The Patrician

But it was not this feeling which made her stop before Mrs. Noel’s cottage; nor was it curiosity. It was a quite simple desire to squeeze her hand.

‘Anonyma’ seemed taking her trouble as only those women who are no good at self-assertion can take things – doing exactly as she would have done if nothing had happened; a little paler than usual, with lips pressed rather tightly together.

They neither of them spoke at first, but stood looking, not at each other’s faces, but at each other’s breasts. At last Barbara stepped forward impulsively and kissed her.

After that, like two children who kiss first, and then make acquaintance, they stood apart, silent, faintly smiling. It had been given and returned in real sweetness and comradeship, that kiss, for a sign of womanhood making face against the world; but now that it was over, both felt a little awkward. Would that kiss have been given if Fate had been auspicious? Was it not proof of misery? So Mrs. Noel’s smile seemed saying, and Barbara’s smile unwillingly admitted. Perceiving that if they talked it could only be about the most ordinary things, they began speaking of music, flowers, and the queerness of bees’ legs. But all the time, Barbara, though seemingly unconscious, was noting with her smiling eyes, the tiny movement’s, by which one woman can tell what is passing in another. She saw a little quiver tighten the corner of the lips, the eyes suddenly grow large and dark, the thin blouse desperately rise and fall. And her fancy, quickened by last night’s memory, saw this woman giving herself up to the memory of love in her thoughts. At this sight she felt a little of that impatience which the conquering feel for the passive, and perhaps just a touch of jealousy.

Whatever Miltoun decided, that would this woman accept! Such resignation, while it simplified things, offended the part of Barbara which rebelled against all inaction, all dictation, even from her favourite brother. She said suddenly:

“Are you going to do nothing? Aren’t you going to try and free yourself? If I were in your position, I would never rest till I’d made them free me.”

But Mrs. Noel did not answer; and sweeping her glance from that crown of soft dark hair, down the soft white figure, to the very feet, Barbara cried:

“I believe you are a fatalist.”

Soon after that, not knowing what more to say, she went away. But walking home across the fields, where full summer was swinging on the delicious air and there was now no bull but only red cows to crop short the ‘milk-maids’ and buttercups, she suffered from this strange revelation of the strength of softness and passivity – as though she had seen in the white figure of ‘Anonyma,’ and heard in her voice something from beyond, symbolic, inconceivable, yet real.

CHAPTER XVIII

Lord Valleys, relieved from official pressure by subsidence of the war scare, had returned for a long week-end. To say that he had been intensely relieved by the news that Mrs. Noel was not free, would be to put it mildly. Though not old-fashioned, like his mother-in-law, in regard to the mixing of the castes, prepared to admit that exclusiveness was out of date, to pass over with a shrug and a laugh those numerous alliances by which his order were renewing the sinews of war, and indeed in his capacity of an expert, often pointing out the dangers of too much in-breeding – yet he had a peculiar personal feeling about his own family, and was perhaps a little extra sensitive because of Agatha; for Shropton, though a good fellow, and extremely wealthy, was only a third baronet, and had originally been made of iron. It was inadvisable to go outside the inner circle where there was no material necessity for so doing. He had not done it himself. Moreover there was a sentiment about these things!

On the morning after his arrival, visiting the kennels before breakfast, he stood chatting with his head man, and caressing the wet noses of his two favourite pointers, – with something of the feeling of a boy let out of school. Those pleasant creatures, cowering and quivering with pride against his legs, and turning up at him their yellow Chinese eyes, gave him that sense of warmth and comfort which visits men in the presence of their hobbies. With this particular pair, inbred to the uttermost, he had successfully surmounted a great risk. It was now touch and go whether he dared venture on one more cross to the original strain, in the hope of eliminating the last clinging of liver colour. It was a gamble – and it was just that which rendered it so vastly interesting.

A small voice diverted his attention; he looked round and saw little Ann. She had been in bed when he arrived the night before, and he was therefore the newest thing about.

She carried in her arms a guinea-pig, and began at once:

“Grandpapa, Granny wants you. She’s on the terrace; she’s talking to Mr. Courtier. I like him – he’s a kind man. If I put my guinea-pig down, will they bite it? Poor darling – they shan’t! Isn’t it a darling!”

Lord Valleys, twirling his moustache, regarded the guinea-pig without favour; he had rather a dislike for all senseless kinds of beasts.

Pressing the guinea-pig between her hands, as it might be a concertina, little Ann jigged it gently above the pointers, who, wrinkling horribly their long noses, gazed upwards, fascinated.

“Poor darlings, they want it – don’t they? Grandpapa.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think the next puppies will be spotted quite all over?”

Continuing to twirl his moustache, Lord Valleys answered:

“I think it is not improbable, Ann.”

“Why do you like them spotted like that? Oh! they’re kissing Sambo – I must go!”

Lord Valleys followed her, his eyebrows a little raised.

As he approached the terrace his wife came, towards him. Her colour was, deeper than usual, and she had the look, higher and more resolute, peculiar to her when she had been opposed. In truth she had just been through a passage of arms with Courtier, who, as the first revealer of Mrs. Noel’s situation, had become entitled to a certain confidence on this subject. It had arisen from what she had intended as a perfectly natural and not unkind remark, to the effect that all the trouble had come from Mrs. Noel not having made her position clear to Miltoun from the first.

He had at once grown very red.

“It’s easy, Lady Valleys, for those who have never been in the position of a lonely woman, to blame her.”

Unaccustomed to be withstood, she had looked at him intently:

“I am the last person to be hard on a woman for conventional reasons. But I think it showed lack of character.”

Courtier’s reply had been almost rude.

“Plants are not equally robust, Lady Valleys. Some, as we know, are actually sensitive.”

She had retorted with decision

“If you like to so dignify the simpler word ‘weak’”

He had become very rigid at that, biting deeply into his moustache.

“What crimes are not committed under the sanctity of that creed ‘survival of the fittest,’ which suits the book of all you fortunate people so well!”

Priding herself on her restraint, Lady Valleys answered:

“Ah! we must talk that out. On the face of them your words sound a little unphilosophic, don’t they?”

He had looked straight at her with a queer, unpleasant smile; and she had felt at once disturbed and angry. It was all very well to pet and even to admire these original sort of men, but there were limits. Remembering, however, that he was her guest, she had only said:

“Perhaps after all we had better not talk it out;” and moving away, she heard him answer: “In any case, I’m certain Audrey Noel never wilfully kept your son in the dark; she’s much too proud.”

Though rude, she could not help liking the way he stuck up for this woman; and she threw back at him the words:

“You and I, Mr. Courtier, must have a good fight some day!”

She went towards her husband conscious of the rather pleasurable sensation which combat always roused in her.

These two were very good comrades. Theirs had been a love match, and making due allowance for human nature beset by opportunity, had remained, throughout, a solid and efficient alliance. Taking, as they both did, such prominent parts in public and social matters, the time they spent together was limited, but productive of mutual benefit and reinforcement. They had not yet had an opportunity of discussing their son’s affair; and, slipping her hand through his arm, Lady Valleys drew him away from the house.

“I want to talk to you about Miltoun, Geoff.”

“H’m!” said Lord Valleys; “yes. The boy’s looking worn. Good thing when this election’s over.”

“If he’s beaten and hasn’t something new and serious to concentrate himself on, he’ll fret his heart out over that woman.”

Lord Valleys meditated a little before replying.

“I don’t think that, Gertrude. He’s got plenty of spirit.”

“Of course! But it’s a real passion. And, you know, he’s not like most boys, who’ll take what they can.”

She said this rather wistfully.

“I’m sorry for the woman,” mused Lord Valleys; “I really am.”

“They say this rumour’s done a lot of harm.”

“Our influence is strong enough to survive that.”

“It’ll be a squeak; I wish I knew what he was going to do. Will you ask him?”

“You’re clearly the person to speak to him,” replied Lord Valleys. “I’m no hand at that sort of thing.”

But Lady Valleys, with genuine discomfort, murmured:

“My dear, I’m so nervous with Eustace. When he puts on that smile of his I’m done for, at once.”

“This is obviously a woman’s business; nobody like a mother.”

“If it were only one of the others,” muttered Lady Valleys: “Eustace has that queer way of making you feel lumpy.”

Lord Valleys looked at her askance. He had that kind of critical fastidiousness which a word will rouse into activity. Was she lumpy? The idea had never struck him.

“Well, I’ll do it, if I must,” sighed Lady Valleys.

When after breakfast she entered Miltoun’s ‘den,’ he was buckling on his spurs preparatory, to riding out to some of the remoter villages. Under the mask of the Apache chief, Bertie was standing, more inscrutable and neat than ever, in a perfectly tied cravatte, perfectly cut riding breeches, and boots worn and polished till a sooty glow shone through their natural russet. Not specially dandified in his usual dress, Bertie Caradoc would almost sooner have died than disgrace a horse. His eyes, the sharper because they had only half the space of the ordinary eye to glance from, at once took in the fact that his mother wished to be alone with ‘old Miltoun,’ and he discreetly left the room.

That which disconcerted all who had dealings with Miltoun was the discovery made soon or late, that they could not be sure how anything would strike him. In his mind, as in his face, there was a certain regularity, and then – impossible to say exactly where – it would, shoot off and twist round a corner. This was the legacy no doubt of the hard-bitten individuality, which had brought to the front so many of his ancestors; for in Miltoun was the blood not only of the Caradocs and Fitz-Harolds, but of most other prominent families in the kingdom, all of whom, in those ages before money made the man, must have had a forbear conspicuous by reason of qualities, not always fine, but always poignant.

And now, though Lady Valleys had the audacity of her physique, and was not customarily abashed, she began by speaking of politics, hoping her son would give her an opening. But he gave her none, and she grew nervous. At last, summoning all her coolness, she said:

“I’m dreadfully sorry about this affair, dear boy. Your father told me of your talk with him. Try not to take it too hard.”

Miltoun did not answer, and silence being that which Lady Valleys habitually most dreaded, she took refuge in further speech, outlining for her son the whole episode as she saw it from her point of view, and ending with these words:

“Surely it’s not worth it.”

Miltoun heard her with his peculiar look, as of a man peering through a vizor. Then smiling, he said:

“Thank you;” and opened the door.

Lady Valleys, without quite knowing whether he intended her to do so, indeed without quite knowing anything at the moment, passed out, and Miltoun closed the door behind her.

Ten minutes later he and Bertie were seen riding down the drive.

CHAPTER XIX

That afternoon the wind, which had been rising steadily, brought a flurry of clouds up from the South-West. Formed out on the heart of the Atlantic, they sailed forward, swift and fleecy at first, like the skirmishing white shallops of a great fleet; then, in serried masses, darkened the sun. About four o’clock they broke in rain, which the wind drove horizontally with a cold whiffling murmur. As youth and glamour die in a face before the cold rains of life, so glory died on the moor. The tors, from being uplifted wild castles, became mere grey excrescences. Distance failed. The cuckoos were silent. There was none of the beauty that there is in death, no tragic greatness – all was moaning and monotony. But about seven the sun tore its way back through the swathe, and flared out. Like some huge star, whose rays were stretching down to the horizon, and up to the very top of the hill of air, it shone with an amazing murky glamour; the clouds splintered by its shafts, and tinged saffron, piled themselves up as if in wonder. Under the sultry warmth of this new great star, the heather began to steam a little, and the glitter of its wet unopened bells was like that of innumerable tiny smoking fires. The two brothers were drenched as they cantered silently home. Good friends always, they had never much to say to one another. For Miltoun was conscious that he thought on a different plane from Bertie; and Bertie grudged even to his brother any inkling of what was passing in his spirit, just as he grudged parting with diplomatic knowledge, or stable secrets, or indeed anything that might leave him less in command of life. He grudged it, because in a private sort of way it lowered his estimation of his own stoical self-sufficiency; it hurt something proud in the withdrawing-room of his soul. But though he talked little, he had the power of contemplation – often found in men of decided character, with a tendency to liver. Once in Nepal, where he had gone to shoot, he had passed a month quite happily with only a Ghoorka servant who could speak no English. To those who asked him if he had not been horribly bored, he had always answered: “Not a bit; did a lot of thinking.”

With Miltoun’s trouble he had the professional sympathy of a brother and the natural intolerance of a confirmed bachelor. Women were to him very kittle-cattle. He distrusted from the bottom of his soul those who had such manifest power to draw things from you. He was one of those men in whom some day a woman might awaken a really fine affection; but who, until that time, would maintain the perfectly male attitude to the entire sex, and, after it, to all the sex but one. Women were, like Life itself, creatures to be watched, carefully used, and kept duly subservient. The only allusion therefore that he made to Miltoun’s trouble was very sudden.

“Old man, I hope you’re going to cut your losses.”

The words were followed by undisturbed silence: But passing Mrs. Noel’s cottage Miltoun said:

“Take my horse on; I want to go in here.”…

She was sitting at her piano with her hands idle, looking at a line of music… She had been sitting thus for many minutes, but had not yet taken in the notes.

When Miltoun’s shadow blotted the light by which she was seeing so little, she gave a slight start, and got up. But she neither went towards him, nor spoke. And he, without a word, came in and stood by the hearth, looking down at the empty grate. A tortoise-shell cat which had been watching swallows, disturbed by his entrance, withdrew from the window beneath a chair.

This silence, in which the question of their future lives was to be decided, seemed to both interminable; yet, neither could end it.

At last, touching his sleeve, she said: “You’re wet!”

Miltoun shivered at that timid sign of possession. And they again stood in silence broken only by the sound of the cat licking its paws.

But her faculty for dumbness was stronger than his, and – he had to speak first.

“Forgive me for coming; something must be settled. This – rumour – ”

“Oh! that!” she said. “Is there anything I can do to stop the harm to you?”

It was the turn of Miltoun’s lips to curl. “God! no; let them talk!”

Their eyes had come together now, and, once together, seemed unable to part.

Mrs. Noel said at last:

“Will you ever forgive me?”

“What for – it was my fault.”

“No; I should have known you better.”

The depth of meaning in those words – the tremendous and subtle admission they contained of all that she had been ready to do, the despairing knowledge in them that he was not, and never had been, ready to ‘bear it out even to the edge of doom’ – made Miltoun wince away.

“It is not from fear – believe that, anyway.”

“I do.”

There followed another long, long silence! But though so close that they were almost touching, they no longer looked at one another. Then Miltoun said:

“There is only to say good-bye, then.”

At those clear words spoken by lips which, though just smiling, failed so utterly to hide his misery, Mrs. Noel’s face became colourless as her white gown. But her eyes, which had grown immense, seemed from the sheer lack of all other colour, to have drawn into them the whole of her vitality; to be pouring forth a proud and mournful reproach.

Shivering, and crushing himself together with his arms, Miltoun walked towards the window. There was not the faintest sound from her, and he looked back. She was following him with her eyes. He threw his hand up over his face, and went quickly out. Mrs. Noel stood for a little while where he had left her; then, sitting down once more at the piano, began again to con over the line of music. And the cat stole back to the window to watch the swallows. The sunlight was dying slowly on the top branches of the lime-tree; a drizzling rain began to fall.

CHAPTER XX

Claud Fresnay, Viscount Harbinger was, at the age of thirty-one, perhaps the least encumbered peer in the United Kingdom. Thanks to an ancestor who had acquired land, and departed this life one hundred and thirty years before the town of Nettlefold was built on a small portion of it, and to a father who had died in his son’s infancy, after judiciously selling the said town, he possessed a very large income independently of his landed interests. Tall and well-built, with handsome, strongly-marked features, he gave at first sight an impression of strength – which faded somewhat when he began to talk. It was not so much the manner of his speech – with its rapid slang, and its way of turning everything to a jest – as the feeling it produced, that the brain behind it took naturally the path of least resistance. He was in fact one of those personalities who are often enough prominent in politics and social life, by reason of their appearance, position, assurance, and of a certain energy, half genuine, and half mere inherent predilection for short cuts. Certainly he was not idle, had written a book, travelled, was a Captain of Yeomanry, a Justice of the Peace, a good cricketer, and a constant and glib speaker. It would have been unfair to call his enthusiasm for social reform spurious. It was real enough in its way, and did certainly testify that he was not altogether lacking either in imagination or good-heartedness. But it was over and overlaid with the public-school habit – that peculiar, extraordinarily English habit, so powerful and beguiling that it becomes a second nature stronger than the first – of relating everything in the Universe to the standards and prejudices of a single class. Since practically all his intimate associates were immersed in it, he was naturally not in the least conscious of this habit; indeed there was nothing he deprecated so much in politics as the narrow and prejudiced outlook, such as he had observed in the Nonconformist, or labour politician. He would never have admitted for a moment that certain doors had been banged-to at his birth, bolted when he went to Eton, and padlocked at Cambridge. No one would have denied that there was much that was valuable in his standards – a high level of honesty, candour, sportsmanship, personal cleanliness, and self-reliance, together with a dislike of such cruelty as had been officially (so to speak) recognized as cruelty, and a sense of public service to a State run by and for the public schools; but it would have required far more originality than he possessed ever to look at Life from any other point of view than that from which he had been born and bred to watch Her. To fully understand harbinger, one must, and with unprejudiced eyes and brain, have attended one of those great cricket matches in which he had figured conspicuously as a boy, and looking down from some high impartial spot have watched the ground at lunch time covered from rope to rope and stand to stand with a marvellous swarm, all walking in precisely the same manner, with precisely the same expression on their faces, under precisely the same hats – a swarm enshrining the greatest identity of, creed and habit ever known since the world began. No, his environment had not been favourable to originality. Moreover he was naturally rapid rather than deep, and life hardly ever left him alone or left him silent. Brought into contact day and night with people to whom politics were more or less a game; run after everywhere; subjected to no form of discipline – it was a wonder that he was as serious as he was. Nor had he ever been in love, until, last year, during her first season, Barbara had, as he might have expressed it – in the case of another ‘bowled him middle stump. Though so deeply smitten, he had not yet asked her to marry him – had not, as it were, had time, nor perhaps quite the courage, or conviction. When he was near her, it seemed impossible that he could go on longer without knowing his fate; when he was away from her it was almost a relief, because there were so many things to be done and said, and so little time to do or say them in. But now, during this fortnight, which, for her sake, he had devoted to Miltoun’s cause, his feeling had advanced beyond the point of comfort.

He did not admit that the reason of this uneasiness was Courtier, for, after all, Courtier was, in a sense, nobody, and ‘an extremist’ into the bargain, and an extremist always affected the centre of Harbinger’s anatomy, causing it to give off a peculiar smile and tone of voice. Nevertheless, his eyes, whenever they fell on that sanguine, steady, ironic face, shone with a sort of cold inquiry, or were even darkened by the shade of fear. They met seldom, it is true, for most of his day was spent in motoring and speaking, and most of Courtier’s in writing and riding, his leg being still too weak for walking. But once or twice in the smoking room late at night, he had embarked on some bantering discussion with the champion of lost causes; and very soon an ill-concealed impatience had crept into his voice. Why a man should waste his time, flogging dead horses on a journey to the moon, was incomprehensible! Facts were facts, human nature would never be anything but human nature! And it was peculiarly galling to see in Courtier’s eye a gleam, to catch in his voice a tone, as if he were thinking: “My young friend, your soup is cold!”

On a morning after one of these encounters, seeing Barbara sally forth in riding clothes, he asked if he too might go round the stables, and started forth beside her, unwontedly silent, with an odd feeling about his heart, and his throat unaccountably dry.

The stables at Monkland Court were as large as many country houses. Accommodating thirty horses, they were at present occupied by twenty-one, including the pony of little Ann. For height, perfection of lighting, gloss, shine, and purity of atmosphere they were unequalled in the county. It seemed indeed impossible that any horse could ever so far forget himself in such a place as to remember that he was a horse. Every morning a little bin of carrots, apples, and lumps of sugar, was set close to the main entrance, ready for those who might desire to feed the dear inhabitants.