Part 42 (1/2)
The nest on the Spaniard's Road had not been able to contain Sheila long. There are certain natures, such as that of Felix, to whom the claims and exercise of authority are abhorrent, who refuse to exercise it themselves and rage when they see it exercised over others, but who somehow never come into actual conflict with it. There are other natures, such as Sheila's, who do not mind in the least exercising authority themselves, but who oppose it vigorously when they feel it coming near themselves or some others. Of such is the kingdom of militancy. Her experience with the police had sunk deep into her soul.
They had not, as a fact, treated her at all badly, which did not prevent her feeling as if they had outraged in her the dignity of woman. She arrived, therefore, in Hampstead seeing red even where red was not. And since, undoubtedly, much real red was to be seen, there was little other color in the world or in her cheeks those days. Long disagreements with Alan, to whom she was still a magnet but whose Stanley-like nature stood firm against the blandishments of her revolting tongue, drove her more and more toward a decision the seeds of which had, perhaps, been planted during her former stay among the breezy airs of Hampstead.
Felix, coming one day into his wife's study--for the house knew not the word drawing-room--found Flora, with eyebrows lifted up and smiling lips, listening to Sheila proclaiming the doctrine that it was impossible not to live 'on one's own.' Nothing else--Felix learned--was compatible with dignity, or even with peace of mind. She had, therefore, taken a back room high up in a back street, in which she was going to live perfectly well on ten s.h.i.+llings a week; and, having thirty-two pounds saved up, she would be all right for a year, after which she would be able to earn her living. The principle she purposed to keep before her eyes was that of committing herself to nothing which would seriously interfere with her work in life. Somehow, it was impossible to look at this girl, with her glowing cheeks and her glowing eyes, and her hair frizzy from ardor, and to distrust her utterances. Yes! She would arrive, if not where she wanted, at all events somewhere; which, after all, was the great thing. And in fact she did arrive the very next day in the back room high up in the back street, and neither Tod's cottage nor the house on the Spaniard's Road saw more than flying gleams of her, thenceforth.
Another by-product, this, of that little starting episode, the notice given to Tryst! Strange how in life one little incident, one little piece of living stress, can attract and gather round it the feelings, thoughts, actions of people whose lives run far and wide away therefrom.
But episodes are thus potent only when charged with a significance that comes from the clash of the deepest instincts.
During the six weeks which had elapsed between his return home from Joyfields and the a.s.sizes, Felix had much leisure to reflect that if Lady Malloring had not caused Tryst to be warned that he could not marry his deceased wife's sister and continue to stay on the estate--the lives of Felix himself, his daughter, mother, brother, brother's wife, their son and daughter, and in less degree of his other brothers, would have been free of a preoccupation little short of ludicrous in proportion to the face value of the cause. But he had leisure, too, to reflect that in reality the issue involved in that tiny episode concerned human existence to its depths--for, what was it but the simple, all-important question of human freedom? The simple, all-important issue of how far men and women should try to rule the lives of others instead of trying only to rule their own, and how far those others should allow their lives to be so ruled? This it was which gave that episode its power of attracting and affecting the thoughts, feelings, actions of so many people otherwise remote. And though Felix was paternal enough to say to himself nearly all the time, 'I can't let Nedda get further into this mess!' he was philosopher enough to tell himself, in the unfatherly balance of his hours, that the mess was caused by the fight best of all worth fighting--of democracy against autocracy, of a man's right to do as he likes with his life if he harms not others; of 'the Land' against the fetterers of 'the Land.' And he was artist enough to see how from that little starting episode the whole business had sprung--given, of course, the entrance of the wilful force called love. But a father, especially when he has been thoroughly alarmed, gives the artist and philosopher in him short shrift.
Nedda came home soon after Sheila went, and to the eyes of Felix she came back too old and thoughtful altogether. How different a girl from the Nedda who had so wanted 'to know everything' that first night of May! What was she brooding over, what planning, in that dark, round, pretty head? At what resolve were those clear eyes so swiftly raised to look? What was going on within, when her breast heaved so, without seeming cause, and the color rushed up in her cheeks at a word, as though she had been so far away that the effort of recall was alone enough to set all her veins throbbing. And yet Felix could devise no means of attack on her infatuation. For a man cannot cultivate the habit of never interfering and then suddenly throw it over; least of all when the person to be interfered with is his pet and only daughter.
Flora, not of course in the swim of those happenings at Joyflelds, could not be got to take the matter very seriously. In fact--beyond what concerned Felix himself and poetry--the matter that she did take seriously had yet to be discovered. Hers was one of those semi-detached natures particularly found in Hampstead. When exhorted to help tackle the question, she could only suggest that Felix should take them all abroad when he had finished 'The Last of the Laborers.' A tour, for instance, in Norway and Sweden, where none of them had ever been, and perhaps down through Finland into Russia.
Feeling like one who squirts on a burning haystack with a garden syringe, Felix propounded this scheme to his little daughter. She received it with a start, a silence, a sort of quivering all over, as of an animal who scents danger. She wanted to know when, and being told--'not before the middle of August', relapsed into her preoccupation as if nothing had been said. Felix noted on the hall table one afternoon a letter in her handwriting, addressed to a Worcester newspaper, and remarked thereafter that she began to receive this journal daily, obviously with a view to reports of the coming a.s.sizes. Once he tried to break through into her confidence. It was August Bank Holiday, and they had gone out on to the heath together to see the people wonderfully a.s.sembled. Coming back across the burnt-up gra.s.s, strewn with paper bags, banana peel, and the cores of apples, he hooked his hand into her arm.
”What is to be done with a child that goes about all day thinking and thinking and not telling anybody what she is thinking?”
She smiled round at him and answered:
”I know, Dad. She IS a pig, isn't she?”
This comparison with an animal of proverbial stubbornness was not encouraging. Then his hand was squeezed to her side and he heard her murmur:
”I wonder if all daughters are such beasts!”
He understood well that she had meant: 'There is only one thing I want--one thing I mean to have--one thing in the world for me now!'
And he said soberly:
”We can't expect anything else.”
”Oh, Daddy!” she answered, but nothing more.
Only four days later she came to his study with a letter, and a face so flushed and troubled that he dropped his pen and got up in alarm.
”Read this, Dad! It's impossible! It's not true! It's terrible! Oh! What am I to do?”
The letter ran thus, in a straight, boyish handwriting:
”ROYAL CHARLES HOSTEL,
”WORCESTER, Aug. 7th.
”MY NEDDA,
”I have just seen Bob tried. They have given him three years' penal.
It was awful to sit there and watch him. He can never stand it. It was awful to watch him looking at ME. It's no good. I'm going to give myself up. I must do it. I've got everything ready; they'll have to believe me and squash his sentence. You see, but for me it would never have been done. It's a matter of honour. I can't let him suffer any more. This isn't impulse. I've been meaning to do it for some time, if they found him guilty. So in a way, it's an immense relief. I'd like to have seen you first, but it would only distress you, and I might not have been able to go through with it after. Nedda, darling, if you still love me when I get out, we'll go to New Zealand, away from this country where they bully poor creatures like Bob. Be brave! I'll write to-morrow, if they let me.
”Your