more of the itinerant optimist; alice du cane
asks maradick a favour
maradick awoke very early on the next morning. as he lay in his bed, his mind was still covered with the cobwebs of his dreams, and he saw the room in a fantastic, grotesque shape, so that he was not sure that it was his room at all, but he thought that it might be some sea with the tables and chairs for rocks, or some bare windy moor.
the curtain blew ever so slightly in the wind from the crevice of the door, and he watched it from his bed as it swelled and bulged and shrunk back as though it were longing to break away from the door altogether but had not quite courage enough. but although he was still confused and vague with the lazy bewilderment of sleep, he realised quite definitely in the back of his mind that there was some fact waiting for him until he should be clear-headed enough to recognise it. this certainty of something definite before him that had to be met and considered roused him. he did not, in the least, know what that something was that awaited him, but he tried to pull himself together. the sea receded, the beating of its waves was very faint in his ears, and the rocks resolved into the shining glass of the dressing-table and the solemn chairs with their backs set resolutely against the wall, and their expressions those of self-conscious virtue.
he sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes; he knew with absolute certainty that he should not sleep again. the light was trying to pierce the blind and little eyes of colour winked at him from the window, the silver things on the dressing-table stood out, pools of white, against the dark wood.
he got out of bed, and suddenly the fact stared him in the face: it was that he was committed, irrevocably committed, to help tony. he had, in a way, been committed before, ever since lady gale asked him for his help; but there had always been a chance of escaping, the possibility, indeed, of the “thing” never coming off at all. but now it was coming off, and very soon, and he had to help it to come.
he had turned the whole situation over in his mind so very often, and looked at it from so very many points of view, with its absurdities and its tragedies and its moralities, that there was nothing more to be said about the actual thing at all; that was, in all conscience, concrete enough. he saw it, as he sat on the bed swinging his feet, there in front of him, as some actual personality with whom he had pledged himself in league. he had sworn to help two children to elope against everybody’s wishes—he, maradick, of all people the most law-abiding. what had come over him? however, there it was and there was nothing more to be said about it. it wasn’t to be looked at again at all with any view of its possible difficulties and dangers, it had just to be carried through.
but he knew, as he thought about it, that the issue was really much larger than the actual elopement. it was the effect on him that really mattered, the fact that he could never return to epsom again with any hope of being able to live the life there that he had lived before.
the whole circle of them would be changed by this; it was the most momentous event in all their lives.
maradick looked again at the morning. the mists were rising higher in the air, and all the colours, the pale golden sand, the red roofs, the brown bend of the rocks, were gleaming in the sun. he would go and bathe and then search out punch.
it was a quarter past five as he passed down the stairs; the house was in the most perfect stillness, and only the ticking of innumerable clocks broke the silence. suddenly a bird called from the garden; a little breath of wind, bringing with it the scent of pinks and roses, trembled through the hall.
when he reached the cove the sea was like glass. he had never bathed early in the morning before, and a few weeks ago he would have laughed at the idea. a man of his age bathing at half-past five in the morning! the water would be terribly cold. but it wasn’t. he thought that he had never known anything so warm and caressing as he lay back in it and looked up through the clear green. there was perfect silence. things came into his mind, some operas that he had heard, rather reluctantly, that year in london. the opening of the third act of puccini’s “tosca,” with the bell-music and the light breaking over the city. he remembered that he had thought that rather fine at the time. the lovers in “louise” on montmartre watching the lights burst the flowers below them and saluting “paris!” he had appreciated that too. a scene in “to paradise,” with a man somewhere alone in a strange city watching the people hurrying past him and counting the lamps that swung, a golden chain, down the street. some picture in the academy of that year, sim’s “night piece to julia.” he hadn’t understood it or seen anything in it at the time. “one of those new fellows who just stick the paint on anyhow,” he had remarked; but now he seemed to remember a wonderful blue dress and a white peacock in the background!
how funny it was, he thought, as he plunged, dripping, back on to the beach, that the things that a fellow scarcely noticed at all at the time should be just the things that came into his mind afterwards. and on the sand he saw toby, the dog, gravely watching him. toby came courteously towards him, sniffed delicately at his socks, and then, having decided apparently that they were the right kind of socks and couldn’t really be improved on, sat down with his head against maradick’s leg.
maradick tickled his head and decided that pugs weren’t nearly so ugly as he had thought they were. but then there was a world of difference between toby and the ordinary pug, the fat pug nestling in cushions on an old lady’s lap, the aristocratic pug staring haughtily from the soft luxury of a lordly brougham, the town pug, over-fed, over-dressed, over-washed. but toby knew the road, he had seen the world, he was a dog of the drama, a dog of romance; he was also a dog with a sense of humour.
he licked maradick’s bare leg with a very warm tongue and then put a paw on to his arm. they were friends. he ratified the contract by rolling over several times on the sand; he then lay on his back with his four paws suspended rigidly in the air, and then, catching sight of his master, turned rapidly over and went to meet him.
punch expressed no surprise at finding maradick there at that hour of the morning. it was the most natural thing in the world. people who came to treliss were always doing things like that, and they generally spent the rest of their lives in trying to forget that they had done them.
“i’ve been wanting to see you, mr. maradick, sir,” he said, “and i’m mighty glad to find you here when there’s nothing to catch our words save the sea, and that never tells tales.”
“well, as a matter of fact, garrick,” said maradick, “i came down after you. i meant to have gone up to your rooms after bathing, but as you are here it’s all the better. i badly want to talk to you.”
punch sat down on the sand and looked quite absurdly like his dog.
“i want to talk to you about morelli, garrick.” maradick hesitated a moment. it was very difficult to put into words exactly what he wanted to say. “we have talked about the man before, and i shouldn’t bother you about it again were it not that i’m very fond of young tony gale, and he, as you know, has fallen in love with morelli’s daughter. it’s all a long story, but the main point is, that i want to know as much about the man as you can tell me. nobody here seems to know very much about him except yourself.”
punch’s brow had clouded at the mention of morelli’s name.
“i don’t rightly know,” he said, “as i can say anything very definite, and that being so perhaps one oughtn’t to say anything at all; but if young gale’s going to take that girl away, then i’m glad. he’s a good fellow, and she’s on my mind.”
“why?” said maradick.
“well, perhaps after all it’s best to tell what i know.” punch took out a pipe and slowly filled it. “mind you, it’s all damned uncertain, a lot of little things that don’t mean anything when taken by themselves. i first met the man in ’89, twenty years ago. i was a young chap, twenty-one or so. a kind of travelling blacksmith i used to be then, with pendragon up the coast as a kind o’ centre. it was at pendragon i saw him. he used to live there then as he lives in treliss now; it was a very different kind o’ place then to what it is now—just a sleepy, dreamy little town, with bad lights, bad roads and the rest, and old tumbled down ’ouses. old sir jeremy trojan ’ad the run of it then, him that’s father of the present sir henry, and you wouldn’t have found a quieter place, or a wilder in some ways.”
“wild?” said maradick. “it’s anything but wild now.”
“yes, they’ve changed it with their trams and things, and they’ve pulled down the cove; but the fisher-folk were a fierce lot and they wouldn’t stand anyone from outside. morelli lived there with his wife and little girl. ’is wife was only a young thing, but beautiful, with great eyes like the sea on a blue day and with some foreign blood in ’er, dark and pale.
“’e wasn’t liked there any more than ’e is here. they told funny tales about him even then, and said ’e did things to his wife, they used to hear her crying. and they said that ’e’d always been there, years back, just the same, never looking any different, and it’s true enough he looks just the same now as he did then. it isn’t natural for a man never to grow any older.”
“no,” said maradick, “it isn’t.”
“there were other things that the men down there didn’t like about ’im, and the women hated ’im. but whenever you saw ’im he was charming—nice as ’e could be to me and all of ’em. and he was clever, could do things with his ’ands, and make birds and beasts do anything at all.”
“that’s strange,” said maradick. “tony said something of the same sort the other day.”
“well, that ain’t canny,” said david, “more especially as i’ve seen other animals simply shake with fear when he comes near them. well, i was telling you, they didn’t like ’im down in the cove, and they’d say nothing to ’im and leave ’im alone. and then one night”—punch’s mouth grew set and hard—“they found mrs. morelli up on the moor lying by the four stones, dead.”
“dead!” said maradick, startled.
“yes; it was winter time and the snow blowing in great sheets across the moor and drifting about her dress, with the moon, like a yellow candle, hanging over ’er. but that weren’t all. she’d been killed, murdered. there were marks on her face and hands, as though teeth had torn her. poor creature!” punch paused.
“well,” said maradick excitedly, “what was the end of it all?”
“oh! they never brought it ’ome to anyone. i ’ad my own thoughts, and the men about there kind o’ talked about morelli, but it was proved ’e was somewhere else when it ’appened and ’e cried like a child when ’e saw the body.”
“well,” said maradick, laughing, “so far it isn’t very definite. that might have happened to any man.” but it was, nevertheless, curiously in keeping with the picture that he had in his mind.
“yes,” said punch, “i told you already that i ’adn’t got anything very definite. i don’t say as ’e did it or had anything to do with it, but it’s all of a piece in a way. thing got ’ot against ’im in pendragon after that and ’e ’ad to go, and ’e came ’ere with ’is girl. but they say that ’e’s been seen there since, and in other places too. and then i’ve seen ’im do other things. kill rabbits and birds like a devil. ’e’s cruel, and then again ’e’s kind, just like a child will pull flies to bits. ’e is just like a child, and so ’e isn’t to be trusted. ’e’s wild, like nature. ’e likes to have young things about ’im. that’s why ’e’s taken to young gale, and ’e loves that girl in a way, although i know ’e’s cruel——”
“cruel to her?” said maradick.
“yes, ’e beats her, i know. i’ve been watching a long way back; and then again ’e’ll kiss ’er and give ’er things and play with ’er, and then one day ’e’ll kill ’er.”
maradick started again. “kill her?” he said.
“yes. ’e’ll do anything when ’e’s mad. and a minute after ’e’ll be sobbing and crying for sorrow over what ’e’s hurt; and be like a drunkard when ’e’s angry.”
“then what do you make of it all?” said maradick.
“make of it?” said punch. “i don’t know. there ain’t another like ’im in the kingdom. there’s more in the world than folk ’ave any idea of, especially those that keep to towns. but it’s out on the road that you’ll be seeing things, when the moon is up and the hedges purple in their shadows. and ’e belongs to all of that. ’e’s like nature in a way, cruel and kind and wild. ’e’s not to be believed in by sober folks who laugh at spirits, but there’s more in it than meets the eye.”
and that was all that maradick got from him; and after all it did not amount to very much except a vague warning. but there was this definite fact, that janet was in danger where she was, and that was an added impulse, of course, for going on with the whole adventure. to the initial charm of helping a delightful boy was now added the romantic sensation of the release of a captive lady; maradick, knight! forty and married for a lifetime; oh! the absurd world.
then maradick went up for breakfast.
mrs. maradick’s first thought in the morning was her hair, and then, at some considerable distance, the girls. it never happened that they were both “right” simultaneously, and she would indeed have been considerably surprised and felt a certain lack if there had been no cause for complaint on either score.
on the present morning everything was as it should be. her hair “settled itself” as though by magic, the girls had given no possible cause of complaint; she came down to breakfast with an air of surprise and the kind of mind that is quite sure something unpleasant is going to happen simply because nothing unpleasant has “happened” so far. she presented, as she came down the hotel staircase, a delightful picture of neat compact charm; her girls, in precise and maidenly attendance behind her, accentuated her short stature by their own rather raw, long-legged size, but there was nothing loose or uncouth about her. in her colouring, in her light carnation silk waistband, in her high-heeled shiny shoes, she was neatness personified.
in the eyes of everyone except mrs. lawrence she had perhaps just a little too much the air of being “somebody,” because really, of course, she was nothing at all, simply mrs. maradick of epsom; but then when you were so small you had to do something to make up for it, and an “air” did help undoubtedly. her husband, coming in from the garden, met her at the bottom of the stairs, and she treated him very graciously. he kissed the girls with a “well, lucy!” and “well, annie!” and then mrs. maradick, with a final feeling for her hair and a last pat to the carnation riband, led the way in to breakfast.
it appeared that she was inclined to treat him graciously, but in reality she was trying to make up her mind; she was not a clever woman, and she had never been so puzzled before.
she had, indeed, never been forced to puzzle about anything at all. in her orderly compact life things had always been presented to her with a decency and certainty that left no room for question or argument. she had been quiet and obedient at home, but she had always had her way; she had married the man that had been presented to her without any hesitation at all, it was a “good match,” and it meant that, for the rest of her life, she would never be forced to ask any questions about anything or anybody. for a wild week or two, at first, she had felt strange undisciplined sensations that were undoubtedly dangerous; on their wedding night she had suddenly suspected that there was another woman there whose existence meant storm and disorder. but the morning had come with bills and calls and “finding a house,” and that other mrs. maradick had died. from that day to this there had been no cause for alarm. james had soon been reduced to order and had become a kind of necessity, like the sideboard; he paid the bills. child-birth had been alarming for a moment, but mrs. maradick had always been healthy and they had an excellent doctor, but, after annie’s appearance, she had decided that there should never be another. james presented no difficulties at all, and her only real worry in life was her “hair.” there was not very much of it, and she spent her mornings and her temper in devising plans whereby it should be made to seem “a lot,” but it never was satisfactory. her “hair” became the centre of her life, her horizon. james fitted into it. if the “hair” were all right, he didn’t seem so bad. otherwise he was stupid, dull, an oaf.
and so she had come down to treliss and life had suddenly changed. it had really changed from that first evening of their arrival when he had been so rude to her, although she had not realised it at the time. but the astonishing thing was that he had kept it up. he had never kept anything up before, and it was beginning to frighten her. at first it had seemed to her merely conceit. his head had been turned by these people, and when he got back to epsom and found that he wasn’t so wonderful after all, and that the people there didn’t think of him at all except as her husband, then he would find his place again.
but now she wasn’t so sure. she had not been asleep last night when he came to bed. she had seen him bend over with the candle in his hand, and the look in his eyes had frightened her, frightened her horribly, so that she had lain awake for hours afterwards, thinking, puzzling for the first time in her life. during all these twenty years of their married life he had been, she knew, absolutely faithful to her. she had laughed at it sometimes, because it had seemed so absolutely impossible that there should ever be anyone else. he did not attract people in epsom in the least; he had never made any attempt to, and she had imagined him, poor fellow, sometimes trying, and the miserable mess that he would make of it.
and now she had got to face the certainty that there was some one else. she had seen it in his eyes last night, and she knew that he would never have had the strength to keep up the quarrel for nearly a fortnight unless some one else had been there. she saw now a thousand things that should have convinced her before, little things all culminating in that horrible picnic a few days ago. it was as though, she thought, he had come down to treliss determined to find somebody. she remembered him in the train, how pleasant and agreeable he had been! he had arranged cushions for her, got things for her, but the moment they had arrived! oh! this hateful town!
but now she had got to act. she had woke early that morning and had found that he was already gone. that alone was quite enough to stir all her suspicions.
perhaps now he was down there in the town with some one! why should he get up at an unearthly hour unless it were for something of the kind? he had always been a very sound sleeper. at epsom he would never have thought of getting up before eight. who was it?
she put aside, for a moment, her own feelings about him, the curious way in which she was beginning to look at him. the different side that he was presenting to her and the way that she looked at it must wait until she had discovered this woman, this woman! she clenched her little hands and her eyes flashed.
oh! she would talk to her when she found her!
his early escape that morning seemed to her a sign that the “woman” was down in the town. she imagined an obvious assignation, but otherwise she might have suspected that it was mrs. lester. that, of course, she had suspected from the day of the picnic, but it seemed to her difficult to imagine that a woman of the world, as mrs. lester, to give her her due, most obviously was, could see anything in her hulk of a james; it would be much more probable if it were some uncouth fisherwoman who knew, poor thing, no better.
she looked at him now across the breakfast-table; his red cheeks, his great nostrils “like a horse’s,” his enormous hands, but it was not all hostility the look that she gave him. there was a kind of dawning wonder and surprise.
they had their table by the window, and the sun beat through on to the silver teapot and the ham and eggs. annie had refused porridge. no, she wasn’t hungry.
“you should have bathed, as i did, before breakfast,” said maradick.
so he’d bathed before breakfast, had he? she looked across at him smiling.
“you were up very early,” she said.
“yes, i slept badly.” they were down again, those blinds! she saw him drop them down as though by magic. he was playing his game.
“well, next time you must wake me and i’ll come too,” she said. his sense of humour was touched at the idea of her coming down at five in the morning, but he said nothing.
the knowledge, the increasing certainty that there was something in it all, was choking her so that she found it exceedingly difficult to eat. but that she should be baffled by james was so incredible an idea that she concealed her rising temper.
she nodded gaily at mrs. lawrence, who swam towards their table with outstretched hands and a blue scarf floating like wings behind her.
“my dear!”
“my dear!”
“but you generally have it upstairs, i thought . . .”
“yes, i know; but such a day, one couldn’t really . . .”
“yes, i was awake ever so . . . but james has been bathing. no, lucy, sit still, dear, until we’ve finished. bathing before breakfast. i think i really must to-morrow.”
epsom closed about the table.
she was extremely nice to him throughout the meal, and even hinted at their doing something, spending the day, “and such a day.” it was a shame not to take advantage of the weather “as a family.” quite a new idea, indeed, but he accepted it, and even began to suggest possible places. she was baffled again, and, as the terrible prospect of a whole day spent in james’s company, quite alone except for the girls, pressed about her, became almost hysterical in her hurriedly discovered reasons why, after all, it would never do. but he smiled at her, and although he was quite ready to do anything that she might suggest, it was a different kind of agreeing from a week or two ago.
she retired from the breakfast-table baffled.
he had been watching the door of the breakfast-room eagerly, and when he went out down into the garden he was still looking for the same figure. there was no longer, there could be no longer any disguise about the person, it was mrs. lester beyond any possible question; but he did disguise the reason. he wanted to talk to her, he liked to talk to her, just as he liked to talk to any understanding person, quite irrespective of sex. she had, of course, her atmosphere; it had a great deal in common with the place and the weather and the amazing riot of colour that the weather had brought. he saw her always as she had been on that first day, primrose, golden, in that dark dim drawing-room; but that he should think of her in that way didn’t show him, as it should have done, how the case was really beginning to lie.
he had the “play-boy” on his knee and the light swung, as some great golden censor is swung before the high altar, in waves of scent and colour backwards and forwards before him. he watched, looking eagerly down the sunlit path, but she did not come, and the morning passed in its golden silence and he was still alone.
it wasn’t indeed until after lunch that things began to move again, and then tony came to him. he was in a glow of pleasure and excitement; she had written to him.
“it was most awfully clever; she only wrote it after i left last night and she hadn’t time to post it, of course, but she gave it to the old apple-woman—you know, down by the tower—and right under her father’s nose, and he hadn’t the least idea, and i’ve written back because i mayn’t, perhaps, get a word with her this afternoon, and old morelli will be there.”
he sat on the edge of the stone wall, looking down at the town and swinging his legs. the town was in a blaze of sun, seen dimly through a haze of gold-dust. it hung like a lamp against the blue sky, because the mist gathered closely about its foundations, and only its roofs and pinnacles seemed to swing in the shifting dazzling sun before their eyes.
“the old apple-woman,” said tony, “is simply ripping, and i think she must have had an awfully sad life. i should like to do something for her.” there were at least ten people a day for whom he wanted to do something. “i asked bannister about her, but he wasn’t very interested; but that’s because his smallest baby’s got whooping-cough. he told me yesterday he simply whooped all night, and mrs. bannister had to sit up with it, which pretty well rotted her temper next day.” tony paused with a consciousness that he was wandering from the point. “anyhow, here’s her letter, janet’s, i mean. i know she wouldn’t mind you seeing it, because you are in it almost as much as i am.” he held out the letter.
“did morelli see her give it to the apple-woman?” asked maradick.
“yes, she tells you in the letter. but he didn’t spot anything. he’s such a funny beggar; he seems so smart sometimes, and then other times he doesn’t see anything. anyhow, it doesn’t matter much, because i’m going to see him now and tell him everything.”
“well; and then?” said maradick.
“oh! he’ll agree, i know he will. and then i think we’ll be married right at once; there’s no use in waiting, you know, and there’s a little church right over by strater cove, near the sea, a little tumbledown place with a parson who’s an awful sportsman. he’s got five children and two hundred a year, and—oh! where was i?—and then we’ll just come back and tell them. they can’t do anything then, you know, and father will get over it all right.”
tony was so serene about it, swinging his legs there in the sun, that maradick could say nothing.
“and if morelli doesn’t take to the idea?” he ventured at last.
“oh! he!” said tony. “oh, he’s really most awfully keen. you noticed how we got on. i took to him from the first, there was something about him.” but he swung round rather anxiously towards maradick. “why! do you think he won’t?” he said.
“i’m not sure of him,” maradick answered. “i never have been. and then i was with punch this morning and he told me things about him.”
“things! what sort of things?” asked tony rather incredulously.
“oh, about the way that he treated his wife.” it was, after all, maradick reflected, extremely vague, nothing very much that one could lay hands on. “i don’t like the man, and i don’t for a minute think that he’s playing square with you.”
but tony smiled, a rather superior smile. after all, that was maradick’s way, to be pessimistic about things; it was to do with his age. middle-aged people were always cautious and suspicious. for a moment he felt quite a distance from maradick, and something akin to the same feeling made him stretch out his hand for janet’s letter.
“after all,” he said rather awkwardly, “perhaps she would rather that i didn’t show it to anyone, even you.” he jumped down from the wall. “well, i must be off. it’s after three. i say, keep the family in the dark until i’m back. they’re sure to ask. now that alice and father are both beginning to think about it we shall fairly have to begin the conspirator business.” he laughed in his jolly way and stood in front of maradick with a smile all over his face. suddenly he leant forward and put his hands on the other man’s shoulders and shook him gently.
“you silly old rotter, don’t look so sad about it, you don’t know what fun it will all be. and you are the biggest brick in the world, anyway. janet and i will never forget you.” he bent down lower. “i say, you’re not sick with me, are you? because, scold me like anything if i’ve done things. i always am doing things, you know.” he turned round and faced the shining path and the sky like glass. “i say! isn’t it topping? but i must be off. i’ll come at once and tell you when i get back. but i’ll have to be in time for dinner to-night or the governor will keep me to my room on bread and water.” he was gone.
maradick, looking back on it all afterwards, always saw that moment as the beginning of the second act. the first act, of course, had begun with that vision of janet on the stairs with the candle in her hand. that seemed a long while ago now. then had come all the other things, the picnic, the swim, the talk with mrs. lester, tony’s proposal, his own talk with punch that morning; all little things, but all leading the situation inevitably towards its climax. but they had all been in their way innocent, unoffending links in the chain. now there was something more serious in it all, from that evening some other element mingled with the comedy.
he suddenly felt irritated with the sun and the colour and began to walk up and down the path. the uneasiness that he had felt all the afternoon increased; he began to wish that he had not allowed tony to go down alone. nothing, of course, could happen to the boy; it was absurd that he should imagine things, and probably it was due to the heat. every now and again some sound came up from the town—a cry, a bell, the noisy rattle of a cart, and it seemed like an articulate voice; the town seemed to have a definite personality, some great animal basking there in the sun, and its face was the face of morelli.
he sat down on one of the seats in the shadiest part of the garden; the trees hung over it in thick dark shadows, and at times a breeze pushed like a bird’s wing through their branches.
all around him the path was dark, beyond it was a broad belt of light. he must have gone asleep, because almost immediately he seemed to be dreaming. the shadows on the path receded and advanced as a door opens and shuts; the branches of the trees bent lower and lower. it seemed in his dream that he recognised something menacing in their movement, and he rose and passed through the garden and in a moment he was in the town. here too it was dark, and in the market-place the tower stood, a black mass against the grey sky behind it, and the streets twisted like snakes up and down about the hill.
and then suddenly he was at morelli’s house, he recognised the strange carving and the crooked, twisting shape of the windows. the door opened easily to his hand and he passed up the stairs. the house was quite dark; he had to grope to find his way. and then he was opposed by another door, something studded with nails—he could feel them with his hands—and heavily barred. he heard voices on the other side of the door, low, soft whispers, and then he recognised them, they were tony and morelli. he was driven by an impulse to beat the door and get at them; some fear clutched at his throat so that he felt that tony was in terrible danger. in a minute he knew that he would be too late.
he knocked, at first softly and then furiously; for a moment the voices stopped, and then they began again. no one paid any attention to his knocking. he knew with absolute certainty that in a few minutes the door would open, but first something would happen. he began to beat on the door with his fists and to call out; the house was, for the rest, perfectly silent.
and then suddenly he heard morelli’s laugh. there was a moment’s silence, and then tony screamed, a terrified, trembling scream; the door began to open.
maradick awoke to find himself on the garden seat with his head sunk on his breast and some one looking at him; in the hazy uncertainty of his waking his first thought was that it was janet—he had scarcely recovered from his dream. he soon saw that it was not janet, and, looking up confusedly, blushed on finding that it was alice du cane. she was dressed in white, in something that clung about her and seemed to be made all in one piece. it looked to him very beautiful, and the great sweeping dark hat that she wore must have been delightfully shady, but it only had the effect of confusing him still more.
he knew alice du cane very slightly, in fact he couldn’t really be said to know her at all. they said “good morning” and “good evening,” and it had occasionally happened that they had had to talk “just to keep the ball rolling” at some odd minute or other, but she had always given him the impression of being in quite “other worlds,” from which she might occasionally look down and smile, but into which he could never possibly be admitted. he had quite acquiesced in all of this, although he had no feeling of the kind about the rest of the party; but she belonged, he felt, to that small, mysterious body of people who, in his mind at any rate, “were the very top.” he was no snob about them, and he did not feel that they were any the better people for their high position, but he did feel that they were different. there were centuries of tradition behind them, that perhaps was really it, and there were the old houses with their lawns and picture galleries, and there were those wonderful ancestors who had ruled england from the beginning of time.
he had laughed sometimes when his wife had represented to him that certain people in epsom, alluded to in a hushed voice and mysterious nods, were really “it.” he knew so well that they were not; nothing to do with it at all. but he always recognised “it” at once when it was there. he did not recognise “it” in the gales; there was a certain quality of rest arising from assurance of possession that they lacked, but alice du cane had got “it,” most assuredly she had got “it.”
he liked to watch her. she moved with so beautiful a quiet and carried herself with so sure a dignity; he admired her enormously, but had been quite prepared to keep his distance.
and then suddenly he had seen that she was in love with tony, and she was at once drawn into the vortex. she became something more than a person at whom one looked, whom one admired as a picture; she was part of the situation. he had been extremely sorry for her, and it had been her unhappiness more than anything else that had worried him about his part in the affair. but now, as he saw her there watching him with a smile and leaning ever so slightly on her parasol, of ever so delicate a pink, he was furiously embarrassed.
he had been sleeping, probably with his mouth open, and she had been watching him. he jumped to his feet.
“oh, miss du cane,” he stammered, “i really——”
but she broke in upon him, laughing.
“oh! what a shame! really, mr. maradick, i didn’t mean to, but the gravel scrunched or something and it woke you. i’ve been doing the same thing, sleeping, i mean; it’s impossible to do anything else with heat like this.” then her face grew grave. “all the same i’m not sure that i’m sorry, because i have wanted to talk to you very badly all day, and now, unless you do want to go to sleep again, it does seem to be a chance.”
“why, of course,” he answered gravely, and he made way for her on the seat. he felt the sinister afternoon pressing upon him again. he was disturbed, worried, anxious; his nerves were all to pieces. and then she did most certainly embarrass him. the very way that she sat down, the careful slowness of her movement, and the grace with which she leant slightly forward so that the curve of her neck was like the curve of a pink shell against her white dress, embarrassed him. and he was tired, most undoubtedly tired; it was all beginning to be too much for him.
and then he suddenly caught a look in her eyes as she turned towards him; something melancholy and appealing in it touched his heart and his embarrassment left him.
“mr. maradick,” she began hurriedly, with her face again turned away from him, “you are much older than i am, and so i expect you’ll understand what i am trying to get at. and anyhow, you know all that’s been going on this week, more than anyone else does, and so there’s no need to beat about the bush. besides, i always hate it. i always want to get straight at the thing, don’t you?”
“yes,” he said. it was one of the true things about both of them.
“well then, of course it’s about tony. we all want to know about tony, and nobody does know except you, and everybody’s afraid to ask you except myself, so there you are. you mustn’t think me impertinent; i don’t mean to be, but we must know—some of us, at any rate!”
“what must you know?” he said. he was suddenly on his mettle. he resented the note of command in her voice. about his general position in the world he was quite ready to yield place, but about tony’s affairs he would yield to no one; that was another matter.
“why, of course,” she said, looking at him, “what i want to know, what we all want to know, is what he is doing. of course we have all, by this time, a pretty good idea. i saw him with that girl down on the beach, and it’s been pretty obvious, by his being away so continually, what he is after. no, it isn’t exactly so much what he is doing as whether it’s all right.”
“but then,” said maradick, facing her, “why exactly are you asking me? why not ask tony?”
“oh! you know that would be no good,” she said, shaking her head impatiently. “tony would tell me nothing. if he wanted to tell us anything he would have told us. you can see how secret he’s been keeping it all. and you’re the only other person who knows. besides, i don’t want you to betray any secrets, it’s only to tell us if it’s all right. if you say it is then we shall know.”
“and who exactly is ‘we’?” maradick asked.
alice hesitated a moment. then she said, “it’s lady gale really who wants to know. she’s suffering terribly all this time, but she’s afraid to ask you herself because you might tell her too much, and then she couldn’t be loyal to sir richard. but, you know, she spoke to you herself about it.”
“yes, she did,” said maradick slowly. “then i suppose that this, her sending you, means that she doesn’t quite trust me now. she said before that she would leave it in my hands.”
“yes. she trusts you just as much, of course. only—well, you see, you haven’t known tony all his life as we have, you haven’t cared for him quite as much as we have. and then i’m a woman, i should probably see a whole lot of things in it that you couldn’t see. it’s only that you should tell me a little about it, and then, if lady gale sees that we both think it’s all right, she will be happier. only, she’s felt a little, just lately, that you weren’t very comfortable about it.”
“is it only lady gale?” asked maradick.
“well, of course i want to know too. you see, i’ve known tony since we were both babies, and of course i’m fond of him, and i should hate him to get in a mess”; she finished up rather breathlessly.
he had a strong feeling of the pathos of it all. he knew that she was proud and that she had probably found it very difficult to come to him as she had done.
he could see now that she was struggling to keep her old pride and reserve, but that she found it very hard.
his voice was very tender as he spoke to her.
“miss du cane,” he said, “i understand. i do indeed. i would have spoken to lady gale herself if she hadn’t begged me to keep quiet about it. besides, i wasn’t sure, i’m not sure now, how things were really going, and i was afraid of alarming her.”
“then there is trouble?” alice said; “you are anxious?”
“no, not really,” maradick hastened to assure her. “as far as the main thing goes—the girl herself, i mean—it’s the best thing that could possibly happen to tony. the girl is delightful; better than that, she is splendid. i won’t tell you more, simply that it is all right.”
“and tony loves her?” alice’s voice trembled in spite of itself.
“yes, heart and soul,” said maradick fervently; “and i think when you see her that you will agree about her. only you must see the difficulties as well as i do; what we are doing is the only thing to do. i think that to take tony away now would lead to dreadful disaster. he must go through with it. the whole thing has gone too far now for it possibly to be stopped.”
“then tell me,” alice said slowly, “was she, do you suppose, the girl that i saw down on the beach with tony?”
“yes,” said maradick, “she must have been.”
the girl got up slowly from the seat and stood with her back to him, her slim white figure drawn to its full height; the sun played like fire about her dress and hair, but there was something very pathetic in the way that she let her arms with a slow hopeless gesture fall to her side, and stared, motionless, down the path.
then she turned round to him.
“thank you, mr. maradick,” she said, “that’s all i wanted to know. i am happier about it, and lady gale will be too. you’re quite right about taking tony away. it would only mean a hopeless break with sir richard, and then his mother would be caught into it too, and that must be averted at all costs. besides, if she is as nice as you say, perhaps, after all, it is the best thing that could happen. and, at any rate,” she went on after a little pause, “we are all most awfully grateful to you. i don’t know what we should have done otherwise.”
some one was coming down the path. they both, at the same moment, saw that it was mrs. lester.
alice turned. “i must go,” she said. “thank you again for what you told me.”
he watched her walk down the path, very straight and tall, with a grace and ease that were delightful to him. the two women stopped for a moment and spoke; then alice passed out of sight and mrs. lester came towards him.
some clock in the distance struck six.
