Mr. Wyvern drew in his lips.
Came between that ready-stamped letter and Wanley Manor, was his comment.
There was a brief silence.
You allow me a question? the vicar resumed. It is with reference to the French lady.
I think you have every right to question me.
Oh no! It does not concern the events prior to youraccident. Mr. Wyvern savoured the word. How long did she remain in attendance upon you?
A short timetwo dayI did not need
Mr. Wyvern motioned with his hand, kindly.
Then I was not mistaken, he said, averting his eyes for the first time, in thinking that I saw her in Paris.
In Paris? Hubert repeated, with a poor affectation of indifference.
I made a short stay before crossing. I had business at a bank one day; as I stood before the counter a gentleman entered and took a place beside me. A second look assured me that he was the man who met me at the edge of the wood that morning. I suppose he remembered me, for he looked away and moved from me. I left the bank, and found an open carriage waiting at the door. In it sat the lady of whom we speak. I took a turn along the pavement and back again. The Frenchman entered the carriage; they drove away.
Huberts eyes were veiled; he breathed through his nostrils. Again there was silence.
Mr. Eldon, resumed the vicar, I was a man of the world before I became a Churchman; you will notice that I affect no professional tone in speaking with you, and it is because I know that anything of the kind would only alienate you. It appeared to me that chance had made me aware of something it might concern you to hear. I know nothing of the circumstances of the case, merely offer you the facts.
I thank you, was Huberts reply in an undertone.
It impressed me, that letter ready stamped for Wanley Manor. I thought of it again after the meeting in Paris.
I understand you. Of course I could explain the necessity. It would be useless.
Quite. But experience is not, or should not be, useless, especially when commented on by one who has very much of it behind him.
Hubert stood up. His mind was in a feverishly active state, seeming to follow several lines of thought simultaneously. Among other things, he was wondering how it was that throughout this conversation he had been so entirely passive. He had never found himself under the influence of so strong a personality, exerted too in such a strangely quiet way.
What are your plansyour own plans? Mr. Wyvern inquired.
I have none.
Forgive me;there will be no material difficulties?
None; I have four hundred a year.
You have not graduated yet, I believe?
No. But I hardly think I can go back to school.
Perhaps not. Well, turn things over. I should like to hear from you.
You shall.
Hubert continued his walk to the Manor. Before the entrance stood two large furniture-vans; the doorway was littered with materials of packing, and the hall was full of objects in disorder, footsteps made a hollow resonance in all parts of the house, for everywhere the long wonted conditions of sound were disturbed. The library was already dismantled; here he could close the door and walk about without fear of intrusion. He would have preferred to remain in the open air, but a summer shower had just begun as he reached the house. He could not sit still; the bare floor of the large room met his needs.
His minds eye pictured a face which a few months ago had power to lead him whither it willed, which had in fact led him through strange scenes, as far from the beaten road of a college curriculum as well could be. It was a face of foreign type, Jewish possibly, most unlike that ideal of womanly charm kept in view by one who seeks peace and the hearts home. Hubert had entertained no thought of either. The romance which most young men are content to enjoy in printed pages he had acted out in his life. He had lived through a glorious madness, as unlike the vulgar oat-sowing of the average young man of wealth as the latest valse on a street-organ is unlike a passionate dream of Chopin. However unworthy the object of his frenzyand perhaps one were as worthy as anotherthe pursuit had borne him through an atmosphere of fire, tempering him for life, marking him for ever from plodders of the dusty highway. A reckless passion is a patent of nobility. Whatever existence had in store for him henceforth, Hubert could feel that he had lived.
An hours communing with memory was brought to an end by the ringing of the luncheon-bell. Since his illness Hubert had taken meals with his mother in her own sitting-room. Thither he now repaired.
Mrs. Eldon had grown older in appearance since that evening of her sons return. Of course she had discovered the cause of his illness, and the incessant torment of a great fear had been added to what she suffered from the estrangement between the boy and herself. Her own bodily weakness had not permitted her to nurse him; she had passed days and nights in anguish of expectancy. At one time it had been life or death. If he died, what life would be hers through the brief delay to which she could look forward?
Once more she had him by her side, but the moral distance between them was nothing lessened. Mrs. Eldons pride would not allow her to resume the conversation which had ended so hopelessly for her, and she interpreted Huberts silence in the saddest sense. Now they were about to be parted again. A house had been taken for her at Agworth, three miles away; in her state of health she could not quit the neighbourhood of the few old friends whom she still saw. But Hubert would necessarily go into the world to seek some kind of career. No hope shone for her in the prospect.
Whilst the servant waited on them at luncheon, mother and son exchanged few words. Afterwards, Mrs. Eldon had her chair moved to the window, where she could see the garden greenery.
I called on Mr. Mutimer, Hubert said, standing near her. Through the meal he had cast frequent glances at her pale, nobly-lined countenance, as if something had led him to occupy his thoughts with her. He looked at her in the same way now.
Did you? How did he impress you?
He is not quite the man I had expected; more civilised. I should suppose he is the better kind of artisan. He talks with a good deal of the working-class accent, of course, but not like a wholly uneducated man.
His letter, you remember, was anything but illiterate. I feel I ought to ask him to come and see me before we leave.
The correspondence surely suffices.
You expressed my thanks?
Conscientiously.
I see you found the interview rather difficult, Hubert.
How could it be otherwise? The man is well enough, of his kind, but the kind is detestable.
Did he try to convert you to Socialism? asked his mother, smiling in her sad way.
I imagine he discerned the hopelessness of such an under taking. We had a little passage of arms,quite within the bounds of civility. Shall I tell you how I felt in talking with him? I seemed to be holding a dialogue with the twentieth century, and you may think what that means.
Ah, its a long way off, Hubert.
I wish it were farther. The man was openly exultant; he stood for Demos grasping the sceptre. I am glad, mother, that you leave Wanley before the air is poisoned.
Mr. Mutimer does not see that side of the question?
Not he! Do you imagine the twentieth century will leave one green spot on the earths surface?
My dear, it will always be necessary to grow grass and corn.
By no means; depend upon it. Such things will be cultivated by chemical processes. There will not be one inch left to nature; the very oceans will somehow be tamed, the snow-mountains will be levelled. And with nature will perish art. What has a hungry Demos to do with the beautiful?
Mrs. Eldon sighed gently.
I shall not see it.
Her eyes dreamed upon the soft-swaying boughs of a young chestnut. Hubert was watching her face; its look and the meaning implied in her words touched him profoundly.
Mother! he said under his breath.
My dear?
He drew nearer to her and just stroked with his fingers the silver lines which marked the hair on either side of her brows. He could see that she trembled and that her lips set themselves in hard self-conquest.
What do you wish me to do when we have left the Manor?
His own voice was hurried between two quiverings of the throat; his mothers only whispered in reply.
That is for your own consideration, Hubert.
With your counsel, mother.
My counsel?
I ask it I will follow it. I wish to be guided by you.
He knelt by her, and his mother pressed his head against her bosom.
Later, she asked
Did you call also on the Walthams?
He shook his head.
Should you not do so, dear?
I think that must be later.
The subject was not pursued.
The next day was Saturday. In the afternoon Hubert took a walk which had been his favourite one ever since he could remember, every step of the way associated with recollections of childhood, boyhood, or youth. It was along the lane which began in a farmyard close by the Manor and climbed with many turnings to the top of Stanbury Hill. This was ever the first route re-examined by his brother Godfrey and himself on their return from school at holiday-time. It was a rare region for bird-nesting, so seldom was it trodden save by a few farm-labourers at early morning or when the days work was over. Hubert passed with a glance of recognition the bramble in which he had found his first spinks nest, the shadowed mossy bank whence had fluttered the hapless wren just when the approach of two prowling youngsters should have bidden her keep close. Boys on the egg-trail are not wont to pay much attention to the features of the country; but Hubert remembered that at a certain meadow-gate he had always rested for a moment to view the valley, some mute presage of things unimagined stirring at his heart. Was it even then nineteenth century? Not for him, seeing that the life of each of us reproduces the successive ages of the world. Belwick, roaring a few miles away, was but an isolated black patch on the earths beauty, not, as he now understood it, a malignant cancer-spot, spreading day by day, corrupting, an augury of death. In those days it had seemed fast in the order of things that Wanley Manor should be his home through life; how otherwise? Was it not the abiding-place of the Eldons from of old? Who had ever hinted at revolution? He knew now that revolution had been at work from an earlier time than that; whilst he played and rambled with his brother the framework of their life was crumbling about them. Belwick was already throwing a shadow upon Wanley. And now behold! he stood at the old gate, rested his hands where they had been wont to rest, turned his eyes in the familiar direction; no longer a mere shadow, there was Belwick itself.
His heart was hot with outraged affection, with injured pride. On the scarcely closed grave of that passion which had flamed through so brief a life sprang up the flower of natural tenderness, infinitely sweet and precious. For the first time he was fully conscious of what it meant to quit Wanley for ever; the past revealed itself to him, lovelier and more loved because parted from him by so hopeless a gulf. Hubert was not old enough to rate experience at its true value, to acquiesce in the law which wills that the day must perish before we can enjoy to the full its light and odour. He could only feel his loss, and rebel against the fate which had ordained it.
He had climbed but half-way up the hill; from this point onwards there was no view till the summit was reached, for the lane proceeded between high banks and hedges. To gain the very highest point he had presently to quit the road by a stile and skirt the edge of a small rising meadow, at the top of which was an old cow-house with a few trees growing about it. Thence one had the finest prospect in the county.
He reached the stone shed, looked back for a moment over Wanley, then walked round to the other side. As he turned the corner of the building his eye was startled by the unexpected gleam of a white dress. A girl stood there; she was viewing the landscape through a field-glass, and thus remained unaware of his approach on the grass. He stayed his step and observed her with eyes of recognition. Her attitude, both hands raised to hold the glass, displayed to perfection the virginal outline of her white-robed form. She wore a straw hat of the plain masculine fashion; her brown hair was plaited in a great circle behind her head, not one tendril loosed from the mass; a white collar closely circled her neck; her waist was bound with a red girdle. All was grace and purity; the very folds towards the bottom of her dress hung in sculpturesque smoothness; the form of her half-seen foot bowed the herbage with lightest pressure. From the boughs above there fell upon her a dancing network of shadow.
Hubert only half smiled; he stood with his hands joined behind him, his eyes fixed upon her face, waiting for her to turn But several moments passed and she was still intent on the landscape. He spoke.
Will you let me look?
Her hands fell, all but dropping the glass; still, she did not start with unbecoming shrug as most people do, the instinctive movement of guarding against a stroke; the falling of her arms was the only abrupt motion, her head turning in the direction of the speaker with a grace as spontaneous as that we see in a fawn that glances back before flight.
Oh, Mr. Eldon! How silently you have come!
The wild rose of her cheeks made rivalry for an instant with the richer garden blooms, and the subsiding warmth left a pearly translucency as of a lily petal against the light.
She held her hand to him, delicately gloved, warm; the whole of it was hidden within Huberts clasp.
What were you looking at so attentively? he asked.
At Agworth station, replied Adela, turning her eyes again in that quarter. My brothers train ought to be in by now, I think. He comes home every Saturday.
Does he?
Hubert spoke without thought, his look resting upon the maidens red girdle.
I am glad that you are well again, Adela said with natural kindness. You have had a long illness.
Yes; it has been a tiresome affair. Is Mrs. Waltham well?
Quite, thank you.
And your brother?
Alfred never had anything the matter with him in his life, I believe, she answered, with a laugh.
Fortunate fellow! Will you lend me the glass?
She held it to him, and at the same moment her straying eye caught a glimpse of white smoke, far off.
There comes the train! she exclaimed. You will be able to see it between these two hills.
Hubert looked and returned the glass to her, but she did not make use of it.
Does he walk over from Agworth? was Huberts next question.
Yes. It does him good after a week of Belwick.
There will soon be little difference between Belwick and Wanley, rejoined Hubert, drily.
Adela glanced at him; there was sympathy and sorrow in the look.
I knew it would grieve you, she said.