lady cynthia and the hermit
i
“my dear cynthia, you haven’t seen our hermit yet. he’s quite the show exhibit of the place.”
lady cynthia stockdale yawned and lit a cigarette. hermits belonged undoubtedly to the class of things in which she was not interested; the word conjured up a mental picture of a dirty individual of great piety, clothed in a sack. and lady cynthia loathed dirt and detested piety.
“a hermit, ada!” she remarked, lazily. “i thought the brand was extinct. does he feed ravens and things?”
it is to be regretted that theological knowledge was not her strong point, but ada laverton, her hostess, did not smile. from beneath some marvellously long eyelashes she was watching the lovely girl lying back in the deck-chair opposite, who was vainly trying to blow smoke rings. a sudden wild idea had come into her brain—so wild as to be almost laughable. but from time immemorial wild ideas anent their girl friends have entered the brains of young married women, especially the lucky ones who have hooked the right man. and ada laverton had undoubtedly done that. she alternately bullied, cajoled, and made love to her husband john, in a way that eminently suited that cheerful and easygoing gentleman. he adored her quite openly and ridiculously, and she returned the compliment just as ridiculously, even if not quite so openly.
moreover, cynthia stockdale was her best friend. before her marriage they had been inseparable, and perhaps there was no one living who understood cynthia as she did. to the world at large cynthia was merely a much photographed and capricious beauty. worthy mothers of daughters, who saw her reproduced weekly in the society papers, sighed inwardly with envy, and commented on the decadence of the aristocracy: the daughters tore out the pictures in a vain endeavour to copy her frocks. but it wasn’t the frocks that made cynthia stockdale: it was she who made the frocks. put her in things selected haphazard from a jumble sale—put her in remnants discarded by the people who got it up, and she would still have seemed the best-dressed woman in the room. it was a gift she had—not acquired, but natural.
lady cynthia was twenty-five, and looked four years younger. since the war she had been engaged twice—once to a man in the blues, and once to a young and ambitious member of parliament. neither had lasted long, and on the second occasion people had said unkind things. they had called her heartless and capricious, and she had scorned to contradict them. it mattered nothing to her what people said: if they didn’t like her they could go away and have nothing to do with her. and since in her case it wasn’t a pose, but the literal truth, people did not go away. only to ada laverton did she give her real confidence: only to ada laverton did she show the real soul that lay below the surface.
“i’m trying,” she had said, lying in that same chair a year previously, “i’m trying to find the real thing. i needn’t marry if i don’t want to; i haven’t got to marry for a home and a roof. and it’s got to be the right man. of course i may make a mistake—a mistake which i shan’t find out till it’s too late. but surely when one has found it out before it’s too late, it’s better to acknowledge it at once. it’s no good making a second worse one by going through with it. i thought arthur was all right”—arthur was the member of parliament—“i’m awfully fond of arthur still. but i’m not the right wife for him. we jarred on one another in a hundred little ways. and he hasn’t got a sense of humour. i shall never forget the shock i got when i first realised that. he seemed to think that a sense of humour consisted of laughing at humorous things, of seeing a jest as well as anyone else. he didn’t seem to understand me when i told him that the real sense of humour is often closer to tears than laughter. besides”—she had added inconsequently—“he had a dreadful trick of whistling down my neck when we danced. no woman can be expected to marry a permanent draught. and as for poor old bill—well bill’s an angel. i still adore bill. he is, i think, the most supremely handsome being i’ve ever seen in my life—especially when he’s got his full dress on. but, my dear, i blame myself over bill. i ought to have known it before i got engaged to him; as a matter of fact i did know it. bill is, without exception, the biggest fool in london. i thought his face might atone for his lack of brains; i thought that perhaps if i took him in hand he might do something in the house of lords—his old father can’t live much longer—but i gave it up. he is simply incapable of any coherent thought at all. he can’t spell; he can’t add, and once when i asked him if he liked rachmaninoff, he thought it was the man who had built the pyramids.”
this and much more came back to ada laverton as she turned over in her mind the sudden wild idea that had come to her. above all things she wanted to see cynthia married; she was so utterly happy herself that she longed for her friend to share it too. she knew, as no one else did, what a wonderful wife and pal cynthia would make to the right man. but it must be the right man; it must be the real thing. and like a blinding flash had come the thought of the hermit—the hermit who had come into the neighbourhood six months previously, and taken the little farm standing in the hollow overlooking the sea. for, as she frequently told john, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was tied to a silly old idiot of a husband, she’d have married the hermit herself.
“no, he doesn’t feed ravens,” she remarked at length. “only puppies. he breeds cairns and aberdeens. we’ll stroll up and see him after tea.”
“a hermit breeding dogs!” cynthia sat up lazily. “my dear, you intrigue me.”
“oh! he’s not a bad young man,” said ada laverton, indifferently. “quite passable looking, d.s.o. and m.c. and that sort of thing. been all over the world, and is really quite interesting when you can get him to talk.”
“what sort of age?” asked her friend.
“thirty to thirty-five. you shall see him. but you’re not to go and turn his head; he’s very peaceful and happy as he is.”
lady cynthia smiled.
“i don’t think hermits are much in my line. a man’s job is to be up and doing; not to bury himself alive and breed dogs.”
“you tell him so,” said her hostess. “it will do him good.”
ii
an excited rush of puppies—fat, bouncing, lolloping puppies; a stern order: “heel, you young blighters, heel!” in a pleasant, cheerful voice; a laughing greeting from ada laverton, and lady cynthia stockdale found herself shaking hands with the hermit. she shook hands as a man shakes hands, with a firm, steady grasp, and she looked the person she was greeting straight in the eyes. to her that first handshake meant, more often than not, the final estimate of a stranger’s character; it always meant the first. and her first estimate of desmond brooke was good. she saw a man of clear skin and clear eye. he wore no hat, and his brown hair, curling a little at the temples, was slightly flecked with grey. his face was bronzed and a faint smile hovered in the corners of the eyes that met hers fair and square. his shirt was open at the neck; the sleeves were rolled up, showing a pair of muscular brown arms. he was clean-shaven, and his teeth were very white and regular. so much, in detail, she noticed during that first half-second; then she turned her attention to the puppies.
“what toppers!” she remarked. “what absolute toppers!”
she picked a fat, struggling mixture of legs and ecstatically slobbering tongue out of the mêlée at her feet, and the hermit watched her gravely. it struck him that in the course of a fairly crowded life he had never seen a more lovely picture than the one made by this tall slender girl with the wriggling puppy in her arms. and another thing struck him also, though he said nothing. possibly it was accidental, but the puppy she had picked up, and which was now making frantic endeavours to lick her face, was out and away the best of the litter. almost angrily he told himself that it was an accident, and yet he could not quite banish the thought that it was an accident which would happen every time. thoroughbred picks thoroughbred; instinctively the girl would pick the best. his mouth set a little, giving him a look of sternness, and at that moment their eyes met over the puppy’s head.
“is he for sale?” asked the girl.
undoubtedly he was for sale; desmond brooke, though he was in no need of money, did not believe in running anything save on business lines. but now something that he did not stop to analyse made him hesitate. he felt a sudden inconsequent distaste against selling the puppy to her.
“you’ve picked the best, i see,” he said quietly.
“of course,” she answered, with the faintest trace of hauteur. insensibly she felt that this man was hostile to her.
“i am afraid that that one is not for sale,” he continued. “you can have any of the others if you like.”
abruptly she restored the puppy to its mother.
“having chosen the best, mr. brooke,” she said, looking him straight in the face, “i don’t care about taking anything second-rate.”
for a second or two they stared at one another. ada laverton had wandered away and was talking shop to the gardener; the hermit and lady cynthia were alone.
“you surprise me,” said the hermit, calmly.
“that is gratuitously rude,” answered the girl quietly. “it is also extremely impertinent. and lastly it shows that you are a very bad judge of character.”
the man bowed.
“i sincerely hope that your ‘lastly’ is true. am i to understand, then, that you do not care to buy one of the other puppies?”
and suddenly the girl laughed half-angrily.
“what do you mean by daring to say such a thing to me? why, you haven’t known me for more than two minutes.”
“that is not strictly true, lady cynthia. anyone who is capable of reading and takes in the illustrated papers can claim your acquaintance weekly.”
“i see,” she answered. “you disapprove of my poor features being reproduced.”
“personally not at all,” he replied. “i know enough of the world, and am sufficiently broadminded, i trust, to realise how completely unimportant the matter is. lady cynthia stockdale at ascot, at goodwood, in her motor-car, out of her motor-car, by the fire, by the gas stove, in her boudoir, out of her boudoir, in the garden, not in the garden—and always in a different frock every time. it doesn’t matter to me, but there are some people who haven’t got enough money to pay for the doctor’s bill when their wives are dying. and it’s such a comfort to them to see you by the fire. to know that half the money you paid for your frock would save the life of the woman they love.”
“you’re talking like a ranting tub-thumper,” she cried, furiously. “how dare you say such things to me? and, anyway, does breeding dogs in the wilderness help them with their doctors’ bills?”
“touché,” said the man, with a faint smile. “perhaps i haven’t expressed myself very clearly. you can’t pay the bills, lady cynthia—i can’t. there are too many thousands to pay. but it’s the bitter contrast that hits them, and it’s all so petty.” for a while he paused, seeming to seek for his words. “come with me, lady cynthia, and i’ll show you something.”
almost violently he swung round on his heel and strode off towards the house. for a moment she hesitated, then she followed him slowly. anger and indignation were seething in her mind; the monstrous impertinence of this complete stranger was almost bewildering. she found him standing in his smoking-room unlocking a drawer in a big writing-desk.
“well,” she said uncompromisingly from the doorway.
“i have something to show you,” he remarked quietly. “but before i show it to you, i want to tell you a very short story. three years ago i was in the back of beyond in brazil. i’d got a bad dose of fever, and the gassing i got in france wasn’t helping matters. it was touch and go whether i pulled through or not. and one day one of the fellows got a two-month-old tatler. in that tatler was a picture—a picture of the loveliest girl i have ever seen. i tore it out, and i propped it up at the foot of my bed. i think i worshipped it; i certainly fell in love with it. there is the picture.”
he handed it to her, and she looked at it in silence. it was of herself, and after a moment or two she raised her eyes to his.
“go on,” she said gently.
“a few months ago i came back to england. i found a seething cauldron of discontent; men out of work—strikes—talk of revolution. and this was the country for which a million of our best had died. i also found—week after week—my picture girl displayed in every paper, as if no such thing as trouble existed. she, in her motor-car, cared for none of these things.”
“that is unjust,” said the girl, and her voice was low.
“i knew it was unjust,” answered the man, “but i couldn’t help it. and if i couldn’t help it—i who loved her—what of these others? it seemed symbolical to me.”
“nero fiddling,” said the girl, with a faint smile. “you’re rather a strange person, mr. brooke. am i to understand that you’re in love with me?”
“you are not. i’m in love with the you of that picture.”
“i see. you have set up an image. and supposing that image is a true one.”
“need we discuss that?” said the man, with faint sarcasm.
the girl shrugged her shoulders.
“the supposition is at least as possible as that you are doing any vast amount of good for the seething cauldron of discontent, i think you called it, by breeding aberdeens in the country. i’m afraid you’re a crank, mr. brooke, and not a very consistent one at that. and a crank is to my mind synonymous with a bore.”
the man replaced the picture in his desk.
“then perhaps we had better join mrs. laverton,” he remarked. “i apologise for having wearied you.”
in silence they went out into the garden, to find ada laverton wandering aimlessly round looking for them.
“where have you two been?” she demanded, as she saw them approaching.
“mr. brooke has been showing me a relic of his past,” said lady cynthia. “most interesting and touching. are you ready to go, ada?”
mrs. laverton gave a quick glance at their two faces, and wondered what had happened. not much, surely, in so short a time—and yet with cynthia you never could tell. the hermit’s face, usually so inscrutable, showed traces of suppressed feeling; cynthia’s was rather too expressionless.
“are you coming to the ball to-morrow night, hermit?” she asked.
“i didn’t know there was one on, mrs. laverton,” he answered.
“the cricket ball, my good man,” she exclaimed. “it’s been advertised for the last month.”
“but surely mr. brooke doesn’t countenance anything so frivolous as dancing?” remarked lady cynthia. “after the lecture he has just given me on my personal deportment the idea is out of the question.”
“nevertheless i propose to come, lady cynthia,” said brooke quietly. “you must forgive me if i have allowed my feelings to run away with me to-day. and perhaps to-morrow you will allow me to find out if the new image is correct—or a pose also.”
“what do you mean?” asked the girl, puzzled.
“?‘lady cynthia stockdale—possibly the best dancer in london,’?” he quoted mockingly; “i forget which of the many papers i saw it in.”
“do you propose to pass judgment on my dancing?” she asked.
“if you will be good enough to give me a dance.”
for a moment words failed her. the cool, the sublime impertinence of this man literally choked her. then she nodded briefly.
“i’ll give you a dance if you’re there in time. and then you can test for yourself, if you’re capable of testing.”
he bowed without a word, and stood watching them as they walked down the lane.
“i think, ada, that he’s the most detestable man i’ve ever met,” remarked lady cynthia furiously, as they turned into the main road.
and ada laverton said nothing, but wondered the more.
iii
she saw him as soon as she got into the ballroom. it was the last day but one of the local cricket week, and the room was crowded. a large number of the men she knew—men she had danced with in london who had come down to play—and within half a minute she was surrounded. it was a chance of getting a dance with her which was not to be missed; in london she generally danced with one or at the most two men for the whole evening—men who were absolutely perfect performers. for dancing was a part of lady cynthia’s life—and a big part.
the humour of the situation had struck her that day. for this dog-breeding crank to presume to judge her powers of dancing seemed too sublimely funny for annoyance. but he deserved to be taught a very considerable lesson. and she proposed to teach him. after that she proposed to dismiss him completely from her mind.
she gave him a cool nod as he came up, and frowned slightly as she noticed the faint glint of laughter in his eyes. really mr. desmond brooke was a little above himself. so much the worse for him.
“i don’t know whether you’ll find one or not,” she remarked carelessly, handing him her programme.
he glanced at it without a word, and quietly erased someone’s name.
“i’ve made special arrangements with the band for number 9, lady cynthia,” he remarked coolly. “a lot of people will be in at supper then, so we ought to have the floor more to ourselves.”
the next instant he had bowed and disappeared, leaving her staring speechlessly at her programme.
“a breezy customer,” murmured a man beside her. “who is he?”
“a gentleman who is going to have the biggest lesson of his life,” she answered ominously, and the man laughed. he knew lady cynthia—and he knew lady cynthia’s temper when it was roused. but for once he was wrong in his diagnosis; the outward and visible were there all right—the inward and mental state of affairs in keeping with them was not. for the first time in her life lady cynthia felt at a loss. her partners found her distraite and silent; as a matter of fact she was barely conscious of their existence. and the more she lashed at herself mentally, the more confused did she get.
it was preposterous, impossible. why should she cut tubby dawlish to dance with a crank who kept dogs? a crank, moreover, who openly avowed that his object was to see if she could dance. every now and then she saw him lounging by the door watching her. she knew he was watching her, though she gave no sign of being aware of his existence. and all the while number 9 grew inexorably nearer.
dance indeed! she would show him how she could dance. and as a result she fell into the deadly fault of trying. no perfect dancer ever tries to dance; they just dance. and lady cynthia knew that better than most people. which made her fury rise still more against the man standing just outside the door smoking a cigarette. a thousand times—no; she would not cut tubby.
and then she realised that people were moving in to supper; that the 8 was being taken down from the band platform—that 9 was being put up. and she realised that desmond brooke the hermit was crossing the room towards her; was standing by her side while tubby—like an outraged terrier—was glaring at him across her.
“this is mine, old thing,” spluttered tubby. “number 9.”
“i think not,” said the hermit quietly. “i fixed number 9 especially with lady cynthia yesterday.”
she hesitated—and was lost.
“i’m sorry, tubby,” she said a little weakly. “i forgot.”
not a trace of triumph showed on the hermit’s face, as he gravely watched the indignant back of his rival retreating towards the door: not a trace of expression showed on his face as he turned to the girl.
“you’ve been trying to-night, lady cynthia,” he said gravely. “please don’t—this time. it’s a wonderful tune this—half waltz, half tango. it was lucky finding lopez conducting: he has played for me before. and i want you just to forget everything except the smell of the passion flowers coming in through the open windows, and the thrumming of the guitars played by the natives under the palm-trees.” his eyes were looking into hers, and suddenly she drew a deep breath. things had got beyond her.
it was marked as a fox-trot on the programme, and several of the more enthusiastic performers were waiting to get off on the stroke of time. but as the first haunting notes of the dance wailed out—they paused and hesitated. this was no fox-trot; this was—but what matter what it was? for after the first bar no one moved in the room: they stood motionless watching one couple—lady cynthia stockdale and an unknown man.
“why, it’s the fellow who breeds dogs,” muttered someone to his partner, but there was no reply. she was too engrossed in watching.
and as for lady cynthia, from the moment she felt desmond brooke’s arm round her, the world had become merely movement—such movement as she had never thought of before. to say that he was a perfect dancer would be idle: he was dancing itself. and the band, playing as men possessed, played for them and them only. everything was forgotten: nothing in the world mattered save that they should go on and on and on—dancing. she was utterly unconscious of the crowd of onlookers: she didn’t know that people had left the supper-room and were thronging in at the door: she knew nothing save that she had never danced before. dimly she realised at last that the music had stopped: dimly she heard a great roar of applause—but only dimly. it seemed to come from far away—the shouts of “encore” seemed hazy and dream-like. they had left the ballroom, though she was hardly conscious of where he was taking her, and when he turned to her and said, “get a wrap or something: i want to talk to you out in god’s fresh air,” she obeyed him without a word. he was waiting for her when she returned, standing motionless where she had left him. and still in silence he led the way to his car which had been left apart from all the others, almost as if he had expected to want it before the end. for a moment she hesitated, for lady cynthia, though utterly unconventional, was no fool.
“will you come with me?” he said gravely.
“where to?” she asked.
“up to the cliffs beyond my house. it will take ten minutes—and i want to talk to you with the sound of the sea below us.”
“you had the car in readiness?” she said quietly.
“for both of us—or for me alone,” he answered. “if you won’t come, then i go home. will you come with me?” he repeated.
“yes; i will come.”
he helped her into the car and wrapped a rug round her; then he climbed in beside her. and as they swung out of the little square, the strains of the next dance followed them from the open windows of the town hall.
he drove as he danced—perfectly; and in the dim light the girl watched his clear-cut profile as he stared ahead into the glare of the headlights. away to the right his farm flashed by, the last house before they reached the top of the cliffs. and gradually, above the thrumming of the engine, she heard the lazy boom of the big atlantic swell on the rocks ahead. at last he stopped where the road ran parallel to the top of the cliff, and switched off the lights.
“well,” she said, a little mockingly, “is the new image correct or a pose?”
“you dance divinely,” he answered gravely. “more divinely than any woman i have ever danced with, and i have danced with those who are reputed to be the show dancers of the world. but i didn’t ask you to come here to talk about dancing; i asked you to come here in order that i might first apologise, and then say good-bye.”
the girl gave a little start, but said nothing.
“i talked a good deal of rot to you yesterday,” he went on, after a moment. “you were justified in calling me a ranting tub-thumper. but i was angry with myself, and when one is angry with oneself one does foolish things. i know as well as you do just how little society photographs mean: that was only a peg to hang my inexcusable tirade on. you see, when one has fallen in love with an ideal—as i fell in love with that picture of you, all in white in the garden at your father’s place—and you treasure that ideal for three years, it jolts one to find that the ideal is different to what you thought. i fell in love with a girl in white, and sometimes in the wilds i’ve seen visions and dreamed dreams. and then i found her a lovely being in paquin’s most expensive frocks; a social celebrity: a household name. and then i met her, and knew my girl in white had gone. what matter that it was the inexorable rule of nature that she must go: what matter that she had changed into an incredibly lovely woman? she had gone: my dream girl had vanished. in her place stood lady cynthia stockdale—the well-known society beauty. reality had come—and i was angry with you for having killed my dream—angry with myself for having to wake up.
“such is my apology,” he continued gravely. “perhaps you will understand: i think you will understand. and just because i was angry with you, i made you dance with me to-night. i said to myself: ‘i will show lady cynthia stockdale that the man who loved the girl in white can meet her successor on her own ground.’ that’s the idea i started with, but things went wrong half-way through the dance. the anger died; in its place there came something else. even my love for the girl in white seemed to become a bit hazy; i found that the successor had supplanted her more completely than i realised. and since the successor has the world at her feet—why, the breeder of dogs will efface himself, for his own peace of mind. so, good-bye, lady cynthia—and the very best of luck. if it won’t bore you i may say that i’m not really a breeder of dogs by profession. this is just an interlude; a bit of rest spent with the most wonderful pals in the world. i’m getting back to harness soon: voluntary harness, i’m glad to say, as the shekels don’t matter. but anything one can do towards greasing the wheels, and helping those priceless fellows who gave everything without a murmur during the war, and who are up against it now—is worth doing.”
and still she said nothing, while he backed the car on to the grass beside the road, and turned it the way they had come. a jumble of strange thoughts were in her mind; a jumble out of which there stuck one dominant thing—the brown tanned face of the man beside her. and when he stopped the car by his own farm and left her without a word of apology, she sat quite motionless staring at the white streak of road in front. at last she heard his footsteps coming back along the drive, and suddenly a warm wriggling bundle was placed in her lap—a bundle which slobbered joyfully and then fell on the floor with an indignant yelp.
“the puppy,” he said quietly. “please take him.” and very softly under his breath he added: “the best to the best.”
but she heard him, and even as she stooped to lift the puppy on to her knees, her heart began to beat madly. she knew: at last, she knew.
“i’ll take you back to the dance,” he was saying, “and afterwards i’ll deposit that young rascal at mrs. laverton’s house.”
and then for the first time she spoke.
“please go to ada’s house first. afterwards we’ll see about the dance.”
he bowed and swung the car left-handed through the lodge gates.
“will you wait for me?” she said, as he pulled up at the front door.
“as long as you like,” he answered courteously.
“because i may be some time,” she continued a little unevenly. “and don’t wait for me here: wait for me where the drive runs through that little copse, half-way down to the lodge.”
the next instant she had disappeared into the house, with the puppy in her arms. why by the little copse? wondered the man as he slowly drove the car down the drive. the butler had seen them already, so what did it matter? he pulled up the car in the shadow of a big oak tree, and lit a cigarette. then, with his arms resting on the steering wheel, he sat staring in front of him. he had done a mad thing, and she’d taken it wonderfully well. he always had done mad things all his life; he was made that way. but this was the maddest he had ever done. with a grim smile he pictured her infuriated partners, waiting in serried rows by the door, cursing him by all their gods. and then the smile faded, and he sighed, while his knuckles gleamed white on the wheel. if only she wasn’t so gloriously pretty; if only she wasn’t so utterly alive and wonderful. well—it was the penalty of playing with fire; and it had been worth it. yes; it had been worth it—even if the wound never quite healed.
“a fool there was, and he made his prayer. . . .”
he pitched his cigarette away, and suddenly he stiffened and sat motionless, while something seemed to rise in his throat and choke him, and the blood hammered hotly at his temples. a girl in white was standing not five feet from him on the fringe of the little wood: a girl holding a puppy in her arms. and then he heard her speaking.
“it’s not the same frock—but it’s the nearest i can do.”
she came up to the car, and once again over the head of the puppy their eyes met.
“i’ve been looking,” she said steadily, “for the real thing. i don’t think i’ve found it—i know i have.”
“my dear!” he stammered hoarsely. “oh! my dear dream girl.”
“take me back to the cliff, desmond,” she whispered. “take me back to our cliff.”
and an outraged puppy, bouncing off the running-board on to a stray fir-cone, viewed the proceedings of the next five minutes with silent displeasure.
