it was the day following lady oxted's return to london from the sunday in the country that she received the expected letter from mrs. aylwin, in answer to her own. the opening of it, it would be idle to deny, was made with an anxious and apprehensive hand. already it was plain to her with how swift and strong a movement, as of flood water hastening toward sluice-gates, the first attraction between the two was speeding into intimacy; and had she known what had passed between them in the orchard, she would have guessed that its swiftness had outrun her eye. already it would have been far better that, if the girl was to know the name her mother had refused to tell her, she should have known it on the night of her arrival. but these things were past prayer, and lady oxted drew the sheet of paper from its envelope and found, at any rate, that the communication was short.
"i leave it entirely to your judgment," wrote mrs. aylwin, "whether you tell evie or not. you say that you have promised not to: in that case, supposing at some future time you consider it advisable, and you can accept this quibble,[pg 96] tell it her not in your name, but in mine. my reason for not telling it her you may easily have guessed: the knowledge, or so i thought it, that harold was murdered, has poisoned my life, and now i question myself as to whether i have been certainly right about it. but remember this: if there arises between the two—the thing is possible, as evidently you foresee—a friendship which develops, as is natural between a man and a maid, it is certain that some time evie will know. i leave it to you to decide whether it is better that she should know now or later. i thank you, dear violet, for your care for her."
"dear violet" heaved a sigh of relief. mrs. aylwin had been known to stagger those who were dear to her by sending them letters which partook of the nature of an ultimatum. but there was no ultimatum here; she was willing to treat, and this letter, though couched with the precision of an official despatch, was not without amenity.
she hurried downstairs to join evie, for they were going out to lunch, with the sense of a burden removed. such being the attitude of mrs. aylwin, she determined that her own promise to the girl should certainly stand; and she thought, with scornful wonder of her husband's diagnosis, that at the very back of her mind she would reserve to herself the right to break it. men's idea of women, she told herself, was incredibly crude and elementary. they reserved for themselves a monopoly of certain qualities, like courage, justice, and honour, and simply took it for granted[pg 97] that such things did not exist for women. poor, dear bob, and after so many years, too!
evie was somewhat silent as they drove down bond street, and though her gaze at the jostling crowds was not less intent than usual, it seemed to have lost the sparkle of its avidity, and to dwell rather than alight and be gone again. she looked this morning at the seedy toy sellers and flower vendors more than at their fragrant or painted wares, and, instead of finding fascination in the little tin figures that moved their scythes over the surface of an absolutely smooth pavement, with the industry of those who reap the whirlwind, or commenting on the phenomenal cheapness of collar studs, it was rather the tragic meanness of their exhibitors which to-day attracted her.
"how do you suppose they live, aunt violet?" she asked. "look at that man with studs: six a penny. i know, because i bought six on saturday. well, supposing he sold sixty a day, which i imagine he does not, and that they cost him absolutely nothing, in the evening he would have tenpence. yet they are not beggars; they work for their bread. now, in italy, we have nothing like them; their place is taken by the smiling, picturesque lazzaroni, who would not stir a finger to help themselves. they just sit in the sun and smile, and get fed. oh, dear!"
"what is it now, evie?" asked lady oxted.
"nothing. i suppose i am just realizing that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that extremes meet, and so on. look at me now: here[pg 98] am i in this comfortable victoria, much more like the lazzaroni than the toy sellers, and who shall say how far the toy sellers are above the lazzaroni? i sit in the sun, and if there is no sun i sit by the fire, and, to do me justice, i generally smile. yet, supposing i had to work for my bread, should i do it cheerfully, do you think? should i maintain even a low average of industry? supposing there came some great call on me for courage or resolution, should i respond to it? i have no reason whatever for assuring you, or myself either, that i should."
lady oxted's mind flew back with an inward smirk of satisfaction to her own heroic determination to keep the promise she had made to evie.
"probably you would," she said. "probably we are not so bad, when it comes to—when we have an opportunity for behaving abominably, as we thought we were going to be. the thought of the dentist poisons my life for days beforehand, yet i go all the same, and ring the dreary bell, and behave, i believe, with average courage under the wheel. morally, too, i suspect, we are better when a thing has to be done than we were afraid we were going to be. also, on the whole, one is more honourable than one thinks—more honourable certainly," she added, with a sudden, irrepressible spurt of indignation against her husband—"than those who know us best believe us to be."
evie laughed.
"dear aunt, have you been very honourable[pg 99] lately?" she asked. "or has uncle bob been doubting your fine qualities?"
"cynicism always ends in disappointment," remarked lady oxted, leaping a conversational chasm, "but since it is cynical, i suppose it expects it."
"is uncle bob a cynic?" asked evie, dragging her back over the chasm again.
"well, i made a promise the other day," said lady oxted, "and asked him his advice about it. he told me that i should probably reserve to myself the right to break it." evie sat up suddenly, and toy makers and lazzaroni were swept from her mind.
"a promise?" she said. "not the promise you made me?"
lady oxted looked up in surprise.
"yes, the same. why, dear?"
evie deliberated with herself for a moment.
"for this reason," she said slowly: "because i now know what i asked you not to tell me. your promise has had the kernel taken out of it."
"you know? who told you?"
"lord vail," she replied.
lady oxted looked at the girl's heightened colour, wondering what emotion flew that beautiful standard there.
"i will never waste a dram of resolution again in determining to abide by my word," she announced.
evie laughed again, with a great ring of happiness in the note.
[pg 100]
"then you will confirm uncle bob in his cynicism," she replied, "and disappoint him of all his pleasant little disappointments."
it was not long before lady oxted found that to be chaperon to a very considerable heiress could not be regarded, even by the most negligent, as a sinecure, while to fulfil its duties at all adequately cost a vast deal of time and thought. had the girl been dull, heavy, serious, or plain, her task would have been lighter; but as it was, lady oxted became, before a fortnight was past, a really hard-worked woman. evie's appetite for gaiety was insatiable; she took to london like a bird to the air; found everybody charming, and everybody returned the compliment. indeed, the girl seemed to bring, wherever she went, a breath of spring and morning, so utterly sincere and spontaneous was the pleasure that bubbled from her; and, since nothing pleases people so much as to find themselves pleasing, london in general was exceedingly glad that santa margarita was the poorer for evie's presence here. with the eager avidity of youth, and with youth's serene digestion, she gathered and devoured the heaped-up feast of daily and nightly gaiety. self-consciousness for once seemed to have been left out of the composition of a human being, and she played, and laughed, and enjoyed herself among these crowds as a child may play with daisies by itself in some spring meadow, not brooding and reflecting on its happiness, but simply happy. parsifal with the flower maidens was not more unreflective[pg 101] than she, surrounded by the well-dressed hosts, her charm in the mouths of all.
it might have been hoped, thought lady oxted, that since so large a ring was always assembled to see her smile, the smiles would have been, considering the number and variety of the circle, distributed with moderate evenness. in this she was not disappointed, but a thing far more disconcerting to the responsible chaperon. evie's seriousness certainly was not impartial. for all the world but one she seemed to have no seriousness, but about that one there could be no mistake. for already, between her and harry, there existed a relation, clear and indefinable, to be dwelt on with silent wonder. some alchemy, secret and subtle, untraceable as the curves of the swallow's flight, was at work; an effervescence already had begun to stir, brightening the dark well of destiny within them by a hundred points of light; a mysterious luminosity was growing in tremulous flame.
until the receipt of mrs. aylwin's letter, lady oxted had felt a little uncertain as to whether she could accept harry's invitation for herself and the girl to vail. in any case the next two sundays were impossible, and the matter had been left undecided. but now that all restriction was withdrawn, she arranged to take evie down in three weeks' time, at the end of the month. harry himself, however, had business at his home which could not be postponed, and toward the end of the week he went down there with the intention[pg 102] of clearing it off as quickly as might be, and returning again to london.
mr. francis had been at vail almost continuously since the winter, and harry found him in the enjoyment of his usual merry spirits. he looked even better in health and younger to the eye than when his nephew had seen him last, and the briskness of his movements, the clear, scarcely wrinkled skin of his face, were indeed surprising in one of his years. he had driven to the station to meet harry, and the train being stopped on an inside curve just before reaching the platform, the lad, leaning out of the window, saw him standing there. mr. francis caught sight of the face, and pulling out his handkerchief continued to wave it till the train finally drew up at the platform.
"and how are you, my dearest boy?" he cried effusively, before harry was out of the carriage. "how late your train is! it is scandalous and abominable! i should have found two sharp words for the station-master, i suspect, if i had not been so happy to think you were coming. how well you look, harry! london seems to suit you as much as the country suits me."
"indeed, that is saying a great deal," said harry, looking at that cheerful, healthy face. "i have never seen you looking better, uncle francis."
a smile of great tenderness played round the old man's mouth.
"and for that i have to thank you, my dear boy," he said, "in that it is to you i owe my quiet[pg 103] retreat, my days of busy tranquility. ah, harry, it has been worth while to grow old, if at the end you find such peace as is mine."
they drove briskly up the mile of deep country lane which separated the station from the high road, and harry found an unlooked-for pleasure in the wreaths of honeysuckle which embowered the hedge in their fragrant curves, and in the clean, vigorous tendrils of the dog-rose starred with the delicacy of its pink blossom. something in that young unfolding of simple loveliness, which had never really struck him before, now smote on his heart with a pang of exquisite pleasure. how wonderful was youth and the growth of young things; how like, in some subtle and intimate way, were the springing sprigs of blossoms to a girl on the verge of womanhood! for instance—and he turned to his uncle again.
"yes, london suits me," he said, the thrill and surprise of his thoughts glowing in his handsome face. "people are so kind, so friendly! oh, it is a warm, nice world!" and his hand shook the two horses to a swifter trot.
"you will always find people kind and friendly to you, harry," said mr. francis, "if you look at them as you looked at me just now. men and women know nothing so attractive as happiness. my dear boy, what have you been doing to yourself? you are more radiant than apollo!"
harry laughed.
"i would not change places with him," he said; "i will take my chance as harry vail. i[pg 104] have done nothing to myself, if you ask, but i have found many friends. but i do not forget, uncle francis, that the first friend i found was you, and i do not think i shall find a better."
they turned into the blare of the white high road, and mr. francis, who, while they were in the shadow of the deep lane banks, had carried his hat on his knee, letting the wind blow refreshingly through his thick white hair, put it on again.
"ah, harry, i hope you will some time, and soon, find a friend, and dearer than a friend, for life," he said, "who will speedily make you forget your old uncle. but give him a seat in the chimney corner, that he asks, though he asks no more, and let him nurse your children on his knee. he has a way with children; they never cry with him. i pray, i often pray," he said, lifting his hat as he spoke, with a gesture touching and solemn, "that i may do that. that, dear harry, would be the crowning happiness of many happy days."
the words died gently on the air; no direct reply was needed. for a moment harry was half determined to tell his uncle of his dream and his hope—longing, with the generous warmth of youth, for the sympathy which he knew would so fully be his; and the words were even on the threshold of his lips, when mr. francis suddenly straightened himself from his attitude of musing and plunged into less intimate talk.
"i have not been idle, dear harry," he said, "while you have been away, charging about the[pg 105] world, as youth should. i think you will find—i may say it without undue complacence—that the home farm is in better order and is more profitable than it has ever been. there is no credit due to me; it is simply the work of a bailiff i had the luck to find an invaluable man; and in the autumn i can promise you better pheasant-shooting than there has been for many years."
"i am sure it is so," said harry, "and we will prove it together, uncle francis. really i can not thank you enough; it is too good of you to devote yourself as you have been doing to the estate. dear me, it is four months since i was here! i am an absentee landlord, but a better landlord than i has been on the spot, and i am not afraid that i shall be shot at."
they turned in at the lodge gates and bowled swiftly along under the huge trees. the hay was standing high in the fields to the left; on the right the pasturage of the park was grazed by sleek kine, already beginning to leave the midday shadows of the trees for their evening feed in the cool; and the senses of smell and sight alike drank deep of the plentiful and luxuriant summer. rooks held parliament in their debating houses in the high elms, round the coops of the pheasant-rearing hens cheeped innumerable young birds, and the breeze that should blow at sundown was already stirring to try its wings. extraordinarily pleasant to harry was the sense that all this was his, yet there was neither vainglory nor selfishness in his delight, for he valued his own not for[pg 106] the thought of what it was to him, but for the joy another, perhaps, should take in it. then, emerging from the mile-long avenue, they came to the shining lake, and the sound of coolness from the splashing sluice. swans and water lily repeated themselves on the surface, and, as they turned the corner, a moor-hen made its water-legged scurry to the cover of the reed beds. then, with a hollow note from the wheels, they rolled over the bridge and turned in under the monstrous shapes of the cut-box hedge to the gravel sweep in front of the house. there it stood, the shadow of one of the wings fallen half across the courtyard, stately and grave, full of dignity and grave repose, surely no unworthy gift to offer to any. and at that thought a sudden pulse leaped within him.
"it is all unworthy," harry said to himself, banishing with an effort that irrepressible thrill of joy, "and i the unworthiest of all."
he lingered a moment at the door, and then followed mr. francis into the house. again the joy of possession seized him: his were the tall, faint tapestries of armoured knights and garlanded lovers, his the rows of serious portraits which seemed to-day to his eye to have a freshness and welcome for him which had never been there before. he contrasted, with keen relish of the change, his last home-coming and this. what a curious, dreamlike month that had been which he had spent here at his coming-of-age. how gray and colourless life seemed then if looked at in the[pg 107] light of all that had passed since! he had pictured himself, he remembered, slowly putting spadeful after spadeful of time, heaped gradually from month to year, on the grave of his youth, spending a quiet, often solitary existence here in the house of his fathers. uncle francis—so he had planned it in those days when he had been alone here, before his arrival and geoffrey's—no doubt would be glad to come here sometimes; geoffrey, too, would very likely spend a week with him now and again in the shooting season. otherwise, it would be natural for him to be much alone, and the prospect had called up in him no emotion even so lively as dislike. he would be out of doors a good deal, pottering and poking about the woods; he would read a good deal, and no doubt the years would slip away not unpleasantly. in course of time the portrait of henry vail, twelfth baron, and of seemingly morose tendencies, would gloom from the wall, for that series must not be broken; a little longer, and moss would be green in the lettering of his tombstone.
but now he could scarcely believe that the lad who had meditated thus six months ago, not dismally but without joy, could be the same as he who stood with a kindled eye beneath old francis's picture. he looked at his own hand as he raised his teacup, he looked at his boots and his trousers. yes, they were certainly his, and he it had been who had drunk tea here before. what then had happened, he asked himself? he had discovered the world, that was all; and columbus[pg 108] had only discovered america. and the world was quite full of charming things and people in particular; to descend to details, or to generalize on the whole, he hardly knew which was which; it was full of one person.
