CHAPTER XV
When on the afternoon of that same day Miltoun did not come, all the chilly doubts which his presence alone kept away, crowded thick and fast into the mind of one only too prone to distrust her own happiness. It could not last – how could it?
His nature and her own were so far apart! Even in that giving of herself which had been such happiness, she had yet doubted; for there was so much in him that was to her mysterious. All that he loved in poetry and nature, had in it something craggy and culminating. The soft and fiery, the subtle and harmonious, seemed to leave him cold. He had no particular love for all those simple natural things, birds, bees, animals, trees, and flowers, that seemed to her precious and divine.
Though it was not yet four o’clock she was already beginning to droop like a flower that wants water. But she sat down to her piano, resolutely, till tea came; playing on and on with a spirit only half present, the other half of her wandering in the Town, seeking for Miltoun. After tea she tried first to read, then to sew, and once more came back to her piano. The clock struck six; and as if its last stroke had broken the armour of her mind, she felt suddenly sick with anxiety. Why was he so long? But she kept on playing, turning the pages without taking in the notes, haunted by the idea that he might again have fallen ill. Should she telegraph? What good, when she could not tell in the least where he might be? And all the unreasoning terror of not knowing where the loved one is, beset her so that her hands, in sheer numbness, dropped from the keys. Unable to keep still, now, she wandered from window to door, out into the little hall, and back hastily to the window. Over her anxiety brooded a darkness, compounded of vague growing fears. What if it were the end? What if he had chosen this as the most merciful way of leaving her? But surely he would never be so cruel! Close on the heels of this too painful thought came reaction; and she told herself that she was a fool. He was at the House; something quite ordinary was keeping him. It was absurd to be anxious! She would have to get used to this now. To be a drag on him would be dreadful. Sooner than that she would rather – yes – rather he never came back! And she took up her book, determined to read quietly till he came. But the moment she sat down her fears returned with redoubled force-the cold sickly horrible feeling of uncertainty, of the knowledge that she could do nothing but wait till she was relieved by something over which she had no control. And in the superstition that to stay there in the window where she could see him come, was keeping him from her, she went into her bedroom. From there she could watch the sunset clouds wine-dark over the river. A little talking wind shivered along the houses; the dusk began creeping in. She would not turn on the light, unwilling to admit that it was really getting late, but began to change her dress, lingering desperately over every little detail of her toilette, deriving therefrom a faint, mysterious comfort, trying to make herself feel beautiful. From sheer dread of going back before he came, she let her hair fall, though it was quite smooth and tidy, and began brushing it. Suddenly she thought with horror of her efforts at adornment – by specially preparing for him, she must seem presumptuous to Fate. At any little sound she stopped and stood listening – save for her hair and eyes, as white from head to foot as a double narcissus flower in the dusk, bending towards some faint tune played to it somewhere oft in the fields. But all those little sounds ceased, one after another – they had meant nothing; and each time, her spirit returning – within the pale walls of the room, began once more to inhabit her lingering fingers. During that hour in her bedroom she lived through years. It was dark when she left it.
CHAPTER XVI
When Miltoun at last came it was past nine o’clock
Silent, but quivering all over; she clung to him in the hall; and this passion of emotion, without sound to give it substance, affected him profoundly. How terribly sensitive and tender she was! She seemed to have no armour. But though so stirred by her emotion, he was none the less exasperated. She incarnated at that moment the life to which he must now resign himself – a life of unending tenderness, consideration, and passivity.
For a long time he could not bring himself to speak of his decision. Every look of her eyes, every movement of her body, seemed pleading with him to keep silence. But in Miltoun’s character there was an element of rigidity, which never suffered him to diverge from an objective once determined.
When he had finished telling her, she only said:
“Why can’t we go on in secret?”
And he felt with a sort of horror that he must begin his struggle over again. He got up, and threw open the window. The sky was dark above the river; the wind had risen. That restless murmuration, and the width of the night with its scattered stars, seemed to come rushing at his face. He withdrew from it, and leaning on the sill looked down at her. What flower-like delicacy she had! There flashed across him the memory of a drooping blossom, which, in the Spring, he had seen her throw into the flames; with the words: “I can’t bear flowers to fade, I always want to burn them.” He could see again those waxen petals yield to the fierce clutch of the little red creeping sparks, and the slender stalk quivering, and glowing, and writhing to blackness like a live thing. And, distraught, he began:
“I can’t live a lie. What right have I to lead, if I can’t follow? I’m not like our friend Courtier who believes in Liberty. I never have, I never shall. Liberty? What is Liberty? But only those who conform to authority have the right to wield authority. A man is a churl who enforces laws, when he himself has not the strength to observe them. I will not be one of whom it can be said: ‘He can rule others, himself – !”
“No one will know.”
Miltoun turned away.
“I shall know,” he said; but he saw clearly that she did not understand him. Her face had a strange, brooding, shut-away look, as though he had frightened her. And the thought that she could not understand, angered him.
He said, stubbornly: “No, I can’t remain in public life.”
“But what has it to do with politics? It’s such a little thing.”
“If it had been a little thing to me, should I have left you at Monkland, and spent those five weeks in purgatory before my illness? A little thing!”
She exclaimed with sudden fire:
“Circumstances aye the little thing; it’s love that’s the great thing.”
Miltoun stared at her, for the first time understanding that she had a philosophy as deep and stubborn as his own. But he answered cruelly:
“Well! the great thing has conquered me!”
And then he saw her looking at him, as if, seeing into the recesses of his soul, she had made some ghastly discovery. The look was so mournful, so uncannily intent that he turned away from it.
“Perhaps it is a little thing,” he muttered; “I don’t know. I can’t see my way. I’ve lost my bearings; I must find them again before I can do anything.”
But as if she had not heard, or not taken in the sense of his words, she said again:
“Oh! don’t let us alter anything; I won’t ever want what you can’t give.”
And this stubbornness, when he was doing the very thing that would give him to her utterly, seemed to him unreasonable.
“I’ve had it out with myself,” he said. “Don’t let’s talk about it any more.”
Again, with a sort of dry anguish, she murmured:
“No, no! Let us go on as we are!”
Feeling that he had borne all he could, Miltoun put his hands on her shoulders, and said: “That’s enough!”
Then, in sudden remorse, he lifted her, and clasped her to him.
But she stood inert in his arms, her eyes closed, not returning his kisses.
CHAPTER XVII
On the last day before Parliament rose, Lord Valleys, with a light heart, mounted his horse for a gallop in the Row. Though she was a blood mare he rode her with a plain snaffle, having the horsemanship of one who has hunted from the age of seven, and been for twenty years a Colonel of Yeomanry. Greeting affably everyone he knew, he maintained a frank demeanour on all subjects, especially of Government policy, secretly enjoying the surmises and prognostications, so pleasantly wide of the mark, and the way questions and hints perished before his sphinx-like candour. He spoke cheerily too of Miltoun, who was ‘all right again,’ and ‘burning for the fray’ when the House met again in the autumn. And he chaffed Lord Malvezin about his wife. If anything – he said – could make Bertie take an interest in politics, it would be she. He had two capital gallops, being well known to the police: The day was bright, and he was sorry to turn home. Falling in with Harbinger, he asked him to come back to lunch. There had seemed something different lately, an almost morose look, about young Harbinger; and his wife’s disquieting words about Barbara came back to Lord Valleys with a shock. He had seen little of the child lately, and in the general clearing up of this time of year had forgotten all about the matter.
Agatha, who was still staying at Valleys House with little Ann, waiting to travel up to Scotland with her mother, was out, and there was no one at lunch except Lady Valleys and Barbara herself. Conversation flagged; for the young people were extremely silent, Lady Valleys was considering the draft of a report which had to be settled before she left, and Lord Valleys himself was rather carefully watching his daughter. The news that Lord Miltoun was in the study came as a surprise, and somewhat of a relief to all. To an exhortation to luring him in to lunch; the servant replied that Lord Miltoun had lunched, and would wait.
“Does he know there’s no one here?”
“Yes, my lady.”
Lady Valleys pushed back her plate, and rose:
“Oh, well!” she said, “I’ve finished.”
Lord Valleys also got up, and they went out together, leaving Barbara, who had risen, looking doubtfully at the door.
Lord Valleys had recently been told of the nursing episode, and had received the news with the dubious air of one hearing something about an eccentric person, which, heard about anyone else, could have had but one significance. If Eustace had been a normal young man his father would have shrugged his shoulder’s, and thought: “Oh, well! There it is!” As it was, he had literally not known what to think.
And now, crossing the saloon which intervened between the dining-room and the study, he said to his wife uneasily:
“Is it this woman again, Gertrude – or what?”
Lady Valleys answered with a shrug:
“Goodness knows, my dear.”
Miltoun was standing in the embrasure of a window above the terrace. He looked well, and his greeting was the same as usual.
“Well, my dear fellow,” said Lord Valleys, “you’re all right again evidently – what’s the news?”
“Only that I’ve decided to resign my seat.”
Lord Valleys stared.
“What on earth for?”
But Lady Valleys, with the greater quickness of women, divining already something of the reason, had flushed a deep pink.
“Nonsense, my dear,” she said; “it can’t possibly be necessary, even if – ” Recovering herself, she added dryly:
“Give us some reason.”
“The reason is simply that I’ve joined my life to Mrs. Noel’s, and I can’t go on as I am, living a lie. If it were known I should obviously have to resign at once.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Lord Valleys.
Lady Valleys made a rapid movement. In the face of what she felt to be a really serious crisis between these two utterly different creatures of the other sex, her husband and her son, she had dropped her mask and become a genuine woman. Unconsciously both men felt this change, and in speaking, turned towards her.
“I can’t argue it,” said Miltoun; “I consider myself bound in honour.”
“And then?” she asked.
Lord Valleys, with a note of real feeling, interjected:
“By Heaven! I did think you put your country above your private affairs.”
“Geoff!” said Lady Valleys.
But Lord Valleys went on:
“No, Eustace, I’m out of touch with your view of things altogether. I don’t even begin to understand it.”
“That is true,” said Miltoun.
“Listen to me, both of you!” said Lady Valleys: “You two are altogether different; and you must not quarrel. I won’t have that. Now, Eustace, you are our son, and you have got to be kind and considerate. Sit down, and let’s talk it over.”
And motioning her husband to a chair, she sat down in the embrasure of a window. Miltoun remained standing. Visited by a sudden dread, Lady Valleys said:
“Is it – you’ve not – there isn’t going to be a scandal?”
Miltoun smiled grimly.
“I shall tell this man, of course, but you may make your minds easy, I imagine; I understand that his view of marriage does not permit of divorce in any case whatever.”
Lady Valleys sighed with an utter and undisguised relief.
“Well, then, my dear boy,” she began, “even if you do feel you must tell him, there is surely no reason why it should not otherwise be kept secret.”
Lord Valleys interrupted her:
“I should be glad if you would point out the connection between your honour and the resignation of your seat,” he said stiffly.
Miltoun shook his head.
“If you don’t see already, it would be useless.”
“I do not see. The whole matter is – is unfortunate, but to give up your work, so long as there is no absolute necessity, seems to me far-fetched and absurd. How many men are, there into whose lives there has not entered some such relation at one time or another? This idea would disqualify half the nation.” His eyes seemed in that crisis both to consult and to avoid his wife’s, as though he were at once asking her endorsement of his point of view, and observing the proprieties. And for a moment in the midst of her anxiety, her sense of humour got the better of Lady Valleys. It was so funny that Geoff should have to give himself away; she could not for the life of her help fixing him with her eyes.
“My dear,” she murmured, “you underestimate three-quarters, at the very least!”
But Lord Valleys, confronted with danger, was growing steadier.
“It passes my comprehension;” he said, “why you should want to mix up sex and politics at all.”
Miltoun’s answer came very slowly, as if the confession were hurting his lips:
“There is – forgive me for using the word – such a thing as one’s religion. I don’t happen to regard life as divided into public and private departments. My vision is gone – broken – I can see no object before me now in public life – no goal – no certainty.”
Lady Valleys caught his hand:
“Oh! my dear,” she said, “that’s too dreadfully puritanical!” But at Miltoun’s queer smile, she added hastily: “Logical – I mean.”
“Consult your common sense, Eustace, for goodness’ sake,” broke in Lord Valleys. “Isn’t it your simple duty to put your scruples in your pocket, and do the best you can for your country with the powers that have been given you?”
“I have no common sense.”
“In that case, of course, it may be just as well that you should leave public life.”
Miltoun bowed.
“Nonsense!” cried Lady Valleys. “You don’t understand, Geoffrey. I ask you again, Eustace, what will you do afterwards?”
“I don’t know.”
“You will eat your heart out.”
“Quite possibly.”
“If you can’t come to a reasonable arrangement with your conscience,” again broke in Lord Valleys, “for Heaven’s sake give her up, like a man, and cut all these knots.”
“I beg your pardon, sir!” said Miltoun icily.
Lady Valleys laid her hand on his arm. “You must allow us a little logic too, my dear. You don’t seriously imagine that she would wish you to throw away your life for her? I’m not such a bad judge of character as that.”
She stopped before the expression on Miltoun’s face.
“You go too fast,” he said; “I may become a free spirit yet.”
To this saying, which seemed to her cryptic and sinister, Lady Valleys did not know what to answer.
“If you feel, as you say,” Lord Valleys began once more, “that the bottom has been knocked out of things for you by this – this affair, don’t, for goodness’ sake, do anything in a hurry. Wait! Go abroad! Get your balance back! You’ll find the thing settle itself in a few months. Don’t precipitate matters; you can make your health an excuse to miss the Autumn session.”
Lady Valleys chimed in eagerly
“You really are seeing the thing out of all proportion. What is a love-affair. My dear boy, do you suppose for a moment anyone would think the worse of you, even if they knew? And really not a soul need know.”
“It has not occurred to me to consider what they would think.”
“Then,” cried Lady Valleys, nettled, “it’s simply your own pride.”
“You have said.”
Lord Valleys, who had turned away, spoke in an almost tragic voice
“I did not think that on a point of honour I should differ from my son.”
Catching at the word honour, Lady Valleys cried suddenly:
“Eustace, promise me, before you do anything, to consult your Uncle Dennis.”
Miltoun smiled.
“This becomes comic,” he said.
At that word, which indeed seemed to them quite wanton, Lord and Lady Valleys turned on their son, and the three stood staring, perfectly silent. A little noise from the doorway interrupted them.
CHAPTER XVIII
Left by her father and mother to the further entertainment of Harbinger, Barbara had said:
“Let’s have coffee in here,” and passed into the withdrawing room.
Except for that one evening, when together by the sea wall they stood contemplating the populace, she had not been alone with him since he kissed her under the shelter of the box hedge. And now, after the first moment, she looked at him calmly, though in her breast there was a fluttering, as if an imprisoned bird were struggling ever so feebly against that soft and solid cage. Her last jangled talk with Courtier had left an ache in her heart. Besides, did she not know all that Harbinger could give her?
Like a nymph pursued by a faun who held dominion over the groves, she, fugitive, kept looking back. There was nothing in that fair wood of his with which she was not familiar, no thicket she had not travelled, no stream she had not crossed, no kiss she could not return. His was a discovered land, in which, as of right, she would reign. She had nothing to hope from him but power, and solid pleasure. Her eyes said: How am I to know whether I shall not want more than you; feel suffocated in your arms; be surfeited by all that you will bring me? Have I not already got all that?
She knew, from his downcast gloomy face, how cruel she seemed, and was sorry. She wanted to be good to him, and said almost shyly:
“Are you angry with me, Claud?”
Harbinger looked up.
“What makes you so cruel?”
“I am not cruel.”
“You are. Where is your heart?”
“Here!” said Barbara, touching her breast.
“Ah!” muttered Harbinger; “I’m not joking.”
She said gently:’
“Is it as bad as that, my dear?”
But the softness of her voice seemed to fan the smouldering fires in him.
“There’s something behind all this,” he stammered, “you’ve no right to make a fool of me!”
“And what is the something, please?”
“That’s for you to say. But I’m not blind. What about this fellow Courtier?”
At that moment there was revealed to Barbara a new acquaintance – the male proper. No, to live with him would not be quite lacking in adventure!
His face had darkened; his eyes were dilated, his whole figure seemed to have grown. She suddenly noticed the hair which covered his clenched fists. All his suavity had left him. He came very close.
How long that look between them lasted, and of all there was in it, she had no clear knowledge; thought after thought, wave after wave of feeling, rushed through her. Revolt and attraction, contempt and admiration, queer sensations of disgust and pleasure, all mingled – as on a May day one may see the hail fall, and the sun suddenly burn through and steam from the grass.
Then he said hoarsely:
“Oh! Babs, you madden me so!”
Smoothing her lips, as if to regain control of them, she answered:
“Yes, I think I have had enough,” and went out into her father’s study.
The sight of Lord and Lady Valleys so intently staring at Miltoun restored hex self-possession.
It struck her as slightly comic, not knowing that the little scene was the outcome of that word. In truth, the contrast between Miltoun and his parents at this moment was almost ludicrous.
Lady Valleys was the first to speak.
“Better comic than romantic. I suppose Barbara may know, considering her contribution to this matter. Your brother is resigning his seat, my dear; his conscience will not permit him to retain it, under certain circumstances that have arisen.”
“Oh!” cried Barbara: “but surely – ”
“The matter has been argued, Babs,” Lord Valleys said shortly; “unless you have some better reason to advance than those of ordinary common sense, public spirit, and consideration for one’s family, it will hardly be worth your while to reopen the discussion.”
Barbara looked up at Miltoun, whose face, all but the eyes, was like a mask.
“Oh, Eusty!” she said, “you’re not going to spoil your life like this! Just think how I shall feel.”
Miltoun answered stonily:
“You did what you thought right; as I am doing.”
“Does she want you to?”
“No.”
“There is, I should imagine,” put in Lord Valleys, “not a solitary creature in the whole world except your brother himself who would wish for this consummation. But with him such a consideration does not weigh!”
“Oh!” sighed Barbara; “think of Granny!”
“I prefer not to think of her,” murmured Lady Valleys.
“She’s so wrapped up in you, Eusty. She always has believed in you intensely.”
Miltoun sighed. And, encouraged by that sound, Barbara went closer.
It was plain enough that, behind his impassivity, a desperate struggle was going on in Miltoun. He spoke at last:
“If I have not already yielded to one who is naturally more to me than anything, when she begged and entreated, it is because I feel this in a way you don’t realize. I apologize for using the word comic just now, I should have said tragic. I’ll enlighten Uncle Dennis, if that will comfort you; but this is not exactly a matter for anyone, except myself.” And, without another look or word, he went out.
As the door closed, Barbara ran towards it; and, with a motion strangely like the wringing of hands, said:
“Oh, dear! Oh! dear!” Then, turning away to a bookcase, she began to cry.
This ebullition of feeling, surpassing even their own, came as a real shock to Lady and Lord Valleys, ignorant of how strung-up she had been before she entered the room. They had not seen Barbara cry since she was a tiny girl. And in face of her emotion any animus they might have shown her for having thrown Miltoun into Mrs. Noel’s arms, now melted away. Lord Valleys, especially moved, went up to his daughter, and stood with her in that dark corner, saying nothing, but gently stroking her hand. Lady Valleys, who herself felt very much inclined to cry, went out of sight into the embrasure of the window.
Barbara’s sobbing was soon subdued.
“It’s his face,” she said: “And why? Why? It’s so unnecessary!”
Lord Valleys, continually twisting his moustache, muttered:
“Exactly! He makes things for himself!”
“Yes,” murmured Lady Valleys from the window, “he was always uncomfortable, like that. I remember him as a baby. Bertie never was.”
And then the silence was only broken by the little angry sounds of Barbara blowing her nose.
“I shall go and see mother,” said Lady Valleys, suddenly: “The boy’s whole life may be ruined if we can’t stop this. Are you coming, child?”
But Barbara refused.
She went to her room, instead. This crisis in Miltoun’s life had strangely shaken her. It was as if Fate had suddenly revealed all that any step out of the beaten path might lead to, had brought her sharply up against herself. To wing out into the blue! See what it meant! If Miltoun kept to his resolve, and gave up public life, he was lost! And she herself! The fascination of Courtier’s chivalrous manner, of a sort of innate gallantry, suggesting the quest of everlasting danger – was it not rather absurd? And – was she fascinated? Was it not simply that she liked the feeling of fascinating him? Through the maze of these thoughts, darted the memory of Harbinger’s face close to her own, his clenched hands, the swift revelation of his dangerous masculinity. It was all a nightmare of scaring queer sensations, of things that could never be settled. She was stirred for once out of all her normal conquering philosophy. Her thoughts flew back to Miltoun. That which she had seen in their faces, then, had come to pass! And picturing Agatha’s horror, when she came to hear of it, Barbara could not help a smile. Poor Eustace! Why did he take things so hardly? If he really carried out his resolve – and he never changed his mind – it would be tragic! It would mean the end of everything for him!
Perhaps now he would get tired of Mrs. Noel. But she was not the sort of woman a man would get tired of. Even Barbara in her inexperience felt that. She would always be too delicately careful never to cloy him, never to exact anything from him, or let him feel that he was bound to her by so much as a hair. Ah! why couldn’t they go on as if nothing had happened? Could nobody persuade him? She thought again of Courtier. If he, who knew them both, and was so fond of Mrs. Noel, would talk to Miltoun, about the right to be happy, the right to revolt? Eustace ought to revolt! It was his duty. She sat down to write; then, putting on her hat, took the note and slipped downstairs.