The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy


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.

Reined up to a brass ring on either side of their stalls with their noses
towards the doors, they were always on view from nine to ten, and would
stand with their necks arched, ears pricked, and coats gleaming,
wondering about things, soothed by the faint hissing of the still busy
grooms, and ready to move their noses up and down the moment they saw
someone enter.

In a large loose-box at the end of the north wing Barbara's favourite
chestnut hunter, all but one saving sixteenth of whom had been entered in
the stud book, having heard her footstep, was standing quite still with
his neck turned. He had been crumping up an apple placed amongst his
feed, and his senses struggled between the lingering flavour of that
delicacy,--and the perception of a sound with which he connected carrots.
When she unlatched his door, and said "Hal," he at once went towards his
manger, to show his independence, but when she said: "Oh! very well!" he
turned round and came towards her. His eyes, which were full and of a
soft brilliance, under thick chestnut lashes, explored her all over.
Perceiving that her carrots were not in front, he elongated his neck, let
his nose stray round her waist, and gave her gauntletted hand a nip with
his lips. Not tasting carrot, he withdrew his nose, and snuffled. Then
stepping carefully so as not to tread on her foot, he bunted her gently
with his shoulder, till with a quick manoeuvre he got behind her and
breathed low and long on her neck. Even this did not smell of carrots,
and putting his muzzle over her shoulder against her cheek, he slobbered
a very little. A carrot appeared about the level of her waist, and
hanging his head over, he tried to reach it. Feeling it all firm and
soft under his chin, he snuffled again, and gave her a gentle dig with
his knee. But still unable to reach the carrot, he threw his head up,
withdrew, and pretended not to see her. And suddenly he felt two long
substances round his neck, and something soft against his nose. He
suffered this in silence, laying his ears back. The softness began
puffing on his muzzle. Pricking his ears again, he puffed back a little
harder, with more curiosity, and the softness was withdrawn. He
perceived suddenly that he had a carrot in his mouth.

Harbinger had witnessed this episode, oddly pale, leaning against the
loose-box wall. He spoke, as it came to an end:

"Lady Babs!"

The tone of his voice must have been as strange as it sounded to himself,
for Barbara spun round.

"Yes?"

"How long am I going on like this?"

Neither changing colour nor dropping her eyes, she regarded him with a
faintly inquisitive interest. It was not a cruel look, had not a trace
of mischief, or sex malice, and yet it frightened him by its serene
inscrutability. Impossible to tell what was going on behind it. He took
her hand, bent over it, and said in a low voice:

"You know what I feel; don't be cruel to me!"

She did not pull away her hand; it was as if she had not thought of it.

"I am not a bit cruel."

Looking up, he saw her smiling.

"Then--Babs!"

His face was close to hers, but Barbara did not shrink back. She just
shook her head; and Harbinger flushed up.

"Why?" he asked; and as though the enormous injustice of that rejecting
gesture had suddenly struck him, he dropped her hand.

"Why?" he said again, sharply.

But the silence was only broken by the cheeping of sparrows outside the
round window, and the sound of the horse, Hal, munching the last morsel
of his carrot. Harbinger was aware in his every nerve of the sweetish,
slightly acrid, husky odour of the loosebox, mingling with the scent of
Barbara's hair and clothes. And rather miserably, he said for the third
time:

"Why?"

But folding her hands away behind her back she answered gently:

"My dear, how should I know why?"

She was calmly exposed to his embrace if he had only dared; but he did
not dare, and went back to the loose-box wall. Biting his finger, he
stared at her gloomily. She was stroking the muzzle of her horse; and a
sort of dry rage began whisking and rustling in his heart. She had
refused him--Harbinger! He had not known, had not suspected how much he
wanted her. How could there be anybody else for him, while that young,
calm, sweet-scented, smiling thing lived, to make his head go round, his
senses ache, and to fill his heart with longing! He seemed to himself at
that moment the most unhappy of all men.

"I shall not give you up," he muttered.

Barbara's answer was a smile, faintly curious, compassionate, yet almost
grateful, as if she had said:

"Thank you--who knows?"

And rather quickly, a yard or so apart, and talking of horses, they
returned to the house.

It was about noon, when, accompanied by Courtier, she rode forth.

The Sou-Westerly spell--a matter of three days--had given way before
radiant stillness; and merely to be alive was to feel emotion. At a
little stream running beside the moor under the wild stone man, the
riders stopped their horses, just to listen, and, inhale the day. The far
sweet chorus of life was tuned to a most delicate rhythm; not one of
those small mingled pipings of streams and the lazy air, of beasts, men;
birds, and bees, jarred out too harshly through the garment of sound
enwrapping the earth. It was noon--the still moment--but this hymn to
the sun, after his too long absence, never for a moment ceased to be
murmured. And the earth wore an under-robe of scent, delicious, very
finely woven of the young fern sap, heather buds; larch-trees not yet
odourless, gorse just going brown, drifted woodsmoke, and the breath of
hawthorn. Above Earth's twin vestments of sound and scent, the blue
enwrapping scarf of air, that wistful wide champaign, was spanned only by
the wings of Freedom.