they all eat chicken in the gorse and
fly before the storm
“it’s the most ripping rag,” said tony, as he watched people climb into the wagonette. “things,” he added, “will probably happen.” lady gale herself, as she watched them arrange themselves, had her doubts; she knew, as very few women in england knew, how to make things go, and no situation had ever been too much for her, but the day was dreadfully hot and there were, as she vaguely put it to herself, “things in the air.” what these things were, she could not, as yet, decide; but she hoped that the afternoon would reveal them to her, that it would, indeed, show a good deal that this last week had caused her to wonder about.
the chief reasons for alarm were the maradicks and mrs. lawrence, without them it would have been quite a family party; alice, rupert, tony, and herself. she wondered a little why she had asked the others. she had wanted to invite maradick, partly because she liked the man for himself and partly for tony’s sake; then, too, he held the key to tony now. he knew better than any of the others what the boy was doing; he was standing guard.
and so then, of course, she had to ask mrs. maradick. she didn’t like the little woman, there was no question about that, but you couldn’t ask one without the other. and then she had to give her some one with whom to pair off, and so she had asked mrs. lawrence; and there you were.
but it wasn’t only because of the maradicks that the air was thundery; the lesters had quarrelled again. he sat in the wagonette with his lips tightly closed and his eyes staring straight in front of him right through mrs. maradick as though she were non-existent. and mrs. lester was holding her head very high and her cheeks were flushed. oh! they would both be difficult.
she relied, in the main, on tony to pull things through. she had never yet known a party hang fire when he was there; one simply couldn’t lose one’s temper and sulk with tony about the place, but then he too had been different during this last week, and for the first time in his life she was not sure of him. and then, again, there was alice. that was really worrying her very badly. she had come down with them quite obviously to marry tony; everyone had understood that, including tony himself. and yet ever since the first evening of arrival things had changed, very subtly, almost imperceptibly, so that it had been very difficult to realise that it was only by looking back that she could see how great the difference had been. it was not only, she could see, that he had altered in himself, but that he had altered also with regard to alice. he struck her as being even on his guard, as though he were afraid, poor boy, that they would drive him into a position that he could not honourably sustain. of this she was quite sure, that whereas on his coming down to treliss he had fully intended to propose to alice within the fortnight, now, in less than a week after his arrival, he did not intend to propose at all, was determined, indeed, to wriggle as speedily as might be out of the whole situation. now there could be only one possible explanation of such a change: that he had, namely, found some one else. who was it? when was it? maradick knew and she would trust him.
and what surprised her most in the whole affair was her feeling about it all, that she rather liked it. that was most astonishing, because, of course, tony’s marriage with alice was from every point of view a most suitable and admirable business; it was the very thing. but she had looked on it, in spite of herself, as a kind of chest into which tony’s youth and vitality were inevitably going; a splendid chest with beautiful carving and studded with golden nails, but nevertheless a chest. alice was so perfectly right for anybody that she was perfectly wrong for tony; lady gale before the world must approve and even further the affair, but lady gale the mother of tony had had her doubts, and perhaps this new something, whatever it might be, was romantic, exciting, young and adventurous. mr. maradick knew.
but it is mrs. maradick’s view of the drive that must be recorded, because it was, in fact, round her that everything revolved. the reason for her prominence was rupert, and it was he who, quite unconsciously and with no after knowledge of having done anything at all, saved the afternoon.
he was looking very cool and rather handsome; so was mrs. maradick. she was indeed by far the coolest of them all in very pale mauve and a bunch of carnations at her breast and a broad grey hat that shaded her eyes. he had admired her from the first, and to-day everyone else seemed hot and flustered in comparison. neither alice nor mrs. lester were at their best, and mrs. lawrence was obviously ill at ease, but mrs. maradick leaned back against the cushions and talked to him with the most charming little smile and eyes of the deepest blue. he had expected to find the afternoon boring in the extreme, but now it promised to be amusing, very amusing.
mrs. maradick had come out in the spirit of conquest. she would show these people, all of them, what they had missed during these last two weeks. they should compare her husband and herself, and she had no fear of the result; this was her chance, and she meant to seize it. she never looked at him, and they had not, as yet, spoken, but she was acutely conscious of his presence. he was sitting in a grey flannel suit, rather red and hot, next to mrs. lester. he would probably try and use the afternoon as the means for another abject apology.
she was irritated, nevertheless, with herself for thinking about him at all; she had never considered him before. why should she do so now? she glanced quickly across for a moment at him. how she hated that mrs. lester! there was a cat for you, if ever there was one!
they had climbed the hill, and now a breeze danced about them; and there were trees, tall and shining birch, above their heads. on their right lay the sea, so intensely blue that it flung into the air a scent as of a wilderness of blue flowers, a scent of all the blue things that the world has ever known. no breeze ruffled it, no sails crossed its surface; it was so motionless that one would have expected, had one flung a pebble, to have seen it crack like ice. behind them ran the road, a white, twisting serpent, down to the town.
the town itself shone like a jewel in a golden ring of corn; its towers and walls gleamed and flashed and sparkled. the world lay breathless, with the hard glazed appearance that it wears when the sun is very hot. the colour was so intense that the eye rested with relief on a black clump of firs clustered against the horizon. nothing moved save the carriage; the horses crawled over the brow of the hill.
“well, that’s awfully funny,” said mrs. maradick, leaning over and smiling at rupert. “because i feel just as you do about it. we can’t often come up, of course, and the last train to epsom’s so dreadfully late that unless it’s something really good, you know——”
“it’s dreadfully boring anyhow,” said rupert, “turning out at night and all that sort of rot, and generally the same old play, you know. . . . give me musical comedy—dancing and stuff.”
“oh! you young men!” said mrs. maradick, “we know you’re all the same. and i must say i enjoyed ‘the girl and the cheese’ the other day, positively the only thing i’ve seen for ages.”
from the other side mrs. lawrence could be heard making attack on mr. lester. “it was really too awfully sweet of you to put it that way, mr. lester. it was just what i’d been feeling, but couldn’t put into words; and when i came across it in your book i said to myself, ‘there, that’s just what i’ve been feeling all along.’ i simply love your book, mr. lester. i feel as if it had been written specially for me, you know.”
mr. lester flushed with annoyance. he hated, beyond everything, that people should talk to him about his books, and now this silly woman! it was such a hot day, and he had quarrelled with his wife.
“but what i’ve really always so often wanted to ask you,” pursued mrs. lawrence, “is whether you took mrs. abbey in ‘to paradise’ from anyone? i think you must have done; and i know some one so exactly like her that i couldn’t help wondering—mrs. roland temmett—she lives in hankin street, no. 3 i think it is. do you know her? if you don’t you must meet her, because she’s the very image, exactly like. you know in that chapter when she goes down to poor mr. elliot——”
but this was too much for mr. lester.
“i have never met her,” he said brusquely, and his lips closed as though he never meant to open them again. mrs. lester watched them and was amused. she knew how her husband hated it; she could even sympathise with him, but it would punish him for having been so horrid to her.
she herself was rapidly recovering her temper. it was such a lovely day that it was impossible to be cross for long, and then her husband had often been cross and disagreeable before, it wasn’t as though it were anything new. what a dreadful woman that mrs. maradick was! why had lady gale invited her? poor mr. maradick! she rather liked him, his size and strength and stolidity, but how dreadful to be tied to such a woman for life! even worse, she reflected, than to be tied for life to a man such as her own special treasure! oh! our marriage system.
she turned round to maradick.
“it’s better, thank you,” she said.
“what is?” he asked her.
“my temper,” she answered. “it was just the devil when we started. i was positively fuming. you must have noticed——”
“you have been perfectly charming,” he said.
“well, it’s very nice of you to say so, but i assure you it was through my clenched teeth. my hubby and i had a tiff before we started, and it was hot, and my maid did everything wrong. oh! little things! but all enough to upset me. but it’s simply impossible to stay cross with a view and a day like this. i don’t suppose you know,” she said, looking up at him, “what it is to be bad-tempered.”
“i?” he laughed. “don’t i? i’m always in a bad temper all the year round. one has to be in business, it impresses people; it’s the only kind of authority that the office-boy understands.”
“don’t you get awfully tired of it all?” she asked him. “blotting-paper, i mean, and pens and sealing-wax?”
“no. i never used to think about it. one lived by rule so. there were regular hours at which one did things and always every day the same regular things to do. but now, after this fortnight, it will, i think, be hard. i shall remember things and places, and it will be difficult to settle down.”
she looked at him critically. “yes, you’re not the sort of man to whom business would be enough. some men can go on and never want anything else at all. i know plenty of men like that, but you’re not one of them.” she paused for a moment and then said suddenly, “but oh, mr. maradick, why did you come to treliss?”
“why?” he said, vaguely echoing her.
“yes, of all places in the world. there never was a place more unsettling; whatever you’ve been before treliss will make you something different now, and if anything’s ever going to happen to you it will happen here. however, have your holiday, mr. maradick, have it to the full. i’m going to have mine.”
they had arrived. the wagonette had drawn up in front of a little wayside inn, “the hearty cow,” having for its background a sweeping moor of golden gorse; the little brown house stood like a humble penitent on the outskirts of some royal crowd.
everyone got down and shovelled rugs and baskets and kettles; everyone protested and laughed and ran back to see if there was anything left behind, and ran on in front to look at the view. at the turn of the brow of the hill maradick drew a deep breath. he did not think he had ever seen anything so lovely before. on both sides and behind him the gorse flamed; in front of him was the sea stretching, a burning blue, for miles; against the black cliffs in the distance it broke in little waves of hard curling white. they had brought with them a tent that was now spread over their heads to keep off the sun, they crowded round the unpacking of the baskets. conversation was general.
“oh, paté de foie gras, chicken, lobster salad, that’s right. no, tony, wait a moment. don’t open them yet, they’re jam and things. oh! there’s the champagne. please, mr. lester, would you mind?”
“so i said to him that if he couldn’t behave at a dance he’d better not come at all—yes, look at the view, isn’t it lovely?—better not come at all; don’t you think i was perfectly right, mr. gale? too atrocious, you know, to speak——”
“the bounder! can’t stand fellows that are too familiar, mrs. maradick. i knew a chap once——”
“oh lord! look out! it’s coming! my word, lester, you nearly let us have it. it’s all right, mother, the situation’s saved, but it was a touch and go. i say, what stuff! look out, milly, you’ll stick your boot into the pie. no, it’s all right. it was only my consideration for your dress, milly, not a bit for the pie; only don’t put your foot into it. hullo, alice, old girl, where have you been all this time?”
this last was tony, his face red with his exertions, his collar off and his shirt open at the neck. when he saw alice, however, he stopped unpacking the baskets and came over to her. “i say,” he said, bending down to her, “come for a little stroll while they’re unpacking the flesh-pots. there’s a view just round the corner that will fairly make you open your eyes.”
they went out together. he put his arm through hers. “what is the matter, miss alice du cane?” he said. then as she gave no answer, he said, “what’s up, old girl?”
“oh! nothing’s up,” she said, looking down and digging her parasol into the ground. “only it’s hot and, well, i suppose i’m not quite the thing. i don’t think treliss suits me.”
“oh! i say, i’m so sorry,” he said. “i’d noticed these last few days that you were a bit off colour. i’d been wondering about it.”
“oh, it’s nothing,” she said, driving her parasol into the path still more furiously. “only—i hate treliss. i hate it. you’re all awfully good to me, of course, but i think i’d better go.”
“go?” he said blankly.
“yes, up to scotland or somewhere. i’m not fit company for anyone as i am.”
“oh! i say, i’m sorry.” he looked at her in dismay. “you said something before about it, but i thought it was only for the moment. i’ve been so jolly myself that i’ve not thought about other people. but why don’t you like the place?”
“i don’t know, i couldn’t tell you. i know it’s awfully ungrateful of me to complain when lady gale has given me such a good time. . . . i’ve no explanation at all. . . . it's silly of me."
she stared out to sea, and she knew quite well that the explanation was of the simplest, she was in love with tony.
when it had come upon her she did not know. she had certainly not been in love with him when she had first come down to treliss. the idea of marrying him had been entertained agreeably, and had seemed as pleasant a way of settling as any other. one had to be fixed and placed some time, and tony was a very safe and honourable person to be placed with. there were things that she would have altered, of course; his very vitality led him into a kind of indiscriminate appreciation of men and things that meant change and an inability to stick to things, but she had faced the whole prospect quite readily and with a good deal of tolerance.
then, within the week, everything had changed. she wondered, hating herself for the thought, whether it had been because he had shown himself less keen; he hadn’t sought her out in quite the way that he had once done, he had left her alone for days together. but that could not have been all; there was something else responsible. there was some further change in him, something quite apart from his relation to her, that she had been among the first to recognise. he had always had a delightful youth and vitality that people had been charmed by, but now, during the last week, there had been something more. it was as though he had at last found the thing for which he had so long been looking. there had been something or some one outside all of them, their set, that he had been seeing and watching all the time; she had seen his eyes sparkle and his mouth smile at some thought or vision that they most certainly had not given him. and this new discovery gave him a strength that he had lacked before; he seemed to have in her eyes a new grandeur, and perhaps it was this that made her love him. but no, it was something more, something that she could only very vaguely and mistily put down to the place. it was in the air, and she felt that if she could only get away from treliss, with its sea and its view and its crooked town, she would get straight again and be rid of all this contemptible emotion.
she had always prided herself on her reserve, on the control of her emotions, on her contempt for animal passion, and now she could have flung her arms round tony’s neck and kissed his eyes, his hair, his mouth. she watched him, his round curly head, his brown neck, the swing of his shoulders, his splendid stride.
“let’s sit down here,” he said; “they can’t see us now. i’m not going to help ’em any more. they’ll call us when they’re ready.”
she sat down on a rock and faced the sweep of the sea, curved like a purple bow in the hands of some mighty archer. he flung himself down on to his chest and looked up at her, his face propped on his hands.
“i say, alice, old girl,” he said, “this is the first decent talk we’ve had for days. i suppose it’s been my fault. i’m awfully sorry, and i really don’t know how the time’s gone; there’s been a lot to do, somehow, and yet it’s hard to say exactly what one’s done.”
“you’ve been with mr. maradick,” she said almost fiercely.
he looked up at her, surprised at her tone. “why, yes, i suppose i have. he’s a good chap, maradick. i have been about with him a good bit.”
“i can’t quite see,” she said slowly, looking down at the ground, “what the attraction is. he’s nice enough, of course; a nice old man, but rather dull.”
“oh, i don’t know about old, alice. he’s much younger than you’d think, and he’s anything but dull. that’s only because you don’t know him. he is quiet when other people are there; but he’s awfully true and straight. and you know as one gets older, without being priggish about it, one chooses one’s friends for that sort of thing, not for superficial things a bit. i used to think it mattered whether they cared about the same ideas and were—well, artistic, you know. but that’s all rot; what really matters is whether they’ll stick to you and last.”
“one thing i always said about you, tony,” she answered, “is that you don’t, as you say, stick. it’s better, you know, to be off with the old friends before you are on with the new.”
“oh! i say!” he could scarcely speak for astonishment. “alice! what’s the matter? why, you don’t think i’ve changed about you, do you? i know—these past few days——”
“oh, please don’t apologise, tony,” she said, speaking very quickly. “i’m not making complaints. if you would rather be with mr. maradick, do. make what friends you like; only when one comes down to stay, one expects to see something of you, just at meals, you know.”
he had never seen her like this before. alice, the most self-contained of girls, reserving her emotions for large and abstract causes and movements, and never for a moment revealing any hint of personal likes or dislikes, never, so far as he had seen, showing any pleasure at his presence or complaining of his absence; and now, this!
“oh! i say!” he cried again, “i’m most awfully sorry. it’s only been a few days—i know it was jolly rude. but the place has been so ripping, so beautiful, that i suppose i didn’t think about people much. i’ve been awfully happy, and that makes one selfish, i suppose. but i say,” he put a hand on her dress, “please don’t be angry with me, alice, old girl. we’ve been chums for ages now, and when one’s known some one a jolly long time it isn’t kind of necessary to go on seeing them every day, one goes on without that, takes it on trust, you know. i knew that you were there and that i was there and that nothing makes any difference.”
the touch of his hand made her cheeks flame. “i’m sorry,” she said, almost in a whisper, “i don’t know why i spoke like that; of course we’re chums, only i’ve been a bit lonely; rotten these last few days, i’m sure i don’t know why.” she paused for a moment and then went on: “what it really is, is having to change suddenly. oh, tony, i’m such a rotter! you know how i talked about what i’d do if i were a man and the way i could help and the way you ought to help, and all the rest of it; well; that’s all gone suddenly—i don’t know why or when—and there’s simply nothing else there. you won’t leave me quite alone the rest of the time, tony, please? it isn’t that i want you so awfully much, you know, but there isn’t anyone else.”
“oh! we’ll have a splendid time,” he said. “you must get to know maradick, alice. he’s splendid. he doesn’t talk much, but he’s so awfully genuine.”
she got up. “you don’t describe him very well, tony; all the same, genuine people are the most awful bores, you never know where you are. well, forgive my little bit of temper. we ought to get back. they’ll be wondering where we are.”
but as they strolled back she was very quiet. she had found out what she wanted to know. there was some one else. she had watched his face as he looked at the sea; of course that accounted for the change. who was she? some fisher-girl in the town, perhaps some girl at a shop. well, she would be no rival to anyone. she wouldn’t fight over tony’s body; she had her pride. it was going to be a hard time for her; it would be better for her to go away, but that would be difficult. people would talk; she had better see it out.
“it’s simply too dreadfully hot in the sun,” tony was conscious of mrs. lawrence saying as he joined them. he took it as a metaphor that she was sitting with her back to the sea and her eyes fixed upon the chicken. he wanted to scream, “look at the gorse, you fool!” but instead he took a plate and flung himself down beside mrs. maradick.
she nodded at him gaily. “you naughty boy! you left us to unpack; you don’t deserve to have anything.”
“indeed, mrs. maradick, i stayed until i was in the way. too many cooks, you know.”
he watched everyone, and detected an air of cheerfulness that had certainly not been there before. perhaps it was the lunch; at any rate he was hungry.
he talked, waving a piece of bread and butter. “you people don’t deserve anything. you ought to go and see a view before eating; grace before meat. alice and i have done our duty and shall now proceed to enjoy our food twice as much as the rest of you.”
“well, i think it’s too bad, that gorse,” said mrs. maradick, with a little pout and a flash of the eye towards rupert gale. “it puts all one’s colours out.” she gave her mauve a self-satisfied pat.
“oh! emmy dear! you look perfectly sweet!” ecstatically from mrs. lawrence.
suddenly mr. lester spoke, leaning forward and looking at mrs. maradick very seriously. “have you thought, mrs. maradick, whether perhaps you don’t put the gorse out?”
“oh! mr. lester! how cruel! poor little me! now, mr. gale, do stand up for me.”
rupert looked at the gorse with a languid air. “it simply don’t stand a chance,” he said.
“talking about gorse,” began mrs. lawrence. she was always telling long stories about whose success she was in great doubt. this doubt she imparted to her audience, with the result that her stories always failed.
this one failed completely, but nobody seemed to mind. the highest spirits prevailed, and everyone was on the best of terms with everyone else. lady gale was delighted. she had thought that it would go off all right, but not quite so well as this.
of course it was largely due to tony. she watched him as he gathered people in, made them laugh, and brought the best out of them. it was a kind of “open sesame” that he whispered to everyone, a secret that he shared with them.
but what lady gale didn’t recognise was that it was all very much on the surface; nobody really had changed at all. she might have discovered that fact from her own experience had she thought about it. for instance, she didn’t care for mrs. maradick any more than before; she liked her, indeed, rather less, but she smiled and laughed and said “dear mrs. maradick.” everyone felt the same. they would have embraced their dearest enemies; it was in the air.
mrs. lester even addressed her husband—
“no, ted dear, no more meringues. you know it’s bad for you, and you’ll be sorry to-night.”
he looked at her rather gloomily, and then turned and watched the gorse. maradick suddenly leaned over and spoke to his wife.
“emmy dear, do you remember that day at cragholt? it was just like this.”
“of course i do,” she said, nodding gaily back at him. “there was that funny captain bassett. . . . such a nice man, dear lady gale. i wonder if you know him. captain godfrey bassett. . . . such fun.”
“i wonder,” said lady gale, “if that is one of the bassetts of hindhurst. there was a captain bassett——”
maradick watched the golden curtain of gorse. the scent came to him; bees hummed in the air.
“well, i like being by the sea, you know. but to be on it; i’ve crossed the atlantic seven times and been ill every time. there is a stuff called—oh! i forget—yansfs. yes, you can’t pronounce it—you-are-now-secure-from-sea-sickness—it wasn’t any good as far as i was concerned, but then i think you ought to take it before——”
this was his wife.
mrs. lester suddenly spoke to him. “you are very silent, mr. maradick. take me for a stroll some time, won’t you? no, not now. i’m lazy, but later.”
she turned away from him before he could reply, and leaned over to her husband. then he saw that tony was at his elbow.
“come down and bathe,” the boy said, “now. no, it isn’t bad for you, really. that’s all tommy-rot. besides, we mayn’t be able to get away later.” they left the tent together.
“is it champagne?” he asked.
“what?” asked tony.
“all this amiability. i was as gruff as a—as my ordinary self—coming, and then suddenly i could have played a penny whistle; why?”
“oh! i don’t know!” said tony, flinging his arms about. “i’m much too happy to care. maradick, i’ve been seeing her, here in the gorse—wonderful—divine. we will go back to-morrow; yes, we must. of course you’ve got to come. as to everybody’s good temper, that doesn’t mean anything. the spirits of the place have their games, you know, and there we are. everybody will be awfully cross at tea. and you know it is cheek! for us all to go and plant our tent and eat our chicken in the middle of a view like this. and they’ll leave paper bags about, and they’ll pop ginger-beer. i don’t mind betting that the gods play some games before they’ve done with us.”
they climbed down the rocks to a little cove that lay nestling under the brow of the hill. the sand was white, with little sparkles in it where the sun caught the pebbles; everything was coloured with an intensity that hurt the eye. the cove was hemmed in by brown rocks; a little bird hopped along the sand, then rose with a little whirl of pleasure above their heads and disappeared.
they flung off their clothes with an entire disregard of possible observers. a week ago maradick would have died rather than do such a thing; a bathing-machine and a complete bathing-suit had been absolute essentials, now they really never entered his head. if he had thought of it at all, they would have seemed to him distinctly indecent, a kind of furtive winking of the eye, an eager disavowal of an immorality that was never there at all.
as maradick felt the water about his body his years fell from him like pilgrim’s pack. he sank down, with his eyes for a moment on the burning sky, and then gazing through depths of green water. as he cleaved it with his arm it parted and curled round his body like an embrace; for a moment he was going down and down and down, little diamond bubbles flying above him, then he was up again, and, for an instant, the dazzling white of the cove, the brown of the rocks, the blue of the sky, encircled him. then he lay on his back and floated. his body seemed to leave him, and he was something utterly untrammelled and free; there were no laws, no creeds, no arguments, nothing but a wonderful peace and contentment, an absolute union with something that he had been searching for all his life and had never found until now.
“obey we mother earth . . . mother earth.” he lay, smiling, on her breast. little waves came and danced beneath him, touching his body with a caress as they passed him; he rose and fell, a very gentle rocking, as of some mother with her child. he could not think, he could remember nothing; he only knew that he had solved a riddle.
then he struck out to sea. before him it seemed to spread without end or limit; it was veiled in its farthest distance by a thin purple haze, and out of this curtain the blue white-capped waves danced in quick succession towards him. he struck out and out, and as he felt his body cut through the water a great exultation rose in him that he was still so strong and vigorous. every part of him, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, seemed clean and sound and sane. oh! life! with its worries and its dirty little secrets and its petty moralities! and the miserable pessimistic sauntering in a melancholy twilight through perpetual graveyards! let them swim, let them swim!
he shouted to tony, “it’s great. one could go on for ever!” he dived for a moment downward, and saw the great white curve of his body from his foot to the hip, the hard smooth strength of the flesh.
then he turned slowly back. the white beach, the brown rocks, and the blue sky held out hands to him.
“all those people,” he shouted to tony, “up there, eating, sleeping, when they might be in this!” mrs. lester, he knew, would have liked it. he thought for a moment of his wife, the dresses she would need and the frills. he could see her stepping delicately from the bathing-machine; her little scream as her feet touched the water, “oh jim! it’s cold!” he laughed as he waded back on to the beach. the pebbles burnt hot under his feet, and the sand clung to his toes; he dug his legs deep into it. the sun curled about his body and wrapped him, as it were, in a robe of its own glorious colour. he could feel it burning on his back.
tony joined him, panting. “oh! my word! i’ve never had such a bathe, never! i could have stayed in for ever! but they’d be coming to look for us, and that wouldn’t do. i say, run round with me! i’ll beat you five times round.”
they raced round the beach. the sun, the wind, and the waves seemed to go with them; the water fell from them as they ran, and at last they flung themselves dry and breathless on to the hot sand.
whilst they dressed, tony dealt with the situation more practically and in detail.
“there are going to be a lot of difficulties, i’m afraid,” he said, as he stood with his shirt flapping about his legs, and his hands struggling with his collar. “in the first place, there’s mother. as i told you, she’s not got to know anything about it, because the minute she hears anything officially, of course, she’ll have to step in and ask about it, and then there’ll be no end of trouble with the governor and everybody. it’s not that she disapproves really, you know—your being there makes that all right; but she hasn’t got to realise it until it’s done. she won’t ask anything about it, but of course she can’t help wondering.”
“well, i hope it is all right,” said maradick anxiously. “my being a kind of moral danger-signal makes one nervous.”
“oh! she trusts you,” said tony confidently. “that’s why it’s so perfectly splendid your being there. and then,” went on tony, “they are all of them wondering what we are at. you see, treliss has that effect on people, or at any rate it’s having that kind of effect on us here and now. everybody is feeling uneasy about something, and they are most of them putting it down to me. things always do happen when you jumble a lot of people together in a hotel, the gods can’t resist a game; and when you complicate it by putting them in treliss! my word!”
“well, what’s the immediate complication?” asked maradick. the water had made his hair curl all over his head, and his shirt was open at the neck and his sleeves rolled up over his arms.
“well, the most immediate one,” said tony slowly, “is alice, miss du cane. she was talking to me before lunch. it’s rather caddish to say anything about it, but i tell you everything, you know. well, she seemed to think i’d been neglecting her and was quite sick about it. she never is sick about anything, because she’s much too solid, and so i don’t know what’s set her off this time. she suspects a lot.”
maradick said nothing.
“but the funny thing is that they should worry at all. before, when i’ve done anything they’ve always said, ‘oh! tony again!’ and left it at that. now, when i’ve done nothing, they all go sniffing round.”
“yes,” said maradick, “that’s the really funny thing; that nothing has been done for them to sniff at, yet. i suppose, as a matter of fact, people have got so little to do in a hotel that they worry about nothing just to fill up time.”
he stretched his arms and yawned.
“no,” said tony, “it’s the place. whom the gods wish to send mad they first send to treliss. it’s in the air. ask that old fellow, morelli.”
“why morelli?” maradick asked quickly.
“well, it’s absurd of me,” said tony. “but i don’t mind betting that he knows all about it. he’s uncanny; he knows all about everything. it’s just as if he set us all dancing to his tune like the pied piper.” he laughed. “just think! all of us dancing; you and i, mother, father, alice, rupert, the lesters, mrs. maradick, mrs. lawrence—and janet!” he added suddenly.
“janet,” he said, catching maradick’s arm and walking up the beach. “can’t you see her dancing? that hair and those eyes! janet!”
“i’m sleepy,” said maradick unsympathetically. “i shall lie with my head in the gorse and snore.”
he was feeling absolutely right in every part of his body; his blood ran in his veins like a flame. he hummed a little tune as he climbed the path.
“why! that’s morelli’s tune,” said tony, “i’d been trying to remember it; the tune he played that night,” and then suddenly they saw mrs. lester.
she sat on a rock that had been cut into a seat in the side of the hill. she could not see the beach immediately below because the cliff projected in a spreading cloud of gorse, but the sea lay for miles in front of her, and the gold of the hill struck sharp against the blue. she herself sat perched on the stone, the little wind blowing her hair about her face. she was staring out to sea and did not see them until they were right upon her.
tony shouted “hullo, milly,” and she turned.
“we have been bathing,” he said. “it was the most stupendous bathe that there has ever been.” then he added, “why are you alone?”
“the rest went to see a church on a hill or something, but i didn’t want anything except the view; but lady gale is still there, at the tent. she told me to tell you if i saw you to come to her.”
“right you are.” he passed singing up the hill. maradick stood in front of her, his cap in his hand, then she made room for him on her seat and he sat beside her.
“a view like this,” she said, “makes one want very much to be good. i don’t suppose that you ever want to be anything else.”
“there’s some difference between wanting and being,” he answered sententiously. “besides, i don’t suppose i’m anything real, neither good nor bad, just indifferent like three-fourths of the human race.”
he spoke rather bitterly, and she looked at him. “i think you’re anything but indifferent,” she said, nodding her head. “i think you’re delightful. you’re just one of the big, strong, silent men of whom novels are full; and i’ve never met one before. i expect you could pick me up with one finger and hurl me into the sea. women like that, you know.”
“you needn’t be afraid that i shall do it,” he said, laughing. “i have been bathing and am as weak as a kitten; and that also accounts for my untidiness,” he added. he had been carrying his coat over his shoulder, and his shirt was open at the neck and his sleeves rolled up over his arms.
they did not speak again for several minutes. she was looking at the view with wide-open, excited eyes.
then she turned round and laid her hand upon his arm. “oh! i don’t expect you’ve needed it as i have done,” she said, “all this colour; i’m drinking it in and storing it so that i can fill all the drab days that are coming with it. drab, dull, stupid days; going about and seeing people you don’t want to see, doing things you don’t want to do, saying things you don’t want to say.”
“why do you?” he said.
“oh! one has to. one can’t expect to be at treliss for ever. it’s really bad for one to come here, because it always makes one discontented and unsettles one. last year,” she smiled at the recollection, “was most unsettling.”
“well,” he answered, “i’ve got to go back to the office, you know. it will do me good to have these days to remember.”
she was silent again; then the grasp on his arm tightened and she said—
“oh! mr. maradick, i am so unhappy.”
he moved a little away from her. here were more confidences coming! why had all the world suddenly taken it into its incautious head to trust him with its secrets? he! maradick! whom no one had ever dreamt of trusting with anything before?
“no, i don’t want to bother you. it won’t bother you, will it? only it is such a rest and a comfort to be able to tell some one.” she spoke with a little catch in her voice, but she was thinking of the year before when she had trusted captain stanton, “dear old reggie,” with similar confidences; and there had been freddie stapylton before that. well, they had all been very nice about it, and she was sure that this big man with the brown neck and the curly hair would be just as nice.
“no, but you will be a friend of mine, won’t you?” she said. “a woman wants a friend, a good, sensible, strong friend to whom she can tell things, and i have nobody. it will be such a comfort if i can talk to you sometimes.”
“please,” he said.
providence seemed to have designed him as a kind of general nursemaid to a lot of irresponsible children.
“ah! that’s good of you.” she gave a little sigh and stared out to sea. “of course, i’m not complaining, other women have had far worse times, i know that; but it is the loneliness that hurts so. if there is only one person who understands it all it will make such a difference.”
mrs. lester was not at all insincere. she liked maradick very much, and her having liked captain stanton and mr. stapylton before him made no difference at all. those others had been very innocent flirtations and no harm whatever had come of them, and then treliss was such an exciting place that things always did happen. it must also be remembered that she had that morning quarrelled with her husband.
“you see,” she said, “i suppose i was always rather a romantic girl. i loved colour and processions and flowers and the roman catholic church. i used to go into the brompton oratory and watch the misty candles and listen to them singing from behind the altars and sniff the incense. and then i read gautier and merimée and anything about spain. and then i went to italy, and i thought i could never leave it with the dear donkeys and venice and carnivals, but we had to get back for ascot. oh! i suppose it was all very silly and like lots of other girls, but it was all very genuine, mr. maradick.”
he nodded his head.
“it’s so sweet of you to understand,” she said. “well, like most girls, i crowded all these dreams into marriage. that was going to do everything for me. oh! he was to be such a hero, and i was to be such a wife to him. dear me! how old it makes one feel when one thinks of those girlish days!”
but maradick only thought that she looked very young indeed, tony’s age.
“then i read some of fred’s essays; mr. lester, you know. they used to come out in the cornhill, and i thought them simply wonderful. they said all that i had been thinking, and they were full of that colour that i loved so. the more i read them the more i felt that here was my hero, the man whom i could worship all my days. poor old fred, fancy my thinking that about him.”
maradick thought of mr. lester trailing with bent back and languid eye over the gorse, and wondered too.
“well, then i met him at a party; one of those literary parties that i used to go to. he was at his best that night and he talked wonderfully. we were introduced, and—well, there it all was. it all happened in a moment. i couldn’t in the least tell you how; but i woke one morning and, like mr. somebody or other, a poet i think, found myself married.”
here there was a dramatic pause. maradick didn’t know what to say. he felt vaguely that sympathy was needed, but it was difficult to find the right words.
“that changed me,” mrs. lester went on in a low voice with a thrill in it, “from an innocent warm-hearted girl into a woman—a suffering, experienced woman. oh! mr. maradick, you know what marriage is, the cage that it can be; at least, if you haven’t experienced it, and i sincerely hope you haven’t, you can imagine what it is. a year of it was enough to show me how cruel life was.”
maradick felt a little uncomfortable. his acquaintance with mrs. lester had been a short one, and in a little time he was going back to have tea with mr. lester; he had seemed a harmless kind of man.
“i am very sorry——” he began.
“oh, please,” she went on quickly, “don’t think that i’m unhappy. i don’t curse fate or do anything silly like that. i suppose there are very few persons who find marriage exactly what they expect it to be. i don’t complain. but oh! mr. maradick, never marry an author. of course you can’t—how silly of me!—but i should like you to understand a little what i have felt about it all.”
he tried clumsily to find words.
“all of us,” he said, “must discover as we get on that things aren’t quite what we thought they would be. and of marriage especially. one’s just got to make up one’s mind to it. and then i think there’s a lot to be grateful for if there’s only one person, man or woman, to whom one matters; who, well, sticks to one and——”
“oh! i know,” she sighed reminiscently.
“what i mean is that it doesn’t so much matter what that person is, stupid or ugly or anything, if they really care. there isn’t so much of that steady affection going about in the world that we can afford to disregard it when it comes. dear me!” he added with a laugh, “how sentimental i am!”
“i know,” she said eagerly. “that’s just it; if fred did care like that, oh dear, how wonderful it would be! but he doesn’t. i don’t really exist for him at all. he thinks so much about his books and the people in them that real people aren’t there. at first i thought that i could help him with his work, read to him and discuss it with him; and i know that there were a lot of grammatical mistakes, but he wouldn’t let me do anything. he shut me out. i was no use to him at all.”
she clenched her hands and frowned. as a matter of fact she got on with him very well, but they had quarrelled that morning, over nothing at all, of course. and then it made things more exciting if you thought that you hated your husband, and mr. maradick was a fine-looking man.
and he thought how young she was and what a dreary stretch of years was before her. he knew what his own married life had been: fifteen years of disillusion and misunderstanding and sullen silence.
“i am so sorry,” he said, and he looked at her very sympathetically. “i can understand a little how hard it is. we don’t all of us make lucky shots, but then we have just got to grin and bear it; cold sort of comfort, i know, and if it really does comfort you to feel that you have a friend you may count on me.”
she liked his sympathy, the dear old strong thing! and at any rate she would pull fred pretty sharply out of his books for once. captain stanton and mr. stapylton had had just that effect; she had never known fred so charming as he was after their final exit.
he looked down at her with a fatherly smile. “we’ll be friends,” he said.
“it’s perfectly sweet of you,” she said, her voice trembling a little. “i felt that you would understand. i cannot tell you how it has helped me, this little talk of ours. now i suppose we ought to be going back or they’ll be wondering where we are.”
and he stood thanking god for a wonderful world. at last there were people who wanted him, tony and mrs. lester; and at the same time he had begun to see everything with new eyes. it was his view! they talked of life being over at forty; why, it had never begun for him until now!
they walked back to the tent, and he talked to her gravely about helping others and the real meaning of life. “he can,” she thought, “be most awfully dull, but he’s a dear old thing.”
the expedition in search of a church had scarcely been a success, and when one considers the members of it there is little room to wonder. tony had been right about the gods. they had seen fit to play their games round the tent on the gorse, and the smiles with which they had regarded the luncheon-party speedily changed to a malicious twinkle. everyone had been too pleasant to be true, and, after the meal was over, the atmosphere became swiftly ominous. for one thing, tony had departed with maradick for a bathe, and his absence was felt. lady gale had a sudden longing for sleep, and her struggles against this entirely precluded any attempt at keeping her guests pleasantly humoured. mrs. maradick was never at her best after a meal, and now all her former irritation returned with redoubled force. she had been far too pleasant and affable to these people; she could not think what had induced her to chatter and laugh like that at lunch, she must be on her dignity. mr. lester’s remark about her clothes and the gorse also rankled. what impertinence! but there, these writing people always did think that they could say anything to anybody! novelist, forsooth! everyone was a novelist nowadays. mrs. lawrence didn’t make things any better by an interminable telling of one of her inconclusive stories. mrs. maradick bristled with irritation as she listened. “. . . so there poor lady parminter was, you know—dreadfully stout, and could scarcely walk at all—with her black poodle and her maid and no motor and raining cats and dogs. it was somewhere near sevenoaks, i think; or was it canterbury? i think perhaps it was canterbury, because i know mr. pomfret said something about a cathedral; although it might have been sevenoaks, because there was a number in it, and i remember saying at the time . . .”
mrs. maradick stiffened with annoyance.
mr. lester gloomily faced the sea and mrs. lester chatted rather hysterically to lady gale, who couldn’t hear what she said because she was so sleepy. mr. lester hated quarrelling, because it disturbed his work so; he knew that there would be a reconciliation later, but one never knew how long it would be.
it was eventually rupert who proposed the church. he had found mrs. maradick very amusing at lunch, and he thought a stroll with the little woman wouldn’t be bad fun. so he interrupted mrs. lawrence’s story with “i say, there’s a rotten old church somewhere kickin’ around. what d’you say to runnin’ it to earth, what?”
everyone jumped up with alacrity. mrs. lester shook her head. “i shall stay and keep guard over the tent,” she said.
“no, milly dear, you go,” said lady gale, “i’m much too sleepy to move.”
“well, then, i’ll stay to keep guard over you as well,” said mrs. lester, laughing; “i’m lazy.”
so rupert, alice du cane, mr. lester, mrs. maradick and mrs. lawrence started off. the expedition was a failure. the church wasn’t found, and in the search for it the tempers of all concerned were lost. it was terribly hot, the sun beat down upon the gorse and there was very little breeze. the gorse passed and they came to sand dunes, and into these their feet sank heavily, their shoes were clogged with it. nobody spoke very much. it was too hot and everybody had their own thoughts; mrs. lawrence attempted to continue her story, but received no encouragement.
“i vote we give up the church,” said rupert, and they all trudged drearily back again.
mrs. maradick was wondering why mrs. lester hadn’t come with them. it didn’t make her wonder any the less when, on their arrival at the tent, she saw lady gale and tony in sole possession. where was the woman? where was her husband? she decided that rupert gale was a nuisance. he had nothing to say that had any sense in it, and as for mr. lester . . .!
tea was therefore something of a spasmodic meal. everybody rushed furiously into conversation and then fled hurriedly out again; an air of restraint and false geniality hung over the teacups. even tony was quiet, and lady gale felt, for once, that the matter was beyond her; everyone was cross.
then mrs. lester and maradick appeared and there was a moment’s pause. they looked very cheerful and contented, which made the rest of the party only the more irritable and discontented. why were they so happy? what right had they to be so happy? they hadn’t got sand in their shoes and a vague search after an impossible church under a blazing sun in their tempers.
mrs. lester was anything but embarrassed.
“oh! there you all are! how nice you all look, and i do hope you’ve left something! no, don’t bother to move, rupert. there’s plenty of room here! here you are, mr. maradick! here’s a place; yes, we’ve had such a nice stroll, mr. maradick and i. it was quite cool down by the beach. . . . thanks, dear, one lump and cream. oh! don’t trouble, tony, i can reach it . . . yes, and did you see your church? oh! what a pity, and you had all that trouble for nothing. . . .”
“there’s going to be a storm!” said mr. lester gloomily.
a little wind was sighing, up and down, over the gorse. the sun shone as brilliantly as ever, but on the horizon black, heavy clouds were gathering. then suddenly the little breeze fell and there was perfect stillness. the air was heavy with the scent of the gorse. it was very hot. then, very faintly, the noise of thunder came across the sea.
“the gods are angry,” said tony.
“oh! my dear!” said lady gale. “and there isn’t a cover to the wagonette thing! whatever shall we do? we shall get soaked to the skin. i never dreamt of its raining.”
“perhaps,” said maradick, “if we started at once we might get in before it broke.”
the things were hurriedly packed and everyone hastened over the gorse. they clambered into the wagonette. across the sky great fleets of black clouds were hurrying and the sound of the thunder was closer at hand. everything was still, with the immovability of something held by an invisible hand, and the trees seemed to fling black pointing fingers to the black gloomy sky.
for a mile they raced the storm, and then it broke upon them. the thunder crashed and the lightning flared across their path, and then the rain came in sheeted floods. what fun for the gods! they cowered back in their seats and not a word was spoken by anyone; the driver lashed his horses along the shining road.
whilst they journeyed, each traveller was asking himself or herself a question. these questions must be recorded, because they will all be answered during the course of this history.
lady gale’s question. why did everything go wrong?
mrs. maradick’s question. why had a malevolent providence invented mrs. lester, and, having invented her, what could james see in her?
mrs. lester’s question. at what hour that evening should she have her reconciliation scene with her husband and for how long could she manage to spin it out?
alice du cane’s question. what was tony keeping back?
tony’s question. was janet afraid of thunder?
maradick’s question. what did it all mean?
mr. lester’s question. what was the use of being alive at all?
rupert’s question. why take a new suit to a picnic when it always rained?
mrs. lawrence’s question. would the horses run away?
the only question that received an immediate answer was mrs. lawrence’s, because they didn’t.
that evening, maradick went for a moment to the room of the minstrels. the storm was passing. on the horizon there stole a very faint band of gold. out of the black bank of cloud a star shone, and suddenly there burst from the dark shadows of the fleeing storm a silver crescent moon. the light of it fell on the boards of the floor and then touched faintly the grinning face of the carved lion.
the prologue is concluded
