the Peace Angel's joint
mission had gone by the wall. Theresa was still an exile from The Hard,
and doomed to remain so as the event proved. With that remarkable
power--not uncommon in her sex--of transmuting fact, granted the healing
hand of time, from defeat to personal advantage, she had converted her
repulse by Sir Charles Verity into a legend of quite flattering quality.
She had left The Hard because--But--

"She must not be asked to give chapter and verse. The position had been
_extremely_ delicate. Even now she could barely speak of it--she had gone
through too much. To be more explicit"--she bridled--"would trench upon
the immodest, almost. But just _this_ she _could_ say--she withdrew from
The Hard three years ago, because she saw withdrawal would be best for
_others_. Their peace of mind had been her object."

The above guarded confidences the Miss Minetts, hanging upon her lips,
received with devout admiration and fully believed. And, the best of it
was, Theresa had come by now, thanks to frequent rehearsal, fully to
believe this version herself. At the present juncture it had its
convenience, since she could declare her allegiance to her former
employer unimpaired. Thereby was she at liberty to join in the local
condemnation of Reginald Sawyer and his sermon. She did so with an
assumption of elegant, if slightly hysterical, omniscience. This was not
without its practical side. She regretted her inability to meet him at
meals. In consequence the Miss Minetts proposed he should be served in
his own sitting-room, until such time as it suited him to find another
place of residence than the Grey House. For their allegiance went on all
fours with Theresa's. It was also unimpaired. Propriety had been outraged
on every hand; matters, heretofore deemed unmentionable, rushed into the
forefront of knowledge and conversation; yet never had they actually
enjoyed themselves so greatly. The sense of being a storm
centre--inasmuch as they harboured the viper assassin--produced in
them an unexampled militancy. Latent sex-antagonism revealed itself.
The man, by common consent was down; and, being down, the Miss Minetts
jumped on him, pounded him, if terms so vulgar are permissible in
respect for ladies so refined. For every sin of omission, committed
against their womanhood by the members of his sex, they made him
scapegoat--unconsciously it is true, but effectively none the less. From
being his slaves they became his tormentors. Never was young fellow more
taken aback. Such revulsions of human feeling are instructive--deplorable
or diverting according as you view it.

Meanwhile that portion of the local gentry aforesaid, whom awkward
personal predicament--as in the case of Dr. Cripps and the Miss
Minetts--did not preclude from visiting The Hard, having called early on
Monday afternoon also left early, being anxious to prove their civility
of purest water, untainted by self-seeking, by ulterior greed of tea and
cakes. It followed that Damaris found herself relieved of their somewhat
embarrassed, though kindly and well-intentioned, presence before sunset.
And of this she was glad, since the afternoon had been fruitful of
interests far more intimate and vital in character.

While Captain and Mrs. Taylor, with their highly superior offspring
Louisa, still held the floor, Damaris received a telegram from her
father announcing a change of plans involving his immediate return.

"Send to meet the seven-thirty at Marychurch," so the pink paper
instructed her. "Carteret comes with me. When we arrive will explain."

On reception of the above, her first thought was of the letter forwarded
yesterday from the India Office, bearing the signature of the Secretary
of State. And close on the heels of that thought, looking over its
shoulder, indeed, in the effort--which she resisted--to claim priority,
was the thought of the dear man with the blue eyes about to be a guest,
once again, under this roof. This gave her a little thrill, a little
gasp, wrapping her away to the borders of sad inattention to Louisa
Taylor's somewhat academic discourse.--The girl's English was altogether
too grammatical for entire good-breeding. In that how very far away from
Carteret's!--Damaris tried to range herself with present company. But the
man with the blue eyes indubitably held the centre of the stage. She wore
the pearls to-day he gave her at St. Augustin. In what spirit did he
come?--She hoped in the earlier one, that of the time when she so
completely trusted him. For his counsel, dared she claim it in that
earlier spirit, would be of inestimable value just now. She so badly
needed someone in authority to advise with as to the events of yesterday,
both in their malign and their beneficent aspects. Aunt Felicia had risen
to the height of her capacity--dear thing, had been exquisite; but she
would obey orders rather than issue them. Her office was not to lead, but
rather to be led. And that the events of yesterday opened a new phase of
her own and Faircloth's relation to one another appeared beyond dispute.
Where exactly did the curve of duty towards her father touch that
relation, run parallel with or intersect it? She felt perplexed.

After tea, Miss Felicia having vanished on some affair of her
own--Damaris asked no question, but supposed it not unconnected with the
now, since Sir Charles was about to return, permanently exiled
Theresa--our maiden went upstairs, in the tender evening light, on
domestic cares intent. She wished to assure herself that the chintz
bedroom, opening off the main landing and overlooking the lawn and front
garden, had been duly made ready for Colonel Carteret. She took a
somewhat wistful pleasure in silently ministering to his possible small
needs in the matter of sufficient wealth of towels, candles and soap. She
lengthened out the process. Lingered, rearranged the ornaments upon the
mantelpiece, the bunch of sweet-leafed geranium--as yet unshrivelled by
frost--and belated roses, placed in a vase upon the toilet-table.

In so doing she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, and paused,
studying it. Her looks were not at their best. She was wan.--That might,
in part, be owing to the waning light. Around her eyes were dark circles,
making them appear unnaturally large and solemn. So yesterday's emotions
had left their mark! The nervous strain had been considerable and she
showed it. One cannot drink the cup of shame, however undeserved, with
physical any more than with mental impunity. She still felt a little
shattered, but hoped neither her father nor Carteret would remark her
plight. If the whole affair of yesterday could, in its objectionable
aspects, be kept from Sir Charles's knowledge she would be infinitely
glad. And why shouldn't it be? Without permission, Aunt Felicia certainly
would not tell. Neither would the servants. The parish had given
testimony, this afternoon, both of its good faith and its discretion.

So much for the objectionable side of the matter. But there was another
side, far from objectionable, beautiful in sentiment and in promise. And,
still viewing her reflection in the glass, she saw her eyes lose their
solemnity, lighten with a smile her lips repeated. This was where
Carteret's advice would be of so great value. How much ought she to tell
her father of all that?

For, from amidst the shame, the anger, the strain and effort, Faircloth
showed, to her thinking, triumphant, satisfying alike to her affection
and her taste. In no respect would she have asked him other than he was.

She moved across to the window, and sat down there, looking out over the
garden and battery, with its little cannons, to the Bar, and sea beyond
which melted into the dim primrose and silver of the horizon. Such colour
as existed was soft, soothing, the colour of a world of dreams, of
subdued and voiceless fancies. It was harmonious, restful as an
accompaniment to vision.--Damaris let it lap against her consciousness,
encircling, supporting this, as water laps, also encircling and
supporting--while caressing, mysteriously whispering against a boat's
side--a boat lying at its moorings, swinging gently upon an even
keel.--And her vision was of Faircloth, exclusively of him, just now.

For he had stayed to luncheon yesterday. A meal, to him in a sense
sacred, as being the first eaten by him in his father's house. So
graciously invited, how, indeed, could he do otherwise than stay? And,
the initial strangeness, the inherent wonder of that sacred character
wearing off, he found voice and talked not without eloquence. Talked of
his proper element, the sea, gaining ease and self-possession from the
magnitude and manifold enchantments of his theme.

To him, as to all true-born sailor-men--so Damaris divined--the world is
made of water, with but accident of land. Impeding, inconvenient accident
at that, too often blocking the passage across or through, and
constraining you to steer a foolishly, really quite inordinately
divergent course. Under this obstructive head the two Americas offend
direfully, sprawling their united strength wellnigh from pole to pole.
The piercing of their central isthmus promised some mitigation of this
impertinence of emergent matter; though whether in his, the speaker's
lifetime, remained--so he took it--open to doubt. The "roaring forties,"
and grim blizzard-ridden Fuegian Straits would long continue, as he
feared, to bar the way to the Pacific. Not that his personal fancy
favoured West so much as East. Not into the sunset but into the sunrising
did he love to sail some goodly black-hulled ship.--And as he talked,
more especially at his mention of this eastward voyaging, those manifold
enchantments of his calling stirred Damaris' imagination, making her
eyes bright as the fabled eyes of danger, and fathomless as well.

But the best came later. For, Mary having served coffee, Miss Felicia,
making an excuse of letters to be written, with pretty tact left them to
themselves. And Faircloth, returning after closing the door behind her
fluttering, gently eager figure, paused behind Damaris' chair.--Jacobean,
cane-panelled, with high-carved back and arms to it. Thomas Clarkson
Verity had unquestionably a nice taste in furniture.--The young
sea-captain rested his right hand on the dark terminal scroll-work, and
bending down, laid his left hand upon Damaris' hand, covering it as it
lay on the white damask table-cloth.

"Have I done what I should, and left undone what I shouldn't do, my dear
and lovely sister?" he asked her, half-laughing and half-abashed. "It's a
tricky business being here, you know--to put it no higher than that. And
it might, with truth, be put far higher. I get so horribly fearful of
letting you down in any way--however trivial--before other people. I
balance on a knife-edge all the while."

"Have no silly fears of that sort," Damaris said quickly, a trifle
distressed.

For it plucked at her sisterly pride in him that he should, even by
implication, debase himself, noting inequality of station between himself
and her. She held the worldly aspects of the matter in contempt. They
angered her, so that she impulsively banished reserve. Leaning forward,
she bent her head, putting her lips to the image of the flying
sea-bird--which so intrigued her loving curiosity--and those three
letters tattooed in blue and crimson upon the back of his hand.

"There--there"--she murmured, as soothing a child--"does this
convince you?"

But here broke off, her heart contracting with a spasm of wondering
tenderness. For under that pressure of her lips she felt his flesh quiver
and start. She looked up at the handsome bearded face, so close above
her, in swift enquiry, the potion--as once before--troubling her that, in
touching this quaint stigmata, she inflicted bodily suffering. And, as
on that earlier occasion, asked the question:

"Ah! but have I hurt you?"

Faircloth shook his head, smiling. Words failed him just then and he went
pale beneath the overlay of clear brown sunburn.

"Then tell me what this stands for?" she said, being herself strangely
moved, and desirous to lower the temperature of her own emotion--possibly
of his as well. "Tell me what it means."

"Just a boy's fear and a boy's superstition--a bit morbid, both of them,
perhaps--that is as I see things now. For I hold one should leave one's
body as it pleased the Almighty to make it, unblemished by semi-savage
decorations which won't wash off."

Faircloth moved away, drew his chair up nearer the head of the table,
the corner between them, so that his hand could if desire prompted again
find hers.

"By the way, I'm so glad you don't wear ear-rings, Damaris," he said.
"They belong to the semi-savage order of decoration. I hate them. You
never will wear them? Promise me that."

And she had promised, somewhat diverted by his tone of authority and of
insistence.

"But about this?" she asked him, indicating the blue and crimson symbol.

"As I say, fruit of fear and superstition--a pretty pair in which to put
one's faith! All the same, they went far to save my life, I fancy--for
which I thank them mightily being here, with you, to-day."

And he told her--softening the uglier details, as unfit for a
gently-nurtured woman's hearing--a brutal story of the sea. Of a sailing
ship becalmed in tropic waters, waiting, through long blistering days and
breathless sweltering nights, for the breeze which wouldn't come--a
floating hell, between glaring skies and glaring ocean--and of bullyings,
indignities and torments devised by a brain diseased by drink.

"But was there no one to interfere, no one to protect you?" Damaris
cried, aghast.

"A man's master in his own ship," Faircloth answered. "And short of
mutiny there's no redress. Neither officers nor men had a stomach for
mutiny. They were a poor, cowed lot. Till this drunken madness came on
him he had been easy going enough. They supposed, when it passed, he'd
be so again. And then as he reserved his special attentions for me,
they were willing to grin and bear it--or rather let me bear it, just
stupidly letting things go. It was my first long voyage. I'd been lucky
in my skippers so far, and was a bit soft still. A bit conceited, I
don't doubt, as well. He swore he'd break my spirit--for my own good,
of course--and he came near succeeding.--But Damaris, Damaris, dear,
don't take it to heart so. What does it matter? It did me no lasting
harm, and was all over and done with--would have been forgotten too,
but for the rather silly sign of it--years and years ago. Let us talk
no more about it."

"Oh, no!--go on--please, go on," she brokenly prayed him.

So he told her, further, how at Singapore, the outward voyage at last
ended, he was tempted to desert; or, better still, put an end, once and
for all, to the whole black business of living. And how, meditating on
the methods of such drastic deliverance--sitting in the palm-shaded
verandah of a fly-blown little eating-house, kept by a monkey-faced,
squint-eyed Japanese--he happened to pick up a Calcutta newspaper. He
read its columns mechanically, without interest or understanding, his
mind still working on methods of death, when a name leapt at him weighted
with personal meaning.

"It hit me," Faircloth said, "full between the eyes, knocking the
cry-baby stuff out of me, and knocking stuff of very different order in.
For I wanted something stronger than mother-love--precious though that
is--to brace me up and put some spunk into me just then.--Sir Charles was
campaigning in Afghanistan, and this Calcutta paper sang his praises to a
rousing tune. Lamented the loss of him to the Indian Government, and the
lack of appreciation and support of him at home which induced him to take
foreign service. Can't you imagine how all this about a great soldier,
whose blood after all ran in my veins, pulled me clean up out of the
slime, where suicide tempted the soft side of me, into another world?--A
sane world, in which a man can make good, if only he's pluck to hold
on.--Yes, he saved me; or at all events roused the spirit in me which
makes for salvation, and which that drunken brute had almost killed. But,
because I was only a boy as yet, with a boy's queer instincts and
extravagancies, I made the monkey-faced, Japanese eating-house
keeper--who added artistic tattooing to other and less reputable ways of
piling up a fortune--fix the sea-bird, for faith in my profession--and
those three initials of my own name and a name not altogether my own,
right here.--Fix them for remembrance and for a warning of which I could
never get free. Always I should be forced to see it. And others must see
it too. Through it my identity--short of mutilation--was indestructibly
established. From that identity, henceforward, there wasn't any possible
running away."

Faircloth had ended on a note of exultation, calmly sounded yet profound.

And upon that final note Damaris dwelt now, sitting on the chintz-covered
window-seat of the room which Carteret would to-night inhabit. She went
through the cruel story again, while the transparent twilight drew its
elfin veil over all things, outdoor and in.

The crescent moon, a slender, upright wisp of a thing, climbed the
southern sky. And Damaris' soul was strangely satisfied, for the story,
if cruel, was one of restitution and the healing of a wrong. To her
father--his father--the boy had turned in that bad hour, which very
perfectly made for peace between them. The curve of her duty to the one,
as she now apprehended, in nowise cut across or deflected the curve of
her duty towards the other. The two were the same, were one. And this,
somehow, some day, when time and sentiment offered opportunity for such
disclosure, she must let her father know. She must repeat to him the
story of the eating-house and its monkey-faced proprietor--of
questionable reputation--away in tropic Singapore. It could hardly fail
to appeal to him if rightly told. About the events and vulgar publicity
of yesterday nothing need be said. About this, within careful limits,
much; and that, with, as she believed, happiest result. She had succeeded
in bringing father and son together in the first instance. Now, with this
pathetic story as lever, might she not hope to bring them into closer,
more permanent union? Why should not Faircloth, in future, come and go,
if not as an acknowledged son, yet as acknowledged and welcome friend, of
the house? A consummation this, to her, delightful and reasonable as
just. For had not the young man passed muster, and that triumphantly--she
again told herself--in small things as well as great, in things of social
usage and habit, those "little foxes" which, as between class and class,
do so deplorably and disastrously "spoil the grapes?"

Therefore she began to invent ingenious speeches to Carteret and to her
father. Hatch ingenious schemes and pretty plots--in the style of dear
Aunt Felicia almost!--Was that lady's peace-making passion infectious, by
chance? And supposing it were, hadn't it very charming and praiseworthy
turns to it--witness Felicia's rather noble gathering in and acceptance
of Faircloth yesterday.

Arriving at which engaging conclusion, Damaris felt minded to commune for
a space with the restful loveliness of the twilight, before going
downstairs again and seeking more definite employment of books or
needlework. She raised the window-sash and, kneeling on the
chintz-covered cushioned window-seat, leaned out.

The gardeners to-day had rooted up the geraniums and dug over the empty
flower beds, just below, preparatory to planting them with bulbs for
spring blossoming. The keen, pungent scent of the newly-turned earth
hung in the humid air, as, mingling with it--a less agreeable
incense--did the reek of the mud-flats. On the right the twin ilex trees
formed a mass of soft imponderable gloom. Above and behind them the sky
was like smoked crystal. The lawn lay open and vacant. Upon it nothing
hopped or crept. The garden birds had eaten their suppers long since,
and sought snug bosky perching places for the night. Even the unsleeping
sea was silent, the tide low and waveless, no more than a languid ripple
far out upon the shelving sands. All dwelt in calm, in a brooding
tranquillity which might be felt.

Damaris listened to the silence, until her ears began to suspect its
sincerity. Sounds were there in plenty, she believed, were her hearing
sharp enough to detect them. They naughtily played hide-and-seek with
her, striking a chord too deep or too thinly acute for human sense.
Sights were there too, had her eyes but a cat's or an owl's keener
faculty of seeing. Behind the tranquillity she apprehended movement and
action employing a medium, obeying impulses, to us unknown. Restfulness
fled away, but, in place of it, interest grew. If she concentrated her
attention and listened more carefully, she should hear; looked more
steadily, she should see.

Just because she was tired, a little shattered still and spent, did this
predominance of outward nature draw her, imposing itself. It beckoned
her; and, through passing deficiency of will, she followed its beckoning,
making no serious effort to resist. With the consequence she presently
did hear sounds, but sounds surely real and recognizable enough.

Coming from the shore eastwards, below the sea-wall along the river
frontage, ponies walked, or rather floundered, fetlock deep in blown
sand--a whole drove of them to judge by the confused and muffled
trampling of their many hoofs. The drop from the top of the sea-wall to
the beach was too great, and the space between the foot of the wall and
the river-bank and breakwater too confined, for her to see the animals,
even had not oncoming darkness rendered all objects increasingly
ill-defined.

But the confused trampling instead of keeping along the foreshore, as in
all reason it should, now came up and over the sea-wall, on to the
battery, into the garden, heading towards the house, Damaris strained her
eyes through the tranquil obscurity, seeking visible cause of this
advancing commotion, but without effect. Yet all the while, as her
hearing clearly testified, the unseen ponies hustled one another,
plunging, shying away from the swish and crack of a long-thonged whip.
One stumbled and rolled over in the sand.--For although the mob was
half-way up the lawn by now, the shuffling, sliding sand stayed always
with them.--After a nasty struggle it got on to its feet, tottering
forward under savage blows, dead lame. Another, a laggard, fell into its
tracks, and lay there foundered, rattling in the throat.

By this time the foremost of the drove came abreast the house front,
where Sir Charles Verity's three ground-floor rooms, with the corridor
behind them, ranged out from the main building. The many-paned
semicircular windows of these rooms dimly glistened, below their
fan-shaped, slated roofs. The crowding scurry of scared, over-driven
animals was so indisputable that Damaris expected a universal smashing of
glass. But the sound of many hoofs, still muted by sliding sand, passed
straight on into and through the house as though no obstacle intervened
barring progress.

The many-paned windows remained intact, undemolished, dimly glistening
beneath their slated roofs. The garden stretched vacant, as before, right
away to the battery, in the elusive twilight, a sky of smoked
crystal--through which stars began to show faintly, points of cold
blurred light--above the gloom of the ilex trees to the west, and in the
south, above the indistinguishable sea, the slender moon hanging upright,
silver and sickle-shaped.

Thus far Damaris' entire consciousness had resided in and been limited to
her auditory sense; concentration being too absorbed and intense to allow
room for reasoning, still less for scepticism or even astonishment. She
had watched with her ears--as the blind watch--desperate to interpret,
instant by instant, inch by inch, this reconstructed tragedy of long-dead
man and long-dead beast. There had been no thinking round the central
interest, no attempted reading of its bearing upon normal events. Mind
and imagination were fascinated by it to the exclusion of all else. It
acted as an extravagant dream acts, abrogating all known laws of cause
and effect, giving logic and science the lie, negativing probability,
making the untrue true, the impossible convincingly manifest.

Not, indeed, until she beheld Mary Fisher, deep-bosomed and comely, in
black gown, white apron and cap, moving within those rooms
downstairs--still echoing, as they surely must, to that tumultuous and
rather ghastly equine transit--did the extraordinary character of the
occurrence flash into fullness of relief.

Mary, meanwhile, set down her flat candlestick upon the big writing-table
in Sir Charles's study, lighted lamps and drew blinds and curtains. Went
into the bedroom next door and dressing-room beyond, methodically
performing the evening ritual of "shutting up." Her shadow marched with
her, as though mockingly assisting in her operations, now crouching, now
leaping ahead, blotting a ceiling, extending itself upon a wall space.
Other shadows, thrown by the furniture, came forth and leapt also,
pranced, skipping back into hiding as the candle-light shifted and
passed. But save this indirect admission of the immaterial and grotesque,
everything showed reassuringly ordinary, the woman herself unconcerned,
ignorant of disturbance.

Damaris rose from her kneeling posture upon the window-seat and,
standing, lowered the sash. Once was enough. It was no longer incumbent
upon her to listen or to look. If these ghostly phenomena were repeated
they could convey nothing more to her, nothing fresh. They had delivered
their message--one addressed wholly and solely to herself, so she judged,
since Mary had so conspicuously no suspicion of it.

Our maiden's lips were dry. Her heart beat in her ears. Yet she was in no
degree unnerved. Seldom indeed had she been more mistress of her powers,
self-realized and vigilant. Nor did she feel tired any more, infirm of
will and spent. Rather was she consciously resolute to encounter and
withstand events--of what order she did not know as yet but events of
moment and far-reaching result, already on the road, journeying toward
her hotfoot. They were designed to test and try her. Would do their
utmost to overwhelm, to submerge her, were she weak. But she didn't
intend them to submerge her. She bade weakness quit, all her young
courage rising in arms.

The marvellous things she just now heard, so nearly saw--for it had come
very near to seeing, hadn't?--were _avant couriers_ of these same
journeying events, their appointed prelude. She could explain neither how
nor why--but, very certainly, somehow. Nor could she explain the
relation--if any--coupling together the said marvels heard and the
events. Nevertheless, she knew the former rode ahead, whether in
malignity or mercy, to forewarn her. This place, The Hard, in virtue of
its numerous vicissitudes of office and of ownership, of the memories and
traditions which it harboured, both sinister, amiable, erudite,
passionate, was singularly sentient, replete with influences. In times of
strain and stress the normal wears thin, and such lurking influences are
released. They break bounds, shouting--to such as have the psychic
genius--convincing testimony of their existence.

All this Damaris perceived, standing in the middle of the room while the
silver crescent moon looked in at her. The stillness once again was
absolute. The dusk, save where the windows made pale squares upon the
carpet, thick. The four-post bed, gay enough by day with hangings and
valences patterned in roses on a yellow ground, looked cavernous.
Carteret would lie under its black canopy to-night if--

"If all goes well."

Damaris said the words aloud, her thought becoming personal and
articulate.

Once before she had heard the smugglers' ponies, waiting in this same
room. Waiting at the open window to catch the first rumble of the wheels
of a returning carriage. Her poor dear Nannie, Sarah Watson, was
returning home after a summer holiday spent with her own people in the
north. And Damaris, younger then by nearly five years, had listened
impatiently, ready to skirmish down into the front hall--directly the
carriage turned the elbow of the drive--and enclose her faithful nurse
and foster-mother in arms of child-like love. But destiny ruled otherwise.
In vain she waited. Sarah Watson returned no more, death having elected
to take her rather horribly to himself some hours previously amid the
flaming wreckage of a derailed express.

What did this second hearing presage? A like vain waiting and disclosure
of death-dealing accident? Notwithstanding her attitude of high
resolution, the question challenged Damaris in sardonic fashion from
beneath the black canopy of the great bed. Her hand went up to the string
of pearls which, on a sudden, grew heavy about her throat.

"But not--not--pray God, the dear man with the blue eyes," she cried.

She was glad to be alone, in the encompassing semi-dark, for a warm wave
of emotion swept over her, an ardour hardly of the spiritual sort. Had
she deceived herself? Was she, in truth, desirous Carteret should
approach her solely according to that earlier manner, in which she so
simply trusted him? Did she hail his coming as that of a wise counsellor
merely--or--

But here Mary--still pursuing the time-honoured ritual of shutting
up--entered candle in hand, the landing showing brightly lit behind her.

"Dear heart alive!" she exclaimed, "whoever's that? You, Miss Damaris?
Alone here in the dark. You did make me jump. But there," she added,
repentant of her unceremonious exclamation, "I don't know what possesses
us all to-night. The least thing seems to make you jump. Mrs. Cooper's
all of a twitter, and Laura--silly girl--is almost as bad. I suppose it's
the weather being so quiet after yesterday's gale. For my own part I
always do like a wind about. It seems company, particularly these long
evenings if you're called on to go round the house by yourself."

All of which amounted to an admission, as Damaris was not slow to detect.
She was still under the empire of emotion. The abrupt intrusion affected
her. She, too, needed to carry off the situation.

"Poor Mary," she said, "you have been frightened--by what? Did you hear
anything you could not account for when you were down in the library
just now?"

The answer came after a pause, as though the speaker were suspicious,
slightly unwilling to commit herself.

"No, Miss Damaris, not in Sir Charles's rooms or in the west wing either.
Whatever unaccountable noises there ever is belong to this old part of
the house."

She set her candlestick on the dressing-table, and went to each window in
turn, drawing blinds down and curtains across. So doing she continued to
talk, moving to and fro meanwhile with a firm, light tread.

"Not that I pay much attention to such things myself. I don't hold it's
right. It's my opinion there's no sort of nonsense you can't drive
yourself into believing once you let ideas get a root in you. I've seen
too much of Mrs. Cooper giving away like that. The two winters you and
Sir Charles was abroad I'd a proper upset with her--though we are good
friends--more than once. After sundown she was enough to terrify you out
of your life--wouldn't go here and wouldn't go there for fear of she
didn't know what. Tempting Providence, I call it, and spoke to her quite
sharp. If ever I wanted to go over to spend an hour or two with father
and mother in Marychurch, I was bound to ask Mrs. Patch and the children
to come in and keep her company. There's no sense in putting yourself
into such a state. It makes you a trouble to yourself and everybody else.
And in the end, a thousand to one if anything comes of all the turmoil
and fuss--Mrs. Cooper, to be only fair to her, when she's in a reasonable
humour, allows as much."

Mary stepped across to the bed and doubled back the quilt, preparatory to
turning down the fine linen sheet. She felt she had extracted herself
from a somewhat invidious position with flying colours; and, in the
process, had administered timely advice. For it wasn't suitable Miss
Damaris should be moping alone upstairs at odd times like this. It all
came of yesterday's upset.--Her righteous anger blazed against the
clerical culprit. In that connection there was other matter of which she
craved to deliver herself--refreshing items of local gossip, sweet as
honey to the mouth did she but dare retail them. She balanced the
question this way and that. Would satisfaction outweigh offence, or
offence satisfaction, on the part of Miss Damaris? You could not be sure
how she'd take things--quite. And yet she ought to know, for the affair
certainly placed Captain Faircloth in a pleasant light. Only one who was
every inch a gentleman would behave so handsomely as he had.

She stretched across the bed to smooth the slightly wrinkled surface of
the sheet. This gymnastic feat necessitated the averting of her face and
turning of her back.

"There's a fine tale going round of how the Island lads--wild young
fellows ready for any pranks--served Mr. Sawyer, the curate," she began.
"They say William Jennifer put them up to it, having a grudge against him
for trying to get his youngest boy taken up for stealing apples last
week. They planned to give him a ducking in the pool just above the
ferry, where the water's so deep under the bank. And if Captain Faircloth
hadn't happened to come along, for certain they'd have made Mr. Sawyer
swim for it. Mr. Patch hears they handled him ever so rough, tore his
coat, and were on the very tick of pitching him in. But Captain Faircloth
would not suffer it. He took a very high line with them, it is said. And
not content with getting Mr. Sawyer away, walked with him as far as the
Grey House to protect him from any further interference."

She gave the pillows sundry judicious strokings and pats.

"I hope Mr. Sawyer's properly thankful, for it isn't many that would have
shown him so much leniency as that."

She would have enjoyed labouring the point. But comment appeared to her,
under the circumstances, to trench on impertinence. Facts spoke for
themselves. She restrained herself, fetched her candlestick from the
dressing-table, and stood by the open door, thereby enjoining her young
lady's exit.

Thus far Damaris maintained silence, but in passing out on to the
landing, she said--"Thank you. I am glad to know what has happened."

Encouraged by which acknowledgment, the excellent woman ventured
further advice.

"And now, miss, you must please just lie down on the schoolroom sofa and
get a little sleep before the gentlemen and Mr. Hordle arrive back. There
is a good two hours to wait yet, and I'll call you in plenty of time for
you to dress. You don't look altogether yourself, miss. Too much talking
with all that host of callers. You are properly fagged out. I'll get Mrs.
Cooper to beat up an egg for you in a tumbler of hot milk, with a
tablespoonful of sherry and just a pinch of sugar in it. That will get
your circulation right."




CHAPTER VI

SHOWING HOW SIR CHARLES VERITY WAS JUSTIFIED OF HIS LABOURS


Which homely programme being duly executed, worked restorative wonders.
Matter, in the sublimated form of egg-flip, acted upon mind beneficially
through the functions of a healthy, if weary, young body. Our maiden
slept, to dream not of ghostly ponies or other uncomfortably discarnate
creatures; but of Darcy Faircloth in his pretty piece of Quixotism,
rescuing a minister of the Church of England "as by law established" from
heretical baptismal rites of total immersion. The picture had a rough
side to it, and also a merry one; but, beyond these, generous dealing
wholly delightful to her feeling. She awoke soothed and restored, ready
to confront the oncoming of events--whatever their character--in a spirit
of high confidence as well as of resolution.

With the purpose of advertising this brave humour she dressed herself in
her best. I do not deny a love of fine clothes in Damaris. Yet in her own
home, and for delectation of the men belonging to her, a woman is surely
free to deck herself as handsomely as her purse allows. "Beauty
unadorned" ceased to be practicable, in self-respecting circles, with the
expulsion of our first parents from the paradisaic state; while beauty
merely dowdy, is a pouring of contempt on one of God's best gifts to the
human race. Therefore I find no fault with Damaris, upon this rather
fateful evening, in that she clothed herself in a maize-coloured silk
gown flowered in faint amber and faint pink. Cut in the piece from
shoulder to hem, according to a then prevailing fashion, it moulded
bosom, waist and haunches, spreading away into a demi-train behind. The
high Medici collar of old lace, at the back of the square décolletage,
conferred dignity; the hanging lace of the elbow sleeves a lightness. Her
hair, in two wide plaits, bound her head smoothly, save where soft
disobedient little curls, refusing restriction, shaded her forehead and
the nape of her neck.

After a few seconds of silent debate she clasped Carteret's pearls about
her throat again; and so fared away, a creature of radiant aspect, amid
sombre setting of low ceilings and dark carpeted floors, to await the
advent of the travellers.

These arrived some little while before their time, so that the girl, in
her gleaming dress, had gone but half-way down the staircase when they
came side by side into the hall.--Two very proper gentlemen, the moist
freshness of the night attending them, a certain nobility in their
bearing which moved her to enthusiasm, momentarily even bringing a mist
before her eyes. For they were safe and well both of them, so she
joyously registered, serene of countenance, moreover, as bearers of glad
tidings are. Whatever the ghostly ponies foretold could be no evil
shadowing them--for which she gave God thanks.

Meanwhile, there without, the light of the carriage lamps pierced the
enclosing gloom, played on the silver plating of harness, on the shining
coats of the horses, whose nostrils sent out jets of pale steam. Played
over the faces of the servants, too, Mary and Laura just within the open
door, Hordle and Conyers outside loading down the baggage from the back
of the mail-phaeton, and on Patch, exalted high above them on the
driving-seat.

As Damaris paused, irradiated by the joy of welcome and of forebodings
falsified, upon the lowest step of the staircase, Sir Charles turned
aside and tenderly kissed her.

"My darling," he said.

And Carteret, following him an instant later, took her by both hands and,
from arm's length, surveyed her in smiling admiration he made no effort
to repress.

"Dear witch, this is unexpected good fortune. I had little thought of
seeing you so soon--resplendent being that you are, veritably clothed
with sunshine."

"And with your pearls," she gaily said.

"Ah! my poor pearls," he took her up lightly. "I am pleased they still
find favour in your sight. But aren't you curious to learn what has made
us desert our partridge shooting at an hour's notice, granting the pretty
little beggars unlooked-for length of life?"

His blue eyes laughed into hers. There was a delightful atmosphere about
him. Something had happened to him surely--for wasn't he, after all, a
young man even yet?

"Yes--what--what has brought you, Colonel Sahib?" Damaris laughed back at
him, bubbling over with happy excitement.

"Miracles," he answered. "A purblind Government at last admits the error
of its ways and proposes to make reparation for its neglect of a notable
public-servant."

"You?" she cried.

Carteret shook his head, still surveying her but with a soberer glance.

"No--no--not me. In any case there isn't any indebtedness to
acknowledge--no arrears to pay off. I have my deserts.--To a man
immensely my superior. Look nearer home, dear witch."

He made a gesture in the direction of his host.

"My Commissioner Sahib?"

"Yes--your Commissioner Sahib, who comes post haste to request your dear
little permission, before accepting this tardy recognition of his
services to the British Empire."

"Ah! but that's too much!" the girl said softly, glancing from one to the
other, enchanted and abashed by the greatness of their loyalty to and
prominent thought of her.

"Has this made him happy?" she asked Carteret, under her breath. "He
looks so, I think. How good that this has come in time--that it hasn't
come too late."

For, in the midst of her joyful excitement, a shadow crossed Damaris'
mind oddly obscuring the light. She suffered a perception things might so
easily have turned out otherwise; a suspicion that, had the reparation of
which Carteret spoke been delayed, even by a little, its beloved
recipient would no longer have found use for or profit in it. Damaris
fought the black thought, as ungrateful and faithless. To fear disaster
is too often to invite it.

Just at this juncture Miss Felicia made hurried and gently eager
irruption into the hall; and with that irruption the tone of prevailing
sentiment declined upon the somewhat trivial, even though warmly
affectionate. For she fluttered round Sir Charles, as Mary Fisher helped
divest him of his overcoat, in sympathetic overflowings of the simplest
sort.--"She had been reading and failed to hear the carriage, hence her
tardy appearance. Let him come into the drawing-room at once, out of
these draughts. There was a delightful wood fire and he must be chilled.
The drive down the valley was always so cold at night--particularly where
the road runs through the marsh lands by Lampit."

In her zeal of welcome Miss Verity was voluble to the point of
inconsequence, not to say incoherence. Questions poured from her. She
appeared agitated, quaintly self-conscious, so at least it occurred to
Damaris. Finally she addressed Carteret.

"And you too must be frozen," she declared. "How long it is since we met!
I have always been so unlucky in just missing you here! Really I believe
I have only seen you once since you and Charles stayed with us at Canton
Magna.--You were both on leave from India. I dare not think how many
years ago that is--before this child"--her candid eyes appealingly sought
those of Damaris--"before this child existed. And you are so wonderfully
unaltered."

Colour dyed her thin face and rather scraggy neck. Only the young should
blush. After forty such involuntary exhibitions of emotion are
unattractive, questionably even pathetic.

"Really time has stood still with you--it seems to me, Colonel Carteret."

"Time has done better than stand still," Damaris broke in, with a rather
surprising imperiousness. "It has beautifully run backwards--lately."

And our maiden, in her whispering gleaming dress, swept down from the
step, swept past the sadly taken aback Miss Felicia, and joined her
father. She put her hand within his arm.

"Come and warm yourself--come, dearest," she said, gently drawing him
onward into the long room, where from above the range of dark
bookshelves, goggle-eyed, pearl-grey Chinese goblins and monsters, and
oblique-eyed Chinese philosophers and saints looked mysteriously down
through the warm mellow light.

Damaris was conscious of a singular inward turmoil. For Miss Felicia's
speeches found small favour in her ears. She resented this open claiming
of Carteret as a member of the elder generation. Still more resented her
own relegation to the nullity of the prenatal state. Reminiscences, in
which she had neither lot nor part, left her cold. Or, to be accurate,
bred in her an intemperate heat, putting a match to jealousies which,
till this instant, she had no knowledge of. Touched by that match they
flared to the confusion of charity and reverence. Hence, impulsively,
unscrupulously, yet with ingenious unkindness, she struck--her tongue a
sword--to the wounding of poor Miss Felicia. And she felt no necessity
for apology. She liked to be unkind. She liked to strike. Aunt Felicia
should not have been so self-assertive, so tactless. She had brought
chastisement upon herself. It wasn't like her to behave thus. Her
enthusiasms abounded; but she possessed a delicate appreciation of
relative positions. She never poached. This came perilously near
poaching.--And everything had danced to so inspiring a tune, the movement
of it so delicious! Now the evening was spoilt. The first fine alacrity
of it could not be recaptured--which was all Aunt Felicia's fault.--No,
for her unkindness Damaris felt no regret.

It may be remarked that our angry maiden's mind dwelt rather upon the
snub she had inflicted on Miss Verity, than upon the extensive compliment
she had paid, and the challenge she had delivered, to Carteret. Hearing
her flattering declaration, his mind not unnaturally dwelt more upon the
latter. It took him like a blow, so that from bending courteously over
the elder lady's hand, he straightened himself with a jerk. His eyes
followed the imperious, sun-clad young figure, questioning and keenly
alert. To-day he had liberally enjoyed the pleasures of friendship, for
Charles Verity had been largely and generously elate. But Damaris'
outburst switched feeling and sentiment onto other lines. They became
personal. Were her words thrown off in mere lightness of heart, or had
she spoken deliberately, with intention? It were wiser, perhaps, not to
ask. He steadied his attention on to Miss Felicia once more, but not
without effort.

"You always said kind and charming things, I remember," so he told her.
"You are good enough to say them still."

Damaris stood by her father, upon the tiger skin before the hearth.

"Tell me, dearest?" she prayed him.

Charles Verity put his hand under her chin, turned up her face and looked
searchingly at her. Her beauty to-night was conspicuous and of noble
quality. It satisfied his pride. Public life invited him, offering him
place and power. Ranklings of disappointment, of detraction and slight,
were extinguished. His soul was delivered from the haunting vexations of
them. He was in the saddle again, and this radiant woman-child, whom he
so profoundly loved, should ride forth with him for all the world to
see--if she pleased. That she would please he had no doubt. Pomp and
circumstance would suit her well. She was, moreover, no slight or frothy
piece of femininity; but could be trusted, amid the glamour of new and
brilliant conditions, to use her judgment and to keep her head.
Increasingly he respected her character as well as her intelligence. He
found in her unswerving sense of right and wrong, sense of honour
likewise. Impetuous she might be, swift to feel and to revolt; but of
tender conscience and, on occasion, royally compassionate. Now he could
give her fuller opportunity. Could place her in circumstances admittedly
enviable and prominent. From a comparative back-water, she should gain
the full stream--and that stream, in a sense, at the flood.

Rarely, if ever, had Charles Verity experienced purer pleasure, touched a
finer level of purpose and of hope than to-day, when thinking of and now
when looking upon Damaris. He thankfully appraised her worth, and in
spirit bowed before it, not doatingly or weakly but with reasoned
conviction. Weighed in the balances she would not be found wanting, such
was his firm belief. For himself he accepted this recall to active
participation in affairs, active service to the State, with a lofty
content. But that his daughter, in the flower of her young womanhood,
would profit by this larger and more distinguished way of life, gave the
said recall its deeper values and its zest.

Still he put her off awhile as to the exact announcement, smiling upon
her in fond, yet stately approval.

"Let the telling keep until after dinner, my dear," he bade her. "Pacify
the cravings of the natural man for food and drink. The day has been
fertile in demands--strenuous indeed to the point of fatigue. So let us
comfort ourselves inwardly and materially before we affront weighty
decisions."

He kissed her cheek.

"By the way, though, does it ever occur to you to think of the Bhutpur
Sultan-i-bagh and wish to go East again?"

And Damaris, with still uplifted chin, surveyed him gravely and with a
certain wistfulness, Miss Felicia's attempted poaching forgotten and an
impression of Faircloth vividly overtaking her. For they were so
intimately, disturbingly alike, the father and the son, in voice as well
as in build and feature.

"Go East?" she said, Faircloth's declared preference for sailing into the
sunrise present to her. "Why, I go East in my dreams nearly every night.
I love it--love it more rather than less as I grow older. Of course I
wish to go--some day. But that's by the way, Commissioner Sahib. All that
I really want, now, at once, is to go wherever you go, stay wherever you
stay. You won't ask me to agree to any plan which parts us, will
you?--which takes you away from me?"

"Ruth to a strange Naomi, my dear," he answered. "But so be it. I desire
nothing better than to have you always with me.--But I will not keep you
on tenter-hooks as to your and my projected destination. Let them bring
in dinner in half an hour. Carteret and I shall be ready. Meanwhile, read
this--agreeing to relegate discussion of it to a less hungry season."

And taking the letter she had forwarded to him yesterday, bearing the
imprint of the Indian Office, from the breast pocket of his shooting
coat, he put it into her hand.

The appointment--namely, that of Lieutenant-Governor of an Indian
presidency famous in modern history, a cradle of great reputations and
great men, of English names to conjure with while our Eastern Empire
endures--was offered, in terms complimentary above those common to
official communications. Sir Charles Verity's expert knowledge, not only
of the said mighty province but of the turbulent kingdom lying beyond its
frontiers, marked him as peculiarly fitted for the post. A campaign
against that same turbulent kingdom had but recently been brought to a
victorious conclusion. His influence, it was felt, might be of supreme
value at this juncture in the maintenance of good relations, and
consolidation of permanent peace.

Damaris' heart glowed within her as she read the courteous praiseful
sentences. Even more than through the well-merited success of his book,
did her father thus obtain and come into the fullness of his own at last.
Her imagination glowed, too, calling up pictures of the half-remembered,
half-fabulous oriental scene. The romance of English rule in India, the
romance of India itself, its variety, its complexity, the multitude of
its gods, the multitude of its peoples, hung before her as a mirage,
prodigal in marvels, reaching back and linking up through the centuries
with the hidden wisdom, the hidden terror of the Ancient of Days.

To this land of alien faiths and secular wonders, she found herself
summoned, not as casual sightseer or tourist, but as among the handful of
elect persons who count in its social, political and administrative life.
In virtue of her father's position, her own would be both conspicuous and
assured. An intoxicating prospect this for a girl of one-and-twenty!
Intoxicating, yet, as she envisaged it, disquieting likewise. She
balanced on the thought of all it demanded as well as all it offered, of
all it required from her--dazed by the largeness of the purview, volition
in suspense.

Carteret was the first to reappear, habited in the prescribed black and
white of evening male attire. In the last six months he had, perhaps, put
on flesh; but this without detriment to the admirable proportions of his
figure. It retained its effect of perfect response to the will within,
and all its natural grace. His fair hair and moustache were still almost
untouched with grey. His physical attraction, in short, remained
unimpaired. And of this Damaris was actually, if unconsciously, sensible
as he closed the door and, passing between the stumpy pillars, walked up
the long narrow room and stood, his hands behind him, his back to the
pleasantly hissing and crackling fire of driftwood.

"Alone, dear witch?" he said, and, seeing the open letter in her
hand--"Well, what do you make of this proposition?" And yet again, as she
raised serious pondering eyes--"You find it an extensive order?"

"I find it magnificent for him--beautifully as it should be, adequate
and right."

"And for yourself?" Carteret asked, aware of a carefulness in her
language and intrigued by it.

"Magnificent for me, too--though it takes away my breath."

"You must learn to breathe deeper, that's all," he returned, gently
teasing her.

"And who is to teach me to breathe deeper, dear Colonel Sahib," she
quickly, and rather embarrassingly, asked. "Not my father. He'll have
innumerable big things to do and to do them without waste of energy he
must be saved at every point. He must not fritter away strength in
coaching me in my odds and ends of duties, still less in covering up my
silly mistakes."

"Oh! you exaggerate difficulties," he said, looking not at her but at the
fierce yellow and black striped tiger skin at his feet.--Bless the lovely
child, what was she driving at?

Carteret started for Deadham under the impression he had himself
thoroughly in hand, and that all danger of certain inconvenient emotions
was passed. He had lived them down, cast them out. For over two years now
he had given himself to the superintendence of his estate, to county
business, to the regulation of his sister's--happily more
prosperous--affairs, to the shepherding of his two elder nephews in their
respective professions and securing the two younger ones royally good
times during their holidays at home. Throughout the hunting season,
moreover, he rode to hounds on an average of three days a week. Such
healthy sport helps notably to deliver a man from vain desires, by
sending his body cleanly weary to bed and to sleep o' nights.

By such varied activities had Carteret systematically essayed to rid
himself of his somewhat exquisite distemper, and, when coming to Deadham,
honestly believed himself immune, sane and safe. He was proportionately
disturbed by finding the cure of this autumn love-madness less complete
than, fool-like, he had supposed. For it showed disquieting signs of
resurrection even when Damaris, arrayed in the sheen of silken sunlight,
greeted him at the staircase foot, and an alarming disposition finally to
fling away head-cloth and winding-sheet when she petulantly broke in upon
Miss Verity's faded memories of Canton Magna with the flattering
assertion that time had run backward with him of late.

Now alone with her, confident, moreover, of her maidenly doubts
and pretty self-distrust, he felt at a decided disadvantage. The
detached, affectionately friendly, the avuncular--not to say
grandfatherly--attitude escaped him. He could not play that part.

"Oh! you exaggerate difficulties," he therefore told her, with a
singular absence of his habitual mansuetude, his tone trenching on
impatience. "Instinct and common sense will teach you-mother-wit, too-of
which, you may take it from me, you have enough and to spare.-Let alone
that there will be a host of people emulous of guiding your steps aright,
if your steps should stand in need of guidance which I venture to doubt.
Don't underrate your own cleverness." Hearing him, sensible of his
apparent impatience and misconceiving the cause of it, Damaris' temper
stirred. She felt vexed. She also felt injured.

 "What has happened to you, Colonel Sahib?" she asked him squarely. "I
 see nothing foolish in what I have said. You wouldn't have me so
 conceited that I rushed into this immense business without a qualm,
 without any thought whether I can carry it out creditably--with credit
 to him, I mean?"

 Thus astonishingly attacked, Carteret hedged.

 "Miss Verity, of course, will be"--he began.

 Damaris cut him short.

 "Aunt Felicia is an angel, a darling," she declared, "but--but"--

 And there stopped, pricked by a guilty conscience. For to expose Miss
 Felicia's inadequacies and enlarge on her ineligibility for the position
 of feminine Chief of the Staff, struck her as unworthy, a meanness to
 which, under existing circumstances, she could not condescend to stoop.

 Carteret looked up, to be entranced not only by the fair spectacle of
 her youth but by her delicious little air of shame and self-reproach.
 Evidently she had caught herself out in some small naughtiness--was both
 penitent and defiant, at once admitting her fault and pleading for
 indulgence. He suspected some thought at the back of her mind which he
 could neither exactly seize nor place. She baffled him with her changes
 of mood and of direction--coming close and then slipping from under his
 hand. This humour was surely new in her. She would not leave him alone,
 would not let him rest. Had she developed, since last he had converse
 with her, into a practised coquette?

"Look here, dear witch," he said, making a return upon himself, and
manfully withstanding the sweet provocation of her near neighbourhood.
"We seem to be queerly at cross purposes. I can't pretend to follow the
turnings and doublings of your ingenious mind. I gather there is
something you want of me. To be plain, then, what is it?"

"That--that you shouldn't desert me--desert us--in this crisis. You have
never deserted me before--never since I can first remember."

"I desert you--good Lord!" Carteret exclaimed, his hands dropping at his
sides with an odd sort of helplessness.

"Ah! that's asking too much, I suppose," she said. "I'm selfish even to
think of it. Yet how can I do otherwise? Don't you understand how all
difficulties would vanish, and how beautifully simple and easy everything
would be if you coached me--if you, dear Colonel Sahib, went with us?"

The man with the blue eyes looked down at the tiger skin again, his
countenance strained and blanched.

More than ever did he find her humour baffling. Not once nor twice had
he, putting force upon himself, resisted the temptation to woo
her--witness his retirement from St. Augustin and his determined
abstinence from intercourse with her since. But now, so it might
veritably appear, the positions were reversed and she wooed him. Though
whether pushed to that length merely by wayward fancy, by some
transient skittish influence or frolic in the blood, or by realized
design he had no means of judging.--Well, he had bidden her be plain,
and she, in some sort at least, obeyed him. It behooved him, therefore,
to be plain in return, in as far as a straightforward reading of her
meaning would carry.

"So you think all would be simple and easy were I to go with you and your
father?" he said, both speech and manner tempered to gentleness. "I am
glad to have you think so--should be still more glad could I share your
belief. But I know better, dearest witch--know that you are mistaken.
This is no case of desertion--put that out of your precious mind once
and for all--but of discretion. My being in attendance, far from
simplifying, would embroil and distort your position. An elderly
gentleman perpetually trotting"--

"Don't," Damaris cried, holding up both hands in hot repudiation. "Don't
say that. There's distortion if you like! It's ugly--I won't have it, for
it is not true."

In the obvious sincerity of which denunciation Carteret found balm; yet
adhered to his purpose.

"But it is true, alas; and I therefore repeat it both for your admonition
and my own. For an elderly gentleman trotting at a young girl's heels is
a most unedifying spectacle--giving occasion, and reasonably, to the
enemy to blaspheme--bad for her in numberless ways; and, if he's any
remnant of self-respect left in him, is anything better than a fatuous
dotard, damnably bad for him as well. Do you understand?"

Damaris presented a mutinous countenance. She would have had much ado to
explain her own motives during this ten minutes' conference. If her
mental--or were they not rather mainly emotional?--turnings and doublings
proved baffling to her companion, they proved baffling to herself in an
almost greater degree. Things in general seemed to have gone into the
melting-pot. So many events had taken place, so many more been
preshadowed, so many strains of feeling excited! And these were
confusingly unrelated, or appeared to be so as yet. Amongst the confusion
of them she found no sure foothold, still less any highway along which to
travel in confidence and security. Her thought ran wild. Her intentions
ran with it, changing their colour chameleon-like from minute to minute.
Now she was tempted to make an equivocal rejoinder.

"To understand," she said, "is not always, Colonel Sahib, necessarily
to agree."

"I am satisfied with understanding and don't press for agreement," he
answered, and on an easier note--"since to me it is glaringly evident
you should take this fine flight unhandicapped. My duty is to stand
aside and leave you absolutely free--not because I enjoy standing aside,
but"--he would allow sentiment such meagre indulgence--"just exactly
because I do not."

Here for the second time, at the crucial moment, Felicia Verity made
irruption upon the scene. But though her entrance was hurried, it
differed fundamentally from that earlier one; so that both the man and
the girl, standing in the proximity of their intimate colloquy before the
fire, were sensible of and arrested by it. She was self-forgetful,
self-possessed, the exalted touch of a pure devotion upon her.

"I have been with my brother Charles," she began, addressing them both.
"I happened to see Hordle coming from the library--and I put off dinner.
I thought, darling"--this to Damaris, with a becoming hint of
deference--"I might do so. I gathered that Charles--that your
father--wished it. He has not been feeling well."

And as Damaris anxiously exclaimed--

"Yes"--Miss Felicia went on--"not at all well. Hordle told me. That was
why I went to the library. He hoped, if he waited and rested for a little
while, the uncomfortable sensations might subside and it would be
needless to mention them. He did not want any fuss made. We gave him
restoratives, and he recovered from the faintness. But he won't be equal,
he admits, to coming in to dinner. Colonel Carteret must be hungry--your
father begs us to wait no longer, I assured him we would not. Hordle is
with him. He should not be alone, I think, while any pain continues."

"Pain--pain?" Damaris cried, her imagination rather horribly caught by
the word. "But is he hurt, has he had some accident?"

While Carteret asked tersely: "Pain--and where?"

"Here," Felicia answered, laying her hand upon her left side over the
heart. She looked earnestly at Carteret as she spoke, conveying to him an
alarm she sought to spare Damaris.

"He tries to make little of it, and assures me it was only the heat of
the house which caused him discomfort after the cold air out of doors.
It may be only that, but I think we ought to make sure."

Again, and with that same becoming hint of deference, she turned to
her niece.

"So I sent orders that Patch should drive at once to Stourmouth and fetch
Dr. McCabe. I did not stop to consult you because it seemed best he
should take out the horses before they were washed down and stabled."

"Yes--but I can go to him?" Damaris asked.

"Darling--of course. But I would try to follow his lead, if I were
you--treat it all lightly, since he so wishes. Your father knows best in
most things--and may know best in this. Please God it is so."

Left alone with Carteret.

"I am anxious--most cruelly anxious about my brother," she said.

While Damaris, sweeping across the hall and down the corridor in her
sunshine silken dress, repeated:

"The ponies--the smugglers' ponies," a sob in her throat.




CHAPTER VII

TELLING HOW CHARLES VERITY LOOKED ON THE MOTHER OF HIS SON


"Which is equivalent to saying, 'Hear the conclusion of the whole
matter,' isn't it, McCabe?"

Dr. McCabe's square, hairy-backed hands fumbled with the stethoscope as
he pushed it into his breast pocket, and, in replying, his advertised
cheerfulness rang somewhat false.

"Not so fast, Sir Charles--in the good Lord's name, not so fast. While
there's life there's hope, it's me settled opinion. I'm never for signing
a patient's death-warrant before the blessed soul of him's entirely
parted company with its mortal tenement of clay. The normal human being
takes a mighty lot of killing in my experience, where the will to live is
still intact. Let alone that you can never be quite upsides with Nature.
Ah! she's an astonishing box of tricks to draw on where final
dissolution's concerned. She glories to turn round on your pathological
and biological high science; and, while you're measuring a man for his
coffin, to help him give death the slip."

Charles Verity slightly shifted his position--and that with singular
carefulness--against the pillows in the deep red-covered chair. His
hands, inert and bluish about the finger-tips, lay along the padded arms
of it. The jacket of his grey-and-white striped flannel sleeping-suit was
unfastened at the throat, showing the irregular lift and fall of his
chest with each laboured breath. His features were accentuated, his face
drawn and of a surprising pallor.

The chair, in which he sat, had been brought forward into the wide arc of
the great window forming the front of the room. Two bays of this stood
open down to the ground. Looking out, beyond the rich brown of the
newly-turned earth in the flower-beds, the lawn stretched away--a dim
greyish green, under the long shadows cast by the hollies masking the
wall on the left, and glittering, powdered by myriads of scintillating
dewdrops, where the early sunshine slanted down on it from between their
stiff pinnacles and sharply serrated crests.

In the shrubberies robins sang, shrilly sweet. A murmur of waves,
breaking at the back of the Bar, hung in the chill, moist, windless air.
Presently a handbarrow rumbled and creaked, as West--the head gardener,
last surviving relic of Thomas Clarkson Verity's reign--wheeled it from
beneath the ilex trees towards the battery, leaving dark smudgy tracks
upon the spangled turf.

Arrived at his objective, the old gardener, with most admired
deliberation, loaded down long-handled birch-broom, rake and hoe; and
applied himself to mysterious peckings and sweeping of the gravel around
the wooden carriages of the little cannon and black pyramid of
ball.--Man, tools, and barrow were outlined against the pensive
brightness of autumn sea and autumn sky, which last, to southward, still
carried remembrance of sunrise in a broad band of faint yellowish pink,
fading upward into misty azure and barred with horizontal pencillings of
tarnished silver cloud.

Thus far Charles Verity had watched the progress of the bowed,
slow-moving figure musingly. But now, as the iron of the hoe clinked
against the gravel flints, he came back, so to say, to himself and back
to the supreme question at issue. He looked up, his eyes and the
soundless ironic laughter resident in them, meeting McCabe's twinkling,
cunning yet faithful and merry little eyes, with a flash.

"The work of the world is not arrested," he said. "See, that
octogenarian, old West. He wheeled ill-oiled, squeaking barrows and
hacked at the garden paths when I was a Harchester boy. He wheels the one
and hacks at the other even yet--a fact nicely lowering to one's private
egotism, when you come to consider it. Why, then, my good friend,
perjure yourself or strive to mince matters? The work of the world will
be done whether I'm here to direct the doing of it or not.--Granted I am
tough and in personal knowledge of ill-health a neophyte. My luck
throughout has been almost uncanny. Neither in soldiering nor in sport,
from man or from beast, have I ever suffered so much as a scratch. I have
borne a charmed life--established a record for invulnerability, which
served me well in the East where the gods still walk in the semblance of
man and miracle is still persistently prevalent. Accident has passed me
by--save for being laid up once, nearly thirty years ago, with a broken
ankle in the house of some friends at Poonah."

He ceased speaking, checking, as it seemed, disposition to further
disclosure; while the soundless laughter in his eyes found answering
expression upon his lips, curving them, to a somewhat bitter smile
beneath the flowing moustache.

"In to-day's enforced idleness how persistently cancelled episodes and
emotions rap, ghostly, on the door demanding and gaining entrance!" he
presently said. "Must we take it, Doctor, that oblivion is a fiction,
merciful forgetfulness an illusion; and that every action, every
desire--whether fulfilled or not--is printed indelibly upon one's memory,
merely waiting the hour of weakness and physical defeat to show up?"

"The Lord only knows!" McCabe threw off, a little hopelessly. This was
the first utterance approaching complaint; and he deplored it for his
patient's sake. He didn't like that word defeat.

Then, to his hearer's relief with a softened accent, Charles Verity took
up his former theme.

"Save for a trifling go of fever now and again, illness has given me the
go-by equally with accident. But, for all my ignorance of such
afflictions I know, beyond all shadow of doubt, that a few repetitions of
the experience of last night must close any man's account. Experiment is
more enlightening than argument. There is no shaking the knowledge you
arrive at through it."

McCabe, standing at ease by the open window, untidy, hirsute, unkempt,
rammed his hands down into his gaping trouser pockets and nodded
unwilling agreement.

"The attack was bad," he said. "I'm not denying it was murderously bad.
And all the harder on you because, but for the one defaulting organ, your
heart, you're as sound as a bell. You're a well enough man to put up a
good fight; and that, you see, cuts both ways, be danged to it."

"A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.--You know as well as I do
the Indian appointment will never be gazetted."

"There you have me, Sir Charles, loath though I am to admit as much. I'd
be a liar if I denied it would not."

"How long do you give me then? Months, or only weeks?"

"That depends in the main on yourself, in as far as I can presume to
pronounce. With care"--

"Which means sitting still here"--

"It does."

Charles Verity raised his shoulders the least bit.

"Not good enough, McCabe," he declared, "not good enough. There are rites
to be duly performed, words to be said, which I refuse to neglect. Oh,
no, don't misunderstand me. I don't need professional help to accomplish
my dying. Were I a member of your communion it might be different, but I
require no much-married parsonic intermediary to make my peace with God.
I am but little troubled regarding that. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right?--Nevertheless, there remain rites to be decently
performed. I must make my peace with man--and still more with
woman--before I go hence and am no more seen. But, look here, I have no
wish to commit myself too soon, and risk the bathos of an anti-climax by
having to perform them twice, repeat them at a later date.--So how long
do you give me--weeks? Too generous an estimate? A week, then
or--well--less?"

"You want it straight?"

"I want it straight."

"More likely days. God grant I am mistaken. With your fine constitution,
as I tell you, you are booked to put up a good fight. All the same, to be
honest, Sir Charles, it was touch and go more than once last night."

In the room an interval of silence, and without song of the robins and
murmur of the sea, nearer now and louder as the rising tide lapped up the
sands at the back of the Bar. The faint yellow-pink after-thought of
sunrise and pencillings of tarnished cloud alike had vanished into the
all-obtaining misty blue of the upper sky. Heading for the French coast,
a skein of wild geese passed in wedge-shaped formation with honking cries
and the beat of strong-winged flight. The barrow creaked again, wheeled
some few yards further along the battery walk.

"Thanks--so I supposed," Sir Charles Verity calmly said.

He stretched himself, falling into a less constrained and careful
posture. Leaned his elbow on the chair-arm, his chin in the hollow of his
hand, crossed the right leg over the left.

"Twenty-four hours will give me time for all which is of vital
importance. The rest must, and no doubt perfectly will, arrange
itself.--Oh! I'll obey you within reasonable limits, McCabe. I have no
craving to hurry the inevitable conclusion. These last hours possess
considerable significance and charm--an impressiveness even, which it
would be folly to thrust aside or waste."

Once more he looked up, his tone and expression devoid now of all
bitterness.

"I propose to savour their pleasant qualities to the full. So make
yourself easy, my good fellow," he continued with an admirable
friendliness. "Go and get your breakfast. Heaven knows you've most
thoroughly earned it, and a morning pipe of peace afterwards.--The bell
upon the small table?--Yes--oh, yes--and Hordle within earshot. I've
everything I require; and, at the risk of seeming ungrateful, shall be
glad enough of a respite from this course of food and drink, potions and
poultices--remedial to the delinquent flesh no doubt, but a notable
weariness to the-spirit.--And, see here, report to the two ladies, my
sister and--and Damaris, that you leave me in excellent case, free of
discomfort, resting for a time before girding up my loins to meet the
labours of the day."

Charles Verity closed his eyes in intimation of dismissal, anxious to be
alone the better to reckon with that deeper, final loneliness which
confronted him just now in all its relentless logic.

For, though his mind remained lucid, self-realized and observant, his
control of its action and direction was incomplete owing to bodily
fatigue. Hence it lay open to assault, at the mercy of a thousand and one
crowding thoughts and perceptions. And over these he desired to gain
ascendency--to drive, rather than be driven by them. The epic of his
three-score years, from its dim, illusive start to this dramatic and
inexorable finish--but instantly disclosed to him in the reluctant
admissions of the good-hearted Irish doctor--flung by at a double, in
coloured yet incoherent progression, so to speak, now marching to
triumphant blare of trumpet, now to roll of muffled drum. Which
incoherence came in great measure of the inalienable duality of his own
nature--passion and austerity, arrogance and self-doubt, love--surpassing
most men's capacity of loving--and a defacing strain of cruelty,
delivering stroke and counter-stroke. From all such tumult he earnestly
sought to be delivered; since not the thing accomplished--whether for
fame, for praise or for remorse--not, in short, what has been, but what
was, and still more what must soon be, did he need, at this juncture,
dispassionately to contemplate.

That sharp-toothed disappointment gnawed him, is undeniable, when he
thought of the culminating gift of happy fortune, royally satisfying to
ambition, as unexpectedly offered him as, through his own unlooked-for
and tragic disability, it was unexpectedly withdrawn. But disappointment
failed to vex him long. A more wonderful journey than any possible
earthly one, a more majestic adventure than that of any oriental
proconsulship, awaited him. For no less a person than Death issued the
order--an order there is no disobeying. He must saddle up therefore, bid
farewell, and ride away.

Nor did he flinch from that ride with Death, the black captain, as
escort, any more than, during the past night, he had flinched under the
grip of mortal pain. For some persons the call to endurance brings actual
pleasure--of a grim heroic kind. It did so to Charles Verity. And not
only this conscious exercise of fortitude, this pride of bearing bodily
anguish, but a strange curiosity worked to sustain him. The novelty of
the experience, in both cases, excited and held his interest, continued
to exercise it and to hold.

Now, as in solitude his mental atmosphere acquired serenity and
poise--the authority of the past declining--this matter of death
increasingly engrossed him. For it trenches on paradox, surely, that the
one absolutely certain event in every human career is also the most
unexplored and practically incredible.--An everyday occurrence, a
commonplace, concerning which there remains nothing new, nothing
original, to be written, sung or said; yet a mystery still inviolate,
aching with the alarm of the undiscovered, the unpenetrated, to each
individual, summoned to accept its empire! He had sent others to their
death. Now his own turn came and he found it, however calmly considered,
a rather astounding business. An ending or a beginning?--Useless, after
all, to speculate. The worst feature of it, not improbably, this same
preliminary loneliness, this stripping naked, no smallest comfort left
you of human companionship, or even of humble material keepsake from out
the multitude of your familiar possessions here in the dear accustomed
human scene.

The gates of death open. You pass them. They close behind you. And what
then?--The whole hierarchy of heaven, the whole company of your
forerunners thither--beloved and honoured on earth--may be gathered to
hail the homing soul within those amazing portals; or it may drop, as a
stone into a well, down the blank nothingness of the abyss.--Of all
gambles invented by God, man or devil--so he told himself--this daily,
hourly gamble of individual dissolution is the biggest. Man's heart
refuses the horror of extinction, while his intellect holds the question
in suspense. We hope. We believe. From of old fair promises have been
made us; and, granted the gift of faith, hope and belief neighbour upon
assurance. But certainty is denied. No mortal, still clothed in flesh,
has known, nor--the accumulated science of the ages notwithstanding--does
know, actually and exactly, that which awaits it.

Thus, anyhow, in the still, tender brightness of the autumn morning,
while Nature and men alike pursued their normal activities and
occupations, did this singular matter appear to Charles Verity--he,
himself, arbitrarily cut off from all such activities and occupations
in the very moment of high fruition. Had death been a less eminent
affair, or less imminent, the sarcasm of his position might have seemed
gross to the point of insult. But, the longer he envisaged it, the more
did the enduring enigma and its accompanying uncertainty allure. Not as
victim, but rather as conqueror of the final terror, did he begin to
regard himself.

Meanwhile, though reason continued to hold the balance even between
things positively known and things imagined only and hoped for, the
god-ward impulse strengthened in him. Not by conscious or convincing
argument from within, but by all-powerful compulsion from without, was
his thought borne onward and upward to increasing confidence. So that he
asked himself--as so many another, still unwearied, still enamoured of
attainment, has asked in like case--whether impending divorce of soul and
body may not confer freedom of a wider range and nobler quality, powers
more varied and august than the mind, circumscribed by conditions of time
and sense, has yet conception of?

To him such development seemed possible--certainly. Probable?--Ah, well,
perhaps--perhaps. Which brought him back to his former contention, that
its inherent loneliness constitutes the bitterest sting of death.
Smiling, he quoted the ancient, divinely tender saying: "There is a child
in each one of us which cries at the dark."

While, in swift reaction, he yearned towards battle where amid the
fierce and bloody glory of the fight, souls of heroes troop forth
together, shouting, into everlasting day or--sceptical reason shaking a
sadly sage head once again--into everlasting night.

He stretched out his hand instinctively for the bell on the little table
at his elbow. Hordle answered his summons, grey of countenance from
alarm, anxiety, and broken rest.

"Let Miss Damaris know I shall be glad to see her when she is free to
come to me," he said.

And here, although our damsel's reputation for courage and resource may,
thereby, sustain some damage, I am constrained to state that while in the
sick-room Miss Felicia shone, Damaris gave off but a vacillating and
ineffective light.

Imagination is by no means invariably beneficent. The very liveliness of
the perceptions which it engenders may intimidate and incapacitate. Upon
Damaris imagination practised this mischief. Becoming, for the time, that
upon which she looked, sharing every pang and even embroidering the
context, she weakened, in some sort, to the level of the actual sufferer,
helpless almost as he through the drench of overwhelming sympathy. She
had been taken, poor child, at so villainous a disadvantage. Without
preparation or warning--save of the most casual and inadequate--her
humour wayward, she a trifle piqued, fancying her pretty clothes, her
pretty looks, excited, both by the brilliant prospect presented by the
Indian appointment and by her delicate passage of arms with Carteret, she
was compelled of a sudden to witness the bodily torment of a human being,
not only by her beloved beyond all others, but reverenced also. The
impression she received was of outrage, almost of blasphemy. The cruelty
of life lay uncovered, naked and open to her appalled and revolted
consciousness. She received a moral, in addition to a physical shock,
utterly confounding in its crudity, its primitive violence.

The ravage of pain can be, in great measure, surmounted and concealed;
but that baser thing, functional disturbance--in this case present as
heart spasm, threatening suffocation, with consequent agonized and
uncontrollable struggle for breath--defies concealment. This
manifestation horrified Damaris. The more so that, being unacquainted
with the sorry spectacle of disease, her father, under the deforming
stress of it, appeared to her as a stranger almost--inaccessible to
affection, hideously removed from her and remote. His person and
character, to her distracted observation, were altered beyond recognition
except during intervals, poignant to the verge of heart-break, when
passing ease restored his habitual dignity and grace.

Thus, while Miss Felicia and Carteret--with Hordle and Mary Fisher as
assistants--ministered to his needs in as far as ministration was
possible, she stood aside, consumed by misery, voluntarily effacing
herself. Backed away even against the wall, out of range of the
lamp-light, stricken, shuddering, and mute. Upon Dr. McCabe's arrival and
assumption of command, Carteret, finding himself at liberty to note her
piteous state, led her out into the passage and then to the long
drawing-room, with gentle authority. There for a half-hour or more--to
him sadly and strangely sweet--he sat beside her, while the tears
silently coursed down her cheeks, letting her poor proud head rest
against his shoulder, his arm supporting her gracious young body still
clothed in all the bravery of her flowered silken sunshine dress.

Later, Mary bringing more favourable news of Sir Charles--pain and
suffocation having yielded for the time being to McCabe's
treatment--Carteret persuaded her to go upstairs and let the said Mary
put her to bed. Once there she slept the sleep of exhaustion, fatigue and
sorrow mercifully acting as a soporific, her capacity for further thought
or feeling literally worn out.

During that session in the drawing-room Damaris, to his thankfulness, had
asked no questions of him. All she demanded child-like, in her extremity,
had been the comfort and security of human contact. And this he gave her
simply, ungrudgingly, with a high purity of understanding, guiltless of
any shadow of embarrassment or any after-thought. Their lighter, somewhat
enigmatic relation of the earlier evening was extinguished, swamped by
the catastrophe of Charles Verity's illness. Exactly in how far she
gauged the gravity of that illness and its only too likely result, or
merely wept, unnerved by the distressing outward aspect of it, Carteret
could not determine. But he divined, and rightly, that she was in process
of ranging herself, at least subconsciously, with a new and terrible
experience which, could she learn the lesson of it aright would temper
her nature to worthy issues.

Hence, with a peculiar and tender interest, he watched her when, coming
down in the morning, he found her already in the dining-room, the
pleasant amenities of a well-ordered, hospitable house and household
abundantly evident.

Whatever the tragic occurrences of the last twelve hours, domestic
discipline was in no respect relaxed. The atmosphere of the room
distilled a morning freshness. Furniture and flooring shone with polish,
a log fire, tipped by dancing flames, burned in the low wide grate. Upon
the side-table, between the westward facing windows, a row of silver
chafing-dishes gave agreeable promise of varied meats; as did the tea and
coffee service, arrayed before Damaris, of grateful beverage. While she
herself looked trim, and finished in white silk shirt and russet-red
suit, her toilet bearing no sign of indifference or of haste.

That her complexion matched her shirt in colour--or rather in all absence
of it--that her face was thin, its contours hardened, her eyebrows drawn
into a little frown, her eyes enormous, sombre and clouded as with
meditative thought, increased, in Carteret's estimation, assurance of her
regained self-mastery and composure. Nor did a reticence in her manner
displease him.

"I have persuaded Aunt Felicia to breakfast upstairs," she told him. "Dr.
McCabe sends me word he--my father--wishes to rest for the present, so I
engaged Aunt Felicia to rest too. She was wonderful."

Damaris' voice shook slightly, as did her hand lifting the coffee-pot.

"She stayed up all night. So did you, I'm afraid, didn't you,
Colonel Sahib?"

"Oh, for me that was nothing. A bath, a change, and ten minutes out there
on the battery watching the sun come up over the sea," Carteret said. "So
don't waste compassion on me. I'm as fit as a fiddle and in no wise
deserve it."

"Ah! but you and Aunt Felicia did stay," she repeated, her hands still
rather tremulously busy with coffee-pot and milk jug. "You were faithful
and I no better than a shirker. I fell through, miserably lost myself,
which was selfish, contemptible. I am ashamed. Only I was so startled. I
never really knew before such--such things could be.--Forgive me, Colonel
Sahib. I have been to Aunt Felicia and asked her forgiveness
already.--And don't think too meanly of me, please. The shirking is over
and done with for always. You may trust me it never will happen again--my
losing myself as I did last night, I mean."

In making this appeal for leniency, her eyes met Carteret's fairly for
the first time; and he read in them, not without admiration and a twinge
of pain, both the height of her new-born, determined valour and the depth
of her established distress.

"You needn't tell me that, you needn't tell me that, dear witch," he
answered quickly. "I was sure of it all along. I knew it was just a phase
which would have no second edition. So put any question of shame or need
of forgiveness out of your precious head. You were rushed up against
circumstances, against a revelation, calculated to stagger the most
seasoned campaigner. You did not shirk; but it took you a little time to
get your bearings. That was all. Don't vex your sweet soul with quite
superfluous reproaches.--Sugar? Yes, and plenty of it I am afraid.--But
you, too, must eat."

And on her making some show of repugnance--

"See here, we can't afford to despise the day of small things, of minor
aids to efficiency, dearest witch," he wisely admonished her.

Whereupon, emulous to please him, bending her will to his, Damaris
humbled herself to consumption of a portion of the contents of the
chafing-dishes aforesaid. To discover that, granted a healthy subject,
sorrow queerly breeds hunger, the initial distaste for food--in the main
a sentimental one--once surmounted.

Later McCabe joined them. Recognized Damaris' attitude of valour, and
inwardly applauded it, although himself in woeful state. For he was hard
hit, badly upset. Conscious of waste of tissue, he set about to restore
it without apology or hesitation, trouble putting an edge to appetite in
his case also, and that of formidable keenness. Bitterly he grieved,
since bearing the patient, he feared very certainly to lose, an uncommon
affection. He loved Charles Verity; while, from the worldly standpoint,
his dealings with The Hard meant very much to him--made for glory, a
feather in his cap visible to all and envied by many. Minus the fine
flourish of it his position sank to obscurity. As a whist-playing,
golf-playing, club-haunting, Anglo-Indian ex-civil surgeon--and Irishman
at that--living in lodgings at Stourmouth, he commanded meagre
consideration. But as chosen medical-attendant and, in some sort,
retainer of Sir Charles Verity he ranked. The county came within his
purview. Thanks to this connection with The Hard he, on occasion, rubbed
shoulders with the locally great. Hence genuine grief for his friend was
black-bordered by the prospect of impending social and mundane loss. The
future frowned on him, view it in what terms he might. To use his own
unspoken phrase, he felt "in hellishly low water."

One point in particular just now worried him. Thus, as fish, eggs,
porridge, hot cakes, honey, and jam disappeared in succession, he opened
himself to Damaris and Carteret. A difficult subject, namely that of a
second opinion.--Let no thought of any wounding of his susceptibilities
operate against the calling in of such. He was ready and willing to meet
any fellow practitioner they might select--a Harley Street big-wig, or
Dr. Maskall, of Harchester, whose advice in respect of cardiac trouble
was wide sought.

He had, however, but just launched the question when Hordle entered and,
walking to the head of the table, addressed Damaris.

"Sir Charles desires me to say he will be glad to see you, miss, when you
are at liberty," he told her in muffled accents.

She sprang up, to pause an instant, irresolute, glancing wide-eyed
at Carteret.

He had risen too. Coming round the corner of the table, he drew back her
chair, put his hand under her elbow, went with her to the door.

"There is nothing to dread, dearest witch," he gently and quietly said.
"Have confidence in yourself. God keep you--and him.--Now you are quite
ready? That's right.--Well, then go."

Carteret waited, looking after her until, crossing the hall followed by
Hordle, she passed along the corridor out of sight. Silent, preoccupied,
he closed the door and took a turn the length of the room before resuming
his place at the opposite side of the table to McCabe, facing the light.

The doctor, who had ceased eating and half risen to his feet at the
commencement of this little scene, watched it throughout; at first
indifferent, a prey to his own worries, but soon in quickening interest,
shrewd enquiry and finally in dawning comprehension.

"Holy Mother of Mercy, so that's the lay of the land, is it?" and his
loose lips shaped themselves to a whistle, yet emitted no sound. To
obliterate all signs of which tendency to vulgar expression of
enlightenment he rubbed moustache, mouth and chin with his napkin,
studying Carteret closely meanwhile.

"In the pink of condition, by Gad--good for a liberal twenty years yet,
and more--bar accident. Indefinite postponement of the grand climacteric
in this case.--All the same a leetle, lee-tie bit dangerous, I'm
thinking, for both, if she tumbles to it."

Then aloud--"Has the poor darling girl grasped the meaning of her
father's illness do you make out, Colonel grasped the ugly
eventualities of it?"

Carteret slowly brought his glance to bear on the speaker.

"I believe so, though she has not actually told me as much," he
said--"And now about this question of a second opinion, McCabe?"

The easily huffed Irishman accepted the reproof in the best spirit
possible, as confirming his own perspicacity.

"Quite so. Flicked him neatly on the raw, and he winced. All the same
he's a white man, a real jewel of a fellow, worthy of good fortune if the
ball's thrown his way. I wonder how long, by-the-by, this handsome game's
been a-playing?"

With which, as requested, he returned to the rival claims of Harley
Street and Harchester in respect of a consulting physician.

Carteret proved a faithful prophet, for in truth there was nothing to
dread the beloved presence once entered, as Damaris thankfully
registered.

The sun by now topped the hollies and shone into the study, flinging a
bright slanting pathway across the dim crimson, scarlet and blue of the
Turkey carpet. Charles Verity stood, in an open bay of the great window,
looking out over the garden. Seen thus, in the still sunlight, the tall
grey-clad figure possessed all its accustomed, slightly arrogant repose.
Damaris thrilled with exalted hope. For the young are slow to admit even
the verdict of fact as final. His attitude was so natural, so unstrained
and unstudied, that the message of ghostly warning yesterday evening was
surely discounted; while the subsequent terror of the night, that hideous
battle with pain and suffocation, became to her incredible, an evil dream
from which, in grateful ecstasy, she now awoke.

Her joy found expression.

"Dearest, dearest, you sent for me.--Is it to let me see you are
really better, more beautifully recovered than they told me or I
ventured to suppose?"

Her voice broke under a gladness midway between tears and laughter.

"The envious blades of Atropos' scissors have not cut the mortal thread
yet anyhow," he answered, smiling, permitting himself the classic conceit
as a screen to possible emotion. "But we won't build too much on the
clemency of Fate. How long she proposes to wait before closing her
scissors it is idle to attempt to say."

He laid his hands on Damaris' shoulders. Bent his head and kissed
her upward pouted lips--thereby hushing the loving disclaimer which
rose to them.

"So we will keep on the safe side of the event, my wise child," he
continued. "Make all our preparations and thus deny the enemy any
satisfaction of taking us unawares.--Can you write a business
letter for me?"

"A dozen, dearest, if you wish," Damaris assented eagerly. Yet that
image of the scissors stayed by her. Already her joy was sensibly
upon the wane.

"Oh! one will be sufficient, I think--quite sufficient for this morning."

Charles Verity turned his head, looking seaward through the
tranquil sunshine.

"That Indian appointment has to be suitably thanked for and--declined."

Damaris drew back a step so as to gain a clearer view of him. The
hands resting on her shoulders were oddly inert, so she fancied,
forceless and in temperature cold. Even through the thickness of cloth
jacket and silk shirt she was aware of their lifelessness and chill.
This roused rebellion in her. Her instinct was for fight. She made a
return on McCabe's suggestion regarding further advice. She would
demand a consultation, call in expert opinion. The dear man with the
blue eyes--here her white face flushed rosy--would manage all that for
her, and compel help in the form of the last word of medical science
and skill.

"Might not your letter be put off for just a few days?" she pleaded, "in
case--until"--

But Charles Verity broke in before she could finish her tender protest,
a sadness, even hint of bitterness in his tone.

"You covet this thing so much," he said. "Your heart is so set on it?"

She made haste to reassure him.--No, no not that way, not for her. How
could it signify, save on his account? She only cared because greedy of
his advancement, greedy to have him exalted--placed where he belonged, on
the summit, the apex, so that all must perceive and acknowledge his
greatness. As to herself--and the flush deepened, making her in aspect
deliciously youthful and ingenious--she confessed misgivings. Reported
her talk with Carteret concerning the subject, and the scolding received
from him thereupon.

"One more reason for writing in the sense I propose, then," her father
declared, "since it sets your over-modest doubts and qualms at rest, my
dear. That is settled."

His hands weighed on her shoulders as though he suddenly needed and
sought support.

"I will sit down," he said. "There are other matters to be discussed, and
I can, perhaps, talk more easily so."

He went the few steps across to the red chair. Sank into it. Leaned
against the pillows, bending backward, his hand pressed to his left
side. His features contracted, and his breath caught as of one spent
with running. And Damaris, watching him, again received that desolating
impression of change, of his being in spirit far removed, inaccessible
to her sympathy, a stranger. He had gone away and rather terribly left
her alone.

"Are you in pain?" she asked, agonized.

"Discomfort," he replied. "We will not dignify this by the name of pain.
But I must wait for a time before dictating the letter. There's something
I will ask you to do for me, my dear, meanwhile."

"Yes"--He paused, shifted his position, closed his eyes.

"Have you held any communication with--"

He stopped, for the question irked him. Even at this pass it went against
the grain with him to ask of his daughter news of his son.

But in that pause our maiden's scattered wits very effectually
returned to her.

"With Darcy Faircloth?" she said. And as Charles Verity bowed his head in
assent--"Yes, I should have told you already but--but for all which has
happened. He was here the day before yesterday. He came home from church
with me.--That was my doing, not his, to begin with. You mustn't think he
put himself forward--took advantage, I mean, of your being away. If there
is any blame it is mine."

"Mine, rather--and of long standing. God forgive me!"

But Damaris, fairly launched now upon a wholly welcome topic, would have
none of this. To maintain her own courage, and, if it might be, combat
that dreaded withdrawal of his spirit into regions where she could not
follow, she braced herself to reason with him.

"No--there indeed you are mistaken, dearest," she gently yet confidently
asserted. "You take the whole business topsy-turvy fashion, quite wrong
way round. I won't weary you with explanations of exactly what led to
Darcy Faircloth coming here with me on Sunday. But you ought to know that
he and Aunt Felicia met. I hadn't planned that. It just happened. And she
was lovely to him--lovely to us both. She made him stay to
luncheon--inviting him in your name."

"I seem to possess a singular gift for saddling my relations with the
payment of my bad debts," Charles Verity remarked.

"But there isn't any bad debt--that's what I so dearly want you to
believe, what I'm trying so hard, Commissioner Sahib, to tell you,"
Damaris cried. "Afterwards, when he and I were alone by ourselves, the
ice broke somehow, he gave himself away and said beautiful things--things
about you which made me delightfully happy, and showed how he has felt
towards you all along."

Simply, without picking of her words, hesitation or artifice, Damaris
repeated that somewhat sinister tale of the sea. Of a sailing ship,
becalmed through burning days and stifling nights in tropic waters. Of
the ill-doings of a brutal, drunken captain. Of a fly-blown eating-house
in Singapore. Of the spiritual deliverance there achieved through sight
of Charles Verity's name and successful record in the columns of a
Calcutta newspaper; and the boy's resultant demand for the infliction of
some outward and visible sign, some inalienable stigmata, which should
bear perpetual witness to the fact of his parentage.

"So you see"--

Damaris kindled, standing before him, flamed indeed to a rare
carelessness of convention, of enjoined pruderies and secrecies.--

"You gave him the beautiful gift of life to begin with; and saved his
life later when he was so miserably tempted to end it. As he loves life,
where then is the debt?--Not on your side certainly, dearest."

Listening to which fondly exalted sophistries--for sophistries from
worldly and moral standpoint alike must he not surely pronounce
them?--Charles Verity still received comfort to his soul. They ought to
be reckoned mistaken, of course, transparently in error, yet neither son
nor daughter condemned him. Neither did his sister, in the pathetic
innocence and purity of her middle-age maidenhood.

This moved him to thankfulness, none the less genuine because shot with
self-mockery. For he was curious to observe how, as the last urgings of
ambition and thirst of power fell away from him,--he riding under escort
of Death, the black captain--all tributes of human tenderness and
approval gained in value.--Not the approval of notable personages, of
those high in office, nor even that of sympathetic critics and readers;
but of persons in his own immediate voisinage, bound to him by
friendship, by association, or the tie of blood.--Their good-will was
precious to him as never before. He craved to be in perfect amity with
every member of that restricted circle. Hence it vexed and fretted him to
know the circle incomplete, through the exclusion of one rather
flagrantly intimate example. Yet to draw the said member, the said
example, within the circle, yielding it the place which it might
rightfully aspire to occupy, amounted--after half a lifetime of
abstention and avoidance--to a rather tremendous demonstration, one which
might well be hailed as extravagant, as a courting of offence possible
only to a sentimental egoist of most aggravated kind.

And he was tired--had no smallest inclination towards demonstrations. For
the threatening of heart spasm, to which he lately denied the title of
pain, though of short duration, affected him adversely, sapping his
strength. His mind, it is true, remained clear, even vividly receptive;
but, just as earlier this morning, his will proved insufficient for its
direction or control. He mused, his chin sunk on his breast, his left
hand travelling down over the long soft moustache, his eyes half closed.
Thought and vision followed their own impulse, wandering back and forth
between the low-caste eating-house in the sweltering heat and perfumed
stenches of the oriental, tropic seaport; and the stone-built English
inn--here on Marychurch Haven--overlooking the desolate waste of
sand-hills, the dark reed-beds and chill gleaming tides.

For love of Damaris, his daughter, while still in the heat of his prime,
he had foresworn all traffic with women. Yet now, along with the tacitly
admitted claims of the son, arose the claim of the mistress, mother of
that son--in no sensual sort, but with a certain wildness of bygone
romance, wind and rain-swept, unsubstantial, dim and grey. Ever since
conviction of the extreme gravity of his physical condition dawned on
him, the idea of penetrating the courts of that deserted sanctuary had
been recurrent. In the summing up of his human, his earthly, experience,
romance deserved, surely, a word of farewell? Damaris' story served to
give the idea a fuller appeal and consistency.

But he was tired--tired. He longed simply to drift. It was infinitely
distasteful to him definitely to plan, or to decide respecting anything.

Meanwhile his continued silence and abstraction wore badly upon Damaris.
She had steeled herself; had flamed, greatly daring. Now reaction set in.
Her effort proved vain. She had failed. For once more she recognized that
an unknown influence, a power dark and incalculably strong--so she
figured it--regained ascendency over her father, working to the insidious
changing of his nature, strangely winning him away. Waiting for some
response, some speech or comment on his part, fear and the sense of
helplessness assailed, and would have submerged her, had she not clung to
Carteret's parting "God bless you" and avowed faith in her stability, as
to a wonder-working charm. Nor did the charm fail in efficacy.--Oh!
really he was a wonderful sheet-anchor, "the shadow of a great rock in a
weary land," that dear man with the blue eyes! Consciously she blessed
him.--And, thanks to remembrance of him, presently found voice and
purpose once again.

"You aren't displeased with me, dearest?" she asked.

"Displeased?" Charles Verity repeated, at first absently. "Displeased, my
dear, no--why?"

"We didn't do wrong?"--labouring the point, the more fully to recall and
retain him--"Didn't take too much upon ourselves--Aunt Felicia, I mean,
and I--by persuading Darcy Faircloth to stay on Sunday, by entertaining
him when you were away? Or--or have I been stupid, dearest, and
thoughtlessly wearied you by talking too much and too long?"

"Neither," he said. "On the contrary, all you have told me goes to lessen
certain difficulties, make the crooked, in some degree, straight and
rough places plain."

For, if Faircloth had been here so recently, broken bread too in the
house, so he argued, it became the easier to bid him return. And Charles
Verity needed to see him, see him this morning--since purpose of
farewells, to be spoken in those long-deserted courts of romance,
stiffened, becoming a thing not merely to be turned hither and thither
in thought, but to be plainly and directly done.--"Send for him in your
own name," he said. "Explain to him how matters stand, and ask him to
talk with me."

And, as Damaris agreed, rejoiced by the success of her adventurous
diplomacy, making to go at once and give the required instructions--

"Stay--stay a moment," her father said, and drew her down to sit on the
chair-arm, keeping her hand in his, and with his other hand stroking it
wistfully. For though certain difficulties might be sensibly lessened,
they were not altogether removed; and he smiled inwardly, aware that not
even in the crack of doom are feminine rights over a man other than
conflicting and uncommonly ticklish to adjust.

"Before we commit ourselves to further enterprises, my darling, let us
quite understand one another upon one or two practical points--bearing in
mind the blades of Atropos' envious scissors. My affairs are in
order"--Damaris shrank, piteously expostulated.

"Oh! but must we, are we obliged to speak of those things? They grate on
me--Commissioner Sahib, they are ugly. They hurt."

"Yes--distinctly we are obliged to speak of them. To do so can neither
hasten nor retard the event. All the more obliged to speak of them,
because I have never greatly cared about money, except for what I could
do with it.--As a means, of vast importance. As an end,
uninteresting.--So it has been lightly come and lightly go, I am afraid.
All the same I've not been culpably improvident. A portion of my income
dies with me; but enough remains to secure you against any anxiety
regarding ways and means, if not to make you a rich woman. I have left an
annuity to your Aunt Felicia. Her means are slender, dear creature, and
her benevolence outruns them, so that she balances a little anxiously, I
gather, on the edge of debt. The capital sum will return to you
eventually. Carteret and McCabe consented, some years ago, to act as my
executors. Their probity and honour are above reproach.--Now as to this
place--if you should ever wish to part with it, let Faircloth take it
over. I have made arrangements to that effect, about which I will talk
with him when he comes.--Have no fear lest I should say that which might
wound him. I shall be as careful, my dear, of his proper pride as of my
own.--Understand I have no desire to circumscribe either your or his
liberty of action unduly. But this house, all it contains, the garden,
the very trees I see from these windows, are so knitted into the fabric
of my past life that I shrink--with a queer sense of homelessness--from
any thought of their passing into the occupation of strangers.--Childish,
pitifully weak-minded no doubt, and therefore the more natural that one
should crave a voice, thus in the disposition of what one has learned
through long usage so very falsely to call one's own!"

"We will do exactly what you wish, even to the littlest particular, I
promise you--both for Faircloth and for myself," Damaris answered,
forcing herself to calmness and restraint of tears.

He petted her hands silently until, as the minutes passed, she began once
more to grow fearful of that dreadful unknown influence insidiously
possessing him and winning him away. And he may have grown fearful of it
too, for he made a sharp movement, raising his shoulders as though
striving to throw off some weight, some encumbrance.

"There is an end, then, of business," he said, "and of such worldly
considerations. I need worry you with them no more. Only one thing
remains, of which, before I speak to others, it is only seemly, my
darling, I should speak to you."

Charles Verity lifted his eyes to hers, and she perceived his spirit as
now in nowise remote; but close, evident almost to the point of alarm. It
looked out from the wasted face, at once--to her seeing--exquisite and
austere, reaching forward, keenly curious of all death should reveal,
unmoved, yet instinct with the brilliance, the mirthfulness even, of
impending portentous adventure.

"You know, Damaris, how greatly I love and have loved you--how dear you
have been to me, dearer than the satisfaction of my own flesh?"

Speech was beyond her. She looked back, dazzled and for the moment
broken.

"Therefore it goes hard with me to ask anything which might, ever so
distantly, cause you offence or distress. Only time presses. We are
within sight of the end."

"Ah! no--no," she exclaimed, wrenching away her hands and beating them
together, passion of affection, of revolt and sorrow no more to be
controlled. "How can I bear it, how can I part with you? I will not, I
will not have you die.--McCabe isn't infallible. We must call in other
doctors. They may be cleverer, may suggest new treatment, new remedies.
They must cure you--or if they can't cure, at least keep you alive for
me. I won't have you die!"

"Call in whom you like, as many as you like, my darling, the whole
medical faculty if it serves to pacify or to content you," he said,
smiling at her.

Damaris repented. Took poor passion by the throat, stifling its
useless cries.

"I tire you. I waste your strength. I think only of myself, of my own
grief, most beloved, my own consuming grief and desolation.--See--I will
be good--I am good. What else is there you want to have me do?"

"This--but recollect you are free to say me nay, without scruple or
hesitation. I shall not require you to give your reasons, but shall bow,
unreservedly, to your wishes. For you possess a touchstone in such
questions as the one now troubling me, which, did I ever possess it, I
lost, as do most men, rather lamentably early in my career. If you suffer
me to do so, I will ask Darcy Faircloth to bring his mother here to me,
this evening at dusk, when her coming will not challenge impertinent
observation--so that I may be satisfied no bitterness colours her thought
of me and that we part in peace, she and I."

Damaris got up from her seat on the arm of the red-covered chair. She
stood rigid, her expression reserved to blankness, but her head
carried high.

"Of course," she said, a little hoarsely, and waited. "Of course. How
could I object? Wasn't it superfluous even to ask me? Your word,
dearest, is law."

"But in the present case hardly gospel?"

"Yes--gospel too--since it is your word. Gospel, that is, for me. Let
Darcy Faircloth bring his mother here by all means. Only I think,
perhaps, this is all a little outside my province. It would be better you
should make the--the appointment with him yourself. I will send to him
directly. Patch can take a note over to the island. I would prefer to
have Patch go as messenger than either of the other men."

She walked towards the door. Stopped half-way and turned, hearing her
father move. And as she turned--her eyes quick with enquiry as to his
case, but inscrutable as to her own--Charles Verity rose too and held
out his arms in supreme invitation. She came swiftly forward and kissed
him, while with all the poor measure of force left him, he strained her
to his breast.

"Have I asked too much from you, Damaris, and, in the desire to make
sure of peace elsewhere, endangered the perfection of my far dearer
peace with you?"

She leaned back from the waist, holding her head away from him and laid
her hand on his lips.

"Don't blaspheme, most beloved," she said, "I have no will but yours."

Again she kissed him, disengaged herself very gently, and went.




CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH WHICH IS ALSO CHAPTER THE LAST


At Lady's Oak--an ancient forest boundary--where the main road forks,
Damaris swung the dog-cart to the left, across the single-arch stone
bridge spanning the Arne; and on, up the long winding ascent from the
valley-bottom to the moorlands patched with dark fir plantations, which
range inland from behind Stourmouth. This constituted the goal of her
journey; for, the high-lying plateau reached, leagues of open country are
disclosed north and west, far as the eye carries, to the fine bare
outline of the Wiltshire Downs. She asked for wide prospects, for air and
ample space; but as floored by stable earth rather than by the eternal
unrest and "fruitless, sonorous furrows" of the sea.

Ever since the day of the funeral, now nearly a fortnight ago, Damaris
had kept within the sheltering privacy of the house and grounds. That
day, one of soft drizzling rain and clinging ground fog, had also been to
her one of hardly endurable distraction. Beneath assumption of respectful
silence, it jarred, boomed, took notes, debated, questioned. Beneath
assumption of solemnity, it peeped and stared. Her flayed nerves and
desolated heart plagued her with suspicions of insincerity.

In as far as Colonel Carteret controlled proceedings all had been marked
by reverent simplicity. But where the carcass is, the eagles,
proverbially, gather. And unfeathered fowl, in their own estimation
eminently representative of that regal species, flocked to Deadham church
and to The Hard.

If--to vary our metaphor--some, in the past, inclined to stone the living
prophet, these now outvied one another in their alacrity to bedeck his
tomb. Dr. Cripps, for example, hurried to offer himself as pall-bearer--a
request the more readily disposed of that there was no pall. While
Archdeacon Verity, to cite a second example and from a higher social
level, supported by his elder son Pontifex--domestic chaplain to the
Bishop of Harchester--insisted on sharing with Canon Horniblow the
melancholy honour of reading the burial service.

For the rest, the head, and lesser members of the family, from the big
house at Canton Magna, were solidly, not to say rather aggressively in
evidence. With them Mrs. Cowden and her husband-satellite, the Honourable
Augustus joined forces on arriving from Paulton Lacy.--Lord Bulparc drove
over from Napworth Castle. The country, indeed, showed up with
commendable indifference to depressing atmospheric conditions. Marychurch
sent a contingent. Stourmouth followed suit in the shape of General
Frayling--attended by Marshall Wace in full clerical raiment--bearing a
wreath of palm, violets, and myrtle wholly disproportionate in bulk and
circumference to his own shrivelled and rather tottery form.--Of this
unlooked for advent more hereafter.--Other distinguished soldiers came
from Aldershot and down from town. A permanent Under Secretary, correct
but visibly bored, represented the India Office.

The parish, neglecting its accustomed industries and occupations,
mustered in strength; incited thereto, not only by the draw of recently
resurrected scandal, but by news of the appointment recently offered Sir
Charles Verity, which had somehow got noised abroad. The irony of his
illness and death occurring precisely when he was invited to mount
nothing less--according to local report--than an oriental throne,
sufficed to stir the most lethargic imagination. Moralists of the
Reginald Sawyer school might read in this the direct judgment of an
offended deity. Deadham, however, being reprehensibly clannish, viewed
the incident otherwise; and questioned--thanks to an ingeniously inverted
system of reasoning--whether the said Reginald Sawyer hadn't laid himself
open to a charge of manslaughter or of an even graver breach of the
Decalogue.

Theresa Bilson--in whose hat artificial buttercups and daisies hastily
made room for bows of crape--lurked in the humble obscurity of the free
seats near the west door. To right and left she was flanked by a guardian
Miss Minett; but these ladies to-day were but broken reeds on which to
lean. They still laboured under a sense of having been compromised, and
of resultant social ostracism. This, although their former parsonic
lodger had vanished from the scene on the day following his threatened
immersion--a half-hearted proposition on his part of "facing out the
undeserved obloquy, living down the coarse persecution" meeting with as
scant encouragement from his ecclesiastical superior, the vicar, as from
themselves. Theresa--it really was hard on her--shared their eclipse.
Hence the humble obscurity of the free seats, where she sniffed, dabbed
her eyes and gurgled, unheeded and unseen.

Finally young Tom Verity--home on his first long leave--having
accompanied the family party from Canton Magna and feeling his sense of
humour unequal to the continued strain of their sublime insularity,
benevolently herded two stately, though shivering, turbanned native
gentlemen, who reached Deadham during the early stages of the ceremony no
one quite knew whence or when. In the intervals of his self-imposed
duties, he found time to admire the rich unction of his father, the
Archdeacon's manner and voice.

"_Plus ça change, plus la même chose_," he quoted gleefully. "What a
consummate fraud the dear old governor is; and how deliciously innocent
of the fact, that he imposes upon no one half so successfully as he does
upon himself!"

Our young man also found time, from afar, to admire Damaris; but, let it
be added, to a very different tune. Her beauty came as surprise to him
as having much more than fulfilled its early promise. He found it
impressive beyond that of any one of the many ladies, mature or callow,
with whom it was his habit largely to flirt. So far he could
congratulate himself on having successfully withstood the wiles of
matrimony--but by how near a shave, at times by how narrow a squeak! If
that fine parental fraud, the Archdeacon, had but known!--Tom,
undeterred by the solemnity of the occasion, hunched up his shoulders
like a naughty boy expecting his ears boxed.--But then--thank the
powers, the Archdeacon so blessedly and refreshingly didn't, and, what
was more, didn't in the very least want to know. He never asked for
trouble; but, like the priest and Levite of sacred parable, carefully
passed by on the other side when trouble was about.

Our young friend looked again at Damaris. Yes--she had beauty and in the
grand manner, standing there at the foot of the open brick-lined grave,
calm, immobile, black-clad, white-faced, in the encircling melancholy of
the drizzling mist. With the family grouped about her, large-boned,
pompous, well-fed persons, impervious to general ideas as they were
imperviously prosperous, he compared her to a strayed deer amongst a
herd of store cattle. Really, with the exception of his cousin Felicia
and--naturally--of himself, the Verity breed was almost indecently true
to type. Prize animals, most of them, he granted, still cattle--for
didn't he detect an underlying trace of obstinate bovine ferocity in
their collective aspect?

Damaris' calm and immobility exceeded theirs. But in quality and source
how far removed, how sensitive and intelligent! Her mourning was in the
grand manner, too, her grief sincere and absolute to the extent of a
splendid self-forgetfulness. She didn't need to pose; for that forgotten
self could be trusted--in another acceptation of the phrase--never to
forget itself.

And here Tom Verity's agreeable frivolity, the astute and witty
shiftiness of mind and--in a degree--of practice, for which he so readily
found excuses and forgave himself, made place for nobler apprehensions.
Not merely Damaris', just now, rather tragic beauty moved and impressed
him; but some quality inherent in her upon which he felt disposed to
confer the title of genius. That was going far.--Mentally he pulled
himself up short.--For wasn't it going altogether too far--absurdly so?
What the dickens did this excessive admiration portend? Could he have
received the _coup de foudre_?--He had to-day a fancy for French tags, in
reaction from the family's over-powering Englishness.--That wouldn't suit
his book in the very least. For in the matters of the affections he held
it thriftless, to the confines of sheer lunacy, to put all your eggs into
one basket. He, therefore, politicly abstained from further observation
of Damaris; and, with engaging assiduity, reapplied himself to herding
the two native gentlemen through the remainder of the ceremony and, at
the conclusion of it, into the mildewed luxury of a Marychurch landau.

Deadham parish went home to its tea that evening damp, not to say
dripping, but well pleased with the figure it had cut in the public eye.
For it had contributed its quota to contemporary history; and what parish
can, after all, do more! Reporters pervaded it armed with note-books and
pencils. They put questions, politely requested a naming of names. The
information furnished in answer would reach the unassailable authority of
print, giving Deadham opportunity to read the complimentary truth about
itself. Still better, giving others opportunity to read the complimentary
truth about Deadham. Hence trade and traffic of sorts, with much
incidental replenishing of purses. Great are the uses of a dead prophet
to the keepers of his tomb! Not within the memory of the oldest
inhabitant had any funeral been so largely or honourably attended. Truly
it spelled excellent advertisement--and this although two persons,
calculated mightily to have heightened interest and brought up dramatic
and emotional values, were absent from the scene.

For Lesbia Faircloth, giving her barman and two women servants a holiday,
closed the inn at noon. Alone within the empty house, she locked the
outer doors. Drew the blinds, reducing the interior to uniform,
shadow-peopled obscurity, with the exception of her own bed-chamber.
There she left one small square window--set deep in the stone work of the
wall--open and uncurtained.

It faced the causeway and perspective of lane skirting the warren and
leading to the high road and village. Looking out thence, in winter when
the trees were bare, she could see Deadham church, crowning its
monticule, part of the sloping graveyard and, below these in the middle
distance, the roofs and gables of the village street.

To-day the view was obliterated. For here, at the river level, mist and
drizzle took the form of fog. Opaque, chill and dank, it drifted in
continuous, just perceptible, undulations past and in at the open
casement. Soon the air of the room grew thick and whitish, the dark oak
furniture and the floor boards furred with moisture. Yet, her methodical
closure of the house complete, Lesbia Faircloth elected to sit in full
inward sweep of it, drawing a straight-backed chair, mounted on roughly
carpentered rockers, close to the window.

A handsome woman still, though in her late fifties, erect and of
commanding presence, her figure well-proportioned if somewhat massive.
Her dark hair showed no grey. Her rather brown skin was clear, smooth and
soft in texture. Her eyes clear, too, watchful and reticent; on
occasion--such as the driving of a business bargain say, or of a drunken
client--hard as flint. Her mouth, a wholesome red, inclined to fullness;
but had been governed to straightness of line--will dominant, not only in
her every movement, but in repose as she now sat, the chair rockers at a
backward tilt, her capable and well-shaped hands folded on her black
apron in the hollow of her lap.

Putting aside all work for once, and permitting herself a space of
undisturbed leisure, she proceeded to cast up her account with love and
life in as clear-headed, accurate a fashion as she would have cast up the
columns of cash-book or ledger--and found the balance on the credit side.
So finding it, she turned her head and looked across the room at the wide
half-tester wooden bed, set against the inner wall--the white crochet
counterpane of which, an affair of intricate fancy patterns and
innumerable stitches, loomed up somewhat ghostly and pallid through the
gloom. A flicker of retrospective victory passed across her face,
attesting old scores as paid. For there, through sleepless nights,
nursing the ardours and disgust of her young womanhood, she lay barren
beside her apple-cheeked, piping-voiced spouse, his wife in name only.
There later, times having, as by miracle, changed for her, she gave
birth to her son.

If somewhat pre-christian in instinct and in nature, the child of a more
ancient and a simpler world, she was in no sort slow of intelligence or
wanton. What had been, sufficed her. She cried out neither for further
indulgence of passion, nor against barriers imposed by circumstance and
class. That which she had done, she had done open-eyed, counting and
accepting the cost. Since then wooers were not lacking; but she turned a
deaf ear to all and each. A frank materialist in some ways, she proved an
idealist in this. No subsequent love passage could rival, in wonder or
beauty, that first one; since, compared with Charles Verity, the men who
subsequently aspired to her favours--whether in wedlock or out--were, to
her taste, at best dull, loutish fellows, at worst no more than human
jackasses or human swine.

And, through it all, she possessed the boy on whom to spend her heart, in
whose interests to employ her foresight and singular capacity of
money-making. For love's sake therefore, and for his sake also, she had
lived without reproach, a woman chary even of friendship, chary, too, of
laughter, chary above all of purposeless gaddings and of gossip.
Business, and the boy's sea-going or returning, might take her as far as
Southampton, Plymouth, Cardiff, more rarely London or some northern port.
But Deadham village rarely beheld her, and never, it is to be feared, did
the inside of Deadham church.

Yet Deadham church bell plaintively, insistently tolling, the sound
reaching her muted by the thickness of the fog, kept her attention on the
stretch for the ensuing hour. Startling as it was poignant, Charles
Verity's demand to see her, six days ago, brought the story of her love
to full circle. Their meeting had been of the briefest, for he was
exhausted by pain. But that he had sent, and she had gone, was unlocked
for largesse on the part of fortune, sufficient to give her deep-seated
and abiding sense of healing and of gain. And this stayed by her now,
rather than any active call for mourning.

She inhaled the dank chillness of the fog gratefully. It suited the
occasion better far than sunshine and bright skies. For winter,
darkness, sullen flowing waters and desolate crying winds furnished the
accompaniment of those earlier meetings. Hearing the tolling bell she
strove to relive them, and found she did so with singularly mounting
wealth and precision of detail. Not only vision but sense pushed
backward and inward, revitalizing what had been; until she ached with
suspense and yearning, shrewdly evaded dangers, surmounted obstructions
by action at once bold and wary and tasted the transfiguring rapture of
the end attained.

In the soberness of her middle years, occupied as she was with the rough,
exacting business of the inn, and with the management of accumulating
landed and other property--anxiety born of her son's perilous calling
never absent from her thought--Lesbia Faircloth inclined to live
exclusively in the present. Hence the colours of her solitary passion had
somewhat faded, becoming clouded and dim. Recent events--led by the ugly
publicity of Reginald Sawyer's sermon--served to revive those colours.
To-day they glowed rich and splendid, a robing of sombre glory to her
inward and backward searching sight.

The bell tolled quicker, announcing the immediate approach of the dead.
Lesbia listened, her head raised, her face, turned to open window, felt
over by the clammy, impalpable fingers of the fog.

Now they bore the coffin up the churchyard path, as she timed it. She
wondered who the bearers might be, and whether they carried it shoulder
high? The path was steep; and Charles Verity, though spare and lean,
broad of chest and notably tall. Bone tells. They would feel the weight,
would breathe hard, stagger a little even and sweat.

And with this visualizing of grim particulars, love, bodily love and
desire of that which rested stark and for ever cold within the narrow
darkness of the coffin--shut away from all comfort of human contact and
the dear joys of a woman's embrace--rushed on her like a storm, buffeted
and shook her, so that she looked to right and to left as asking help,
while her hands worked one upon the other in the hollow of her lap.

Nor did Darcy Faircloth figure in Deadham's record funeral gathering.
Upon the day preceding it, having watched by Charles Verity's corpse
during the previous night, he judged it well to take his new command--a
fine, five-thousand-ton steamer, carrying limited number of passengers
as well as cargo, and trading from Tilbury to the far East and to Japan,
via the Cape.

In his withdrawal, at this particular date, Miss Felicia hailed a counsel
of perfection which commanded, and continued to command, alike her
enthusiastic approval and unfeigned regret. For that he should so
seasonably efface himself, argued--in her opinion--so delightful a
nature, such nice thought for others, such chivalrous instincts and
excellent good taste!--All the more lamentable, then, effacement should
be, from social, moral or other seasons, required.--Yet for the family to
gain knowledge of certain facts without due preparation--how utterly
disastrous! Think of her half-sister, Harriet Cowden, for instance, with
a full-grown and, alas! wrong-way-about, step-nephew bounced on her out
of a clear sky, and on such an occasion too.--The bare notion of what
that formidable lady, not only might, but quite certainly would look and
say turned Miss Felicia positively faint.--No--no, clearly it had to
be--it had to be--or rather--she became incoherent--had not to be, if
only for dearest Charles's sake. Yet what a ten thousand pities; for
notwithstanding the plebeian origin on the mother's side, didn't
Faircloth--these reflections came later--really surpass every male Verity
present, young Tom included, though she confessed to a very soft spot in
her heart for young Tom?--Surpass them, just as her brother Charles had
always surpassed them in good looks and charm as in inches, above all in
his air of singular good-breeding? And how extraordinarily he had
transmitted this last to Faircloth, notwithstanding the--well, the
drawback, the obstacle to--Miss Felicia did not finish the sentence,
though in sentiment becoming sweetly abandoned. For how she would have
revelled, other things being equal--which they so deplorably weren't--in
shaking this singularly attractive nephew in the family's collective
face, just to show them what dearest Charles--who they never had quite
understood or appreciated--could do in the matter of sons, when he once
set about it, even against admittedly heavy odds!

As it was, she had to pacify her gentle extravagance by subjecting the
said nephew's hand to a long tremulous pressure at parting.--He, worn,
blanched, a little strange from the night's lonely and very searching
vigil; she patchily pink as to complexion, fluttered, her candid eyes
red-lidded.--Pacify herself by assuring him she could never express how
deeply she had felt his unselfish devotion during this time of
trouble--felt his--his perfect attitude towards her dearest brother--his
father--or the consideration he had shown towards Damaris and herself.

"You can count on my unswerving affection, my dear Darcy," she had
said. Adding with, to him, very touching humility--"And any affection
you have to give me in return I shall cherish most gratefully, be very
sure of that."

All which, as shall presently be shown, brings our narrative, though by
devious courses, back to Damaris sweeping the dog-cart to the left across
the bridge spanning the Arne, and on up the long winding ascent, from the
woods and rich meadows in the valley to the wide prospects and keener air
of the moorland above.

Until now, as already chronicled, she had remained in house or garden,
prey to an apathy which, while not amounting to definite ill-health,
refused interest and exertion. She could not shake it off. To her all
things were empty, blank, immensely purposeless. Religion failed to touch
her state--religion, that is, in the only form accessible. The interior
of some frowning Gothic church of old Castile, or, from another angle, of
some mellow Latin basilica, might have found the required mystic word to
say to her. But Protestantism, even in its mild Anglican form, shuts the
door on its dead children with a heavy hand.--And she suffered this
religious coldness, although any idea that death of the body implies
extinction of the spirit, extinction of personality, never occurred to
her. Damaris' sense of the unseen was too ingrained, her commerce with it
too actual for that. No--the spirit lived on. He, her most beloved, lived
on, himself, his very self; but far away from her. In just this consisted
the emptiness, the unspeakable and blank bitterness--he was somewhere and
she could not reach him. The dreadful going away of his spirit, against
which she had fought during the thirty-six hours of his illness, had
reached its ordained consummation--that was all.

The body which had contained and by that beloved spirit been so nobly
animated, in its present awful peace, its blind dumb majesty, meant
scarcely more to her than some alabaster or waxen effigy of her dead. It
was so like, yet so terrifyingly unlike Charles Verity in life!--She had
visited it morning and evening, since to leave it in solitude appeared
wanting in reverence. Throughout each night she thankfully knew that
either Carteret, McCabe or Faircloth watched by it. Yet to her it hardly
retained as much of her father's natural presence as the clothes he had
worn, the books and papers littering his writing-table, the chair he
preferred to sit in, his guns and swords upon the wall, or the collection
of fishing-rods, walking-sticks and his spud stacked in a corner.

After the strain and publicity of the funeral her apathy deepened,
perplexing and saddening Carteret and bringing Miss Felicia near to
veritable wailing. For while thanking them both she, in fact, put them
both aside. This in no sour or irritable humour; but with a listlessness
and apartness hopeless to overcome. She prayed them to give her time.
Soon she would begin again; but not just yet. She "couldn't begin again
to order--couldn't make herself begin again. They must not trouble, only
be patient with her, please, a little longer--she wasn't, indeed she
wasn't, pretending"--a statement which, in its simplicity, cut Carteret
to the quick--for "she meant to begin again directly she could."

To-day the weather took an encouraging turn for the better. Following
the spell of fog and wet a northerly wind at last arose. It swept the sky
clear of clouds, the land of melancholy vapours, begetting a brilliance
of atmosphere which wooed our maiden to come forth and once more affront
the open. She therefore ordered the dog-cart at two o'clock. Would
herself drive; and, "if Aunt Felicia didn't mind and think her
unsociable, would take Patch for sole company, because then"--renewed
apologies--"she needn't talk and she felt disinclined to do so."

During the first half mile or so, as must be confessed, each prick of
the black horse's ears and change in his pace sent a quake through her,
as did the sight of every vehicle upon the road she passed or met. Her
nerve was nowhere, her self-confidence in tatters. But, since this
parlous state was, in the main, physical, air and movement, along with
the direct call on her attention, steadied the one and knit up the
ravelled edges of the other. By the time the plateau was reached and the
hill lay behind her, she could afford to walk the horse, tentatively
invite her soul, and attempt to hold communion with Nature. Sorrow--as
well as the Napoleonic Patch--still sat very squarely beside her; but
the nightmare of mortality, with consequent blankness and emptiness, was
no longer omnipresent. Interest again stirred in her, the healthy
instinct of going on.

Except in the foreground, where foxy browns of withered bracken and
pink-shot browns of withered heather gave richness of tone, the colouring
of the great view was somewhat cold. It dealt in thin, uncertain green,
the buff of stubble, in sharp slate-like blues blended in places with
indigo, the black purple of hawthorn hedges and grey-brown filigree of
leafless trees.--This did her good, she asking to be strengthened and
stimulated rather than merely soothed. To feel the harsh, untainted wind
break against her, hear it shrill through the dry, shivering grasses of
the roadside and sturdy spires of heath, to see it toss the dark crests
and tufted branches of the outstanding firs at the edge of the
plantation, brought up her morale. Brought her resignation, moreover--not
of the self-indulgent order, of bowed head and languidly folded hands;
but of the sort which acknowledges loss and sorrow as common to the sum
of human experience, places it in its just relation to the rest, and,
though more heavily weighted than before, takes up the onward march,
sobered perhaps yet undismayed.

Sins of omission began to prick her. The domestic establishment ran on
wheels, even during the recent stress and agitation, though she had
ceased to exercise control over it. Now it must be reorganized--and
probably on a less liberal footing.--But these were minor questions,
comparatively simple to cope with. Her life had been full, it must find
fresh purpose, fresh interest and occupation, in a word, be refilled.

Literature allured her. She dreamed of wonderful tellings, dreamed of the
engrossing joys of the written word. But in what form--poetry, essay,
history, novel?--The extreme limitation of her own knowledge, or rather
the immensity of her own ignorance, confronted her. And that partly
through her own fault, for she had been exclusive, fastidious, disposed
to ignore both truths and people who offended her taste or failed to
strike her fancy. Hitherto she had been led by fancy and feeling rather
than by reasoned principle. She must at once simplify, broaden and
democratize her outlook. Must force herself to remember that respect is,
in some sort, due to everything--however unbeautiful, however even vile
or repugnant--which is a constant quantity in human affairs and human
character, due to everything in the realm of Nature also, however
repellent, if it _is_ really so, actually exists.

In this connection the mysterious and haunting question of sex obtruded
itself. And, along with it, the thought of two eminently diverse persons,
namely Lesbia Faircloth and the dear, the more than ever dear, man with
the blue eyes. That, in his agony, her father should have desired the
visit of the former, once his mistress, had been very bitter to bear,
provoking in Damaris a profound though silent jealousy. This had even
come in some degree between her and Faircloth. For, in proportion as
that visit more effectually united father and son, it abolished her
position as intermediary between the two.

Recalling the incident jealousy moved her now, so that she gathered up
the reins hastily and touched the horse with the whip. It sprang
forward, danced and behaved, before settling down to the swinging trot
which, in so handsome a fashion, ate up the blond road crossing the
brown expanse of moor.

Damaris was surprised and distressed by the vehemence of her own emotion.
That her jealousy was retrospective, and belonged to a past now over and
done with, she admitted. Yet, thinking of her father's demand to see
Lesbia, how amazingly deep it went, how profound, and lasting is the
empire of "feeling in _that_ way"--so she put it, falling back on her
phrase of nearly three years ago, first coined at St. Augustin.

And this was where Carteret came in.--For he alone, of all men, had made
her, Damaris, ever consciously "feel in _that_ way."--A fact of immense
significance surely, could she but grasp the full, the inner meaning of
it--and one which entered vitally into the matter of "beginning again."
Therefore, so she argued, the proposed simplifying, broadening,
democratizing of her outlook must cover--amongst how much else!--the
whole astonishing business of "feeling in _that_ way."

She shrank from the conclusion as unwelcome. The question of sex was
still distasteful to her. But she bade herself, sternly, not to shrink.
For without some reasoned comprehension of it--as now dawned on her--the
ways of human beings, of animals, of plants and, so some say, even of
minerals, are unintelligible, arbitrary, and nonsensical. It is the push
of life itself, essential, fundamental, which makes us "feel in _that_
way"--the push of spirit yearning to be clothed upon with flesh, made
visible and given its chance to enter the earthly arena, to play an
individual part in the beautiful, terrible earthly scene. Therefore she
must neglect it, reject it no longer. It had to be met and understood, if
she would graduate in the school of reality; and in what other possible
school is it worth while to graduate?

Reaching which climax in her argument, the selfishness of her recent
behaviour became humiliatingly patent to her. From the whole household,
but especially from Carteret and Aunt Felicia, she had taken all and
given nothing in return. She had added to their grief, their anxieties,
by her silence, her apathy, her whimsies.

"Patch," she asked suddenly, "which is the shortest way home, without
going through Stourmouth and Marychurch? "--And, under his instructions,
turned the dog-cart down a grassy side-track, heading south-east--her back
now to the wind and inland country, her face to the larger horizon, the
larger if more hazardous freedom of the sea.

Conversation, started thus by her enquiry, flourished in friendly,
desultory fashion until, about three-quarters of an hour later, the front
gates of The Hard came in sight. By then afternoon merged itself in early
evening. Lights twinkled in the windows of the black cottages, upon the
Island, and in those of Faircloth's inn. The sky flamed orange and
crimson behind the sand-hills and Stone Horse Head. The air carried the
tang of coming frost. Upon the hard gravel of the drive, the wheels of
the dog-cart grated and the horse's hoofs rang loud.

Another Damaris came home to the Damaris who had set forth--a Damaris
rested, refreshed, invigorated, no longer a passive but an active agent.
Nevertheless, our poor maiden suffered some reaction on re-entering the
house. For, so entering, her loss again confronted her as an actual
entity. It sat throned in the lamp-lit hall. It demanded payment of
tribute before permitting her to pass. Its attitude amounted, in her too
fertile imagination, to a menace. Here, within the walls which had
witnessed not only her own major acquaintance with sorrow, but so many
events and episodes of strange and, sometimes, cruel import--super-normal
manifestations, too, of which last she feared to think--she grew undone
and weak, disposed to let tears flow, and yield once more to depression
and apathy. The house was stronger than she. But--but--only stronger,
surely, if she consented to turn craven and give way to it?--Whereupon
she consciously, of set purpose, defied the house, denied its right to
browbeat thus and enslave her. For had not she this afternoon, up on the
moorland, found a finer manner of mourning than it imposed, a manner at
once more noble and so more consonant with the temper and achievements of
her beloved dead? She believed that she had.

On the hall table lay a little flight of visiting cards. Her mind
occupied in silent battle with the house, Damaris glanced at them
absently and would have passed on. But something in the half-deciphered
printed names caught her attention. She bent lower, doubting if she could
have read aright.

"Brig.-General and Mrs. Frayling."--Two smaller cards, also bearing the
General's name, ranged with two others bearing that of "The Rev. Marshall
Wace." A written inscription, in the corner of each, notified a leading
hotel in Stourmouth as the habitat of their respective owners.

This little discovery affected Damaris to a singular extent. She had
small enough wish for Henrietta Frayling's society at this juncture;
still less for that of her attendant singer-reciter-parson. Yet their
names, and the train of recollections evoked by these, made for the
normal, the average, and, in so far, had on her a wholesome effect. For
Henrietta, of once adored and now somewhat tarnished memory--soulless,
finished, and exquisitely artificial to her finger-tips, beguiling others
yet never herself beguiled beyond the limits of a flawless
respectability--was wonderfully at odds with high tragedies of
dissolution. How had the house received such a guest? How put up with her
intrusion? But wasn't the house, perhaps, itself at a disadvantage, its
sting drawn in presence of such invincible materialism? For how impress a
creature at once so light and so pachydermatous? The position lent itself
to rather mordant comedy.

In this sense, though not precisely in these phrases, did Damaris
apprehend matters as, still holding Henrietta Frayling's visiting card
in her hand, she crossed the hall and went into the drawing-room.

There, from upon the sofa behind the tea-table, through the warm soft
radiance of shaded lamps and glowing fire, Felicia Verity uplifted her
voice in somewhat agitated greeting. She made no preliminary affectionate
enquiries--such as might have been expected--regarding her niece's outing
or general well-being, but darted, not to say exploded, into the
declaration:

"Darling, I am so exceedingly glad you weren't at home!--Mrs.
Frayling's card?"

This, as the girl sat down on the sofa beside her.

"Then you know who's been here. I didn't intend to see anyone--unless
poor little Theresa--But no, truly no one. Both Hordle and Mary were off
duty--I ought not to have let them be away at the same time, perhaps, but
I did feel they both needed a holiday, don't you know.--And either they
had forgotten to give Laura my orders, or she lost her head, or was
talked over. I daresay Mrs. Frayling insisted."

"Henrietta is not easily turned from her purpose," Damaris said.

"Exactly.--A very few minutes' conversation with her convinced me of
that. And so I felt it would be unfair to blame Laura too severely. I
should suppose Mrs. Frayling excessively clever in getting her own way.
Poor Laura--even if she did know my orders, she hadn't a chance."

"Not a chance," Damaris repeated.

Once convalescence initiated, youth speedily regains its elasticity; and
Aunt Felicia with her feathers ruffled, Aunt Felicia upon the warpath
thus, presented a novel spectacle meriting observation. Evidently she and
Henrietta had badly clashed!--A nice little demon of diversion stirred
within Damaris. For the first time for many days she felt amused.

"Excessively clever," Miss Felicia continued.

--Without doubt the dear thing was finely worked up!--

"And, though I hardly like to make such accusation, none too scrupulous
in her methods. She leads you on with a number of irrelevant comments
and questions, until you find she's extracted from you a whole host of
things you never meant to say. She is far too inquisitive--too
possessive."

Miss Felicia ended on an almost violent note.

"Yes, Henrietta has a tiresome little habit of having been there first,"
Damaris said, a touch of weariness in her tone remembering past
encounters.

Miss Felicia, caught by that warning tone, patted her niece's rather
undiscoverable knee--undiscoverable because still covered by a heavy
fur-lined driving coat--lovingly, excitedly.

"If you choose to believe her, darling," she cried, "which I, for one,
emphatically don't."

Following which ardent profession of faith, or rather of scepticism, Miss
Felicia attempted to treat the subject broadly. She soared to
mountain-tops of social and psychological astuteness; but only to make
hasty return upon her gentler self, deny her strictures, and snatch at
the skirts of vanishing Christian charity.

"Men aren't so easily led away," she hopefully declared. "Nor can I think
Mrs. Frayling so irresistible to each and all as she wishes one to
imagine. She must magnify the number and, still more, the permanence of
her conquests. No doubt she has been very much admired. I know she was
lovely. I saw her once ages ago, at Tullingworth. Dearest Charles," the
words came softly, as though her lips hesitated to pronounce them in so
trivial a connection--"asked me to call on her as I was staying in the
neighbourhood. She had a different surname then, by the way, I remember."

"Henrietta has had four in all--counting in her maiden name, I mean."

"Exactly," Miss Felicia argued, "and that, no doubt, does prejudice me a
little against her. I suppose it is wrong, but when a woman marries so
often one can't help feeling as if she ended by not being married at
all--a mere change of partners, don't you know, which does seem rather
shocking. It suggests such an absence of deep feeling.--Poor thing, I
dare say that is just her nature; still it doesn't attract me. In fact
it gives me a creep.--But I quite own she is pretty still, and
extraordinarily well dressed--only too well dressed, don't you know, that
is for the country.--More tea, darling. Yes, Mrs. Cooper's scones are
particularly good this afternoon.--I wish I liked her better, Mrs.
Frayling, I mean, because she evidently intends to be here a lot in
future. She expressed the warmest affection for you. She was very
possessive about you, more I felt than she'd any real right to be. That,
I'm afraid, put my back up--that and one or two other things. She and
General Frayling think of settling in Stourmouth for good, if Mr. Wace is
appointed to the Deadham curacy."

"The curacy here?" Damaris echoed, a rather lurid light breaking
in on her.

Miss Felicia's glance was of timid, slightly distressed, enquiry.

"Yes," she said, "Mr. Wace has applied for the curacy. He and General
Frayling were to have an interview with Canon Horniblow this afternoon.
They dropped Mrs. Frayling here on their way to the vicarage, and sent
the fly back for her. She talked a great deal about Mr. Wace and his
immense wish to come here. She gave me to understand it was his one
object to"--

The speaker broke off, raised her thin, long-fingered hands to her
forehead.

"I don't know," she said, "but really I feel perhaps, darling, it is
better to warn you. She implied--oh! she did it very cleverly, really, in
a way charmingly--but she implied that things had gone very hard with Mr.
Wace that winter at St. Augustin, and that all he went through has
remarkably developed and strengthened his character--that it, in fact,
was what determined him to take Holy Orders. His difficulties melted
before his real need for the support of religion. It would have all been
most touching if one had heard a story of such devotion from anyone
but--but her, about anyone but him--under the circumstances, poor young
man--because--darling--well, because of you."

"Of me?" Damaris stiffened.

"Yes--that is just the point. Mrs. Frayling left me in no doubt. She was
determined to make me understand just what Mr. Wace's attitude had been
towards you--and that it is still unchanged."

Damaris got up. Pulled off her driving coat, gloves and hat. Threw them
upon the seat of a chair. The act was symbolic. She felt suffocated,
impelled to rid herself of every impediment. For wasn't she confronted
with another battle--a worse one than that with the house, namely, a
battle with her long-ago baby-love, and her father's love
too--Henrietta.--Henrietta, so strangely powerful, so amazingly
persistent--Henrietta who enclosed you in arms, apparently so soft but
furnished with suckers, octopus arms adhering, never letting you go? She
had played with the idea of this intrusion of Henrietta's and its effect
upon Miss Felicia, at first as something amusing. It ceased to be
amusing. It frightened her.

"And my attitude is unchanged, too," she said presently, gravely proud.
"I didn't want to marry Marshall Wace then. I was dreadfully sorry when
Henrietta told me he cared for me. I don't want to marry him or have
him care for me one bit more now. I think it very interfering of
Henrietta to trouble you with this. It is not the moment. She might at
least have waited."

"So I felt," Miss Felicia put in. She watched her niece anxiously, as the
latter went across to the fire-place and stood, her back to the room,
looking down into the glowing logs.

For she had--or rather ought she not to have?--another communication to
make which involved the fighting of a battle on her own account, not
against Henrietta Frayling, still less against Damaris, but against
herself. It trembled on the tip of her tongue. She felt impelled, yet
sorrowed to utter it. Hence her wishes and purposes jostled one another,
being tenderly, bravely, heroically even, contradictory. In speaking she
invited the shattering of a dream of personal election to happiness--a
late blossoming happiness and hence the more entrancing, the more
pathetic. That any hope of the dream's fulfilment was fragile as glass,
lighter than gossamer, the veriest shadow of a shade, her natural
diffidence and sane sense, alike, convinced her. For this very cause, the
dream being of the sweetest and most intimate, how gladly would she have
cherished the enchanting foolishness of it a trifle longer!--Her act of
heroism would earn no applause, moreover, would pass practically
unnoticed. No one would be aware of her sacrifice. She would only gain
the satisfaction of knowing she had done the perfectly right and generous
thing by two persons who would never share that knowledge.--She
blushed.--Heaven forbid they ever should share it--and thank her.

"Mrs. Frayling--I don't want"--

Miss Felicia stopped.

"What don't you want?"--This from Damaris over her shoulder, the pause
being prolonged.

"To set you against her, darling"--

"I think," Damaris said, "I know all about Henrietta."

"She insinuates so much," Miss Felicia lamented.--"Or seems to do so. One
grows wretchedly suspicious of her meaning. Perhaps I exaggerate and
misjudge her.--She is quite confusingly adroit; but I extremely disliked
the way in which she spoke of Colonel Carteret."

Damaris bent a little forward, holding her skirt back from the scorch of
the fire, her eyes still downcast.

"How did she speak of him?"

"Oh! all she said was very indirect--but as though he had not played
quite fair with her on some occasion. And--it's odious to repeat!--as if
that was his habit with women, and with unmarried girls as well--as if he
was liable to behave in a way which placed them in a rather invidious
position while he just shuffled out of all responsibility himself. She
hinted his staying on with us here was a case in point--that it might
give people a wrong idea altogether. That, in short--at least thinking it
over I feel sure this is the impression she meant to convey to me--that
he is indulging his chronic love of philandering at your expense."

"And thereby standing in the light of serious lovers such as
Marshall Wace?"

After a moment Damaris added:

"Is that your idea of Colonel Carteret, Aunt Felicia?"

"Ah! No, indeed no," the poor lady cried, with rather anguished
sincerity. Then making a fine effort over herself:

"Least of all where you are concerned, my darling."

And she drifted hastily on to her feet. The curtains were still undrawn;
and, through the window opposite, she caught sight of a tall figure
coming up across the lawn in the frosty twilight.

"Pardon me if I run away. I've forgotten a note I meant to send to poor
little Theresa Bilson.--I must let Laura have it at once, or she mayn't
catch the postman," she said with equal rapidity and apparent
inconsequence.

As Felicia Verity passed out into the hall, at one end of the avenue of
stumpy pillars, Carteret came in at the other end through the garden
door. He halted a moment, dazzled by the warmth and light within after
the clair-obscure of the frosty dusk without, and looked round the room
before recognizing the identity of its remaining occupant. Then:

"Ah! you--dear witch," he said. "So you're home. And what of your drive?"

Damaris turned round, all of a piece. Her hands, white against the black,
the fingers slightly apart, still pressed back the skirt of her dress as
though saving it from the fire scorch, in quaintly careful childish
fashion. Her complexion was that of a child too, in its soft brightness.
And the wonder of her great eyes fairly challenged Carteret's wits.

"A babe of a thousand years," he quoted to himself. "Does that look grow
out of a root of divine innocence, or of quite incalculable wisdom?"

"I told you if you would be patient with me I should begin again. I have
begun again, dear Colonel Sahib."

"So I perceive," he answered her.

"Is it written so large?" she asked curiously.

"Very large," he said, falling in with her humour. "And where does the
beginning lead to?"

"I wish you'd tell me.--Henrietta has begun again too."

"I know it," he said. "Our incomparable Henrietta overtook me on her way
from here to the Vicarage, and bestowed her society on me for the better
part of half an hour. She was in astonishing form."

Carteret came forward and stood on the tiger skin beside Damaris. Mrs.
Frayling's conversation had given him very furiously to think, and his
thoughts had not proved by any means exhilarating.

"Does this recrudescence of our Henrietta, her beginning again, affect
the scope and direction of your own beginning again, dearest witch?" he
presently enquired, in singularly restrained and colourless accents.

"That depends a good deal upon you--doesn't it, Colonel Sahib?" our
maiden gravely answered.

Carteret felt as though she dealt him a blow. The pain was numbing. He
could neither see, nor could he think clearly. But he traced Mrs.
Frayling's hand in this, and could have cursed her elaborately--had it
been worth while. But was anything worth while, just now? He inclined to
believe not--so called himself a doating fool. And then, though
tormented, shaken, turned his mind to making things easy for Damaris.

"Oh! I see that," he told her. "And now you have got hold of your
precious little self again and made a start, it's easy enough to manage
your affairs--in as far as they need any management of mine--from a
distance. This beginning again is triumphant. I congratulate you! You're
your own best physician. You know how to treat your case to a marvel. So
I abdicate."

"But why? Why abdicate? Do you mean go away? Then Henrietta was right.
What she said was true. I never believed her. I"--

Damaris grew tall in her shame and anger. The solemn eyes blazed.

"Yes--pray go," she said. "It's unwarrantable the way I kept you
here--the way I've made use of you. But, indeed, indeed, I am very
grateful, Colonel Sahib. I ought to have known better. But I didn't. I
have been so accustomed all my life to your help that I took it all for
granted. I never thought how much I taxed your forbearance or encroached
on your time.--That isn't quite true though. I did have scruples; but
little things you said and did put my scruples to sleep. I liked having
them put to sleep.--Now you must not let me or my business interfere any
more.--Oh! you've treated me, given to me, like a prince," she declared,
rising superior to anger and to shame, her eyes shining--"like a king.
Nobody can ever take your place or be to me what you've been. I shall
always love to think of your goodness to--to him--my father--and to
me--always--all my life."

Damaris held out her hands.

"And that's all.--Now let us say no more about this. It's difficult. It
hurts us both, I fancy, a little."

But Carteret did not take her proffered hands.

"Dear witch," he said, "we've spoken so freely that I am afraid we must
speak more freely still--even though it pains you a little perhaps, and
myself, almost certainly very much more. I love you--not as a friend, not
as an amiable elderly person should love a girl of your age.--This isn't
an affair of yesterday or the day before yesterday. You crept into my
heart on your sixth birthday--wasn't it?--when I brought you a certain
little green jade elephant from our incomparable Henrietta, and found you
asleep in a black marble chair, set on a blood-red sandstone platform,
overlooking the gardens of the club at Bhutpur. And you have never crept
out of it again--won't do so as long as body and mind hang together, or
after. It has been a song of degrees.--For years you were to me a
delicious plaything; but a plaything with a mysterious soul, after which
I felt, every now and again, in worship and awe. The plaything stage came
to an end when I was here with you before we went to Paris, four years
ago. For I found then, beyond all question of doubt, that I loved you as
a man only loves once, and as most men never love at all. I have tried
to keep this from you because I have no right to burden your youth with
my middle-age."

Carteret smiled at her.

"It has not been altogether easy to hold my peace, dearest witch," he
said. "The seven devils of desire--of which you knew nothing, bless
you"--"I'm not sure that I do know nothing," Damaris put in quietly.
She looked him over from head to heel, and the wonder of her great
eyes deepened.

"It isn't wrong?" she said, brokenly, hoarsely. "I don't think it can
be wrong?"

Then, "You will be good to my brother, to Darcy Faircloth, and let me see
him quite, quite often!"

And lastly, her lips trembling:

"It is beautiful, more beautiful than I ever knew about, to have you for
quite my own, Colonel Sahib."