?gabriel, dear,” said the honorable ophelia gusset, looking up at her fiancé from the blue shadows of her parasol, “you are very dull to-day; i hope i am not boring you too utterly.”
the man standing by the garden-chair looked down at the face that belied somewhat in its aggressive stare the mild method of the girl’s reproof.
“you are charming, and i—i am gauche.”
“but why?”
“these functions always make me melancholy. i begin moralizing the moment i am one of a crowd, an egotistical habit of mine. please ignore my cynicism.”
“cynicism, indeed!”
“well, you see, dear, this sort of affair is such a revulsion. when one has been elemental for an hour or two, these social inanities rather try one’s patience. i detest turning myself into a species of orthodox dummy, wound up to spout commonplaces to equally commonplace people. laugh me out of it with those eyes of yours.”
the girl’s mood was not all for peace on the instant. where a woman does not understand, she waxes querulous, especially if the enigma touches her heart.
“you might be sympathetic enough to realize that you no longer have only your own morbid humors to consider.”
“pardon me, i am selfish.”
“so early?”
“you shall reform me.”
ophelia flashed a queer look at him from her strangely magnetic eyes. a sudden quick spasm of passion seemed to pass through both frames. the electric sentiment met—and sparked desire. gabriel colored under his straw hat.
“you have wonderful eyes.”
“have i? well—”
“i suppose we cannot help it.”
“what does it matter?”
the man sighed.
“it will not be long,” he said.
“and yet—”
she laughed—a deep quaver of passion.
“i am much of an eve,” she said. “if you have any pity, do get me an ice.”
mrs. mince had prepared a garden-party at the saltire vicarage, a cosmopolitan affair that effectually repaid the neighborhood for courtesies accorded during the year. it was one of those thoroughly inane and tiresome functions where every individual seemed intent on covering his or her identity with a facile and vapid mask. people smiled upon one another with a suspicious reserve and insulted one another’s immortality with that effete social patois that distinguishes such gatherings. women “my deared” plentifully and dissected one another’s toilets. men looked bored and bunched together in corners to talk with a vicious and morose earnestness. it was a mock festival in the name of pleasure, where the local culture displayed its rites for the edification of the young.
“you should go out and get to know people,” ran john strong’s favorite dogma to his son. “mix in society; it will give you ease, my boy, and gentlemanly fluency in conversation.” unfortunately ideas did not bloom under the saltire bonnets, and the higher culture was not to be culled from the tents of propriety.
mrs. marjoy and miss zinia snodley were partnering each other under the shade of mr. mince’s walnut-tree. the doctor’s wife was dressed in damask red, with a dowdy black hat perched ungracefully on her crisp, black hair. her gloves were grease-stained and her unbrushed jacket bore a generous covering of dust and discarded hair. mrs. marjoy always declared that really handsome women could wear anything, and that style was a personal magnetism, and not the result of milliner’s craft. mrs. marjoy lived up to the ideal with admirable sincerity. it cannot be said that in the matter of personal proof she converted others. mrs. marjoy’s art was crude and elemental; her friends designated it with the title of slovenliness. they even whispered that mrs. marjoy might so far sink her convictions as to manicure her nails.
four ladies were amusing themselves at croquet on a neighboring lawn, and the voices of tennis-players came from the vicarage meadow. the tea-table had attracted quite a crowd of votaries, and mr. mince, with his parsonic leer, was running about with dishes of cake and fruit. “he is such a charming man!” to quote miss snodley. the day found mrs. marjoy in one of her fervid moods. the doctor had been playing croquet with pretty mrs. grandison, a dainty, warm-hearted creature, the wife of an artist who had taken a cottage near saltire for the summer. and mrs. marjoy hated all pretty women, not through any realization of inferiority, but with the zest of a being who believed herself entitled to the juno’s share of popular devotion. mrs. marjoy was a woman who never looked in any other mirror save that of confident egotism. at that very moment she was in the midst of a candid critique, while her husband was smiling over his teacup into mrs. grandison’s gentle, blue eyes.
“don’t you think that woman shockingly overdressed, zinia?” she said. “that is the worst of being an inferior person; a woman like that has to rely wholly on her costumier. london people are so abominably self-confident. that chit there might really have come from behind a bar.”
“these affairs are always so mixed!” said miss snodley, with a simper.
“poor, dear mrs. mince, she always will ask everybody. i believe in lady-like selections. look at her talking to miss ginge; she detests that girl, but that shows what a thorough woman of the world she is. we christian ladies, my dear zinia, have to suffer our social inferiors with cultured resignation. i never hurt anybody’s feelings. it is really an effort at times to be charitable and to do justice to one’s neighbors. but that is the essence of christianity, my dear. hallo, there’s young strong and his mistress.”
ophelia, with gabriel at her side, moved across the lawn in the direction of the rose-walk. the girl was superbly dressed and indubitably lovely. she moved with her usual complacent hauteur, the semi-languid and physical egotism that betrayed her fibre. gabriel appeared melancholy. they were both of them silent.
“young strong looks bored.”
“poor fellow!”
“no good can come of such a scandalous intrigue,” said the doctor’s wife. “it’s nothing more, my dear zinia. they are going to live at the friary. nice dance that woman’ll lead him. serve the prig right. she’s all vanity and lace.”
“perhaps they will be happy,” said miss snodley, with a sigh.
“i believe marriage improves many women, and then—children. they must make such a difference to a woman.”
mrs. marjoy twitched her shoulders.
“don’t be sentimental, zinia. i always try to eliminate my own prejudices, but that gusset girl is a regular harpy. did you ever see a really good woman dress like that? ah, here’s james; my dear, you look bored.”
the doctor tilted his panama hat and smiled somewhat apologetically at his wife.
“that awful dowdy has been exhausting you with her chatter.”
“mrs. grandison?”
“of course.”
“mrs. grandison is really a charming little woman,” observed the doctor. “we have been talking about children; she has two such quaint little elves, and she adores them. they have not been spoiled.”
mrs. marjoy sniffed; her spectacles glittered.
“you are always admiring other people’s children, james.”
“yes, my dear.”
“are you aware of the fact that i have had no tea?”
the doctor displayed immediate concern.
“i will get you some at once.”
“don’t trouble; it’s of no consequence.”
“but miss snodley—”
“of course you will be delighted to wait on miss snodley. bring us one of those small tables. i’m not going to have crumbs all over my dress.”
later in the afternoon, gabriel, who had left ophelia chatting with sir mark melluish, an amusing old ragamuffin who reminded one of a walking edition of punch, unearthed dr. marjoy from a pool of millinery and engaged him with a casual friendliness in a thoroughly orthodox gossip. the doctor knew most folk in the neighborhood; for bad debts had made him vigilant. he was, in fact, the very species of person gabriel needed.
“by-the-way,” he remarked, after discussing the possibilities of a local tennis tournament, “a friend of mine asked me whether i knew anything of an eccentric old fellow living somewhere near here; a bit of a miser, i believe. you are ubiquitous in these parts. i might inquire of you.”
the doctor appeared encouraged; he was in a limp and idealess mood; domesticities had depressed him. it was a relief to talk to a keen, kindly young fellow whose eyes were full of sunlight. they drew two chairs under the shade of a lime. gabriel produced cigars. the two men exchanged a species of mischievous twinkle that was vastly human.
“off duty, eh?”
“for half an hour.”
“rum things, women. take my tip—make ’em knuckle under early; now or never. are these murias?”
“yes.”
“nicotina is never in a temper. terrible thing being a doctor. these functions make me sweat. we medicoes have to trot round and do the affable shop-walker to the community. good for the practice, you know. by jove, we have to salve every soul with blarney. it’s blarney, blarney, blarney from morning till night. my tongue’s dry. going to be married soon?”
“in a month or two.”
“fine woman your fiancée, fit to make every subaltern in the rilchester barracks envy you like the devil. let me see, you wanted information. what’s the person’s name?”
gabriel appeared to flog his memory.
“i almost forget it. gilder—gildersleeve—gildersedge. ah, yes, gildersedge! rather a miser, my friend said.”
the doctor withdrew his cigar from his lips.
“by george! yes. i know the old beggar—a regular silas; lives in a house smothered up in trees on the third hill beyond rilchester—a regular hermitage, like a house out of a novel. you can’t see it for trees till you get well inside the gate. i attended there on one solitary occasion. it was the servant. res natura. i only got paid after a lawyer’s letter. never been there since.”
gabriel appeared interested despite his affectation. he had turned the doctor into good grazing land, and anecdotes bristled. dr. marjoy had not lived fifteen years with his wife without assimilating some of her linguistical propensities.
“i remember talking with clissold, of the bank,” he said, “and he told me that old gildersedge’s figures totted up phenomenally. he’s worth two scrooges. and, by jeremy! he has a daughter; i was forgetting that daughter.”
gabriel tilted his chair and surveyed the clouds.
“a pretty beauty, i suppose,” he said, with cynical facility. dr. marjoy, on the contrary, leaned forward and appeared curiously in earnest.
“i call it a damned sin,” he observed, oblivious for the moment of his surroundings.
gabriel stared.
“i remember that girl well. she is a splendid creature, and i wondered how such an old slut had been able to create such an anomaly. poor little beggar, she had the airs of a convent child and a queen rolled into one. and to think of that young thing being penned up with a money-crusted sot and a beast of a servant!”
gabriel’s chair tilted forward abruptly. he sat rigid and nearly bit through his cigar.
“this sounds russian.”
“it’s the truth.”
“poor little woman! i suppose she’s only a child. her surroundings must mar her in the making.”
the doctor cogitated.
“i don’t know about that,” he said; “women are queer creatures. rear one in a regular moral hothouse, and she’ll turn out a scarlet devil. bring up another in a dirty back garden, and she’ll grow up a regular snow-white seraph. i only saw that girl once, but i’ll swear there’s real grit in her.”
“god grant it!”
and from that moment the two men seemed to become strangely solemn.
gabriel left saltire that afternoon in the gabingly carriage. he was to stay the night at the castle and to attend a flower-show next day under the auspices of the gussets. it had already been mooted by the two parents that gabriel should stand for the constituency at the next election. old sir hercules dimsdale was a decadent politician and none too eager to continue in the ruck of publicity. the gusset influence was powerful, and john strong ambitious. he was too old, he declared, to contest the seat himself; his pride should be perfected in his son.
the dust flew from the wake of the thoroughbreds that whirled the gusset escutcheon through the streets of saltire. ophelia lounged in one corner of the landau, a mass of intricate millinery, her sunshade shadowing her somewhat peevish face. her sister sat upright in the corresponding corner, with her hat awry and her hands ungloved. gabriel faced them both on the front seat.
ophelia was out of temper with the world at large. the parched and dusty weather suited neither her complexion nor her humor. moreover, the mince function had been deplorably dull, and gabriel less the beau chevalier than usual.
“thank heaven, that’s over!” she observed; “a tea-and-shrimp affair. blanche, i believe you enjoyed yourself.”
the younger sister responded cheerily.
“had some rattling tennis and a smack at mrs. marjoy. really, old mince keeps his grass in better order than his parish.”
“sir mark melluish was the only bearable person i could discover. gabriel, you must have lunched on suet-pudding. i never saw such a bored creature.”
the man smiled philosophically.
“these functions always addle my brain. i am beginning to recover.”
“for heaven’s sake, hurry up, then.”
“my poor boy,” said blanche, with a sly twinkle, “see what you have taken upon yourself. awful responsibility being engaged. you must keep up appearances till you’re married, and then you can be as rude as you like. only another month or so. cheer up.”
gabriel passed half an hour alone with ophelia in the conservatory that evening. her humor had changed, and the man’s brain was full of the fumes of her beauty ere she had ended. gabriel’s window at gabingly looked southward over the woods towards the sea. a full moon swam in a crystal sky that night, bathing the earth in mysterious splendor. a transcendent calm seemed to have compassed the sun-wearied trees. the world breathed anew under the benisons of the stars, and there was no sound to shake the silver web of sleep.
gabriel crouched in the window-seat and stared out into the night. the glimmering spirelets of the forest thrust up multitudinous on the hill-side. the dark swell of the moors ran dim and distant beyond the far spirals of the mallan. a great melancholy had fallen upon the man’s soul. his face shone white in the light of the moon. the cool breeze breathing from the sea seemed savored with a spiritual purity that wounded hope.
restless visions glimmered in his brain. he saw himself and his own being circled in fire that fed upon his manhood. a girl’s face haunted him; her voice played through the moonlight. he beheld a figure radiant with a divine womanliness moving within the coil of sin and squalor, the sordid earthliness of an unlovely life. forgotten chivalry had stirred his manhood like some ghostly trumpet-cry out of the past. he breathed out aspirations to the stars, dreams fair and impossibly pathetic. joan gildersedge! joan gildersedge! to dare, to suffer, to liberate, to love! life born of sacrifice! divine passion instinct with the inevitable yearnings of the soul!
the castle clock chimed midnight. in the echoing silence that ensued, sundry quick-snapping chords struck from a mandolin startled his abandonment. he stood up half wearily, passed a hand over his forehead, stared into space. again the summons sounded from a neighboring casement. the man moved to and fro in the shadowy room like a soul that paces the darkened chamber of the flesh. pierced by a sudden flashing pessimism, he moved to the door, opened it noiselessly, stepped out, turned and withdrew the key. moonlight flooded from a large lancet window into the long gallery. and was this life! to sow unto corruption, to surrender the spirit to the dominion of the senses! gabriel shuddered, but obeyed.
