Part 12 (2/2)
”Yes,” said Miss Merry, ”I am going to try a sketch--but I must not have anyone looking over my shoulder. I am no good at sketching--but I like to be made to look close at a pretty thing. I am going to try the chalk-pit and thicket near the tower--chalk-pits suit my style, because one can leave so much of the paper white!”
”Very well,” said Howard, ”I will be back here in an hour.”
Howard and Mr. Sandys started off through the wood. Mr. Sandys was full of communications. He began to talk about Guthrie. ”Such a good friend for Jack!” he said; ”I hope he bears a good character in the college?
Jack seems to be very much taken up with him, and says there is no nonsense about him--almost the highest commendation he has in his power to bestow--indeed I have heard him use the same phrase about yourself!
Young Guthrie seems such a natural and unaffected fellow--indeed, if I may say so, Howard, it seemed to me a high compliment to yourself, and to speak volumes for your easy relation with young men, that he should have ventured to take you off to your face just now, and that you should have been so sincerely amused. It isn't as if he were a cheeky sort of boy--if I may be allowed such an expression. He treats me with the pleasantest deference and respect--and when I think of his father's wealth and political influence, that seems to me a charming trait!
There is nothing uppish about him.”
”No, indeed,” said Howard; ”he is a thoroughly nice fellow!”
”I am delighted to hear you say so,” said Mr. Sandys, ”and your kindness emboldens me to say something which is quite confidential; but then we are practically relations, are we not? Perhaps it is only a father's partiality; but have you noticed, may I say, anything in his manner to my dear Maud? It may be only a pa.s.sing fancy, of course. 'In the spring,' you remember, 'a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love'--a beautiful line that, though of course it is not strictly applicable to the end of July. I need hardly say that such a connection would gladden my heart. I am all for marriage, Howard, for early marriage, the simplest and best of human experiences; of course it has more sides than one to it. I should not like it to be supposed that a country parson like myself had in the smallest degree inveigled a young man of the highest prospects into a match--there is nothing of the matchmaker about me; but Maud is in a degree well-connected; and, as you know, she will be what the country people here call 'well-left'--a terse phrase, but expressive! I do not see that she would be in any way unworthy of the position--and I feel that her life here is a little secluded--I should like her to have a little richer material, so to speak, to work in. Well, well, we mustn't be too diplomatic about these things. 'Man proposes'--no humorous suggestion intended--'and G.o.d disposes'--but if it should so turn out, without any scheming or management--things which I cordially detest--if it should open out naturally, why, I should be lacking in candour if I pretended it would not please me. I believe in early engagements, and romance, and all that--I fear I am terribly sentimental--and it is just the thing to keep a young man straight. Sir Henry Guthrie might be disposed to view it in that light--what do you think?”
This ingenuous statement had a very distressing effect on Howard. It is one thing to dally with a thought, however seriously, in one's own mind, and something quite different to have it presented in black and white through the frank conjecture of another. He put a severe constraint upon himself and said, ”Do you know, Frank, the same thought had occurred to me--I had believed that I saw something of the kind; and I can honestly say that I think Guthrie a very sound fellow indeed in every way--quite apart from his worldly prospects. He is straight, sensible, good-humoured, capable, and, I think, a really unselfish fellow. If I had a daughter of my own I could not imagine a better husband.”
”You delight me inexpressibly,” said Mr. Sandys. ”So you had noticed it? Well, well, I trust your perception far more than my own; and of course I am bia.s.sed--you might almost incline to say dazzled--by the prospect: heir to a baronetcy (I could wish it had been of an earlier creation), rich, and, as you say, entirely reliable and straight. Of course I don't in any way wish to force matters on. I could not bear to be thought to have unduly encouraged such an alliance--and Maud may marry any nice fellow she has a fancy to marry; but I think that she is rather drawn to young Guthrie--what do you think? He amuses her, and she is at her best with him--don't you think so?”
”Yes,” said Howard, ”I had thought so. I think she likes him very much.”
”Well, we will leave it at that,” said Mr. Sandys in high gusto. ”You don't mind my confiding in you thus, Howard? Somehow, if I may say it, I find it very easy to speak confidentially to you. You are so perceptive, so sympathetic! We all feel that it is the secret of your great influence.”
They talked of other matters after this as they walked along the crest of the downs; and where the white road began to descend into the valley, with the roofs of Windlow glimmering in the trees a little to the north, Howard left the Vicar and retraced his steps.
He was acutely miserable; the thing had come upon him with a shock, and brought the truth home to him in a desperate way. But he experienced at the same time a certain sensation, for a moment, of grim relief. His fancy, his hope--how absurd and idiotic they had been!--were shattered.
How could he ever have dreamed that the girl should come to care for him in that way--an elderly Don of settled habits, who had even mistaken a pompous condescension to the young men of his College for a natural and sympathetic relation--that was what he was. The melancholy truth stared him in the face. He was sharply disillusioned. He had lingered on, clinging pathetically to youth, and with a serene complacency he had overlooked the flight of time. He was a dull, middle-aged man, fond of sentimental relations and trivial confidences, who had done nothing, effected nothing; had even egregiously failed in the one thing he had set himself to do, the retaining his hold on youth. Well, he must face it! He must be content to settle down as a small squire; he must disentangle himself from his Cambridge work gradually--it sickened him to think of it--and he must try to lead a quiet life, and perhaps put together a stupid book or two. That was to be his programme. He must just try to be grateful for a clear line of action. If he had had nothing but Cambridge to depend upon, it would have been still worse. Now he must settle down to county business if he could, and clear his mind of all foolish regrets. Love and marriage--he was ten years too late! He had dawdled on, taking the line of least resistance, and he was now revealed to himself in a true and unsparing light. He paced swiftly on, and presently entered the wood. His feet fell soft on the gra.s.sy road among the coverts.
Suddenly, as he turned a corner, he saw a little open glade to the right. A short way up the glade stood two figures--Guthrie and Maud--engaged in conversation. They were standing facing each other.
She seemed to be expostulating with him in a laughing way; he stood bareheaded, holding his hat in his hand, eagerly defending himself. The pose of the two seemed to show an easy sort of comrades.h.i.+p. Maud was holding a stick in both hands behind her, and half resting upon it.
They seemed entirely absorbed in what they were saying. Howard could not bear to intrude upon the scene. He fell back among the trees, retraced his steps, and then sat down on a gra.s.sy bank, a little off the path, and waited. It was the last confirmation of his fears. It was not quite a lover-like scene, but they evidently understood each other, and were wholly at their ease together, while Guthrie's admiring and pa.s.sionate look did not escape him. He rested his head in his hands, and bore the truth as he might have borne a physical pain. The summer woods, the green thickets, the sunlight on the turf, the white clouds, the rich plain just visible through the falling tree-trunks, all seemed to him like a vision seen by a spirit in torment, something horribly unreal and torturing. The two streams of beauty and misery appeared to run side by side, so distinct, so unblending; but the horrible fact was that though sorrow was able not only to a.s.sert its own fiery power, like the sting of some malignant insect, it could also obliterate and efface joy; it could even press joy into its service, to accentuate its torment; while the joy and beauty of life seemed wholly unable to soothe or help him, but were brushed aside, just as a stern soldier, armed and mailed, could brush aside the onslaught of some delicate and frenzied boy. Was pain the stronger power, was it the ultimate power?
In that dark moment, Howard felt that it was. Joy seemed to him like a little pool of crystalline water, charming enough if tended and sheltered, but a thing that could be soiled and scattered in a moment by the onrush of some foul and violent beast.
He came at last to the rendezvous. Miss Merry sat at her post transferring to a little block of paper a smeared and streaky picture of the chalk-pit, which seemed equally unintelligible at whatever angle it might be held. Jack was couched at a little distance in the heather, smoking a pipe. Howard went and sat down moodily beside him. ”An odd thing, a picnic,” said Jack musingly; ”I am not sure it is not an invention of the devil. Is anything the matter, Howard? You look as if things had gone wrong. You don't mind that nonsense of Guthrie's, do you? I was an a.s.s to get him to do it; I hate doing a stupid thing, and he is simply wild with me. It's no good saying it is not like, because it is in a way, but of course it's only a rag. It isn't absurd when you do it, only when someone else does.”
”Oh no, I don't mind about that,” said Howard; ”do make that plain to Guthrie. I am out of sorts, I think; one gets bothered, you know--what is called the blues.”
”Oh, I know,” said Jack sympathetically; ”I don't suffer from them myself as a rule, but I have got a touch of them to-day. I can't understand what everyone is up to. Fred Guthrie has got the jumps. It looks to me,” he went on sagely, ”as if he was what is commonly called in love: but when the other person is one's sister, it seems strange.
Maud isn't a bad girl, as they go, but she isn't an angel, and still less a saint; but Fred has no eyes for anyone else; I can't screw a sensible word out of him. These young people!” said Jack with a sour grimace; ”you and I know better. One ought to leave the women alone; there's something queer about them; you never know where you are with them.”
Howard regarded him in silence for a moment: it did not seem worth while to argue; nothing seemed worth while. ”Where are they?” he said drearily.
”Oh, goodness knows!” said Jack; ”when I last saw them he was beating down the ferns with a stick for Maud to go through. He's absolutely demented, and she is at one of her games. I think I shall sheer off, and go to visit some sick people, like the governor; that's about all I feel up to.”
At this moment, however, the truants appeared, walking silently out of a glade. Howard had an obscure feeling that something serious had happened--he did not know what. Guthrie looked dejected, and Maud was evidently preoccupied. ”Oh, d.a.m.n the whole show!” said Jack, getting up. ”Let's get out of this!”
”We lost our way,” said Maud, rather hurriedly, ”and couldn't find our way back.”
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